Monday, December 30, 2019
Maintaining Internal Confidence In Chs Inc Finance Essay - Free Essay Example
Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2395 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? For centuries food and grain markets have continued to grow not only in terms of demand, but moreover in competition. As the global population has continued to build, so has the need for resources to feed such inhabitants. In a short period of time, the United States has unquestionably emerged as a major contender in the exporting market with much of the credit belonging to companies such as Cargill, ADM and St. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Maintaining Internal Confidence In Chs Inc Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Paul based CHS. These companies have supported domestic farming by providing tools and resources necessary for farm owners to sell their products on a global scale. Particularly over the past 10 years, the influx in demand growth and sharp rise in commodity values have proven international market participation be lucrative, with new possibilities growing exponentially in nearly all directions. Over the past decade, the international growth trend has been significant for many companies, including the privately owned Cargill and publicly traded ADM. However, for a smaller farmer owned cooperative, CHS, expanding and acquiring global assets initially had the potential to create a large ripple within the foundation of its member owners. If CHS chose to follow the footsteps of the leading global companies, it would also chose to face many challenges as well as opportunities in such expanding markets. For instance, investing in new international production could create added competition for the goods produced by the companys member owners in the open marketplace. This is the strategizing dilemma that the executive team at CHS has been commissioned to consider over the past 7 years. How could they convince member owners and board members that the best way to realize the highest return on equity would be to invest in and promote further market competition of the same products their member owners already produce? This was the delicate task they were charged with, while remaining cognitive of the core set of values and virtues the companys rich history was built upon. A Brief History Founded in 1931, the company planted its initial roots as the Farmers Union Central Exchange at which point the Cenex energy brand was first created. Meanwhile, a few states away, a merger between Idaho based North Pacific Grain Growers and the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association created what would later grow into Harvest States by 1983. From 1983 to 1998 both Cenex and Harvest States continued to develop as separate entities, while continuing to grow by member addition and acquisitions. By 1998, both St. Paul based cooperatives recognized an opportunity to come together to create Cenex Harvest States Cooperative. By 2000, the cooperative tale was dropped and left the company with its current name CHS Inc. From its inception in 1998, the company has made several attempts to diversify its business units (outside of grain) including the acquisition of two petroleum refineries. The first of which CHS owns and operates in Laurel, Montana in addition to a joint venture (holding the majority stake) in McPherson, Kansas. Furthermore, CHS owns and operates a total of 1,200 miles of refined fuels pipelines and 1,600 convenience stores throughout the country. Beyond the growth in refined fuels, CHS has also reached out to acquire assets in the foods, financial, feed and crop nutrients industries. However, as the company continued to grow, not all of the growth and opportunity came from outside of grain. With a team lead by John Johnson, President and CEO, the company slowly searched for new opportunities for its grain business. By the early 2000s, it appeared as though the worlds demand for grains such as corn and soybeans was exponentially outpacing what producers were able to provide. Quickly, it became clear through concerns of shortages, in addition to the governments continual pressure for higher standards in corn based renewable fuels; the grain industry was heading in a new direction. Johnsons team recognized that with a vast majority of the farmable land already tapped in the U.S., the next logical step would be to expand internationally. And CHS certainly wasnt alone in its quest for new endeavors. With a wide array of opportunities, CHS watched as key competitors started to sign agreements and develop land to meet their subsequent needs. One particularly strong area for growth was in Brazil. Brazil and its agriculture were seen as the land of golden opportunity. It was a great location to build infrastructure, create jobs and extend an otherwise lacking production CHS faced in an environment of growing demand. For a scope of what these companies were seeing: in 1998 Brazil harvested 31.3 million metric tons of soybeans, while just ten years later they are approaching 60 million metric tons. Maintaining Internal Confidence As the situation presented itself, Mr. Johnson along with his executive team realized that they were dealt a difficult hand. On one end, it was becoming clear that the next logical step to capture growth would be to suggest an acquisition and investment in new international production. Yet, from a second view, it would be vastly difficult to gain support of those whose company stake they were asking to invest, as it would unquestionably be directed toward a venture that could directly compete with their grain. As the topic was considered, the executive team at CHS took the approach that reflected openness and optimism. There was no sense in delaying the agenda, as the topic was a serious one as well as inarguably time sensitive. As one can imagine, the executive team was initially met with concern and frustration. The member owners found it hard to believe that funding a competing South American venture could be in their best interest. For quite some time, South American producers had frustrated domestic farmers as lower costs aided them in providing similar goods at a cheaper price. Therefore, such resistance had been expected and the team had put together a pre-emptive response plan accordingly. As frustration and confusion mounted, the team led by Mr. Johnson rounded up a select few board members and representatives of member owners to take on a trip. The unexpected trip took all invited directly to Brazil in an effort to help them discover and understand the type of opportunity that they were facing. Throughout the process said representatives learned more about the abundance of land in Brazil, potential for return on their investment and an inability for CHS to meet forward demand. Soon enough the idea of international expansion quickly gained momentum. Johnson was quoted, Early on, we explained why we needed to get positioned in order to be a preferred supplier to customers around the world to represent North American Farmers in a way that we felt we could to create value for them, and they got it. Before they knew it, they were on their way to opening the first of many international offices. CHS Sao Paulo (Brazil) opened its doors in 2003, followed by later additional offices in China, Japan, Russia and Switzerland. The international growth and diversification were an incredible piece of the unexpected growth CHS would ensue over the following 5 years. With the foundation of a cooperative, CHS was able to grow exponentially with immense member satisfaction. A main reason falling on the assumption that the increase in company revenue and net income would present greater returns to its owners through patronage. In 2004, member owners cash returns equaled roughly $60 million dollars from revenue of roughly $11 billion. By 2008, that cash return quadrupled to a staggering $240 million dollars from an increase in revenue of over $32 billion. As you can see below the company has continuously recognized staggering growth: Summary Consolidated Financial Data                         2008   2007*   2006*   2005*   2004*    (Dollars in thousands)   Income Statement Data:                     Revenues  $ 32,167,461   $ 17,215,992   $ 14,383,835   $ 11,926,962   $ 10,969,081  Cost of goods sold   30,993,899    16,129,233    13,540,285    11,438,473    10,525,746                       Gross profit   1,173,562    1,086,759    843,550    488,489    443,335  Marketing, general and administrative   329,965    245,357    231,238    199,354    202,455                       Operating earnings   843,597    841,402    612,312    289,135    240,880  Gain on investments   (29,193 )   (20,616 )       (13,013 )   (14,666 ) Gain on legal settlements                   (692 ) Interest, net   76,460    