Thursday, December 26, 2019

The Shot Boundary And Classification Of Digital Video Essay

Shot boundary and classification of digital video is most important step for effective management and retrieval of video data. Shot transitions include abrupt changes and gradual changes. Recent automated techniques for detecting transitions between shots are highly effective on abrupt transitions. But finding gradual transition is major challenge in the presence of camera and object motion. In this paper, different shot boundary detection technique has studied. The main focused on to differentiated motion from various video effects noise, illumination changes, gradual transition, and abrupt transition. Specially, the paper focuses on dissolve detection in the presence of camera and object motion Keywords: Shot boundary, Gradual transition, Abrupt Transition, Video Retrieval I.INTRODUCTION: The advances in the data capturing, storage, and communication technologies have made vast amounts of video data available to consumer and enterprise applications [1]. However, interacting with multimedia data, and video in particular, requires more than connecting with data banks and delivering data via networks to customers, homes or offices. We still have limited tools and applications to describe, organize, and manage video data. The fundamental approach is to index video data and make it a structured media. Manually generating video content description is time consuming and thus more costly to the point that it’s almost impossible. This is because of the structure of video data,Show MoreRelatedDissertation-Viral Marketing27075 Words   |  109 PagesKapil Gupta Viral marketing of digital products using social media Dissertation presented for the Degree of Masters of Business Administration at the University of Edinburgh Business School, May 2011 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Tony Kinder, for all of the help and guidance he has given me over the course of the project, from the initial idea through the research and writing stages through to the conclusion. It would have been impossible to complete this projectRead MoreReasons For The Sexualization Of Culture3852 Words   |  16 Pagesdesires’ and commodifying human bodies. For example, many advertisements in media and on the streets contain what is called the ‘porn look’. Sex-related talk shows become an entertainment. 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In general, the sequence of cases is intended to mirror the chapter sequence. However, this should not be taken too literally because, of course, many of these cases cover a variety of issues. The ‘classiï ¬ cation’ provided is therefore guidance only. We expect readers to seek their own lessons from cases, and tutors to use cases in whichever way and sequence best ï ¬ ts the purpose of their programmes. Where cases have been chosen to illustrate the issuesRead MoreMarketing Management130471 Words   |  522 Pageslogical fashion. For example, bowing and a strong desire to avoid the loss of face are unified in their manifestation of the importance of respect. (2) Culture is learned rat her than being something we are born with. (3) Culture is manifested within boundaries of acceptable behavior. For example, in American society, one cannot show up to class naked, but wearing anything from a suit and tie to shorts and a T-shirt would usually be acceptable. 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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Bullying Is A Universal Epidemic - 1976 Words

INTRODUCTION Bullying is a universal epidemic that is affecting an extraordinary number of school aged adolescence children in countries of the United States to Japan (Elsea et al., 2003). The specific number of children being bullied may be greater than what is published by sources because many children fail to report these issues due to fear of embarrassment and rejection (Unnever Cornell, 2004). It can also have drastic effects on the bully and victim which can appear to be life long consequences. Many researchers have labeled bullying a school related issue only. Bullying just recently began to gain attention from a system-wide of researchers in the 1980’s (Olewus, 1993). Some individuals are unaware that bullying is also a family†¦show more content†¦Olweus (1993) defined bullying as a behavior that leaves a child â€Å"exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part one or more other students† (p.9). He furthered explained a â€Å"negative actionà ¢â‚¬  as a behavior that â€Å"intentionally inflicts, or attempts to afflict, injury or discomfort upon another† (p.9). A negative action can be carried out verbally, as in teasing, name calling, or in physical forms such as pushing, hitting and making gestures. The behaviors listed above have been distinguished into two separate types of bullying, direct and indirect bullying. Direct bullying consists of open and physical attacks on a victim, while indirect bullying includes social isolation and intentional exclusion from groups. The three characteristics that must be present to label bullying, according to Olweus (1993) are harmful intent, imbalanced of power of strength, and repetition of negative actions. Researchers Scaglione and Scaglione (2006) suggest for the particular generation, bullying doesn’t necessarily involve those three factors described by Olweus (1993). They believe that children bully other children with the same strength and power. Also, they mention children who bully may not have the intention of harming another individual. CHARACTERISTICS OF BULLIES AND VICTIMS Whereas, bullies may differ in the type of aggression they use, most bullies share

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Java-Whitepaper free essay sample

