Think Before You Act

Think Before You Act Everyday someone loses a person dear to them. You never know if it will be your last day here in this world. We all just live day to day and don’t realize tomorrow could be our last. It’s even worse when it could have been prevented. Choices we make can impact our lives and individuals around us. People say things happen for a reason, and that God has a plan for all of us. We won’t know the truth until something tragic happens each of us. June 24, 2011 was the day that I lost a close friend forever. I remember that day like it happened yesterday.You don’t forget days like that when your life changes forever. The night of the accident, a young man decided to leave a bar and drive with his blood alcohol content over three times the legal limit. He ended up driving the wrong way on the highway and collided head-on with another vehicle. Both drivers were pronounced dead on the scene. My friend was a victim of a drunk driver. He graduated f rom high school two weeks before his death. Not even eighteen years old and still had a life to live. Bryant Hernandez was an individual who left a mark on everyone he came in contact with.You wouldn’t think a seventeen year old would have a huge impact on people he came across, but he did. Bryant did everything he could to put a smile on your face. He seemed to always know what to say to cheer you up. I met Bryant when I was a senior in high school. Since I had to have an elective I ended up taking a child development class. Walking through the class I noticed that we were all girls except for one. He was sitting at a table alone and looking very uncomfortable. I would feel awkward to taking a child development class with a bunch of girls.Bryant looked in my direction when I started to approach him. â€Å"Do you mind if I sit with you? † I asked. â€Å"Well you are already sitting down so I guess I don’t have much of a choice. † Bryant said with a smirk on his face. I couldn’t help but laugh. I knew from that moment I was going to like having him in this class. Eventually it turned out to be one of my favorite classes. He was my go to guy for everything. Bryant knew how to make me feel better when things got tough. At the time small things like that weren’t that important.But now I would give anything to go back and cherish those moments with him. It’s been over a year since the accident and I’ve realized choices you make can have major consequences. When I was a teenager I made stupid decisions like the guy who killed my friend. I didn’t think about anyone else. All I cared about was having fun and living in the moment. I didn’t care when people told me not to drive home drunk. Well living in the moment doesn’t get you anywhere. You may get away with it a couple of times but eventually it will catch up to you.After his death I thought a lot about my actions. Watching his parents say there last words to him and how tired they looked, I couldn’t imagine what they went through and what they are still currently going through. I imagined how my parents would react. I can’t help but want to cry. It makes me sick to know how selfish I was when I was younger. Bryant’s death was a wakeup call for me and hopefully several others. Driving drunk will never cross my mind again. With everything I do now I take a moment to think about it and to make sure that it is the right decision to make.I know Bryant is looking down smiling and saying â€Å"About time you changed, you hard headed girl! † My friend may not be here anymore but him passing on made his family and friends realize things you love can easily be taken away from you in a flash. Selfishness is very common and realizing that our actions can affect our own lives and the people we love so dearly. If moments can be prevented then prevent them. Teaching others to think before they act can i mpact a lot of people from making the wrong decisions. In time everyone with have their own personal reality checks some faster than others.

Common Ion Effect in Equilibrium

Dissolution and precipitation reactions are very important chemical reactions because it is applied to many aspects of the industries in medicine, food, water etc. The objectives of this laboratory experiment is to become familiar with dissolution and precipitation equilibria, develop a lab technique suitable for the determination of the solubility for a sparingly soluble salt, Ba(NO3)2 (s) at room temperature and measure the common ion effect in solubility of Ba(NO3)2 (s) in an acidic solution, HNO3 (aq). Procedure: In this lab, the evaporation technique was used to determine the solubility of the salt at room temperature in water. First a 250ml beaker was weighed and the mass was recorded. Then 5. 0g of barium nitrate was weighed into the beaker. Next, 50ml of distilled water was added to the beaker with the barium nitrate sample. The sample was mixed for ten minutes using the magnetic stirrer. Afterwards, as much as possible of the barium nitrate solution was decanted without losing the solid barium nitrate. To get rid of the excess water, the beaker placed onto a hot plate to evaporate the remaining water I the beaker. One the sample was dry, the mass of the beaker with the dry barium nitrate was weighed, and the mass of the barium nitrate dissolved was calculated. This procedure was repeated for the barium nitrate in acidic solution, HNO3(aq). All data was recorded and the mass of barium nitrated dissolved in acid was calculated. Results/Discussion: From the evaporation technique, 4. 39g of barium nitrate dissolved in water and 2. 4g of barium nitrate dissolved in the acid. From that the concentration of barium nitrate in its saturated solution in water was 0. 336mol/L and 0. 179mol/L in HNO3. The concentration of Ba2+(aq) ions in saturated solution is the same as the concentration of the saturated barium nitrate solution by dissociation of barium nitrate ions into one mole of Ba2+ (aq) for every one mole of Ba(NO3)2(s). The NO3- concentration however is double the concentration of barium nitrate due to the dissociation of 2 moles of NO3- for every one mole of Ba(NO3)2(s) plus the concentration of  NO3- due to the dissociation of HNO3(aq). This came out to be 0. 672mol/L in water and 0. 858mol/L in nitric acid. The solubility of barium nitrate in water was calculated to be 87. 8g/L and 46. 8g/L in HNO3 acid. The molar solubility of the barium nitrate was by definition the same as the concentration of barium nitrate in its saturated solution which was 0. 336mol/L solubility in water and 0. 179mol/L for the solubility in acid. The solubility product constant for barium nitrate in water was calculated using the experimental data to be 0. 52 in water and 0. 132 in HNO3 acid. From the results, it can be seen that the concentration of dissolved barium nitrate in water is more that the concentration of dissolved barium nitrate in nitric acid. And from that it is also seen that the solubility constant of barium nitrate in water is also more than the solubility constant of barium nitrate in nitric acid. These results prove that the common ion effect had decreased the solubility of barium nitrate. The presence of NO3- ions in nitric acid and in barium nitrate caused the common ion effect because even before the barium nitrate dissolution in nitric acid, it already has the initial concentration of NO3- ions produced by nitric acid dissociation. The deviation of experimental values for solubility of barium nitrate in water and in nitric acid was 44. 7% and Ksp deviation was 13. 2%. This is correct because the solubility of barium nitrate in water is supposed to be greater than the solubility in nitric acid. Conclusion:  From the experiment, it can be seen that the solubility of barium nitrate in water is greater than the solubility of barium nitrate in nitric acid. This is due to the common ion, NO3-, in barium nitrate and nitric acid. The acid dissociation yielded a concentration of this ion already, so the dissociation of this ion from barium nitrate is an additional concentration of the ion. This is called the common ion effect. The experiment took the evaporation technique approach, but there are other ways to carry out this experiment to determine the solubility of barium nitrate. One of such was is by using a specific amount of barium nitrate and dissolving it slowly in water until precipitation occurs. From that the amount that was dissolved will be known by taking the mass of the remaining amount of barium nitrate. This procedure was carried out as well during the lab experiment to test the experiment’s accuracy. From the results, it showed that more barium nitrate was dissolved using the evaporation technique. This is because in the alternate technique, it is hard to determine when the salt begins to precipitate; therefore it is not as accurate as the evaporation technique.