31,098    41,305    41,509    42,758  Equity income from investments   (150,413 )   (109,685 )   (84,188 )   (95,742 )   (79,022 ) Minority interests   72,160    143,214    91,079    49,825    34,184                       Income from continuing operations before income taxes   874,583    797,391    564,116    306,556    258,318  Income taxes   71,538    40,668    59,350    34,153    30,108                       Income from continuing operations   803,045    756,723    504,766    272,403    228,210  (Income) loss on discontinued operations, net of taxes           (625 )   16,810    5,909                       Net income  $ 803,045   $ 756,723   $ 505,391   $ 255,593   $ 222,301                       Balance Sheet Data (August 31):                     Working capital  $ 1,738,600   $ 821,878   $ 848,344   $ 766,807   $ 500,315  Net property, plant and equipment   1,948,305    1,728,171    1,476,239    1,359,535    1,249,655  Total assets   8,771,978    6,754,373    4,994,166    4,748,654    4,047,710  Long-term debt, including current maturities   1,194,855    688,321    744,745    773,074    683,818  Total equities   2,955,686    2,475,455    2,053,466    1,778,879    1,643,491    * Adjusted to reflect adoption of FASB Staff Position No. AUG AIR-1; see Note 2 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements Sustaining Identity As many leaders of todays businesses will testify the type of growth CHS has sustained over the last 5 years is nothing short of incredible. It reflects remarkable leadership and strong commitment by not only employees, but congruently through stable member ownership. The company is slowly gaining the attention it deserves, but the question we might pose is this: at what cost? From its beginning, CHS has always followed the cooperative mentality that promotes low risk, sustainable growth and underlying strategies which have purposefully been set in place in an effort to avoid risk. However, could one make the argument that the this new path for continued growth is leading the CHS and its brand down a path that challenges and rewrites those values and virtues which have been the blocks and foundation the company has been built upon? I would suggest we first define what we mean by brand. As defined by Merriam Webster a brand is a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer. CHS has long built its brand by identifying with the needs and values of the domestic farmer. The name CHS is synonymous in many cases with the very identity of its member owners. The opportunity for the company to take new risks over the past 5 years has undoubtedly created a value for those owners far beyond that which they recognized as possible, however, does such success at some point run the risk of destroying the internal connection that has proved to be the glue that has long held the organization together? Can the risk that the company is taking lead them down a path that creates a new identity and lessens the very sense of citizenship that keeps the foundation in tact? CHS OF TOMORROW What I have proposed is the adherent risk with change in any organization. By changing the culture in which the business operates, it subsequently will endure the chance of resistance. The greatest risk of all is for its member owners to feel as though management has loss sight of what the organization has been entrusted to protect. Will its members continue to sustain the high level of risk tolerance moving forward? Will the executive team face a severe backlash as commodity prices fall and these new operating costs hinder more than help? That is yet to be determined, but moving forward it seems very clear the executive management team has some very difficult choices to make. In one scenario, the executive team could continue to move forward with continued plans of international growth. The company undoubtedly will continue to stand out and receive attention on an international level. To this scenario there are many risks and of course rewards. The ideal reward scenario assumes that all decisions are made correctly; the company moves forward and prospers which entitles the member owners to their growing piece of the pie. However, with that scenario also comes an adherent risk. The risk that must be considered pertains to what the large-scale publicity might mean for those member owners. It certainly seems plausible the CHS brand could far outgrow the members who identify with it. With such a disconnect could come frustration and discomfort as the members feel as though they are no longer involved in where the company is going, merely taking a back seat position for the ride. It may also be possible that further growth decisions could unhook the congruence within the organization and in turn lead to dissemination of role perceptions, low citizenship and an eventual dismembering from within. In a second scenario, the executive team could continue to move forward as they have for nearly a century. They could involve the members in all of the decision-making processes and push forward at a much slower and protective rate. The reward in doing so would be the act of protecting its internal congruent structure while maintaining citizenship from within. By maintaining operations as usual, the company should be able to maintain the family-feel within the organization that all of the members will continue to identify with. Adversely, the risk of course is falling behind the competition. By failing to act in a timely fashion as opportunities arise, CHS could dramatically lag the curve and miss substantial opportunities that could have brought a higher level of return. As I said earlier, the executive team at CHS has been presented a very difficult and delicate task. The idea of maintaining a low risk, conservative mentality in an ever growing and competitive commodities world simply doesnt seem plausible. The decisions the company has made thus far certainly have seemed to pay off and accordingly the members have been rewarded handsomely. What needs to be considered is this; the executive team must continue to focus on a few key aspects of their business. First, brand holds a lot of meaning in the farming communities that CHS serves. The member owners and they customers are the backbone of the company and therefore brand preservation must be a priority. A disconnect with its members could lead to an inevitable dismantling moving forward. Secondly, to this point the executive team has done a tremendous job taking risks that have produced high rewards. They must not lose site of what they have done and work to replicate it moving forward. The questi on I see doesnt ask if they should they be taking risks, moreover, what is the risk tolerance of their community and those whom they serve. By making cognitive choices which are congruent with the values, virtues and responsibilities of its past, there is no reason the company cannot continue to sustain growth and maintain its identity moving forward. In my opinion CHS is and will be a company that domestic farmers will continue to take pride in and identify with for generations to come. There is little doubt in my mind that the company and its leaders will ever forego the internal ideals of citizenship and congruence in any type of scenario. Citation Von Glinow, Mary Ann, and Steven Lattimore McShane. Organizational Behavior : Emerging Realities for the Workplace Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2006. www.chsinc.com https://www.sec.gov/ www.merriamwebster.com Howard. F. (March 2009). St. Paul to Sao Paulo. Twin Cities Business. 42.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
`` Dream Story `` By Arthur Schnitzler - 973 Words
