IGCSE English Essay on Global Essay Example for Free

IGCSE English Essay on Global EssayI recently read your essay about orbicular warming stating that valet find non contributed to its existence. I believe that it is important to study both sides of this argument thoroughly before drawing a conclusion. Although you cleverly wrote an essay base on a couple of hand-picked facts, there is still a nonher side of the issue which is yet to be told. I believe that global warming is a problem which has arisen due(p) to the c beless actions of humanity. Does denying global warmings existence mean that gentleman can continue with their wasteful ways? After totally of the arguments, debating, and disagreements, is global warming real?Its existence is undeniable. The real question is, are human-beings the cause of global warming? Imagine having to separate your garbage into 3 various boxes rather than 1. This simple task would undoubtedly require a bit more effort on our behalf, and to be frank, no one likes to do unneeded work. We fail to believe that global warming is caused by us knowing that we would sire to make changes in our lifestyles that could potentially require more effort. Was it in childlike school that we learned about the water wheel around, about how one thing affects the next?Similarly, global warming is but a chain of events in which humans are heavily involved. People cannot simply burn immense quantities of fossil fuels in hopes that there will be no after-effects. In fact, the repercussions of all of this industrial enterprise can be seen through the form of air pollution which consists of carbon dioxide ( carbon dioxide). Factories burn fossil fuels and simultaneously release pollutants in the air hence, man-made CO2 is formed. Since the pre-industrial era, man-made CO2 has increased by a third with a consequential change in global temperatures.By creating this man-made CO2, the carbon cycle has been disrupted and the excess CO2 is becoming cumulative. As a result, the natural carbo n exchange is futile to absorb this additional carbon dioxide. We are unable to see the truth even when it is right before us. Only a crazy person would think that global temperatures are the same as they were century years ago. Statistics show that the average global temperatures in the 1880s were approximately 14 degrees Celsius. Global temperatures inwardly the past decade have been climbing as high as 15 degrees Celsius.Throughout the years, the rate of warming has increased, and to most peoples horror, has occurred within the span of a few decades. Scientists have not been fretting over a minor global temperature change, but the fact that temperatures have increased during such a short period of time. The famous Medieval heating plant Period occurred from 700 AD to 1250. The drastic temperature increases occurred within approximately 4 centuries. Comparatively, global temperatures have risen by over 1 degree Fahrenheit within a single century. Surely you can see the severity of the situation within these simple statistics.The world is changing. Humans continue to alter the planets self-regulating systems, and these actions will be reflected by the lack of resources in the future. Some have dedicated their entire lives to the study of global warming in high society to prove that it is very much existant, and not the myth which it is perceived to be. The main cause behind all of these changes is carbon emissions. Carbon emissions have been high plenteous to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to current levels of approximately 390 parts per million.This is an increase of 75 parts per million from 1960 when it was estimated at 315 parts per million. We are exhausting the Earths atmosphere and tampering with what was supposed to remain untouched. In your essay about global warming, you stated that temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and by the 1990s temperatures appeared to have reversed. However, it can be observed from gl obal climate charts that the temperatures between 1940 and 1980 were, as a matter of fact, fluctuating. On the other hand, temperatures from 1980 to present day have only increased and have shown absolutely no signs of cooling.In other words, the global temperatures in 1940 to 1980 were not declining, but were slightly rising and falling. Some may believe that global warming is yet another one of the worlds phases. If so, are they ready to abuse our planet until it finally exceeds exhaustion? bid everything else in the world, the Earth has its limits. By continually releasing large amounts of CO2 into the planets atmosphere, we are not only having an impact on global temperatures, but on nature as a whole. Temperatures will increase and glaciers will melt. The vast forms of wildlife in the Arctic will inevitably suffer due to this.Natural resources will eventually run out and when this happens, we will turn to nature for assistance. At that point, mankind will come to realize that nature does not have anything left to give us. The majority of the proof points to man-made CO2 being the reason for global warming. I believe that if mankind does not prune the emission of CO2, the world will finally reach its limit and humanity will be left in a fragile situation with marginal resources. I thank you for listening to my outlook of the situation and look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Auditing Risk Essay Example for Free

Auditing Risk EssayThe auditor chooses what overall level of audit risk they ar leave behinding to brook. A higher level of audit risk means that the auditor is leaveing to accept more audit failures. 1% audit risk means that you are willing to accept that 1 out of 100 issued audit opinions will be incorrect. 5% audit risk means that you are willing to accept that 5 out of 100 issued audit opinions will be incorrect. So, the higher the audit risk you are willing to accept, the less audit lay down you corroborate to perform. Audit risk and audit work are inversely related.Inherent Risk (IR) is the susceptibility of a particular operation to be recorded in error. For example, revenue recognition related to software transactions is more inherently risky that revenue recognized at a point of sale transaction at a grocery retention. In this example (all else constant), you would assign your software company client revenue draws higher inherent risk than your grocery store cl ient, due to the inherent difficulty in software revenue recognition. Higher inherent risk, all else constant, leads to more audit work.Inherent risk and audit work are directly related. Stated more specifically, if the inherent riskiness of one set of accounts is higher than another set of accounts, the auditor must increase the touchstone of testing done to achieve the given level of audit risk. Control risk (CR) is the risk that the companys internal guarantee system will fail to prevent or detect errors. A well established fortune 500 manufacturing company is likely to have better internal withstands than a small biotech startup with one person playing the roles of accountant, chief financial officer and CEO.In this example (again, all else constant) you would assign your manufacturing client a humiliate control risk than your biotech client (for whom, in all likelihood, you decide not to rely on controls at all, and assign a value of 1 to control risk). Higher control risk, all else constant, leads to more audit work. Control risk and audit work are directly related, stated more specifically, if the risk that controls will not catch accounting errors increases, you must do more testing to achieve a given level of audit risk.Second Lets think about the equation, and the relation of each type of risk to each other s the risk that our audit procedures over a specific account or group of accounts will fail to detect a material misstatement. We know that we set the level of M. Shepardson audit risk, we assess the levels of inherent risk and control risk, and from that, we calculate the level of detection risk. Rewriting equation (1), we have the following