Functional Health Patterns Community Assessment Essay

Sharp Healthcare offers groups for breastfeeding mothers, postpartum depression, grieving for loss of a child, obesity, eating disorders etc. Do the community members value health promotion measures? What is the evidence that they do or do not (e.g., involvement in education, fundraising events, etc.)? Fundraising events for local kids with Neuroblastoma (Pediatric) Cancer Fundraise for community sports like football and cheerleading What  does the community value? How is this evident? Religion- Church on Sundays with family Family Values- many family functions like concerts in the local park, movie night at the Lake On what do the community members spend their money? Are funds adequate? Cars Homes, rent- cost of living is high in CA Eating out Shopping Middle Class majority, funds can get tight Health Perception/Management Predominant health problems: Compare at least one health problem to a credible statistic (CDC, county, or state). Obesity 33% in San Diego are overweight, 26% are obese 30% of kids grades 5/7/9 are overweight/obese in San Diego County (â€Å"Community profile: county†, 2013) Immunization rates (age appropriate). 4.5% of Kindergarteners are missing one or more vaccines Out of 43,000 kindergarteners in the county, 1900 are not fully immunized Not all families in San Diego are immunizing their children due to things they hear about vaccines- EX: vaccines causing autism Parents do not do their research and often listen to hear-say or false news reports Appropriate death rates and causes, if applicable. Top 10 causes of death in San Diego: Malignant neoplasms, diseases of the heart, Alzheimer’s, chronic lower respiratory diseases, cerebrovascular disease, accidents (unintentional injuries), diabetes, intended self-harm (Suicide), chronic liver disease (cirrhosis), hypertension/hypertensive renal disease and influenza/pneumonia (â€Å"San Diego County†, n.d.) In 2012, in San Diego alone there were 20,018 deaths 3,684 in East County San Diego 1,806 were Male 1,876 were Female 377 Hispanic 3,015 White 130 Black 88 Asian 70 Other Age groups 0-4 (28 deaths), 5-14 (6 deaths), 15-24 (42 deaths), 25-24 (68 deaths), 35-44 (90 deaths), 45-54 (278 deaths), 55-64 (474 deaths), 65-74 (587 deaths), 75-84 (863 deaths), 84+ (1,248 deaths) (â€Å"San Diego County†, n.d.) Prevention programs (dental, fire, fitness, safety, etc.): Does the community think these are sufficient? Drug Abuse prevention programs, Delinquent and school failure prevention programs CAL Fire teaches a fire prevention program locally in San Diego, CA Safe Kids San Diego which teaches prevention of unintentional accidents such as drowning, child passenger safety, sports and recreation safety and pedestrian safety (â€Å"Safe Kids San†, 2014) Western Dental provides services for people who no insurance for a cheaper rate Multiple gym facilities such as 24 hour Fitness, Crunch and Chuze are some of the biggest gyms out here Available health professionals, health resources within the community, and usage. Planned Parenthood- health care for pregnancy and STD prevention Local hospitals- Kaiser Permanente, Sharp Grossmont Hospital, Scripps Hospital, Sharp Memorial Hospital are a few big hospitals in San Diego, CA Urgent Care clinics like Doctors Express are available San Diego Public Health Language Specific healthcare such as Arabic, Spanish, Tagalog etc. Common referrals to outside agencies. WIC- Women, Infants and Children Black Women, Infants and Children Food Stamps Low Cost medical and dental care Habitat for Humanity Nutrition/Metabolic Indicators of nutrient deficiencies. Vitamin deficiencies such as Vitamin D and Iron Unexplained fatigue, brittle, dry hair, ridged or spoon shaped nails, mouth  problems, diarrhea, irritability or lack or appetite can all indicate nutrient deficiencies San Diego has one of the largest homeless populations in the country, especially homeless veterans. Malnutrition is prevalent in this group of people Obesity rates or percentages: Compare to CDC statistics. This bullet was answered up above in a previous question. Affordability of food/available discounts or food programs and usage (e.g., WIC, food boxes, soup kitchens, meals-on-wheels, food stamps, senior discounts, employee discounts, etc.). Food Stamps WIC (Women, Infants and Children) BWIC (Black Women, Infants and Children) Meals on wheels Senior discounts offered at some restaurants like Soup Plantation. 55 plus is considered senior citizen here in California Project Homeless Connect Availability of water (e.g., number and quality of drinking fountains). Water fountains in all stores and schools Drinking water (Tap water) meets most government standards but needs to be more thoroughly treated Water comes from 3 places: Northern California from snow and rain, the Colorado river and local rain water runoff Fast food and junk food accessibility (vending machines). Vending machines at most all high schools California trying to change contents to offer healthier choices Fast food on almost every corner- very accessible Evidence of healthy food consumption or unhealthy food consumption (trash, long lines, observations, etc.). Always long line as fast food places Gyms always crowed, protein/workout drinks always in hand Beaches are full of people in bathing suits (fit and unfit) Farmers markets on Wednesdays crowded A lot of people do special programs like Weight Watchers, Opti-Fast, Medi-Fast, Nutri-System, Jenny Craig etc â€Å"Re-think your Drink† this program is trying to eliminate sugar sweetened drinks and are replacing them with water, low fat milk for 50% or greater natural fruit juices Provisions for special diets, if applicable. Items containing specific allergies have them stated on the label like nuts, shellfish or specific fruits For schools (in addition to above): Nutritional content of food in cafeteria and vending machines: Compare to ARS 15-242/The Arizona Nutrition Standards (or other state standards based on residence) Fruit/veggie based drinks with no less than 50% fruit juice Milk 2% fat, non-fat, soy or rice milk Not more than 35 percent of its total calories can come from fat (excluding: nuts, seeds, eggs, cheese, fruit, vegetables and legumes) Not more than 10 percent calories from sat fat (Excluding: eggs and cheese) Not more than 35% of its total weight may be composed of sugar, including naturally occurring and added sugar (excluding: fruits and vegetables that have not been deep fried) Not more than 250 calories per individual food item (Middle schools and Jr High Schools, High Schools) No more than 175 per individual food item for elementary schools Amount of free or reduced lunch 60% free or reduced lunch in schools in San Diego, CA Elimination (Environmental Health Concerns) Common air contaminants’ impact on the community. Smog, Allergies- Pollen, Mold Noise. Major Airport, major Military bases, heavy traffic noises Waste disposal. Miramar Landfill Pest control: Is the community notified of pesticides usage? Yes, individual residences take care of their own pest problems Hanta Virus- In mouse poop in our area Hygiene practices (laundry services, hand washing, etc.). Laundry mats are in abundance, dry cleaners and individual washer and dryers in some residences Singing the â€Å"Happy Birthday† song twice while washing hands was on the local news to help people wash their hands more efficiently Toilet seat covers in most public bathroom services Signs stating â€Å"Must wash hands before returning to work† in all restaurant bathrooms Bathrooms: Number of bathrooms; inspect for cleanliness, supplies, if possible. Most public bathrooms have signs for employees to sign when they have checked and maintained the restroom Public bathrooms are generally clean and well stocked, if not usually an employee of the place is easily notified Universal precaution practices of health providers, teachers, members (if applicable). Protective gowns, gloves, shields when handling bodily fluids for health providers when in facilities Teachers usually do not have access to all of the equipment necessary but generally have gloves on hand Temperature controls (e.g., within buildings, outside shade structures). Temperatures generally in the 70-75 ranges in controlled areas such as schools and stores Shades provided at local parks Community pools and beaches available for hot temperatures Safety (committee, security guards, crossing guards, badges, locked campuses). Most day cares are locked facilities Crossing guards at most elementary and middle schools Security guards at stores and hospitals to prevent theft and crime Trolley Guards Volunteer Police patrol (Elderly men and women) Activity/Exercise Community fitness programs (gym discounts, P.E., recess, sports, access to YMCA, etc.). YMCAs Gyms: 24 hour fitness, crunch, chuze AYSO (local soccer leagues for kids) T-ball/ baseball/ softball fields at Cactus Park (name of play park) P.E in middle school/high school for 2 years Recess at elementary schools Zumba and Jazzercise programs locally Recreational facilities and usage (gym, playgrounds, bike paths, hiking trails, courts, pools, etc.). Playgrounds at most local parks Mission Trails- hiking, bike trails Cowles Mountain, Iron Mountain- Hiking trails Community pools- YMCAs Safety programs (rules and regulations, safety training, incentives, athletic trainers, etc.). Lifeguards at local community pools and beaches Safe drivers incentives with Allstate Insurance Discounts on car insurance with good grades and no trouble Crime Stoppers, Mc Gruff Crime Dog, Kidzwatch Academy, Safety Sam are police station programs that kids and other community members can participate in to ensure community safety Injury statistics or most common injuries. In San Diego, unintentional injuries were the sixth leading cause of death in 2009 Nearly 1000 people died that year of unintentional injuries with 30% of those caused by poisoning including overdose Every hour in San Diego, an average of 19 people are hospitalized or treated in the ER because of injuries Car accidents, drowning, falls, assault, struck by an object, burns, overexertion and suffocation are some of the most common causes of injury in all age groups Evidence of sedentary leisure activities (amount of time watching TV, videos, and computer). Computers used as primary resource for schools Internet used as primary resource for community Driving short distances that could be walked T.V takes up, on average, 2.8 hours of most people’s day Ages 15-19 spend read for an average of 4 minutes per weekend day and 52 minutes playing a game on the computer Ages 75 and over spend an average of 1 hour of reading per weekend day and 20 minutes playing games or using a computer Employed adults with no children spend about 4.5 hours per day doing leisure activities and employed adults with a child/children spend about 3.5 hours doing leisure activities per day Means of transportation. Trolley, Bus, Cars, Bikes, Walking and park and ride for carpool Sleep/Rest Sleep routines/hours of your community: Compare with sleep hour standards (from National Institutes of Health [NIH]). Eating heavy dinners, caffeine, smoking and exercise late in the day is effecting sleep of people in San Diego Graveyard shifts are common due to places being open 24/7 Sleeping anywhere from 6-9 hours Indicators of general â€Å"restedness† and energy levels. Lack of â€Å"bags† or â€Å"dark circles† under eyes Hair, makeup and outfit appropriate for environment Less caffeine needed Factors affecting sleep: Shift work prevalence of community members All shifts, mostly 12 hour shifts in the healthcare field, Mainly anywhere from 7am-6pm for most full time employed people Environment (noise, lights, crowding, etc.) Near main airport, military bases, lights and crowds near football and baseball stadiums, colleges, living near freeways Consumption of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and drugs A least 3 major Universities in San Diego (Caffeine intake!) Average age in San Diego is 20s-30s and large nightlife crowd downtown San Diego (Alcohol and drugs) 2012 drug stats: Heroin increase, crack/cocaine decrease, methamphetamines increase, marijuana increase, prescription opioids decrease, ecstasy decrease (â€Å"Drug abuse patterns†, 2014) Homework/Extracurricular activities High school student average 3 hours of homework per night Anywhere from 6.8 to 17.5 hours of homework per week for high school students Elementary schools 2.9 hours per week Middle school 3.2 hours per week After school sports- up to 3 hours of practice for some like football Health issues Stress, common colds/flu, pediatric cancers, diabetes types 1 and 2, obesity, hypertension Cognitive/Perceptual Primary language: Is this a communication barrier? English/ Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese (possible communication barriers) 37.1 % of San Diego’s population speaks a different language than English Educational levels: For geopolitical communities, use http://www.census.gov and compare the city in which your community belongs with the national statistics. San Diego County : High school graduates 85.4 % Bachelor’s degree or higher 34.4 % (â€Å"State and county†, 2014) Opportunities/Programs: Educational offerings (in-services, continuing education, GED, etc.) Many programs offering GED programs and prep classes including community colleges All hospitals and healthcare centers provide in-services Grossmont college, Grossmont adult night school ROP (Regional Occupation Program) Learn English (program in El Cajon, CA to help foreigners learn English) Educational mandates (yearly in-services, continuing education, English learners, etc.) CEUs for nurses- 30 hours every 2 years for RNs Special education programs (e.g., learning disabled, emotionally disabled, physically disabled, and gifted) GATE- gifted and talented education program Children’s outreach project Library or computer/Internet resources and usage. El Cajon library Internet on all phones, ipads Computers at most schools including elementary schools Funding resources (tuition reimbursement, scholarships, etc.). Scholarships offered through the Chamber of Commerce for academics up to $3,000. Many colleges offer academic scholarships and sports scholarships (Full and partial rides) UCSD and Rady’s Children’s Hospital both have tuition reimbursement and student loan repayment programs UCSD will repay two thirds of the tuition or student loans Board of Governor’s Fee waver Military discounts Self-Perception/Self-Concept Age levels. Many families in El Cajon Mainly 20s and 30s in San Diego County such as downtown San Diego Kids under age 5= 6.5% of population People under age 18= 22.6 % of population People 65 and over= 12.3 percent of population Programs and activities related to community building (strengthening the community). San Diego City College peer mentoring program MAD (mothers against drunk driving) Big Brothers/Big Sisters program (Mentoring adolescents) Peer Leaders (high school program- students give other students â€Å"counseling† when they feel like they cannot talk to an adult) Community history. The area now known as San Diego County has been inhabited for over 10,000 years by the Kumeyaay Indians San Diego became part of the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 1848 ending the U.S. –Mexican War One of the original counties of California San Diego used to be a very large county including all of Los Angeles and extended to the Colorado river Pride indicators: Self-esteem or caring behaviors. San Diego is one of the most sought out cities to visit and/or live Very expensive because they demand is there A lot of plastic surgery in San Diego Spray tans, fake nails, fake hair, people are in shape (wears bikinis) San Diego residents support a lot of charities and cancer/disease foundations Donating money to a good cause is common among this community Published description (pamphlets, Web sites, etc.). San Diego Magazine Sandiego. org for local media (Website) Union Tribune San Diego (News Paper) Role/Relationship Interaction of community members (e.g., friendliness, openness, bullying, prejudices, etc.). East San Diego is more friendly than West or North San Diego (More money in those areas) Very accepting of Gays and Lesbians in San Diego ( Hill Crest is a city known for an abundance population) Gay Pride Parade is a huge event in SD Very large interracial community, not a lot of prejudices Programs to prevent in-school bullying Vulnerable populations: Why are they vulnerable? Homeless population downtown San Diego Lack of medical insurance How does this impact health? Increase spread of disease Increased severity of disease No access to medication or medical treatments Power groups (church council, student council, administration, PTA, and gangs): Mexican Mafia Logan Heights Gang Hells Angles PTAs in elementary schools Jehovah’s witness Mormons How do they hold power? Influential Have a lot of people under them or following them PTA helps make decisions for schools Positive or negative influence on community? Gangs usually a negative influence Hells Angels used to have more of a negative influence but now are more positive towards the community and support local charities like pediatric cancer ones Harassment policies/discrimination policies. Under the California Department of Public Health all employees have a right to work in an environment free from all forms of discrimination, including sexual harassment, intimidation, retaliation or coercion. The CDPH is committed to providing a work environment free from sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that is illegal under both  state and federal law The Fair Employment and Housing Act defines sexual harassment as harassment based on sex or of a sexual nature; gender harassment; and harassment based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. The definition includes harassment based on sexual orientation, and also protects an individual’s actual or perceived gender identity, whether or not different from the individual’s actual gender at birth The CDPH endorses a â€Å"zero tolerance† policy aimed at preventing all such inappropriate behavior. As a result, CDPH may take corrective actions, up to and including formal discipline, when policy violations occur, even if they are not so serious as to be unlawful (â€Å"Sexual Harassment Prevention†, 2008) Relationship with broader community: Police San Diego has had allegations of inappropriate behavior of police officers such as groping and sexual favors CHP, Sheriff’s department, Police in each city such an San Diego Police Department Fire/EMS (response time) Generally called from the City in which the Emergency is Response time is good- generally under 10 minutes Fire departments all work together from all surrounding cities when needed Large fire in Escondido/ San Marcos just happened in San Diego County, fire departments from all around came to help Cedar fire in El Cajon more than 10 years back, fire departments from out of state came and helped Other (food drives, blood drives, missions, etc.) San Diego Blood Bank- always has blood drives in parking lots of big stores like walmarts and businesses Local food drives at schools and healthcare clinics/facilities Sexuality/Reproductive Relationships and behavior among community members. Have had many allegations of teacher/student relationships Many older male/young female relationships and visa-versa Many relationships with more than 10 year gaps Young marriages/pregnancies common Married Population 45.15% Single Population 54.85% Now Married 43.16% Married but Separated 1.99% Never Married 40.39% Widowed 4.58% Divorced 9.88% Married, w/children 35.54% Married, no children 37.34% Single, w/children 16.27% Single, no children 10.86% (â€Å"People in San†, 2014) Educational offerings/programs (e.g., growth and development, STD/AIDS education, contraception, abstinence, etc.). Planned Parenthood- teachings and prevention methods of STDs and Pregnancy, prenatal care Access to birth control.

