Liberty in the history of America Essay Example for Free

Liberty in the history of America Essay Liberty is defined as the manner in which one or groups of people or organism are let free from oppression, starvation, slavery or disturbance of what ever kind. However, there are different definitions and perspectives of the term as used by different personalities, communities, and groups of people. In the history of America, liberty has been used differently to express different ideas. If you tethered a cow on a green pastureland to feed you would be surprised at it when it feeds a little then starts to stretch away from the green pasture. If it is untied, it begins to feed just around the same spot. It wants to be free. There is good pasture. Why is it that the cow can not just feed and wait to be driven home in the evening? If a toddler was given an interesting play toy and left in a locked room with plenty of light, it would stop playing and start to fight its way out of the locked room. Why would it begin to cry and stop playing yet it is not tethered, it is not sick or uncomfortable? We must look for freedom even when we are not pressed down so hard. In fact, liberty according to Lincoln’s observation in 1864 is a term that is used to refer to different things or terms when used by different groups of people. Lincoln emphasizes that liberty means differently in the South as well as in the North. He says that though liberty is the same word for all, it has different implications for different persons and regions. In other wards, the meaning of the term liberty is depends on the context within which it is used by the speaker. This essay focuses on the different perspectives of the term liberty as used by different personalities, at different situations, and at different times or seasons. The North, for example, has its own understanding of the term victory. More so, Douglass differs with Lincoln, in the opinion of what liberty is. On the other hand, the factory owner and the planter have different definitions of the term liberty. Douglass feels that freedom from slavery would be best known as liberty. He came up with a new idea on what slavery entailed. Although in most cases slavery was only associated with offering services in cotton farms of in America, Douglass felt that it was wide spread to as far as the rice farms in South Carolina. He also talks of slavery being exercised in the household services offered to the elites of Boston. In addition to this, Douglass feels humiliated by lack of freedom in the carting services in Manhattan as a means of transportation of goods. He calls this slavery. He is disappointed by the manner in which Black Americans were mistreated, how the freed slaves were mishandled along the streets as well as the interaction of the white reformers, slaves and freed blacks. At this point in life, Douglass decided to recapture the drama of their fighting interaction with a focus on the black Americans, some of whom he recaptured dramatic experiences as they fought for republican slogans fulfillment. Douglass wrote very moving stories on slavery and liberty thus describing what freedom would have meant to the enslaved. In his text entitled, ‘Death or Liberty,’ Douglass highlights the plight of African American Slaves and the experiences with their masters. For example, Qouk Walker, a freedom fighter and a slave who is said to have taken his master to the court. Jones who was enslaved at Delaware house and had to purchase liberty, is also described as a freedom fighter by Douglass. For sure slavery is inhuman since some of the slaves lost there lives due to ignorance of the masters, some were mistreated and had poor health besides working so hard. Some slaves went through a revolutionary act in order to buy their freedom. Although the revolution was a good way to demand for freedom, Douglass argues that the plotters had little or no courage to pursue it as effectively as to gain the liberty they wanted. However, it is undisputed that the activists in the Northern States got their freedom through the battle. Nevertheless, they would not have found equality. It was a matter of death or liberty. Freedom from slavery had to be obtained through a revolution in America. Liberty, according to Abraham Lincoln, is defined differently from the north. Eric Foner says that civil war in America was a source of freedom blessings. Thus the civil war was paramount. â€Å"Civil war resulted in a new birth in freedom,† remarked Lincoln. The United States fight for independence in the civil war is seen to have been very necessary since it resulted in new forms of liberty. Liberty is not only found in the lack of enslavement but also in politics, economics and civil strives in America. Independence Declaration in America underscores the most fundamental human right of Americans. More so, the constitution publicizes its rationale in securing the good fortune of freedom. In fact, President Roosevelt declared that the United States of America fight for the Civil War was not to be taken for granted since it brought with itself different forms of freedom. To emphasize on liberty, the president said that America’s liberty is symbolized by liberty caps, the legal â€Å"statutes of liberty,† and the liberty poles. In Americas expression of freedom they burnet draft cards, escaped from slavery, exercising the voting rights, as well as the burn of stamps. In this way Roosevelt expressed contentment in the four