How is globalization affecting marketplaces in remote areas of the world? Essay

Quality of life for the poor is increased at an accelerated rate. The poor are better able to earn money and afford to buy the things they need. The International Monetary Fund talks about a study of the subject that was carried out by World Bank economists David Dollar and Aart Kraay: They concluded that since 1980, globalization has contributed to a reduction in poverty as well as a reduction in global income inequality. They found that in â€Å"globalizing† countries in the developing world, income per person grew three-and-a-half times faster than in â€Å"non-globalizing† countries, during the 1990s. In general, they noted, â€Å"higher growth rates in globalizing developing countries have translated into higher incomes for the poor.† Dollar and Kraay also found that in virtually all events in which a country experienced growth at a rate of two percent or more, the income of the poor rose. (IMF Staff, 2008) Information sharing capabilities are provided through the introduction of technology infrastructure introduced into remote areas. Farmers are able to research and share best practice techniques. Crop yields would likely rise. A paper by Dr. Alka Dhameja and Dr. Uma Medury discusses the Warna Wired Village Project in India: The primary objective of this project is to demonstrate the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in the accelerated socio-economic development of villages around Warna Nagar in the Kolhapur and Sangli districts of the state of Maharashtra. The project area has a cluster of 70 villages, consisting of 46 villages from Kolhapur and 24 villages from Sangli district. It has been jointly implemented by the Government of India through the National Informatics Centre (NIC), the Government of Maharashtra, and the Warna Cooperative Society. This project was initiated to serve the information needs of the farmers for different crop cultivation practices of major crops such as sugarcane, pest and disease control; marketing and processing information etc., right up to the village level through networked facilitation booths in the villages. The  existing cooperative structure has been used along with the state of the art infrastructure to allow Internet access to the existing cooperative societies. Issues in remote areas have opened new markets for some companies. Blandine Laperche and Gilliane Lefebvre describe the â€Å"reverse innovation† approach by GE HealthCare who locates the research design centers for products in the developing country itself: The first ultra-portable electrocardiogram (ECG) was fully designed, worked out and produced in India to meet the needs of a large number of remote rural inhabitants who had to be visited by fully equipped doctors. To face the frequent mains failures that occurred in many Indian regions as well as a serious shortage of healthcare professionals, the Mac i had batteries and was designed for an easy use. It was portable and light so that doctors could get to the patients who lived in remote areas. GE HealthCare brought some of the technological advantages of developed countries to remote areas of the globe. One of the greatest things about it was that even though the performance features may be half of the original product, the cost for the new portable units were 85 percent lower.(Laperche & Lefebvre, 2012) References Dhameja, D., & Medury, D. (n.d.). Information and Communication Technology in the Globalization Era: The Socio-economic Concerns. Retrieved January 16, 2015, from http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/eropa/unpan014261.pdf IMF Staff. (2008, May 2). Issues Brief – Globalization: A Brief Overview. Retrieved January 16, 2015, from https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ib/2008/053008.htm Laperche, B., & Lefebvre, G. (2012). The globalization of Research & Development in industrial corporations: Towards â€Å"reverse innovation†? Retrieved January 17, 2015, from http://www.cairn.info/zen.php?ID_ARTICLE=JIE_010_0053

Thus I Refute Beelzy

Group Assessment and Self-Assessment During this project I learned a lot about my group members but even more about myself. I discovered that I am not very detailed oriented and that I really need to work on my communication skills. A lot of the time I assumed that we were all on the same page when we weren’t. If I had to redo this I would have made sure that we started selling our cards earlier and would have worked on getting bigger business on our cards so that more people would want to buy them.Marise: Maurice did a lot for the group. She was the most responsible out of all of us and the most realistic. Though she was quiet she silently took charge. She helped keep the boys focused when they started to go astray. Andrew: Andrew really took leadership during this project. Though he may have slacked at times, all in all he did a lot. He and Max were the two who came up with our idea. He brought a lot of ideas to the table however he didn’t really like listening to oth er people’s ideas. Max: Max worked really hard on this.Though he may have been quiet he organized a lot of the stuff and he also came up with our idea with Andrew. I can’t really say much about Max because he was really quiet but he contributed a lot. He also put a lot of time and effort into the cards. Trenton: Trenton worked really hard on this and was really dedicated. However he was really close-minded and wasn’t very open to new ideas. I feel as though if Trenton would have been more willing to venture we could have done a lot more with the cards. But he really took charge and accomplished a lot. He also has excellent communication skills.

Nutrition and Health Worksheet Essay

Use Ch. 1 of Contemporary Nutrition, Ch. 2 of Visualizing Nutrition, supplemental course materials, the University Library, the Internet, or other resources to answer the following questions. Your response to each question should be 75 to 100 words. 1.What is nutrition? Why is nutrition essential to our daily lives? Nutrition is the science that links foods to health and disease. It includes the processes by which the human organisms ingest, digest, absorbs, transports, and excretes food substances. 2.What is the connection between nutrition and health? 3.What are the six classes of nutrients? What are essential nutrients? What are the sources of nutrients? What do nutrients do? 4.How do vitamins and minerals work? 5.What does it mean to eat a balanced diet? Why is food choice important for good nutrition? 6.What is undernutrition? What is overnutrition? 7.Why is physical activity important as it relates to nutrition and health? 8.Where might you find dietary recommendations? What are the recommended dietary allowances (RDA)? What are dietary reference intakes (DRIs)? 9.The United States Department of Agriculture created a diagram titled MyPlate. What is this diagram? Why should someone study this diagram? 10.What are some tools for diet planning? 11.What is the calorie intake calculator? What factors does this calculator take into account? 12.What are some dangers associated with dieting? 13.What is the best way to lose weight? Explain your answer and provide at least one source, formatted consistent with APA guidelines, to support your answer. Reference 14.How does exercise influence body weight? 15.Consider your personal dietary habits. What are some modifications you might make to promote good health? 16.How does today’s society affect our nutritional habits?

Sustainable operations,research paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sustainable operations, - Research Paper Example Carrefour is a multi-format, multi-channel and multi-local group comprising of approximately 9,994 stores which operates in thirty three different countries in the world. Stores operate in a range formats and channels namely, hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, cash and carry stores for professionals and hypercash stores which are specifically designed to address the requirements of different consumer segments. Some stores are designed by vertically integrating the stages in the value chain example, Hypercash stores combines the benefits of Cash and carry stores (wholesale) and convenience of hypermarkets (retail). Creating specific investment between stages of the value chain helps firms to internally exploit their pool of knowledge and capacities, and to guarantee quality of inputs and services employed (DÃ ­ez N.p). Carrefour has launched specific sustainability oriented programs to the stakeholders in different stages of its value chain. Sustainable development for the business enterprise can be defined as adopting business strategies and activities that meet the needs of the enterprise and its stakeholders while protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future. This definition suggests that business growth must meet the needs of its shareholders; lenders, customers, employees, suppliers and communities who are affected by the organization’s activities which must not irreparably degrade or destroy the natural and human resource bases in its venture for raising physical and financial capital. Carrefour adopts a sustainable development self-assessment tool for the suppliers which is a detailed self-evaluation framework designed in conjunction with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), accessible to suppliers online, including forty nine self assessment criteria based on four central pillars: sustainable development management

Monetary and fiscal policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Monetary and fiscal policy - Essay Example Through tax cuts, my firm will save very many jobs that previously would have been lost. When utilized, tax cuts save many jobs and this in return helps in saving the economy from taking major shots. Because a firm like mine is not a popular decision at the time tax cuts were available, when the distribution of tax cuts are fair to deserving companies, history proves that they end up being the best (Shiller, 2008). I am sure on this one and I have to admit. Yes, tax cuts have effects with the major one being saving jobs. But the question that keeps coming on my mind is do such firms like mine get fat checks with only those in high ranks getting rich while the person with a low rank in the food chain continues to struggle. This makes me think that the government should take time and look at the financials of companies it plans to bail out for the purposes of looking and seeing whether it might cut the fat. This does not seem to have an impact and effect but as an owner of my firm, I k now well the effects that imposing tax cuts on all household goods can have. This in short is bailing a company out and the effects start from within where employees can even get an increase in pay (Shiller, 2008). 2 In the past few years, the government has had an important role in "bailing out" certain industries. This is a type of government spending. This government bailout affected my firm directly since the promises that the codes give are to uphold the regulations of businesses, to act with transparent facts, without malice, and with reasonable care that will suffer from any pressure coming from third parties. Business freedom demonstrated to the second party auditors that are independent is what the corporation cherishes (Shiller, 2008). Unless dully authorized, the bailout codes of ethics bring the employees tight together to maintain the corporation’s confidentiality, which is vital. Another promise is ensuring all employees have exceptional quality communication fl ow and regularly to update the government on any financial matter that comes up in the business. It adheres to everything it says and follows it to the letter.In the recent past, economists do not have trust in government bailouts in terms of the nation’s well being. They have been proposing for alternative measures like the profits giving reasons why bailouts are not good enough. Below are their outlined reasons (Shiller, 2008). A bailout leaves out many goods by only counting money transactions. There are many disregarded important parts of the economy. For example, most household tasks like caring for the children and the elderly, cleaning and general home maintenance, preparation of food and voluntary services do not get into account. During the calculations, bailouts zero rates all these activities assuming they do contribute anything to the economy. This alone contributes a lot to distorted policies of the public. In cases where family act gets criticism of bailouts red uction, the denigrations are baseless because it does not reflect the increments in many economies of the household initiated by the act (Shiller, 2008). A bailout takes care of all dealings as positive. Government bailouts

Special educational needs and additional educational needs Essay

Special educational needs and additional educational needs - Essay Example To meet these difficulties and help the children gain a normal life, Special and Additional Education Systems have been set up (Directgov, n.d.). Till date, Special Education Needs (SEN) and Additional Educational Needs (AEN) were meant to be synonymous but recently the term AEN is accepted to have an appropriate sense in this case. But anyhow, the objective of both the terms remains similar, i.e. providing the additional and special education to the children those who are needful. As such it becomes very necessary to understand where a child shall face problems in the learning process and identify them as soon as possible. One feature thereby, is that the children learn in a much decelerated speed when compared to other children at the same environment (Oldham Council, n.d.). With the prime objective to provide every child with SEN to attain their optimum potential in education and adulthood, the government of UK has laid down proper laws and educational systems. Such as, law of discrimination, funding and many more (Teacher Net, 2010). The concept and belief of SEN have stated traditionally that the best way to understand the special need of children with disabilities is by comparing their behaviour with other majority of children of the same age. Concisely, the factor of individual difference can state the needs of these children and also suggest a scope for their benefit. Although with a recent argument it has been concluded that more than individual differences the special needs of such children can be efficiently assessed when unsuitable environmental conditions are presented in front of a child. The basic problem with the approach of individual differences is that it is focused on the assumption that, differences that lie on the individual basis is not always appropriate as individual differences stand upon some active rudiments, i.e. biological and behavioural

Manufacturing process of concrete Research Paper

Manufacturing process of concrete - Research Paper Example Earlier clay was also used as bonding material to prepare the concrete by the Assyrians and Babylonian. The Egyptians introduced the use of lime and gypsum cement to make concrete. In 1756, the first modern concrete was invented by the British engineer John Smeaton. He used pebbles as coarse aggregate substances and mixing powered bricks in to the cement for the formation of concrete. In 1984, English inventor by Joseph Aspdin first time made the Portland cement that still play major role in the composition of modern day concrete. It is believed that the invention of Portland cement is the first and major landmark achieved in the history of modern concrete because it was the first true artificial cement produced by burning of limestone and clay together (Stella, 1996). Due to burning some chemical changes occurred in the properties of limestone and clay and their combination become stronger cement as compared with that produced with the plain crushed limestone. Along with cement aggr egates are also used in the composition of concrete like sand, crushed stones, slag and ashes etc. Along with time several new materials were added as aggregate to bring variations in concrete. For instance, the reinforced concrete or Ferro-concrete was introduced in which metal like steel is imbedded. This concrete was invented in 1849 by a Parisian gardener Joseph Moneir. He made several garden pots and tubs with the concrete in which he used meshed iron as aggregate. His invention was exhibit in 1867 in Paris Exposition in which he not only show the use of reinforced concrete for making tubs and pots but also for the construction of railways, pipes, bridges and arches (Robert and Hutchinson, 1999). The invention o f the reinforced concrete was another important... After mixing the material is transported to the site where the concrete is placed and compacted. This process occurs just after the mixing process in order to avoid the separation of any ingredient from the mixture and to prevent the entrance of air bubbles into the mixture. An internal or external vibrator is used for compacting of the concrete or it is also done with the help of vibrating tables in which there are two shafts rotating in opposite directions for creating vertical vibration.   After placement, the concrete is cured so that it could be prevented from drying too fast (Neville and Brooks, 1987). The moisture level at the time of hardening of the concrete determines the durability and strength of the concrete. When the concrete dries it decreases in size because the cement solidifies and reduces the size of the concrete. The concrete becomes week if the concrete is prevented from contracting and tensile stresses also develop in the concrete so the concrete is kept damp for several days when it is set for hardening. After curing the necessary quality assurance checks and tests are conducted using quality assurance charts and other tools that assure the strength of the concrete before it is used for the construction purpose (Lancaster, 2005).   Properties of concreteThe concrete could be examined according to its properties including strength, elasticity, tension and shrinkage cracking and expansion and shrinkage.   The simple tensile strength of concrete is usually around 10-15 percent.

