The Grapes Of Wrath Essays (857 words) - U.S. Route 66, Dust Bowl

The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930's live under. The novel tells of one families migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930's. The Joad family had to abandon their home and their livelihoods. They had to uproot and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing their farms. The bank took possession of their land because the owners could not pay off their loan. The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the land owners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work. The Grapes of Wrath combines Steinbeck adoration of the land, his simple hatred of corruption resulting from materialism (money) and his abiding faith in the common people to overcome the hostile environment. The novel opens with a retaining picture of nature on rampage. The novel shows the men and women that are unbroken by nature. The theme is one of man verses a hostile environment. His body destroyed but his spirit is not broken. The method used to develop the theme of the novel is through the use of symbolism. There are sevestronger, uprooting the weakened corn, and the air became so filled with dust that the stars were not visible at night. (Chp 1) As the chapter continues a turtle, which appears and reappears several times early in the novel, can be seen to stand for survival, a driving life force in all of mankind that cannot be beaten by nature or man. The turtle represents a hope that the trip to the west is survivable by the farmer migrants (Joad family). The turtle further represents the migrants struggles against nature/man by overcoming every obstacle he encounters: the red ant in his path, the truck driver who tries to run over him, being captured in Tom Joad's jacket: And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it. The driver of the truck works for a large company, who try to stop the migrants from going west, when the driver attempts to hit the turtle it is another example of the big powerful guy trying to flatten or kill the little guy. Everything the turtle encounters trys its best to stop the turtle from making its westerly journey. Steadily the turtle advances on, ironically to the southwest, the direction of the mirgration of people. The turtle is described as being lasting, ancient, old and wise: horny head, yellowed toenails, indestructible high dome of a shell, humorous old eyes. (Chp 1)The driver of the truckow is described as being unmovable and never bending to the wind or dust. The Joad family does not want to move, they prefer to stay on the land they grew up on, much the same as the willow does. The willow contributes to the theme by showing the unwillingness of the people to be removed from their land by the banks. The latter represents the force making them leave their homes. Both of these symbols help contribute to the theme by showing a struggle between each other. The tree struggles against nature in much the same way that the Joad family struggles against the Bank and large companies. The rains that comes at the end of the novel symbolize several things. Rain in which is excessive, in a certain way fulfills a cycle of the dust which is also excessive. In a way nature has restored a balance and has initiated a new growth cycle. This ties in with other examples of the rebirth idea in the ending, much in the way the Joad family will grow again. The rain contributes to the theme by showing the cycle of nature that give a conclusion to the novel by showing that life is a pattern of birth and death. The rain is another example of nature against man, the rain comes and floods the living quarters of the Joads. The Joads try to stop the flood of their home by yet again are forced back

censorship in schools essays

censorship in schools essays Imagine for one moment that you are not yourself any longer. Visualize instead that you are a young girl; old enough to know right from wrong yet still young enough to be terrified by the dark shadows in your room. It is a cool autumn night and your parents have opted to attend a party which you are not allowed at. It will be fine, they say. Although you already know what is to come. Your uncle comes over to watch you for the evening, and your parents are so pleased by the fact that they do not have to find a sitter. As soon as he arrives, your mother kisses you on the cheek and scurries out the door to join your father already waiting in the car outside. The nightmare begins. His slimy hands casually slide an ebony cartridge into the VCR as he smiles at you seductively. You can feel his eyes worming their gaze through your clothes every time that he looks at you. You feel dirty and violated every time you think about what he does to you when you are alone. He walks over to the couch and sits down next to you. His hand slithers it way onto your knee and you cringe in revulsion. Dont be afraid, I wont hurt you, he chides. Your mind feels panicky as you feel his touch in more intimate places and you scream involuntarily. His grip tightens as he places his hand over your mouth. Well have to do this the hard way! comes his intense whisper. You flail your arms at him, but it doesnt help. His writhing massive body is on top of yours, and you feel so powerless. Eventually, you sink into a sobbing heap and simply wait for his passions to stop. You wait for the nightmare to end. When he is done, you limp to the laundry room and try fruitlessly to get the blood stains out of your clothes. It is all your fault... Abuse: The violation or defilement of; What you have just experienced is one type of abuse that occurs millions of times every year across America. Estimates of abuse rang...

Women in china Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Women in china - Essay Example while working against great odds including an enormous population in a vastly spread out country which had limited resources to look after its people. Women in China have increasingly played a role that has been equal to men. They have found a new place in the society, working with men at all levels from the farm to industry, academia and government. The laws of the present day China have granted equality to women with men in all spheres of life, while recognizing that they have certain differences. Women are considered to be equal to men in rights as well as obligations to the society, have equal entitlements with regard to work, education, ownership of property and the right to form a family. The reality of women in China is certainly getting better and although at present, despite there being no legal impediments to equality, women still trail behind the men in China. Family planning and birth control policies of the state in China which have been put into place in response to the huge population pressure have been a source of controversy and irritation despite the achievements, requiring women to undergo forced abortions and sterilizations. This essay takes a look at the position of women in present day China. China is a country with unique culture, traditions and a communist as well as a feudal past which has attempted to modernize itself relatively quickly in a short span of time, achieving considerable success with these efforts. Its huge population has always presented problems at the national level and has meant that the government has had to adopt some controversial measures to keep in check these pressures. The government of China has, however, attempted to enhance the status of women and grant them a level of equality with men in the society. The revolution of 1949 meant that equality for women in China was considered to be legitimate and in line with the aims of the new government. Women comprise approximately 49% of the total population of China and

From Francovich to Brasserie du Pecheur Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

From Francovich to Brasserie du Pecheur - Essay Example Francovich5 is a landmark case because it established the fact that European Community law confers certain rights on individuals and if there is an infringement of these rights by a Member State, then the State will be legally and financially liable and will have to make reparation to the individuals concerned for the losses and damages sustained by them due the Member State’s breach of Community law. Application of national law where individual rights may be violated, will be limited by the obligation of the Member States to implement the EU Directives. Francovich, Bonfaci and others filed the suit against Italy for failure to implement the provisions of a European Directive that was not directly effective in Italy and required payment of unpaid wages to individuals in the event of the insolvency of their employer. Italy was held liable for damages to be paid to the Plaintiffs. In specific reference to the damages sustained by individuals and the obligation of the Member Stat e to assume liability, the Court relied upon Article 5 of the EEC Treaty in establishing that such a principle was inherent in the Treaty. State liability had earlier been established in other cases, where the supremacy of individual rights had been established to the extent of requiring states to be liable if those rights were infringed.