Arthur Schnitzler’s piece, â€Å"Dream Story,†constructs the tale of a man’s desire to stray from the norm where he wishes to lose himself and reality. In Schnitzler’s work, there is a loss of mindfulness for modern society in order to explore a more coveted lifestyle full of pleasures. The author’s tactics encompass foreshadowing, symbolism, and figurative language to give a full account on this gentleman’s journey to a warped reality. â€Å"Dream Story†employs the use of symbolism to differentiate the gaps between the double lives led by Fridolin, the main character of the novel. As a doctor, Fridolin’s character is associated with white as he wears the white doctor’s coat each day at work. However, when he enters the secret society that holds a masquerade he wears a red mask and the majority of the attendees Fridolin describes as having â€Å"blood red mouths†(3054). This transition from white, a symbol for p ureness and the greater good, to a blood red, an indicator for the devil, hell, and evil, highlights a great difference between each lifestyle. The white of the lab coat signifies the cultural norms and values that Fridolin has followed and upheld his entire life up until the point that he enters the secret society. The red of the secret society acts as a stain on his good reputation and signifies the great danger he encounters upon entering this society among individuals he does not know. Interestingly, red also signifies communism, a poorly regarded form of government thatShow MoreRelated`` Dream Story `` By Arthur Schnitzler1419 Words  | 6 Pages Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian novelist and playwright who wrote about lust and infidelity in twentieth century Vienna. His narrative, â€Å"Dream Story†, was first published in 1925. The story tells of a married couple living a comfortable lifestyle. The husband is a thirty-five-year-old doctor. The younger wife is occ upied by her responsibilities as wife and mother. In 1999, Stanley Kubrick released Eyes Wide Shut, which is his adaptation of Schnitzler’s â€Å"Dream Story†. In Kubrick’s film, Schnitzler’sRead MoreStream of Consciousness in Arthur Schnitzler ´s Fraulein Else580 Words  | 2 Pages In Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Frà ¤ulein Else, the stream of consciousness narrative form creates a more in-depth portrait of Else’s mindset and thinking. Even though the narrative may seem contradictory and erratic at first, this is only a result of the more extensive portrayal of her mental process, which includes elements not present in a more conventional narrative. The path of Else’s thoughts is indirect and recursive, but this portrayal of thinking is closer to the actual process of thinking
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Film and Tragic Love Story Free Essays
Last January 10, 2013, I, together with my English 211 classmates watched the Lantaw 2012 Short-film festival. It’s my first time to watch a short-film here in USM since Lantaw is a yearly activity here in our school. I was really excited to watch those 5 short-films, especially the film â€Å"Salamin†from Ateneo de Davao University, who got first place in a certain event. We will write a custom essay sample on Film and Tragic Love Story or any similar topic only for you Order Now I also enjoyed the 4 films, namely; Surat, Kulta, Ayuda, and Incognito. In the film â€Å"Surat†, produced and directed by the 2 BSECE-A, I was really surprised because my friend, April Mae Tulang, is the lady protagonist in the film. It was a tragic love story between a teacher and a rebel. It was a nice film and story, but for me the ending is a bit predictable one, the guy died and the teacher became an old maid. Let’s go to the film â€Å"Kulta†, from 2 ABPolSci. This film is a tragic-family story. The story was based from the reality today. In the film, they were orphans, but still a happy family. Not until when the youngest of them got sick, and she really needed to get in the hospital. Because of being penniless, the oldest son took the risk of being a bomb carrier in exchange of money. It was a reality-based film. It’s just, I can’t understand what were they’re saying because there’s no subtitle in the movie. While in â€Å"Ayuda†, from 3ABEnglish, is one of the short-films that I’ve been enjoyed watching. I enjoyed this film simply because we can related based from the story! It’s a college love story. The cast of the film played each of their roles nice and easy. But we were wondering about the ending of the film. It was totally fuzzy why the guy holds a mini-knife. Will he take suicide? Or will he kill the antagonist? It’s very confusing. And the film which I mostly liked, the â€Å"Incognito†, which is from DevChem (students from Development Communications and Chemistry department) really amazed me. The main cast were so amazing in performing their different roles. And the ending was really unpredictable! I did not imagine that pretty lady was †¦ gay. Haha. I am very happy for the people who made this short-film. They made it really great! I was really excited in the â€Å"Salamin†by the AdDU filmmakers because Sir Lloyd said that Salamin is a must-see short-film. And I really watching the film. At first, I never imagined that it/s going to be a horror movie. Their setting was nice, the actors especially the main characters delivered well. I was having fun even though some parts of the movie surprised me, it has a good sound effects and a loud and clear voice which I understand easily. Over-all, the Lantaw short-film Festival was a success. The audiences enjoyed those 5 films being watched. Thanks for the loud Sound System that we all heard the sounds loud and clear. Ellyn Mae L. Arias How to cite Film and Tragic Love Story, Papers
Thursday, December 5, 2019
English Coursework Oliver Twist Essay Example For Students
English Coursework Oliver Twist Essay In the novel Dickens makes his personal opinions well known. He felt very strongly that the laws were unfair for poor people and that the way children were treated in those days were also extremely dreadful. Oliver is portrayed as a typical orphan of the Victorian era, in that he is placed in the workhouse after his mother died and is given food and shelter during his childhood, However he is treated very badly by the head of the workhouse. It is important to understand that the way Dickens uses his language to illustrate his views on social reform and how loose the laws were that allowed characters such as Fagin to exploit the system. Dickens wanted the laws changed to help he poor and also wanted children to be treated . In Victorian times the attitudes towards Jews were extremely negative, Jews were viewed as the lower class. Dickens also appears to have this attitude as he describes Fagin in a very negative way. Dickens describes the Jew , Fagin, in an extremely bad light, as a dirty red haired man who uses children to pick pocket for his own living. The area around where Fagin lives is also dreadful; Dickens uses his language to describe the area in a very dreadful way. Dickens describes the area where a Fagin life as the worst place Oliver has ever seen. He starters off by saying A dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. This is a bold opening and immediately tells the reader the place that Oliver has been taken to is not good. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours, this paints a horrible picture in the readers mind. By using this language the picture painted in the readers mind is exactly what Dickens wants the reader to picture. The area where Fagin lives is extremely disgusting and Dickens wants the area to reflect the same as the Jew, Fagin. He also describes how the people act in the area: where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth. Dickens felt very strongly that the attitudes of some people living in poor conditions were also wrong, this is well known were he describes the people as positive wallowing in filth. Dickens wants the reader to get a accurate feel of the atmosphere in this area, the description of the area also gives a build up to Fagin. He also stereotypically describes the Irish in this descriptive paragraph. The public houses, and in them, the lowest orders of the Irish were wrangling. The Irish in those days were viewed as being, like the Jews, lower than the rest of society. They were viewed as the drunken and one of the worst types of people in those days. Dickens uses the Irish to give the reader another dimension of feeling into the area, the reader knows because the Irish are there the place is bound to be bad. All the description of this area gives a sense of suspense to the reader and makes them presume that where Oliver is taken will be pretty dirty and disgusting like the area. Oliver after being taken through the alleys into a house where he meets Fagin. Inside the house the Dodger is asked what seems like a password. Now then! Cried a voice from below in reply to a whistle from the Dodger Plumy and slam was the reply. Plumy and Slam was Victorian slang that meant All Right (it was apparently a Victorian underworld slang which was used between 1860 and 1910. Dickens first instalment of Oliver twist was written in 1837. This could mean that Dickens coined the phrase and from his books it was more widely used in the language) it was obviously a password or watchword that mean thats everything is okay, having the password gives the impression that Fagin does not want people who are not invited or welcome to enter the house. It is also meant to give the reader the thought that whatever is done in the house is of dodgy origins, or may be illegal, and they have the pass word to make sure that no police or unwelcomed people that could mean harm to Fagin are not allowed. .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a , .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .postImageUrl , .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a , .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:hover , .