Germany 1789-1900 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Germany 1789-1900 - Research Paper Example Despite the endowment, a rift between the high class and lower class prevailed leading to divergence, apparent contradiction, and violent collision of thoughts. The contest for recognition and right of control promulgated a series of unconnected struggles hence the birth of movements including the German confederation. The paper is a discussion on the different revolutionary and independence movements from 1789 to 1900 In the mid nineteenth century, cultural, social and economic tensions rose between Germany and other parts of Europe. The shear problems had reached a crisis stage and each section was looking for backdoor solutions that favour their interest. Undeniably, political reality was fast becoming unavoidable; however, the industrial revolution worsened the situation (Meuschel 21). The industrial revolution brought a series of signs, as the democratic changes threatened the survival of existing government, a factor that needed further scrutiny. Several democratic principles including independence of the judiciary, press freedom and representation in the legislature was fast becoming a problem (GÃ ¶rner 61). With the promises coming and going an acceleration of liberal movements gained stage. From January-February 1848, a revolt in Paris led to overturn of King Louis Philip, a situation that triggered Germany to explode. It began with an uprising from peasant revolts in the Baden and Bavar ia. Notably, the wavelike revolution spread down to Rhine land and ultimately to military head of Prussia (Berlin). At this point, it started becoming a problem putting pressure on the ruling government. Being so strong, many monarchs agreed to installation of basic democratic requirements (Peterson 46). In response, the intellectual fathers and leaders of the revolution met in Heidelberg, to ensure fruits from the revolution land in the right hands. A follow-up meeting in Frankfurt led to

tradition and modernity Essay Example for Free

tradition and modernity Essay We are used to thinking of traditions as something old and stable, whereas the creative forces of people are directed towards the making of â€Å"new† forms of art and music. Nevertheless in our view, and according to our experience, new forms should not be sought in a cultural vacuum, without any connection to the past experiences of people and societies. Similarly, the â€Å"old† musics should not be approached with the attitude of preserving or mimicking other people’s practices. We believe that the past is important because in the great musics that were created we can sense a reBlection of the creators’ spiritual insights and wider understandings of the nature of man and his place in the world. The passing on of this intuitive knowledge, through the practice of music, the sharing of experiences, the process of studying and teaching not as something that happens only within the school walls, but as part of everyday life, is what animates Neda not only to create, but also to teach their music and perform it in live concerts. Neda is a river in Peloponnese and one of the few rivers in Greece with a female name. In the Greek mythology Neda was the nymph who took care of Zeus when he was taken away from his father, who wanted to slaughter him. The water and the river are ancient symbols, signifying strength and endurance, but also adaptability and continuous Blow. Hence the signiBicance of Neda for the musicians, which carries the power of the female element of water to embrace difference; as it connects and naturally renews all things, it links past and future times into the present moment – where all sounds exist and all music is created.

Metaphor, Sociobiology, and Nature vs. Nurture: The Biological Battle o

Metaphor, Sociobiology, and Nature vs. Nurture: The Biological Battle of the Century Ladies and Gentlemen! I am proud to present one of the biggest and longest-running biological battles of the century! Tonight we recap the surprising nature vs. nurture fight. The following pages will explain the highlights, but if you want to learn about this war in its entirety, you’ll find the blow-by-blow account available to the public in Connie Barlow’s collection, From Gaia to Selfish Genes, in a chapter entitled "Nature, Nurture, and Sociobiology." What began this brawl of the biologists? Was it a woman? No. Was it a war? No. It was a metaphor. And the metaphor states that society is an organism. This metaphor believes that individuals in a society work together in order to function like an organism. But this isn’t the dispute—the real fight lies within the question, How is this organism organized? In other words, do we inherently possess the knowledge to function like an organism or are we taught this skill? Here come the returning champs now! In the Blue Corner—The Returning Champs: The Anti-Sociobiologists Weighing in with a professor from Harvard, a chair of neurobiology from the Open University, and a chair of psychology from Northwestern University, the anti-sociobiologists defend the idea that genes and environment work together, much like a dance, in which the individual is taught social behavior. In an excerpt from their book, Not in Our Genes, theorists Richard Lewontin from Harvard, Steven Rose from the Open University, and Leon Kamin from Northeastern University propose, as the title suggests, that social behavior is not genetic. Rather, it is taught or influenced by an individual’s surrounding environment... ...as hard, scientific evidence, both are lacking. For example, the sociobiologists cannot prove that altruism is a gene, yet the anti-sociobiologists cannot prove otherwise. Thus, the both the sociobiologists and the anti-sociobiologists attempt to answer how an organism is organized with theory—and neither have produced a hypothesis that is agreed upon by a consensus. Yet both positions assume that the metaphor that society is an organism is a commonly accepted idea. Robert Wright reflects my skepticism perfectly when he warns, "this blurring of the line between society and organism is a delicate matter" (150). It appears that, at least for the time being, both sides are going to have to agree to disagree. Work Cited Barlow, Connie, ed. From Gaia to Selfish Genes: Selected Writings in the Life Sciences. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT University Press, 1991.

Moving to United States

Moving to United States The most memorable event in my life was when we moved out from Russia to a country that changes lives and is known as a dream land called the United States of America. When we sat on the airplane that was going toward the United States in August of 2004, we knew our lives are going to be changed in the way we always wanted them to. After twelve years of not going to school and being discriminated by Russian citizens, this moving to a new country was the most amazing, not just in my life generally, but for my entire family as well.The war started in Kabul, Afghanistan in July of 1994; moving to Russia was the only choice for my family to be safe even though we knew we would face a lot of difficulties. I was only four years old when my father and my mother took me the youngest in the family at that time, three of my brothers, and two of my sisters to Moscow, Russia. On our way to the train that was going toward Russia, we lost my fourteen year old brother.This a ccident almost stopped us from moving out from the country, but my father made the right choice either to look for his lost son or lose all of us, so we had to move on. When we finally arrived to Moscow, Russia in August of 1994, we did not have any money or a place to stay. My father remembered that he had a friend who had been living in Russia for twenty years already; maybe he could help us out for now to find a place to stay. He called him within three hours of our presence to Moscow and asked him if he could come and help us out.After an hour, he arrived, and he took us to his house and he was very happy of meeting my father after twenty years. We stayed at his house for three months. Four months later my father borrowed some money from his friend, and we opened our small business where we were selling leather jackets just to make some kind of money to eat and pay the rent. Nine months later, my father tried to take us to school, but they did not accept us because we did not ha ve any documentation that would allow us to go to school because we were illegal in the country.It was very hard and difficult for our father to see us not going to school and not getting the education that we needed for our futures; we even barely could go outside because of the citizens of that country would discriminate you and judge you by your skin color. One day my father went to the immigration center in Moscow and asked them if we could apply for citizenship or some kind of documentation that would allow his children to go to school. The Russian immigration center denied the request at the time because of some private reason that they did not want to tell my father.Five years passed and we still could not go to public schools or be legal in the country. My father tried it again and the Russian immigration center gives us the documentation that would allow us to live in the country but it did not allow us to go to school. Then one morning my older brother talked to my father, and he claimed that he does not want to live in Russia anymore without education and that he wants to move to Holland with his friends. My father was very upset and at the same time lost that he is right for how long are we going to be living like this.After three years of my brothers moving to Holland, my father decides to move to Sweden because that was the only country at that time that would accept immigrants and give them the right documentation to live in the country. It was very difficult for him to leave us in the country where the danger was around us every day, but he knew he must do something for his children to be able to go to school and live like the normal children do. In August of 1999 he arrived in Sweden, and the Swedish immigration center gave him temporary documentation to live in the country legally until they decide if he is eligible for citizenship.Very excited and happy our father called us and told us that he got the documentation to be legal in the country of Sweden. When we heard that, we thought we going to move to Sweden very soon and that we going to be together, but the Swedish immigration center asked us to wait a couple of years then we might move in. We waited two years and nothing happened, our father was very sad and confused about what he could do now. At the same time, he knew there was nothing he could do; it was all up to the immigration center of Sweden to decide our future.Then one day, it was our Holliday called Eid, my mother had her friend with her children over at our house to have a dinner with us, and she told her that they are about to move to United States the next month. My mother was very happy and excited for her friend and asked her how she did it. My mother told her that my fathers had been in Sweden for five years now and still nothing was happening. My mother’s friend told her she needed to apply at the United States immigration center that was located in Moscow and try to see if we would get acc epted.Then the next day January of 2004 my mother and I went to the United States immigration center, and we applied for the permanent residence ship to any state. After two months, we received a call from the United States immigration center that we are scheduled for an interview; we all were very excited and happy that we might move to United States, to a country that is known as the dream land and freedom. When we give our interview the person who was interviewing us asked us why we wanted to go to the United States.The answer was very simple to all of my family; it was education, freedom from being discriminated because of your skin color, and just to live in peace. After our interview, he told us, â€Å"I will see you guys in America† That moment was one of the best moments in my live and I do not think I could ever forget it. We all cried, and he told us it will take three months for them to do our paper work. When we received our plane tickets to New York, we were amaz ed and very excited about moving to a country where we never imagined moving in to. It was Sunday morning when we arrived in New York City International Airport.It was very hard for us to believe that this was really happening to us we were in America, a place where no one hates you, a place where they will allow you to go to school, and you can be who you are. Our lives changed after arriving in San Diego California, good things started to happen in with us. When we arrived here, there was a very kind gentleman at the airport who met us. He introduced himself as our case worker. We did not know what a case worker really meant, but what we did know that he was the only person who could help us.That very kind gentleman who was our case worker took us to school and got us an apartment. Two years later we found our brother after thirteen years who got lost at the time of our moving from Afghanistan. People have been saying that the United States of America can change people’s li ves, and they were right. It changed our lives, and it is a great country where everything is possible if you try. My entire family and I always had hope in our hearts; we knew nothing can be done if you do not try and if you do not have hope for a better future.

The Cockroach

The poem â€Å"The cockroach†, written by Kevin Halligan, is a meaningful and interesting poem. As a Buddhist convert, the poet has use the journey of the cockroach to describe many aspects of human life. Initially, Halligan presents human life as joyful and excited in the childhood . A good illustration of this when Halligan uses the phrases â€Å"skirting a ball of dust†, â€Å"satisfied† and â€Å"start to pace† to present it. As we all know, the cockroach represent humanity and his journey is an extended metaphor for human life.So from that point of view, we should understand that when the cockroach â€Å"start to pace† is when the human life starts. In childhood, we can have fun by do meaningless things with no specific goal just like the cockroach â€Å"skirt [‘s] a ball of dust† and â€Å"satisfy† with that game. Children have their parental protection and they have nothing to worry about. Life was so easy, innocent and re laxed at that period of life. For the rest of the poem – which also represents the rest of the life time – we cannot see other words that use to describe the positive feelings of the cockroach.So maybe for Halligan, childhood was the most unaware stage of the entire human life. And through the poem, the readers can feel that this stage was short-lived. Secondly, Halligan shows that after childhood, life only remain with many dramas and tough decision. For example, the poet describe that on the cockroach’s journey, he â€Å"jog [‘s] in crooked ring†, and â€Å"scratch his wings† as he’s a â€Å"victim of a mild attack†. This show that sometimes in their life, humans lose their goal, lost their direction or met a drama that they don’t know what to do next but â€Å"circling the rusty table† – just like the cockroach.And a result of the loss of direction, the cockroach â€Å"scratch [‘es] his wings†, this is similar with how drama leave us with a bad mental health. Yet in life, we have to face a lot of drama and different kind of it. We can have drama like broken heart, the loss of a relative, failure in career†¦ Day after day, we cannot get rid of the depression it cause and the â€Å"restlessness that worsened over time†. Life after childhood continues but with more problems, and we cannot go through it easily . Human can get lost and they cannot get out of their own dramas . The persona now portrays human life as difficult and full of crises.

industrialisation in russia essays

industrialisation in russia essays There was a great deal of tension between the Russian people and the autocracy during the early 20th century, which was brought about by the poor leadership by the autocracy. The way the country was beining run was out dated and unprogressive, so as the rest of Europe was growing as a result of the industrial revolution Russia was being left behind. Russia was struggling to keep up mainly because the economy was quickly modernising and the autocratic political system was holding it back. Because of all the social and economic changes it was necessary for the political system to change, but the Tsar - who was still held up his views that he held the divine right to rule and his abilities were without flaw - would not listen to the cries of the people no matter how loud, he would simply send out the armies to scilence the people. This continued untill 1905 where things got so bad that somthing had to change. Russia's demise was mostly brought about by the Ineptness of Tsar Nicholas II and his belief in the dying political system of autocrecy. Autocrecy is a form of absoultism, the head of the autocratic system has absolute political power over everyone. Furthermore the leader of the autocracy had a religious dimension attached to attached to them, they were the head of the Curch as well as the chief government power, and thus rule by divine right, which made many of the god fearing peasents too afraid to rebell. Nicholas was also a very stubborn, weak-willed leader, this stubbornness, paired with his delusional belief that he was appointed by god (as all Tsars are), was all it took to halt any progress of change in Russia, because any changes would provide a possible oppoonient to Tsarist power.From these facts it is obvious that that Nicholas was the wrong person for the task of leading Russia through this time of great change, and autocracy's misleading and dangerious allure enhanced the Tsar's inability by allowing him to think that...