Poetry as a means of establishment of a closer connection between a Essay

Poetry as a means of establishment of a closer connection between a poet and a reader - Essay Example To see how thematic issues and such special aesthetic qualities of the genre of poetry combine, one can turn attention to the poem that on the superficial level may seem to be devoted to the description of a filling station visited by the author who is the speaker. However, the theme of the poem is much wider than that - in fact, the authors choice of setting that creates a mini-plot of the poem, of characters, to which not only the owner of the station and his sons may be attributed but dog and even a begonia plant as well, and of a unique atmosphere of surprise and discovery of unusual things in usual environment turns out to be perhaps the best way to simultaneously tell a short story about a short visit to the dirty filling station, and express intense emotion that infects readers and makes them feel like they themselves are wondering about the strange and so invigorating coexistence of dirt, oil, and of elements symbolizing ever-present human concern for happiness and meaning em bodied by wickerwork, comic books, taboret and doily with marguerites, and begonia. The most important tool that enabled the poet to establish such a strong emotional poetic effect over readers was definitely the usage of language in the poem as the author reinforces its thematic content by free v

Developing Humanoid Robot Animations in Motion Capture

Developing Humanoid Robot Animations in Motion Capture Introduction (Chapter 1) This research describes the framework in which the different human movements have been taken from motion capture and that information is animated which sets the direction to study the digital character models and its locomotion in the virtual environment. It also gives feasible approach in understanding of walking gait patterns in that environment. This framework also leads to the study issues related to safety engineering. Overview Analysis of human locomotion and its research area have changed since it began form the cave drawings of the Paleolithic Era. The motive for human locomotion studies at early stages were driven by the need to carry on by resourcefully moving from place to place, dodging from predators and hunting for food (Alexander, 2000). Modern-day human locomotion studies have added to a wide range of applications ranging from military use, sport, ergonomics, and health care. In locomotion studies, according to (Hall, 1991) the term biomechanicsbecame accepted during the early 1970s as the internationally recognized descriptor of the field of area concerned with the mechanical study of living organism. In sport, human locomotion studies are made to extend the restrictions of an athlete when even the minimum improvement in performance is pursued eagerly (J. A. , 1984). However, the development of human locomotion studies remains reliant on the improvement of new tools for observation. According to (Alexander, 2000) lately, instrumentation and computer technology have grant opportunities for the improvement of the study of human locomotion. (J. A. , 1984). Illustrate frequent techniques for measuring motion and mentioned the co-ordinate analyzer (motion capture device) as a major advance in movement study. According to (Furniss, 2000) Motion capture or mocap was initially created for military use earlier than it was modified into the entertainment industry since the mid 1980.s. (Dyer, 1995) define motion capture as measuring an objects location and direction in physical space, then recording that sequence into a computer usable form. According to(Micheal, 2003) ; (Suddha Basu, 2005) motion capture is the fastest way to produce rich, realistic animation data. (James F OBrien, 2000) illustrate that Mocap can also be useful in several additional fields such as music, fine art dance, sign language, motion recognition, rehabilitation with medicine, biomechanics, special effects for live-action films and computer animation of all types as well as in defense and athletic analysis/training. There are basically three types of motion capture sys tems accessible such as mechanical, electromagnetic and optical based system. All three systems go through the same basic process shown in figure. The first step is the input where the movement of live actors either human or animal is recorded using various method depending on the type of the motion capture system used. Next, the information is processed to identify the corresponding markers of the live actor and then transferred into virtual space using specialized computer software. Finally the output is where the information is translated into a 3D trajectory computer data that contains translation and rotation information known as motion capture file. Motivation Producing realistic character animation remains one of the great challenges in computer graphics. At present, there are three methods by which this animation can be produced. The first one is key framing, in which the animator gives important key poses for the character at specific frames. A second one uses physical simulation to drive the characters motion its results are good, due to lack of control its difficult to use and its costly and with characters its not much successful. The last one is motion capture, has been widely used to animate characters. It uses sensors placed on person and collects the data that describes their motion however they are performing the desired motion. As the technology for motion capture has improved and the cost decreased, the interest in using this approach for character animation has also increased. The main challenge that an animator is confronted with is to generate character animation with a realistic appearance. As humanoid robot renovation is a popular research area since it can be used in various applications to understand the emerging field of robotics and other digital animation fields. Currently most of the methods work for controlled environments and human pose reconstruction to recognize humanoid robots is a popular research area since it can be used in various applications. Motion capture and motion synthesis are expensive and time consuming tasks for articulated figures, such as humans. Human pose view based on computer vision principles is inexpensive and widely applicable approach. In computer vision literature the term human motion capture is usually used in connection with large scale body analysis ignoring the fingers, hands and the facial muscles, which is the case in this research. The motion capture is fairly involved to calculate a 3D skeletal representation of the motion of satisfactory value to be functional for animation. The animation generation is an application of motion capture where the required accuracy is not as high as in some other applications, such as medicine (Ferrier, June 2002) Problem Context 1) Even though motion capture is applied into so many fields by creating physically perfect motions, it has a few significant weaknesses. According to (Lee, MCML: Mocap, 2004) firstly, it has low flexibility, secondly the captured data can have different data formats depending on the motion capture system which was employed and thirdly, commercially available motion capture libraries are difficult to use as they often include hundreds of examples. (Shih-Pin Chao, 2003) States that motion capture sessions are not only costly but also a labor intensive process thus, promotes the usability of the motion data. 2) In the field of animation and gaming industry, it is common that motion information are captured to be used for a particular project or stored in a mocapdata. This data can either be used as the whole range of motion sequence or as part of a motion synthesis. In sport science, mocap data is used for analyzing and perfecting the sequencing mechanics of premier athletes, as well as monitoring the recovery progress of physical therapies. This simply means that a vast collection of motion capture data models are limited for different sets. Currently, motion data are often stored in small clips to allow for easy hand sequencing for describing the behavior (Jernej Barbic, 2004) (Tanco L. M., 2000). However, according to (Lee, MCML: Mocap, 2004) (Morales, 2001) (Tanco L. M., 2000) a motion capturedata models lack interoperability. This calls for an immediate need for tools that synchronize these datasets (Feng Liu, 2003). 3) In light of the recent course of interest in virtual environment applications, much research has been devoted to solving the problems of manipulating humans in 3-D simulated worlds, and especially to human locomotion. However, most of the animation approaches based on these studies can only generate limited approach lacking the locomotion capabilities for example walking their application in virtual environments are inevitably limited. Project Objective The objective of this project is to create a framework taken from motion capture data techniques which can set the direction to study 3D articulated figures and the humanoid robot locomotion in the virtual environment by understanding walking gait patterns in human. This framework also leads to the study issues related to safety engineering. The other objective of this project is to capture, process, and examine the locomotion feasibility in virtual environment and analyze different tasks in virtual environment. In system overview diagram all the different steps has been described it starts from mocaop suit that is on the subject and then its data of random movement has been taken into computer and motion analysis is done. After motion analysis its been retargeted and with avatar model the final output scene has been created. Then with software development kit feasible program has been created to deal with different information of that scene. Project Scope To capture the human motion from the motion capture technology and using the captured data to animate the different motions and then refining the animated data. By using the technology called motion builder we can simulate and study the effects of walk and fall in the virtual environment.   