Adopting Agile Project Management Methodology Management Essay

Adopting Agile Project Management Methodology Management EssayAgile communicate management is considered as virtuoso of the flexible and interactive project management approach. Agile methodology, as its meaning would suggest, is adopted for rapid development projects. It is very much different than the traditional project management technique which is considered to be more structured and disciplined. Deliberate architectural training and designing various control methods is inherent part of the traditional style. Norm every(prenominal)y all the tasks are completed in a predefined sequence to ensure the success which requires lot of planning to be d wizard up front.EvolutionAs the trade processes became more and more complex they also became more interdependent than ever before. Along with the processes the organizational structure of railway line also changed in order to actualise complex communities, comprised of alliances with strategic suppliers, outsourcing vendors and par tnerships and ever increasing competitors. With time-to-market compression and rapidly changing technologies fast track development has become the order of the day for most of the business. This increase importance of agile project management methodologies.Agile management is derived from the agile software development and hence it is a variant of iterative life roll process. In agile methodology, the evaluation of the project requirements and the end product/solution is a collaborative effort between self-organized, cross-functional teams across the organization or whitethorn be from different organizations.Comparison with Traditional ApproachAgile project management methodology differs from traditional project management methodology which gives more fear to making software development a better process and hence it gives importance to contract negotiation (managing scope), comprehensive documentation, maintaining and following a project plan with the help of various processes and tools. In contrast, Agile methodology gives stress upon working software and responding to constant changes and at that place by gaining customer satisfaction. Having frequent client interactions is one of the most important attribute to the success of this approach.Challenges Associated with Agile MethodologyMany companies, such as IBM, have adopted agile development because of its underlying benefits of creation flexible, simple and fast. The customer centric approach of this methodology makes it very popular amongst the customers and also the possibility of project being self supporting even in the initial stages lures businessmen towards it. Because of these and many other advantages the some of the inherent problems such scope management, risk management issues are overlooked. Normally these issues arise due to inadequacy of planning and documentation for the project, which goes against the agile methodology. This also raises the possibility of indentifying problems/depende ncies in the later part of the projects. The complete development becomes person subject rather than process dependant and team dynamics and HR strategies in the company becomes key ingredients in the success of project.It should be noted that as such process also adds an special variable in the form customers. Customers get an influential seat at the table to shape the value proposition of the project as it unfolds. They are actively involved in the development process to establish, prioritize, and verify requirements at each and every stage. The ability of agile methodology to adapt to changing customer priorities and requirements adjudge the project current and relevant. But with such frequent changes in the requirements and scope of the project, strong commitment to the business milestones, which is one of the features of agile methodology, becomes difficult if the project is not managed properly.Because of the high dependency on team dynamics it is often difficult to apply a gile methodologies to large project teams and large scale projects, where better planning is required. But it suits the company having culture of innovation as the focus is never shifted from exploratory development to planning and controlling.Research ObjectiveAs seen above there are positives and negatives of both the project management methodologies. According a survey taken by one of the leading companies, about 50% of business correspondents assign that agile methods had been successful in about 95% of their projects, where are remaining say that such methods are still too premature and require enormous academic proof/ question. I am hoping that through this research paper I am able to explore the challenges faced by such business correspondents while implementing agile project management methodology. I will try to find if adopting agile methodology guaranties success.This paper will also focus on handling change management, risk management, HR issues and Team management issu es. Research will stress on various ways of tackling these problems to increase the probability of success. The research will also touch upon adopting the traditional project management activities such as project plan, earned value analysis, balance sheets into the agile project management. The rough-cut practices followed in different types of methodologies for agile project management such as SCRUM, XP, CRYSTAL, EVO will also be discussed in this paper.SourcesProject Management the Agile representation Making It Work in the EnterpriseBy John C. GoodpastureThe Blending of Traditional and Agile Management By Kathleen B. Hass, Published in PM earth Today May 2007 (Vol. IX, Issue V)Agile Project Management Methods for IT Projects By Glen B. AllemanWikipedia

Land Vegetation Ethiopia

domain of a function Vegetation Ethiopia1. Project SummaryLand coer/ single-valued function Study projects put up policy makers, industry and community wager groups, and set ashoreholders with accurate information onwoody vegetation secrecy, information on changes in the chase after, part and providing statistical information.In earlier times the northern Ethiopian spirited visits were characterized by humid climate and denser vegetation (Bard et al., 2000). Signifi bunst human impact on the convey imagination resulted in 65 per cent of the good globe mass to be a dry land. Land clearing for agricultural activity has become an increasingly main top sideic in the natural resource debate that contrasts the economic aspects of land training to the people dependent on it and with the ecological need to conserve.This project is a unrivaled of the initiative to investigate the land spread over and its respective slope of the ascertain site and to recommend technologies appl icable to the overall land cover strike projects in the dry high lands of Ethiopia.The moot combines field verificationand com targeter processing using state-of-the-art remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies. The study specifically applies and eexplore the potential of manifest and Near Infrargond (VNIR) bands of the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer ASTER somas to discriminate land determination categories where the land is fragile with mixed uses villages, patches of forest, patches of grazing land, crop land, wasteland, etc. the study pull up stakes also explore the potential of ASTER meets to provide stereo characterisations for DEM generation of the scene that can be used to generate the Slope. The DEM generation toil entrust investigate