4 Tips for Landing a Pharmacy Technician Job

4 Tips for Landing a Pharmacy Technician Job The job hunting experts over at CareerStep.com have four basic tips for aspiring pharmacy technicians that should help you prepare for your ideal career, whether you’re finding your first job or preparing for a career change. Complete an externshipBuild your network and your resume and gain practical experience by completing a pharmacy externship or internship at a hospital or pharmacy. Some companies allow you to shadow experienced technicians to learn on-the-job skills; other online schools feature externships as a routine part of the course. Do your research and find out if there are opportunities available for you.NetworkThis is always included so casually in lists of job hunting tips as though it’s not the most intimidating  part of the whole process. So start small- develop an elevator pitch to use on friends and family who ask what you’re up to or what kinds of jobs you’ll be looking for when you graduate. Don’t stammer and change the subje ct- be ready to talk about the kind of pharmacy (hospital, retail, private, institutional) you’re hoping to work in. You never know when someone will know someone who will know someone who can give you an inside track.Then build on your newfound poise to talk to classmates, colleagues at your internship/externship, career center resources, and even LinkedIn contacts. Go to a mixer occasionally, and make contact/business cards to help people keep you in mind.Rework your resumeI say this all the time, but I really do have 6 different working versions of my resume, and it’s served me well. If you’re not sure what kind of pharmacy you want to work in, develop one for each track. Talk to your instructors about the demands of each particular setting.Retail experience should be showcased for retail pharmacies, obviously, but think about what a hospital most needs from its pharmacists: responsibility? professionalism in stressful situations? attention to detail? What ab out an institution like a residential or correctional facility? Polish the content for each prospective audience. Then take a look at the physical layout. Is it crowded? easy to read? concise? Do you have relevant accomplishments highlighted?Advertise onlineThe hard thing to balance about online presence is the mix of being â€Å"present† and being â€Å"professional.† Make sure your newly perfected resume is available on industry sites recommended by your career center counselors or professors. Check the privacy settings on all your social media, and strive to be the kind of pharmacy tech you would want to have handling your prescription in all your interactions online!

How Social Security Numbers Are Assigned

How Social Security Numbers Are Assigned The nine-digit Social Security Number (SSN) is composed of three parts: The first set of three digits is called the Area NumberThe second set of two digits is called the Group NumberThe final set of four digits is the Serial Number Area Number The Area Number is assigned by the geographical region. Prior to 1972, cards were issued in local Social Security offices around the country and the Area Number represented the State in which the card was issued. This did not necessarily have to be the State where the applicant lived since a person could apply for their card in any Social Security office. Since 1972, when SSA began assigning SSNs and issuing cards centrally from Baltimore, the area number assigned has been based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the application. The applicants mailing address does not have to be the same place as their residence. Thus, the Area Number does not necessarily represent the State of residence of the applicant, either prior to 1972 or since. Generally, numbers were assigned beginning in the northeast and moving westward. So people on the east coast have the lowest numbers and those on the west coast have the highest numbers. Group Number Within each area, the group numbers (middle two digits) range from 01 to 99 but are not assigned in consecutive order. For administrative reasons, group numbers issued first consist of the ODD numbers from 01 through 09 and then EVEN numbers from 10 through 98, within each area number allocated to a State. After all numbers in group 98 of a particular area have been issued, the EVEN Groups 02 through 08 are used, followed by ODD Groups 11 through 99. These numbers do not really provide any clues for genealogy purposes. Group numbers are assigned as follows: First: ODD - 01, 03, 05, 07, 09Second: EVEN - 10 to 98Third: EVEN - 02, 04, 06, 08Fourth: ODD - 11 to 99 Serial Number Within each group, the serial numbers (last four (4) digits) run consecutively from 0001 through 9999. These also have no bearing on genealogy research.

How does the oil play a big role in Kuwait economy Essay

How does the oil play a big role in Kuwait economy - Essay Example Kuwait has beautiful sandy beaches along the turquoise blue Gulf. In the southwest of the country, the landscape rises to a maximum elevation of 306 meters (1,004 feet). Islam is the predominant religion of Kuwait. Most of the Kuwaitis are Muslims are generally very conservative and governed by traditions and practices from very long ago. The Kuwaiti society is very family oriented. Kuwaiti families are usually quite large, and many different families are interconnected and related to one another through ancestry and marriage. For a country of such small size, Kuwait boasts a very broad and rich culture, containing a particular heritage and encompassing certain trends whose roots are embedded in the cultural traditions of antiquity. Kuwait holds a strong tie to its past, and the government takes pride in its assistance in the retaining of historical artifacts and antiques, as well as in the preservation of the arts and modern cultural endeavors. The official language of Kuwait is Arabic. All members of the government are required to have a working knowledge of Arabic in order to be eligible for the post. English is also widely spoken and is the country's official second language. Kuwait's government plays a dominant role in the country's economy. The government employs 92 percent of the population. Kuwait was the first Arab country in the Gulf to have an elected parliament. Moves to change the male-dominated political structure culminated in the granting of full political rights to women in 2005. Kuwait's most pressing environmental challenge is its limited water resources. In this regard, Kuwait has developed some of world's largest and most sophisticated desalination facilities, which now provide much of Kuwait's water. History of oil in Kuwait. Until the discovery of oil in the region in 1911 by a British concern, the Arab states in the gulf were weak and the faltering economies. The numerous rulers in small pockets kept up their autonomy with the help of the British. The Sultan of Omar was the largest of them all and but he couldn't further his rule because of the resistance. The Anglo Persian Oil Company or APOC was the first to start producing oil in Iran. In 1932 Standard Oil Company of California (Socal) discovered oil in commercial quantities in Bahrain. Socal then obtained a concession in Saudi Arabia in 1933 and discovered oil in commercial quantities in 1938. This triggered a flurry of oil exploration in the Gulf States in the 1930's. United States and Britain were the two main nations competing for the oil concessions. The new Iranian Government of Reza Shah Pahlavi revoked APOC's concession. Although the Shah and the British later agreed on new terms, the threat of losing Iranian oil convinced the British in particular that they must find other sources. The small states of the Persian Gulf were a natural place to look due to similar geological conditions to those in Iran. This did not mean immediate wealth for the Arab countries. Large deposits of oils were found in Bahrain. Oman was unable to export until 1967 and it was 1950 by the time oil rich states found it to be commercially beneficial. The oil fields in Kuwait were developed the fastest, and by 1953 that nation had

How did Syria got impacted the Middle-East and especially Turkey Research Paper

How did Syria got impacted the Middle-East and especially Turkey - Research Paper Example The World Food Programme offers monthly food donations to about 4 million people who are victims of the civil conflict in the region (â€Å"World Food Programme† 1). Moreover, other humanitarian agencies offers clean drinking water to about 1.1 million people in Syria (â€Å"Government of Canada† 1). Notably, most of the countries in the Middle East region are downstream riparian states and have scarce water resources and hence the continued debate and conflict on water issues in this region (â€Å"The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs† 1). Ideally, agriculture accounted for about 25 percent of gross domestic product in this region and hence the water shortage is hindering efforts to maintain economic growth in this region (Williams 1). The water conflict is equally a source of tension as many countries including Syria seek to increase its political dominance where it competes for the water resources with Turkey, Iraq, and Israel. Analysis shows that Turkey is likely to face water shortages in the near future although it presently has significant water resources (â€Å"The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs† 2). As a result, of the crisis there have been continued debates and efforts geared towards addressing the Syrian crisis. In the meantime, many Syrians fled the violence in their country and took refuge in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq (â€Å"World Food Programme† 1). Indeed, about 2.2 million Syrians are refugees in these countries, which further strain the infrastructure, food security, and water supply in this region. Additionally, more countries including the U.S are still offering the refugees agencies a leeway to settle more refugees and conflict victims in Syria thus influencing the social and economic aspects in Syria. However, as we expect the need for humanitarian aid to increase in Syria over the next few years, there is international pressure on the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to remove bar riers to the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Syria (Cumming-Bruce 1). Saudi Arabia has been opposing the Syrian government and continuously calls for action against Syrian President Assad (â€Å"BBC NEWS† 1). On the other hand, Iran has been supporting Syria and criticizes any international action on the current crisis in Syria. Nevertheless, although Iraq is less significant to Syria, it opposes any US military action in Syria and hosts a significant number of refugees from Syria. Conversely, Israel does not offer its public opinion on the Syrian crisis but warns other nations into dragging Israel into the conflict and assert its readiness to deal with the crisis if the civil war extends to Israel (â€Å"BBC NEWS† 1). Additionally, Qatar supports the proposed military action on Syria while Egypt opposes any military action without the authorization of the UN (â€Å"BBC NEWS† 1). Jordan supports limited military action in Syria upon proving the use of che mical weapons in Syria by the US Congress (â€Å"BBC NEWS† 1). Indeed, Jordan hosts refugees from Syria and therefore opposes any international intervention that would cause civilian casualties. The Jordan government advocates for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis (â€Å"BBC NEWS† 1). Nevertheless, some people believe that in 2013, Jordan facilitated the supply of weapons to rebel fighters in southern Syria (â€Å"

The future of online television Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The future of online television - Essay Example Definitely the television culture has been transforming rapidly to match the preferences of the consumer for very long. There have been tremendous changes in how they now look, function and the quality that they deliver. But will its era of victory over the radio last forever? Recently television industry is now almost paralleled with a major competitor- â€Å"internet†. A lot of surveys lately have shown how the number of people going online to watch television is increasing with a good percentage each year. But does this mean that the viewership of television in the conventional mode is going down? There are many reasons for why the trend of watching online media has shot-up but one of the major factors for it is the increasing awareness among people about the various utilities of the internet. Since the time when the internet was first invented its definition and purpose has transformed tremendously. Not only that the broad scope of internet is still unfolding by each passing day. The awareness among the people to use internet is picking up pace with every tick of the time. Not long back it meant only- sending and receiving of e-mail and chatting. But now there is whole virtual world out there where one can find everything possible as there are no boundaries to it. One can easily go on the internet and look for any episode, soap, movie, music, video and other kinds of media. It is as simple as a click in today’s world. The media consumers can watch anything that they want within seconds. The main advantage and why the culture of going online and watching television is rising because of the fact that almost everything is available on demand. Not only that such a provision has now become portable, there are mobile phones that support online applications like â€Å"yoututbe.com, hulu.com,† where it is possible to find anything that one is looking for at any time. Another option is â€Å"Laptop† which makes it very easy for the consumer to view

Comparison the education between saudi arabia and usa Essay

Comparison the education between saudi arabia and usa - Essay Example About 90 percent of Saudi nationals are Arabs† (Saudi Arabia). Because of these huge differences between these two countries, the educational system in these two countries is also different. This paper compares the educational system between Saudi Arabia and USA. The education in Saudi Arabia and the USA are similar in terms of government spending on education, freedom to choose the school and education for people with special needs, while differ in terms of attitude towards education, literacy rate, religion in school, gender roles, grading scales, and stages of education (Stevenson) America is one of the most advanced countries in the world which reflected in their educational system also. Historically, Christians are keener in providing better education to their children whereas Muslims are not much keener in providing education to their children, especially to the females. These differences in attitude towards education are reflected in the social life of these two countrie s. While most of the Americans are going to the schools and colleges irrespective of the gender differences, in Saudi Arabia, women are not much interested in getting educated because of the social systems prevailing there. The Saudi Arabian curriculum is mostly dominated by the Religious beliefs and the influence of religion can be witnessed at every corner in Saudi Arabian educational systems.

Marketing Logistics Interface Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Marketing Logistics Interface - Case Study Example The company is a catalogue based distributor in nature. Thus it deals with professional customers worldwide. After 1989 the company took various initiatives in order to increase the revenue and profitability. In the process the company has adopted many strategies such as battery replacement for recycling of waste batteries and the innovation of introducing Eco wire-Environment Friendly techniques (www.rswww.com). RS Components has achieved 50% of the sales from the UK internet sales in the year 1989, due to the fact that the company succeeded in increasing the awareness and the importance of the RS website including the latest electronics, electrical and industrial products. In addition to that it is basically because of the continual adoption of innovative products and also introducing the new innovative production packages online in the RS website. This new package involves a host of benefits to the customers of RS components such as easy identification of packaging format, set the required quantity, check the levels of live stock, place orders online and also fast delivery system. According to the Nik Patel, Marketing Manager e-commerce at RS commented on the success of online sales is that it could achieve basically because by listening to the RS customers and innovative investing new technology in its website. In fact they could make online ordering and valuable information sourcing in a simple and easy manner in order to attract more customers to its range of products. RS Componenents is mainly focusing on meeting the customer's demand by a rare combination of value, choice and service through innovating in pricing, product marketing and first initiative moves. The UK market for electronic and electrical goods has become so strategically competitive and RS' is focused on this market segment with more and more orientation towards meeting customers' ever changing demand patterns. The retail store as against the e-retailing offers a variety of goods and services on the spot while, the latter offers an equally diverse and complex mixture of products for later delivery (Murphy, & Poist, 1992). Its current product launching strategy is associated with making use of niche markets that exist in many parts of Britain, including e-retailing. For instance its recent product launches in Britain were highly successful due to the suddenness and the associated surprise. Customers were caught unawares by these very attractive offers. Thus RS' has adopted a strategy of launching products in cities where consumers were little or no used to such windfall bargains before.RS' developed its advanced search and navigation engine in online stores so as to save the time of the electronic and maintenance engineers, reduce their purchase cost, selecting and ordering products and improve the efficiency of the service (Lynch, & Whicker, 2008). Thus the clarity of the website allows its employees to implement host of new services in an efficient and effective manner and also customers would benefitted from free product information advices from the technical staff of the RS and accessing to about 110, 000 datasheets while ensuring the customer satisfaction. Thus according to the Marketing Manager e-commerce, supply chain

The Case of Sarver Elementary School Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The of Sarver Elementary School - Case Study Example At the final decision, Caine went against his commitment and voted for closing Sarver while Davis and Ebel adhered to their commitments and supported the Committee. The votes were in the 3-2 ratio, supporting the decision of closing Sarver. Amelia Stone, Committee’s member alleged the board for several issues such as rejection of Committee’s report without any consideration, violation of Sunshine Law and bypassing contractual commitment of Caine in support of Sarver Elementary School. After noticing all the situation and issues, it is quite clear that both sides conducted studies for coming up on a conclusion regarding the closing of Sarver Elementary School. However, it is quite clear that the whole board is not ready to close the school. The Committee is interested in closing Miller School because this school can be converted into a business setup while Sarver Elementary School has chances of future growth. There were professionals on both sides for considering the issue of closing Sarver School. Caine has promised in black and white to support the Committee’s decision by voting against closing Sarver Elementary School but he has not fulfilled his promise and has voted against his consent. Therefore, the vote placed by Caine should be ignored. After this, the voting will be in a ratio of 2-2. Looking at this situation, it is quite clear that Citizen’s Task Force and â€Å"Save Sarver† Committee have to reconsider their decisions. They should sit with another in order to come to a solution. The voting process should be there again in order to know about the new situation. Dr. Connie Kniving has just seen one side of the situation and has rejected all the efforts of â€Å"Save Sarver† Committee preferring the decision of Citizen’s Task Force. He has to keep proper attention to both the reports submitted by the Task Force and the Committee in order to come to a conclusion regarding the closing of Sarver Elementary School.