Two methods of losing weight, Eating right and exercise vs cosmetic Essay

Two methods of losing weight, Eating right and exercise vs cosmetic surgery - Essay Example The only similarity that eating right and doing exercise, and cosmetic surgery is that all of these phenomena work toward the establishment of the same aim that is, weight loss. When we include junk food in our diet, we are just giving our bodies empty calories that are of no use except for putting extra fat on us. We become obese and acquire a number of diseases that obesity directs toward us. When we do not exercise properly, we become lethargic and our bodies become inactive and lazy, which again put on us extra fat. Eating right and exercising regularly enable us to lose weight and become smart and energetic. Cosmetic surgery also intends to do the same. The person goes through a number of operations and surgeries to get that extra fat off the arms, belly and legs. Weight is significantly reduced and the difference is very obvious. Hence, we can say that all of these techniques help us to reduce weight. In contrast, eating right not only helps in losing extra weight by cutting off empty calories, but also provides the body with essential nutrients that it needs to stay healthy and active. Whitney, Whitney and Rolfes (2010, p.157) assert that, â€Å"A well-planned diet delivers adequate nutrients, a balanced array of nutrients, and an appropriate amount of energy (kcalories). It is based on nutrient-dense foods, moderate in substances that can be detrimental to health†. Cosmetic surgery only tends to make the body lose the extra fat that it has and does not provide any nutrients. Instead, the person has to take supplements to make up for the nutrients and multivitamins that the body loses in the process of losing weight through cosmetic surgery like liposuction. Hence where healthy diet provides body with healthy nutrients and exercise energizes the body while making it lose weight, cosmetic surgery has only one advantage of weight loss. Another contrast is that healthy diet and exercise have no side

Corporate Governance and Regulation - A Case Study (RBS) Essay

Corporate Governance and Regulation - A Case Study (RBS) - Essay Example The overdraft facility is one of the most versatile instruments in banking today. The Royal bank of Scotland apart from providing banking services in Scotland through 700 branches also provides branch banking services throughout the British Isles in collaboration with the NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Scotland provides dedicated retail and commercial banking services in Scotland, Ireland and US. The Royal Bank of Scotland has a worldwide presence in about 40 countries where they provide investment banking services, private banking and also banking network channels for payment across Europe, Asia and Middle East. Apart from the core banking divisions, the bank also has non-core support groups to provide better banking services which includes Asset protection group, Global restructuring group, Risk containment group and the legal group. The Royal Bank of Scotland has a strategic plan for fulfilling its long term and short term objectives. The strategies employed by The Roy al Bank of Scotland include serving the customers to their delight, containing the risk profile of the bank and finally attain sustainable value addition for the shareholders. The Royal Bank of Scotland is governed by a Board of Directors and the managing and executive committee. The bank is headed by its chairman Sir Philip Hampton and the Group Chief executive Stephen Hester. The platform of principal decision making is formed by the Board members of the group who has the overall responsibility and accountability of not only leading the group in a sustainable fashion but also ensure value and returns to their shareholders. The group also has a performance and remuneration committee apart from its supporting risk and audit structure. Apart from taking the policy-making decisions, the Board members of the group also monitors the operations and performance of the group on a periodic basis. The Group Board and the Committees governing The Royal Bank of Scotland is committed to high st andards of adhering to codes on corporate governance. The Board Group scheduled a detail on the company affairs which is reviewed for monitoring effective implementation of the policies on corporate governance. The Royal Bank of Scotland acknowledges diversity and has implemented it worldwide. The Royal Bank of Scotland has around 5000 women workforce globally who are guided by a senior team of personnel. The Royal Bank of Scotland has a designed code of conduct along with defined policies on environmental, social and ethical risk, anti-money laundering, human rights, anti bribery, anti corruption and managing of diversity. These governance and regulatory policies help The Royal Bank of Scotland to maintain a balance of their financial, economic and social goals. Apart from serving their customer well, The Royal Bank of Scotland is committed to be a good employer, fulfil their corporate social responsibilities, open to consultation with their stakeholder for wealth maximization and restoring security and confidentiality of internal information. The Royal Bank of Scotland filed its annual report on 28th March, 2013 with the US Securities and exchange commission. The stock

Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 9

Psychology - Essay Example Thailand has remained a model for organic farming. Many Thai companies are boasting of chemical free products today. Thailand’s Buddhist Asok movement helps to build organic farms and is a monk led movement, which has brought a change within the monk living style too. â€Å"Additionally, while several mainstream Thai monks are millionaires, Asok monks are not allowed to own any property and lay members living inside the community make no money. But everyone receives free food, lodging, and medical care, and students receive free education† http://www.newfarm.org/columns/Jason/2003/0303/thai_asok.shtml Thailand is feeding the world with many organic products other than the rice and in recent years this had been its valuable offering towards environment and it still remains the largest rice exporter in the world. Green Net has rendered yeomen service to organic revolution with its organising farm and trading activities. â€Å"Through more than 7-year experiences, Green Net believes that the main challenge for Third World organic movement is how to organise fair trade at national and international level which would truly benefit small-scale organic producers in a sustainable manner,† Alfoldic (2000, p.664). Organic marketing called Lemon Farms are spreading all over Thailand. Initially, it had not been easy to find customers. â€Å"It has proved difficult to get customers to pay more for generic products although there are some signs this is changing. For instance initial efforts to market organic fruits and vegetables in Thailand, ran into stiff marketing resistence† Charter (1999, p.347). â€Å"There are many doors into the organic community. Some folks come in through their alternative lifestyle. Some come desperately seeking ways to save their farms. Some are merely attracted by high organic soybean and dairy prices†. The Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) has been spreading

Why was Intel initially successful in DRAMs Assignment

Why was Intel initially successful in DRAMs - Assignment Example Dennard claims he went home and formulated the basic idea for DRAM within a few hours, as Mary Bellis explains, â€Å"Dennard and his team were working on early field-effect transistors and integrated circuits, and his attention to memory chips came from seeing another team's research with thin-film magnetic memory. Dennard claims he went home and within a few hours had gotten the basic ideas for the creation of DRAM.† Within two years after its release, Intel would become a world leader in DRAM technologies. Intel created the Memory Systems Operation to assemble the DRAM chips to standards required for sale to OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturers), who then put the chips into more sophisticated machines. This operation allowed Intel to distribute their technologies to a wider area. This strategy, in conjunction with offering replacement parts for mainframe computer memories, allowed them to gain more control over the market. Over ninety percent of Intel’s rev enue was brought in by their DRAM, which was the world’s largest selling semi-conductor. Always being the first into new markets, Intel used that strategy and the fact they were the first to release DRAM to heighten sales of the chips and create the success they did ( Lazonick 148-149). Intel’s business strategy was very aggressive and they knew how to play the market to maximize profits.