After mapping the captured data in the animated character which is called digital humanoid robot an application is build to study the nature of the animated scene which is called an enhanced framework. The other technology is used is called mathematica which is used for studying the factors in mathematical terms because the human motion builder is a simulation technology and mathematica is a dynamic solver engine. So it will lead towards the study of digital humanoid robot of walking and falling in virtual environments on some assumptions. Outline This part outlines the in general structure of the thesis, and a short explanation for each chapter: Chapter 1: deals with Introduction, scope and objective with problem context. Chapter 2: Introduces human motion capture techniques and different work in animation of human walking in virtual environment and gives a summary of the related work in this area. Chapter 3: deals with the system structure which describes the hardware and the software technologies involved in the research and also illustrate the frame work model and this model help exploit the behavior of humanoid which sets up the framework. Chapter 4: describes the framework analysis based on the study of articulated animation models in virtual environment and walking gait patters with Bezier curve algorithm. Chapter 5: mention all the techniques that have been extracted from different softwares and how its used to set up the whole framework and evaluates results which are categorized in three phases the application which represents coordinate system and structure, walking gait patters by using Bezier curve and the falling effect by visual aid. Chapter 6: is the conclusion that summarizes the outcome of the project, and discusses the future works. Conclusion This chapter describes the introduction of motion capture and how it will be utilized to improve the study of human locomotion. The project scope and objectives are elaborated and listed down in this chapter. Literature Review (Chapter 2) Motion capture system   Motion capture is an attractive way of creating the motion parameters for computer animation. It can provide the realistic motion parameters. It permits an actor and a director to work together to create a desired pose, that may be difficult to describe with enough specificity to have an animator recreate manually (Ferrier, June 2002). The application areas of motion capture techniques can be summarized as follows (Perales, 2001): Virtual reality: interactive virtual environments, games, virtual studios, character animation, film, advertising Smart surveillance systems: access control, parking lots, supermarkets, vending machines, traffic. Advanced user interfaces: advanced user interfaces. Motion analysis and synthesis: annotations of videos, personalized training, clinical studies of medicine. Understanding the working of humanoid robot has been always on study of human locomotion.   This literature review discusses human motion control techniques, motion capture techniques in general and advance, non-vision based motion capture techniques, vision-based motion capture techniques with and without markers and other enhanced techniques which are covered in details for which the framework can be understood easily. Properties of Tracking Systems This section lists properties of tracking systems and discusses the relationships between the various properties. Accuracy Accuracy can be defined as the agreement between the measured results from tracking technologies and the actual position of the object, and because the true value is unknown the tracking technologies can only be evaluated with relative accuracy. For one tracking system, the accuracy is limited by the principle and affected by the noise/interferences from the environment. The sources of noises are depending on the tracking technology we use. For different tracking principles, the influencing factors are different. For example, for optical motion tracking, the interference is lighting and AC current; for magnetic, ferrous objects distort the magnetic field and cause errors. If the model or the mechanism of the noise is quantitatively known, it is a systematic error and can be compensated by post-treatment after tracking or eliminated by pre-filtering before tracking. Robustness Robustness defines the systems ability to continue to function in adverse conditions or with missing or incorrect measurements. Some systems make assumptions about the surrounding environment during operation. Also, a system may be unable to take a measurement at a particular time. Related to the robustness is repeatability in the reported data. If the reported values are consistent over time and over operating conditions and environment, then measuring the accuracy (or the lack thereof) is possible, and corrective algorithms can be applied. Tracking range The range is the space in which the system can measure sufficient and accurate data for the application. For some systems, the range can be reduced by noises from the environment or be limited by the hardware of the system itself. For example, magnetic system cannot track accurate data when the tracked object is at the margin of the magnetic field due to the inhomogeneous distribution of the field. Tracking speed Tracking speed is the frequency at which the measurement system can obtain the updated tracking data. There are two significant numbers for the system, one is update rate and the other one is latency. Update rate is the frequency at which the tracking system generates the tracking data; latency describes the delay between tracking data has been generated and the host computer receives the data in real-time mode. Hardware The hardware means the physical realization of the components of the tracking system. It includes the number of components, and the size and weight of those components, especially those that the user is required to carry (or wear). Some systems may have a significant amount of hardware that must be set up in the environment, although it may need no further attention from the user once in position. Ideally, the application would like to give the user complete freedom of movement. Some devices tether the user to a fixed object. Some systems may have a heavy or unwieldy device which the user must manipulate in order to move. Some devices have a tendency to pull the user back to a â€Å"resting position† for the device. The hardware also determines the biggest part of the costs and therefore is very often a decisive factor for the choice of the applied motion tracking system Non-vision Based Motion Capture In non-vision based systems, sensors are attached to the human body to collect movement information. Some of them have a small sensing footprint that they can detect small changes such as finger or toe movement (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1996). Each kind of sensor has advantages and limitations (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1997). Advantages of magnetic trackers: real-time data output can provide immediate feedback no post processing is required they are less expensive than optical systems no occlusion problem is observed multiple performers are possible Disadvantages of magnetic trackers: the trackers are sensitivity to metal objects cables restricts the performers they provide lower sampling rate than some optical systems the marker configurations are difficult to change Advantages of electromechanical body suits: they are less expensive than optical and magnetic systems real-time data is possible no occlusion problem is observed multiple performers are possible Disadvantages of electromechanical body suits: they provide lower sampling rate they are difficult to use due to the amount of hardware configuration of sensors is fixed Vision-Based Motion Capture with Markers In 1973, Johansson explored his famous Moving Light Display (MLD) psychological experiment to perceive biological motion (Johansson). In the experiment, small reflective markers are attached to the joints of the human performers. When the patterns of the movements are observed, the integration of the signals coming from the markers resulted in recognition of actions. Although the method faces the challenges such as errors, non-robustness and expensive computation due to environmental constraints, mutual occlusion and complicated processing, many marker based tracking systems are available in the market. This is a technique that uses optical sensors, e.g. cameras, to track human movements, which are captured by placing markers upon the human body. Human skeleton is a highly articulated structure and moves in three-dimension. For this reason, each body part continuously moves in and out of occlusion from the view of the cameras, resulting in inconsistent and unreliable motion data of t he human body. One major drawback of using optical sensors and markers, they cannot sense joint rotation accurately. This is a major drawback in representing a real 3D model (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1997). Optical systems have advantages and limitations (Perales, 2001). Advantages of optical systems are as follows: they are more accurate larger number of markers are possible no cables restricts the performers they produces more samples per second Disadvantages of optical systems: they require post-processing they are expensive (between 100, 000 and 250, 000) occlusion is a problem in these systems environment of the capturing must be away from yellow light and reflective noise Vision-Based Motion Capture without Markers As a less restrictive motion capture technique, markerless-based systems are capable of overcoming the mutual occlusion problem as they are only concerned about boundaries or features on human bodies. This is an active and promising but also challenging research area in the last decade. The research with respect to this area is still ongoing (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1996). The markerless-based motion capture technique exploits external sensors like cameras to track the movement of the human body. A camera can be of a resolution of a million pixels. This is one of the main reasons that optical sensors attracted peoples attention. However, such vision-based techniques require intensive computational power (Bryson, 1993). As a commonly used framework, 2D motion tracking only concerns the human movement in an image plane, although sometimes people intend to project a 3D structure into its image plane for processing purposes. This approach can be c atalogued with and without explicit shape models (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1996). The creation of motion capture data from a single video stream seems like a plausible idea. People are able to watch a video and understand the motion, but clearly, the computing the human motion parameters from a video stream are a challenging task (Ferrier, June 2002). Vision-based motion capture techniques usually include initialization and tracking steps. Initialization A system starts its operation with correct interpretation of the current scene. The initialization requires camera calibration, adaptation to scene characteristics and model initialization. Camera calibration is defined as parameters that are required for translating a point in a 3D scene to its position in the image. Some systems find initial pose and increment it from frame to frame whereas in other systems the user specifies the pose in every single frame. Some systems have special initialization phase where the start pose is found automatically whereas in others the same algorithm is used both for initialization and pose estimation (Granum, 2001). Tracking Tracking phase extracts specific information, either low level, such as edges, or high level, such as head and hands. Tracking consists of three parts (Granum, 2001): Figure-ground segmentation: the human figure is extracted from the rest of the image. Representation: segmented images are converted to another presentation to reduce the amount of information. Tracking over time: how the subject should be tracked from frame to frame. Mechanical Mechanical measurement is the oldest form of location; rulers and tape measures provide a simple method of locating one item with reference to another. More sophisticated mechanical techniques have been developed. Nowadays measurements of the angles of the body joints with potentiometers or shaft encoders combined with knowledge of the dimensions of the rigid components allow accurate calculations of the position of different body parts.