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:visited , .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:active { border:0!important; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:active , .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .udea5de9a909d2ba0314c496a36a3dc7a:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: A Clockwork Orange: Moral freedom is one of the most if not the most important of any freedoms available to humans EssayOliver is then led in to meet Fagin. The room itself is described as being extremely old and dirty. The room is described as very old and dirty by Dickens: The walls and ceilings of the house were perfectly black with age and dirt. This gives the reader the impression that the house is very dirty and has never been cleaned. Dickens takes so long to introduce Fagin to his readers because he wants to create a sense of anxiety and suspense about Fagin. Fagin himself is described in an extremely bad light and also as a Jew. He is described as a typical Jewish criminal stereotype of the time. Some sausages were cooking, and over them, with a toasting fork in hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew. Dickens purposely makes Fagin cook sausages and hold a toasting fork because he wants to give the impression to the reader that Fagin with toasting fork in hand resembles the devil. Dickens also describes Fagin as a merry old gentleman. This may seem a compliment at first however merry old gentlemen is actually another way of calling Fagin the devil. Dickens definitely wants the reader to think that Fagin is not a trustworthy gentleman and resembles the devil. Dickens uses the phrase matted red hair Dickens wants the reader to imagine Fagin as a horrible old gentleman with matted red hair, another feature Dickens created to make Fagin appear like the devil. Dickens uses lots of adjectives to paint a horrible picture in the readers mind. Dickens describes Fagins face as repulsive and villainous looking. These are extremely powerful adjectives and give the reader a sense of awfulness about Fagin. Dickens uses this language to firmly put across Fagins horrible appearance. Dickens also calls Fagin most of the time Jew or just as the Jew, this is to emphsizes Fagins origins and that hes no just a horrible repulsive old man, hes a Jewish repulsive horrible man. Dickens defiantly believed in the Jewish stereotype that Fagin was meant to be. Dickens also must have seen Jews as the lower of society and repulsive and poor.
Thursday, November 28, 2019
The River Rouge Manufacturing Complex. Essays -
The River Rouge Manufacturing Complex. The first piece of material I gathered was a picture via the internet. This picture is of the River Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan. This picture shows the manufacturing of the fender for a Ford Motor Company product. It also shows the facilities of the Rouge plant and how the plant it self was state of the art. This plant was the largest of its kind at the time of its construction. The Ford Motor Company at the time was one of the leaders in labor relations. This picture shows the size of the plant as well as the working conditions in the facility. When viewing the photograph you can see the array of pipes and collection devices to aid in the circulation of air and the collection of dust and other by products made in the plant. The next component I found is another picture of the interior of the Rouge plant. This picture is one of many conveyer belts in the plant. This belt is moving engine parts from the engine assembly to the final assembly. Henry Ford was a pioneer in the use of the assembly line in the automobile industry, and the Rouge plant was the ultimate in that use of the assembly line. This photo shows the depth of the plant, being able to manufacture all components of the cars without having to ship parts to or from other locations in the country. The next collection of photographs is of the exterior of the Rouge plant. These photos were obtained from the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. These pictures are of the Rouge during the switch of all production, from the Highland Park plant, to the Rouge. It was also the time that the Model A was beginning production. This collection shows examples of four exterior views of the plant, allude to the many different factories within the Rouge plant. The Rouge was a steel mill, a foundry, a power producer and, an assembly line. This all encompassing idea helped ford relegate all aspects of the production of their product. Along with the exterior, the interior showed the extent of the all encompassing Rouge plant. The interior photographs, which were also care of the Henry Ford Museum, show more factories within the factory. For example, the four photos in this collection display metal forming, and metallurgical operations. These pictures included forging, the blast furnaces, removal of slag and, even salvaging scrap from metal ships. The interior had two collections to view and the second reaffirmed what the first portrayed. The second collection displays more metal working production including the hydraulic shear, which was used for sheet metal, the open hearth ladle and the hearth building. These photos gave an impressive direction of the inner workings of the Rouge plant. As said before the Rouge was the largest manufacturing complex in the nation when it was built. An aerial photograph of the plant reaffirms that fact. The photo was taken in 1930 and you can see by the photo the plant is very impressive. The caption that accompanies the picture gives an actual figure of the Rouge's square footage, the total is 6,952,484 square feet. Before the Rouge plant Ford's main manufacturing plant was Highland Park. The Rouge and Highland Park were similar in the way of utilizing the assembly line to produce the Ford product. Many collections of photos were found of the assembly line at Highland. One collection shows the final mating of the model T, which is similar to the final mating of the model A . Also the one day production of the Highland Park plant, which was dwarfed by the Rouge one day production total. The next collection of Highland Park photos displays the typical procedures in installing components to the automobile. Each of the four pictures shows the installation to the car. From the engine to the tires the same principles that were used at Highland Park were used at the Rouge plant. The final piece of material that was compiled through the search of the Internet and other sources was the National Historic Landmark of Michigan web page. This page has a link to an informational page on the Rouge plant. The plant is listed as a national landmark since 1978 and a Michigan landmark since 1976. Also listed on the site is the date the property was bought by Henry Ford and, the date all production was shifted from Highland Park to the Rouge complex. A significant statement is given about the Rouge on
Monday, November 25, 2019
Green Anaconda essays
Green Anaconda essays The Green Anaconda is considered to be the biggest snake in the world but this is not the longest. Physically, it is dark green with black elliptical patches and the length is 9 meters. It can weigh a hefty 250 kg and have a girth of more than 12 inches in diameter (Szdocent, 2006). Anaconda can eat an elephant because their jaw can expand. Scientific Classification taken from Busch Entertainment Corporation (2006): Common Name: green anaconda, common anaconda, water boa Genus Species: Eunectes (good swimmer) murinus (mouse colored) Green Anacondas live in water most of the time; they are good swimmers and can travel in fast motion. But they cannot move fast in the land since they are big enough to carry themselves. The head of the anaconda usually lies on the surface of the water while the body is underwater but they can submerge the whole body for a maximum of 10 minutes to catch big fish to nourish themselves and in the surface they catch birds that at the same time try to capture a fish. Anaconda eats anything as long as it is edible for them; they are also believed to be cannibalistic since they eat their own species. People are not on the menu, but caimans (similar to alligators), capybaras (100-pound South American rodents) and deer are (Shedd, 2006). They have very sharp teeth and always lying without moving until they see a victim that they move quickly, grab them and bring them under water to eat. According to Szdocent (2006): Anacondas are constrictors. The snake squeezes tighter each time its prey breathes out, so the prey cannot breathe in again. This goes on until the prey dies of suffocation. Anacondas swallow their prey whole, starting with the head. This is so the legs fold up and the prey goes down smoothly. Anacondas can swallow prey much bigger than the size of its mouth since its jaw can unhinge and the ...