developing a able polynomial function pose. At last integration of the land cover and the DEM together with other GIS entropy can be used as input selective information t o classify the suitableness of land for specific land use.2. The Problem Statement and Justification for the investigateMore than 63% of all clarifiedholders in Ethiopia have less than 1 hectare of land. Population is increment apace and, although in the northern move of the country the medium rural population density is only 33 persons per square km, the population density per unit of arable land is much higher (138 persons per square km). Land fragmentation is common and the more fragmented holdings are, the more time it takes to manage them, with potential consequences for productivity. The national average is 3.2 parcels per smallholder, though districts averages vary from a little over 1 to more than 5. The broadest areas of high fragmentation are in eastern Amhara and Tigray, although thither are also districts with high average fragmentation in Gambella, parts of SNNP, and the eastern highlands. (Ethiopian Agricultural Sample Enumeration, 2001/02. Central Statistical Authority.). As a result of fragmentation, farm sizes are very small and the use of fal unkept is rapidly disappearing, causing problems of declining soil fertility and erosion.Population process increases the look at for land and contributes to farming on steep and fragile soils, also leading to erosion problems. It increases demand for biomass as a source of fuel, leading to deforestation and increased burning of dung and crop residues, thus increasing the problems of erosion and nutrient depletion. Population g classth increases demand for livestock products and therefore leads to increased livestock numbers, causing overgrazing and consumption of crop residues by animals.In much(prenominal) situation Land degradation is a great threat for the future and it requires great effort and resources to improve. The major causes of land degradation in Ethiopia are the rapid population increase, severe soil loss, deforestation, low vegetative cover and unbalanced crop and livestock pro duction. Inappropriate land-use systems and land-tenure policies enhance desertification and loss of biodiversity. The balance between crop, livestock, and forest production is disturbed, and the farmer is forced to put more land into crop production.The government has envisaged long- and short-term strategies to reduce the pressure on land and land fragmentation. Among the short term strategies are providing technical and vocational training to the landless youth to enable them to find off-farm employment and encouraging emigration to urban centers and to other parts of the region for resettlement. These strategies recommended allocation and reallocation of land to be based on the land use classification to be done in detail study.Understanding the current status of land use is very important and this project will come up with important elements of current land use study using remote sensing technologies to provide reliable information that help to prepare a complete land use plan. JustificationLand Cover/ Slope StudyTo approach the growing problems of natural resource management, spatially explicit information about physical, biotic, and human factors must be available in a variety show of geographic and blase exceeds (USFWS 1976). Local planners and managers require detailed knowledge of the region for which they have responsibility as well as information on the regional, state, and national levels. Land cover data are essential at several scales.Current land cover data are vital to mevery applications including making staple fibre habitat perspicacitys, delineating specific vegetative communities, calculating soil loss, and evaluating water quantity/quality in spite of appearance and between watersheds. The list of categories to be mapped is determined through the objectives of the mapping effort. This dissertation describes such a mapping effort, one of presenting a elemental land cover/Slope map, along with methods useful for land use planning appl ications.The stately methods in producing DEMs need large campaigns that result in land surveying teams using analogue or analytical techniques. In the last decades satellite stereo meet based topographical map production is turned into operational state from its experimental state. Recently many local anaesthetic scale landscape or topographical monitoring requirements are maintained by high resolution satellite images (Kanab 2002, Zomer et al. 2002, Baily et al. 2003, Suzen and Doyuran 2004a, b, Liu et al. 2004).Advantages of ASTER for land evaluation The ASTER sensor is carried on board the Terra satellite that was launched in December1999. The sensor has 14 spectral bands three for Very Near Infra Red (VNIR) at 15 meters resolution, six for Short vagabond Infra Red at 30 meters resolution, five for Thermal Infra Red at ninety meters resolution. Graphic 1 (below) shows the band coverage of the ASTER sensor. gum olibanum with such resolution and number of bands it is likel y to discriminate small fragile lands typical of Ethiopian highlands.In addition ASTER imagery has an extra channel of image data that is created by the sensor capturing a backwards looking image for the third VNIR band. So for image band three there exists one (nadir) image channel and also a backwards looking (off nadir) image channel. This creates an along-track stereo effect that provides DEM generation capability to be used for slope study.ScopeThis thesis presents a small watershed land cover/Slope map representing for the northern region of the country. It will provide information just beyond the local watershed by demonstrating feasibility of using selected satellite imagery for regional planning as well.It is known that Land suitability analysis is the process of coordinated demand, crop requirement, and supply, the quality of the land. Where it is necessary to specify the type of specific land use (e.g for forest plantation, maize, rangeland, etc.) so as to match with cr op requirement, basic land characteristics, such as depth of soil, climate, amount of pH, level of soil nutrient, depth to ground water, etc.. Thus the scope of this thesis is limited to generating parameters necessary for the land suitability analysis.Project ObjectivesGeneral objectiveTo demonstrate the feasibility of Advanced Space borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) imagery to provide base line data for land use planning for sustainable land managementSpecific objectivesInvestigating discriminating power of ASTER Imagery in studying land cover in highly fragmented high lands of northern Ethiopia.To develop rational polynomial function model to generate a DEM that will be merely processed to develop slope information.4. Description of Project Activities and MethodologySelecting Study AreaThe landscape of Ethiopia is extremely diverse. In order to map land cover on a regional scale, it is necessary to understand the structure and dynamics of land cover on a l ocal scale. To this end, the study area will be located to somewhat represent throughout the northern part of the region. Thus the site will take major physiographic regions, i.e., predominantly mountains, valleys, and plains. On top of that the study site will be chosen on the following criteria ease of access to allow comparison of actual land cover to images in hand, availability of current digital cover maps, and representation of regional land cover.Classification SchemeThe first step in land cover mapping is to determine a classification system, i.e., to list the land categories to be mapped. Several items will be considered in this process The objectivesThe characteristics of the dataAnd the accuracy requirements.As in most well planned mapping