(Beresford, 2005) Today mechanical position tracking devices can be separated into body-based and ground-based systems. Body based systems are those which are mounted on, or carried on, the body of the user and are used to sense either the relative positions of various parts of the users body or the position of an instrument relative to a fixed point on the users body. Body-based systems are typically used to determine either the users joint angles for reproduction of their body in the synthetic environment, or to determine the position of the users hand or foot, relative to some point on the users body. Since the body based systems are used to determine the relative position between two of the users body parts, the devices must somehow be attached to the users body. This particular issue has raised many questions: How is the device attached to the body in a way which will minimize relative motion between the attachment and the soft body part? How are the joints of the device aligned with the users joints to minimize the difference in the centers of rotation? Some other problems associated with body-b ased tracking systems are specifically caused by the device being attached to the users body. These systems are typically very obtrusive and encumbering and therefore do not allow the user complete freedom of movement. Body-based systems are, however, quite accurate and do not experience problems like measurement drift (the tendency of the devices output to change over time with no change in the sensed quantity), interference from external electromagnetic signals or metallic devices in the vicinity, or shadowing (loss of sight of the tracked object due to physical interference of another object)(Frey, 1996). Ground based systems are not carried by the user but are mounted on some fixed surface (i.e. the users desk or the floor) and are used to sense the position of an implement relative to that fixed surface. Ground-based systems are typically used to determine the position and orientation of an implement manipulated by the user relative to some fixed point which is not on the users body. Like body-based mechanical systems, they are very accurate and are not plagued by measurement drift errors, interference or shadowing. Ground-based systems do suffer from one thing which the body-based systems do not: They confine the user to work within the space allowed by the device. Usually this means that the user is confined to work in a space the size of a large desk. If the application does not require the user to move around much throughout the task (i.e. the user remains seated), this is not considered as a problem. Mechanical tracking systems are the best choice for force-feedback (haptic) devices since they are rigidly mounted to either the user or a fixed object. Haptic devices are used to allow the user a sense of touch. The user can feel surfaces in the synthetic environment or feel the weight of an object. The device can apply forces to the users body so that the user can experience a sense of exertion. Mechanical tracking systems also typically have low latencies (the time required to receive useful information about a sensed quantity) and high update rates (the rate at which the system can provide useful information). Therefore these systems have found good commercial niche as measurement devices and hand tracking systems. Advantages high update rate low latency accurate No blocking problem, no interference from environment  · best choice for force feedback Disadvantages Restricted movement from mounted device Acoustic Acoustic tracking systems utilize high frequency sound waves to track objects by either the triangulation of several receivers (time-of-flight method) or by measuring the signals phase difference between transmitter and receiver (phase-coherence method). Generally the user carries the transmitter, and a series of sensors around the room determine the linear distance to the transmitter. Some systems have the user carry a receiver and listen to a series of transmitters positioned around the volume. The time-of-flight method of acoustic tracking uses the speed of sound through air to calculate the distance between the transmitter of an acoustic pulse and the receiver of that pulse. The use of one transmitter on a tracked object and a minimum of three receivers at stationary positions in the vicinity allow an acoustic system to determine the relative position of the object via triangulation. This method limits the number of objects tracked by the system to one. An alternative method has been devised in which several transmitters are mounted at stationary positions in the room and each object being tracked is fitted with a receiver. Using this method, the positions of numerous objects may be determined simultaneously. Note that the use of one transmitter (or one receiver) attached to an object can resolve only position. The use of two transmitter (receiver) sets with the same object can be used to determine the position and orientation (6 DOF) of the object. The desire to track mo re than just the position of an object suggests that the second method (multiple stationary transmitters with body mounted receivers) may be preferable. The other method of acoustic tracking is the phase-coherent tracking. It may be used to achieve better accuracies than the time-of-flight method. The system does this by sensing the signal phase difference between the signal sent by the transmitter and that detected by the receiver. If the object being tracked moves farther than one-half of the signal wavelength in any direction during the period of one update, errors will result in the position determination. Since phase coherent tracking is an incremental form of position determination, small errors in position determination will result in larger errors over time (drift errors), which may be the reason why only few phase-coherent systems have been implemented successfully. Some problems associated with both acoustic tracking methods result from the line-of-sight required between transmitter and receiver. This line of sight requirement obviously plagues the devices with shadowing problems. It also limits their effective tracking range, although they have better tracking ranges than electromagnetic systems. Unlike electromagnetic systems, they do not suffer from metallic interference, but they are susceptible to interference caused by ambient noise sources, by reflections of the acoustic signals from hard surfaces, and environmental interference (e.g. temperature variations). Advantages Very high freedom of movement Cheap Disadvantages Line-of-sight problems Either high range or high accuracy (not both!) Environmental interference (e.g. temperature variations, other noise sources) Drift errors (phase-coherent) High latency, low update rates Magnetic Electromagnetic tracking systems are currently the most widely used systems for human body tracking applications. They employ the use of artificially-generated electromagnetic fields to induce voltages in detectors attached to the tracked object. A fixed transmitter and the sensors consist of three coils mounted in mutually orthogonal directions. The sensors range in size, but tend to be around a few cubic centimeters. The transmitters range in size with the power of the field they are expected to generate, and range from several cubic inches to a cubic foot. There are four magnetic fields that have to be measured: the environmental field (including the Earths magnetic field), and three orthogonal fields in the transmitters coordinate directions in figure. Each of these fields is measured in the sensors three coordinate dimensions for a total of twelve measurements of each sensor. From this information, the position and orientation of the sensor with respect to the transmitter can be computed. These tracking systems are robust, fast, and fairly inexpensive and can be used to track numerous objects (body parts) with acceptable position and orientation accuracies (on the order of 0.1 inches and 0.5 degrees). Unlike electric fields, magnetic fields are unaffected by the presence or absence of human bodies and other non-metallic objects in the environment. This offers a tremendous opportunity, because it enables magnetic trackers to overcome the line-of-sight requirement that plagues acoustic, optical, and externally connected mechanical tracking systems. On the other hand, the magnetic systems suffer from sensitivity to background magnetic fields and interference caused by ferrous metal devices in the vicinity, and therefore is inaccurate in practical environments. Due to this and the limited range of the generated magnetic field, the magnetic tracking systems are restricted to a small special area. Advantages High update rates Very low latency High robustness No shadowing Rather cheap Acceptable accuracy in artificial environment Disadvantages High sensitivity to background magnetic fields Inaccurate in practical environments due to interference caused by ferrous metal devices Low range of the magnetic field and Tracking scope is low due to cable Inertial An internal sensor contains three gyroscopes, to determine the angular rate, and three accelerometers, to determine linear acceleration. Originally, they were mounted to orthogonal axes on a gimbaled platform, as it can be seen in figure. After removing the effect of gravity from the vertical accelerometer, the data has to be double-integrated to provide a measure of the offset between initialization and the current position. In fact, this combination of sensors has been used successfully for inertial navigatio