This white paper compares C++/Qt with Java/AWT/Swing for developing large-scale, real-world software with graphical user interfaces. References are made to independent reports that examine various aspects of the two toolsets. 1 A Comparison of Qt and Java 1. What Do We Compare? When selecting an environment for a large software development project, there are many aspects that must be considered.The programming language is one of the most significant aspects, since its choice has considerable impact on what other options are available. For example, in a GUI development project, developers will need a GUI library that provides ready-made user interface components, for example, buttons and menus. Since the selection of the GUI library itself has a large impact on the development of a project, it is not uncommon for the GUI library to be chosen first, with the programming language being determined by the languages for which the library is available. Usually, there is only one language per library. Other software components like database access libraries or communication libraries must also be taken into consideration, but they rarely have such a strong impact on the overall design as the GUI libraries. In this white paper, the objective is to compare the C++/Qt environment with the Java/AWT/Swing environment. In order to do this in the most useful way, we will begin by comparing the programming languages involved, i. e. C++ and Java, and then compare the two GUI libraries, Qt for C++ and AWT/Swing for Java. 2. Comparing C++ and Java When discussing the various benefits and drawbacks of particular programming languages, the debate often degenerates into arguments that are based on personal experience and preference rather than any objective criteria. Personal preferences and experience should be taken into account when selecting a programming language for a project, but because it is subjective, it cannot be considered here.Instead we will look at issues such as programmer-efficiency, runtime-efficiency and memory-efficiency since these can be quantified and have been examined in scientifically conducted research, although we will also incorporate information based on the practical exerience of projects that have been implemented in our own company. 2. 1. Programmer-efficiency Programmer-efficiency describes how efficiently (i. e. how quickly and accurately) a programmer with a given degree of experience and knowledge can implement a certain set of requirements in a particular programming language, including debugging and project setup time.Since developer salaries are one of the primary cost factors for any programming project, programmer-efficiency greatly affects the 2 A Comparison of Qt and Java cost-efficiency of the project. To some extent, programmer-efficiency is also determined by the tools available. The main design goal of Java is increased programmer-efficiency compared to other general-purpose programming languages, rather than increased memory- or runtime-efficiency. Java has several features designed to make it more programmer-efficient.For example, unlike C++ (or C), the programmer does not have to explicitly free (give back) allocated memory resources to the operating system. Freeing unused memory (garbage collection) is handled automatically by the Java runtime system, at the expense of memory- and runtime-efficiency (see below). This liberates the programmer from the burden of keeping track of allocated memory, a tedious task that is a major cause of bugs. This feature alone should significantly increase the programmer-efficiency of Java programmers, compared to C++ (or C) programmers.Research shows that in practice, garbage collection and other Java features, do not have a major influence on the programmer-efficiency. One of the classic software estimation models, Barry Boehm’s CoCoMo1 predicts the cost and schedule of a software project using cost drivers which take into account variables like the general experience of a programmers, the experience with the programming language in question, the targeted reliability of the program, etc. Boehm writes that the amount of effort per source statement was highly independent of the language level.Other research, for example, A method of programming measurement and estimation by C. E. Walston and C. P. Felix of IBM2, points in the same direction. Both the reports cited here pre-date the advent of Java by many years, although they seem to reveal a general principle that the sophistication of a general-purpose programming language has, compared with other aspects, like the experience of the developers, no significant influence on the overall project costs. There is more recent research that explicitly includes Java and which supports this hypothesis.In An empirical comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl3, Lutz Prechelt of the University of Karlsruhe, describes an experiment he conducted in which computer science students were assigned a particular design and development task and asked to implement the specification provided in any of the languages C, C++, or Java which they could freely choose according to their personal preferences (the other languages were examined in a different part of the research project). The data gathered shows almost the same results for C++ and Java (with C running third in most aspe cts).This is also backed up by our own experience: if programmers can choose their favorite programming language (which is usually the one they have most experience of), programmers with the same level of experience (measured for example, in years of programming experience in general) achieve about the same programmer-efficiency. Another interesting aspect that we noted (but which is not yet supported by any formal 3 A Comparison of Qt and Java research) is that less experienced developers seem to achieve somewhat better results with Java, medium-experienced developers achieve about the same results with both programming languages, nd experienced developers achieve better results with C++. These findings could be due to better tools being available for C++; nevertheless this is an aspect that must be taken into account. An interesting way to quantify programmer-efficiency is the Function Point method developed by Capers Jones. Function points are a software metric that only depend on the functionality, not on the implementation. Working from the function points, it is possible to compute the lines of code needed per function point as well as the language level which describes how many function points can be implemented in a certain amount of time.Intriguingly, both the values for the lines of code per function point and the language level are identical for C++ and Java (6 for the language level, compared with C’s 3. 