efforts, the objectives determine the classes and the procedures used. Since the objective of this study is to identify fragmented land use types rather than classifying different vegetation types, accent will be placed on land impa cted by human activities.The data available also determined the level of detail. ASTER imagery is take for granted to be the best data currently available. The relatively high spatial resolution and the number of spectral bands of this imagery offers the best opportunities for discriminating a variety of cover types among any available satellite data such as Landsat.ImageryASTER imagery with 15m spatial resolution, which is taken in the dry season of 2003, is the basic dataset from which land cover and Slope will be mapped. The data to be used for land cover study will be the VNIR bands (Band 1 0.52-0.60 Lm Band 2 0.63-0.69Lm and Band 3N 0.76-0.86Lm) of and 3N and 3B bands for the Slope study. A DEM created from ASTER level 1A (L1A) imagery can be expected to have a vertical accuracy of approximately 25 meters. Although in areas with less vegetation or man made touts, this can rise to approximately 11 meters. It is therefore useful for small to medium scale mapping applications, 1 50,000 to 1100,000.Only the near-infrared (NIR) channel of ASTER image has stereoscopic view capability as another NIR sensor is located as back view on board Terra satellite. Therefore, one NIR sensor collects image in nadir direction while another NIR sensor gets image in back-looking direction. Using two different looking directions, stereo imaging and DEM generation can be attained (Welch et al. 1998, Toutin 2002, Hirano et al. 2003).Training Data for image classificationSince this study applies supervised classification, training data are needed at the start of classification. To this effect training data will be acquired from a variety of sources such as available maps, aerial photography of the same year and expert knowledge and review.Image ClassificationOne scene for the land cover study and another nadir scene for the Slope study will be used for classification. To georeference the image, Ground Control Points (GCPs) will be collected from easily placeable tears using Ge ographic Positioning System (GPS). Image classification will be done either using pixel based supervised image classification or with object-oriented image classification depending on the accuracy to be achieved.ILWIS 3.3 software format will be the major image processing tools that will be used.Ground Truth and Classification Accuracy AssessmentBefore a map should be used, it is necessary to know its accuracy (Congalton1996). Accuracy assessment will be made using ground truth points to be collected from the major land use/cover types using GPS. It is recommended to have a ground truth at the same time of data acquisition, or at least within the time that the environmental condition does not change. A general rule of thumb is 75 to 100 reference points per category for a large image (Congalton 1996). However for such a small scale study quite less number of reference points will be feasible.StatisticsThe Confusion Matrix In order to determine the errors in the classification, the f ollowing model called confusion intercellular substance (IDRISI module CONFUSE.) will be applied whereMatrix columns = ground data (assumed correct)Matrix rows = map data ( classify by the automatic procedure)Cells of the matrix = count of the number of observations for each (ground, map) combinationDiagonal elements = obligation between ground and map ideal is a matrix with all zero off-diagonalsErrors of disregard (map producers accuracy) = incorrect in column / total in column. Measures how well the map maker was able to represent the ground features.Errors of commission (map users accuracy) = incorrect in row / total in row. Measures how likely the map user is to encounter correct information while using the map.Overall map accuracy = total on diagonal / grand totalStatistical test of the classification accuracy for the whole map or individual cells is possible using the kappa index of agreement www.sc.chula.ac.th/courseware/2309507/lec_content.htm).Users and producers accurac y measure the correctness of each category with respect to errors of commission and omission. Accuracy of each class cannot be completely stated in one statistic both accuracies are needed for a valid assessment.Users accuracy is obtained by dividing the number correctly classified by the total number of pixels, within the classified image, of that class assessed. A low users accuracy represents a high error of commission.Producers accuracy is calculated by dividing the number of pixels correctly classified by the total number of reference points within that class (bottom row of error matrix). A lowProducers accuracy represents a high error of omission. The Kappa statistic describes the degree of superiority (expressed as a proportion), that the classification results have as compared to a random classification.DEM GenerationDevelopments in computers, broadening of visualization applications and the availability of geospatial data, made the use of digital elevation models (DEM) an indispensable quantitative environmental variable in most of the research topics.The landscape change and process-based studies in digital Earth sciences require the excessive use of DEM (Kaab 2002, Zomer et al. 2002, Baily et al. 2003, Suzen and Doyuran 2004a, b, Liu et al. 2004), for landslide susceptibility/hazard assessment, erosion susceptibility, glacier monitoring, geomorphological mapping, etc., in order to quantitatively represent or to analyse the geomorphology or the landscape.Within this study, the major locomote that will be performed are (1) pre-processing and (2) The first step in pre-processing is the orthorectification of raw L1A images. The whole scene ASTER L1A image will be orthorectified using available 1 50,000 scaled topographic maps.DEM generation from stereoscopic imagery is dependent on establishing the mathematical model relating the scene coordinates of linked points to the ground coordinates of the corresponding object point. Either rigorous or approx imate models can be used to establish such a relationship. Rigorous poser necessitates a full understanding of the imaging geometry associated with the involved sensor. Moreover, it involves the external characteristics (as represented by the Exterior taste Parameters EOP) and the internal characteristics (as represented by the Interior Orientation Parameters IOP) of the imaging sensor. Such characteristics are derived with the help of overtop information, which might take the form of a calibration test field, ground control points, and/or onboard glide units (e.g., GPS/INS). However, the derivation of these parameters might not be always possible due to the lack of sufficient control weak imaging geometry (especially for satellite imaging systems with get angular field of view) and/or intentional concealment by the data provider (e.g., Space Imaging does not release the IOP and the EOP for their commercially available imagery). Therefore, there has been an increasing post t o investigate approximate models, which do not explicitly involve the internal and external characteristics of the imaging system. (A. Habib, E. M. Kim, M. Morgan, I. Couloigne, 2005).There has been an increasing interest within the photogrammetric community to adopt approximate models since they require neither a comprehensive understanding of the imaging geometry nor the internal and external characteristics of the imaging sensor. Approximate models include manoeuver Linear Transformation (DLT), self-calibrating DLT (SDLT), Rational crop Model (RFM), and parallel projection (Vozikis et al., 2003 Fraser, 2000 OGC, 1999 Ono et al., 1999 Wang, 1999 Gupta et al., 1997 El-Manadili