Marketing Logistics Interface Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Marketing Logistics Interface - Case Study Example The company is a catalogue based distributor in nature. Thus it deals with professional customers worldwide. After 1989 the company took various initiatives in order to increase the revenue and profitability. In the process the company has adopted many strategies such as battery replacement for recycling of waste batteries and the innovation of introducing Eco wire-Environment Friendly techniques (www.rswww.com). RS Components has achieved 50% of the sales from the UK internet sales in the year 1989, due to the fact that the company succeeded in increasing the awareness and the importance of the RS website including the latest electronics, electrical and industrial products. In addition to that it is basically because of the continual adoption of innovative products and also introducing the new innovative production packages online in the RS website. This new package involves a host of benefits to the customers of RS components such as easy identification of packaging format, set the required quantity, check the levels of live stock, place orders online and also fast delivery system. According to the Nik Patel, Marketing Manager e-commerce at RS commented on the success of online sales is that it could achieve basically because by listening to the RS customers and innovative investing new technology in its website. In fact they could make online ordering and valuable information sourcing in a simple and easy manner in order to attract more customers to its range of products. RS Componenents is mainly focusing on meeting the customer's demand by a rare combination of value, choice and service through innovating in pricing, product marketing and first initiative moves. The UK market for electronic and electrical goods has become so strategically competitive and RS' is focused on this market segment with more and more orientation towards meeting customers' ever changing demand patterns. The retail store as against the e-retailing offers a variety of goods and services on the spot while, the latter offers an equally diverse and complex mixture of products for later delivery (Murphy, & Poist, 1992). Its current product launching strategy is associated with making use of niche markets that exist in many parts of Britain, including e-retailing. For instance its recent product launches in Britain were highly successful due to the suddenness and the associated surprise. Customers were caught unawares by these very attractive offers. Thus RS' has adopted a strategy of launching products in cities where consumers were little or no used to such windfall bargains before.RS' developed its advanced search and navigation engine in online stores so as to save the time of the electronic and maintenance engineers, reduce their purchase cost, selecting and ordering products and improve the efficiency of the service (Lynch, & Whicker, 2008). Thus the clarity of the website allows its employees to implement host of new services in an efficient and effective manner and also customers would benefitted from free product information advices from the technical staff of the RS and accessing to about 110, 000 datasheets while ensuring the customer satisfaction. Thus according to the Marketing Manager e-commerce, supply chain

Is there a relationship between service delivery to customers from Essay

Is there a relationship between service delivery to customers from different cultural backgrounds and the issues arising from cr - Essay Example â€Å"Firms compete and create value in differing ways: transforming inputs into outputs solving clients problems and mediating between customers in a value network, and there are implications for critical activities, drivers and strategy† (Weaver, 2001). Hospitality management strategy can also employ customer segmentation to identify those groups who are most likely to stay at a moderately-priced hotel and convince them that the main sources of their previous dissatisfaction at other chains would be remedied at the current firm. â€Å"When determining the strategic objectives pursued by their collaborative strategy, international hotel chains should make no compromises to the standards of the product they offer and/or to their product positioning, but stay focused on the strategic objectives determined in advance† (Fyall and Spyriadis, 2003). In looking at cross-cultural strategies, programs are not necessarily geared towards helping businesses keep payroll costs at a minimum and job security a prize, and this situation often works out in reality, along with an insidious sort of pity on the part of the business that seeks to sidestep the bottom line. Discrimination may also be a problem in a scenario in which inhabitants of the firm’s native country are sent into expatriate conditions. However, individuals can influence the system at large by creating microcosms in which diversity is encouraged and respected and cultural equality is the rule rather than the exception. â€Å"The way managers think about diversity has evolved and changed over time. In the 60s and 70s, EEO laws focused managers’ attention on the task of eliminating race and sex discrimination in the workplace†¦ managers began to understand the importance of creating a workplace that is great for everyone† (Hellriegel et al., 2005). In the case of intercultural concepts, the vision or guiding principle or goal is looked at in an inclusive way. That is, the concept is inclusive to the culture in this construction, and bears communication across cultural barriers and boundaries to a greater understanding of the positive side of communication. Multicultural signifies a respect for diversity and individuality in the organizational environment, rather than a platform that is based on assimilation or the unitary non-acceptance of cultures other than one’s own. Organizational culture, also defined in the context of the hospitality industry, is more about the shared vision of individuals within a certain organizational environment, which is often supported by the environment itself. â€Å"We have unlimited demand out there. There are so many companies out there on an assignment basis. We're finding out the number of stays over seven nights at hotels to see if they would stay in corporate apartments if they knew about it† (Walsh, 2001). Remaining adaptable to new circumstances is an important part of cultural integration. Cross c ultural management shows, the most effective organizations are those that are able to create a strong internal culture that unites rather than divides the employees and managers in the organization. But this is not always easy to achieve in reality, because many individuals differ in their goals and expectations, and cannot be reasonably assumed

ICICI Prudential â€Multiple Channel Distribution Essay Example for Free

ICICI Prudential –Multiple Channel Distribution Essay In terms of the future of the Indian insurance industry, what do you think are the measures that can be taken/ have been taken by ICICI Pru to further strengthen its distribution system to meet the competition? Bring out the drawbacks of the existing channels and the need to explore new avenues. Distribution Scenario in the Indian insurance Market The major challenges to insurers and intermediaries in highly competitive Indian insurance market are: 1. To build faith about the company’s insurance services in its customer’s mind  2.  To develop relationship(in terms of credibility) between intermediaries and clients 3. To develop extensive network for providing best service and stay close to the customers Capturing larger segment –Rural India Except ICICI Prudential, all the insurance companies have traditionally tied agents that have been the primary channels for insurance distribution in the Indian market. In case of the public sector insurance companies such as LIC, SBI etc. they have used their branches in almost all parts of the country and have attracted local people to become their agents. While ICICI Pru has used multiple channels such as bancassurance, direct marketing and corporate agents for their insurance distribution and have covered 69 cities and towns in India. By the virtue of these multiple distribution channels, ICICI Pru became leader in Indian insurance sector in short span of time with maximum contribution form bancassurance channel. However, these channels were targeted mostly at urban customers while the 70-80% of the Indian population stays in Rural area. ICICI Pru has tried to cater rural customers by joining hands with BASIX, World vision, Dhan, Shepherd, Uttaranchal Co-operative Marketing Federation, nLog Communiaction, ITC’e eachaupal etc. But, to cover the maximum possible rural market and develop strong rural insurance market at optimum cost for ICICI Pru, according to me India Post is the best intermediary option. India Post is one of the oldest infrastructure developed in India and it would be the best channel to reach Indian rural customers at very low cost. The postman are the best friend and information source to the village people. Hence they are the best fellows to create awareness about the company’s services and to distribute different insurance products. Thus they are the best sales man to build credibility about the company in rural India. Also the postmen have basic education in terms of services, hence the company can train them for their services at a very low cost. Thus the overall cost for reaching rural customer would be lower compare to all other possible options.

Causes and Effects of Consumerism

Causes and Effects of Consumerism Sarah Mutaher Introduction Consumerism is the term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption. Today we live in a consumer culture obsessed world. Consumption encompasses our everyday lives and structures our everyday agendas. The values, meanings and costs of what we consume have become an increasing important part of our social and personal experiences. The main factor enforcing our actions in this way is the news media. The news media is filled with information about consumption- not only in the form of advertising but also as news about businesses, lifestyles and economic indicators. However none of this tells us how we came about as a culture that associates freedom with the freedom of consuming anything of our choice and as a means of self-fulfillment. Analysis Consumerism is not just an issue that has come about in this new age and modern time it has been around for decades. For the most part, we only become aware of consumption when it is a problem, when there is environmental degradation caused by the production of goods in excess and more than we can consume. To understand this social phenomenon we must first understand the social and historical context of a consumer society. All cultures have found meaning in material goods. Objects resemble a social status or go further than that and have an emotional attachment with ones self. Goods are not only consumed for there material characteristics, but even more for what they symbolize- there meanings, associations and there involvement in our self image. Consumption is not simply the acquiring of products predestined meanings. Instead, it should be seen as a form of social consumer culture. While consumption is an act, consumer culture is a way of life. It is quite likely that never before in history has consumption become one of the central values of a culture. In modern society one learns merely to consume, and tasteful or appropriate consumption is only one of the numerous choices. It is this focus on consumption as a central worth that makes us a consumer culture. Consumption no longer seems to reflect our cultural values; it has itself become a cultural value. It has entered into the warp and turmoil of this fabric we call modern life. Every public space, every occasion for public gathering, every creative expression is seen as an opportunity to encourage more consumption. To understand how we have become this consumer crazy culture it is important to understand the humble beginnings of this crazy fixation. Before the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century, what people consumed was, either goods mad by family members or a person the consumer has a personal relation with. In early Europe the form consumerism took place in the weekly markets and seasonal fairs. The historical pattern in America was somewhat different. Unlike in Europe, where markets and fairs preceded the development of shops, in America shops emerged as the customary way of buying and selling in its early colonial period. It was not until the eighteenth century that markets and fairs became popular in the United States. Fashion is one of the key elements that fuel consumerism. Fashion not only includes clothing, but also any object where there is a concern for what is different, new and improved and which allows us to express our individuality. Fashion is so central to modern day consumption that it is difficult to imagine a culture in which it is not a major force. People throughout time have always been interested in the beautiful or in signs of status and in the pursuit of anything that brings them pleasure or happiness. It was during the last quarter of the sixteenth century in England that consumption first took off amongst the European nobility. This powered to two important developments. First, Queen Elizabeth the first used the dramatic spectacle of fashion as a display of government power. Second, she forced social competition among the nobility by removing them from their locality where they were clearly superior and forcing them to attend the London court where they had to compete with equals. Previously consumption had always been a family matter and what benefited the family the most. But now Elizabethan noblemen began to spend less on their families and more on themselves to further show there class and status. Josiah Wedgewood was one of the pioneers in the consumption phase. He had this new understanding of fashion and the market place.ÂÂ   Wedgewood was a manufacturer and retailer of pottery in the eighteenth century. He was the first to recognize that if the rich and elite could be induced to adopt fashions, the other classes would follow soon. There are only certain societies where it is possible for a fashion to spread to the higher class to the lower class. Fashion has to be affordable for those in the lower class and the classes must be close enough with some fluidity between them that those in the lower class could imagine themselves owing what those in the upper class have. In England during this period the lower class was eager to possess whatever the upper class deemed fashionable. Wedgewood understood the immense financial potential of such a social situation and learnt how he could control it. His fashion tool was pottery. Wedgewood learned to closely observe what the upper class was buying in order to predict what direction the lower class consumption habits would follow through. Another factor adding to the consumer culture is the portrayal of this culture. In the United States consumption spurred as a symbol for rebellion rather than a symbol a homogeneous conformity. Schutte and Ciarlante describe Coca cola, Levis and Marlboro as symbols of individualism and freedom. Three phrases from Stuart and Elizabeth Ewens Channels of Desire (1982) which they see as indicative of the recent tendencies within consumer culture describe it best. Today there is no fashion: there are only fashions. No rules, only choices. Everyone can be anyone. This suggests there is a war against uniformity, a surplus of difference which results in a loss of meaning. The repercussion is that we are moving towards a society without fixed status groups in which the adoption of styles of life which are fixed to specific groups have been surpassed. We have been encouraged to buy in order to establish our individuality in a mass-produced culture. To express our disgust with consumption by more consumption, to purchase the latest improved traditions. Now people are encouraged to buy to convey their rejection of homogenized lifestyles. This anti-consumption attitude only fuels more consumption. Years ago, many people imagined that life would be idyllic in the 21st century. Technology would have cured most human short-comings, and there would be abundance of resources available for all. Population growth and over consumption underlie many of the invasive environmental and social concerns that humans face today. Over consumption of our natural resource base is jeopardizing ecosystems throughout the world. Wealthy nations like the US amount to 20 percent of the worlds population, yet they use more than 70 percent of the earths resources and generate an even higher volume of wastes. Some of these wastes are released into the atmosphere, rivers and oceans, others are land filled or incinerated, a small part is recycled. The standard notion of economic development envisions the rest of the worlds population moving progressively up the ladder of mass consumption. Clearly, the environmental implications of the global spread of mass consumption for resource use and environmental was te is staggering. In present times design culture also has greatly been influenced consumerism. Cities such as Las Vegas have dedicated there entire landscape to advertising to feed the need of consumerism. For the Utopian design at hand I have targeted the hospitality sector of the economy which attracts consumers owed to the hectic and fast-paced life we live today. I have chosen the Singapore Cricket Club for my bar and restaurant. The design is held together by the concept of network. Taking into consideration that the bar is the main attraction of a bar and highest revenue earning point in an FB. Using the concept of network my design directs all consumers towards the bar. The bar acts as the main attraction of my design which can be viewed from all levels and spaces. The unconventional feature of the bar is that it suspends 3000mm from the ground. As people walk through narrow corridors directing them towards the bar they are suddenly engulfed by the large open suspending bar and LED lighting panels from the ceiling going past 3 floors lighting up the entire design and focusing mainly onto the bar. The cuckoo club in London is a great example of how the bar acts as a key attraction in the premises. The entire space communicates glamour, drama and luxury. It represents a grand, dramatic film set with huge doors sweeping stairs, silk and voile drapes. The bar acts as a key feature covered entirely in gold sequins, set beneath a ceiling of diamond pattern panels of LED lighting (acrylic domes set into panels and then colour-washed across the whole ceiling), fringed with diamante beading. The lighting is flexible, varying from simulated daylight to pinks and purple in the night. The second case study chosen is Wine tower bar in UK. A 13 meter high wine tower forms the alluring centre point of the Radisson SAS Hotel lounge and bar at Stansted airport. The temperature controlled structure, constructed out of 6.5 tons of laminated glass, a steel core and a pyramid shaped roof, is fitted with an acrylic rack filled with 4,000 bottles of red and white wine. The enchantingly lit column not only serves as a large open wine rack but also functions as a theatre in which 4 graceful wine angels suspended on cables collect the bottles ordered by the guests. With the help of remote control and computer controlled winches, these women glide effortlessly up and down, whilst also slipping in a few acrobatics in the between. Conclusion In conclusion, Consumer culture has been incredibly successful. Not only has it been successful in satisfying our needs and desires, but it also has been successful in redefining what are needs are and expanding our desires. If we accept these desires as natural or inevitable, then consumer society seems natural and inevitable as well. Consumerism on the other hand does not only feed our desires but has left this earth with beyond reconcilable damages. Today are demand for goods is increasing beyond the capability of what our earth can come up with it. If our greed for consumption keeps increasing we will have to very soon give up our basic needs because our demands cannot be kept up with.