5 and Tcl’s 5, and 53 for the lines of code per function point, compared with C’s 91 and Tcl’s 64). In conclusion: both research and practice contradict the claim that Java programmers achieve a higher programmer-efficiency than C++ programmers. 2. 2. Runtime-efficiency We have seen that Java’s programmer-efficiency appears to be illusory. We will now examine its runtime efficiency. Again, Prechelt provides useful data.The amount of data he provides is huge, but he arrives at the conclusion that a Java program must be expected to run at least 1. 22 times as long as a C/C++ program. Note that he says at least; the average runtime of Java programs is even longer. Our own experience shows that Java programs tend to run about 2-3 times as long than their equivalent C/C++ programs for the same task. Not surprisingly, Java loses even more ground when the tasks are CPU-bound. When it comes to programs with a graphical user interface, the increased latency of Java programs is worse than the runtime performance hit.Usability studies show that users do not care about whether a long running task takes, say, two or three minutes, but they do care when a program does not show an immediate reaction to their interaction, for example when they press a button. These studies show that the limit of what a user accepts before they consider a program to be unresponsive can be as little as 0. 7 seconds. Well return to this issue when we compare graphical user interfaces in Java and C++ programs. An explanation about why Java programs are slower than C++ is in order.C++ programs are compiled by the C++ compiler into a binary format that can be executed directly by the CPU; the whole program execution thus takes place in 4 A Comparison of Qt and Java hardware. (This is an oversimplification since most modern CPUs execute microcode, but this does not affect the issues discussed here. ) On the other hand, the Java compiler compiles the source code into bytecode which is not executed directly by the CPU, but rather by another piece of software, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The JVM in turn, runs on the CPU.The execution of the bytecode of a Java program does not take place in (fast) hardware, but instead in (much slower) software emulation. Work has been undertaken to develop Just in Time (JIT) compilers to address Java’s runtime efficiency problem, but no universal solution has yet emerged. It is the semi-interpreted nature of Java programs that makes the compile once, run anywhere approach of Java possible in the first place. Once a Java program is compiled into bytecode, it can be executed on any platform which has a JVM.In practice, this is not always the case, because of implementation differences in different JVMs, and because of the necessity to sometimes use native, non-Java code, usually written in C or C++, together with Java programs. But is the use of platform-independent bytecode the right approach for crossplatform applications? With a good cross-platform toolkit like Qt and good compilers on the various platforms, programmers can achieve almost the same by compiling their source code once for each platform: write once, compile everywhere.It can be argued that for this to work, developers need access to all the platforms they want to support, while with Java, in theory at least, developers only need access to one platform running the Java development tools and a JVM. In practice, no responsible software manufacturer will ever certify their software for a platform the software hasnt been tested on, so they would still need access to all the relevant platforms. The question arises why it should be necessary to run the Java Virtual Machine in software; if a program can be implemented in software, it should also be possible to have hardware implement the same unctionality. This is what the Java designers had in mind when they developed the language; they assumed that the performance penalty would disappear as soon as Java CPUs that implement the JVM in hardware would become available. But after five years, such Java CPUs have not become generally available. Java automatically de-allocates (frees) unused memory. The programmer allocates memory, and the JVM keeps track of all the allocated memory blocks and the references to them. As soon as a memory block is no longer referenced, it can be reclaimed. This is done in a process called garbage collection in which the JVM periodically checks all the allocated memory blocks, and removes any which are no longer referred to. Garbage collection is very convenient, but the trade offs are greater memory consumption and slower runtime speed. . With C++, the programmer can (and should) delete blocks of memory as soon as they are no longer required.With Java, blocks are not deleted until the next garbage collection run, and this depends on the implementation on the JVM being used. Prechtelt provides figures which state that on average ( ) and with a confidence of 80%, the Java programs consume at least 32 MB (or 297%) more memory than the C/C++ programs (. .. ). In addition to the higher memory requirements, the garbage collection process itself requires processing power which is consequently not available to the actual application functionality, leading to slower overall