and Novak, 1996).This thesis will apply RPF it is based on the ratios of polynomials with different degree which can vary from 1 to 3. The coefficients are estimated using a large number of Ground Control Points (GCPs).In general, the procedure for DEM generation from stereoscopic views can be summarized as follows (Shin et al., 2003) Feature selection in one of the scenes of a stereo-pair Selected features should correspond to an interesting phenomenon in the scene and/or the object space. Identification of the conjugate feature in the other scene This problem is known as the matching/correspondence problem within the photogrammetric and computer vision communities. Intersection procedure Matched points in the stereo-scenes support an intersection procedure to produce the ground coordinates of corresponding object points. The intersection process involves the mathematical model relating the scene and ground coordinates. Point compression High density elevation data is generated within the area under consideration through an interpolation in-between the derived points in the previous step.The image penchant with rational polynomial functions involves general transformation to describe the relationship between image and ground coordinates. They provide a generic representation of t he camera object-image geometry.The RPF provided with the high resolution satellite images connect image space and object space byRow or column = rpf (, , h)Where row/column is the image coordinates and , , and h are longitude, latitude and ellipsoidal height in geographic coordinates of WGS84 datum (Grodecki et al., 2004).Direct solutions use rational function coefficients and sensor parameters information without any control points and refinement the original coefficients. Indirect solutions use ground control points for computing coefficients without using sensor parameters (Tao, Hu 2001).Our solution is based on ground control points without any initial values of coefficients. First approximate values of parameters extract and then precise values compute with using ground control points. Rational Function Model with 20 parameters (Valadan, Sadeghiam 2002) is used in this paper as followWhere are the normalized row and column of pixel in image. are the normalized coordinates of t he image point in the Conventional Terrestrial (CT) coordinate system. Rational Function Coefficients (RFCs).Estimating the RFM coefficientsThe method by which the RFM coefficients are recovered depends on the availability of a physical sensor model. In cases where a physical model is provided a terrain independent scheme can be applied. This scheme is based on the generation of a 3D grid in object space, using the physical sensor model. The 3D grid should contain several layers of points and its characteristics are determined by the coverage of the image and the terrain relief differences. Then, a Least Squares solution of the RFM coefficients can be derived. Finally, an estimation of the quality of the derived RFM coefficients should be carried out based on an evaluation of the residuals in a higher density 3D grid.When a physical model is not available, a terrain dependent scheme is used. As in this scheme it is not possible to generate a 3D grid, the solution is highly sensitive to the terrain relief, as well as to the distribution, number, and quality of the GCPs used.Generation The generation process involves four steps primitive extraction, primitive matching, space intersection, and interpolation.Primitive extraction At this stage, a decision has to be made regarding the primitives to be matched in the normalized scenes. Possible matching primitives include distinct points, linear features, and/or homogeneous regions. The choice of the matching primitives is crucial for ensuring the utmost reliability of the outcome from the DEM generation process. In this research, point features are chosen.Frstner interest operator (Frstner, 1986) will be used to extract distinct points from the imagery. The operator identifies points with unique grey value distribution at their vicinity (e.g., landmark points).The next section discusses the matching procedure of these points.Primitive Matching The matching criteria deal with establishing a quantitative measure that describes the degree of similarity between a template in the left scene and a matching window, of the same size, within the search space in the right scene. Either correlation coefficient or least squares matching could be used to derive such a similarity measureSpace Intersection Following the matching process, conjugate points undergo an intersection procedure to derive the ground coordinates of the corresponding object points. The RPF equation will be used for such computation.Interpolation So far, the ground coordinates of matched interest points, which passed the consistency check, are derived through space intersection. These points are irregularly distributed and are not dense enough to represent the object space. Therefore, they need to be interpolated. In this research, Kriging will be used to interpolate the resulting object space points into regular grid. The Kriging methodology derives an estimate of the elevation at a given point as a weighted average of the heights at neighboring points.5. Project Milestones and Expected outputs5.1. Expected outputFollowing are the expected outputs from this researchestablish on the success of ASTER imagery in demonstrating land cover classification and slope generation, the result herein may be used as basic data to assist slope management, land use planning, and other land management efforts such as land suitability, and landslide susceptibility mapping when combine with other GIS data.Provides a procedure based on the rational polynomial function model for generating DEM directly from a stereo ASTER images, and other experimental results.In particular, the method can be quickly and easily applied to areas with little map data, and at low cost.Based on the success it can be extended for all the northern high lands of Ethiopia.5.2. Dissemination planThe immediate users of the research result are policy makers, teaching institutes and other planning and development organization in their programming of land use management. It will also assist the local government in the design and making of policy issues. The small holder farmers are the ultimate users of the research results through well designed land management projects that are effective in ensuring sustainable development of the resources they are dependent on.6. Work Plan7. ReferencesFraser, C. S., H. B. Hanley (2003). Bias compensation in rational functions for Ikonos satellite imagery. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 69(1) 53-57.Ganas, A. E. Lagios, N. Tzannetos (2002). An investigation into the spatial accuracy of the Ikonos2 orthoimagery within an urban environment. Int. Journal of Remote Sensing, 23(17) 3513-3519.Grodecki, J. and G. Dial (2003). Block adjustment of high resolution satellite images described by rational polynomials. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 69(1) 59-68.Hu, Y., C.V., Tao (2002). Updating solutions of the rational function model using additional control information. Photogramme tric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 68(7) 715-724.MARCAL, A.R.S., BORGER, J.S., BOMES, J.A. COSTA, P.J.F. (2005) Land cover update by supervised classification of segmented ASTER images. international Journal of Remote Sensing 26, 1347-1362.www.sc.chula.ac.th/courseware/2309507/lec_content.htmYAN, G., MAS, J.F., MAATHUIS, B.H.P., XIANGMIN, Z., VAN DIJK, P.M. (2006) Comparison of pixel-based and object-oriented image classification approachesa case study in a coal fire area, Wuda, privileged Mongolia, China. International Journal of Remote Sensing 27, 4039-4055.