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Drunk Driving Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words
Drunk Driving - Essay Example Research has also shown that an alcohol related death occurs in every thirty minutes and driving while drunk accounts for approximately 25% of the deaths. Drinking has been found to impair vision and hearing among drinkers, it also leads to a decline in terms of coordination of the body muscles and ultimately reaction times. This is a combination that may not be desired for people expected to drive on our roads. At a BAC of above ten percent for instance one to have a very poor reaction time, deteriorated motor control, poor vision, mood changes and over expression. There is no doubt such is not the status expected drive a car. As a result of the sensory impacts of drinking alcohol, driving while is responsible for the many accidents and deaths associated with alcohol. it would therefore be advisable that all drivers avoid drinking if they have to drive or wait until the end of the journey if they must drink. Laws have been put in place to punish those found to drive while drunk and therefore driving while drunk means violating state laws. DUI is a crime and may be classified as either a felony or misdemeanor depending on the circumstances in which the crime is committed. A misdemeanor is preferred when the drunk driver causes no injury to other persons or peoples’ properties. A felony on the other hand results when DUI results in injuries. The maximum jail term in case of a misdemeanor is six months whereas for felony it can extend unto three years. Punishment may also include revocation of one’s driving license. Research has also shown that peer pressure is a major case DUI; the youth would want to drink and drive in a quest to show off to peers, pretend to be strong, impress their friends or even just because they don’t want others to drive their car. This has the effect of exposing the teenagers and youth at a much higher risk of engaging in DUI and by extension related accidents as compared to the adults
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
(Annotated Bibligraphy) Finding 10 acadamic sources and writing a Essay
(Annotated Bibligraphy) Finding 10 acadamic sources and writing a brief description of those 6 entries(at least 3 sentences) - Essay Example The wars took place in a furious fight to control territory and resources. As violence escalate, laws were legislated to support the war policy of nations, e.g. espionage, albeit complaints of people who uphold freedom of speech against the monstrosity of forced servitude for war and to reassert their constitutional human rights. Author is from Brooklyn who was directly involved in WWII which motivated him to advocate for peace agenda later in his life. In 1956, he became a professor at Spellman College in Atlanta, a school for black women at the height of Civil rights movement. He was an adviser of to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This chapter of the book explicated the racial discrimination and the trafficking of black men who were subjected to severe slavery in North America. Many of them were forced to partake labor for agricultureâ€â€to grow rice, corn, and tobacco. Author is directly involved in WWII which motivated him to advocate for peace agenda. In 1956, he became a professor at Spellman College in Atlanta, a school for black women at the height of Civil rights movement. He was an adviser of to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This is a book which relates about post 9/11 incident and the consequential bombings done in Afghanistan as retaliatory moves against suspected terrorists. The author reflected about his experience as ‘bombardier’ in the Second World War and concluded that â€Å"any war, no matter how good, cannot solve the problems.†The author, as a warrior, has experiential stories of his participation on wars in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq and Yugoslavia. In this story, author reflected that while there are so much theoretical concepts about democracy, freedom, national security, there remains a large majority who are poor, hungry and sick. Author advocated for the reversal of the roles of heroes and villains following his deep involvement in
Monday, November 18, 2019
Design for change in practice Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words
Design for change in practice - Research Paper Example Design for change in practice is largely based on the framework proposed by Rossuwurm and Larrabee (1999). According to Rossuwurm and Larrabee (1999), design for change in practice is manifested through protocols, procedures, or standards. In the case with communicating terminal diagnosis to patients in order to improve their quality of life design relies on the mechanism of protocols distributed to medical personnel. Since the overall complexity of design determines the likelihood of change acceptance (Rossuwurm and Larrabee, 1999, p.320), protocols contain only well-structured and detailed information regarding terminal diagnosis disclosure practice and follow up procedures aimed to improve patients' quality of life. Because feedback from patients (stakeholders) is essential when designing a change in practice (Rossuwurm and Larrabee, 1999), design also includes a questionnaire produced to measure changes in patients' quality of life. (1) Practice of terminal diagnosis full disclosure. ... As explained by Fitch (1994) once a word like "cancer" or "terminal" is heard, a mental retreat is often enacted and thus true communication may not take place until the stark essence of the initial message has been absorbed. Similarly, when news of terminality are communicated rapidly, the patient may remember very little of what has been said. Therefore, in order to implement this change in practice some patients should have information about their terminal diagnosis divided into manageable stages so that self-perceptions gradually shift from well, to ill, to dying over a period of days or weeks. The fundamental premise of this change in practice is that physicians should exclusively opt the strategy of full disclosure of terminal diagnosis for their patients. (2) Eliminating avoidance practices. The issue of death and dying like any topic or situation that creates anxiety tends to trigger avoidance responses. In medical practice, two types of avoidance may be seen: physical avoidance, in which an individual makes an effort to avoid being in the presence of persons, places or objects that cause anxiety; and topical avoidance, in which a clinician avoids thinking or talking about an anxiety-producing issue. Physicians and nurses tend to avoid patient feelings (i.e., depression, anger, or anxiety) by focusing on the explicit content of the patients' message (Dilbeck, 1996). Related to this response in medical personnel is the finding that patients report that technological interventions and procedures cause them to feel that their need for support through compassion and caring is being denied (Super & Plutko, 1996). Patients cannot
Friday, November 15, 2019
Compression Techniques used for Medical Image