runtimes.Since the garbage collector runs periodically, it can occasionally lead to Java programs freezing for a few seconds. The best JVM implementations keep the occurrence of such freezes to a minimum, but the freezes have not been eliminated entirely. When dealing with external programs and devices, for example, during I/O or when interacting with a database, it is usually desirable to close the file or database connection as soon as it is no longer required. Using C++’s destructors, this happens as soon as the programmer calls delete.In Java, closing may not occur until the next garbage collecting sweep, which at best may tie up resources unnecessarily, and at worst risks the open resources ending up in an inconsistent state. The fact that Java programs keep memory blocks around longer than is strictly necessary is especially problematic for embedded devices where memory is often at a premium. It is no coincidence that there is (at the time of writing) no complete implementation of the Java platform for embedded devices, only partial implementations that implement a subset.The main reason why garbage collection is more expensive than explicit memory management by the programmer is that with the Java scheme, information is lost. In a C++ program, the programmer knows both where their memory blocks are (by storing pointers to them) and knows when they are not needed any longer. In a Java 6 A Comparison of Qt and Java program, the l atter information is not available to the JVM (even though it is known to the programmer), and thus the JVM has to manually find unreferenced blocks. A Java programmer can make use of their knowledge of when a memory block is not needed any longer by deleting all references that are still around and triggering garbage collection manually, but this requires as much effort on the part of the programmer as with the explicit memory management in C++, and still the JVM has to look at each block during garbage collection to determine which ones are no longer used. Technically, there is nothing that prevents the implementation and use of garbage collection in C++ programs, and there are commercial programs and libraries available that offer this.But because of the disadvantages mentioned above, few C++ programmers make use of this. The Qt toolkit takes a more efficient approach to easing the memory management task for its programmers: when an object is deleted, all dependant objects are automatically deleted too. Qt’s approach does not interfere with the programmer’s freedom to delete manually when they wish to. Because man ual memory management burdens programmers, C and C++ have been accused of being prone to generate unstable, bug-ridden software.Although the danger of producing memory corruption (which typically leads to program crashes) is certainly higher with C and C++, good education, tools and experience can greatly reduce the risks. Memory management can be learned like anything else, and there are a large number of tools available, both commercial and open source, that help programmers ensure that there are no memory errors in the program; for example, Insure++ by Parasoft, Purify by Rational and the open source Electric Fence.C++s flexible memory management system also makes it possible to write custom memory profilers that are adapted to whichever type of application a programmer writes. To sum up this discussion, we have found C++ to provide much better runtime- and memory-efficiency than Java, while having comparable programmer-efficiency. 2. 4. Available libraries and tools The Java platform includes an impressive number of packages that provide hundreds of classes for all kinds of purposes, including graphical user interfaces, security, networking and other tasks.This is certainly an advantage of the Java platform. For each package available on the Java platform, there is at least one corresponding library for C++, although it can be difficult to assemble the various libraries that would be needed for a C++ project and make them all work together correctly. However, this strength of Java is also one of its weaknesses. It becomes increasingly difficult for the individual programmer to find their way through the huge APIs. For any given task, you can be almost certain that somewhere, there is 7A Comparison of Qt and Java functionality that would accomplish the task or at least help with its implementation. But it can be very difficult to find the right package and the right class. Also, with an increasing number of packages, the size of the Java platform has increased considerably. This has led to subsets e. g. , for embedded systems, but with a subset, the advantage of having everything readily available disappears. As an aside, the size of the Java platform makes it almost impossible for smaller manufacturers to ship a Java system independent from Sun Microsystems, Java’s inventor, and this reduces competition.If Java has an advantage on the side of available libraries, C++ clearly has an advantage when it comes to available tools. Because of the considerable maturity of the C and C++ family of languages, many tools for all aspects of application development have been developed, including: design, debugging, and profiling tools. While there are Java tools appearing all the time, they seldom measure up to their C++ counterparts. This is often even the case with tools with the same functionality coming from the same manufacturer; compare, for example, Rational’s Quantify, a profiler for Java and for C/C++. The most important tool any developer of a compiled language uses, is still the compiler. C++ has the advantage of having compilers that are clearly superior in execution speed. In order to be able to ship their compilers (and other tools) on various platforms, vendors tend to implement their Java tools in Java itself, with all the aforementioned memory and efficiency problems. There are a few Java compilers written in a native language like