Business Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Policy - Essay Example It is thus dynamic in nature so that the organization earns above average returns (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2001, p. 6). Strategic management is a broad canvas, which includes strategic analysis, strategic implementation and control. It encompasses all functional areas within an organization. This paper aims to address these issues in the context of finance and marketing. For evolving appropriate corporate policies, it is imperative to do a competitive analysis. This will be done by using the SWOT and Porters five forces. SWOT analysis helps to understand internal environment of the company in terms of its relative strengths and weaknesses, and also external factors in terms of opportunities and threat. Further, as the company intends to enter into emerging markets, its global competitiveness will be examined by using the model suggested by Porter (1985), which includes five competitive forces, which determine the competitiveness of a product in a market. These forces are industr y competitions, potential entrants, substitutes, byers, and suppliers.

US and Saudi Stock Markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

US and Saudi Stock Markets - Essay Example The Saudi stock market is the largest stock market in the Middle East. It is not only the largest stock market in the Middle East, it is also considered to bigger than the combination of the stock markets of all other gulf countries (Hankir and Baltaji, 2015). As a stock market there are great opportunities that are offered by the Saudi Stock market. However, until recently only citizens of Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries were allowed to trade in the stock market of the country. The people of other GCC countries were allowed to trade in the Saudi stock market subject to the restrictions that are imposed by the respective GCC country. Till recently the people from non-GCC countries were allowed to enter only through the closed investment funds. NYSE is considered as the largest and the most powerful stock exchange in the world. The rising power of the stock exchange was in line with the rise of the economic power of the United States. There are two major stock exchanges in the United States. The other stock exchange in the United States is NASDAQ which has the most number of companies listed in the country. However, by means of market capitalization, NYSE is larger than the combination of the NASDAQ, Tokyo and London. The merger of NYSE and Euronext has increased the appeal of the stock exchange on a global scale. It is found that the stock market in the United States is the most important in the world and has the capability to influence all the stock markets across the world.

Privacy Policies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Privacy Policies - Essay Example For instances it could be the illustration of a website offering information regarding the exercise of personal information, mainly personal information gathered by means of the website by the website owner. Privacy policies frequently encircle facts of what personal information is gathered how the personal information probably will be utilized, the persons to whom the personal information may be revealed, the safety actions taken to defend the personal information, and whether the website employs cookies and/or web bugs.1 A number of websites as well identify their privacy policies by means of P3P or Internet Content Rating Association that is also acknowledged as ICRA, facilitating browsers to without human intervention appraises the level of privacy presented by the site. For this paper the first web site I have selected is the â€Å"www.attwireless.com.† is business website of the AT&T Wireless Inc. AT&T Wireless is the major independently traded wireless mover in the US. AT&T Wireless functions one of the biggest digital wireless networks in North America. AT&T has in the order of 18 million subscribers, and complete-year 2001 revenues of 13.6 billion dollars, AT&T Wireless is enthusiastic to being amongst the preliminary to bring the next generation of wireless goods and services. Nowadays, AT&T Wireless presents customers high-class wireless voice and data communications services and services in the United States, and globally. AT&T Wireless consumers’ gain is the companys declaration to make sure that customers have the exact equipment, the correct calling arrangement, and the correct customer services options these days and tomorrow. For additional services and information you can visit their web site: www.attwireless.com.2 This privacy policy tackles the privacy of AT&T family of company’s buy and sells consumers and web guests in the US, apart

Indigenous Australians Essay Example for Free

Indigenous Australians Essay The current political scene in Australia has the following Indigenous aspects that have been issues for Australians for many years. These are: land rights, education, employment, health and breakdown of culture. These are the main matters of concern politically. ‘So it is like people say, â€Å"Trust me. I’m from the government. † Well, it doesn’t carry any water with our mob’. ( Koori elder, cited in Kaplan-Myrth, Nili, 2005) Recognising that Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders were the First Peoples of Australia and entitled to land rights because of their own culture and laws is a significant part of history and relevant to today’s politics. The persistent land grabs through NSW and Tasmania, the slaughter of the Indigenous, and the controlling policies over the Indigenous are highlighted as part of our history. The Indigenous link to the land and their customs makes native titles a reality, as seen in the Mabo case, and shapes our history as one of the most contentious political situations in Australia today. When the first Europeans set foot on Australian soil, the British Empire declared the land as terra nullius, embarking on a project of land procurement to start a new colony (Macintyre, 2009). In the period 1788 – 1820, many new settlements were developed from Sydney to the Hawkesbury, Parramatta and the Blue Mountains. Governor Philips originally ordered that the Aboriginals be treated with kindness but this sentiment soon disappeared as many Aboriginals, including women and children, were slaughtered for protecting their land. Tasmanian Aboriginals suffered the same fate and were eventually coaxed to live on surrounding islands as per the Batman ‘treaty’ (Macintyre, 2009). Many of the pastoral and grazing lands were taken illegally by squatters who saw a way to make money through occupying land and holding legal interest. This eventually led to squatters licensing 1839, leasing of land and finally the right to buy 1839-1847(Weaver, 1996). Other demands to make land easier for small farmers to acquire came through land reform Acts that started in 1850’s (Boot, 1998). None of these considerations were extended to the original owners of the land. The land was removed from the indigenous community including their rights and culture and the Indigenous people forced to live under the common category as Aborigine. From 1890, the government embarked on various policies for the indigenous people but in most cases further separated them from their culture. The 1901 Australian Constitution stated that Australian Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders were not counted in the census thus affirming lack of recognition. 1905, the White Australia policy restricted immigration and still failed to recognise Australia’s original inhabitants (Macintyre, 2009). Different Aboriginal Community and Protection acts were enforced which removed children from their parents (stolen generations) and made the Indigenous people wards of the state. The instigation of the Assimilation policy, 1937, where it was presumed that all Australians in time would be living like white Australians, exasperated the loss of identity. Even the history of conflict between Indigenous and the military is under debate as Keith Windschuttle argued the numbers of Indigenous killed in battles were considerably fewer than some historians estimate (Harris, J.2003). By the 1960’s the civil rights movements had started the beginning of national black consciousness and in 1967 the Commonwealth referendum voted to empower the Commonwealth to legislate for all Aboriginal people to be counted in the census and give the Commonwealth government specific laws for Indigenous people. Using this as momentum the policy of self determination was initiated which gave powers of self governance and relied on Aboriginals in some remote areas to establish economic independence. This proved to be disappointing as most depended on state welfare (Macintrye, 2009,). However, some Aboriginal Community controlled health facilities have made small advances. The first facility opened in Redfern 1971 (Kaplan-Myrth, Nili, 2005). The most prominent gain for the Indigenous people is the1992 Mabo Case which recognised Aborigines and Torres Straight Islanders as the first people of this land and overturned the doctrine of terra nullius acknowledging the existence of native title. This decision pitted governments, pastoralists, mining industries and the Indigenous peoples against each other. In conjunction with the Mabo Case came the Native Titles Act which commenced operation in 1994 and emphasised the importance of Indigenous people belonging to the land and the significance of Aboriginal culture and laws (Perkins, 2009) Shortly after, the courts ruled in favour of the Wik Case and declared that pastoral leases did not necessarily overrule native title. As a result, relationships between Indigenous people, Government and Australian land owners were strained as native title was not fully understood. When the 1997 Bringing Them Home report described the removal of children from Indigenous families it became the incentive needed to call for an apology and one was finally given by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, on 13th February 2008. This was to be the beginning of reconciliation. However, since then, more policies have been made that restrict how the Indigenous receive payments and ‘standards of behaviour’. (Singleton, Aitkin, Jinks, Warhurst, 2013). Aboriginal and non Aboriginal people have not trusted each other for more than 200 years, clearly this continues. This paper shows that our history is relevant to relationships between the Government and Indigenous people. It highlights the abuse of Indigenous people by colonial settlers when taking the lands and their rights. It shows the fight for the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders that was acknowledged through the courts and the start to reconciliation. Understandably, it shows that a very insecure relationship continues. Referenceshave come to stay | Sunday 11 April at 8: Boot, H. (1998). Government and the Colonial Economies. In Australian Economic History Review, 38 (1), 74-101. Harris, J. (2003). Hiding the bodies: the myth of the humane colonisation of Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal history, 27, 79-101. Kaplan-Myrth, Nili. (2005). Sorry Mates: Reconciliation and Self-Determination in Australian Aboriginal Health. Human Rights Review, Jul-Sep, 6(4),69-83. Macintyre, S. (2009). A Concise history of Australia (3rd ed.), Melbourne: Cambridge University Perkins, R. (2009). SBS Television. ‘A fair deal for a dark race’, Episode 6, the First Australians; retrieved from http://www. sbs. com. au/firstaustralians/index/index/epid/6 Perkins, R. (2009). SBS Television. We are no longer Shadows, Episode 7, the First Australians; retrieved fromhttp://www. sbs. com. au/firstaustralians/index/index/epid/7r deal for a dark race | Sunday 16 May at 8:30pm Singleton, Aitkin, Jinks, Warhurst. (2013). Australian Political Institutions. (10th Ed. ). Pearson Australia.