The Role of Turkey in the Pacification and Rebuilding of Iraq Essay

The Role of Turkey in the Pacification and Rebuilding of Iraq The relationship between Kurds and Turkey has long been fraught with complications.? As rebuilding of Iraq is poised to begin, the question arises as to whether Turkey should take part in the reconstruction. I believe that Turkey is able to take a role in the peace process in Iraq, for it would prove advantageous to both Ankara and Washington.? However, I do not think that Turkey should take a role in restructuring, for their presence would undermine the peace process.? A role for Turkey would be resented not only by the Kurds in northern Iraq, but by the Iraqis as a whole. The Kurds are concentrated in northern Iraq.? Though it would be incorrect to assume that the Kurds are indicative of the Iraqi people, the Kurds do constitute a sizable minority, which accounts for approximately twenty percent of Iraq?s population.[i]? The Kurds have been marginalized for hundreds of years, most notably after the Great Powers reneged on their guarantee in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres to establish an independent Kurdish state and in 1991 when George Bush Senior encouraged the Kurds to ?take matters into their own hands,? and rebel against Saddam Hussein?s Ba?athist Party, only to withdraw from Iraq shortly thereafter.[ii]? The Kurds are justified in resenting their derogatory treatment.? They were, it is believed, the region?s original inhabitants, present in Iraq in the seventh century.[iii] The Kurds have been ruthlessly targeted by Saddam Hussein?s Ba?athist Party.? In 1975, the government in Baghdad initiated a process of ?Arabization? in northern Iraq, methodically exterminating the Kurdish population there.[iv] In 1988, the Anfal military campaign, led... ... Over Kurds. APS Diplomat Recorder.? 4 October 2003. [xxxv]? Purvis, Andrew.? ?Gathering Forces with Turkey. Time.? 10 February 2003: 23. [xxxvi]? ?Turkey?s Role Worries Kurds. The San Diego Union-Tribune.? 21 October 2003:? B2. [xxxvii]? ?The Battle for Northern Iraq. The Economist.? 22 March 2003. [xxxviii]? ?Turkey Moves Into Northern Iraq. APS Diplomat News Service.? 31 March 2003. [xxxix]? Ibid. [xl]? Gorvett, Jon.? ?Staking a Claim. The Middle East.? May 2003. [xli]? ?No Kurdish Imperialism for Us. The Economist.? 30 August 2003: 33. [xlii]? ?Kurds Block Turkish Mission. APS Diplomat Recorder.? 9 August 2003. [xliii]? Berenson, Alex.? ?The Struggle for Iraq. The New York Times.? 15 October 2003. [xliv]? Howard, Michael.? ?Kurds Say Turkish Troops Will Bring Chaos. The Observer.? 16 October 2003: 5. [xlv]? The Role of Turkey in the Pacification and Rebuilding of Iraq Essay The Role of Turkey in the Pacification and Rebuilding of Iraq The relationship between Kurds and Turkey has long been fraught with complications.? As rebuilding of Iraq is poised to begin, the question arises as to whether Turkey should take part in the reconstruction. I believe that Turkey is able to take a role in the peace process in Iraq, for it would prove advantageous to both Ankara and Washington.? However, I do not think that Turkey should take a role in restructuring, for their presence would undermine the peace process.? A role for Turkey would be resented not only by the Kurds in northern Iraq, but by the Iraqis as a whole. The Kurds are concentrated in northern Iraq.? Though it would be incorrect to assume that the Kurds are indicative of the Iraqi people, the Kurds do constitute a sizable minority, which accounts for approximately twenty percent of Iraq?s population.[i]? The Kurds have been marginalized for hundreds of years, most notably after the Great Powers reneged on their guarantee in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres to establish an independent Kurdish state and in 1991 when George Bush Senior encouraged the Kurds to ?take matters into their own hands,? and rebel against Saddam Hussein?s Ba?athist Party, only to withdraw from Iraq shortly thereafter.[ii]? The Kurds are justified in resenting their derogatory treatment.? They were, it is believed, the region?s original inhabitants, present in Iraq in the seventh century.[iii] The Kurds have been ruthlessly targeted by Saddam Hussein?s Ba?athist Party.? In 1975, the government in Baghdad initiated a process of ?Arabization? in northern Iraq, methodically exterminating the Kurdish population there.[iv] In 1988, the Anfal military campaign, led... ... Over Kurds. APS Diplomat Recorder.? 4 October 2003. [xxxv]? Purvis, Andrew.? ?Gathering Forces with Turkey. Time.? 10 February 2003: 23. [xxxvi]? ?Turkey?s Role Worries Kurds. The San Diego Union-Tribune.? 21 October 2003:? B2. [xxxvii]? ?The Battle for Northern Iraq. The Economist.? 22 March 2003. [xxxviii]? ?Turkey Moves Into Northern Iraq. APS Diplomat News Service.? 31 March 2003. [xxxix]? Ibid. [xl]? Gorvett, Jon.? ?Staking a Claim. The Middle East.? May 2003. [xli]? ?No Kurdish Imperialism for Us. The Economist.? 30 August 2003: 33. [xlii]? ?Kurds Block Turkish Mission. APS Diplomat Recorder.? 9 August 2003. [xliii]? Berenson, Alex.? ?The Struggle for Iraq. The New York Times.? 15 October 2003. [xliv]? Howard, Michael.? ?Kurds Say Turkish Troops Will Bring Chaos. The Observer.? 16 October 2003: 5. [xlv]?

American Factory System before the Civil War Essay

The introduction of the factory system into the United States brought economic prosperity to many urban cities. The factory system increased the market for manufactured goods and export products. This generally caused a population boom in many urban centers such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. New methods of transportations were introduced to facilitate the increasing flow of goods and labor among states. Trade with European countries also increased as the number of exports skyrocketed. In essence, the factory system hastened the industrialization process in the United States before the Civil War. In the South, the factory system for cotton spinning and weaving became firmly established in the United States as a result of the War of 1812. In Europe, textile machinery phased out domestic industries in which the worker owned his tools and implements. In America, however, there was little domestic weaving, and as such, the introduction of the factory system (for weaving) faced little opposition. In 1840, there were about 1200 cotton factories in the United States, operating 2 250 000 spindles. Ring or frame spinning had been invented, power looms were being manufactured in large numbers, and even exported. The factory system in the United States, unlike in Europe, offered relatively high wages to workers. People from rural areas migrated to urban areas to work in factories. Typical of which was the so-called ‘Lowell factory girls.’ These girls worked in factories, earning an almost equal wages with men, and having ‘special’ privileges (the so-called ‘literary weeks’). In essence, the wide opportunities available in a rapidly developing country gave workers wide ‘preferential’ initiatives. Factory girls left the mills to marry after three or four years, and child laborers elsewhere usually managed to find some other occupation by the time they reached their majority. In other words, the supply of labor in the factory system was fluid. Unlike a worker in Europe who was generally dependent on the factory system for subsistence, the worker in the United States was generally well-off in terms of wages and available opportunities. The laborers saw the factory system as a temporary source of income. Many Americans still preferred the old fashion way of farming or engaging in trade. The factory system for them could not be counted as a permanent work. The relatively higher wage level of an ordinary factory worker in the United States is the proof of such claim. Factory owners preferred a fluid supply of labor in their factories for efficiency purposes. This fluidity of labor was due temporarily to the shortage of labor supply in urban centers. Note that the manufacturing industry of the United States before the Civil War was still at its infancy stage. Moreover, much of American labor was still allocated to plantations in both North and South. Factory owners were forced to raise the wage level of workers above the minimum standard (unlike in Europe where wage levels were generally minimum or below minimum). There was another reason why factory owners treated their workers with some degree of respect and fairness. The experiences of the Revolution were enough to convince them that maltreating an ‘ordinary’ American would always lead to bloody confrontation. Their fears were not without basis. In 1832, for example, a factory in New York was burned by the workers. The factory management apparently withheld the salary of some members of the workforce for ‘apparent misconduct of behavior’ while working. This fear was momentarily. The factory owners saw that by increasing wage levels, labor productivity can be increased. This translated into huge profits. The conduct of ‘giving workers just compensation’ (except blacks) became incorporated to American labor practice. As such, one could only cite a very few number of radical/extreme labor movements in the country. Reference Morison, Samuel Eliot. 1963. The Oxford History of the American People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Confucius Goes on and on About ‘Humanity’ Essay

‘Humanity’ and ‘filial piety’ are probably the most important believes that Confucius had; he uses these two words more than any other words in ‘The Analects of Confucius’. Among many other things Confucius had mentioned, ‘humanity’ is the central thought of Confucianism that Confucius had believed everything starts from the ‘humanity’. ‘Humanity’ in a Chinese character means a combination of human and number two, which means how you should treat others when there are two or more people. It can be a relationship between husband and wife, sisters, brothers, and friends. Confucius basically wanted people to treat others with a love and treat others like you want others to treat you. Although, the most important thing is how you treat your parents. Confucius points out the importance of ‘filial piety’ by saying the root of ‘humanity’ is ‘filial piety’. â€Å"A man who respects his parents and his elders would hardly be inclined to defy his superiors. To respect parents and elders is the root of humanity†. (1. 2) In Confucianism, ‘filial piety’ is a fundamental moral standard and furthermore the most important teaching from Confucius. However, the definition of ‘filial piety’ is not just how you take care of your parents such as feeding them but you have to show your parents a respect and also show them a good attitudes. (2. 7, 2. 8) To practice ‘filial piety’ towards one’s parent s, you also do not want to give any anxiety to your parents. It also means that you do not want to harm your body even including your hair (this is why people at the time did not cut their hairs for their whole life) because your body is what your parents had given to you. ‘Filial piety’ is not only important when parents are alive but also important after their parents had passed away that they have to do the memorial ceremony for their ancestors with a respect like ancestors are still alive. Confucius mentions about the elders whenever he mentions about ‘Filial piety’, he believes that you do not only show respect to your parents but also to other people who are at your parents’ age. As grown up in the culture where there are still many elderly people believe in Confucianism, showing respect to people who are older than you is important especially to people who are at your parents’ age because they are also someone’s parents and you want your parents to treated as you treat others’ parents. In conclusion, ‘humanity’ is the central thought of Confucianism. ‘Filial piety’ is what Confucius had thought most important factor of ‘humanity’. ‘Filial piety means how you show a respect to your parents but it also indicates how you respect your leaders and show an honor to your country. Confucius points out ‘filial piety’ is a fundamental of love others, respecting your leaders and show an honor to your country, so basically Confucius had though ‘filial piety’ is the root of ‘humanity’.