C (for example, IBM’s Jikes), but these are the exception, and seldom used. 3. Comparing AWT/Swing and QtSo far, we have compared the programming language Java and the programming language C++. But as we discussed at the beginning of this article, the programming language is only one of the aspects to consider in GUI development. We will now compare the packages for GUI development that are shipped with Java, i. e. AWT and Swing, with the cross-platform GUI toolkit, Qt, from the Norwegian supplier, Trolltech. We have confined the comparision on the C++ side to the Qt GUI toolkit, since unlike MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) and similar toolkits, This seems to contradict Java’s cross-platform philosophy and may be due to the the initial AWT version being reputedly developed in under fourteen days. Because of these and a number of other problems with the AWT, it has since been augmented by the Swing toolkit. Swing relies on the AWT (and consequently on the native libraries) only for very basic things like creating rectangular windows, handling events and executing primitive drawing operations. Everything else is handled within Swing, including all the drawing of the GUI components. This does away with the problem of applications looking and behaving differently on different platforms. Unfortunately, because Swing is mostly implemented in Java itself, it lacks efficiency. As a result, Swing programs are not only slow when performing computations, but also when drawing and handling the user interface, leading to poor responsiveness. As mentioned earlier, poor responsiveness is one of the things that users are least willing to tolerate in a GUI application. On today’s standard commodity hardware, it is not unusual to be able to watch how a Swing button is redrawn when the mouse is pressed over it.While this situation will surely improve with faster hardware, this does not address the fundamental problem that complex user interfaces developed with Swing are inherently slow. The Qt toolkit follows a similar approach; like Swing, it only relies on the native libraries only for very basic things and handles the drawing of GUI components itself. This brings Qt the same advantages as Swing (for example, applications look and behave the same on different platforms), but since Qt is entirely implemented in C++ and thus compiled to native code; it does not have Swing’s efficiency problems.User interfaces written with Qt are typically very fast; because of Qts smart use of caching techniques, they are sometimes even faster than comparable programs written using only the native libraries. Theoretically, an optimal native program should always be at least as fast as an equivalent optimal Qt program; however, making a native program optimal is much more difficult and requires more programming skills than making a Qt program optimal. Both Qt and Swing employ a styling technique that lets programs display in any one of a number of styles, independent of the platform they are running on.This is possible because both Qt and Swing handle the drawing themselves and can draw GUI elements in whichever style is desired. Qt even ships with a style that emulates the default look-and-feel in Swing programs, along with styles that emulate the 9 A Comparison of Qt and Java Win32 look-and-feel, the Motif look-and-feel, and—in the Macintosh version— the MacOS X Aqua style. 3. 2. Programming Paradigms In Qt and Swing While programming APIs to some extent are a matter of the programmers personal taste, there are some APIs that lend themselves to simple, short, and elegant application code far more readily than others.

Monday, December 2, 2019

The Confederation of Ontario University Staff Associations and Union

Background information about COUSA The Confederation of Ontario University Staff Associations and Union (COUSA) is an umbrella union that was formed in 1974 by a group of unionized employees working at Ontario University in Canada. COUSA is made up of workers from clerical jobs, administrative, technical and professional occupations. There are different types of groups under the COUSA umbrella.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Confederation of Ontario University Staff Associations and Union specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More They include employees from Ontario University- from independent, non-unionized groups, provincial groups and international unions- are members of COUSA. All member unions under COUSA shared a common aspiration: that all employees of Ontario University need a common platform to collect information and work together with the government. In addition, the umbrella organization does not rival ot her unionized organization; on the contrary, it is willing to collaborate with them to the benefit of workers (COUSA, 2011, p.1). There are many benefits one can get by joining COUSA. For example, members of the Confederation attend three seminars organized by the umbrella body every year to network and share valuable information about emerging issues in labor unions. COUSA offers avenues where non-academic employees at Ontario University can share knowledge and experience about trends or activities that touch on employment issues. In addition, COUSA organizes workshops where members discuss and share knowledge on crucial topics for example: pay equity; reforms on labor laws; lobbying approaches; negotiating skills; and benefits costing. The Confederation also lobbies and advocates on behalf of Ontario University staff to the public and government. It also offers a platform that enable member groups to collaborate on a short term basis (COUSA, 2011, p.3). Legal issues and obstacles facing COUSA There are a number of legislative reforms in Canada that are likely to impact on the way COUSA runs its affairs. For example, in 2004, the parliament enacted Labor Relations Bill 144 that altered a number of labor relations laws in Canada. COUSA has several trade unions that are registered under the Ontario Labor Relations Act.Advertising Looking for essay on labor law? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More As a result, the introduction of Labor Relations Bill 144 is bound to have an effect on the activities of the trade unions under COUSA. In addition, the new regulation will have a negative impact on academic workers hired on a part-time basis by the Ontario University. For example, the Bill requires unionized organizations to submit the income disclosure requirements. This is one of the new changes introduced by the law and contradicts the public view about the objectivity of labor law (Slinn, 2003, p.367). The effec tiveness of COUSA is also constrained by lack of a strong financial base. Labor unions are denied financial aid from the government under the new law. COUSA does not have enough financial resources to mange cases related to violation of the Labor Act. A swift decree is the only viable cure to the adverse effects of the Act on the union. Also, lack of ample financial resources has limited the ability of COUSA member unions to access reconciliation services. This has severely limited the ability of the COUSA to bargain on behalf of its member unions (Slinn, 2003, p.369). Bargaining process COUSA has a number of elected representatives that bargain on behalf of its members. For example, the COUSA Salaries and Benefits Committee is mandated to negotiate on behalf of staff at Ontario University on matters related to compensation (David Stiff, 2007, p.1). The Confederation also supports a number of legislative changes that enhance working conditions and seek minimum wages for its member unions (Fanelli Meades, 2011, p.12). For instance, COUSA supports the restoration of several key powers that were formerly granted to Ontario Labour Relations Board. It has been noted that many employers engage in unjust labor practices to prevent their staff from exercising their democratic rights with respect to certification process. It is thus vital that OLRB is granted authority to certify all unions (Slinn, 2003, p.370).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Confederation of Ontario University Staff Associations and Union specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More COUSA also supports the resolution to re-empower OLRB to endorse a trade union in cases where the employer has engaged in unjust labor practices. It is worth to note that the OLRA was previously an influential body that deterred employers from violating the Labor Relations Act. Thus COUSA supports reforms proposed by the Ontario Federation of Labor regardin g labor laws in the interest of simplicity and certainty. COUSA is convinced that the card based system used for certification is the suitable way for selecting union officials. When the card based system was abolished in 1995, the Conservatives stated that compulsory votes were democratic and thus fair. However, COUSA pointed out that compulsory voting disregarded the genuine resultant power disparity between employers and workers. The main reason for this transformation was to make it difficult for the unions to receive certification and also to reduce the speed at which unions could put in order their new bargaining units. Studies show that this move was successful since there was a significant reduction in the rate of certification of unions in 1993 after the endorsement of Bill 7. Thus COUSA has employed a number of bargaining strategies such as information leverage, offers and concessions; and long-term tactical thinking to gain an upper hand when bargaining on behalf of its m embers (Trotman, 2011, p.4). References COUSA. (2011). Confederation of Ontario University Staff Associations and Union. Retrieved from http://www.cpwo.ca/about-us.php David, S., Stiff, B. (2007). Queen University Staff Association. Ontario: Betty Pollard. Fanelli, C., Meades, J. (2011). The Case of Carleton’s Capitalist University. Retrieved from https://socialistproject.ca/2011/01/b450/Advertising Looking for essay on labor law? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Slinn, S. (2003). The Effect of Compulsory Certification Votes on Certification Applications in Ontario. Canadian Labor and Employment Law Journal, 10, 367- 397. Trotman, V. (2011). Building Union-Management Partnerships. Toronto: Federated Press. This essay on The Confederation of Ontario University Staff Associations and Union was written and submitted by user Justus Rowland to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Do Longer SAT Essays Really Score Higher

Do Longer SAT Essays Really Score Higher SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Rumor has it, the longer your SAT essay, the higher your score. Could this be true? Does essay length affect your score? Let's unpack this belief and talk about the best strategies for scoring high on the SAT essay. Rumor Has It... When Milo Beckman was 14 and attending Stuyvesant High School in New York City, he started to suspect that the key to a high score on the SAT essay was simply filling up all the lines. He himself had already taken the SAT twice, and he found that his longer essay got a higher score, even though he thought it was inferior and contained lots of inaccuracies. To investigate this, Milo asked students at his high school to report their scores and the number of lines they wrote on their essays. Out of 5 essays, he found that the longer ones almost always received higher scores. Milo concluded that the more you write, the better you score. Milo Beckman hasn't been the only person to come to this conclusion. Lee Perelman, former director of writing across curriculum at MIT, holds to his position that the more words you put on the page, the higher your score will be. He also has some other tips for guaranteeing a high score that we'll take a look at below. To read more about Milo and Lee's studies, check out