Digital Radio Rebanding Essay Example for Free

Digital Radio Rebanding Essay In this paper we have talked about the urgent need of introducing more Emergency communication RF frequencies. The reason for needing more frequencies are twofold firstly the frequencies already allocated are much less than needed and secondly all these frequencies needed upgrade the . We have also included frequencies currently used for emergency networks. We have talked about a scenario where the equipment upgrade became necessary when the emergency support system was changed to a different frequency. Later in the paper we have recommended using new digital technologies such as software defined radio, cognitive radio and 802. 11 Adhoc networks for stronger , secure, high data rate and reliable communication. Introduction As the world is moving ahead the need for radio and wireless communication cannot be denied. This importance becomes more evident in emergency conditions and times . Several frequencies from the electromagnetic spectrum are allocated for emergency time communication by the governments and agencies around the world. One such agency is FCC who is responsible for assigning different frequency bands/ There are some specific frequencies that are the designated for the communication in emergency, a table of such allocated frequencies are presented here. The problem is this that these frequencies are being used for other purposes by the hobbyist etc for communication or other type of data transfer at other times and accessing these in the time of emergencies becomes difficult. The aircraft emergency frequency is a set of frequencies used on the aircraft radio band reserved for emergency communications for aircraft in distress. The frequencies are 121. 5 MHz for civilian, also known as International Air Distress (IAD) and 243. 0 MHz for military use, also known as Military Air Distress (MAD). Both of these frequenices are used on the international level. Digital Radio Rebanding It is a well know fact that Electromagnetic spectrum is a limited source hence the whole electromagnetic spectra has been dived to be used for specific purposes, one of such specific purpose is to use Radio frequency based communication in time of emergency. Several specific bands are allocate for this purpose but it has recently been felt that these bands do not provide the required frequencies and modern digital radio will also not be able to perform well in these bands. (Silva, 2001). Since these frequencies are limited these also become crowded at those times of emergency when a lot of people are communicating for rescue and providing help. i. e in the case of a major disaster several aid agencies and organizations approach that place, they use similar equipment and find themselves unable to communicate. Therefore it is a dire need to increase the number of these allocated frequencies only designated to be used for emergency purposes. At several times in the past the required emergency band were found to be occupied and the users were asked to quit using those frequencies o n that period. One of the outstanding examples is of NOAA satellites which has got its frequencies changed in February 2009 and now it can only receive signals from the 406 MHz frequency beacons. It should be noted that NOAA satellite was crucial in saving at least 283 people worldwide. The older emergency beacons, operating on the 121. 5 and 243 MHz frequencies, will no longer be detected. This is one of the main ressons why all the equipment on the ground that they use needs to be upgraded. Events where the emergency systems failed In the recent history during several disaster the need for ditial radio rebranding has been felt. The three major events have high importance in this regard. During Hurricane Katrina, the emergency frequencies were found to be inadequate and were not able to cope up with the requirements. The emergency spectrum was very crowded and more people were found trying to access the channel than the spectrum could possibly accommodate. Emergency communication systems failed on the disastrous event of 9/11 and caused the people working in those agencies to evaluate their system performance. The Indian Ocean Tsunami that occurred in 2004 and caused approximately 350,000 deaths and many more injuries. There could be much less deaths if the emergency communication could be on digital equipment and more spectrums dedicated. Digital Radio Analog systems, which are predominantly existent in today’s emergency communication, are cheaper but digital systems present much more efficient, better performance, and greater flexibility. For the public security radio communication has been used as a primary means of communication for several organizations including police but there are slight improvement in the methods used to transfer information. This lack of innovation over time has lead to the overcrowding of current systems and the need to find new and better methods to communicate in that medium. Recent tragic disaster raised concerns about the existing public safety emergency communications and their inability to accommodate a large number of users for a short time is serious problematic. These currently systems failed to offer the kind of rescue help as it was thought earlier. With the implementation of digital technology the allocated frequency band would allow for the increased use of the spectrum. Current frequencies and added new frequencies that would better allow many agencies to communicate with limited problems when compared to current operational models. Unfortunately more focus is there on improving day to day communication because they yield more business but serious concerns are there and which need to be addressed as several analog based systems failed to be effective in emergency communication. Recommendations By analyzing the situation we can easily say that the reserved frequencies used for emergency communication are much less than what are needed. Hence more frequencies are needed for emergency communication bands, FCC and other frequency allocated organizations need to ponder greatly on this aspect. Also it should also be made sure that nobody except the authorized users use those frequencies hence in the case of any emergency, the communication could be established in no time. We have also found that the analog radio communication is inefficient therefore radio digital broadcasting is necessary in the times of emergency and agencies already working such It is also imperative for the agencies involved in emergency operation to have all their equipment based on digital radio. It is one in which all the communications is done using digital modulation techniques: here we would talk about some of the recent advancement in digital radio technology which has increased the reuse of frequcnices with better transfer of data, voice and video both. Software defined Radio is one of the very promising technologies and will prove to be one of the major developments in the field of RF communication. If SDR , as it is called , is introduced in emergency communication equipment data communications, voice communications, video communications, would all be made possible in much better ways for the emergency response communications. ( Kenington, 2005) SDR is usually a collection of hardware and software technologies in which a few of the radio’s operating functions such as physical layer processing are implemented through reconfigurable software which is burned into the different programmable processors. The SDR has now been seen to be implemented using field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), digital signal processors (DSP), general purpose processors (GPP), embedded systems or other specific programmable processors. With software defined radio new technologies can easily be built to existing radio systems without requiring new hardware. (Reed, 2002) In reality the Software defined radio (SDR) technology brings flexibility and cost efficiency and will be very helpful in the long run for the emergency radio rebranding takes place as no matter what frequencies are assigned; only tweaking the software would enable the communications. Cognitive radio technology Cognitive radio can be implemented specially for the emergency needed communication because this promising technology would accommodate many more users than the usual analog or digital communication methods. (Arslan, 2007) Recent studies demonstrated that dynamic spectrum access can improve spectrum utilization significantly by allowing secondary unlicensed users to dynamically share the spectrum that is not used by the primary licensed user. Cognitive radio was proposed to promote the spectrum utilization by opportunistic exploiting the existences of spectrum holes. ( Fette, 2009) Other Technologies Few recent technologies such as WiMAX (802. 16) might be deployed in conjunction with traditional communication modes to enhance the data rate so that images from the disastrous area might be transferred to remote areas. One other technology that is taking shape these days is 802. 11 adhoc sensor networks which might also be deployed in remote areas so that if any one needs rescue they could be helped. The adhoc networks are recently introduced technology and might prove to be very useful. Today the rescue teams are capable to do much more for the people in need and in emergency conditions based on the information they have but for this they need detailed information in the form of pictures videos and detailed maps, The legacy analog radio systems are unable to support high data rates nor are cable of handling simultaneously. Conclusion: We conclude from this study that not only the frequencies assigned are less than the required, considering the events where these frequencies were exhausted and also the equipment in use is also needs to be based on Digital Radio. If the new frequencies are acquired it has also been found out that the equipment becomes useless so both of these needs to be achieved for a better RF emergency communications. References Silva, E. D. (2001), High Frequency and Microwave Engineering . Newnes Kenington, P. (2005) Rf And Baseband Techniques for Software Defined Radio. Artech House Publishers Arslan,H. (2007) Cognitive Radio, Software Defined Radio, and Adaptive Wireless Systems . Springer Fette,B. A. (2009)Cognitive Radio Technology, Second Edition. Academic Press Reed, J. H. (2002) Software Radio: A Modern Approach to Radio Engineering. Prentice Hall PTR