Delirium vs. Dementia

Delirium vs. Dementia Dementia is an irreversible state of cognitive impairment and short term memory loss related to organic brain disease most commonly Alzheimer's disease or multiple cerebral infarcts. Delirium is a state of cognitive impairment and confusion usually of recent onset related to another illness. There may also be clouding of consciousness. Delirium is an organic mental disorder that causes confusion, disorientation, and memory loss.It is different than dementia in that is causes a change in level of consciousness; sufferers are not as alert, can be drowsy, semi-comatose, or comatose. The delirious person also can have difficulty with attention, may be agitated and be hallucinating. Symptoms occur rapidly – not over a long period of time. There is usually a marked changed in a person relatively quickly. Delirium can be caused by a medical problem: congestive heart failure, urinary tract infection, liver failure, and drug or alcohol abuse. People with delirium need immediate medical attention.Delirium is often caused by changes in the chemical transmitter between the nerves, called acetylcholine. Even medications can cause this to happen. Delirium symptoms also fluctuate throughout a day. It is most important to emphasize that delirium is a sudden onset, unlike dementia which comes on more slowly. The risk of delirium increases for people who are demented, dehydrated, and taking drugs that affect the nervous system. Sometimes there are no disruptive features, just a withdrawal which makes it easy to miss.Not all dementias are of the slow onset type like Alzheimer's type dementia (although this is the most common form of dementia and IS slow-onset by definition). Dementia may have an rapid onset, e. g. , with stroke. However, dementia is sustained whereas delirium is typically an acute and fluctuating state. The key difference between dementia and delirium is that delirium includes an altered/fluctuating level of consciousness, whereas dem entia is only diagnosed in alert patients.

Reflective journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Reflective journal - Essay Example As a means of increasing the production of the National City Bank, the corporate leaders use motivation and empowerment strategies. Motivation and empowerment The National City Bank motivates its employees through many ways which entail using rewards, recognition, and workers involvement. The forms of motivation are helpful in the organization because they increase their outputs. I learned that the increased production is caused by the elements of motivation. One of the components of motivation includes intensity; furthermore, I realized that motivation indeed increases the work intensity. Personally, motivation increases my job performances because it makes me work harder. Another element of motivation is persistency. I learned that motivation makes the workers in the banking organization not to give up doing some tasks even if they are difficult. Motivation also gives the workers directions especially if the type of motivation entails goal setting. Furthermore, it increases the wor kforces drive and energy in the work places. I learned that the elements of motivation increase businesses productivity because they challenge the workforces to use their skills and knowledge more effectively. Moreover, they encourage the underperforming workers to perform higher (Podmoroff, 2005). It is vital to know that high performing organizations like the National City Bank do not rely on motivation only. I learned that high business productivity is caused by the combination of motivation with other factors like good working conditions and workers’ capabilities (Fiore, 2004). The bank performs well because it ensures that its workers can access all the materials needed to perform their tasks. This makes the workers focus on their tasks instead of wasting time looking for the materials. Additionally, the firm ensures that its employee have the ability to do their work effectively. The bank achieves this through effective hiring process where managers do not only focus on the applicants’ credentials, but they also focus on the applicants’ abilities and interests. I also learned how motivation affects workers in organizations through the theories presented by psychologists. Some of the theories include the content and process suppositions. In the content theory, I realized that human beings pursue things because they desire certain outcomes. The process theories assume that people have the ability to opt for goals and the paths that may lead them towards the goals. According to â€Å"Maslow Hierarchy of Needs†, workers satisfaction is vital. The workers satisfactions can be attained if organizations meet their needs through peripheral and internal means (Borkowski, 2011). It is interesting to realize that the National City Bank applies the theories to satisfy and motivate its workers. For instance, the organization motivates its workers by meeting their self-actualization needs. This is achievable through the introduction of chal lenging projects which makes the workers use their skills effectively. Additionally, the bank meets the workers self-actualization needs by creating an environment that encourages creativity. The organization also rewards the employees who introduce helpful ideas to the organization. Furthermore, I realized that the bank has invested a lot in the workers’ training programs. Personality trainings help me perform tasks better because they increase my skills and abilities.

Branding Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Branding - Assignment Example Along with this, the OFT rules also enhanced the purchasing rate of real estate apartments to a considerable extent as compared to others. This helped the organization of Foxtons to expand its growth rate and equity significantly.Economic- economic downtown acted negatively over the organizations operating in real estate segments. This reduced the buying behaviour of the individual of UK thereby declining the profit margin and market value of the organization operating in this segment. Along with this, the rate of unemployment increased and the range of per capita income and net income of the individual of UK also reduced thereby the power of purchase also reduced significantly. Moreover, changes in the prices of VAT and stamp duty prices also affected the market of real estate. All these above mentioned factors reduced the demand of the real estate organization such as Foxtons in the market of UK. Social- the growing interest of the citizens of UK to reside in communities also acted negatively over the organization of Foxtons. Along with this, as most of the citizens of the UK comprised of their own properties, the craze to purchase new apartments reduced to a certain extent. And as the number of aged populations increased, the rate to purchase new apartments decreased. All these factors reduced the total sale of the apartments of Foxtons in the market among others. Technological- non-implementation of innovative technologies such as SMS property alerts, email alerts are also responsible for its decline. Along with this, im

Rhetorical Analyses Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Rhetorical Analyses - Essay Example many underage girls) and (pressured to be skinny), which are obviously derived from personal beliefs that she garners, as well as that of society’s on the whole. Featherstone eventually evaluates magazines such as Blue Jean, Teen Voices, Hues and Reluctant Hero that are certified to provide far more fruitful and substantial content. Featherstone seeks for the ‘realness’ in these magazines that play in the minds of young juvenile minds but does not find any, thus resorting to a bit sullen but far sophisticated magazines on the shelves. The author’s arguments clearly indicates her preferences for the teen girls’ reading materials through the provision of examples and citing relevant support from identified slogans, celebrities, and choice of feature articles that were believed to evoke the readers’ emotional response. Featherstone contends for a woman who has her own voice over that which is lent. Her liking toward magazines such as Blue Jean is reason enough to understand that she shoots over the voices of ‘women activists’ whom she considers to be quite a rage for the propaganda of these magazines. On reading further about TEEN VOICES she voices her concerns about the delicate nature of the age and the need for advice regarding ‘Teen Pregnancies’ and ‘body mutilations’ which are common occurrences in society. She pleas the nubile Teens to look further than ones external appearances; to climb out of their fashion closets and discover a more meaningful world. Her choice of vocabulary is pretty strong and goes from easy-to-read to difficult-to-comprehend-the-context, and has a rather defying logical order. This is definitely an appeal to ‘logos’, to derive the right emotion through channelizing the content into a definite lopsided argument. For example; a paragraph describing Blue Jean, for instance, begins with a logical description of the magazine which was confusing the reader on what really was the message about. Featherstone

Alternative fules-----history Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Alternative fules-----history - Assignment Example e early 19th century petroleum, became an alternative option to whale oil that was initially used by people in lighting lamps and it led to the death of large number of whales in the oceans. The dawn of the 20th century was marked by the appearance of ethanol as the alternative to gasoline. The rise in the alternative fuel sources came due to the ever increasing demand for more environmental friendly fuels. The traditional fuels were mainly from natural resources such as those from fossil fuels that included oil, gas and coal and they were diminishing at a very high rate. This led to the constant increase in the price level of fuels as well as increased dependency by the world’s leading economies. The negative impacts of the continued use of non-renewable energy sources has been witnessed in the world by the occurrence of global warming, depletion of the ozone layer due to the increased emission of greenhouse gases emitted in the process of burning fossil fuels. Increased air pollution as well as soil erosion have been attributed to the use of fossil fuels. These factors triggered the need for alternative sources of fuel so as to reduce environmental degradation. Human beings have increasingly realized their mistakes as far as energy is concerned and they have b egun to come up with alternative fuels that are friendly to the environment. Examples of alternative fuels that have been introduced in the recent past include wind and solar energy that are not depleted and their continued use does not cause harm to either human beings or other living things. The use of fossil fuels have been an ongoing process and has been an essential source of energy since humans first discovered coal. From Neolithic times to the eighteenth century, humans made only minor improvements to coal and wood-burning technology. The steam engines that were invented in the 1700s were the first machines to use fossil fuels to power mechanical processes. By the year 1802, many cities in the

The Defendant's Confession Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Defendant's Confession - Assignment Example Sometimes, impairment in the defendant’s functioning compromises the defendant’s abilities relevant to the confession process. This report seeks to investigate the damaging impact caused by use of confession. It will also show how a confession can be used in the court of law. Case study Beckwith v. United States (1976) The following case existed following statements made by a taxpayer (Beckwith) to the Internal Revenue agents in his house. During this noncustodial interview, the defendant retorted that he had evaded tax payment at some point. The interview was carried out to investigate criminal tax fraud. He was arrested and later reined in court, prosecuted and found guilty for tax evasion. However, the defendant claimed that he was not read his Miranda rights before the interview took place (Arthur and Lawrence 220). This did not have any impact on the case since his tax liability was under scrutiny. He served a jail term because of the confession he made during the interview with the IRA. A free and voluntary confession by the defendant is sufficient to convict, without any other evidence whether the confession was made before apprehension, or after, or whether reduced in to writing or not. If the confession was drawn from the defendant by means of a threat or a promise, then, it is not admissible evidence. Any facts, however, that may be brought to light in consequence of such confession may be proved. A confession, (if made on examination before a magistrate) ought to be taken in writing, and signed by the magistrate. Parol evidence of such a confession will not be received, unless it is clearly proved not to have been reduced into writing. The confession when taken in writing ought to be read over to the defendant, and he should be asked to sign it. His refusing to do so will not make it inadmissible. The defendant’s confession must not be taken on oath, and if so taken, it cannot be received. His confession is evidence only against himself. In all cases a confession should be provided in evidence for it is a general rule that the full account must be taken together, both that which makes for the defendant and that which makes against him. In the mentioned petition, the defendant's confession was voluntary since the defendant did not expect the matter to be criminalized. The Internal revenue Agents did not read him his Miranda rights before they interviewed him. Miranda rights are extremely crucial since they act as warning to indicate that whatever you say during the investigation will be incriminated as evidence (Arthur and Lawrence 130). Legal issues related to assessing the ability of individuals, especially those of special populations, to waive their rights are reviewed. An empirical research on the ability of suspects to make knowing, intelligent, and voluntary confessions is considered in light of relevant ethical issues and limits of testimony. Constitutional Law and Miranda Warning A defendant's confe ssion often serves as the most persuasive evidence in criminal trials. It is particularly influential when it serves as the sole or primary source of evidence offered by the prosecution. When a suspect is placed under arrest or is given the impression that he or she has no right free to leave, police officers, or government agents are expected to read the Miranda warning. For example,† You should to remain silent. Anything you say shall evidence in the court of law.† – As indicated by the U.S. supreme court. However, the

Fundamentals of Macroeconomics Essay Example for Free

Fundamentals of Macroeconomics Essay Some of the terms that are frequently used in economics are; gross domestic product (GDP), real GDP, nominal GDP, unemployment rate, inflation rate, and interest rates. Gross domestic product is the money value of the nation’s productivity. GDP is the value of all finished goods and services produced within the country’s border. Real GDP is the market value of the final goods and services produced in a year. Real GDP means that it was adjusted for inflation so it will show a more accurate figure. Without real GDP our market values would look a lot higher than they really were and this helps us when trying to see what our productivity was. Nominal GDP is also known as the current dollar amount. It is the gross domestic product that has not been adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP can be misleading because it does not adjust the inflation amount. For example if the nominal GDP figure showed that it shot up 10% but inflation has been 5% the real GDP has really only increased 5%. The unemployment rate is a percent of people who are not currently working but are willing and able to work or currently seeking. There are three different types of unemployment. The unemployment rate is figured by dividing the number of unemployed people by the number of people who are working and then multiplied by 100. Inflation rate is when prices for goods and services are on the rise. Inflation results in higher prices for the same amount goods and services one could have bought the year before for a lower price. Inflation gives high prices and lower purchasing power from consumers. The dollar amount becomes less than what it previously was. An interest rate is a percentage of the principle, which is the total amount of a loan, given by a lender for the use of an asset. The asset could either be a house or vehicle. An interest rate is usually based on an annual basis so this is also known as an annual percentage rate or APR. Somebody who has a high credit score shows that they have a good track record with other loans and monthly payments and will be given a lower interest rate. Somebody who has a low credit score is considered more high risk and will be given a higher interest rate. The three sectors; government, households, and businesses all have a circular flow between the three. The purchasing of groceries affects each one of the three sectors in different ways. It goes along with the law of demand and supply and the price level or inflation. Households decide and control what and how much to buy for consumption. The income effect has part of what consumers buy also. If there is an unexpected change of price this will affect the purchasing power of the consumer. Since households have control on what they buy and how much this will affect each business that contributes to the grocery stores. The competition in the grocery stores will affect the price of each item will affect what the household buys. Distribution also plays an important role in the economy by getting goods where people want them. If goods are in high demand this may affect the price level which may affect what consumers will buy. The government in turn will make some of their money on sales tax from the groceries. This tax will be used for expenditures that will go back into the economy. A decrease in taxes could affect the three sectors in a positive way. If there is a decrease in taxes there is a chance that more tax revenue is generated. The reason is because if people are bringing in more money into their households they will likely spend more money which will help businesses. If businesses are busy and making more money they will be more likely to hire more people who in turn will also be taxed which will help the government. A massive layoff of employees would hurt the economy and the three sectors. If people are out of work they are bringing in less money for their household. Since they will not have as much money as they are used to they are less likely to spend money which will hurt businesses. If businesses are not making a profit they may be forced to lay more people off. Because there are so many people laid off they will likely collect unemployment insurance which will cost the government more money.