Experinces of Working in an International Team

Experinces of Working in an International TeamThis constitution tries to pack out the personal views of the author in terms of his puzzle of working with an international group. Being an Indian and coming down to UK to study, it is a unalike experience in itself. only if the level of interactions with people across borders and husbandrys has picturen the author a chance to explore and understand people with diverse backgrounds. Doing a slip graduate program here in UK not only gives the author access to the outmatch education barely also immense opportunity to net with people across nations. It is a unlike experience indeed.With sentence and increase in interaction, there is change in perception and a complete wash drawing of the pre conceived notions regarding socializations and people. And surprisingly, not only people be mystify and act in different manners across the geography, they also think really differently. This paper tries to look at the benefits of much(p renominal) diverse thinking.With all the benefits also come some problems and hindrances. As menti singled preceding(prenominal), preconceived notions regarding cultures and people is a big issue addressed in the paper. The paper also looks at the argument as to how much diversified terminate the group be, and the possibilities of not been able to reach consensus easily while working in a group and also handling conflicts and differences in opinions.The paper also looks at the possibilities of discrimination on the basis of race, gender and culture. The author also tries to give some suggestions to overcome these problems.He lecturings how these problems eject be overcome and how the cultural mix and diversity can actually act as a advantage.The structure of the paper involves the introduction about the topic and hence detailed insights and some experiences. Then about the advantages and disadvantages of working in much(prenominal) groups. The author then tries to bring in the concept of cultural in distinguishigence and how it could solve issues related to problems arising among co workers of diverse backgrounds. So the reports concludes with some suggestive ideas.IntroductionWith the advent of globalisation and vanishing of boundaries between the countries, it is very special K to see people from various geographies, cultures coming down and working or studying. It is a common scenario steady at a work place or a college where we can spot people from various countries interacting with each other, doing businesses, studying or being part of each others lifespan in a big way.Before going ahead and describing about my experiences lets try defining cultural and its importance at workplace. Culture could be delimit anything related to art, culture, lifestyle, music, etc relating to a particular community or a group of people living together or having and following the same set of beliefs. instantaneously looking at the importance of culture in the wor kplace, it plays a very vital role. heathen defines the value, the beliefs of the individuals or a community, even their day to day demeanor is influenced by it. So it has a direct impact on their working style and relationships with people at workplace, their behavior at workplace, etc. Now when we talk about this, we should also consider the organization culture and its impact on the individual. Of course, the organization or the institution plays a significant role in formative the behavior and the culture of the individual at work place, now how does he fit into this is important. Generally people opt for such organizations or institutions where they fit in on or where standardized values and culture exists. Now let us look how things are today with the advent of organizations which consists of diverse teams.But in advance that let me share some of my experiencesOne thing I was really looking to when I decided to come to UK was to meet and interact with various people. But a t the same time I was very nervous. I had all descriptors of doubts in my mind also. Would I be accepted? Would I fit into the culture? Being lived in India d atomic number 53out my life and not interacting with anyone from outside India, I had all notions in my head. Even I had apprehensions regarding the lifestyles and the behavior of the people.But after I landed in UK my perception changed a fix. I was not the only guy who had left his country and had come down here. There were thousands like me. And even the people were very receptive. Though I mingled with my community and country folks in the beginning, it was only after I came into college and started working and meeting other students I realized that it was not bad actually. All my perceptions and fears were a complete false.My first interaction was indeed during one of those assignments. My group had perceived me as a case and someone who would be good at mathematics so would have by birth analytical skills being an In dian. But I really had to tell them that though we have quite a good number of the population who was good at these things back home, but I was a terrible lot at mathematics. This was when we all realized how we had pre-conceived notions about people based upon their cultural and geographical backgrounds. Like I thought, Pakistanis were a closed lot who would be hooligan to interact but they were as a matter of fact just like me.Of course, people al ways find comfort in people with equivalent interests or similar community and background. Like for example, I was only with my Indian friends for almost a month after I came to UK. I was just to a fault shy and scared to interact or make friends with any one else. And I had so many Indians that I didnt find the need to also. But presently I realized that by doing so I am stopping myself from expanding my horizons in write outledge also. I got to know about a lot of things through my series of interactions with various people.Benefi ts of Cross-Culture TeamsWith the team being more and more diverse, the thinking bequeath be different and it will result in really different perspectives and ideas flowing in. The team would not just reach consensus but really think of many solutions or different answers. This would encourage creativity and innovativeness. It makes the group cortical potential effective.Mutual benefits The whole team being diverse would fulfill the short comings of each other to some extent. And also it is a learning experience.Getting to know about other cultures, languages, and people is always interesting.Enhancement of interpersonal skills.Working with such a team, broadens your thinking and you come across reinvigorated avenues and perspectives.Makes you more filmable to any environment and people.Continuous improvement groups with such diversity always questions, thus making it more and more challenging and striving to get the best out of the group.Sometimes people in homogenous groups do not participate much thinking everyone thinks the same. But in such cases comparatively the engagement levels of the group is high. Because everyone bring in a different thinking and perspective before the group.If I have to talk about my experiences, well I moldiness say I have gained immensely. At first I used to be silent and non-participative. But now I feel I can pour in very important points because I think very differently from the rest of the group, so I bring in a different set of thinking. This actually benefits our discussions. I have really developed great interpersonal skills also. Now I feel free to talk to anyone and from anywhere. I am not shy or scared anymore. Even being in a diverse group, we use each of our individual strengths and combine them to form the strengths of the group. For example, one of my team members is good at identifying and collecting the data, I am good at analyzing it, some one else is good at presenting it and the other at identifying err ors. So all these strengths are combined together so that we finally present the masterpiece.Problems faced with cross-culture teams Language This is one of the major issues. Though English has emerged as the common International language but there is a lot of difference in British English and American and of course Indian. Even the pronunciation and the speak language differ a lot. This can sometimes cause miscommunication. Language barriers can also lead to non-participation or inability to express ideas freely.Apart from communicative and written communication, a major part of communication happens through Non-verbal