Combining Thrilling and Killing:Use of Violence in Psychological Thrill

Combining Thrilling and Killing:Use of Violence in Psychological Thrillers As we speak, there is a man holding a gun to the back of your head. The cold muzzle stings the tender skin of your scalp and blood trickles to the floor from where the handcuffs have cut into your wrists. Your heart, sensing death approaching, struggles in vain to slip through its cage of ribs and run screaming into the night, much like how the scream just behind your eyes makes your vision blur and muscles twitch spastically. But perhaps you know the man behind you. Does that make you more or less afraid? Perhaps there’s no man at all. Perhaps it’s you who’s holding that gun. Maybe that gun isn’t there either. Is such a thing possible? A loud BANG is your only answer. Now you stand up, brush the flecks of popcorn off your shirt, and leave the theatre. Tomorrow, when you tell your friends that the movie was exciting, thrilling, and heart-stopping you’ll most likely be describing one thing - violence. Never mind the unanswered questions of identity; it’s the gun that made your heart race, the blood that made your hair stand on end. Does this mean you can’t be thrilled without violence? Certainly not. What it means is that violence does thrill. Aside from being a biological fact, it also happens to be one which filmmakers have learned to expertly exploit. When properly employed, almost any object or action can set the heart thumping and send a chill down the spine, but to do so requires greater-than-average skill on the part of writers, directors, and actors, whereas simple violence requires relatively little of these things. What motivates filmmakers to put in all that effort to replace a â€Å"cheap thrill† with a sophi sticated one? Why do extremel... ...because to us, it exists as a part of our very selves. Works Cited Harris, Sally. â€Å"Original Purpose of Escalating Violence in movies Backfired, Virginia Tech Film Critic Says.† Virginia Tech News and Information, Oct 1999. Mar 2004 . Kelley, Richard. The Donnie Darko Book. Faber & Faber, 2003. Klein, Andy. â€Å"Everything You Wanted to Know About Memento.† Salon.com ArtsEntertainment June 2001. Mar 2004 . Nolan, Christopher. Memento: A Screenplay. Oct 1999. Piluso, Robert. â€Å"Ah, Bloody Hell: Violence in Film†. Script Magazine Dec 2003. Mar2004 . Wood, Robin. Hitchcock’s Films Revisited: Revised Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Mythic and Fairy