Modelling of Meromorphic Retina

Modelling of Meromorphic Retina CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION and literature review 1. INTRODUCTION The world depends on how we sense it; perceive it and how we act is according to our perception of this world. But where from this perception comes? Leaving the psychological part, we perceive by what we sense and act by what we perceive. The senses in humans and other animals are the faculties by which outside information is received for evaluation and response. Thus the actions of humans depend on what they sense. Aristotle divided the senses into five, namely: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste and Touch. These have continued to be regarded as the classical five senses, although scientists have determined the existence of as many as 15 additional senses. Sense organs buried deep in the tissues of muscles, tendons, and joints, for example, give rise to sensations of weight, position of the body, and amount of bending of the various joints; these organs are called proprioceptors. Within the semicircular canal of the ear is the organ of equilibrium, concerned with the sense of balance. General senses, which produce information concerning bodily needs (hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain), are also recognized. But the foundation of all these is still the list of five that was given by Aristotle. Our world is a visual world. Visual perception is by far the most important sensory process by which we gather and extract information from our environment. Vision is the ability to see the features of objects we look at, such as color, shape, size, details, depth, and contrast. Vision is achieved when the eyes and brain work together to form pictures of the world around us. Vision begins with light rays bouncing off the surface of objects. Light reflected from objects in our world forms a very rich source of information and data. The light reflected has a short wavelength and high transmission speed that allow us a spatially accurate and fast localization of reflecting surfaces. The spectral variations in wavelength and intensity in the reflected light resemble the physical properties of object surfaces, and provide means to recognize them. The sources that light our world are usually inhomogeneous. The sun, our natural light source, for example, is in good approximation a point sou rce. Inhomogeneous light sources cause shadows and reflections that are highly correlated with the shape of objects. Thus, knowledge of the spatial position and extent of the light source enables further extraction of information about our environment. Our world is also a world of motion. We and most other animals are moving creatures. We navigate successfully through a dynamic environment, and we use predominantly visual information to do so. A sense of motion is crucial for the perception of our own motion in relation to other moving and static objects in the environment. We must predict accurately the relative dynamics of objects in the environment in order to plan appropriate actions. Take for example the following situation that illustrates the nature of such a perceptual task: the batsman a cricket team is facing a bowler. In order to get the boundary on the ball, he needs an accurate estimate of the real motion trajectory of the ball such that he can precisely plan and orchestrate his body movements to hit the ball. There is little more than just visual information available to him in order to solve the task. And once he is in motion the situation becomes much more complicated because visual motion information now represents the relative motion between him and the ball while the important coordinate frame remains static. Yet, despite its difficulty, with appropriate training some of us become astonishingly good at performing this task. High performance is important because we live in a highly competitive world. The survival of the fittest applies to us as to any other living organism, although the fields of competition might have slightly shifted and diverted during recent evolutionary trends. This competitive pressure not only promotes a visual motion perception system that can determine quickly what is moving where, in which direction, and at what speed; but it also forces this system to be efficient. Efficiency is crucial in biological systems. It encourages solutions that consume the smallest amount of resources of time, substrate, and energy. The requirement for efficiency is advantageous because it drives the system to be quicker, to go further, to last longer, and to have more resources left to solve and perform other tasks at the same time. Thus, being the complex sensory-motor system as the batsman is, he cannot dedicate all of the resources available to solve a single task. Compared to human perceptual abilities, nature provides us with even more astonishing examples of efficient visual motion perception. Consider the various flying insects that navigate by visual perception. They weigh only fractions of grams, yet they are able to navigate successfully at high speeds through complicated environments in which they must resolve visual motions up to 2000 deg/s. 1.1 ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS What applies to biological systems applies also to a large extent to any artificial autonomous system that behaves freely in a real-world environment. When humankind started to build artificial autonomous systems, it was commonly accepted that such systems would become part of our everyday life by the year 2001. Numberless science-fiction stories and movies have encouraged visions of how such agents should behave and interfere with human society. And many of these scenarios seem realistic and desirable. Briefly, we have a rather good sense of what these agents should be capable of. But the construction is still eluding. The semi- autonomous rover of NASAs recent Mars missions or demonstrations of artificial pets are the few examples. Remarkably the progress in this field is slow than the other fields of electronics. Unlike transistor technology in which explosion of density is defined by the Moores law and also in terms of the computational powers the performance of autonomous systems is still not to the par. To find out the reason behind it we have to understand the limitation of traditional approaches. The autonomous system is the one that perceives, takes decision and plans action at a cognitive level, in doing so it must show some degree of intelligence. Returning back to the batsman example, he knows exactly what he has to do to dispatch the ball to the boundary, he has to get into a right position and then hit the ball with a precise timing. In this process, the photons hit the retina and then muscle force is applied. The batsman is not aware that this much is going on into his body. The batsman has a nervous system, and one of its many functions is to instantiate a transformation layerbetween the environme nt and his cognitive mind. The brain reduces and preprocesses the huge amount of noisy sensory data, categorizes and extracts the relevant information, and translates it into a form that is accessible to cognitive reasoning. Thus it is clear here that the there is cluster of process that takes place in a biological cognitive system in a very short time duration. And also that an important part of this whole process is transduction although it is not the one that can solely perform the whole complex task. Thus perception is the interpretationof sensory information with respect to the perceptual goal. The process is shown in the fig-1. 1.2 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS AND COMPUTERS The brain is fundamentally differently organized than a computer and science is still a long way from understanding how the whole thing works. A computer is really easy to understand by comparison. Features (or organization principles) that clearly distinguish a brain from a computer are: Massive parallelism, Distributed storage, Asynchronous processing, and Self organization. The computer is still a basically serially driven machine with a centralized storage and minimal self organization. The table 1.1 enlists these differences. Table 1.1 Differences in the organization principles and operation of computer and brain The digital computation may become so fast that it may solve the present problems and also it may become possible that the autonomous systems are made by digital components that are as powerful as efficient and as intelligent as we may imagine in our wildest dreams. However there are doubts in it and so we have to switch to an implementation framework that can realize all these things. 1.3 NEURAL COMPUTATIONS WITH THE HELP OF ANALOG INTEGRATED CIRCUITS It was Carver Mead who, inspired by the course â€Å"The Physics of Computation† he jointly taught with John Hopfield and Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1982, first proposed the idea of embodying neural computation in silicon analog very large-scale integrated (aVLSI) circuits. Biological neural networks are examples of wonderfully engineered and efficient computational systems. When researchers first began to develop mathematical models for how nervous systems actually compute and process information, they very soon realized that one of the main reasons for the impressive computational power and efficiency of neural networks is the collective computation that takes place among their highly connected neurons. And in researches, it is also well established that these computations are not undertaken digitally although the digital way is much simpler. Real neurons have a cell membrane with a capacitance that acts as a low-pass filter to the incoming signal through its dendrites; they have dendritic trees that non-linearly add signals from other neurons, and so forth. Network structure and analog processing seem to be two key properties of nervous systems providing them with efficiency and computational power, but nonetheless two properties that digital compute rs typically do not share or exploit. 1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Biological information-processing systems operate on completely different principles from those with which most engineers are familiar. For many problems, particularly those in which the input data are ill-conditioned and the computation can be specified in a relative manner, biological solutions are many orders of magnitude more effective than those we have been able to implement using digital methods. This advantage can be attributed principally to the use of elementary physical phenomena as computational primitives, and to the representation of information by the relative values of analog signals, rather than by the absolute values of digital signals. This approach requires adaptive techniques to mitigate the effects of component differences. This kind of adaptation leads naturally to systems that learn about their environment. Large-scale adaptive analog systems are more robust to component degradation and failure than are more conventional systems, and they use far less power . For this reason, adaptive analog technology can be expected to utilize the full potential of wafer scale silicon fabrication 2. The architecture and realization of microelectronic components for a retina-implant system that will provide visual sensations to patients suffering from photoreceptor degeneration. Special circuitry has been developed for a fast single-chip CMOS image sensor system, which provides high dynamic range of more than seven decades (without any electronic or mechanical shutter) corresponding to the performance of the human eye. This image sensor system is directly coupled to a digital filter and a signal processor that compute the so-called receptive-field function for generation of the stimulation data. These external components are wireless, linked to an implanted flexible silicon multielectrode stimulator, which generates electrical signals for electro stimulation of the intact ganglion cells. All components, including additional hardware for digital signal processing and wireless data and power transmission, have been fabricated using in-house standard CMOS technology 3. The circuits inspired by the nervous system that either help verifying neuron physiological models, or that are useful components in artificial perception/action systems. Research also aims at using them in implants. These circuits are computational devices and intelligent sensors that are very differently organized than digital processors. Their storage and processing capacity is distributed. They are asynchronous and use no clock signal. They are often purely analog and operate time continuous. They are adaptive or can even learn on a basic level instead of being programmed. A short introduction into the area of brain research is also included in the course. The students will learn to exploit mechanisms employed by the nervous system for compact energy efficient analog integrated circuits. They will get insight into a multidisciplinary research area. The students will learn to analyze analog CMOS circuits and acquire basic knowledge in brain research methods. 4. Smart vision systems will be an inevitable component of future intelligent systems. Conventional vision systems, based on the system level integration (or even chip level integration) of an image (usually a CCD) camera and a digital processor, do not have the potential for application in general purpose consumer electronic products. This is simply due to the cost, size, and complexity of these systems. Because of these factors conventional vision systems have mainly been limited to specific industrial and military applications. Vision chips, which include both the photo sensors and parallel processing elements (analog or digital), have been under research for more than a decade and illustrate promising capabilities. 5. Dr. Carver Mead, professor emeritus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena pioneered this field. He reasoned that biological evolutionary trends over millions of years have produced organisms that engineers can study to develop better artificial systems. By giving senses and sensory-based behavior to machines, these systems can possibly compete with human senses and brings an intersection between biology, computer science and electrical engineering. Analog circuits, electrical circuits operated with continuous varying signals, are used to implement these algorithmic processes with transistors operated in the sub-threshold or weak inversion region (a region of operation in which transistors are designed to conduct current though the gate voltage is slightly lower than the minimum voltage, called threshold voltage, required for normal conduction to take place) where they exhibit exponential current voltage characteristics and low currents. This circuit paradigm pr oduces high density and low power implementations of some functions that are computationally intensive when compared with other paradigms (triode and saturation operational regions). {A triode region is operating transistor with gate voltage above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage lower than the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. For saturation region, the gate voltage is still above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage above the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. Transistor has four terminals: drain, gate, source and bulk. Current flows between the drain and the source when enough voltage is applied through the gate that enables conduction. The bulk is the body of the transistor.}. As the systems mature, human parts replacements would become a major application area of the Neuromorphic electronics. The fundamental principle is by observing how biological systems perform these func tions robust artificial systems are designed. 6. In This proposed work a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, this is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other circuit components such as averaging circuits, circuits representing ganglion cells, neuronal firing circuits etc that junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although image-processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. With added hardware resources, processing at the front end can reduce a lot of engineering resources for making electronic devices with sense of vision. 1.5 OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT WORK This project work describes a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, which is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other neural firing circuits etc at junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although, image processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas, machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. In this paper it has been shown that with added hardware resources, processing at the front end it can reduce a lot of engineering resources as well as time for making electronic devic es with sense of vision. . The objectives of present work are: Modelling of Neuromorphic Retina The photoreceptor block The horrizontal cell block The transistor mesh implemented with cmos technology The integerated block The integrated block of prs, horizontal cells and bipolar cells The spike generation circuit 1.6 Concluding Remarks In this chapter, the function of the artificial system, difference between brain and computer work is described. The present work is focused on designing of neuromorphic retina layer circuits. Many successful studies have been carried out by the researchers to study the behavior and failure of neuromorphic retina. Some investigators have performed the experimental work to study the phenomenon of the neuromorphic retina. Chapter 2 conations the biological neurons and the electronics of neuromorphic retina in this the descriptions of silicon neurons, electrical nodes as neurons, perceptrons, integrate fire neurons, biological significance of neuromorphic systems, neuromorphic electronics engineering methods, process of developing a neuromorphic chip. Chapter 3 describes the artificial silicon retina, physiology of vision, the retina, photon to electrons, why we require the neuromorphic retina?, the equivalent electronic structure, visual path to brain. In chapter 4 designing and implementation of neuromorphic retina in this the description of the photoreceptor block, the horrizontal cell block, the integerated block, the integrated block of photoreceptors, horizontal cells and bipolar cells, the spike generation circuit. In chapter 5 the design analyses and test results of neuromorphic retina layers. The results are summarized in the form of conclusion in Chapter 6 CHAPTER-2 BIOLOGICAL neurons AND neuromorphic electronics 2.1 INTRODUCTION Neuromorphic systems are inspired by the structure, function and plasticity of biological nervous systems. They are artificial neural systems that mimic algorithmic behavior of the biological animal systems through efficient adaptive and intelligent control techniques. They are designed to adapt, learn from their environments, and make decisions like biological systems and not to perform better than them. There are no efforts to eliminate deficiencies inherent in biological systems. This field, called Neuromorphic engineering, is evolving a new era in computing with a great promise for future medicine, healthcare delivery and industry. It relies on plenty of experiences which nature offers to develop