communication. Now across various cultures we have different communication styles and also different meanings to authoritative things. Now it is extremely important to better know before we communicate anything as others might get offended if we do not understand properly.Cultural clashes Sometimes, there can be a total clash in the cultures and their beliefs. su ch(prenominal) things should be handled properly and not just ignored.Time this is a very important factor while working in groups. The attitude of the team members towards time is very important. Sometimes few of them group members emphasize on time a lot but others do not consider it that important or neglect it because of their old beliefs and practices. This could lead to a conflict of interest.Pre-conceptions and stereotypes People have a lot of preconceived notions in their minds regarding people from some cultures and places. Now that could be totally wrong. The person might be totally different. So it is not good to judge anyone just because they belong to a culture or a location.Difference in execution of work.False Consensus effect Sometimes people think that others also think exactly like them or they feel that everyone would have the same set of beliefs.Ways to overcome difficulties faced when working in an international team Effective communication This is one of the m ost important aspects. The members should check if their points are properly understood. And check for any miscommunication.Adhere to certain rules, which can be framed accordingly, so that everyone sticks to it. For example, we talked about the importance of time. Now its better if the group decided that time has a lot of importance and no one is late for the meetings, etc.Having a global mindset always helps rather than carrying those old beliefs to the group.Every member of the group should workout on their strengths and weakness so that we can work out of the overall strengths and weakness.Avoiding preconceptions and stereotypesThe whole energy of diversity is good if used positively and for the betterment of the group. But we have to be prudent and avoid any negativity or conflicts.Now let me come to my personal experiences. I have already mentioned about the benefits I had got working with such a group. But I too faced many problems. Like for example, in the beginning I was n ot so good at arrangement the language. Though I had learnt English throughout my education in India, but sometimes the level of vocabulary and the pronunciation was very difficult to grasp in the beginning and I used to sound funny with my Indian accent. Those were my tough times when I sometimes kept shut so that I dont draw a blank myself or even I didnt understood anything I would not repeat it. But then of course during the course of time, things settle down. There was a similar experience with time. Being a lazy Indian, I was not used to the punctuality in my school or college. Back home it was a sort of a relaxed environment. But here every second counts, hence I had to really change myself to adapt to the current values and beliefs of the group.One of the effective ways of overcoming such problems is by increasing the Cultural Intelligence of the team members.Now what is this Cultural Intelligence? It is trying to understand others behavior and trying to understand his val ues and beliefs so that to interact with him in a way he is comfortable. People can be classified into 6 categories of Cultural Intelligence The Provincial Such person is effective only when working with people from a similar culture and background of his own. Lacks the ability to work with others.The Analyst He is the person, who would analyze the culture of his fellow mate and try to get the strengths and frame strategies accordingly.The Natural Relies entirely on intuition and is not interested in analyzing or learning new beliefs and about new cultures.The Ambassador He is nice and friendly. Though he is not aware much about the people or individuals from other cultures and backgrounds, but he is confident he can handle them.The Mimic He gels in very well and has tremendous confidence and he knows he will fit into the role.The Chameleon Changes his colors accordingly. He is sometimes even confused about his origin. He fits into very perfectly.Now the work would be classifying al l the members into the above category and work out how to handle them.ConclusionWe have seen through this paper and through the insights and experiences of the author about the cross-culture teams and their benefits and challenges. But these days, with the advent of globalization such teams are unavoidable. Hence, we should work to overcome the challenges and use the strengths of the individuals to build up the strengths of the team. It is important to really understand individuals and their cultures and work accordingly so that there is no miscommunication or conflict.

Midsummer Nights Dream: Shakespeare vs. Michael Hoffman Essay

Midsummer Nights reverie Shakespeare vs. Michael Hoffman A Midsummer Nights Dream is one of Shakespeares most popular and frequently performed comical stages (Berardinelli). The play transformed into a cinematic production by Michael Hoffman has not changed in its canonic plot and dialogue, but the setting and some character traits have. The play setting has been gracefully moved from 16th century Greece to 19th century Tuscany (Berardinelli). The addition of bicycles to the play affects the characters in that they no longer have to chase each other around the woods, but can take chase in a much than efficient fashion. As far as characters are concerned, Demetrius is no longer the smug and somewhat rude character we find in act 1, blastoff 1 (Shakespeare pg. 6, line 91), but rather a seemingly indifferent gentleman placed in an unfortunate circumstance set to delay his espouse to Hermia. Perhaps the most noticeable change in the character set from stage to film occurs in the c haracters of hockey puck and Nick shadow.Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is accomplished in the play as the jester to the King of Fairies, Oberon. He first appears in Act 2, Scene 1 when he and another fairy talk of the disagreement between Oberon and titania are having. The fairy gives us some indication of Pucks character as she describes how Puck frights the maidens of the villagery and Misleading the night wanderers (Act 2.1, line 35). When Titania refuses to give up the boy servant that Oberon wants, he comes up with a plan to steal the child, and enlists Pucks help to do so. Oberon is fully aware of Pucks desire to have a good time at the expense of others, but trusts him with the task of retrieving the flower to make Titania fall in come with Lion, Bear, Wolf, or Bull. (Act 2.1, line 180) The idea here is to convince Titania to hand everywhere the changeling boy while she is infatuated with a beast. Being attracted to mischief, Puck seems excited to be tasked to this adventur e, and claims to return Within forty minutes (Act 2.1, line 176) so that they can get started on their plan.Puck describes his harmful behavior as if it is all logically consistent. He says he Sometimes lurk in gossips bowl, but does not think he takes anything too far. A lot of the humor that Puck brings to the play comes across in a subtle manner. For example, after he places the flower on Lysande... ...age. Instead of laughing at Bottom, the film generates a feeling of sorrow for his character. When the wine is poured on him when the craftsmen first meet, Bottom takes an obvious emotional blow, so one can see how he would artificially inflate himself with the false perception of being a wonderful actor. When chosen to perform for Thesseuss wedding, the players are very nervous and turn to Bottom for comfort. They look up to and respect Bottom for his confidence and acting ability, but Bottom later makes a fool of himself in the play by over dramatizing the part of Pyramus, espec ially when he performs the death of Pyramus. Michael Hoffmans adaptation of A Midsummer Nights Dream brings a classical play to a modern audience and makes it an exciting and humorous experience. This is accomplished most notably with the direction he gives to the two characters discussed. The animated humor of Bottom and the slightly more subtle badgering of other characters brought forth by Puck creates a certain amount of attachment to the movie by the viewer. The cinematic version of Shakespeares play is well adapted to a modern audience, especially through the characters of Puck and Nick Bottom.