Compression Techniques used for Medical Image 1.1 Introduction Image compression is an important research issue over the last years. A several techniques and methods have been presented to achieve common goals to alter the representation of information of the image sufficiently well with less data size and high compression rates. These techniques can be classified into two categories, lossless and lossy compression techniques. Lossless techniques are applied when data are critical and loss of information is not acceptable such as Huffman encoding, Run Length Encoding (RLE), Lempel-Ziv-Welch coding (LZW) and Area coding. Hence, many medical images should be compressed by lossless techniques. On the other hand, Lossy compression techniques such as Predictive Coding (PC), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Vector Quantization (VQ) more efficient in terms of storage and transmission needs but there is no warranty that they can preserve the characteristics needed in medical image processing and diagnosis [1-2]. Data compression is the process that transform data files into smaller ones this process is effective for storage and transmission. It presents the information in a digital form as binary sequences which hold spatial and statistical redundancy. The relatively high cost of storage and transmission makes data compression worthy. Compression is considered necessary and essential key for creating image files with manageable and transmittable sizes [3]. The basic goal of image compression is to reduce the bit rate of an image to decrease the capacity of the channel or digital storage memory requirements; while maintaining the important information in the image [4]. The bit rate is measured in bits per pixel (bpp). Almost all methods of image compression are based on two fundamental principles: The first principle is to remove the redundancy or the duplication from the image. This approach is called redundancy reduction. The second principle is to remove parts or details of the image that will not be noticed by the user. This approach is called irrelevancy reduction. Image compression methods are based on either redundancy reduction or irrelevancy reduction separately while most compression methods exploit both. While in other methods they cannot be easily separated [2]. Several image compression techniques encode transformed image data instead of the original images [5]-[6]. In this thesis, an approach is developed to enhance the performance of Huffman compression coding a new hybrid lossless image compression technique that combines between lossless and lossy compression which named LPC-DWT-Huffman (LPCDH) technique is proposed to maximize compression so that threefold compression can be obtained. The image firstly passed through the LPC transformation. The waveform transformation is then applied to the LPC output. Finally, the wavelet coefficients are encoded by the Huffman coding. Compared with both Huffman, LPC- Huffman and DWT-Huffman (DH) techniques; our new model is as maximum compression ratio as that before. However, this is still needed for more work especially with the advancement of medical imaging systems offering high resolution and video recording. Medical images come in the front of diagnostic, treatment and fellow up of different diseases. Therefore, nowadays, many hospitals around the world are routinely using medical image processing a nd compression tools. 1.1.1 Motivations Most hospitals store medical image data in digital form using picture archiving and communication systems due to extensive digitization of data and increasing telemedicine use. However, the need for data storage capacity and transmission bandwidth continues to exceed the capability of available technologies. Medical image processing and compression have become an important tool for diagnosis and treatment of many diseases so we need a hybrid technique to compress medical image without any loss in image information which important for medical diagnosis. 1.1.2 Contributions Image compression plays a critical role in telemedicine. It is desired that either single images or sequences of images be transmitted over computer networks at large distances that they could be used in a multitude of purposes. The main contribution of the research is aim to compress medical image to be small size, reliable, improved and fast to facilitate medical diagnosis performed by many medical centers. 1.2 Thesis Organization The thesis is organized into six chapters, as following: Chapter 2 Describes the basic background on the image compression technique including lossless and lossy methods and describes the types of medical images Chapter 3 Provides a literature survey for medical image compression. Chapter 4 Describes LPC-DWT-Huffman (proposed methods) algorithm implementation. The objective is to achieve a reasonable compression ratio as well as better quality of reproduction of image with a low power consumption. Chapter 5 Provides simulation results of compression of several medical images and compare it with other methods using several metrics. Chapter 6 Provides some drawn conclusions about this work and some suggestions for the future work. Appendix A Provides Huffman example and comparison between the methods for the last years. Appendix B Provides the Matlab Codes Appendix C Provides various medical image compression using LPCDH. 1.3 Introduction Image compression is the process of obtaining a compact representation of an image while maintaining all the necessary information important for medical diagnosis. The target of the Image compression is to reduce the image size in bytes without effects on the quality of the image. The decrease in image size permits images to save memory space. The image compression methods are generally categorized into two central types: Lossless and Lossy methods. The major objective of each type is to rebuild the original image from the compressed one without affecting any of its numerical or physical values [7]. Lossless compression also called noiseless coding that the original image can perfectly recover each individual pixel value from the compressed (encoded) image but have low compression rate. Lossless compression methods are often based on redundancy reduction which uses statistical decomposition techniques to eliminate or remove the redundancy (duplication) in the original image. Lossless Image coding is also important in applications where no information loss is allowed during compression. Due to the cost, it is used only for a few applications with stringent requirements such as medical imaging [8-9]. In lossy compression techniques there are a slight loss of data but high compression ratio. The original and reconstructed images are not perfectly matched. However, practically near to each other, this difference is represented as a noise. Data loss may be unacceptable in many applications so that it must be lossless. In medical images compression that use lossless techniques do not give enough advantages in transmission and storage and the compression that use lossy techniques may lose critical data required for diagnosis [10]. This thesis presents a combination of lossy and lossless compression to get high compressed image without data loss. 1.4 Lossless Compression If the data have been lossless compressed, the original data can be exactly reconstructed from the compressed data. This is generally used for many applications that cannot allow any variations between the original and reconstructed data. The types of lossless compression can be analyzed in Figure 2.1. Figure 2.1: lossless compression Run Length Encoding Run length encoding, also called recurrence coding, is one of the simplest lossless data compression algorithms. It is based on the idea of encoding a consecutive occurrence of the same symbol. It is effective for data sets that are consist of long sequences of a single repeated character [50]. This is performed by replacing a series of repeated symbols with a count and the symbol. That is, RLE finds the number of repeated symbols in the input image and replaces them with two-byte code. The first byte for the number and the second one is for the symbol. For a simple illustrative example, the string AAAAAABBBBCCCCC is encoded as A6B4C5; that saves nine bytes (i.e. compression ratio =15/6=5/2). However in some cases there is no much consecutive repeation which reduces the compression ratio. An illustrative example, the original data 12000131415000000900, the RLE encodes it to 120313141506902 (i.e. compression ratio =20/15=4/3). Moreover if the data is random the RLE may fail to achieve any compression ratio [30]-[49]. Huffman encoding It is the most popular lossless compression technique for removing coding redundancy. The Huffman encoding starts with computing the probability of each symbol in the image. These symbols probabilities are sorted in a descending order creating leaf nodes of a tree. The Huffman code is designed by merging the lowest probable symbols producing a new probable, this process is continued until only two probabilities of two last symbols are left. The code tree is obtained and Huffman codes are formed from labelling the tree branch with 0 and 1 [9]. The Huffman codes for each symbol is obtained by reading the branch digits sequentially from the root node to the leaf. Huffman code procedure is based on the following three observations: 1) More frequently(higher probability) occurred symbols will have shorter code words than symbol that occur less frequently. 