Rowhammer and Microarchitectural Attacks

Rowhammer and Microarchitectural Attacks Problem 1: Hardware Oriented Security and Trust Problem 2: Wireless Networking Problem 1 Introduction The analyzed paper deals with Side-Channel attacks on mobile devices, providing a thorough categorization based on several factors. Side-channel attacks aims to extract sensitive information taking advantage of apparently harmless information leakage of computing devices, both from the SW and HW point of view. Side-channel attacks are initially categorized as active or passive, depending on the level of influence and involvement the attack has on the system. The concept of Software and Hardware attacks are identified to separate attacks that exploit, respectively, logical and physical properties of a device. Also the distance of an attacker is a relevant element in the analysis of Side-channel attacks. The authors distinguish among Local, Vicinity and Remote Side Channel Attacks, depending on how close is the attacker to the attacked device. A comprehensive list of examples for every type of attacks is given, along with a constructive discussion on possible countermeasures. In this report, we will focus on the Rowhammer and Microarchitectural attacks that will be discussed in the following paragraphs. a) Rowhammer Attack As miniaturization of hardware architectures is pushed more and more, the density of memory cells of the DRAM drives the size of these cells to a dramatic reduction in dimensions. For the intrinsic properties of DRAMs, this leads to a decreases in the charge of single cells and could cause electromagnetic coupling effects between cells. Rowhammer attack takes advantage of this Hardware vulnerability. a.i) Principle The Rowhammer glitch takes place in a densely-populated cell hardware environment allowing an attacker to modify memory cells without directly accessing it. The aforementioned vulnerability in DRAM cells can be exploited by repeatedly accessing a certain physical memory location until a bit flips in an adjacent cell. A well-orchestrated Rowhammer attack could have devastating power, even getting to have root privileges. Rowhammer base its strength on a principle called Flip Feng Shui [2] where the attacker abuses the physical memory allocator to strike precise hardware locations and cause bits to flip in attacker-chosen sensitive data. Rowhammer can be either probabilistic [3] or deterministic [4]. The latter shows a greater impact as the lack of control of the first one could corrupt unintended data. The most effective Rowhammer attack is the double-sided Rowhammer [5], capable of having more flips in less time than other approaches. a.ii) Architecture The objective of Rowhammer attack is the DRAM. DRAM usually stores electric charges in an array of cells, typically implemented through a capacitor and an access transistor. Cells are then organized in rows. Thus memory cells inherently have a limited retention time and they have to be refreshed regularly in order to keep their data. From an OS point of view, a page frame is the smallest fixed-length adjacent block of physical memory that maps an OS memory page. From a DRAM point of view, a page frame is just a contiguous collection of memory cells with a fixed page size (usually 4KB). With this in mind, triggering bit flips through Rowhammer is basically a race against the DRAM internal memory refresh scheme to have enough memory accesses and cause sufficient disturbance to adjacent rows. a.iii) Instruction Set Architecture The Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is a functional specification of a processor programming interface. It is used to abstract over microarchitecture implementation details (e.g. pipelines, issue slots and caches) that are functionally irrelevant to a programmer. Even though it is practically transparent, the microarchitecture incorporates a hidden state, which can be observed in several ways. To test whether Rowhammer can be exploited, a precise knowledge of memory cells dimension is crucial. In mobile devices, ARM processor represents the most widespread and used microprocessor. In [4] the authors determine the minimum memory access time that still results in bit flips by hammering 5MB of physical memory while increasing the time between two read operations by means of inserting NOP instructions. The rows are all initialized to a certain value, therefore all the changes are due to Rowhammer. Results show that up to 150 bit flips happen per minutes with around 150 ns read time. a.iv) Procedure The Rowhammer attack procedure is a combination of three main system primitives: P1. Fast Uncached Memory Access: Enable attackers to activate alternating rows in each bank fast enough to trigger the Rowhammer bug; P2. Physical Memory Massaging: The attacker tricks the victim component into storing security-sensitive data (e.g., a page table) in an attacker-chosen, vulnerable physical memory page. P3. Physical Memory Addressing: To perform double-sided Rowhammer, an attacker needs to repeatedly access specific physical memory pages. Mobile devices have Direct Memory Access (DMA) mechanisms that facilitates the implementation of P1 and P3. In particular, Android devices run ION, a DMA that allows user unprivileged apps to access uncached physically contiguous memory. To enforce P2 the attacker tricks the physical memory allocator built in Linux (buddy allocator) so as to partition the memory in a predictable way. Accurately selecting the dimensions of memory chunks to allocate, memory cells can be exhausted through Phys Feng Shui. Once the position of Page Table Pages (PTPs) and Page Table Entries (PTEs) is indirectly known, double-sided Rowhammer is performed. Once the desired flip triggered, write access is gained to the page table by mapping into the attacker address space. Modifying one of the attacker PTPs, any page in physical memory can be accessed, including kernel memory. b) Microarchitectural attack  ­The evolution of hardware architecture lead to a wide use of cache memories. Having several levels of cache between a CPU and the main memory, helps optimizing the memory access time with respect to the clock frequency. Microarchitectural attacks take advantage of the timing behavior of caches (e.g. execution times, memory accesses) to read into sensitive information. In [6] a comprehensive survey that presents microarchitectural attacks is given. b.i) Principle Microarchitectural attacks are based on different cache exploitations. Among them, three main methods are identified: Prime + Probe: The attacker fills one or more sets of the cache with its own lines. Once the victim has executed, the attacker accesses its previously-loaded lines, to probe if any were evicted showing the victim have modified an address mapping the same set. Flush + Reload: Its the inverse of Prime+Probe where the attacker first flushes a shared line of interest. Once the victim has executed, the attacker then reloads the evicted line by touching it, measuring the time taken. A fast reload indicates that the victim touched this line (reloading it), while a slow reload indicates that it didnt. Evict + Time: The attacker first tricks the victim to run, through the preload of its working set, and establish a baseline execution time. In a second step the attacker then eliminates a line and runs the victim again. The difference in execution time indicates that the analyzed line was accessed. All microarchitectural attacks are a combination of those previously explained principles. Another noteworthy approach is causing Denial of Service (DoS) saturating the lower-level cache bus [7]. .b.ii) Architecture As mentioned before, microarchitectural attacks objective is the cache. Caches are organized into lines. A cache line holds a block of adjacent bytes that are taken from memory. Cache are further organized in levels. Each level has a different size and is carefully selected to balance service time to the next highest (smaller in dimension therefore faster) level. Caches can enforce either Virtual or Physical addressing. In Virtual addressing, L1 cache level stores the index of virtual-to-physical addresses. .b.iii) Instruction Set Architecture The inference process of the internal state of the cache is a key parameter to perform devastating microarchitectural attacks. Analyzing the ISA of a cache can provide an attacker with useful information about the hardware structure. Several different states can be exploited and are briefly summarized here: Thread-shared State: cache stores information that are shared between threads. Accessing them could lead to performance degradation of the involved threads. Core-shared state: Analyzing L1 and L2 cache contention usage between competing threads, it is possible to infer the encryption keys for algorithm used in internal communication (e.g. RSA, AES). Package-shared State: Running a program concurrently in different cores residing in the same package, could lead to the saturation of that packages last-level cache (LLC). The saturation affects all the lower levels, exposing sensitive data. Numa-shared State: Memory controllers memory in multi-core systems are exploited to enforce DoS attacks. .b.iv) Procedure A plethora of attacks are presented in [6], therefore the procedure of the Flush + Reload for Android systems using ARM processors [8] is discussed. The most powerful methods to perform Flush + Reload is to use the Linux System Call clflush. However it is provided by the OS on x86 systems, on mobile devices using ARM this function is not available. A less powerful version of it is clearcache and is used in [8]. When the attack starts, the service component inside the attacker app creates a new thread, which calls into its native component to conduct Flush-Reload operations in the background: Flush: The attacker invokes clearcache to flush a function in the code section of this shared line. Flush-Reload interval: The attacker waits for a fixed time for the victim to execute the function. Reload: The attacker executes the function and measures the time of execution. With a small execution time, the function has been executed (from L2 cache) by some other apps (possibly the victims). In [8] the authors show that this method is capable of detecting hardware events (touchscreen interrupts, credit card scanning) and also tracing software executions paths. c) Rowhammer vs Microarchitectural attack Following the categorization used in [1], both Rowhammer and Microarchitectural attacks are active software attacks that exploits physical properties of the victim device. In particular Rowhammer uses the coupling effect of DRAM cells while Microarchitectural attacks gather sensitive information through the analysis of cache timing. The two attacks act at two different levels: while Rowhammer needs to work fast on an uncached DRAM, Microarchitectural attack objective are cache memories that are usually SRAM. Both of them can be applied to desktop and to mobile OS [4][8], as well as cloud environments. c) Mobile vs Desktop attacks Mobile devices are inherently more vulnerable than Desktop computers. Their portability and close integration with everyday life make them more available to attackers. Moreover, apps are way more easy to install on mobile devices and general carelessness helps hackers in installing malicious software. Also, with respect to desktop computers, mobile phones have several sensors that can be exploited to gather information about users behavior. But from a OS point of view, mobile OS are way more limited than Desktop OS. Specifically, Rowhammer suffers from the limited subset of features available in desktop environments (e.g. no support for huge pages, memory deduplication, MMU paravirtualization). Same limitations happens in Microarchitectural attacks for ARM , where clflush function to perform Flush + Reload is not supported. 2) NAND Mirroring NAND mirroring is categorized in [1] as an active local Side Channel attack that exploits physical properties out of a device chip. In particular, in [13] a NAND mirroring attack is performed on an iPhone 5c. The security of Apple iPhone 5c became an objective of study after FBI recovered such mobile device from a terrorist suspect in December 2015. As FBI was unable to retrieve data, NAND mirroring was suggested by Apple technology specialists as an optimal way to gain unlimited passcode attempts so as to bruteforce it. As the encryption key is not accessible from runtime code and its hardcoded in the CPU, it is impossible to brute-force the Passcode key without the getting at the hardware level. In iPhones such memory is a NAND flash memory. In NAND memories the cells are connected in series which reduces the cell size, but increases the number of faulty cells. For this reason, external error correction strategies are required. To help with that, NAND memory allocates additional sp ace for error correction data. In [13] the authors desoldered the NAND memory and mirrored it on a backup file. Although this method seems promising, several challenges were encountered by the authors, who had to balance some electrical anomalies with additional circuitry and also mechanically plug in a PCB at every attempt of bruteforcing the iPhone code. Such method could be applied to Desktop Computers, but the complexity of NAND memories would be way higher and it may unfeasible, in terms of time and complexity, to perform such attack. Countermeasures Side-channel attacks are discovered and presented to the scientific world on a daily basis and suitable defense mechanisms are often not yet implemented or cannot be simply deployed. Even though countermeasures are being studied, it looks like a race between attackers and system engineers trying to make systems more secure and reliable. 3.a) Rowhammer Attack Countermeasures against Rowhammer have already been thoroughly explored, but not many are actually applicable in the mobile context. Powerful functions as CLFLUSH [9] and pagemap [10] have been disabled for users apps, but Rowhammer can still be performed through JavaScript. Furthermore, analyzing the cache hits and miss could raise a flag of alarm, but methods such as [4] dont cause any miss. Error correcting codes arent even that efficient in correcting bit flips. Most hardware vendors doubled the DRAM refresh rate, but results in [11] show that refresh rate would need to be improved by 8 times. Moreover, the power consumption would increase, making this solution not suitable for mobile devices. In Android devices Rowhammer attacks, the biggest threat is still user apps being able to access ION. Google is developing mechanisms so as to avoid it to happen in a malicious way. One solution could be to isolate ION regions controlled by user apps from kernel memory, in order to avoid ad jacent regions. But even in the absence of ION an attacker could force the buddy allocator to reserve memory in kernel memory zones by occupying all the memory available for users apps. Prevention of memory exhaustion need to be considered to avoid Rowhammer countermeasures workarounds. 3.b) Microarchitectural Attack As the final goal of microarchitectural attack is deciphering cryptographic codes (e.g. AES), a straightforward approach to protect them would be to avoid having tight data-dependencies (e.g sequence of cache line accesses or branches must not depend on data). If they depend on private data, the sequence, the program is destined to leak information through the cache. The constant-time implementation of modular exponentiation approach [12] represents a good way to fight data dependency. These are more general rules to follow, whether to combat specific attacks such as Flush + Reload in mobile devices with ARM [8]. Disabling the system interfaces to flush the instruction caches, the Flush-Reload side channels can be removed entirely from ARM- based devices, but feasibility and security of this method havent been studied yet. Also, by removing system calls to have accurate time from Android could mitigate all timing side channels. Another way to fight Flush + Reload would be by preventing physical memory sharing between apps, but that would cause the memory footprint to expand and therefore exposing the system to other Sidechannel attacks. Problem 2 Protocol Design The proposed solution for Problem 1 is represented in Figure 1. To solve this problem, four moments in which the Path-centric channel assignment algorithm from [14] are identified: : B receives a packet on its Channel 1 and, as an interferer is acting on Channel 1 on node A, B cant transmit. B1 is the active subnode, B2 and B3 are inactive subnodes. : B switches from Channel 1 to Channel 2 (total cost: 3), and forward the packet to A through Channel 2 (total cost: 3+6=9). B2 is the active subnode, B1 and B3 are inactive subnodes. A2 is the active subnode, A1 and A3 are inactive subnodes. : A can either transmit on Channel 2 and Channel 3, but transmitting on Channel 2 is more expensive, so it switches to Channel 3 (total cost: 9+3=12). A3 is the active subnode, A1 and A2 are inactive subnodes; : A send the packet at C through Channel 3 (total cost: 12+2=14). Network Applications In our K-out-of-N system we are interested in understanding how much is a probability of getting errors in sensing from N sensor, where K represent a threshold for accepting a reliable measurement. This reasoning follows the binomial distribution: In our case at each node, errors can be induced by a false measurement (with probability ) or by channel flipping a bit during the over-the-air time (with probability ). Therefore for our N-out-of-K nodes system we have: Assuming that and are independent, the final probability of having an erroneous detection is a linear combination of the two: For completion, the probability of a successful measurement and transmission is . Network Standards Spectrum scarcity is a widely known problem in the world of wireless communications. The explosive wireless traffic growth pushes academia and industry to research novel solutions to this problem. Deploying LTE in unlicensed spectrum brings up the conflict problem of LTE-WiFi coexistence. This conflict can be analyzed with a close look at 802.11 MAC level. In Figure 2, a comparison between WLAN MAC layer and what is casually called MAC in LTE is depicted [19]. WiFi 802.11 uses CSMA/CA to regulate accesses in MAC layer. In CSMA, a node senses the traffic before transmitting over the channel. If a carrier signal is sensed in the channel, the node waits until its free. In particular, in CSMA/CA the backoff time of a node is exponential. In LTE, multiple access is handled through TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) meaning that all accesses to the channel are scheduled. Historically LTE has been developed for environments with little interference, while WiFi combats interference in ISM with CSMA. Using them in the same spectrum would see LTE dominating over WiFi, causing sever performance degradation in both the cases. Several solutions has been proposed and implemented in the past years. Qualcomm [15] and Huawei [16] proposed a separation in time and frequency domain. In [17] a Technology Independent Multiple-Output antenna approach is presented so as to clean interfered 802.11 signals. This method was made more robust in [18] but still they relied on the fact that at least one signal from the two technologies had a clear reference. Traffic demands analysis could help mitigate the performance drop due to interference, but even with an accurate demand estimation, only one can be active at a certain time and frequency, limiting the overall throughput. When interference is high, packet transmission is corrupted and error correction strategies are needed. In WiFi, standard Forward Error Correction (FEC) is used. In FEC, a redundancy is added to the transmitted packet, so as a receiver can detect and eventually correct the wrong received bits. On the other hand, LTE uses HARQ (Hybrid-Automated Repeat reQuest) which is a combination of FEC and ARQ. In the standard implementation of ARQ, redundancy bits are embedded in the packets for error detection. When a corrupted packet is received, the receiver request a new packet to the transmitter. In HARQ, FEC codes are encoded in the packet, so as the receiver can directly correct wrong bits, when a known subset of errors is detected. If an uncorrectable error happens, the ARQ method is used to request a new packet. Hybrid ARQ performs better than ARQ in low signal conditions, but leads to an unfavorable throughput when the signal is good. To better see this interference behavior, a small simulation has been performed using ns3, in particular the LAA-WiFi-coexistence library [20]. The scenario was built using two cells whose radio coverage overlaps. The technologies used are LTE Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) operating on EARFCN 255444 (5.180 GHz), and Wi-Fi 802.11n operating on channel 36 (5.180 GHz). Two base station positioned at 20 mt distance from another, and they both have one user connected to them at a distance of 10 mt. Both BS are connected to a backhaul client node that originates UDP in the downlink direction from client to UE(s). In Figure 3(a) and Figure 3(b), we see how the throughput and the number of packets received by the WiFi BS varies when the two BSs coverage area overlaps and when they are isolated (e.g. their distance is 10 Km). Other scenarios were tested: Figure 4 (a) represent the scenario of two WiFi BSs and Figure 4(b) two LTE BSs. It is possible to see the behavior of the two technologies . Table 1 Throughput A Throughput B Packet loss A Packet loss B Distant BSs Figure 3(a) 73.78 Mbps 77.55 Mbps 4.6% 0% Interfering BSs Figure 3(b) 73.62 Mbps 4.95 Mbps 4.8% 93% Two WiFi BSsFigure 4(a) 53.45 Mbps 54.41 Mbps 27% 25% Two LTE BSsFigure 4 (b) 30.88 Mbps 30.4 Mbps 60% 61% In Figure 4(a) we can see how the channel is split between the two BSs and the Carrier Sensing Multiple Access keeps a high throughput and a low packet loss. In Figure 4(b) we can see how the interference between the two LTE cells affects the throughput and gives a high packetloss. In Table 1 results from simulations are summarized. References [1] R. Spreitzer, V. Moonsamy, T. Korak, S. Mangard. Systematic Classification of Side-Channel Attacks on Mobile Devices ArXiv2016 [2] K. Razavi, B. Gras, E. Bosman, B. Preneel, C. Giurida, and H. Bos. Flip Feng Shui: Hammering a Needle in the Software Stack. In Proceedings of the 25th USENIX Security Symposium, 2016. [3] D. Gruss, C. Maurice, and S. Mangard. Rowhammer.js: A Remote Software-Induced Fault Attack in JavaScript. In Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), 2016. [4] V. van der Veen, Y. Fratantonio, M. Lindorfer, D. Gruss, C. Maurice, G. Vigna, H. Bos, K. Razavi, and C. Giuffrida, Drammer: Deterministic Rowhammer Attacks on Mobile Platforms, in Conference on Computer and Communications Security CCS 2016. ACM, 2016, pp. 1675-1689. [5] Z. B. Aweke, S. F. Yitbarek, R. Qiao, R. Das, M. Hicks, Y. Oren, and T. Austin. ANVIL: Software-Based Protection Against Next-Generation Rowhammer Attacks. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS), 2016. [6] Ge, Q., Yarom, Y., Cock, D., Heiser, G. (2016).A survey of microarchitectural timing attacks and countermeasures on contemporary hardware. Journal of Cryptographic Engineering [7] Dong HyukWoo and Hsien-Hsin S. Lee. Analyzing performance vulnerability due to resource denial of service attack on chip multiprocessors. In Workshop on Chip Multiprocessor Memory Systems and Interconnects, Phoenix, AZ, US, 2007. [8] X. Zhang, Y. Xiao, and Y. Zhang, Return-Oriented Flush-Reload Side Channels on ARM and Their Implications for Android Devices in Conference on Computer and Communications Security CCS 2016. ACM, 2016, pp. 858-870. [9] M. Seaborn and T. Dullien. Exploiting the DRAM Rowhammer Bug to Gain Kernel Privileges. In Black Hat USA (BH-US), 2015. [10] M. Salyzyn. AOSP Commit 0549ddb9: UPSTREAM: pagemap: do not leak physical addresses to non-privileged userspace. http://goo.gl/Qye2MN,November 2015. [11] Y. Kim, R. Daly, J. Kim, C. Fallin, J. H. Lee, D. Lee, C. Wilkerson, K. Lai, and O. Mutlu. Flipping Bits in Memory Without Accessing Them: An Experimental Study of DRAM Disturbance Errors. In Proceedings of the 41st International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA), 2014. [12] Ernie Brickell. Technologies to improve platform security. Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems11 Invited Talk, September 2011. [13] S. Skorobogatov, The Bumpy Road Towards iPhone 5c NAND Mirroring, arXiv ePrint Archive, Report 1609.04327, 2016. [14] Xin, Chunsheng, Liangping Ma, and Chien-Chung Shen. A path-centric channel assignment framework for cognitive radio wireless networks Mobile Networks and Applications 13.5 (2008): 463-476. [15] Qualcomm wants LTE deployed in unlicensed spectrum. http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/qualcomm-wants-lte-deployed-unlicen% sed-spectrum/2013-11-21 [16] Huawei U-LTE solution creates new market opportunities for mobile operators. http://www.huawei.com/ilink/en/about-huawei/newsroom/ press-release/HW 3%27768. [17] S. Gollakota, F. Adib, D. Katabi, and S. Seshan. Clearing the RF smog: making 802.11 robust to cross-technology interference. In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM, 2011. [18] Y. Yubo, Y. Panlong, L. Xiangyang, T. Yue, Z. Lan, and Y. Lizhao. ZIMO: building cross-technology MIMO to harmonize Zigbee smog with WiFi flash without intervention. In Proc. of MobiCom, 2013. [19] Long-Term Evolution Protocol: How the Standard Impacts Media Access Control Tim Godfrey WMSG Advanced Technology, http://www.nxp.com/files-static/training_presentation/TP_LTE_PHY_MAC.pdf [20] https://www.nsnam.org/wiki/LAA-WiFi-Coexistence