The feeling of impending danger as the story progresses is created for the reader in Joyce Carol Oates’ short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, through employing mythical elements to describe what is happening in the plot. Throughout the story, she uses several descriptions associated with the devil to serve as metaphors for the male character and what happens to Connie as also symbolic of the power of evil to tempt, conquer, and destroy the individual. Connie is the symbol of innocence. A young girl of fifteen, she is at the time of adolescence when young women begin to explore beyond their childhood lives and have a taste of how it is like to be a grown-up. She is also pretty, obsessed with mirrors and fussing with her looks. She is very unlike her plain older sister. Like most pretty girls her age who want excitement and not be â€Å"plain and steady† like the sister, Connie is giggly and eager for new things, unaware that danger lurks ready to exploit the fantasies of girls like her. She is like innocent Red Riding Hood who thinks the woods are nice, cozy places to travel through unaware of the wolf that lives within. After describing Connie and her family, the author introduces the technique of incorporating mythic element in the story by describing the drive-in restaurant as a â€Å"sacred building that loomed up out of the night to give them what haven and blessings they yearned for†¦the music was†¦like music at a church service†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã‚   The restaurant is a wholesome place for young people to meet and enjoy each other’s company. However, once Connie gets out of the restaurant towards the parking lot, she is not safe anymore. The devil lurks just outside sacred places, ready to tempt anyone who gets out of the temple and who is willing to do something naughty and fun. It is outside where Connie sees Arnold Friend for the first time although they would not be introduced to each other then as Connie is with Eddie, a wholesome boy her age whom she meets in the â€Å"sacred† restaurant. Right after that first meeting, the story begins its creepy quality as the author focuses on Arnold Friend and uses mythological and cultural associations with the devil to describe him.   One association is how Arnold Friend comes into the picture and how he looks like. His approach is announced by the â€Å"glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music† which Connie was listening to at the time her parents and sister went to a barbecue party at her aunt’s one weekend, leaving her alone in the house. Rock and roll music, songs that are fast and hard, is associated with rebellious teenagers. Arnold Friend appears to her with a rock song in the background and looking like a rock star himself, just like the men in Connie’s fantasy. He had â€Å"fair brown hair†¦sideburns (that) gave him a fierce, embarrassed look†¦wore sunglasses†¦tight faded jeans stuffed into black, scuffed boots, a belt that pulled his waist in and showed how lean he was†¦the jaw and chin and cheeks slightly darkened because he hadn’t shaved†¦and the nose long and hawklike.† His features are sharp, his attire scruffy, and his bearing is very manly. He appeals to her fantasy to look appealing to her, thus making it easier to achieve his purpose. However, the skin around his eyes, which she notices when he takes off his glasses, was â€Å"like holes that were not in shadow but instead in light.† The eyes themselves were â€Å"like chips of broken glass that light in an amiable way.† They were devilish eyes, bright and unlike normal human eyes. When he speaks, it is in â€Å"a simple lilting voice, exactly as if he were reciting the words to a song.† He constantly smiles, too. His name is Arnold Friend, an obvious pun on â€Å"fiend†. He is obviously a bad guy with bad intentions but one who disguises them well. No other name is more trustworthy than one who has â€Å"Friend† for a family name. Arnold rides a golden jalopy. The shiny car symbolizes how the temptations of evil always come in a dazzling and attractive package. Connie herself is amused and fascinated with the car. He uses signals and secret codes. When the car comes to a stop by the front door, â€Å"the horn sounded four taps.† Beside Arnold Friend’s car are more codes: the numbers 33, 19, and 17. He also tells Connie at one point during their conversation that he has a sign, the letter X. Superstition, with its preoccupation with codes, signs and numbers, is connected with the dark side. Another association is the suggestion that Arnold Friend knows everything about Connie and is even telepathic. When he calls Connie by name, she is surprised since she never introduced herself at any time before he drives into their doorstep. He knows the names of her family members, all her friends from school, and tells her that he can see what is happening at Aunt Tillie’s barbecue party at the very moment that he is talking to her. Connie, of course, realizes the danger she is in although it takes some time to sink in because at first she thinks she can just waive Arnold off and he would simply leave her alone. She knows the clues to the kind of brewing trouble she is facing with Arnold when she recognizes â€Å"that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn’t want to put into words†¦and the singsong way he talked, slightly mocking, kidding, but serious†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She knows the game of temptation and she tries to resist as hard as she could. Later on in the conversation, however, when Connie continues to resist and especially when she threatens him with calling the police, Arnold slowly takes off the mask he has put on to seduce her with sweetness and becomes forceful. Evil cannot keep on its sweet face when it realizes how it is on the verge of defeat. When it cannot get its way through sweet talk and wheedling, it would resort to the use of force and violence. Connie also recognizes the shift and she feels real panic and fear. Arnold makes it clear to her when he says, â€Å"the place where you came from ain’t there any more, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out.† Of course, Connie could have called her parents or the police and it could have frightened Arnold off and leave her. After all, she is inside the house while he is locked outside. He cannot go in and it would have taken him some time to break the door, long enough for Connie to make the call. But like the devil, he plays with her weakness, confusion and fear at the moment. Arnold controls himself, knowing that it would work better if Connie comes out of her own will. He continues to seduce her with promises of a pleasurable experience. He promises to bring her â€Å"to a nice field, out in the country here† where Arnold will â€Å"have (his) arms tight around (her).† He tries to convince her that she is better than any of her family members and only he can understand her and her needs best. Towards the end of the story, Arnold keeps coaxing until Connie feels she is not herself anymore. The author describes it as an incantation. She is lured and hypnotized by his words. She has become an observer watching herself â€Å"put out her hand against the screen†¦push the door slowly open†¦moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Fiend waited.† She has given up herself to the devil. She has fallen from grace. She will never be the same again. Using descriptive elements associated with the mythical creature called the devil proves to be an effective technique in developing the story because it adds that extra element of scariness in the reading. The reader associate what is happening in the story with the extra imageries and it intensifies the suspense and anticipation of the obviously tragic ending of the female character. The ending is not only about Connie giving herself up to Arnold. It is also about how evil has tempted innocence, wins over her, and leads her to a terrible end. Work Cited Oates, Joyce Carol. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Heart Of Ethics Essays - Kantianism, Philosophy Of Life, Free Essays