2) The two symbols that occur least frequently will have the same length code. 3) The Huffman codes are variable length code and prefix code. For more indication Huffman example is presented in details in Appendix (A-I). The entropy (H) describes the possible compression for the image in bit per pixel. It must be noted that, there arent any possible compression ratio smaller than entropy. The entropy of any image is calculated as the average information probability [12]. (2.1) Where Pk is the probability of symbols, k is the intensity value, and L is the number of intensity values used to present image. The average code length is given by the sum of product of probability of the symbol and number of bits used to encode it. More information can be founded in [13-14] and the Huffman code efficiency is calculated as (2.2) LZW coding LZW (Lempel- Ziv Welch) is given by J. Ziv and A. Lempel in 1977 [51].T. Welchs refinements to the algorithm were published in 1984 [52]. LZW compression replaces strings of characters with single codes. It does not do any analysis of the input text. But, it adds every new string of characters to a table of strings. Compression occurs when the output is a single code instead of a string of characters. LZW is a dictionary based coding which can be static or dynamic. In static coding, dictionary is fixed during the encoding and decoding processes. In dynamic coding, the dictionary is updated. LZW is widely used in computer industry and it is implemented as compress command on UNIX [30]. The output code of that the LZW algorithm can be any arbitrary length, but it must have more bits than a single character. The first 256 codes are by default assigned to the standard character set. The remaining codes are assigned to strings as the algorithm proceeds. There are three best-known applications of LZW: UNIX compress (file compression), GIF image compression, and V.42 bits (compression over Modems) [50]. Area coding Area coding is an enhanced form of RLE. This is more advance than the other lossless methods. The algorithms of area coding find rectangular regions with the same properties. These regions are coded into a specific form as an element with two points and a certain structure. This coding can be highly effective but it has the problem of a nonlinear method, which cannot be designed in hardware [9]. 1.5 Lossy Compression Lossy Compression techniques deliver greater compression percentages than lossless ones. But there are some loss of information, and the data cannot be reconstructed exactly. In some applications, exact reconstruction is not necessary. The lossy compression methods are given in Figure 2.2. In the following subsections, several Lossy compression techniques are reviewed: Figure 2.2: lossy compression Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) Wavelet analysis have been known as an efficient approach to representing data (signal or image). The Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) depends on filtering the image with high-pass filter and low-pass filter.in the first stage The image is filtered row by row (horizontal direction) with two filters and and down sampling (keep the even indexed column) every samples at the filter outputs. This produces two DWT coefficients each of size N ÃÆ'-N/2. In the second stage, the DWT coefficients of the filter are filtered column by column (vertical direction) with the same two filters and keep the even indexed row and subsampled to give two other sets of DWT coefficients of each size N/2ÃÆ'-N/2. The output is defined by approximation and detailed coefficients as shown in Figure 2.3. Figure 2.3: filter stage in 2D DWT [15]. LL coefficients: low-pass in the horizontal direction and lowpass in the vertical direction. HL coefficients: high-pass in the horizontal direction and lowpass in the vertical direction, thus follow horizontal edges more than vertical edges. LH coefficients: high-pass in the vertical direction and low-pass in the horizontal direction, thus follow vertical edges than horizontal edges. HH coefficients: high-pass in the horizontal direction and high-pass in the vertical direction, thus preserve diagonal edges. Figure 2.4 show the LL, HL, LH, and HH when one level wavelet is applied to brain image. It is noticed that The LL contains, furthermore all information about the image while the size is quarter of original image size if we disregard the HL, LH, and HH three detailed coefficients shows horizontal, vertical and diagonal details. The Compression ratio increases when the number of wavelet coefficients that are equal zeroes increase. This implies that one level wavelet can provide compression ratio of four [16]. Figure 2.4: Wavelet Decomposition applied on a brain image. The Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) of a sequence consists of two series expansions, one is to the approximation and the other to the details of the sequence. The formal definition of DWT of an N-point sequence x [n], 0 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ n à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ N à ¢Ã‹â€ ’ 1 is given by [17]: (2.3) (2.4) (2.5) Where Q (n1 ,n2) is approximated signal, E(n1 ,n2) is an image, WQ (j,k1,k2) is the approximation DWT and W µ (j,k1,k2) is the detailed DWT where i represent the direction index (vertical V, horizontal H, diagonal D) [18]. To reconstruct back the original image from the LL (cA), HL (cD(h)), LH (cD(v)), and HH (cD(d)) coefficients, the inverse 2D DWT (IDWT) is applied as shown in Figure 2.5. Figure 2.5: one level inverse 2D-DWT [19]. The equation of IDWT that reconstruct the image E () is given by [18]: (2.6) DWT has different families such as Haar and Daupachies (db) the compression ratio can vary from wavelet type to another depending which one can represented the signal in fewer number coefficients. Predictive Coding (PC) The main component of the predictive coding method is the Predictor which exists in both encoder and decoder. The encoder computes the predicted value for a pixel, denote xˆ(n), based on the known pixel values of its neighboring pixels. The residual error, which is the difference value between the actual value of the current pixel x (n) and x ˆ(n) the predicted one. This is computed for all pixels. The residual errors are then encoded by any encoding scheme to generate a compressed data stream [21]. The residual errors must be small to achieve high compression ratio. e (n) = x (n) xˆ(n)(2.7) e (n) =x(n) (2.8) Where k is the pixel order and ÃŽÂ ± is a value between 0 and 1 [20]. The decoder also computes the predicted value of the current pixel xˆ(n) based on the previously decoded color values of neighboring pixels using the same method as the encoder. The decoder decodes the residual error for the current pixel and performs the inverse operation to restore the value of the current pixel [21]. x (n) = e (n) + xˆ(n)(2.9) Linear predictive coding (LPC) The techniques of linear prediction have been applied with great success in many problems of speech processing. The success in processing speech signals suggests that similar techniques might be useful in modelling and coding of 2-D image signals. Due to the extensive computation required for its implementation in two dimensions, only the simplest forms of linear prediction have received much attention in image coding [22]. The schemes of one dimensional predictors make predictions based only on the value of the previous pixel on the current line as shown in equation. Z = X D(2.10) Where Z denotes as output of predictor and X is the current pixel and D is the adjacent pixel. The two dimensional prediction scheme based on the values of previous pixels in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom scan of an image. In Figure 2.6 X denotes the current pixel and A, B, C and D are the adjacent pixels. If the current pixel is the top leftmost one, then there is no prediction since there are no adjacent pixels and no prior information for prediction [21]. Figure 2.6: Neighbor pixels for predicting Z = x (B + D)(2.11) Then, the residual error (E), which is the difference between the actual value of the current pixel (X) and