Fetal Brain Tissue Transplantation in Parkinsons Disease Patients Essa

Fetal Brain Tissue Transplantation in Parkinson's Disease Patients Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder characterized initially by muscular rigidity and slowing of voluntary movements (1). Ultimately, the characteristics are tremor, mask-like faces, decreased spontaneous blinking, flexion posture and sometimes cognitive impairment. The neuropathology of Parkinson's disease generally involves loss of cell bodies in all melanin-containing brain regions and invariably a loss of substantia nigra dopamine-containing neurons (DA). The principal target for dopaminergic neurons located in the substantia nigra is the striatum and the loss of dopaminergic tone in the striatum is thought to produce most of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Since Parkinson's disease is a dopamine deficiency, treatment with L-Dopa, the precursor of dopamine, was successful in treating Parkinson's patients (1). However, these patients taking L-Dopa often develop side effects and in about 50% of the patients, the drug effectiveness is lost. As an alternative to drug therapy, the possibility of grafting dopamine-containing tissue into the brains was proposed. From the proposal, there have been a vast amount of experiments to test transplantation effectiveness. Work in amphibians and fish were the first to demonstrate the possibilities for neuronal replacement after damage in the central nervous system (2). In these species, especially in the visual system, grafted neurons were substituted both structurally and functionally for damaged axonal connections, and afferent and efferent connections were established with a high degree of specificity between the grafted neurons and the host. Evidence in adult sub-mammalian vertebrates has shown c... ...a, S., Brundin, P. and Gustavii, B., 1989, Human fetal dopamine neurons grafted into the striatum in two patients with severe Parkinson's disease. A detailed account of methodology and a 6-month follow-up. Archives of Neurology 46: 615-631. 6. Freed, C.R., Breeze, R.E., Rosenberg, N.L. and Schneck, S.A., 1990, Transplantation of human fetal dopamine cells for Parkinson's disease. Results at 1 year. 47: 505-512. 7. Jankovic, J., Grossman, R., Goodman, C. and Pirozzolo, F., 1989, Clinical, biochemical and neuropathologic findings following transplantation of adrenal medulla to the caudate nucleus for treatment of Parkinson's disease. Neurology 39: 1227-1234. 8. Allen G.S., Burns, R.S., Tulipan, N.B. and Parker, R.A., 1989, Adrenal medullary transplantation to the caudate nucleus in Parkinson's disease. Initial clinical results in 18 patients. 46: 487-491.