ECO203 Final Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

ECO203 Final - Essay Example These would affect the other economic variables which include Aggregate demand, Gross Domestic Product and Employment of a country. The Government would go for an Expansionary Fiscal policy in times of recession in which U.S. Government would spend more than they would collect taxes from the people. That is government spending would exceed taxes. The opposite would happen in case of a Contractionary Fiscal Policy where the government would increase the taxes more than it intends to spend. Now government spending may account for a variety of activities which include roads, education, healthcare, welfare activities and defense. This government spending is financed chiefly by taxation (Blanchard, 2010). There are other alternative ways of funding like printing money, external borrowings from foreign countries etc. The government may also borrow from the public which is called public debt. But this would be done by the government only when on the occasion of a deficit in the government b udget. The U.S. Government utilizes the Fiscal policy in the endeavor to affect the aggregate demand along with full employment. When there is inadequate aggregate demand in the economy, the government would decrease the rate of taxation and increase the expenditures by making use of idle resources. This would lead to increase in the growth rate of the economy and would tend towards full employment by decreasing the rate of unemployment. As a result the output would increase. This kind of government spending has a multiplier effect because when a government starts a new project, along with the output of the project it generates employment for the workers and hence the consumption and savings. However Fiscal Policy might also be constrained by a crowding out effect which would happen if there is a rise in interest rates which would curb investment. However, if the economy is going through a recession then already a lot of resources are unused and hence this would not pose a problem f or the economy explicitly (Froyen, 2005). Monetary Policy The monetary policy is implemented by the Central Bank with a control on the money supply with is undertaken with the help of several methods. This can be controlled mainly by purchase or sell of bonds which increases or decreases the supply of the money in the economy. Now bonds are debt instruments that guarantee the buyer the return of the principal along with an interest or the coupon at some specified date. This rate of interest or the coupon rate is determined by the Central Bank and one of the tools by which the Central Bank controls the supply of money in the economy (Mankiw, 2012). Now, when the bank wants to reduce the money supply of the economy or decrease the liquidity, it would go for a Contractionary Monetary policy wherein it would start increasing the interest rates. As a result, the coupon rates of the bonds would increase which would compel people to park their money with the banks, having less money in the ir hands. This would lead to a reduction in liquidity in the entire economic system. In contrary to this by an Expansionary Monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank would decrease th

Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words - 2

Marketing - Essay Example The framework of the product life cycle assists in managing a product through the processes involved from birth to its demise. It is possible to look at the product life cycle in the management of a product, as providing the guidelines that a good parent would like to have in the bringing up of a baby and sending it out face the challenges of a competitive world and providing input to meet these challenges. However in recent times the validity of the relevance of the product life cycle to the modern marketers is facing a challenge. Groucutt, 2005, p. 198, suggests that the product life cycle may be taken as a concept that â€Å"is used to predict the strategic needs associated with products as they age within the market place. It allows for the development of strategies appropriate to the life cycle stage and anticipate the need for changes in strategy as progression from one stage to another occurs† (1). Even though the origins of the product life cycle concept are rooted in economic theory as shown by Schumpeter in 1934, the credit of the origin of the product life cycle is normally attributed to Dean in 1950. It was however Levitt, T., who popularized the product life cycle concept from the early to the mid-1960’s, from where it came to be an established framework to assist in the analysis of the product portfolio of an organization. (1). The theory behind the product life cycle was presented in a simple manner by Kotler in 1967 as a classical model in marketing management for the explanation of the life of a product in the market. The classical model of the product life cycle is an S – shaped curve, as seen in Figure -1 consisting of four stages namely the introduction phase, the growth phase, the maturity phase and the decline phase, showing the four stages of a product in a market. A saturation element was later added on to the maturity phase making the third phase consist of maturity and saturation. The classical model of the product life

Education on health promotion Essay Example for Free

Education on health promotion Essay

Effects of Paraneoplastic LEMS on Neuromuscular Junction

Effects of Paraneoplastic LEMS on Neuromuscular Junction Qing Zhi Tan Effects of Paraneoplastic  Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome on the Neuromuscular Junction IntroductionThe Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS) is an autoimmune disease. It is characterised by muscle weakness of the proximal lowerlimbs as a result of auto-antibodies produced against the voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCC) found on the presynaptic membrane of the neuromuscular junction(1). Most of the time, LEMS is classified as a paraneoplastic syndrome as it is often associated with cancer (small cell lung cancer in particular) (2, 3). One of the earliest descriptions of this disease was reported by Anderson and his colleagues in the year 1953, describing a 47-year-old patient with bronchial carcinoma presenting with progressive muscle weakness(4). Upon examining this patient, Anderson wrote: His (the patients) muscle power was generally weaker than his muscle bulk would suggest, especially the muscles of the shoulder girdle, hip girdle, trunk, and anterior compartments of the legs.(4) Since then, much research has been done to find out more about this disease. It is now known that the auto-antibodies are primarily directed against the P/Q-type VGCCs at the neuromuscular junction (1-3, 5, 6). This report will discuss the effects of LEMS on the neuromuscular junction. Voltage-Gated Calcium ChannelsIt would be useful to first understand the structure of the voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCC). In general, VGCCs are made up of 5 subunits (ÃŽÂ ±1, ÃŽÂ ±2, ÃŽÂ ², ÃŽÂ ´, ÃŽÂ ³) and can be divided, according to the electrophysiological and pharmacological properties of their ÃŽÂ ±1 subunit, into 5 different subtypes (L, N, P/Q, R and T-type)(2, 7). The structure of a typical VGCC is shown in Figure 1 below. As mentioned before, the LEMS auto-antibodies are mainly directed against the P/Q-type VGCCs (1-3, 5, 6). The ÃŽÂ ±1 subunit of the P/Q-type VGCCs is known as ÃŽÂ ±1A(8). This ÃŽÂ ±1A subunit forms the channel which allows the movement of Ca2+ ions into the synaptic knob(8), and can be further broken down into 4 identical domains (I, II, III, IV), each possessing 6 transmembrane segments (S1-S6)(2, 8) (see Figure 2). What Happens at The Neuromuscular Junction?Now that we have understood the basic structure of the VGCCs, let us move on to its role and how it is affected by the pathogenesis of LEMS. The neuromuscular junction is made up of the pre-synaptic membrane, the synaptic cleft and the post-synaptic membrane (5, 9, 10). P/Q-type VGCCs present on the surface of the pre-synaptic membrane play a vital role in allowing synaptic transmissions to cross the neuromuscular junction (7, 9). In studies conducted by multiple different researchers, anti-P/Q-type VGCC auto-antibodies were found in more than 85% of LEMS patients (3, 6, 11). Japanese researchers Masaharu Takamori and his colleagues even went a step further to determine the specific immunodominant sites within the P/Q-type VGCC in which the auto-antibodies would bind. In their study, they found that majority of their test subjects had auto-antibodies directed against domains II and IV of the ÃŽÂ ±1A subunit in the P/Q-type VGCC(12)(highlighted in red in Figure 2). Depolarisation of the pre-synaptic membrane occurs when stimulated by an action potential initiated by a nerve impulse(13). This membrane depolarisation causes the VGCCs to open, allowing the local influx of calcium ions (Ca2+)into the synaptic knob(13). The increase in Ca2+ concentration will stimulate the exocytosis of vesicles containing the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine (ACh) into the synaptic cleft(13). ACh then goes on to bind to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors found on the motor end plate which will trigger an action potential and subsequently causing muscle contraction.(10, 13) In patients with LEMS, the LEMS auto-antibodies would bind to the VGCC present on the pre-synaptic membrane of the neuromuscular junction(5). This causes the VGCC to lose its ability to function as an ion channel, thus inhibiting the influx of Ca2+ into the synaptic knob during membrane depolarisation(5). Since the exocytosis of synaptic vesicles are dependent on Ca2+ (14), it is believed that a decrease in Ca2+ influx would result in a reduction in synaptic vesicle exocytosis(5, 13, 15). A recent study conducted in 2015 confirmed the phenomenon in which the LEMS IgG directly causes a reduction in the exocytosis of synaptic vesicles (16). They did this by using fluorescence imaging techniques to observe the exocytosis of synaptic vesicles in rat neurons incubated with LEMS IgG (16). Pooled IgG from healthy individuals were used in comparison and as a control (16). Hence, it is evident that the muscle weakness seen in LEMS patients is a direct consequence of reduced exocytosis of ACh-containing synaptic vesicles. In summary, the Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome is an autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness in patients. The reduction in muscle power is due to insufficient ACh release at the neuromuscular junction. In 85% of these patients, this is caused by auto-antibodies inactivating the P/Q-type VGCCs on the presynaptic membrane. Going Beyond VGCCs So, what happens in the remaining 10-15% of LEMS patients that do not have anti-P/Q-type VGCC antibodies? Many scientists have asked the same question and investigations have been carried out to find alternative mechanisms in the pathogenesis of LEMS in seronegative patients. (The term seronegative is used to describe patients with undetectable anti-P/Q-type antibodies.) In the absence of anti-P/Q-type VGCC antibodies, it is almost impossible that LEMS would have the same pathogenesis in seronegative patients. Yet, it is found that there are no significant differences in the electrophysiological and clinical characteristics between the seronegative and seropositive patients(17, 18). One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that there might be auto-antibodies directed against a different molecule involved in the synaptic transmission; hence causing seronegative patients to have the same clinical and electrophysical features albeit having no anti-P/Q-type VGCC antibodies. To date, many auto-antibodies with different target molecules have been found in LEMS patients. One of the earliest to be discovered is an auto-antibody to synaptotagmin, which is a protein involved in synaptic vesicle exocytosis (2, 5, 13, 15, 19). Furthermore, antibodies to the M1-type presynaptic muscarinic ACh receptor (M1-mAChR) have also been discovered(20). The M1-mAChR is a G-protein coupled receptor that regulates ACh release at the neuromuscular junction(5, 20). We will not be going into the specifics of these antibodies in this report as the mechanisms involved are largely complicated. ConclusionEven though LEMS is a rare autoimmune disease, the prevalence of LEMS as a paraneoplastic syndrome in patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is extremely high. More than half of LEMS patients have SCLC and more often than not, the diagnosis of LEMS precedes the diagnosis of SCLC(21). Therefore, LEMS could potentially play a crucial role in allowing certain cancers to be detected at an earlier stage. Hence, understanding the pathophysiology of this disease would not only prove useful in discovering better treatments for LEMS patients but also aid the early detection of cancer. References: 1.Weiss N, Koschak A. Pathologies of Calcium Channels. Weiss N, Koschak A, editors: Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer Berlin Heidelberg : Imprint: Springer; 2014. 2.Takamori M. An autoimmune channelopathy associated with cancer: Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome. Intern Med. 1999;38(2):86-96. 3.Lennon VA, Kryzer TJ, Griesmann GE, OSuilleabhain PE, Windebank AJ, Woppmann A, et al. Calcium-Channel Antibodies in the Lambert-Eaton Syndrome and Other Paraneoplastic Syndromes. New England Journal of Medicine. 1995;332(22):1467-75. 4.Anderson HJ, Churchill-Davidson HC, Richardson AT. BRONCHIAL NEOPLASM WITH MYASTHENIA. The Lancet. 1953;262(6799):1291-3. 5.Hulsbrink R, Hashemolhosseini S. Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome diagnosis, pathogenesis and therapy. Clin Neurophysiol. 2014;125(12):2328-36. 6.Motomura M, Lang B, Johnston I, Palace J, Vincent A, Newsom-Davis J. Incidence of serum anti-P/Q-type and anti-N-type calcium channel autoantibodies in the Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome. Journal of the Neurological Sciences. 1997;147(1):35-42. 7.Catterall WA. Voltage-gated calcium channels. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology. 2011;3(8):a003947. 8.Structure and Regulation of Voltage-Gated Ca2+ Channels. Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology. 2000;16(1):521-55. 9.Hughes BW, Kusner LL, Kaminski HJ. Molecular architecture of the neuromuscular junction. Muscle Nerve. 2006;33(4):445-61. 10.Martini F, Nath JL, Bartholomew EF. Fundamentals of anatomy physiology. San Francisco: Benjamin Cummings; 2012. 11.Motomura M, Johnston I, Lang B, Vincent A, Newsom-Davis J. An improved diagnostic assay for Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery Psychiatry. 1995;58(1):85-7. 12.Takamori M, Iwasa K, Komai K. Antigenic Sites of the Voltage-gated Calcium Channel in Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndromea. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1998;841(1):625-35. 13.Lang B, Newsom-Davis J. Immunopathology of the Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome. Springer seminars in immunopathology. 1995;17(1):3-15. 14.Mechanisms of Synaptic Vesicle Exocytosis. Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology. 2000;16(1):19-49. 15.Takamori M. Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome as an autoimmune calcium channelopathy. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2004;322(4):1347-51. 16.Spillane J, Ermolyuk Y, Cano-Jaimez M, Lang B, Vincent A, Volynski KE, et al. Lambert-Eaton syndrome IgG inhibits transmitter release via P/Q Ca2+ channels. Neurology. 2015;84(6):575-9. 17.Oh SJ, Hatanaka Y, Claussen GC, Sher E. Electrophysiological differences in seropositive and seronegative Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome. Muscle Nerve. 2007;35(2):178-83. 18.Nakao YK, Motomura M, Fukudome T, Fukuda T, Shiraishi H, Yoshimura T, et al. Seronegative Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome: study of 110 Japanese patients. Neurology. 2002;59(11):1773. 19.Takamori M, Hamada T, Komai K, Takahashi M, Yoshida A. Synaptotagmin can cause an immune-mediated model of Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome in rats. Annals of neurology. 1994;35(1):74-80. 20.Takamori M. Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome: Search for alternative autoimmune targets and possible compensatory mechanisms based on presynaptic calcium homeostasis. Journal of Neuroimmunology. 2008;201-202:145-52. 21.Titulaer MJ, Verschuuren JJGM. Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2008;1132(1):129-34.