Heart Of Ethics Essays - Kantianism, Philosophy Of Life, Free Essays Heart Of Ethics Misericordia University Heart of Ethics Ethics and morals are a subject that is a matter of perspective and individual thinking. I have chosen the movie Dragon Heart as the subject of this film analysis. Throughout the film there are multiple events that require an ethical decision. The main event that I have chosen to analyze is what the movie actually is about when all the entertainment of the movie is taken out. In the plot summary I will take you through the highlights of what add to the ethical dilemma and how in the end how the main character Bowen chooses to act when asks to choose between two different types of murder. Kant and Aristotles views will be analyzed in regards the ethical dilemma of murder. Plot Summary It all starts with one of the main characters, Bowen, who is a Knight of the Old Code and values honor, valor, and chivalry. He teaches a young prince named Einon the lessons of the Old Code in hopes he will learn to be a better king than his father who rules with tyranny. The ethical portion of the movie begins with Einon riding off on his horse to see a rebellion of peasants that his father has gone to put in their place. During this battle Einons father the king is slain and Einon has a deadly wound. The queen in desperate attempt to save her son makes a request to an old dragon to give half of his heart to Einon. The dragon saves her son with the agreement that the boy be brought up with the Old Code and gives him half of his heart binding them together forever. They are linked is such a way that whatever happens to the boy happens to the dragon and vice versa. As the boy grows he turns into a tormenter just like his father. He enslaves villages and rules with fear. During this time, Bowen feels as though he has failed in raising the boy properly and resigns from the side of Einon. This is where the ethical dilemma grows from as Einon cant be killed or harmed due to having half of a dragon heart. Bowen decides to hunt dragons in hopes to find the one dragon that saved Einon and slay him to save mankind from the tyranny of Einon. Bowen tracks a dragon into a cave and finds himself in a stalemate with the dragon. The dragon explains he is the last dragon and if killed that Bowen would be out of a dragon slaying job. Bowen and the dragon strike a deal to swindle the local villagers out of gold by making them think that Bowen was actually killing the dragon even though he was not. This is one of the smaller ethical issues that appear in the movie. Many villages were scammed in this matter until one village had the scammed revealed to them when the dragon fell into their lake but it wasnt deep enough to cover the dragon. The dragon had to fly away for fear the village would cut him up and use him to feed all its people. These same villagers planned a rebellion against Einon and stormed his castle with the help of Bowen and the dragon. It was during this battle that a priest injured Einon and in doing so caused the dragon to fall within the castle walls and be captured by Einon. Einons mother had arranged that dragon slayers would kill the dragon and thus ending her sons tyranny. However, it was Bowen who with the dragons help killed the dragon thus ending Einons life. Kants View I am going to explore Kants views on ethics and how it relates to the film. Kant practiced Deotology or the view that duty is what determines whether or not an action is moral. Bowen in the story has two possible duties; one he has a duty to his king, as well as having a duty to the villages which the King is enslaving. Kant believed that morality is experienced by a categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is, in fact, the only bases for determining our duties.(Denise, Great traditions in ethics, 2008, p. 144) The first formulation