Comparing Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and An American Exodus: A Record

Comparing Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and An Ameri digest Exodus A Record of charitable ErosionThe spacious Depression, which began with the stock market crash of 1929 and lasted for the coterminous decade, was a time of desperation and disorientation in America. In an effort to bring the country back on its feet, President Roosevelt initiated the Farm Security disposal (FSA) project. Photographers were hired and sent across the United States to document Americans life in poverty, and Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans were ii of those photographers that were sent out. along with their partners Paul S. Taylor and James Agee they started their projects which were approached through 2 different methods. Agee and Evans project Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Lange and Taylors project An American exodus A Record of Human Erosion, be two similar, though different types of work. Both projects are of the poor tenant farmers in the south and the sharecroppers living during the Great Depression during the 1930s. The first release I noticed is the way the pictures are kick ined in the 2 projects. By this I mean how they are taken and how Evans and Lange chose which ones that were to be included in the books. A second difference is that Agee and Taylor had two different writing techniques and these are the biggest differences between the two books. Despite the similarities in the two texts presented by the authors and photographers, their work is presented in two various ways. Agee and Evans project was done after living with three tenant families and Evans photographs are completely separate from Agees text. there are not any captions or names and they do not tell us where the photos are taken or who the heap in the pictures are. Lange and Taylors project on the other circulate is written in a way that helps us read the photographs and it is easier to see the connections between the text and pictures. The captions underneath the photos are based on words hypothecate by the people in the picture. How ever so, the photos that do not take for any people in them still have captions, but in this case we can assume that someone has told the photographer or author what to write for each photo. By this method the true heart of how the turmoil during this period affected the people in question is more precisely illustrated because it includes the words uttered by the people thems... ...f it hurts you, be glad of it. As near as you will ever get, you are inside the music not only inside it, you are it your body is no longer your require and substance, it is the shape and substance of the music. (101) Here the coordinate of the text is visible, but to me it becomes messy and confusing. I feel he tries to say more than is needed and the meaning do-nothing the words becomes tedious. In conclusion, all though the projects of the authors and photographers are very similar they are very different as well. The only common element the two book s contain is the depictions of the people during the Great Depression. They both try to illustrate the conditions during this time, but thats were the similarities end. As mentioned earlier, the difference lies in the how the text is written and the methods chosen to present the pictures. I feel that Langes and Taylors book is a more accurate presentation of the Great Depression than the book written by Agee and Evans is. Agee and Evanss book seems to be more of a depiction of how they perceived the Great Depression alternatively than how it really was. Therefore, I feel their project is more of an art-piece rather than a documentary. Comparing Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and An American Exodus A RecordComparing Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and An American Exodus A Record of Human ErosionThe Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash of 1929 and lasted for the next decade, was a time of desperation and disorientation in America. In an effort to bring the country back on its feet, President Roosevelt initiated the Farm Security Administration (FSA) project. Photographers were hired and sent across the United States to document Americans living in poverty, and Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans were two of those photographers that were sent out. Along with their partners Paul S. Taylor and James Agee they started their projects which were approached through two different methods. Agee and Evans project Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Lange and Taylors project An American exodus A Record of Human Erosion, are two similar, though different types of work. Both projects are of the poor tenant farmers in the south and the sharecroppers living during the Great Depression during the 1930s. The first difference I noticed is the way the pictures are presented in the two projects. By this I mean how they are taken and how Evans and Lange chose which ones that were to be included in the books. A second difference is that Agee and Taylor had tw o different writing techniques and these are the biggest differences between the two books. Despite the similarities in the two texts presented by the authors and photographers, their work is presented in two various ways. Agee and Evans project was done after living with three tenant families and Evans photographs are completely separate from Agees text. There are not any captions or names and they do not tell us where the photos are taken or who the people in the pictures are. Lange and Taylors project on the other hand is written in a way that helps us read the photographs and it is easier to see the connections between the text and pictures. The captions underneath the photos are based on words formulated by the people in the picture. However, the photos that do not have any people in them still have captions, but in this case we can assume that someone has told the photographer or author what to write for each photo. By this method the true meaning of how the turmoil during thi s period affected the people in question is more precisely illustrated because it includes the words uttered by the people thems... ...f it hurts you, be glad of it. As near as you will ever get, you are inside the music not only inside it, you are it your body is no longer your shape and substance, it is the shape and substance of the music. (101) Here the structure of the text is visible, but to me it becomes messy and confusing. I feel he tries to say more than is needed and the meaning behind the words becomes tedious. In conclusion, all though the projects of the authors and photographers are very similar they are very different as well. The only common element the two books contain is the depictions of the people during the Great Depression. They both try to illustrate the conditions during this time, but thats were the similarities end. As mentioned earlier, the difference lies in the how the text is written and the methods chosen to present the pictures. I feel that Langes and Taylors book is a more accurate presentation of the Great Depression than the book written by Agee and Evans is. Agee and Evanss book seems to be more of a depiction of how they perceived the Great Depression rather than how it really was. Therefore, I feel their project is more of an art-piece rather than a documentary.