Right Buy Tenants

Right Buy Tenants Right to buy, the dominant form of housing tenure in the Britain for council tenants, competes against private and mixed economy ownership housing- provided by private initiatives and private rented accommodation. Right to Buy was famously encouraged by Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister from 1979-1990) through the 1980 Housing Act and the notion of a property-owning democracy. Whilst it brings many advantages, Right to Buy is not without its disadvantages. This essay seeks to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of a system where right to buy as the dominant form of tenure. First, the background of Right to Buy will be explored, with arguments in favour and against how the sale of council houses became a major element in local housing policies in the UK. The Background of Right to Buy. The Conservative Party Manifesto of 1979 reads â€Å"Many families who live on council estates and in new towns would like to buy their own homes but either cannot afford to or are prevented by the local authority or the Labour government. The time has come to end these restrictions. In the first session of the next Parliament we shall therefore give council and new town tenants the legal right to buy their homes, while recognising the special circumstances of rural areas and sheltered housing for the elderly. Subject to safeguards over resale, the terms we propose would allow a discount on market values reflecting the fact that council tenants effectively have security of tenure. Our discounts will range from 33 per cent after three years, rising with length of tenancy to a maximum of 50 per cent after twenty years. We shall also ensure that 100 per cent mortgages are available for the purchase of council and new town houses. We shall introduce a right for these tenants to obtain limited term options on their homes so that they know in advance the price at which they can buy, while they save the money to do so. As far as possible, we will extend these rights to housing association tenants. At the very least, we shall give these associations the power to sell to their tenants. Those council house tenants who do not wish to buy their homes will be given new rights and responsibilities under our Tenants Charter†1 The Right to Buy which was introduced by the Conservative Government under Margaret Thatcher provided a new framework for the sale of public sector housing in Britain. The statutory Right to Buy replaced local discretion and applied to the bulk of secure tenants with three years tenancy. The new policy applied to flats as well as houses. It involved much higher discounts and few exemptions. It was highly publicised and made more attractive by the expectation that rents would continue to rise. (Jones Murie, 2006) There were attempts by various Conservative local authorities since the end of the Second World War to sell council houses. In 1967 Francis Frederick Griffin- a leader of the Tory council in Birmingham wrote that the Partys policy was based upon the belief that government, both local and national, should have as little to do with peoples lives as possible. Griffin (1967) explains: â€Å"We (the Tory council) determined that it was the function of the local authority to serve the people, not master them†¦ We decided that the vital principle of local government was to interfere as little as possible rather than as much as would be tolerated.† After seven months in power they had sold 2,101 homes, which included a reduction of up to 10 percent for long-term residents.2 Many council tenants exercised their right-to-buy. By November 1982 the government said more than 400,000 people had bought their council homes. The right-to-buy scheme was subsequently extended to tenants in leasehold properties. During this period the conservative housing policy proved extremely popular and was seen as a major vote winner for Mrs Thatcher in 1979 and again in 1983.3 Looking at today, with approximately 70% of public sector households in England being under owner occupation, it is easily the assumption that home ownership is the obvious and rational form of housing tenure, and always has been. However, in 1914 home ownership in England stood at only 10%, rising to around 49% in 1971 and 69% in 2002 4 Murie (1998) explains: The nineteenth century man of property did not own his own home Britain, at the turn of the century, was a nation of tenants and this applied to rural and urban areas and to the rich and the poor. Home ownership should not therefore be viewed as the natural tenure mass home ownership is a product of post-war history. (Murie in Marsh Mullins ed., 1998: 80) Farther, whilst home ownership may be the most favourite form of housing tenure in Britain today, other countries see varying forms of housing tenure. Ireland and Spain from statistics in carried out in 1991 showed over 80% home ownership, the UK with 67%, the US at 59%, Germany on 40% and Switzerland with only 29% home ownership. 5 The variation is clearly huge, and by exploring the differences between countries with high and low home occupation some advantages and disadvantages can partly be illustrated. The Right to Buy brought a fundamental change to local society, not least in fracturing the community. Previously, every tenant had one enemy the council. Now peoples problems were more personalised everybody was seemingly fighting their own battles rather than the one big collective threat. Council Tenants who cannot afford homes and flats of theirs due to the expensive cost of ownership can get 33% discount on the market value of their home, increasing in stages up to 50% for a tenancy of 20 years. Mrs Thatchers government of 1979 and again in 1983 believes the bill will transform the social structure of Britain for good. Michael Heseltine, secretary of state for the environment during the conservative government, said: This bill lays the foundations for one of the most important social revolutions of this century. 3 But Shelter, the organisation for homeless people, has said the move will increase the number of homeless people and decrease the number of homes available to accommodate them. And critics have accused the Thatchers government of being too generous to council house tenants while Labour Party believe the cost to the public purse from the implementation of the Right to Buy Policy will be at least  £5,000 per sale but the Conservatives maintain that central and local government will save millions through the reduction of subsidy to council house tenants.3 Homes are expensive hence home ownership is out of the reach of most council tenants earning an average of  £7,500 in 1982. Most home owners take out a loan a mortgage to buy their home. Few people have huge sums of money readily available without borrowing. Usually, a mortgage isnt required only if the purchaser has another house to sell for example, if theyre trading down. Before the Right to Buy Policy, it was extremely hard for a council tenant to borrow enough necessary to buy a home. Conservative government policy has been seen to strongly influence the increase in property ownership for renting council accommodation. Thatchers government of 1979-1990 is most notorious for pushing the notion of a property-owning democracy and actively encouraged this through the right-to-buy policy. But whilst perhaps the most well known and crucial, Thatchers government is by no means the only to advocate home ownership. Blairs New Labour government commenced the Starter Home Initiative in 2001 to help key workers, primarily teachers, health workers and the police, to buy a home in areas where high house prices are undermining recruitment and retention 6 Interestingly, in April 2004 this scheme was succeeded by the Key Worker Living scheme to help key workers in London, the South East and East of England to buy a home, upgrade to a family home or rent a home at an affordable price7 (italics mine). The Nature of Right to Buy Murie (2006) writes that the nature of the Right to Buy has contributed to the process of social change associated with council housing. It has also been reported that more affluent tenants have bought homes and left the sector, so the sector which remains has a narrower social base with a higher proportion of low-income households and those dependent on welfare benefits. It has become more strikingly a tenure of younger households and older people. The conventional role of council housing in housing families with children has become less evident. The social rented sector as a whole is now smaller and has a different demography than in the past. Regionally and locally, social rented housing is most rampant in areas where there has been a loss of employment and where demand for labour is very low. The Impacts: Since the tenure of Thatchers government, there can be no doubting the impact of the Right to Buy. Some 30 per cent of tenants have exercised the Right to Buy. The majority of these have benefited considerably from the process. The volume of sales and capital receipts has far surpassed expectations. By 2003 it was estimated some 1.5 million council homes had been sold. Very substantial rates of sale have changed council housing. Where they have been the highest, the council sector has been transformed. It is a much smaller sector with a different stock than in the past. The sale of council houses has also transformed the owner-occupied sector. In some areas, the owner-occupied sector is essentially a product of public sector activity. In those districts which had the largest council housing stock, former council houses now comprise a major part of the private sector. (Jones Murie, 2006) General Advantages Disadvantages of Right to Buy One arguments for Right to Buy is that it provides protection for purchasers in the initial five-year period and in addition, the lack of capital investment by local councils has tended to reduce the potential for conflict between leaseholders and the council. The levels of discount associated with the Right to Buy mean that households do not over-extend themselves in buying properties. Council house purchasers are not more likely to experience arrears and repossession problems than other purchasers. However, Ball (1986) voiced a strong counter argument, writes that successive property condition surveys show a rapid escalation of dilapidation in Britains housing stock. Some of the greatest increases are in the owner-occupied stock. (1986: 44). So what reason can there be for this? It is important to understand the just because someone owns a property, does not mean that they have disposable income to hand. Ball also writes that recent house condition surveys have shown alarming increases in the extent of disrepair in owner-occupied dwellings because owners cannot afford to repair them. (1986: 3). Rather than viewing a home as an asset, it is more sensible to view its mortgage payments as a liability, presuming a mortgage must be paid. Another argument against Right to Buy by Jones Murie (2006) is that it has resulted in the best council properties being sold to the most affluent tenants in the middle stages of the family cycle. Neither the youngest nor the oldest tenants have bought, leaving fewer tenants in their forties, fifties and sixties. But there is a general consensus that the majority of those who have purchased a house under the Right to Buy have experienced a relatively trouble-free episode. Depending on when people bought, most have experienced a major increase in property values. Whilst the property may be increasing in market value, that is largely irrelevant if the property is not sold. The home only becomes an asset when, and if, it is sold. Conclusion The Right to Buy legislation which came into effect 1980 presented a straightforward set of choices for tenants and a way of extending the existing level of owner-occupation. In the late 1990s the situation is very different. The Right to Buy continues to operate and has become successively more generous. The levels of discount which have applied, especially for flats, are difficult to justify and themselves may unduly influence tenants decisions. The Right to Buy has also operated in a more complex policy environment with a considerable number of exceptions and exclusions within the social rented sector. Tenants in different parts of the social rented sector have a different range of choices. There is a case for rationalisation and for developing more comparable rights and opportunities for all tenants. Endnotes 1. Source: Richard Kimbers Political Science Resources (Mar 2008) Conservative Party Manifesto 1979, online:http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/con79.htm 2. Source: Harold Hill Estate Webpage, The Conservative Start Selling Council Houses http://www.haroldhill.org/chapter-three/page-five-conservatives-start-selling-council-houses.htm 3. BBC News Online (20 Dec 1979) Council tenants will have right to buy, online: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/20/newsid_4017000/4017019.stm 4. Data for 1971-2002 from National Statistics Online (20 April 2004) A summary of changes over time Housing tenure , online: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=821 5. Source: Steve Kangas Web Page, data reproduced with permission from Michael Wolff, Peter Rutten, Albert Bayers III, and the World Rank Research Team (New York: Bantam Books, 1992) Where We Stand, online: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/8Comparison.htm 6. Communities and Local Government, New Starter Home Initiative to help key workers, online: http://www.communities.gov.uk/citiesandregions/publicationscities/urbanwhitepaper/urbanwhitepaper/implementationplanmain/sectiondproviding/221045/newstarter/ 7. Communities and Local Government, Key Worker Living, online: http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/buyingselling/ownershipschemes/homebuy/keyworkerliving/ 8. Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Dec 1998) Reviewing the Right to Buy , online: http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/housing/hrd28.asp Bibliography References Ball, Michael (1986) Home ownership: a suitable case for reform, London: Shelter Jones, Colins Murie, A (2006) Right to Buy Analysis and Evolution of a Housing Policy , Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Malpass, P Murie, A (1982) Housing Policy Practice, London: Macmillan Marsh, A Mullins, D ed. (1998) Housing Public Policy, Buckingham: OUP Merrett, Stepehn (1982) Owner-occupation in Britain, London: Routledge Pawley, Martin (1978) Home ownership, London: Architectural Press

Powerful Parallels and Deep Divides: Pluralism in The Poem of the Cid a

Both The Poem of the Cid and The Song of Roland were written in a time period where great new developments were occurring in Europe, but none more crucial than the rise of the Crusades and the ethnocentric viewpoint they propagated and were propagated by (Quinn). Of great interest is the manner in which both works deal with the nature of pluralism in European history. For the sake of this essay, pluralism will be defined simply as a state of more than one. Both works, written at approximately the same time (1130-1170 for The Song of Roland and aproximately 1207 for The Poem of the Cid, as per the book's forewords) have powerful parallels and stark contrasts, which when put in context are incredibly revealing of their respective author's/culture's attitudes about economic, cultural, and religious pluralism. An often overlooked place to begin evaluating these stories lies in their depictions of economic systems. The Song of Roland depicts a system that is primarily based on the giving of tribute, namely exotic gifts and treasure; clearly shown when Blancandrin counsels Marsilla to achieve peace with Charlemagne by promising him â€Å"bears and lions and dogs, 700 hundred camels and a thousand moulted hawks† (Burgess, page 30). However, it is important to note that the concept of paying with money is not entirely absent from the novel, â€Å"you will have enough gold bezants to pay your mercenaries well† (Burgess, page 33). Thus, one realizes that in The Song of Roland that two economic systems exist. The dominant system is the giving of gifts in the form of tribute to one's betters or equals like Marsile to Charlemagne, and then the less important/common payment of money to one's inferiors a la Charlemagne to his mercenaries. We can fin... ...hat were occurring there, namely the Crusades. However, subtle nuances and seemingly minor differences between the two works reveal two very different cultures, a deeply orientalist and unforgiving Frankish perspective represented by The Song of Roland that stands in stark contrast The Poem of the Cid and its diverse and relatively accepting Spanish ideal of â€Å"convivencia† that embraced pluralism in its many forms. Bibliography: Burgess, Glyn S.  The Song of Roland. London, England: Penguin, 1990. Print. Hamilton, Rita, Janet H. Perry, and Ian Michael.  The Poem of the Cid. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984. Print. Quinn, William. "The Crusades 1&2." 8 and 13 March 2012. Lecture. Quinn, William. â€Å"Cantar del mio Cid Campeador.† 3 April 2012. Lecture Kahf, â€Å"Medieval Spain, Competing Narratives.† 27 March 2012. Lecture

J.R.R.Tolkien: Master of Fantasy Essay -- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien Bi

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J.R.R.Tolkien) was a philologist in the very strict sense of the word. This term, philologist, comes from Greek [φÎ ¯ÃŽ »ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€š (philos) and ÃŽ »ÃÅ'ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€š (logos)] and literarily means ‘love for words’. According to the Oxford Dictionary, it is â€Å"the scientific study of the development of language or of a particular language†, which is precisely what Tolkien did all through his life. Tolkien was, as has been said, a profound lover of words, which he begun developing from a quite early age. In 1900, when he and his family had to move to Birmingham in order to be closer to King Edward’s School, Tolkien discovered Gaelic, a language toward which he showed a great interest and which â€Å"opened him to another linguistic world† (â€Å"le abrià ³ otro mundo lingà ¼Ãƒ ­stico†, Carpenter, 2002:37). When he returned to King Edward’s, after a year in St. Philip’s School, he started learning Greek; he already knew Latin as his mother had taught him at home. When his literature teacher read The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, in the original Middle-English â€Å"he decided to learn more about the history of the language† (Carpenter, 2002:39), â€Å"why languages are as they are† (â€Å"por quà © eran como eran† Carpenter, 2002:46). His discovery of Anglo-Saxon was also an important element in his approaching to philology. As can be seen, his encounter with these ‘new-old’ languages was continuous: Old Norse, Gothic, etc. It was also the starting point of his creation of private languages (Naffarin). Thanks to his deep study of these languages we have today works like The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings, as Tolkien’s imagination came not from any other place but from language itself, as Segura (2008) states saying that â€Å"his imagination was... ...o. -Carretero, M. -â€Å"Catastrophe†. Oxford Learners Dictionaries. 2014. http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/catastrophe -Coleridge, S.T. 1984. Biographia Literaria. P.6. Princeton: Princeton University Press. -â€Å"Eucatastrophe†. Oxford Dictionaries, Language Matters. 2014. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/es/definicion/ingles/eucatastrophe -Lewis, C.S. 2002. On Stories and Other Essays on Literature. EE.UU: Mariner Books. -Segura, E. 2008. J.R.R.Tolkien: Mitopoeia y Mitologà ­a, reflexiones bajo la luz refractada. Spain: Portal Editions. -Segura, E. 2001. El Viaje del Anillo: Mapa narrativo de la Tierra Media. -Tolkien, J.R.R. (lecture given in 1939). On Fairy Stories. -Tolkien, J.R.R. 19. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. -Olsen, C. 2010. On Fairy-Stories. http://www.festivalintheshire.com/journal5hts/5tolkienprofessor.html