this intriguing article. What does the College Board think? So what does College Board have to say about these claims? Unsurprisingly, they're not having it. According to College Board, length often correlates with quality, but it does not in and of itself predict a good score. Instead, longer essays often have well developed arguments supported by nuanced examples. Quality, not quantity, they insist, is what the SAT essay is all about. So what does College Board think it takes to score a 12? And what are our suggestions for tackling the SAT essay? Let's take a look at the best strategies, but first, a quick review of how the essay is scored. How Is the Essay Scored? The highest score you can achieve on the SAT essay is a 12. The lowest is 2 (or 0, I suppose, if you were to leave it completely blank!). Two graders will read your essay and score it from 1 to 6. If they have very different opinions on your score, then a third reader will be brought in to give her input. Then these scores are added together. College Board says that its graders base their scores on five main domains: The development of a point of view supported by appropriate examples and effective evidence. Organization, coherence, and logical progression of ideas. Skillful language with a varied vocabulary. Variety in sentence structure. Good grammar, syntax, and mechanics. An essay that achieves a 6 is strong in all these areas and almost free of errors. Lower grades are progressively weaker in their points of view, supporting evidence, organization, vocabulary, sentence variety, and grammatical accuracy. Do these criteria seem easier said than done? Here we detail 15 key tips you need to know to fulfill these expectations and score highly on the SAT essay. You'll notice that none of these criteria mentions essay length. According to College Board,an essay does not necessarily need to fill all the pages or be five paragraphs to be insightful, use skillful language, or develop a point of view. The testmakers also stress that students should read the entire assignment given to them, including the extra reading material, which is usually a quote. As you saw above, Milo Beckman and Lee Perelman think otherwise. So what do we think about all these tips and strategies - should your essay be as long as you can make it? Or do they? With these strategies, the SAT essay might start to feel very simple indeed! How to Score Highly On the Essay Write a Lot Milo and Lee have a point - generally speaking, longer essays do score better. However, length really doesn't guarantee a high score if you don't write skillfully, develop a point of view, and use 2 to 3 well thought-out, relevant, and persuasive examples. You want to use all the strategies listed in this article to guarantee a high score. These approaches, in turn, will help facilitate your writing a long essay that merits a high score. You may argue, "But what if I can achieve all those things in less sentences?" I would say, it's great that you can be so concise, but on the SAT, less is not more. More is more. Check out our best tips on How to Score a 12 on the SAT Essay here.I'll go over a few of these strategies below, with some links throughout for you to read more in-depth advice. Pick a Side Lee Perelman stresses that students should always pick a side when answering the prompt, and I tend to agree. This doesn't mean that nuanced, middle ground essays can't score well. However, it is much more challenging to argue well for both sides in such a short, pressure-packed time frame. Even if you don't have a strong, passionate feeling on the prompt you're given - make it slightly easier on yourself and choose one side. No one is going to hold you to this opinion in the future. It's more about showing you can develop and support a strong point of view through writing, rather than revealing how you personally feel aboutthis topic or that topic. The SAT uses 6 types of essay prompts again and again. Read about the 6 types here, along with examples!And for the complete list of SAT essay prompts, this article has everything you need to know. Use Tried and True Structure Again, you only have 25 minutes! Don't try to awe the graders with postmodern literary experimentation or a rap song. Stick to the 5 paragraph structure - introduction, three paragraphs with supporting examples, and conclusion. Your introduction should close with your thesis statement, and your conclusion should have a strong last line that sums everything up with a punch. You can see how using this structure relates to writing a long essay - a true five paragraph essay, with 5 to 7 sentences per paragraph, should just about fill up all the available pages you're allotted in your test booklet. For a step-by-step breakdown of exactly how to write the SAT essay, examine this article here. Use Smooth Transitions and Varied Sentence Structure Both your individual sentences and general ideas should flow smoothly and logically. Transitions words like "furthermore, additionally, alternatively, similarly, therefore, because of this, for example," and many others, can help connect sentences, paragraphs, and concepts. On a similar note, you don't want every sentence to start with a simple 'subject-verb' construction: "I think, I said, I had," over and over again, for instance. Mixing up your sentence structure will help your essay read smoothly. This will probably happen naturally as you write, and you can improve by practicing and paying attention to sentence structure as you read books, news articles, and magazines in your day to day. These complex and varied sentence structures will also contribute to your writing a long SAT essay. Have Gos Your SAT essay will achieve the expected length if you are able to provide specific, thoughtful examples to support your point of view. But what if your mind goes blank during the actual test? To help avoid this worst-case scenario, you should show up with some go-to examples on