functional, reliable and effective artificial systems. Neuromorphic computational circuits, designed to mimic biological neurons, are primitives based on the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials 2.1 BIOLOGICAL NEURONS Biological neurons have a fairly simple large-scale structure, although their operation and small-scale structure is immensely complex. Neurons have three main parts: a central cell body, called the soma, and two different types of branched, treelike structures that extend from the soma, called dendrites and axons. Information from other neurons, in the form of electrical impulses, enters the dendrites at connection points called synapses. The information flows from the dendrites to the soma, where it is processed. The output signal, a train of impulses, is then sent down the axon to the synapses of other neurons. The dendrites send impulses to the soma while the axon sends impulses away from the soma. Functionally, there are three different types of neurons: Sensory neurons They carry information from sense receptors (nerves that help us see, smell, hear taste and feel) to the central nervous system which includes the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons They carry information from the CNS to effectors (muscles or glands that release all kind of stuff, from water to hormones to ear wax) Interneuron They connect sensory neurons and motor neurons. It has a cell body (or soma) and root-like extensions called mygdale. Amongst the mygdale, one major outgoing trunk is the axon, and the others are dendrites. The signal processing capabilities of a neuron is its ability to vary its intrinsic electrical potential (membrane potential) through special electro-physical and chemical processes. The portion of axon immediately adjacent to the cell body is called axon hillock. This is the point at which action potentials are usually generated. The branches that leave the main axon are often called collaterals. Certain types of neurons have axons or dendrites coated with a fatty insulating substance called myelin. The coating is called the myelin sheath and the fiber is said to be myelinated. In some cases, the myelin sheath is surrounded by another insulating layer, sometimes called neurilemma. This layer, thinner than the myelin sheath and continuous over the nodes of Ranvier, is made up o thin cells called Schwann cells. Now, how do these things work? Inside and just outside of the neurons are sodium ions (Na+) and potassium ions (K+). Normally, when the neuron is just sitting not sending any messages, K+ accumulate inside the neuron while Na+ is kicked out to the area just outside the neuron. Thus, there is a lot of K+ in the neuron and a lot of Na+ just outside of it. This is called the resting potential. Keeping the K+ in and the Na+ is not easy; it requires energy from the body to work. An impulse coming in from the dendrites, reverses this balance, causing K+ to leave the neuron and Na+ to come in. This is known as depolarization. As K+ leave Na+ enter the neuron, energy is released, as the neuron no longer is doing any work to keep K+ in and Na+ out. This energycreates an electrical impulse or action potential that is transmitted from the soma to axon. As the impulse leaves the axon, the neuron repolarizes, that is it takes K+ back in and kicks Na+ out and restores itself to resting potential, ready to send another impulse. This process occurs extremely quickly. A neuron theoretically can send roughly 266 messages in one second. The electrical impulse may stimulate other neurons from its synaptic knobs to propagate the message. Experiments have shown that the membrane voltage variation during the generation of an action potential is generally in a form of a spike (a short pulse figure 2.2), and the shape of this pulse in neurons is rather stereotype and mathematically predictable. 2.2 SILICON NEURONS Neuromorphic engineers are more interested in the physiological rather than the anatomical model of a neuron though, which is concerned with the functionality rather than only classifying its parts. And their preference lies with models that can be realized in aVLSI circuits. Luckily many of the models of neurons have always been formulated as electronic circuits since many of the varying observables in biological neurons are voltages and currents. So it was relatively straight forward to implement them in VLSI electronic circuits. There exist now many aVLSI models of neurons which can be classified by their level of detail that is represented in them. A summary can be found in table 3.1. The most detailed ones are known as ‘silicon neurons. A bit cruder on the level of detail are ‘integrate and fire neurons and even more simplifying are ‘Perceptrons also known as ‘Mc Culloch Pitts neurons. The simplest way however of representing a neuron in electronics is to represent neurons as electrical nodes. Table 2.1 VLSI models of neurons 2.2.1 Electrical Nodesasneurons The most simple of all neuronal models is to just represent a neurons activity by a voltage or a current in an electrical circuit, and input and output are identical, with no transfer function in-between. If a voltage node represents a neuron, excitatory bidirectional connections can be realized simply by resistive elements between the neurons. If you want to add the possibility for inhibitory and mono directional connections, followers can be used instead of resistors. Or if a current represents neuronal activity then a simple current mirror can implement a synapse. Many useful processing networks can be implemented in this manner or in similar ways. For example a resistive network can compute local averages of current inputs. 2.2.2 Perceptrons A perceptron is a simple mathematical model of a neuron. As real neurons it is an entity that is connected to others of its kind by one output and several inputs. Simple signals pass through these connections. In the case of the perceptron these signals are not action potentials but real numbers. To draw the analogy to real neurons these numbers may represent average frequencies of action potentials. The output of a perceptron is a monotonic function (referred to as activation function) of the weighted sum of its inputs (see figure 3.3). Perceptrons are not so much implemented in analog hardware. They have originally been formulated as a mathematical rather than an electronic model and traditional computers are good at those whereas it is not so straight forward to implement simple mathematics into aVLSI. Still there exist aVLSI implementations of perceptrons since they still promise the advantage of a real fully parallel, energy and space conservative implementation. A simple aVLSI implementation of a perceptron is given in the schematics in figure 3.4. This particular implementation works well enough in theory, in practice however it is on one hand not flexible enough (particularly the activation function), on the other already difficult to tune by its bias voltages and prone to noise on the a chip. Circuits that have really been used are based on this one but were more extensive to deal with the problems. 2.2.3 Integrate Fire Neurons This model of a neuron sticks closer to the original in terms of its signals. Its output and its inputs are pulse signals. In terms of frequencies it actually can be modeled by a perceptron and vice versa. It is however much better suited to be implemented in aVLSI. And the spike communication also has distinct advantages in noise robustness. That is also thought to be a reason, why the nervous system uses that kind of communication. An integrate and fire neuron integrates weighted charge inputs triggered by presynaptic action potentials. If the integrated voltage reaches a threshold, the neuron fires a short output pulse and the integrator is reset. These basic properties are depicted in figure 2.5. 2.3 BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF NEUROMORPHIC SYSTEMS The fundamental philosophy of neuromorphic engineering is to utilize algorithmic inspiration of biological systems to engineer artificial systems. It is a kind of technology transfer from biology to engineering that involves the understanding of the functions and forms of the biological systems and consequent morphinginto silicon chips. The fundamental biological unit mimicked in the design of neuromorphic systems is the neurons. Animal brain is composed of these individual units of computation, called neurons and the neurons are the elementary signaling parts of the nervous systems. By examining the retina for instance, artificial neurons that mimic the retinal neurons and chemistry are fabricated on silicon (most common material), gallium arsenide (GaAs) or possibly prospective organic semiconductor materials. 2.4 NEUROMORPHIC ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING METHODS Neuromorphic systems design methods involves the mapping of models of perfection and sensory processing in biological systems onto analog VLSI systems which emulate the biological functions at the same time resembling their structural architecture. These systems are mainly designed with complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) transistors that enable low power consumption, higher chip density and integration, lower cost. These transistors are biased to operate in the sub-threshold region to enable the realizations of high dynamic range of currents which are very important for neural systems design. Elements of adaptation and learning (a sort of higher level of adaptation in which past experience is used to effectively readjust the response of a system to previously unseen input stimuli) are incorporated into neuromorphic systems since they are expected to emulate the behavior of the biological systems and compensate for imperfections in t Modelling of Meromorphic Retina Modelling of Meromorphic Retina CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION and literature review 1. INTRODUCTION The world depends on how we sense it; perceive it and how we act is according to our perception of this world. But where from this perception comes? Leaving the psychological part, we perceive by what we sense and act by what we perceive. The senses in humans and other animals are the faculties by which outside information is received for evaluation and response. Thus the actions of humans depend on what they sense. Aristotle divided the senses into five, namely: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste and Touch. These have continued to be regarded as the classical five senses, although scientists have determined the existence of as many as 15 additional senses. Sense organs buried deep in the tissues of muscles, tendons, and joints, for example, give rise to sensations of weight, position of the body, and amount of bending of the various joints; these organs are called proprioceptors. Within the semicircular canal of the ear is the organ of equilibrium, concerned with the sense of balance. General senses, which produce information concerning bodily needs (hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain), are also recognized. But the foundation of all these is still the list of five that was given by Aristotle. Our world is a visual world. Visual perception is by far the most important sensory process by which we gather and extract information from our environment. Vision is the ability to see the features of objects we look at, such as color, shape, size, details, depth, and contrast. Vision is achieved when the eyes and brain work together to form pictures of the world around us. Vision begins with light rays bouncing off the surface of objects. Light reflected from objects in our world forms a very rich source of information and data. The light reflected has a short wavelength and high transmission speed that allow us a spatially accurate and fast localization of reflecting surfaces. The spectral variations in wavelength and intensity in the reflected light resemble the physical properties of object surfaces, and provide means to recognize them. The sources that light our world are usually inhomogeneous. The sun, our natural light source, for example, is in good approximation a point sou rce. Inhomogeneous light sources cause shadows and reflections that are highly correlated with the shape of objects. Thus, knowledge of the spatial position and extent of the light source enables further extraction of information about our environment. Our world is also a world of motion. We and most other animals are moving creatures. We navigate successfully through a dynamic environment, and we use predominantly visual information to do so. A sense of motion is crucial for the perception of our own motion in relation to other moving and static objects in the environment. We must predict accurately the relative dynamics of objects in the environment in order to plan appropriate actions. Take for example the following situation that illustrates the nature of such a perceptual task: the batsman a cricket team is facing a bowler. In order to get the boundary on the ball, he needs an accurate estimate of the real motion trajectory of the ball such that he can precisely plan and orchestrate his body movements to hit the ball. There is little more than just visual information available to him in order to solve the task. And once he is in motion the situation becomes much more complicated because visual motion information now represents the relative motion between him and the ball while the important coordinate frame remains static. Yet, despite its difficulty, with appropriate training some of us become astonishingly good at performing this task. High performance is important because we live in a highly competitive world. The survival of the fittest applies to us as to any other living organism, although the fields of competition might have slightly shifted and diverted during recent evolutionary trends. This competitive pressure not only promotes a visual motion perception system that can determine quickly what is moving where, in which direction, and at what speed; but it also forces this system to be efficient. Efficiency is crucial in biological systems. It encourages solutions that consume the smallest amount of resources of time, substrate, and energy. The requirement for efficiency is advantageous because it drives the system to be quicker, to go further, to last longer, and to have more resources left to solve and perform other tasks at the same time. Thus, being the complex sensory-motor system as the batsman is, he cannot dedicate all of the resources available to solve a single task. Compared to human perceptual abilities, nature provides us with even more astonishing examples of efficient visual motion perception. Consider the various flying insects that navigate by visual perception. They weigh only fractions of grams, yet they are able to navigate successfully at high speeds through complicated environments in which they must resolve visual motions up to 2000 deg/s. 1.1 ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS What applies to biological systems applies also to a large extent to any artificial autonomous system that behaves freely in a real-world environment. When humankind started to build artificial autonomous systems, it was commonly accepted that such systems would become part of our everyday life by the year 2001. Numberless science-fiction stories and movies have encouraged visions of how such agents should behave and interfere with human society. And many of these scenarios seem realistic and desirable. Briefly, we have a rather good sense of what these agents should be capable of. But the construction is still eluding. The semi- autonomous rover of NASAs recent Mars missions or demonstrations of artificial pets are the few examples. Remarkably the progress in this field is slow than the other fields of electronics. Unlike transistor technology in which explosion of density is defined by the Moores law and also in terms of the computational powers the performance of autonomous systems is still not to the par. To find out the reason behind it we have to understand the limitation of traditional approaches. The autonomous system is the one that perceives, takes decision and plans action at a cognitive level, in doing so it must show some degree of intelligence. Returning back to the batsman example, he knows exactly what he has to do to dispatch the ball to the boundary, he has to get into a right position and then hit the ball with a precise timing. In this process, the photons hit the retina and then muscle force is applied. The batsman is not aware that this much is going on into his body. The batsman has a nervous system, and one of its many functions is to instantiate a transformation layerbetween the environme nt and his cognitive mind. The brain reduces and preprocesses the huge amount of noisy sensory data, categorizes and extracts the relevant information, and translates it into a form that is accessible to cognitive reasoning. Thus it is clear here that the there is cluster of process that takes place in a biological cognitive system in a very short time duration. And also that an important part of this whole process is transduction although it is not the one that can solely perform the whole complex task. Thus perception is the interpretationof sensory information with respect to the perceptual goal. The process is shown in the fig-1. 1.2 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS AND COMPUTERS The brain is fundamentally differently organized than a computer and science is still a long way from understanding how the whole thing works. A computer is really easy to understand by comparison. Features (or organization principles) that clearly distinguish a brain from a computer are: Massive parallelism, Distributed storage, Asynchronous processing, and Self organization. The computer is still a basically serially driven machine with a centralized storage and minimal self organization. The table 1.1 enlists these differences. Table 1.1 Differences in the organization principles and operation of computer and brain The digital computation may become so fast that it may solve the present problems and also it may become possible that the autonomous systems are made by digital components that are as powerful as efficient and as intelligent as we may imagine in our wildest dreams. However there are doubts in it and so we have to switch to an implementation framework that can realize all these things. 1.3 NEURAL COMPUTATIONS WITH THE HELP OF ANALOG INTEGRATED CIRCUITS It was Carver Mead who, inspired by the course â€Å"The Physics of Computation† he jointly taught with John Hopfield and Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1982, first proposed the idea of embodying neural computation in silicon analog very large-scale integrated (aVLSI) circuits. Biological neural networks are examples of wonderfully engineered and efficient computational systems. When researchers first began to develop mathematical models for how nervous systems actually compute and process information, they very soon realized that one of the main reasons for the impressive computational power and efficiency of neural networks is the collective computation that takes place among their highly connected neurons. And in researches, it is also well established that these computations are not undertaken digitally although the digital way is much simpler. Real neurons have a cell membrane with a capacitance that acts as a low-pass filter to the incoming signal through its dendrites; they have dendritic trees that non-linearly add signals from other neurons, and so forth. Network structure and analog processing seem to be two key properties of nervous systems providing them with efficiency and computational power, but nonetheless two properties that digital compute rs typically do not share or exploit. 