A Child of Sorrow Essay

It is such a very wonderful love story that tickles your bones and tells you that it is a nice feeling to be in love. Though, its title suggests its tragic ending, but still I on my part like the simple yet elegant story crafted in this novel by Zoilo Galang. Considering the fact that this is the first Filipino novel written in English, it follows suit that it lacks sophistication. The characterization, plot and setting of the said novel are simple. However, behind this simplicity, it is still a good try and a nice start for the future of novels being the youngest literary genre in the Philippines. The story is very well sequenced. It refrains the use of flashbacks as possible in order to avoid baffling the minds of the readers. Thus, somewhere in the part of the novel, we could somehow surmise and predict the flow of events, which is very typical to a Filipino author. Each chapter has its own theme developed and united in one thought. With regards to characterization, Galang made it by having memorable characters as Rosa and Julio. They are very ordinary characters but their love story is unique. I could somehow identify myself with Julio. Like him, I am living in illusion with reading too many books. Sometimes I detached from reality as I try to imagine things which are very fiction in nature. The story of the novel revolves around love as its theme. Love is such a very powerful feeling that could not be prevented by anything else. But inasmuch as love is a feeling, it also demands sacrifice. True love is tested by trials that come along in a relationship. It may come in the form of a third part, rumors and etc. Our cherished lovers in the novel also encountered such things. It is also stressed that inspiration brings change. When we are inspired brought about by being in love, we could have the zest to do things better and could change for the best that we can be. Failures in life must not be considered curses. Failures are sometimes blessings in disguise. If we only have the proper attitude towards life, thus counting the trials that come along our way as another challenge for us to grow, then life is worth living. The novel teaches us a lot of things. It teaches us the reality in life that we fall in love even in an unexpected time. Love buds everywhere and no one is exempted to fall in love. As long as we live, it is inevitable for us to fall in love.

Research question vs. Hypothesis Essay

Does your study take an experimental approach to answer questions? Are you making a prediction about the phenomenon being studied? If your answer to these questions is ‘yes’, then you will need a hypothesis, but if it is ‘no’ then you will need a research question. This is because a hypothesis is a statement that is tested by experiment(s) to confirm or deny the phenomenon Turning now to a research question, if you are incorporating a research question rather than a hypothesis, then remember that some of the important features of a good question are that the question or problem should be: about one issue; clear and concise; addresses an important, controversial and/or an unresolved issue; feasible to undertake within a specified timeframe; adequately resourced. Hypothesis (plural = hypotheses) A hypothesis is not a question, but rather it is a statement about the relationship between two or more variables. So, for example, the first question above could become a hypothesis by making this a statement rather than a question, namely: The perceived needs of the patient and users of South Bedfordshire’s palliative care services are being met. To be complete a hypothesis must include three components: The variables The population The relationship between the variables As you can see, the hypothesis translates the research question into a prediction of expected outcomes. A hypothesis is the tool of quantitative studies, and is only found in such  studies. In fact, a hypothesis is usually only found in experimental quantitative research studies. You will be able to find out more about hypothesese when we look at them in more detail later in the session. Research question. A research question is the question that the research project sets out to answer. In actual fact, a research study may set out to answer several questions. The methodology used for that study, and the tools used to conduct the research, all depend upon the research questions being asked. For example, in the example of a qualitative research study, the following two research questions that underpin the study, and also needed to be answered by the study, are shown in the box below. There are two research questions that will need to be answered by this phase of the research. These are:  · ‘Are the perceived needs of the patients and users of South Bedfordshire’s palliative care services bei ng met?’  · ‘If not, what needs to be done if these needs are to be met in the future?’ The first question can be answered by a quantitative study, whereas the second one may require a qualitative study to answer it. Research questions can therefore be used in quantitative and qualitative research studies.

Violence, Gender and Elder Abuse

Women and Violence Professor Guelakis November 1, 2010 Violence, Gender, and Elder Abuse Elderly abuse has not been researched enough. There has been recent expansion on the research of abuse of the elderly. However, it is still lacking adequate theory because there has not been enough research done, data collected on why it happens, or the characteristics of the abuser and victim. Women are predominantly the victims of elder abuse and men the abusers. However, there has not been a firm definition of what elderly abuse is. Some experts suggest that elder abuse should be included in the definition of domestic abuse.Experts have found in their studies that women are the majority of the physically abused where men were the larger average of elderly individuals who were neglected. However, many experts also state that focusing on the definition of elder abuse is counterproductive in focusing on the issue that women are the majority of abused victims. Feminist theorists have failed to pro duce enough data here, although they have the expertise to contribute to this research. One of the main problems with elder abuse is the failure to acknowledge it as a form of real abuse.The ‘caregiver’ is already excused by be given this label as the ‘carer’. There is also the focus on the elder individual as the catalyst to the abuse, by pushing the carer to his or her limits. The elder individual is seen as overly dependent and adding stressors to the caregiver. ‘Granny-battering’, as elderly abuse was once called, has turned into a closer look at the perpetrator and his characteristics instead of the victims. Experts say that more attention should be placed on the predisposing factors, such as drugs, alcohol, and dependency.Spouse and child abuse research has been found to have similar pathological characteristics to elder abuse. Social norms support elder abuse against women in that women are dependent on caregivers financially, practicall y, and emotionally. There is little information, however, on the strategies, tactics, or coping skills because the victims have not been heard. Unfortunately, the lack of research, along with the â€Å"denial and inability† to recognize elder abuse has made it difficult to gain knowledge and accomplishment with this very valid form of abuse.

Business Payment Methods Essay

At this time of building my business I need to consider the ways in which I will permit my customers to pay for the books that they buy from my book store. Today there are a wide array of payment solutions available for any buyer of goods and services and to buy books, almost all modes of payment available can be used by the customer whether it is electronically or by direct use of card at the shop or by paying in cash. If the customer is   regular and can be trusted or is a regular bulk customer, check payments can also be accepted. In view of the competitions in the sale of books I have to take some element of risk in this regard in keeping with the business practices. For direct sales at the store a wide choice of payments are available to the customer. He can pay directly in cash or by credit or debit card. I believe cash payment has the least hassles applicable as the money has already come in the moment a sale is done. In the ase of debit and credit cards a wide margin has to be provided for without any applicable discounts since a percentage of the sale amount has to be given to the financial institutions as part of the applicable commission for use of their services. The business of electronic payments is growing rapidly in view of the convenience involved and a wide array of payment options are available which are acceptable in the case of my book store. In addition to the tradition card payments other options are also cceptable to me such as mail order, online payments, acquiring bank payments and through payment bureaus. I understand that as long as a sale is taking place I can accept 2 any of these payment modes provided the financial institution is reputed to make fast payments and is reliable for its transparency in fair dealings. In such cases I may have to reduce my margins a little, but that is ok since most businesses work on volumes and hence I can make up on the low margins.

Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurial Business Venture Essay

Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurial Business Venture - Essay Example The related rights of copyright consist of the rights of performing artists for their performances, producers of phonograms, and those of broadcasters' programmes in either radio or television. The rights granted in all types of intellectual property are essentially negative. A patent refers to the exclusive right granted for an invention that either provides a novel means of doing, or a new technical solution to a problem. Patents provides protection for a limited period, generally 20 years. The protection granted to patent owners includes that another person cannot make commercial reproduction, use, distribution and sale of the invention without the consent of the patent owner. To enforce these rights, patent owners have to enforce it in court to prevent or enjoin patent infringement. Corollary to this, a court may declare a patent invalid when challenged. A patent owner is given the right to decide who can use the patented invention for the period granted in the patent and ahs the right to permit or license third parties to use, sell, distribute or market the invention. Upon expiration of a patent, the protection consequently ends, with the invention becoming a part of the public domain. The patent owner does not anymore have exclusive rights to the p atented invention and now available for commercial exploitation. To secure a patent, the first step is to file the application for patent that should contain the name or title of the invention and an indication of the technical field. The application must also state the background and description of the invention specific enough for an individual of average understanding in the field could subsequently use to reproduce the invention. The application must be accompanied by visual representations of the invention like diagrams, plans or drawings describe the invention better and must contain various "claims" or the necessary information that determines the extent of protection applied. To be patentable, the invention must satisfy the following conditions: (1) it must be of practical use; (2) it must be novel, that is, new characteristic in the field not yet known in the body of existing knowledge called "prior art"; (3) shows an inventive step not knowable by someone in the field with average knowledge; and (4) the invention must be accepted as "patentable" law. Hence, mathematical methods, scientific theories, discoveries of natural substances, commercial methods, plant or animal varieties, or methods for medical treatment are not patentable. A patent is usually granted by a national patent office or by a regional office for several countries. Under a regional application, applicant requests protection in several countries but each country decides on the application. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides for the system of filing a single international patent application with similar effect as national applications. An applicant files one application only. Thus, the joint business venture may file for patent application for the technology that combines the Osyter card's radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and the debit cards EFTPOS system together. A

Apple's SWOT Analysis Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Apple's SWOT Analysis - Term Paper Example It is one of the largest technology companies in the world (David B. Yoffie, Renee Kim, 2010). A strength, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of the company reveals a lot of issues surrounding the business operations, its resources and its environment. It is worth to investigate all these issues if a person wants to invest in any company. This is because the tool provides information that can be used by investors to predict the company’s operational trends, its financial viability and its markets before investing in it (USDA, 2008). Apple Company has so many strengths that put it ahead of its competitors. The first strength is its brand such that it was rated the best global brand in 2010 by Millward brown Optimor. It increased in value by 84% to $153.3 billion. Its customers are also loyal to apple such that they tend to forgive the company’s product problems. This is a huge strength that most companies strive to get and fail (Millward brown Optimor, 2 011). A second strength is demand; apple’s products are of high demand especially the iTunes that has given the company a huge number of registered users already secured by credit cards. The popularity of its products that have become common street names has increased the demand for its products too (David B. Yoffie, Renee Kim, 2010). A third strength is the design and innovativeness in the products they produce. Apples products aesthetic values keeps their customers glued to the company despite the fact that the products are of premium pricing. On the other hand apple’s products have a unique design that allows consumers to be up and running even without reading product manuals, due to this aspect they have set the standards for design which other companies must follow to outwit them (Stefan Thomke, 2009). The fourth strength is its marketing approach; apple was awarded the title of Marketer of the decade by Advertising Age. It was the first firm to ever receive this title. The company has been able to influence the media, the advertising industry and popular culture through its innovative techniques and marketing approaches that puts it on the fore front as a marketing powerhouse (Appleinsider , 2010). The last strength that can be identified is Apple’s retail stores that are located in many countries. These retail stores ensure that the come continues to receive revenue without having to rely on new product developments. Apple has a few weaknesses that affect the company in its day to day operations though the strengths identified above seem to outweigh the weaknesses. The first weakness is the delay that was especially experienced on iPads. There were shipping problems with the products and also the companies are always put on waiting lists in order to receive products which delay and come with numerous other problems. The second weakness has to do with the way the company reacts to complaints from customers. Most of the time it, will deny the existence of a problem on their products and later come to correct. This was experienced especially with the iPhone 4G that had a problem with its antennae. The problem was corrected later after a long period of accusing customers of mishandling the phones (D.Burton, 2010 ). The third weakness has to do with compatibility issues. Apple has been very protective of the kind of applications to be developed

Does music work on the mind or the body Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Does music work on the mind or the body - Essay Example The most obvious property of music is its sound and this, in turn, is caused by actual occurrences in the physical world. Rodeway sums it up neatly when he writes: â€Å"The auditory sense is primarily physical rather than chemical. The sound is concerned with motion or activity, that is with vibration and resonance of substances (air, water, solids). (Rodoway: 1994, p. 90) The human ear is the main receiver of sound and is able to detect the movement of air and distinguish variations in the sounds that are produced. There are, however, other parts of the body that are involved in listening to music, because the ear is part of a perceptual system, involving the whole human organism and elements of the environment which the listener and the music share. Anyone who has attended a rock concert is very aware of the physical sensation of vibration which occurs when base sounds are emitted from huge speakers with great intensity: the whole upper body feels the vibrations. Some high pitche d sounds are painful, causing the eyes to tighten up and the body to cringe. Observation of humans and animals as they react to music and other sounds reveals that movement of the head and shoulders towards the source of a sound often occurs so that both ears can be used to help locate the distance and direction accurately. Some animals like foxes and dogs have ears that face forward and can be swiveled left and right to focus more closely. The physical properties of the space in which music occurs are also important in determining how sound is received.