hand. This article has some great examples of literary, historical, and current events examples that can be used to support a wide range of different arguments. Again, complex examples that you understand well will help you develop a full, long, five paragraph essay. As Milo Beckman and Lee Perelman suggested, you don't have to worry too much about accuracy, either! Pace Yourself You may be worrying that you can't fill up the essay pages in such a short amount of time. This is where practice and training is key. Your hand might ache and feel ready to fall off by the end of the 25 minute essay section, but you'll be able to finish the essay in time if you hit the ground running. How to structure your essay time: 3-4 minutes planning and structuring your essay 15-18 minutes drafting 2-3 minutes at the end to read over your essay and revise. As long as you do some serious prep, you can spend the majority of your time drafting,not staring at a blank page. This should be more than enough to achieve to create a nuanced, well developed, and long SAT essay. But seriously, are longer essays better? So Is a Longer Essay Better? For the most part, I would agree with Milo and Lee that longer essays do tend to garner higher scores on the SAT. However, they need to incorporate all those other elements, too - a well developed argument, detailed examples, skillful language, and logical organization. All of these elements help facilitate writing a longer essay, so they really go hand in hand. While you don't have a lot of time to produce this work, you can prep for it by using these tips and strategies and practicing leading up to the SAT. Writing is a skill like any other. It's not a fixed thing, like you're good at writing or you're not - instead, you can grow your skills and get better with practice. As you're prepping, maybe you can even ask a friend, family member, or teacher to "grade" your essay and give you feedback for improvement. After all your preparation and these strategies, you should be able to craft a clear, lengthy essay that scores highly on the SAT. What's Next? Are you deciding between the new SAT and the old SAT? Read about all the differences between the two tests here so you know what to expect. Is the essay on the new SAT any different from previous essays? We break down the new SAT essay here. Are you aiming for a perfect score? This 2400 scorer explains how you can achieve the highest score, too. Want to get serious about improving your SAT score? We have the leading online SAT prep program that will raise your score by 240+ points, guaranteed. Exclusive to our program, we have an expert SAT instructor grade each of your SAT essays and give you customized feedback on how to improve your score. This can mean an instant jump of 80 points on the Writing section alone. Check out our 5-day free trial and sign up for free: Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Rebecca Safier About the Author Rebecca graduated with her Master's in Adolescent Counseling from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has years of teaching and college counseling experience and is passionate about helping students achieve their goals and improve their well-being. She graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University and scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT. Get Free Guides to Boost Your SAT/ACT Get FREE EXCLUSIVE insider tips on how to ACE THE SAT/ACT. 100% Privacy. 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Saturday, November 23, 2019

Writing to save the world - Emphasis

Writing to save the world Writing to save the world If youre suffering from writers block at the moment, spare a thought for the civil servants behind todays G20 summit. By 3.30 today, they have to write the statement that could determine whether the recovery kicks off or crumbles. Mind you, there are some who suggest it was written days ago. See here.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Motivaing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Motivaing - Essay Example This means that most furniture is not assembled by IKEA and the customer goes home to assemble it for themselves. There is a certain fulfillment in taking part in the creation of something. IKEA’s goal to mobilize customers â€Å"to do easily certain things they have never done before. Put another way, IKEA invents value by enabling customers’ own value-creating activities† (Normann & Ramirez, 1993). The appeal of â€Å"do-it-yourself† furniture has attracted troops of customers to IKEA, in all their branches the world over, necessitating the employment of highly skilled workers to meet their needs. These workers need to be trained to meet customers in accordance to IKEA’s values and with the competence expected of the company. Training people involves motivating them to perform at their best. How does IKEA do that? Alexander Kjerulf (n.d.) relates how in 2004, IKEA in Denmark took the initiative to give their entire checkout staff a 25% raise. IKEA has more of them than any other group and it meant a sizeable increase in total monthly overhead expenses. However, it was a business decision that made the checkout staff happy, and happy employees create results such as the following: (Kjerulf, n.d.) Although IKEA incurred a humongous expense with the implementation of the raise, it paid itself within six months. Analyzing why this worked for IKEA, Kjerulf gives three reasons. The first is that the raise obviously gave the staff a significant improvement in their standard of living. The recipients were the least paid in the company, so a 25% raise made a huge difference in terms of their quality of life. Secondly, the salary increase gave people recognition. IKEA acknowledged that they were the most important group of employees since they are the only employees customers are likely to talk to at the end of the sale because customers help themselves with the products anyway. This