1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Biological information-processing systems operate on completely different principles from those with which most engineers are familiar. For many problems, particularly those in which the input data are ill-conditioned and the computation can be specified in a relative manner, biological solutions are many orders of magnitude more effective than those we have been able to implement using digital methods. This advantage can be attributed principally to the use of elementary physical phenomena as computational primitives, and to the representation of information by the relative values of analog signals, rather than by the absolute values of digital signals. This approach requires adaptive techniques to mitigate the effects of component differences. This kind of adaptation leads naturally to systems that learn about their environment. Large-scale adaptive analog systems are more robust to component degradation and failure than are more conventional systems, and they use far less power . For this reason, adaptive analog technology can be expected to utilize the full potential of wafer scale silicon fabrication 2. The architecture and realization of microelectronic components for a retina-implant system that will provide visual sensations to patients suffering from photoreceptor degeneration. Special circuitry has been developed for a fast single-chip CMOS image sensor system, which provides high dynamic range of more than seven decades (without any electronic or mechanical shutter) corresponding to the performance of the human eye. This image sensor system is directly coupled to a digital filter and a signal processor that compute the so-called receptive-field function for generation of the stimulation data. These external components are wireless, linked to an implanted flexible silicon multielectrode stimulator, which generates electrical signals for electro stimulation of the intact ganglion cells. All components, including additional hardware for digital signal processing and wireless data and power transmission, have been fabricated using in-house standard CMOS technology 3. The circuits inspired by the nervous system that either help verifying neuron physiological models, or that are useful components in artificial perception/action systems. Research also aims at using them in implants. These circuits are computational devices and intelligent sensors that are very differently organized than digital processors. Their storage and processing capacity is distributed. They are asynchronous and use no clock signal. They are often purely analog and operate time continuous. They are adaptive or can even learn on a basic level instead of being programmed. A short introduction into the area of brain research is also included in the course. The students will learn to exploit mechanisms employed by the nervous system for compact energy efficient analog integrated circuits. They will get insight into a multidisciplinary research area. The students will learn to analyze analog CMOS circuits and acquire basic knowledge in brain research methods. 4. Smart vision systems will be an inevitable component of future intelligent systems. Conventional vision systems, based on the system level integration (or even chip level integration) of an image (usually a CCD) camera and a digital processor, do not have the potential for application in general purpose consumer electronic products. This is simply due to the cost, size, and complexity of these systems. Because of these factors conventional vision systems have mainly been limited to specific industrial and military applications. Vision chips, which include both the photo sensors and parallel processing elements (analog or digital), have been under research for more than a decade and illustrate promising capabilities. 5. Dr. Carver Mead, professor emeritus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena pioneered this field. He reasoned that biological evolutionary trends over millions of years have produced organisms that engineers can study to develop better artificial systems. By giving senses and sensory-based behavior to machines, these systems can possibly compete with human senses and brings an intersection between biology, computer science and electrical engineering. Analog circuits, electrical circuits operated with continuous varying signals, are used to implement these algorithmic processes with transistors operated in the sub-threshold or weak inversion region (a region of operation in which transistors are designed to conduct current though the gate voltage is slightly lower than the minimum voltage, called threshold voltage, required for normal conduction to take place) where they exhibit exponential current voltage characteristics and low currents. This circuit paradigm pr oduces high density and low power implementations of some functions that are computationally intensive when compared with other paradigms (triode and saturation operational regions). {A triode region is operating transistor with gate voltage above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage lower than the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. For saturation region, the gate voltage is still above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage above the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. Transistor has four terminals: drain, gate, source and bulk. Current flows between the drain and the source when enough voltage is applied through the gate that enables conduction. The bulk is the body of the transistor.}. As the systems mature, human parts replacements would become a major application area of the Neuromorphic electronics. The fundamental principle is by observing how biological systems perform these func tions robust artificial systems are designed. 6. In This proposed work a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, this is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other circuit components such as averaging circuits, circuits representing ganglion cells, neuronal firing circuits etc that junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although image-processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. With added hardware resources, processing at the front end can reduce a lot of engineering resources for making electronic devices with sense of vision. 1.5 OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT WORK This project work describes a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, which is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other neural firing circuits etc at junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although, image processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas, machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. In this paper it has been shown that with added hardware resources, processing at the front end it can reduce a lot of engineering resources as well as time for making electronic devic es with sense of vision. . The objectives of present work are: Modelling of Neuromorphic Retina The photoreceptor block The horrizontal cell block The transistor mesh implemented with cmos technology The integerated block The integrated block of prs, horizontal cells and bipolar cells The spike generation circuit 1.6 Concluding Remarks In this chapter, the function of the artificial system, difference between brain and computer work is described. The present work is focused on designing of neuromorphic retina layer circuits. Many successful studies have been carried out by the researchers to study the behavior and failure of neuromorphic retina. Some investigators have performed the experimental work to study the phenomenon of the neuromorphic retina. Chapter 2 conations the biological neurons and the electronics of neuromorphic retina in this the descriptions of silicon neurons, electrical nodes as neurons, perceptrons, integrate fire neurons, biological significance of neuromorphic systems, neuromorphic electronics engineering methods, process of developing a neuromorphic chip. Chapter 3 describes the artificial silicon retina, physiology of vision, the retina, photon to electrons, why we require the neuromorphic retina?, the equivalent electronic structure, visual path to brain. In chapter 4 designing and implementation of neuromorphic retina in this the description of the photoreceptor block, the horrizontal cell block, the integerated block, the integrated block of photoreceptors, horizontal cells and bipolar cells, the spike generation circuit. In chapter 5 the design analyses and test results of neuromorphic retina layers. The results are summarized in the form of conclusion in Chapter 6 CHAPTER-2 BIOLOGICAL neurons AND neuromorphic electronics 2.1 INTRODUCTION Neuromorphic systems are inspired by the structure, function and plasticity of biological nervous systems. They are artificial neural systems that mimic algorithmic behavior of the biological animal systems through efficient adaptive and intelligent control techniques. They are designed to adapt, learn from their environments, and make decisions like biological systems and not to perform better than them. There are no efforts to eliminate deficiencies inherent in biological systems. This field, called Neuromorphic engineering, is evolving a new era in computing with a great promise for future medicine, healthcare delivery and industry. It relies on plenty of experiences which nature offers to develop functional, reliable and effective artificial systems. Neuromorphic computational circuits, designed to mimic biological neurons, are primitives based on the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials 2.1 BIOLOGICAL NEURONS Biological neurons have a fairly simple large-scale structure, although their operation and small-scale structure is immensely complex. Neurons have three main parts: a central cell body, called the soma, and two different types of branched, treelike structures that extend from the soma, called dendrites and axons. Information from other neurons, in the form of electrical impulses, enters the dendrites at connection points called synapses. The information flows from the dendrites to the soma, where it is processed. The output signal, a train of impulses, is then sent down the axon to the synapses of other neurons. The dendrites send impulses to the soma while the axon sends impulses away from the soma. Functionally, there are three different types of neurons: Sensory neurons They carry information from sense receptors (nerves that help us see, smell, hear taste and feel) to the central nervous system which includes the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons They carry information from the CNS to effectors (muscles or glands that release all kind of stuff, from water to hormones to ear wax) Interneuron They connect sensory neurons and motor neurons. It has a cell body (or soma) and root-like extensions called mygdale. Amongst the mygdale, one major outgoing trunk is the axon, and the others are dendrites. The signal processing capabilities of a neuron is its ability to vary its intrinsic electrical potential (membrane potential) through special electro-physical and chemical processes. The portion of axon immediately adjacent to the cell body is called axon hillock. This is the point at which action potentials are usually generated. The branches that leave the main axon are often called collaterals. Certain types of neurons have axons or dendrites coated with a fatty insulating substance called myelin. The coating is called the myelin sheath and the fiber is said to be myelinated. In some cases, the myelin sheath is surrounded by another insulating layer, sometimes called neurilemma. This layer, thinner than the myelin sheath and continuous over the nodes of Ranvier, is made up o thin cells called Schwann cells. Now, how do these things work? Inside and just outside of the neurons are sodium ions (Na+) and potassium ions (K+). Normally, when the neuron is just sitting not sending any messages, K+ accumulate inside the neuron while Na+ is kicked out to the area just outside the neuron. Thus, there is a lot of K+ in the neuron and a lot of Na+ just outside of it. This is called the resting potential. Keeping the K+ in and the Na+ is not easy; it requires energy from the body to work. An impulse coming in from the dendrites, reverses this balance, causing K+ to leave the neuron and Na+ to come in. This is known as depolarization. As K+ leave Na+ enter the neuron, energy is released, as the neuron no longer is doing any work to keep K+ in and Na+ out. This energycreates an electrical impulse or action potential that is transmitted from the soma to axon. As the impulse leaves the axon, the neuron repolarizes, that is it takes K+ back in and kicks Na+ out and restores itself to resting potential, ready to send another impulse. This process occurs extremely quickly. A neuron theoretically can send roughly 266 messages in one second. The electrical impulse may stimulate other neurons from its synaptic knobs to propagate the message. Experiments have shown that the membrane voltage variation during the generation of an action potential is generally in a form of a spike (a short pulse figure 2.2), and the shape of this pulse in neurons is rather stereotype and mathematically predictable. 2.2 SILICON NEURONS Neuromorphic engineers are more interested in the physiological rather than the anatomical model of a neuron though, which is concerned with the functionality rather than only classifying its parts. And their preference lies with models that can be realized in aVLSI circuits. Luckily many of the models of neurons have always been formulated as electronic circuits since many of the varying observables in biological neurons are voltages and currents. So it was relatively straight forward to implement them in VLSI electronic circuits. There exist now many aVLSI models of neurons which can be classified by their level of detail that is represented in them. A summary can be found in table 3.1. The most detailed ones are known as ‘silicon neurons. A bit cruder on the level of detail are ‘integrate and fire neurons and even more simplifying are ‘Perceptrons also known as ‘Mc Culloch Pitts neurons. The simplest way however of representing a neuron in electronics is to represent neurons as electrical nodes. Table 2.1 VLSI models of neurons 2.2.1 Electrical Nodesasneurons The most simple of all neuronal models is to just represent a neurons activity by a voltage or a current in an electrical circuit, and input and output are identical, with no transfer function in-between. If a voltage node represents a neuron, excitatory bidirectional connections can be realized simply by resistive elements between the neurons. If you want to add the possibility for inhibitory and mono directional connections, followers can be used instead of resistors. Or if a current represents neuronal activity then a simple current mirror can implement a synapse. Many useful processing networks can be implemented in this manner or in similar ways. For example a resistive network can compute local averages of current inputs. 2.2.2 Perceptrons A perceptron is a simple mathematical model of a neuron. As real neurons it is an entity that is connected to others of its kind by one output and several inputs. Simple signals pass through these connections. In the case of the perceptron these signals are not action potentials but real numbers. To draw the analogy to real neurons these numbers may represent average frequencies of action potentials. The output of a perceptron is a monotonic function (referred to as activation function) of the weighted sum of its inputs (see figure 3.3). Perceptrons are not so much implemented in analog hardware. They have originally been formulated as a mathematical rather than an electronic model and traditional computers are good at those whereas it is not so straight forward to implement simple mathematics into aVLSI. Still there exist aVLSI implementations of perceptrons since they still promise the advantage of a real fully parallel, energy and space conservative implementation. A simple aVLSI implementation of a perceptron is given in the schematics in figure 3.4. This particular implementation works well enough in theory, in practice however it is on one hand not flexible enough (particularly the activation function), on the other already difficult to tune by its bias voltages and prone to noise on the a chip. Circuits that have really been used are based on this one but were more extensive to deal with the problems. 2.2.3 Integrate Fire Neurons This model of a neuron sticks closer to the original in terms of its signals. Its output and its inputs are pulse signals. In terms of frequencies it actually can be modeled by a perceptron and vice versa. It is however much better suited to be implemented in aVLSI. And the spike communication also has distinct advantages in noise robustness. That is also thought to be a reason, why the nervous system uses that kind of communication. An integrate and fire neuron integrates weighted charge inputs triggered by presynaptic action potentials. If the integrated voltage reaches a threshold, the neuron fires a short output pulse and the integrator is reset. These basic properties are depicted in figure 2.5. 2.3 BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF NEUROMORPHIC SYSTEMS The fundamental philosophy of neuromorphic engineering is to utilize algorithmic inspiration of biological systems to engineer artificial systems. It is a kind of technology transfer from biology to engineering that involves the understanding of the functions and forms of the biological systems and consequent morphinginto silicon chips. The fundamental biological unit mimicked in the design of neuromorphic systems is the neurons. Animal brain is composed of these individual units of computation, called neurons and the neurons are the elementary signaling parts of the nervous systems. By examining the retina for instance, artificial neurons that mimic the retinal neurons and chemistry are fabricated on silicon (most common material), gallium arsenide (GaAs) or possibly prospective organic semiconductor materials. 2.4 NEUROMORPHIC ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING METHODS Neuromorphic systems design methods involves the mapping of models of perfection and sensory processing in biological systems onto analog VLSI systems which emulate the biological functions at the same time resembling their structural architecture. These systems are mainly designed with complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) transistors that enable low power consumption, higher chip density and integration, lower cost. These transistors are biased to operate in the sub-threshold region to enable the realizations of high dynamic range of currents which are very important for neural systems design. Elements of adaptation and learning (a sort of higher level of adaptation in which past experience is used to effectively readjust the response of a system to previously unseen input stimuli) are incorporated into neuromorphic systems since they are expected to emulate the behavior of the biological systems and compensate for imperfections in t