Macroeconmics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Macroeconmics - Essay Example The article also interprets the new data regarding unemployment in United States. It explains that the important factors in lower unemployment rates are reduction in participation rate and the performance of the private sector. The article also discusses how government officials are trying to settle on the budget crisis and informs the audience regarding the potential harmful consequences if any settlement is not reached. It is also discussed that although unemployment is decreasing, new jobs are not adding in the economy as they were 2 months ago. This shows that there is a decreasing trend in the increasing jobs in the economy. The decreasing trend depicts how budget crisis is negatively affecting the economy and especially the job market. Public companies are not hiring employees because they are unsure as to what will happen in the coming few months. The budget crisis therefore is significantly affecting the economy. Another indication of the importance of the unemployment data can be seen by the performance of stock markets. Usually good news such as decrease in unemployment has a positive effect on the stock markets and investors start to invest in the markets. This did not happen as the markets did not react well to the news. The market reacted in a good way for sometime but this positive reaction was not long lasting which shows that people still have reservations regarding the state of the economy. Stock market performance is an important indicator as to how people perceive the new information and in this case it shows that the news can be regarded as a mixed report. The article also discusses that the new unemployment data reveals that the economy is recovering but the whole process is very slow. The new jobs were added because private companies increased their hiring but government hiring is still in the negative. This again indicates the overall picture of the economy. The article

The Accounts Receivable (Sales Ledger) of Cookridge Carpets Essay

The Accounts Receivable (Sales Ledger) of Cookridge Carpets - Essay Example The firm that is analyzed in the paper is Cookridge Carpets Ltd. It is a large carpet, soft furnishings and bed Dealership Company located in Southampton. The company was established in the year of 2007, works as the main dealer for Memo@memory foam beds and mattresses. The company is owned by two brothers Peter and John Cookridge. The Cookridge Carpets has three major stakeholders: Suppliers, customers, and staff. Memo Beds, in the year of 2010, offered the main dealership to the Company in the area of Southampton as the local dealer for the Memo Beds. The Company provides its services to the local residents of the Southampton and the local residents are the main customers of the Cookridge Carpets. The owners of the business have a considerable experience in direct sale of carpets and beds to the locals. However, recently they have gained accessed to the Internet and have made a significant sale via the Internet. As a result, the business has considerably increased. Currently, the c ompany employs 20 members of staff including nine direct sales staff, two cleaners, three internet sales staff, one accessories salesperson, two car delivery drivers and three part-time staff in the small accounts department. There are three staff members in the accounts office: Sonja Douglas, Stefan Kalinowski and Margaret Peterson. Sonja Douglas is Wages clerk. Stefan Kalinowski is Accounts Clerk and Margaret Peterson is also Accounts Clerk. Accounts payable or purchase ledger is maintained by Peter Cookridge and Margaret Peterson also works in this department.... 1.3 PIC 1.4 There are three staff members in the accounts office: Sonja Douglas, Stefan Kalinowski and Margaret Peterson. Sonja Douglas is Wages clerk. Stefan Kalinowski is Accounts Clerk and Margaret Peterson is also Accounts Clerk. Accounts payable or purchase ledger is maintained by Peter Cookridge and Margaret Peterson also works in this department. All suppliers cheques are signed either John or Peter. And, Accounts receivable or sales ledger is maintained by Stefan Kalinowski. Stefan’s main function is to maintain all the sales related transactions and maintain the receivables records as well. 2- Software (PIC 3.3., 3.4) 2.1 PIC 3.3 There is four computers in the office and is maintained by a standalone basis along with linked to the same printer. Microsoft Office Excel Spreadsheets are availed to record information and data pertaining to the inventory of carpets, beds and soft furnishings. When the company was established two new computers were purchased and currently r unning the Windows Vista operating system; they are also enabled with Microsoft Office 2007 along with a three use licence. In addition, when the computer system was first time introduced in the company, a password ‘Paula C’ was used and is still currently operational throughout the company. 2.2 PIC 3.3The company is using the most basic type of accounting techniques in the shape of Microsoft Office Excel Spreadsheets and may not serving the ultimate objectives of the company. Although the use of Microsoft Office Excel Spreadsheets can be cost effective, yet it cannot be 100 percent reliable as it is so easy that even a lay man can amend, delete or change data present in

WHAT IS THE ADVANTGE OF COMING TECHNOLOGY WITH EDUCATION Essay

WHAT IS THE ADVANTGE OF COMING TECHNOLOGY WITH EDUCATION - Essay Example of America, they offer distance education to people, who are living in different countries, students can save their time and money, they do not need to go the location of schools, they still can take the program of schools, and take degree or certification of schools from learning distance as well. Hence we can predict that technology is going to pervade every area of education in the coming century. One important area of education is teacher training. Unless teachers are competent, quality education cannot be delivered. Teachers until now held a pivotal position in the system of education. But with the introduction of technology in classrooms, the picture is going to change. According to William Clark Trow, â€Å"A gifted teacher is a fiction, an imaginary construct†. (William Trow, pp 105). A teacher is not only expected to have mastery over the subject but is expected to be a person with a good character, a balanced personality with diverse interests, at the same time one who has sympathy and understanding of the students, who can be a friend, philosopher, guide and mentor. Indeed, what Trow says is true. It is neither possible to find a single individual who possesses all qualities of a good teacher, nor is it possible to identify potential good teachers. But with t he introduction of technology, â€Å" – it is possible to devise instruments which measure abilities directly, provide instruction at the point where each learner is, and allow him to go on from there ---â€Å" ( Trow, pp 107 ). â€Å"All this will bring a profound change in education. We will stop training individuals to be teachers.† (R.B. Fuller, pp 43)The role of teachers will change. Teacher will be a guide, facilitator, who will only help the student to acquire knowledge on his own. Fuller has called this as ‘Automation in education†, which has ‘Freed the scholar to return to his studies.† This shows that scholars will be motivated to pursue their own studies. The attention of the

Donald trump Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Donald trump - Essay Example A prominent and successful figure who exemplified success in entrepreneurship is Donald Trump. Tarkovsky (2007) identified the secret which made Donald Trump a billionaire: land. As Donald Trump said: â€Å"I just love real estate. Its tangible, its solid, and its beautiful." In addition, in an article written by Christine (2008) on Donald Trump’s Mantras for Successful Entrepreneurship, she averred that Mr. Trump’s golden traits of entrepreneurship are: â€Å"(1) Be passionate about your work. Mr. Trump summarizes passion as â€Å"Enthusiasm on a big scale† and it is the most essential ingredient for a successful career; (2) Be Confident about your decisions. Never step back after taking a decision and don’t give up until every possibility of success have been explored; (3) Think Big to make big achievements. Although it is believed that one should take small steps initially when starting a new project but Mr. Trump strongly believes, â€Å"Thinking big can get you to the top,† He always urge people on taking big and bold decisions; (4) Your learning process should never come to an end. No matter how successful you become, never think you have learnt everything. Despite his packed schedule, Mr. Trump reads everything he can and strives to get information he can use from everyone he meets; (5) Taking risks. Business is all about taking risks so hold your breath and always be ready to face difficulties. Most of the people do not make new experiments because they fear failure but Mr. Trump describes it as the perfect formula for being unsuccessful; (6) Learn to negotiate. To stay connected with people, you have to negotiate and make compromises at times; (7) Enjoy competition. Mostly people are scared from competition without realizing that it helps improve our performance and achieve more success. Mr. Trump says â€Å"I love competition because, ultimately, it makes me

Plan of Care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Plan of Care - Essay Example The organs include head, neck, nose, mouth, and throat. The visual assessment will encompass looking for anomalous shape, color, size, texture among other aspects. Generally, nurses utilize physical assessment expertise and skills to identify the patient’s problems and develop a basis of data and information, which are utilized for subsequent nursing processes (Cox & Turner, 2010). I will explain to the student the assessment techniques that are involved in the physical assessment including palpation, percussion and auscultation. Palpation incorporates the utilization of hands to feel the body organs in enabling the assessment of abnormal shape, size, level and location of pain. On the other hand, Percussion incorporates the generation of sound by scrapping or tapping the body part in order to determine the parameters including the organ density and size (Cox & Turner, 2010). Consequently, auscultation entails listening to sound produced by various organs like the throat and lungs. These are the assessment techniques utilized in Evelyn’s scenario: Critical observation is conducted first whereby the nurse takes appropriate time in observing the patient with all senses including eyes, nose and ears. In this process, the nurse must utilize good lightning in order to ascertain his observation on color, shape, position and symmetry. Consequently, observation for odors of skin and mouth is essential (Sawyer, 2012). In this process, deep (5-8 cm) and light (1 cm) touch by the back of the nurse’s hand (or fingers) is utilized to assess the patient’s skin temperature. Consequently, use fingers to inspect the moisture, tender areas and texture. This is an essential part of the physical assessment where by the nurse strikes the body surface to generate sound. The following sounds; resonant, dull, flat and tympanic are utilized to determine shape and size of underlining structures in the relevant body organs (Sawyer, 2012). This assessment mostly

Dadas Contribution to Contemporary Art Essay Example for Free

Dadas Contribution to Contemporary Art Essay This research paper supports my belief that Dada had a far reaching effect on art of the 21st century so much so that contemporary art as we know it could not have come into existence without Dada. Dada Zurich was the catalyst for many other centres of the nihilistic movement. Tristan Tzara was the major force behind the Zurich Dada where he and Francis Picabia produced 8 issues of Dada magazines in both French and German between the years 1917 to 1921. (Dada Anti-Art Movement) Upon the end of the war Switzerlands importance as a neutral refuge educed, resulting in Richard Huelsenbeck, leaving for Berlin while Picabia went to Paris, and when Tzara followed him in 1920 thus ending the Zurich phase of Dada. (Dada Anti-Art Movement) Richard Huelsenbeck was the founding member of Dada Berlin which included members such as; Johannes Baader, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, Helmut Herzfelde and Hanna Hoch. (Dada Anti-Art Movement) Dada Berlin was known to be satirical and highly political with targets more and precisely defined than any other Dada movement. Dada Berlin utilized periodicals, including Club Dada and Der Dada, which employed the use of photomontage and typography. The Cologne Dada group was formed in 1918 by Jean Arp and Max Ernst and was known to be less political and more focused on being anti-aesthetic. (Dada Anti-Art Movement) Max Ernst was known for his satirical collage techniques using popular printed material, depicting the weirdly erotic. (Dada The Anti-War Art Movement) In May 1920 Dada Cologne hosted one of the first Dada exhibitions. Held in the courtyard of a public house accessed through a mens bathroom the exhibition was soon closed down by the authorities due to suspected pornographic content but later reopened. IAN CHILVERS Dada) Dada Hannover was formed in 1919 after Kurt Schwitters applied to join the Berlin dadaists but was refused because of his unpolitical attitude. Schwitters possessed a unique dedication to Dada ideas, leading to the production of artwork constructed using urban refuse and found objects (objets trouves). This had a major influence on later movements like Junk Art, Assemblage and Arte Povera. (Dada Anti -Art Movement) Not limited to Europe, the Dada movement also had a New York Centre. Formed by Marcel Duchamp, renowned for reproducing the Mona Lisa with a beard and moustache and signing a urinal proclaiming it to be a fountain, along with Man Ray, a well sought after fashion and portrait photographer, renowned for his photograph Le Violin d`Ingres. (Justin Wolf’s Dada) Dada Paris, which was known for its theatrical and multi-cultural activities, came about when, many of its early founders, such as Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Francis Picabia and Tristan Tzara went to Paris, where they met with a number of french poets including Louis Aragon and Andre Breton. Dada Paris was later dissolved when Breton, unable to deal with Tzara’s and Picabia’s nihilistic mentality, left to start a new movement. This marked the birth of Surrealism. (Dada Anti-Art Movement) According to Dieter Wanczura, â€Å"Surrealism emphasizes the unconscious, the importance of dreams, and the psychological aspect in arts and became an important movement in the fine arts, literature and in films. † Unlike Dada, Surrealisms emphasis was not on negation but on positive expression. It has a sense of playfulness and impulsiveness that brings fantasy and mystery into art pieces. The most fascinating aspect is that there are so many questions and ideas that surround Surrealism making it a hugely inspiring modern art/contemporary art movement. (Surrealism ; Surrealist artists) Contemporary artist today, challenge, oppression, authority and control that spans economic, social and political concepts. More importantly, contemporary art frequently touches on deep emotional issues that trouble our society. The Dada organization challenged the status quo of society and what is viewed as art making it easier for more artists’ work to be viewed as art because they no longer need to conform to any particular standards or values of society. Due to the Surrealist movement, society has been exposed to the concept that art can be anything the artist visualizes or feels inside. This can sometimes seem odd to the public who does not see its values and heroic stature, resulting in art not being noticed and appreciated by collectors, galleries and museums but judged as a masterpiece by people who share the artist feelings and thoughts.