20 Expository Essay Topics on Addictive Foods

20 Expository Essay Topics on Addictive Foods When writing an expository essay on a complicated topic one often feels paralyzed: not a single thought comes to mind and you can almost feel how deadline creeps closer while you cannot even think about any particular topic to write about. You, however, don’t have to suffer this way if you have a list of topics to choose from. So, if you have to write about addictive foods, feel free to use these: What Makes Junk Food Addictive The Most Addictive Foods in Existence How Sugar Causes Addiction Similarities between Processed Foods and Habit-Forming Drugs How Processed Foods Are Engineered to Cause Addiction Salt, Sugar and Fat: the Unholy Trinity of Food Industry What Makes Us Crave Salt? Cheetos and Vanishing Caloric Density Why Is Snack Food So Addictive? Scientific Reasons Behind the Addictiveness of Salty-Sweet Foods Hyperpalatable Foods: What Are They? Children-Oriented Marketing of Junk Food Which Foods Are Making Us Fat and Why Are We Eating Them High Fructose Corn Syrup as the Main Culprit of Obesity Epidemic Long Hang-Time Flavor as a Factor in Addictiveness of Doritos Mechanism Behind Bacon’s Appeal Why Oreos Were Proven to Be More Addictive than Cocaine Why French Fries Cause Problems with Portion Control Can Food Be as Addictive as Drugs? Which Foods Are Most Likely to Cause Addiction Despite covering different areas, all these topics have one thing in common: they are interesting, they deal with important issues of modern world and subjects that have more than just academic appeal. Dont miss the chance to benefit from the facts on addictive foods and writing guidelines on expository papers. Below you will find a sample essay that shows how they can be handled in practice. What Makes Junk Food Addictive We all know that so-called junk food is detrimental to our health, especially when consumed in inordinate amounts. They don’t pose significant health risks when occasionally introduced into an otherwise healthy diet; but the problem with them is exactly this – it is extremely hard not to eat them in inordinate amounts once you’ve started. For some reason, even if one feels guilty afterwards, all too often one just cannot stop eating – so much so that many consider junk food to be addictive in a manner of narcotic drugs. So what makes things like Twinkies, Oreos, Lays, Coke and their brethren so alluring? As it turns out, there is nothing random about this fact. Although it is hard to say whether the term ‘addiction’ is correct technically, there is no doubt that junk foods don’t just happen to be tasty and attractive – they are carefully and painstakingly engineered to be this way. Although the idea of scientists in lab coats running experiments and food companies spending millions to try and determine the optimal level of crunchiness for potato chips sounds preposterous, it is exactly what they are doing (the chips experiment, for example, was run by Frito-Lay). Taste, aftertaste, texture, contents, everything is carefully designed to make us love the product, eat more in one sitting and get back for extra. The methods for these are varied, but generally they are based on one simple principle which lies in history of our species. Throughout evolution, human beings were mainly concerned with finding enough food to survive. Substances like sugar and fat were extremely valuable for survival because they contain high amount of calories and provide a great deal of energy. Our ancestors had to work and often fight hard to obtain them, and they were never available in high amounts. In other words, our brains are hard-wired by millions of years of evolution to crave sugar and fat because for a very long time they were valuable sources of energy beneficial to our survival. Today, however, we can get as much of them as we want, as they are easily and cheaply obtainable in any grocery store without any physical effort. The same goes for salt. Despite not providing any calories, sodium is extremely important for various processes in our personal biochemistry – and in order to make sure we eat enough of it, our brains are designed to make us like its taste. However, in ancient times it was even harder to come by than sugar – and today it is contained in virtually all processed foods in amounts that far exceed our natural requirements. Thus, food companies can ensure we eat more of their produce simply by giving us what the reptilian part of our brain says we need. There are other, more sophisticated approaches, serving as an icing on the cake. For example, ‘vanishing caloric density’, a feature that is specifically characteristic of Cheetos – when you eat them, they tend to melt in your mouth, and you are subconsciously inclined to believe that something that behaves this way doesn’t contain any calories and you can go on eating it forever. Or ‘long hang-time flavor’ – meaning that flavor remains in your mouth for a long time, reminding you of the taste and nudging you to eat more. But when all is said and done, junk foods simply play on subconscious cravings of our brains which were formed millions of years ago in living conditions that had nothing to do with how human beings live today. References: Boseley, Sarah. â€Å"Eating, not Sugar, Is Addictive.† The Guardian Sep. 9 2014 Fleming, Amy. â€Å"Food Addiction: Does It Really Exist?† The Guardian Aug. 20 2013 Gearhardt, Ashley N., Carlos M. Grilo, Ralph J. DiLeone, Kelly D. Brownell and Marc N. Potenza. â€Å"Can Food Be Addictive? Public Health and Policy Implications.† Addiction Jul. 2011: 1208-1212. Print Moss, Michael. â€Å"The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.† The New York Times Magazine Feb. 20 2013 Nolan, Rachel. â€Å"Behind the Cover Story: Michael Moss on Addictive Foods and What He Eats for Breakfast.† The New York Times Feb. 25 2013 Peretti, Jacques. â€Å"Why Our Food Is Making Us Fat.† The Guardian Jun. 11 2012 Sullum, Jacob. â€Å"Research Shows Cocaine and Heroin Are Less Addictive Than Oreos.† Forbes Oct. 16 2013

Forum 3 research methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Forum 3 research methods - Essay Example It was found that people who wanted the inclusion of homosexuals into the protected group supported the hate crime law whereas others that wanted homosexuals out of the protected group rejected the hate crime law. As contained by the theory of identity politics, the data-supported path model helped the researchers find that the people who considered the hate crimes a source of fear among the victim group’s members as well as the economic and social liberals raised their support for the inclusion of the homosexuals into the hate crime laws. Rest of the research findings were not consistent with the theory of identity politics that considers the movement a united front. A surprising finding of the research was that the likelihood of belief in the increase of hate crimes was found to be more in the social conservatives as compared to the economic conservatives. All variables possibly having some kind of indirect or direct relationship with the dependent model included in the study were displayed in the form of a skeletal model shown in the article as Fig. 1. The skeletal model’s fundamental dependent variable was the general extent of support of a respondent for a hate crime law containing the condition of penalty enhancement. The definition of a variable as the dependent or independent variable depended upon the regression. In total, seven regressions were performed. In the first regression, the dependent variable in the skeletal model i.e. general hate crime law attitude was shown towards the extreme right with all of the independent variables towards the left. In the subsequent six regressions, â€Å"the dependent variables were homosexual inclusion, verbal aggression inclusion, hate crimes increased, fear among other group members, social liberalism/conservatism, and economic liberalism/conservatism† (Johnson and Byers, 2 003, p. 232), whereas the independent variables in these six regressions were all variables towards the left of but not above or

Phase 3 Individual Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Phase 3 Individual Project - Essay Example l hearing of the case, from the beginning to its conclusion, and it identifies the various liberties the offender enjoys as provided in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments. From this analysis, the objective of this paper is to identify and explain the elements of the court system and the roles of various participants in the dispensation of justice. It seeks to differentiate the rules of procedure found in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments and thereafter identifies and explains the legal issues in the prosecution of the mentioned case. A procedure needs to be followed in initiating the prosecution of the offense. The American constitution uses the phrase in the 5th and 14th to denote that the government shall not take a person’s life or property without following the established laws and procedures. The 5th Amendment protects people from illegal actions of the Federal government and the 14th Amendment protects them from actions by the State and Local governments (Friedman, 1985). The first process in presenting a case against Jesse is to seek an arrest warrant from the superior court. This is an essential requirement of the United States of America Constitution. The prosecutor will present formal evidence to the judge that is legally sufficient and proves that Jesse committed the murder. The judge will examine the case and rule on whether the evidence is sufficient enough to warrant an arrest or the prosecution needs to produce more evidence. The implication of this hearing is that it either allows the prosecution to continue with the case or to drop the case. Once an approval is granted, Jesse will be arrested and brought before a judge to deny or admit the charges brought against him. This is called the arraignment stage. The judge will inform Jesse of the state’s accusation against him and determine whether Jesse should remain in prison or be granted bail. Under the 4th Amendment, the constitution guarantees protection of people against