the predicted one (Z) is given by the following equation. E = X Z(2.12) Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) was first proposed by N. Ahmed [57]. It has been more and more important in recent years [55]. The DCT is similar to the discrete Fourier transform that transforms a signal or image from the spatial domain to the frequency domain as shown in Figure 2.7. Figure 2.7: Image transformation from the spatial domain to the frequency domain [55]. DCT represents a finite series of data points as a sum of harmonics cosine functions. DCTs representation have been used for numerous data processing applications, such as lossy coding of audio signal and images. It has been found that small number of DCT coefficients are capable of representing large sequence of raw data. This transform has been widely used in signal processing of image data, especially in coding for compression for its near-optimal performance. The discrete cosine transform helps to separate the image into spectral sub-bands of differing importance with respect to the images visual quality [55]. The use of cosine is much more efficient than sine functions in image compression since this cosine function is capable of representing edges and boundary. As described below, fewer coefficients are needed to approximate and represent a typical signal. The Two-dimensional DCT is useful in the analysis of two-dimensional (2D) signals such as images. We say that the 2D DCT is separable in the two dimensions. It is computed in a simple way: The 1D DCT is applied to each row of an image, s, and then to each column of the result. Thus, the transform of the image s(x, y) is given by [55], (2.13) where. (n x m) is the size of the block that the DCT is applied on. Equation (2.3) calculates one entry (u, v) of the transformed image from the pixel values of the original image matrix [55]. Where u and v are the sample in the frequency domain. DCT is widely used especially for image compression for encoding and decoding, at encoding process image divided into N x N blocks after that DCT performed to each block. In practice JPEG compression uses DCT with a block of 88. Quantization applied to DCT coefficient to compress the blocks so selecting any quantization method effect on compression value. Compressed blocks are saved in a storage memory with significantly space reduction. In decoding process, compressed blocks are loaded which de-quantized with reverse the quantization process. Inverse DCT was applied on each block and merging blocks into an image which is similar to original one [56]. Vector Quantization Vector Quantization (VQ) is a lossy compression method. It uses a codebook containing pixel patterns with corresponding indexes on each of them. The main idea of VQ is to represent arrays of pixels by an index in the codebook. In this way, compression is achieved because the size of the index is usually a small fraction of that of the block of pixels. The image is subdivided into blocks, typically of a fixed size of nÃÆ'-n pixels. For each block, the nearest codebook entry under the distance metric is found and the ordinal number of the entry is transmitted. On reconstruction, the same codebook is used and a simple look-up operation is performed to produce the reconstructed image [53]. The main advantages of VQ are the simplicity of its idea and the possible efficient implementation of the decoder. Moreover, VQ is theoretically an efficient method for image compression, and superior performance will be gained for large vectors. However, in order to use large vectors, VQ becomes complex and requires many computational resources (e.g. memory, computations per pixel) in order to efficiently construct and search a codebook. More research on reducing this complexity has to be done in order to make VQ a practical image compression method with superior quality [50]. Learning Vector Quantization is a supervised learning algorithm which can be used to modify the codebook if a set of labeled training data is available [13]. For an input vector x, let the nearest code-word index be i and let j be the class label for the input vector. The learning-rate parameter is initialized to 0.1 and then decreases monotonically with each iteration. After a suitable number of iterations, the codebook typically converges and the training is terminated. The main drawback of the conventional VQ coding is the computational load needed during the encoding stage as an exhaustive search is required through the entire codebook for each input vector. An alternative approach is to cascade a number of encoders in a hierarchical manner that trades off accuracy and speed of encoding [14], [54]. 1.6 Medical Image Types Medical imaging techniques allow doctors and researchers to view activities or problems within the human body, without invasive neurosurgery. There are a number of accepted and safe imaging techniques such as X-rays, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Computed tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Electroencephalography (EEG) [23-24]. 1.7 Conclusion In this chapter many compression techniques used for medical image have discussed. There are several types of medical images such as X-rays, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Computed tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Electroencephalography (EEG). Image compression has two categories lossy and lossless compression. Lossless compression such as Run Length Encoding, Huffman Encoding Lempel-Ziv-Welch, and Area Coding. Lossy compression such as Predictive Coding (PC), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and Vector Quantization (VQ).Several compression techniques already present a better techniques which are faster, more accurate, more memory efficient and simpler to use. These methods will be discussed in the next chapter.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Advertising, Food and Children :: Expository Exemplification Essays
Advertising, Food and Children "Peanut, peanut butter and jelly." Advertising has an impact on its audience. From songs to logos to characters, food product advertisers must keep in mind their audiences. Competition is the force which causes advertisers to target children. Children are targeted through the use of cute phrases, animated characters, and toys in these competitive advertisements. Many types of food have a phrase associated with them. Commercials use these phrases to implant their product into the audiences memory. Goldfish crackers are an example of one these products. "I love the fishes `cause their so delicious..." This is the theme to a well known commercial which advertises Pepperigde Farm goldfish crackers. Children sing the phrase over and over throughout the entirety of the commercial. By the time the commercial ends the line and product are inevitably stuck in a persons mind. The commercial says "... and my mom says that's okay", which implies to children that their parents will allow them to eat this snack. Another example of a product with an addicting phrase is Oscar Meyer bologna. "My bologna has a first name its O-S-C-A-R..." Instead of this song selling the product itself, its aim is to sell the brand. The Oscar Meyer company has had auditions for the next Oscar Meyer child. Again, their goal is to sell their brand. The company also has another product with a catchy song, Oscar Meyer hot dogs. "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener..." The stress of this phrase is also the brand. Oscar Meyer commercials use children to sing these songs and like the goldfish commercial, the song has been imprinted into a persons memory be the end of the commercial. Both companies goal is to sell their product. By targeting children, whole families are then targeted. Competition between companies with similar products, is the reason phrases are used. If one company can create a phrase that everyone will know and remember, they are one step closer to winning the race. Animated characters are also a medium used to target children. Animation has been the way which companies from Disney to Cartoon Network, capture the attention of children everywhere. Tony the Tiger is the spokesperson for Kellogg's frosted flakes.
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