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and CDMA Advantages

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and CDMA Advantages INTRODUCTION ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNALS The signal is initially generated is in the form of an analog electrical voltage or current, produced for example by a microphone or some other type of transducer. The output from the readout system of a CD (compact disc) player, the data is already in digital form. An analog signal must be converted into digital form before DSP techniques can be applied. An analog electrical voltage signal, for example, can be digitized using an electronic circuit called an analog-to-digital converter or ADC. This generates a digital output as a stream of binary numbers whose values represent the electrical voltage input to the device at each sampling instant. Digital signal processing (DSP)-digital representation of signals and the use of digital processors to analyze, modify, or extract information from signals. Many signals in DSP are derived from analogue signals which have been sampled at regular intervals and converted into digital form. The key advantages of DSP over analogue processing are Guaranteed accuracy (determined by the number of bits used) Perfect reproducibility No drift in performance due to temperature or age Takes advantage of advances in semiconductor technology Greater flexibility (can be reprogrammed without modifying hardware) Superior performance (linear phase response possible, and filtering algorithms can be made adaptive) Sometimes information may already be in digital form. There are however (still) some disadvantages Speed and cost (DSP design and hardware may be expensive, especially with high bandwidth signals) Finite word length problems (limited number of bits may cause degradation). Application areas of DSP are considerable: Image processing (pattern recognition, robotic vision, image enhancement, facsimile, satellite weather map, animation) Instrumentation and control (spectrum analysis, position and rate control, noise reduction, data compression) Speech and audio (speech recognition, speech synthesis, text to speech, digital audio, equalisation) Military (secure communication, radar processing, sonar processing, missile guidance) Telecommunications (echo cancellation, adaptive equalisation, spread spectrum, video conferencing, data communication) Biomedical (patient monitoring, scanners, EEG brain mappers, ECG analysis, X-ray storage and enhancement). INTRODUCTION TO CDMA Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a radically new concept in wireless communications. It has gained widespread international acceptance by cellular radio system operators as an upgrade that will dramatically increase both their system capacity and the service quality. It has likewise been chosen for deployment by the majority of the winners of the United States Personal Communications System spectrum auctions. It may seem, however, mysterious for those who arent familiar with it. CDMA is a form of spread-spectrum, a family of digital communication techniques that have been used in military applications for many years. The core principle of spread spectrum is the use of noise-like carrier waves, and, as the name implies, bandwidths much wider than that required for simple point-to-point communication at the same data rate. Originally there were two motivations: either to resist enemy efforts to jam the communications (anti-jam, or AJ), or to hide the fact that communication was even taking place, sometimes called low probability of intercept (LPI). It has a history that goes back to the early days of World War II. The use of CDMA for civilian mobile radio applications is novel. It was proposed theoretically in the late 1940s, but the practical application in the civilian marketplace did not take place until 40 years later. Commercial applications became possible because of two evolutionary developments. One was the availability of very low cost, high density digital integrated circuits, which reduce the size, weight, and cost of the subscriber stations to an acceptably low level. The other was the realization that optimal multiple access communication requires that all user stations regulate their transmitter powers to the lowest that will achieve adequate signal quality. CDMA changes the nature of the subscriber station from a predominately analog device to a predominately digital device. Old-fashioned radio receivers separate stations or channels by filtering in the frequency domain. CDMA receivers do not eliminate analog processing entirely, but they separate communication channels by means of a pseudorandom modulation that is applied and removed in the digital domain, not on the basis of frequency. Multiple users occupy the same frequency band. This universal frequency reuse is not fortuitous. On the contrary, it is crucial to the very high spectral efficiency that is the hallmark of CDMA. Other discussions in these pages show why this is true. CDMA is altering the face of cellular and PCS communication by: Dramatically improving the telephone traffic capacity Dramatically improving the voice quality and eliminating the audible effects of multipath fading Reducing the incidence of dropped calls due to handoff failures Providing reliable transport mechanism for data communications, such as facsimile and internet traffic Reducing the number of sites needed to support any given amount of traffic Simplifying site selection Reducing deployment and operating costs because fewer cell sites are needed Reducing average transmitted power Reducing interference to other electronic devices Reducing potential health risks Commercially introduced in 1995, CDMA quickly became one of the worlds fastest growing wireless technologies. In 1999, the International Telecommunications Union selected CDMA as the industry standard for new third-generation (3G) wireless systems. Many leading wireless carriers are now building or upgrading to 3G CDMA networks in order to provide more capacity for voice traffic, along with high-speed data capabilities. DS_CDMA Multiple access systems based on DS CDMA have achieved increasing significance for mobile communications applications. A promising concept is based on DS_CDMA applying MRC at the receiver. MRC takes advantage of the channel diversity to combat the multipath fading. However the capacity of a DS_CDMA system is limited by both multi-user interference and inter symbol interference ISI in high data rate applications. OFDM is applied to combat the frequency selectivity of the channel using a simple one tap equalizer Further more OFDM prevents the ISI and inter carrier interference ICI by inserting a guard interval between adjacent OFDM symbols OFDM is typically used for audio TV and HDTV transmission over terrestrial channels and achieves high spectral efficiency. The CMDA Technology overview FDMA In Frequency Division Multiple Access, the frequency band is divided in slots. Each user gets one frequency slot assigned that is used at will. It could be compared to AM or FM broadcasting radio where each station has a frequency assigned. FDMA demands good filtering. TDMA In Time Division Multiple Access, the frequency band is not partitioned but users are allowed to use it only in predefined intervals of time, one at a time. Thus, TDMA demands synchronization among the users. CDMA CDMA, for Code Division Multiple Access, is different from its traditional ways in which it does not allocate frequency or time in user slots but gives the right to use both to all users simultaneously. To do this, it uses a technique known as Spread Spectrum . In effect, each user is assigned a code,which spreads its signal bandwidth in such a way that only the same code can recover it at the receiver end. This method has the property that the unwanted signals with different codes get spread even more by the process, making them like noise to the receiver . Spread Spectrum Spread Spectrum is a mean of transmission where the data occupies a larger bandwidth than necessary. Bandwidth spreading is accomplished before the transmission through the use of a code, which is independent of the transmitted data. The same code is used to demodulate the data at the receiving end. The following figure illustrate the spreading done on the data signal x(t) by the spreading signal c(t) resulting in the message signal to be transmitted, m(t). Originally for military use to avoid jamming (interference created on purpose to make a communication channel unusable), spread spectrum modulation is now used in personal communication systems for its superior performance in an interference dominated environment . Definition of Spread Spectrum: A transmission technique in which a pseudo-noise code, independent of the information data, is employed as a modulation waveform to â€Å"spread† the signal energy over a bandwidth much greater than the signal information bandwidth. At the receiver the signal is â€Å"despread† using a synchronized replica of the pseudo-noise code. Basic Principle of Spread Spectrum System: The Principal types of Spread Spectrum are Direct Sequence (DS), and Frequency Hopping (FH). An over view of these systems is hereby given: Pseudo shift of the phase pseudo shift of the frequency Coherent demodulation noncoherent Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) A pseudo-noise sequence pnt generated at the modulator, is used in conjunction with an M-ary PSK modulation to shift the phase of the PSK signal pseudo randomly, at the chipping rate Rc (=1/Tc) a rate that is integer multiple of the symbol rate Rs (=1/Ts). The transmitted bandwidth is determined by the chip rate and by the base band filtering. The implementation limits the maximum chip rate Rc (clock rate) and thus the maximum spreading. The PSK modulation scheme requires a coherent demodulation. PN code length that is much longer than a data symbol, so that a different chip pattern is associated with each symbol. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum A Pseudo-noise sequence pnt generated at the modulator is used in conjuction with an M-ary FSK modulation to shift the carrier frequency of the FSK signal pseudurandomly, at the hopping rate Rh. The transmitted signal occupies a number of frequencies in time, each for a period of time Th (= 1/Rh), referred as dwell time. FHSS divides the available bandwidth into N channels and hops between these channels according to the PN sequence. At each frequency hop time the PN generator feeds the frequency synthesizer a frequency word FW (a sequence of n chips) which dictates one of 2n frequency position fhl . Transmitter and receiver follows the same frequency hop pattern. The transmitted bandwidth is determined by the lowest and highest hop position by the bandwidth per hop position (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  fch). For a given hop, instantaneous occupied bandwidth is the conventional M-FSK, which is typically much smaller than Wss. So the FHSS signal is a narrowband signal, all transmission power is concentrated on one channel. Averaged over many hops, the FH/M-FSK spectrum occupies the entire spread spectrum bandwidth. Because the bandwidth of an FHSS system only depends on the tuning range, it can be hopped over a much wider bandwidth than an DSSS system. Since the hops generally result in phase discontinuity (depending on the particular implementation) a noncoherent demodulation is done at receiver. With slow hopping there are multiple data symbol per hop and with fast hopping there are multiple hops per data symbol. 3.3 Basic principle of Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum For BPSK modulation the building blocks of a DSSS system are: Input: Binary data dt with symbol rate Rs = 1/Ts (=bitrate Rb for BPSK) Pseudo-noise code pnt with chip rate Rc = 1/Tc (an integer of Rs) Spreading: In the transmitter, the binary data dt (for BPSK, I and Q for QPSK) is ‘directly multiplied with the PN sequence pnt , which is independent of the binary data, to produce the transmitted baseband signal txb: txb = dt . pnt The effect of multiplication of dt with a PN sequence is to spread the baseband bandwidth Rs of dt to a baseband bandwidth of Rc. Despreading: The spread spectrum signal cannot be detected by a conventional narrowband receiver. In the receiver, the baseband signal rxb is multiplied with the PN sequence pnr . If pnr = pnt and synchronized to the PN sequence in the received data, than the recovered binary data is produced on dr. The effect of multiplication of the spread spectrum signal rxb with the PN sequence pnt used in the transmitter is to despread the bandwidth of rxb to Rs . If pnr ≠  pnt , than there is no dispreading action. The signal dr has a spread spectrum. A receiver not knowing the PN sequence of the transmitter can not reproduce the transmitted data. Performance in the presence of interference: To simplify the presence of interference, the spread spectrum system is considered for baseband BPSK communication (without filtering). The received signal rxb of the transmitted signal txb plus an additive inteferance i (noise, other users, jammer,†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦): rxb = t xb + i = dt . pnt + i To recover the original data dt the received signal rx0 is multiplied with a locally generated PN sequence pnr that is an exact replica of that used in the transmitter (that is pnr = pnt and synchronized) The multiplier output is therefore given by: dr = rxb . pnt = dt . pnt . pnt + i . pnt The data signal dt is multiplied twice by the PN sequence pnt , where as the unwanted inteferance i is multiplied only once. Due to the property of the PN sequence: pnt + pnt = +1 for all t The multiplier output becomes: dr = dt + i . pnt The data signal dr is reproduced at the multiplier output in the receiver, except for the inteferance represented by the additive term i . pnt . Multiplication of the inteferance by the locally generated PN sequence, means that the spreading code will affect the inteferance just as it did with the information bearing signal at the transmitter. Noise and inteferance, being uncorrelated with the PN sequence, becomes noise-like, increase in bandwidth and decrease in power density after the multiplier. After dispreading, the data component dt is narrow band (Rb) whereas the inteferance component is wideband (Rc). By applying the dr signal to a baseband (low-pass) filter with a band width just large enough to accommodate the recovery of the data signal, most of the inteferance component i is filtered out. The effect of inteferance is reduced by processing gain (Gp). Narrowband inteferance: The narrowband noise is spread by the multiplication with the PN sequence pnr of the receiver. The power density of the noise is reduced with respect to the despread data signal. Only 1/Gp of the original noise power is left in the information baseband (Rs). Spreading and dispreading enables a bandwidth trade for processing gain against narrow band interfering signals. Narrow band inteferance would disable conventional narrow band receivers. The essence behind the inteferance rejection capability of a spread spectrum system: the useful signal (data) gets multiplied twice by the PN sequence, but the inteferance signal get multiplied only once. Wideband interference: Multiplication of the received signal with the PN sequence of the receiver gets a selective despread of the data signal (smaller bandwidth, higher power density). The inteferance signal is uncorrelated with the PN sequence and is spread. Origin of wideband noise: Multiple Spread Spectrum user: multiple access mechanism. Gaussian Noise: There is no increase in SNR with spread spectrum: The large channel bandwidth (Rc instead of Rs) increase the received noise power with Gp: Ninfo = N0 . BWinfo à   Nss = N0 . BWss = Ninfo .Gp The spread spectrum signal has a lower power density than the directly transmitted signal. Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a methode of multiplexing (wireless) users distinct (orthogonal) codes. All users can transmit at the same time, and each is allocated the entire available frequency spectrum for transmission. CDMA is also known as Spread-Spectrum multiple access (SSMA). CDMA dose not require the bandwidth allocation of FDMA, nor the time synchronization of the individual users needed in TDMA. A CDMA user has full time and full bandwidth available, but the quality of the communication decreases with an increasing number of users (BER ). In CDMA each user: Has its own PN code Uses the same RF bandwidth Transmits simultaneously (asynchronous or synchronous) Correlation of the received baseband spread spectrum signal rxb with the PN sequence of user 1 only despreads the signal of user 1. The other user produces noise Nu for user 1. ACCESS SCHEMES For radio systems there are two resources, frequency and time. Division by frequency, so that each pair of communicators is allocated part of the spectrum for all of the time, results in Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA). Division by time, so that each pair of communicators is allocated all (or at least a large part) of the spectrum for part of the time results in Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). In Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), every communicator will be allocated the entire spectrum all of the time. CDMA uses codes to identify connections. MULTIPATH AND RAKE RECEIVERS One of the main advantages of CDMA systems is the capability of using signals that arrive in the receivers with different time delays. This phenomenon is called multipath. FDMA and TDMA, which are narrow band systems, cannot discriminate between the multipath arrivals, and resort to equalization to mitigate the negative effects of multipath. Due to its wide bandwidth and rake receivers, CDMA uses the multipath signals and combines them to make an even stronger signal at the receivers. CDMA subscriber units use rake receivers. This is essentially a set of several receivers. One of the receivers (fingers) constantly searches for different multipaths and feeds the information to the other three fingers. Each finger then demodulates the signal corresponding to a strong multipath. The results are then combined together to make the signal stronger. Difference between TDMA vs CDMA. TDMA is Time Division Multiple Access, while CDMA is Code Division Multiple Access. Both technologies achieve the same goal of better utilization of the radio spectrum by allowing multiple users to share the same physical channel, but by using different methods and that is why the three of the four words in each acronym are identical. Both allow more than one person to carry out a conversation on the same frequency without causing interference. The two technologies differ in the way in which users share the common resource. In TDMA the channel is chopped up into sequential time slices. The data of each user is put on the channel in a round-robin fashion. In reality, only one user actually uses the channel at any given point of time, but he uses it only for short bursts. He then gives up the channel for a short duration to allow the other users to have their turn. This is similar to how a computer with just one processor runs multiple applications simultaneously. CDMA on the other hand allows everyone to transmit at the same time. With conventional methods of modulation techniques it would hav been simply not possible. What makes CDMA to allow all users to transmit