Occupy Wall Street Movement Essays -- Political Science

Occupy Wall Street Movement If heavy student loan debt , soaring tuition fee, climbing taxes, plummeting financial aid, nose-diving employment opportunities, exacerbating inequality between common people and wealthy class, are some of the issues that infuriate you and lead you to blame government’s generous bailing out failed banks and other financial institutions then you cannot not know about Occupy Wall Street(OWS) movement. List all information you know about your subject Occupy Wall Street is one of the top 10 US protest movements inspired by popular revolts against authority in Egypt and Tunisia which finally led to toppling of their respective presidents. It began on 17th September 2011 in liberty square in Manhattan’s Financial District (occypywallst.org). As per Special news in Times Of India, OWS was initiated by Canadian Activist group, Adbusters. So far, this movement has spread over across 1500 cities globally and around 100 cities in US. According to Drake Benett, David Graeber is an anthropologist, who played a key role in transforming a small rally into global protest movement, this movement is in response to the common people’s frustrations and resentments with two important issues. The first issue is the influence of the corporates on government decision making system. The second issue is the way government treated debt issues of financial industry as opposed to individual borrowers as a consequence of financial crisis i n 2008.(Benett,†David Graeber-the Anti Leader of Occupy Wall Street, Oct,20011) According to the protesters, current dismal economic situation is a result of government bailing out the insolvent brokerage firms, banks and corporation in 2008. OWS has adopted the slogan; we are 99%. Paul... ...e a leader who is sensitive to issues and sensible enough to direct the movement to achieving its targeted goals and making us realize the dream of living in the utopian world! Works Cited Bennet, Drake. â€Å"David Graeber-The Anti-Leader Occupy Wall Street.† Business week. Bloomberg L.P, 26 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Brenac, Sacha. â€Å"The Failures of Occupy Wall Street.† The Bullet. The Bullet, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Gray, Heather. â€Å"Occupy Wall Street vs Kingian Methods.† Positive Peace Warrior Network. N.p., 4 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Krugman, Paul. â€Å"We Are the 99%.† New York Times. The New Yorks Time Co, 24 Nov. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. â€Å"99% vs 1%.† Times Of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Solomomn, Daniel. â€Å"Occupy Wall Street’s Failed Revolution.† PolicyMic. Mic Networks Inc., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

From Cain and Abel to Serial Killers Essay -- Exploratory Essays Resea

From Cain and Abel to Serial Killers      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Mark Allen Smith, Richard Chase, Ted Bundy-the list goes on and on. These five men alone have been responsible for at least ninety deaths, and many suspect that their victims may total twice that number. They are serial killers, the most feared and hated of criminals. What deep, hidden secret makes them lust for blood? What can possibly motivate a person to kill over and over again with no guilt, no remorse, no hint of human compassion? What makes a serial killer?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Serial killings are not a new phenomenon. In 1798, for example, Micajah and Wiley Harpe traveled the backwoods of Kentucky and Tennessee in a violent, year-long killing spree that left at least twenty-and possibly as many as thirty-eight-men, women, and children dead. Their crimes were especially chilling as they seemed particularly to enjoy grabbing small children by the ankles and smashing their heads against trees (Holmes and DeBurger 28). In modern society, however, serial killings have grown to near epidemic proportions. Ann Rule, a respected author and expert on serial murders, stated in a seminar on serial murder at the University of Louisville that between 3,500 and 5,000 people become victims of serial murder each year in the United States alone (qtd. in Holmes and DeBurger 21). Many others estimate that there are close to 350 serial killers currently at large in our society (Holmes and DeBurger 22).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fascination with murder and murderers is not new, but researchers in recent years have made great strides in determining the characteristics of criminals. Looking back, we can see how naà ¯ve early experts were in their evaluations; in 1911, for example, Italian crimin... ...words of Ted Bundy, one of the most ruthless serial killers of our time: "Most serial killers are people who kill for the pure pleasure of killing and cannot be rehabilitated. Some of the killers themselves would even say so" (qtd. in Holmes and Deburger 150). Works Cited Biondi, Ray, and Walt Hecox. The Dracula Killer. New York: Simon, 1992. Davis, Ron. The Milwaukee Murders. New York: St. Martin's, 1991. Holmes, Ronald M., and James DeBurger. Serial Murder. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988. Lunde, Donald T. Murder and Madness. San Francisco: San Francisco Book, 1976. Markman, Ronald, and Dominick Bosco. Alone with the Devil. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Ressler, Robert K., Ann W. Burgess, and John E. Douglas. Sexual Homicide - Patterns and Motives. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1988. Taylor, Lawrence. Born to Crime. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984.

Secrets – Creative Writing

Bill locked the last bolt on the door. â€Å"Another day finished† Bill said with a sigh. â€Å"I'll just finish putting these in the back room†. Sue heaved the last box into the storeroom and dropped it on the floor. She took the pencil out of her mouth and started marking of the boxes on the clipboard. â€Å"Nine..Ten..Ele†¦What the hell!!† She slowly stepped towards the strange object and as she approached it she began to realize what it was. â€Å"BILLLLLLLLL† she screamed. A figure appeared in the doorframe, when Sue turned around she was shocked to see him smirking. † I see you've found my little, how would you put†¦surprise† Sues mouth dropped open. â€Å"But, what, how, who is it?† Sue stammered. â€Å"Just someone that needed, taken care of. Now we're not going to tell anyone are we? We wouldn't like that to be you, would we?† he replied with a nod. Sue was rooted to the spot. She could feel her body shivering with fear. She felt like she had been standing there for hours. When reality finally hit her she let out a huge scream and ran for her life. â€Å"She won't get far† Bill said to himself with a menacing laugh. Sue ran along the cold, wet streets of Lairg, tears streaming down her face. She was distraught; she didn't know where she was going all she knew was that it wasn't home. How could she go home in this state her father was sure to notice and as thousands of questions. She couldn't cope with it, not after what she'd seen. Images kept flickering through her head, of Bills evil face and the arm. She was traumatized. Throwing herself down onto the wet steps of Spar. She couldn't think straight no matter how much she tried her mind was full of worries and images. How could she go on, knowing about that poor person Bill had supposedly â€Å"taken care of†, knowing about the kind of person Bill really is. Bill watched as the young girl slowly mounted the emergency steps to the roof of Spar. He grinned as he saw a tearful face appear at the edge of the roof. After muttering a few silent words the girl flung herself of the roof. Bill stood up and looked around for any witness'. Nobody was around. He grabbed the girls' hair and dragged her behind Spar. â€Å"I didn't even touch her† he muttered into his mobile, â€Å"I'm at Spar come and pick me up†¦and her† â€Å"So please anyone that has any information about the disappearance of Sue Macbeath contact us the number is 084† the police officers plea was cut short as Bill turned his television off. He spooned the last of his corn flakes into his mouth and dropped the plate into the sink. The familiar sound of a bell ringing on the shop door alarmed Bill, as he was busy in the storeroom. Well, he thought with some annoyance, Sue will just have to wait for now. He briskly left the storeroom, closing the door tightly behind him. He looked all around, nobody to be seen. Just as he was about to turn around and go back into the room he heard a radio crackle. â€Å"No sign of anyone here. Over.† A deep, manly voice said. Bill spun round and was greeted by an overweight, red-faced policeman. â€Å"Well, Hello young man† said the jolly policeman patting Bill on the back. Bill gave a weak smile. â€Å"Can I help you officer?† he said. â€Å"Well, as you may have already a young lass b the name of Sue Mcbeath has gone missing† he said without much effort. Bill felt like he was reciting a well-rehearsed speech. â€Å"Anyway, to get to the point† he added. † We believe that she was a colleague and a friend of yours†. â€Å"Yes† Bill gave a fake sigh. † A very good friend of min. Last time I saw her was yesterday evening, around five to six. I told her she could go early and that I would lock up.† â€Å"Did she say where she was going?† â€Å"No officer. I just presumed she would be going home like usual.† â€Å"Was she acting at all strangely?† â€Å"No officer. Just being her usual cheery self.† Bill told the officer as he wrote notes down on his note-pad. â€Å"Well son. I reckon I'll be back, but for now, don't give up hope eh? We'll find her† he said comfortingly, chucking Bills chin. â€Å"Thanks you officer. I'll be sure to give you a call if I think of anything else† And with that the officer left. Bill tapped a number into his mobile. â€Å"Darren?† he said â€Å"I've just has that police in here. I think you'd better come over.† The whole of Lairg was on a hunt for Sue Macbeath. There were new conferences on the television and reports on the radio. The plea that chocked Bill the most was the one from Sues stepfather. â€Å"She was a bright, cheery, joyful girl who had her whole life ahead of her† her teary eyed stepfather said. â€Å"Please whoever knows where she is or even thinks they know where she could be just contact us. We just want our little girl back. Thank you† It was one week on and Bill was getting ready too lock up. After spraying half a can of air freshener in the storeroom, he covered the body with boxes of crisps and sweets. It was starting to decay and Bill was dick with worry. He just didn't no where to dispose of the body. A chap on the door disturbed Bill from his thought. Standing outside the door were several policemen and Sues stepfather Darren. Bill and Darren exchanged worried glances. â€Å"Officer, I really don't think this is necessary† Bill could hear Darren say. â€Å"She phoned to say she was leaving.† Bill opened the door and the policemen swept past him. The fat, red-faced policeman didn't look so happy this time. Without even glancing at Bill he produced and important looking piece of paper. â€Å"We're here to search this building. We have a warrant.† Pointing to different officers he directed them to different parts of the shop. â€Å"And me, I'll check here† he said nodding his head towards the storeroom. Bill and Darren followed him. â€Å"Where's the light in here† â€Å"Well actually officer† Bill said pointing to he roof â€Å"The bulbs burst† â€Å"No worries, I'll use my torch.† He shone his torch all over the room kicking empty boxes out of his way. As he got nearer and nearer the body Bill held his breath. Just as he was about to reach it, he turned around. â€Å"No, nothing here.† It was the same from every officer. Darren burst into tears. â€Å"We'll ever find her† Darren cried through great big sobs. â€Å"Don't worry son, this was only a quick scan. The shop will be cornered off and we'll have snuffer dogs in by tonight. The officers were about to leave. Darren was still in tears. â€Å"Uhmm officer† Bill Said † I was just about to get my break so I could make Mr.Mcbeath a cup of tea or coffee if that's ok† â€Å"What would you like to do Mr Macbeath?† asked the policeman â€Å"A cup of tea would be great. I'll call my wife and she'll pick me up.† Darren sniffed. â€Å"We shall phone this evening Mr Mcbeath with more information† the policeman called as he left the shop. As the sound of the police van leaving got more distant Darren looked up at Bill with a grin. â€Å"Wow!! That was a close one! Now, what were you saying about the quarry for the body?† Darren said