simultaneously is a special type of digital modulation called Spread Spectrum. In this modulation technique users stream of bits is taken and splattered them across a very wide channel in a pseudo-random fashion. The pseudo part is very important here as at the receiver end the randomization must be undone in order to collect the bits together in a coherent order. For example consider a room full of couples, and each couple trying to carry on one-on-one conversations. In TDMA each couple takes their turn for talking and they keep their turns short by speaking only one sentence at a time. As there is always more one person speaking in the room at any given point of time, no one has to worry about being heard over the background din. In CDMA assume each couple talks simultaneously, but they all use different languages. The background din doesnt cause any real problem as none of the listeners understand any language other than that of the individual to whom they are listening. Voice Encoding At this point many people confuse two distinctly different issues involved in the transmission of digital audio. The first is the WAY in which the stream of bits is delivered from one end to the other. This part of the air interface is what makes one technology different from another. The second is the compression algorithm used to squeeze the audio into as small a stream of bits as possible. This latter component is known at the Voice Coder, or Vocoder for short. Another term commonly used is CODEC, which is a similar word to modem. It combines the terms COder and DECoder. Although each technology has chosen their own unique CODECs, there is no rule saying that one transmission method needs to use a specific CODEC. People often lump a technologys transmission method with its CODEC as though they were single entities. Voice encoding schemes differ slightly in their approach to the problem. Because of this, certain types of human voice work better with some CODECs than they do with others. The point to remember is that all PCS CODECs are compromises of some sort. Since human voices have such a fantastic range of pitch and tonal depth, one cannot expect any single compromise to handle each one equally well. This inability to cope with all types of voice at the same level does lead some people to choose one technology over another. All of the PCS technologies try to minimize battery consumption during calls by keeping the transmission of unnecessary data to a minimum. The phone decides whether or not you are presently speaking, or if the sound it hears is just background noise. If the phone determines that there is no intelligent data to transmit it blanks the audio and it reduces the transmitter duty cycle (in the case of TDMA) or the number of transmitted bits (in the case of CDMA). When the audio is blanked your caller would suddenly find themselves listening to dead air, and this may cause them to think the call has dropped. To avoid this psychological problem many service providers insert what is known as Comfort Noise during the blanked periods. Comfort Noise is synthesized white noise that tries to mimic the volume and structure of the real background noise. This fake background noise assures the caller that the connection is alive and well. However, in newer CODECs such as EVRC (used exclusively on CDMA systems) the background noise is generally suppressed even while the user is talking. This piece of magic makes it sound as though the cell phone user is not in a noisy environment at all. Under these conditions, Comfort Noise is neither necessary, nor desirable. DS-CDMA-INTRODUCTION While multiple access interference (MAI) by other users has been recognized as the capacity-limiting factor in direct sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA)-based cellular communication systems, multiuser approaches have largely alleviated the problem when the noise process is additive Gaussian. With the availability of multiuser detectors, inaccurate or inappropriate noise modelling assumptions seem to have become the issue again. Whereas multiuser detection has much to offer in the mobile- to-base station uplink, it does not at present appear to be feasible for the downlink due to the complexity involved and the lack of resistance against adjacent cell interference. Moreover, the few multiuser proposals for the downlink require the knowledge of all spreading codes, which is not possible in the tactical military environment, for instance. Enhanced single-user receivers equipped with adaptive filter banks deliver promising performance with reasonable complexity, especially in slowly varying channels. Thus, the performance of single-user detectors is still of interest, particularly in the presence of non-Gaussian noise. In both urban outdoor and indoor mobile radio environments, electromagnetic interference generated by man-made sources such as factories or power lines causes the noise to be of non-Gaussian nature. Large noise magnitudes are deemed very improbable by linear receivers, and consequently performance deterioration is experienced. It is therefore desirable to build systems that can maintain respectable functionality under a broad class of noise distributions, rather than strictly optimizing for the unrealistic Gaussian assumption. Such is the goal of robust detection and estimation theory, which aims to design systems that are suboptimal under nominal channel conditions (e.g., Gaussian channel) and yet do not face catastrophy when the noise distribution is not nominal (e.g., unlike linear schemes). Note that suboptimality here refers to very good performance that is slightly worse than that of the nominal-optimal detector/estimator. The direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) technique has been favourably considered for application in digital mobile cellular networks due to its potential to provide higher system capacity over conventional multiple access techniques. Unlike FDMA and TDMA capacities which are mostly limited by the bandwidth, the capacity of a CDMA system is mainly restricted by its interference level. Any reduction in interference produces a direct and linear increase in system capacity. Multiple access interference (MAI) caused by non-zero cross-correlation between different spreading sequences is the major type of interference limiting the CDMA system capacity. Much work has been done to characterize MAI, and to analyze and evaluate the CDMA system performance in the presence of MAI. Since the cross-correlation properties of most sets of spreading codes are either too complex to analyze or very difficult to compute when different transmissions are not synchronized, a random seque nce model. In the case of moderate to large processing gains, Gaussian distribution with variable variance is a good approximation for the MAI distribution. One of the approaches to reduce MAI is to employ orthogonal spreading sequences, and try to synchronize the transmissions at the chip level (quasi-synchronization). However, this is generally difficult to achieve in multipoint-to-point systems, such as the reverse link (mobile-to-base) of a cellular system, due to a lack of synchronization of the various mobile terminals, and the variable transmission delays. In this paper, a multi-carrier DS-CDMA (MCDS-CDMA) scheme is employed to facilitate the synchronization process, and thus reduce MAI. SYSTEM MODEL A model of the MS-DS-CDMA system for the kth user of a CDMA system is shown in the figure 1. TRANMSITTER MODEL At the transmitter the user‘s data stream dk(t) is divided into M interleaved sub streams and spread by a spreading sequence ck(t) to a fraction 1/M of the entire transmission bandwidth W. The resultant chip sequences are then used to modulate M carrier. The carrier frequencies ωm,m=1,2,M are equally spaced by the chip rate so that they are mutually orthogonal over one channel symbol interval T. Let R be the information rate and Rc be the carrier control code rate then the channel symbol interval is BER PERFORMANCE: MC-DS-CDMA system performance measured by bit error rate through analysis and simulation. Analysis: The BER is analysed based on the following: Ortoganal spreading sequences with rectangular pulse shape are applied. ÃŽ ¶k,k=1†¦K are independent of random variables distributd in (-ÃŽ ¶D,ÃŽ ¶D) WHERE ÃŽ ¶D=ÃŽ µD+Ï‚D.Given W and ÃŽ ¶D,M is chosen so that ÃŽ ¶D It is assumed that the fading parameters of the desired user . It is perfectly estimated so that the coherent detection and optimum soft decision decoding could be carried out at the receiver to make the problem analytically tractable. The fading amplitudes as independent Rayleigh random variables with equal second moments. The model is MATLAB INTRODUCTION: Matlab is a commercial Matrix Laboratory package which operates as an interactive programming environment. It is a mainstay of the Mathematics Department software lineup and is also available for PCs and Macintoshes and may be found on the CIRCA VAXes. Matlab is well adapted to numerical experiments since the underlying algorithms for Matlabs builtin functions and supplied m-files are based on the standard libraries LINPACK and EISPACK. Matlab program and script files always have filenames ending with .m; the programming language is exceptionally straightforward since almost every data object is assumed to be an array. Graphical output is available to supplement numerical results. IMREAD Read image from graphics file. A = IMREAD(FILENAME,FMT) reads a grayscale or color image from the file specified by the string FILENAME. If the file is not in the current directory, or in a directory on the MATLAB path, specify the full pathname. The text string FMT specifies the format of the file by its standard file extension. For example, specify gif Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and CDMA Advantages Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and CDMA Advantages INTRODUCTION ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNALS The signal is initially generated is in the form of an analog electrical voltage or current, produced for example by a microphone or some other type of transducer. The output from the readout system of a CD (compact disc) player, the data is already in digital form. An analog signal must be converted into digital form before DSP techniques can be applied. An analog electrical voltage signal, for example, can be digitized using an electronic circuit called an analog-to-digital converter or ADC. This generates a digital output as a stream of binary numbers whose values represent the electrical voltage input to the device at each sampling instant. Digital signal processing (DSP)-digital representation of signals and the use of digital processors to analyze, modify, or extract information from signals. Many signals in DSP are derived from analogue signals which have been sampled at regular intervals and converted into digital form. The key advantages of DSP over analogue processing are Guaranteed accuracy (determined by the number of bits used) Perfect reproducibility No drift in performance due to temperature or age Takes advantage of advances in semiconductor technology Greater flexibility (can be reprogrammed without modifying hardware) Superior performance (linear phase response possible, and filtering algorithms can be made adaptive) Sometimes information may already be in digital form. There are however (still) some disadvantages Speed and cost (DSP design and hardware may be expensive, especially with high bandwidth signals) Finite word length problems (limited number of bits may cause degradation). Application areas of DSP are considerable: Image processing (pattern recognition, robotic vision, image enhancement, facsimile, satellite weather map, animation) Instrumentation and control (spectrum analysis, position and rate control, noise reduction, data compression) Speech and audio (speech recognition, speech synthesis, text to speech, digital audio, equalisation) Military (secure communication, radar processing, sonar processing, missile guidance) Telecommunications (echo cancellation, adaptive equalisation, spread spectrum, video conferencing, data communication) Biomedical (patient monitoring, scanners, EEG brain mappers, ECG analysis, X-ray storage and enhancement). INTRODUCTION TO CDMA Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a radically new concept in wireless communications. It has gained widespread international acceptance by cellular radio system operators as an upgrade that will dramatically increase both their system capacity and the service quality. It has likewise been chosen for deployment by the majority of the winners of the United States Personal Communications System spectrum auctions. It may seem, however, mysterious for those who arent familiar with it. CDMA is a form of spread-spectrum, a family of digital communication techniques that have been used in military applications for many years. The core principle of spread spectrum is the use of noise-like carrier waves, and, as the name implies, bandwidths much wider than that required for simple point-to-point communication at the same data rate. Originally there were two motivations: either to resist enemy efforts to jam the communications (anti-jam, or AJ), or to hide the fact that communication was even taking place, sometimes called low probability of intercept (LPI). It has a history that goes back to the early days of World War II. The use of CDMA for civilian mobile radio applications is novel. It was proposed theoretically in the late 1940s, but the practical application in the civilian marketplace did not take place until 40 years later. Commercial applications became possible because of two evolutionary developments. One was the availability of very low cost, high density digital integrated circuits, which reduce the size, weight, and cost of the subscriber stations to an acceptably low level. The other was the realization that optimal multiple access communication requires that all user stations regulate their transmitter powers to the lowest that will achieve adequate signal quality. CDMA changes the nature of the subscriber station from a predominately analog device to a predominately digital device. Old-fashioned radio receivers separate stations or channels by filtering in the frequency domain. CDMA receivers do not eliminate analog processing entirely, but they separate communication channels by means of a pseudorandom modulation that is applied and removed in the digital domain, not on the basis of frequency. Multiple users occupy the same frequency band. This universal frequency reuse is not fortuitous. On the contrary, it is crucial to the very high spectral efficiency that is the hallmark of CDMA. Other discussions in these pages show why this is true. CDMA is altering the face of cellular and PCS communication by: Dramatically improving the telephone traffic capacity Dramatically improving the voice quality and eliminating the audible effects of multipath fading Reducing the incidence of dropped calls due to handoff failures Providing reliable transport mechanism for data communications, such as facsimile and internet traffic Reducing the number of sites needed to support any given amount of traffic Simplifying site selection Reducing deployment and operating costs because fewer cell sites are needed Reducing average transmitted power Reducing interference to other electronic devices Reducing potential health risks Commercially introduced in 1995, CDMA quickly became one of the worlds fastest growing wireless technologies. In 1999, the International Telecommunications Union selected CDMA as the industry standard for new third-generation (3G) wireless systems. Many leading wireless carriers are now building or upgrading to 3G CDMA networks in order to provide more capacity for voice traffic, along with high-speed data capabilities. DS_CDMA Multiple access systems based on DS CDMA have achieved increasing significance for mobile communications applications. A promising concept is based on DS_CDMA applying MRC at the receiver. MRC takes advantage of the channel diversity to combat the multipath fading. However the capacity of a DS_CDMA system is limited by both multi-user interference and inter symbol interference ISI in high data rate applications. OFDM is applied to combat the frequency selectivity of the channel using a simple one tap equalizer Further more OFDM prevents the ISI and inter carrier interference ICI by inserting a guard interval between adjacent OFDM symbols OFDM is typically used for audio TV and HDTV transmission over terrestrial channels and achieves high spectral efficiency. The CMDA Technology overview FDMA In Frequency Division Multiple Access, the frequency band is divided in slots. Each user gets one frequency slot assigned that is used at will. It could be compared to AM or FM broadcasting radio where each station has a frequency assigned. FDMA demands good filtering. TDMA In Time Division Multiple Access, the frequency band is not partitioned but users are allowed to use it only in predefined intervals of time, one at a time. Thus, TDMA demands synchronization among the users. CDMA CDMA, for Code Division Multiple Access, is different from its traditional ways in which it does not allocate frequency or time in user slots but gives the right to use both to all users simultaneously. To do this, it uses a technique known as Spread Spectrum . In effect, each user is assigned a code,which spreads its signal bandwidth in such a way that only the same code can recover it at the receiver end. This method has the property that the unwanted signals with different codes get spread even more by the process, making them like noise to the receiver . Spread Spectrum Spread Spectrum is a mean of transmission where the data occupies a larger bandwidth than necessary. Bandwidth spreading is accomplished before the transmission through the use of a code, which is independent of the transmitted data. The same code is used to demodulate the data at the receiving end. The following figure illustrate the spreading done on the data signal x(t) by the spreading signal c(t) resulting in the message signal to be transmitted, m(t). Originally for military use to avoid jamming (interference created on purpose to make a communication channel unusable), spread spectrum modulation is now used in personal communication systems for its superior performance in an interference dominated environment . Definition of Spread Spectrum: A transmission technique in which a pseudo-noise code, independent of the information data, is employed as a modulation waveform to â€Å"spread† the signal energy over a bandwidth much greater than the signal information bandwidth. At the receiver the signal is â€Å"despread† using a synchronized replica of the pseudo-noise code. Basic Principle of Spread Spectrum System: The Principal types of Spread Spectrum are Direct Sequence (DS), and Frequency Hopping (FH). An over view of these systems is hereby given: Pseudo shift of the phase pseudo shift of the frequency Coherent demodulation noncoherent Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) A pseudo-noise sequence pnt generated at the modulator, is used in conjunction with an M-ary PSK modulation to shift the phase of the PSK signal pseudo randomly, at the chipping rate Rc (=1/Tc) a rate that is integer multiple of the symbol rate Rs (=1/Ts). The transmitted bandwidth is determined by the chip rate and by the base band filtering. The implementation limits the maximum chip rate Rc (clock rate) and thus the maximum spreading. The PSK modulation scheme requires a coherent demodulation. PN code length that is much longer than a data symbol, so that a different chip pattern is associated with each symbol. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum A Pseudo-noise sequence pnt generated at the modulator is used in conjuction with an M-ary FSK modulation to shift the carrier frequency of the FSK signal pseudurandomly, at the hopping rate Rh. The transmitted signal occupies a number of frequencies in time, each for a period of time Th (= 1/Rh), referred as dwell time. FHSS divides the available bandwidth into N channels and hops between these channels according to the PN sequence. At each frequency hop time the PN generator feeds the frequency synthesizer a frequency word FW (a sequence of n chips) which dictates one of 2n frequency position fhl . Transmitter and receiver follows the same frequency hop pattern. The transmitted bandwidth is determined by the lowest and highest hop position by the bandwidth per hop position (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  fch). For a given hop, instantaneous occupied bandwidth is the conventional M-FSK, which is typically much smaller than Wss. So the FHSS signal is a narrowband signal, all transmission power is concentrated on one channel. Averaged over many hops, the FH/M-FSK spectrum occupies the entire spread spectrum bandwidth. Because the bandwidth of an FHSS system only depends on the tuning range, it can be hopped over a much wider bandwidth than an DSSS system. Since the hops generally result in phase discontinuity (depending on the particular implementation) a noncoherent demodulation is done at receiver. With slow hopping there are multiple data symbol per hop and with fast hopping there are multiple hops per data symbol. 3.3 Basic principle of Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum For BPSK modulation the building blocks of a DSSS system are: Input: Binary data dt with symbol rate Rs = 1/Ts (=bitrate Rb for BPSK) Pseudo-noise code pnt with chip rate Rc = 1/Tc (an integer of Rs) Spreading: In the transmitter, the binary data dt (for BPSK, I and Q for QPSK) is ‘directly multiplied with the PN sequence pnt , which is independent of the binary data, to produce the transmitted baseband signal txb: txb = dt . pnt The effect of multiplication of dt with a PN sequence is to spread the baseband bandwidth Rs of dt to a baseband bandwidth of Rc. Despreading: The spread spectrum signal cannot be detected by a conventional narrowband receiver. In the receiver, the baseband signal rxb is multiplied with the PN sequence pnr . If pnr = pnt and synchronized to the PN sequence in the received data, than the recovered binary data is produced on dr. The effect of multiplication of the spread spectrum signal rxb with the PN sequence pnt used in the transmitter is to despread the bandwidth of rxb to Rs . If pnr ≠  pnt , than there is no dispreading action. The signal dr has a spread spectrum. A receiver not knowing the PN sequence of the transmitter can not reproduce the transmitted data. Performance in the presence of interference: To simplify the presence of interference, the spread spectrum system is considered for baseband BPSK communication (without filtering). The received signal rxb of the transmitted signal txb plus an additive inteferance i (noise, other users, jammer,†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦): rxb = t xb + i = dt . pnt + i To recover the original data dt the received signal rx0 is multiplied with a locally generated PN sequence pnr that is an exact replica of that used in the transmitter (that is pnr = pnt and synchronized) The multiplier output is therefore given by: dr = rxb . pnt = dt . pnt . pnt + i . pnt The data signal dt is multiplied twice by the PN sequence pnt , where as the unwanted inteferance i is multiplied only once. Due to the property of the PN sequence: pnt + pnt = +1 for all t The multiplier output becomes: dr = dt + i . pnt The data signal dr is reproduced at the multiplier output in the receiver, except for the inteferance represented by the additive term i . pnt . Multiplication of the inteferance by the locally generated PN sequence, means that the spreading code will affect the inteferance just as it did with the information bearing signal at the transmitter. Noise and inteferance, being uncorrelated with the PN sequence, becomes noise-like, increase in bandwidth and decrease in power density after the multiplier. After dispreading, the data component dt is narrow band (Rb) whereas the inteferance component is wideband (Rc). By applying the dr signal to a baseband (low-pass) filter with a band width just large enough to accommodate the recovery of the data signal, most of the inteferance component i is filtered out. The effect of inteferance is reduced by processing gain (Gp). Narrowband inteferance: The narrowband noise is spread by the multiplication with the PN sequence pnr of the receiver. The power density of the noise is reduced with respect to the despread data signal. Only 1/Gp of the original noise power is left in the information baseband (Rs). Spreading and dispreading enables a bandwidth trade for processing gain against narrow band interfering signals. Narrow band inteferance would disable conventional narrow band receivers. The essence behind the inteferance rejection capability of a spread spectrum system: the useful signal (data) gets multiplied twice by the PN sequence, but the inteferance signal get multiplied only once. Wideband interference: Multiplication of the received signal with the PN sequence of the receiver gets a selective despread of the data signal (smaller bandwidth, higher power density). The inteferance signal is uncorrelated with the PN sequence and is spread. Origin of wideband noise: Multiple Spread Spectrum user: multiple access mechanism. Gaussian Noise: There is no increase in SNR with spread spectrum: The large channel bandwidth (Rc instead of Rs) increase the received noise power with Gp: Ninfo = N0 . BWinfo à   Nss = N0 . BWss = Ninfo .Gp The spread spectrum signal has a lower power density than the directly transmitted signal. Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a methode of multiplexing (wireless) users distinct (orthogonal) codes. All users can transmit at the same time, and each is allocated the entire available frequency spectrum for transmission. CDMA is also known as Spread-Spectrum multiple access (SSMA). CDMA dose not require the bandwidth allocation of FDMA, nor the time synchronization of the individual users needed in TDMA. A CDMA user has full time and full bandwidth available, but the quality of the communication decreases with an increasing number of users (BER ). In CDMA each user: Has its own PN code Uses the same RF bandwidth Transmits simultaneously (asynchronous or synchronous) Correlation of the received baseband spread spectrum signal rxb with the PN sequence of user 1 only despreads the signal of user 1. The other user produces noise Nu for user 1. ACCESS SCHEMES For radio systems there are two resources, frequency and time. Division by frequency, so that each pair of communicators is allocated part of the spectrum for all of the time, results in Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA). Division by time, so that each pair of communicators is allocated all (or at least a large part) of the spectrum for part of the time results in Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). In Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), every communicator will be allocated the entire spectrum all of the time. CDMA uses codes to identify connections. MULTIPATH AND RAKE RECEIVERS One of the main advantages of CDMA systems is the capability of using signals that arrive in the receivers with different time delays. This phenomenon is called multipath. FDMA and TDMA, which are narrow band systems, cannot discriminate between the multipath arrivals, and resort to equalization to mitigate the negative effects of multipath. Due to its wide bandwidth and rake receivers, CDMA uses the multipath signals and combines them to make an even stronger signal at the receivers. CDMA subscriber units use rake receivers. This is essentially a set of several receivers. One of the receivers (fingers) constantly searches for different multipaths and feeds the information to the other three fingers. Each finger then demodulates the signal corresponding to a strong multipath. The results are then combined together to make the signal stronger. Difference between TDMA vs CDMA. TDMA is Time Division Multiple Access, while CDMA is Code Division Multiple Access. Both technologies achieve the same goal of better utilization of the radio spectrum by allowing multiple users to share the same physical channel, but by using different methods and that is why the three of the four words in each acronym are identical. Both allow more than one person to carry out a conversation on the same frequency without causing interference. The two technologies differ in the way in which users share the common resource. In TDMA the channel is chopped up into sequential time slices. The data of each user is put on the channel in a round-robin fashion. In reality, only one user actually uses the channel at any given point of time, but he uses it only for short bursts. He then gives up the channel for a short duration to allow the other users to have their turn. This is similar to how a computer with just one processor runs multiple applications simultaneously. CDMA on the other hand allows everyone to transmit at the same time. With conventional methods of modulation techniques it would hav been simply not possible. What makes CDMA to allow all users to transmit simultaneously is a special type of digital modulation called Spread Spectrum. In this modulation technique users stream of bits is taken and splattered them across a very wide channel in a pseudo-random fashion. The pseudo part is very important here as at the receiver end the randomization must be undone in order to collect the bits together in a coherent order. For example consider a room full of couples, and each couple trying to carry on one-on-one conversations. In TDMA each couple takes their turn for talking and they keep their turns short by speaking only one sentence at a time. As there is always more one person speaking in the room at any given point of time, no one has to worry about being heard over the background din. In CDMA assume each couple talks simultaneously, but they all use different languages. The background din doesnt cause any real problem as none of the listeners understand any language other than that of the individual to whom they are listening. Voice Encoding At this point many people confuse two distinctly different issues involved in the transmission of digital audio. The first is the WAY in which the stream of bits is delivered from one end to the other. This part of the air interface is what makes one technology different from another. The second is the compression algorithm used to squeeze the audio into as small a stream of bits as possible. This latter component is known at the Voice Coder, or Vocoder for short. Another term commonly used is CODEC, which is a similar word to modem. It combines the terms COder and DECoder. Although each technology has chosen their own unique CODECs, there is no rule saying that one transmission method needs to use a specific CODEC. People often lump a technologys transmission method with its CODEC as though they were single entities. Voice encoding schemes differ slightly in their approach to the problem. Because of this, certain types of human voice work better with some CODECs than they do with others. The point to remember is that all PCS CODECs are compromises of some sort. Since human voices have such a fantastic range of pitch and tonal depth, one cannot expect any single compromise to handle each one equally well. This inability to cope with all types of voice at the same level does lead some people to choose one technology over another. All of the PCS technologies try to minimize battery consumption during calls by keeping the transmission of unnecessary data to a minimum. The phone decides whether or not you are presently speaking, or if the sound it hears is just background noise. If the phone determines that there is no intelligent data to transmit it blanks the audio and it reduces the transmitter duty cycle (in the case of TDMA) or the number of transmitted bits (in the case of CDMA). When the audio is blanked your caller would suddenly find themselves listening to dead air, and this may cause them to think the call has dropped. To avoid this psychological problem many service providers insert what is known as Comfort Noise during the blanked periods. Comfort Noise is synthesized white noise that tries to mimic the volume and structure of the real background noise. This fake background noise assures the caller that the connection is alive and well. However, in newer CODECs such as EVRC (used exclusively on CDMA systems) the background noise is generally suppressed even while the user is talking. This piece of magic makes it sound as though the cell phone user is not in a noisy environment at all. Under these conditions, Comfort Noise is neither necessary, nor desirable. DS-CDMA-INTRODUCTION While multiple access interference (MAI) by other users has been recognized as the capacity-limiting factor in direct sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA)-based cellular communication systems, multiuser approaches have largely alleviated the problem when the noise process is additive Gaussian. With the availability of multiuser detectors, inaccurate or inappropriate noise modelling assumptions seem to have become the issue again. Whereas multiuser detection has much to offer in the mobile- to-base station uplink, it does not at present appear to be feasible for the downlink due to the complexity involved and the lack of resistance against adjacent cell interference. Moreover, the few multiuser proposals for the downlink require the knowledge of all spreading codes, which is not possible in the tactical military environment, for instance. Enhanced single-user receivers equipped with adaptive filter banks deliver promising performance with reasonable complexity, especially in slowly varying channels. Thus, the performance of single-user detectors is still of interest, particularly in the presence of non-Gaussian noise. In both urban outdoor and indoor mobile radio environments, electromagnetic interference generated by man-made sources such as factories or power lines causes the noise to be of non-Gaussian nature. Large noise magnitudes are deemed very improbable by linear receivers, and consequently performance deterioration is experienced. It is therefore desirable to build systems that can maintain respectable functionality under a broad class of noise distributions, rather than strictly optimizing for the unrealistic Gaussian assumption. Such is the goal of robust detection and estimation theory, which aims to design systems that are suboptimal under nominal channel conditions (e.g., Gaussian channel) and yet do not face catastrophy when the noise distribution is not nominal (e.g., unlike linear schemes). Note that suboptimality here refers to very good performance that is slightly worse than that of the nominal-optimal detector/estimator. The direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) technique has been favourably considered for application in digital mobile cellular networks due to its potential to provide higher system capacity over conventional multiple access techniques. Unlike FDMA and TDMA capacities which are mostly limited by the bandwidth, the capacity of a CDMA system is mainly restricted by its interference level. Any reduction in interference produces a direct and linear increase in system capacity. Multiple access interference (MAI) caused by non-zero cross-correlation between different spreading sequences is the major type of interference limiting the CDMA system capacity. Much work has been done to characterize MAI, and to analyze and evaluate the CDMA system performance in the presence of MAI. Since the cross-correlation properties of most sets of spreading codes are either too complex to analyze or very difficult to compute when different transmissions are not synchronized, a random seque nce model. In the case of moderate to large processing gains, Gaussian distribution with variable variance is a good approximation for the MAI distribution. One of the approaches to reduce MAI is to employ orthogonal spreading sequences, and try to synchronize the transmissions at the chip level (quasi-synchronization). However, this is generally difficult to achieve in multipoint-to-point systems, such as the reverse link (mobile-to-base) of a cellular system, due to a lack of synchronization of the various mobile terminals, and the variable transmission delays. In this paper, a multi-carrier DS-CDMA (MCDS-CDMA) scheme is employed to facilitate the synchronization process, and thus reduce MAI. SYSTEM MODEL A model of the MS-DS-CDMA system for the kth user of a CDMA system is shown in the figure 1. TRANMSITTER MODEL At the transmitter the user‘s data stream dk(t) is divided into M interleaved sub streams and spread by a spreading sequence ck(t) to a fraction 1/M of the entire transmission bandwidth W. The resultant chip sequences are then used to modulate M carrier. The carrier frequencies ωm,m=1,2,M are equally spaced by the chip rate so that they are mutually orthogonal over one channel symbol interval T. Let R be the information rate and Rc be the carrier control code rate then the channel symbol interval is BER PERFORMANCE: MC-DS-CDMA system performance measured by bit error rate through analysis and simulation. Analysis: The BER is analysed based on the following: Ortoganal spreading sequences with rectangular pulse shape are applied. ÃŽ ¶k,k=1†¦K are independent of random variables distributd in (-ÃŽ ¶D,ÃŽ ¶D) WHERE ÃŽ ¶D=ÃŽ µD+Ï‚D.Given W and ÃŽ ¶D,M is chosen so that ÃŽ ¶D It is assumed that the fading parameters of the desired user . It is perfectly estimated so that the coherent detection and optimum soft decision decoding could be carried out at the receiver to make the problem analytically tractable. The fading amplitudes as independent Rayleigh random variables with equal second moments. The model is MATLAB INTRODUCTION: Matlab is a commercial Matrix Laboratory package which operates as an interactive programming environment. It is a mainstay of the Mathematics Department software lineup and is also available for PCs and Macintoshes and may be found on the CIRCA VAXes. Matlab is well adapted to numerical experiments since the underlying algorithms for Matlabs builtin functions and supplied m-files are based on the standard libraries LINPACK and EISPACK. Matlab program and script files always have filenames ending with .m; the programming language is exceptionally straightforward since almost every data object is assumed to be an array. Graphical output is available to supplement numerical results. IMREAD Read image from graphics file. A = IMREAD(FILENAME,FMT) reads a grayscale or color image from the file specified by the string FILENAME. If the file is not in the current directory, or in a directory on the MATLAB path, specify the full pathname. The text string FMT specifies the format of the file by its standard file extension. For example, specify gif