kinds of freedom achieved by the end of Civil War. To confirm the result of the war as a source of freedom, Bunch Ralph authored a text in the year 1940 stating that all persons within the streets of U. S were aware of the fact that America was well known as â€Å"land of the Free. † The term liberty in America did not stop growing after the civil war. It has been growing and changing with the history of the country. Freedom will be used in economic terms as freedom of economy where there is a misconception of the freedom to the access to fire arms by different individual and anti-government militia who claim to be oppressed in different ways. They argue that the right to own arms should be prioritized. According to modifications of the of the 1776 modern America’s â€Å"Declaration of Independence† some economic freedoms have been expressed. Today, Freedom from different forms of taxation, United Nations membership by the U. S. , welfare declarations and regulation of economies, encompasses freedom. Globalization is a form of economic freedom which comes along with heated debates over who to trades with who and how? In reality, freedom has changed from just the mere decline of the civil wars’ blessings to economic and political terminology. That is why Lincoln thinks that freedom in the North is different from freedom in the South. Yes, the â€Å"new birth of freedom† as described by Lincoln defines the widening of freedom contents. Freedom in the South meant independence towards governance of self, assurance of property security and economic independence for more valuable and innovative opportunities. The freedom from slavery was one of the main intentions of the participation in the civil war by the Southern Whites. Majority of the Southern Whites strangled for independence in order to eliminate slavery since they felt that slavery had been used as a means of getting freedom. Although many where fighting to end slavery, Thomas Jefferson owning more than 100 slaves authored a text on â€Å"the inalienable right to liberty. † In one way or the other he was right since the ownership of slaves meant security and prosperity in economic status of an individual during the 19th century. Unfortunately, one would ask, whether the slaves were not entitled to freedom of movement and self expression and individual security. In addition, it was easy then to ask, whoever was entitled to freedom and what the meaning of freedom was. The Northern Whites on the other hand fought for the security of Union as one way of gaining liberty. This entailed the ending of slavery for liberty to prevail. Lincoln further evoked the masses in the Northern by telling them that freeing slaves would be like freeing the free. The 1862 December was the Emancipation Proclamation Congress, in which Lincoln was moved to stir up the understanding of freedom in terms of freeing slaves. The termination of slavery would help to free the whole society, the rich and the poor. It was emphasized that freedom of the United States Whites would signify freedom to the entire globe. With reference to Lincoln, the term liberty provoked different understanding of from different personalities. He said, â€Å"†¦but using the same word we do not mean the same thing. † This was an observation he made in 1864. According to his observation, he states that in the North, freedom is a term used to refer to personal ability to enjoy the fruit of his sweat. The motive in the Northern residents was to work for good product and enjoying it. While in the south the move towards freedom referred to the ability to become a master and enjoy the result of other persons work. The advocated for slavery. This was against the principles of work as per Lincoln’s understanding. Lincoln feels that it slavery reflects theft of some kind since slavery stole other person’s of their hard work. The master enjoys the fruit of slaves’ hard work. Furthermore, it is from the First World War that the rights of voting are granted to women who attained the age of 18 year. The 1865 Union’s victory evoked the debates on nationality of Americans. Victory meant national norm. The redefinition of who an American citizen was became of paramount importance to incorporate different races of America as citizens. The fight for citizenship and voting rights as well as property ownership soon became a source of freedom to the enslaved. Union victory became symbolic of war freedom in terms of empowerment and equal opportunity to all American citizens. As mentioned earlier in this text that Douglass felt that freedom came only if the Black American was fully freed from slavery. He insisted that unless the black American had the right to vote then he was not free. The black American was allowed to vote. Nonetheless, by1890’s the South scraped off their voting rights thus emancipation of the Africa Americans. Liberty as defined by the Southern Planter class, did not allow African Americans on the choice to work on plantations. After the civil war most Southern Whites expected to continue with plantation farming at the expense of African American’s freedom. This meant that African Americans would only receive some form of wages for the labor they offered. Conversely, they were not free to choose on whether or not to work in the plantations. By 1865, Freedom had not yet come to the former slaves in the South even after the end of slavery. Freedom to the Black was confined within limited boundaries which meant advanced slavery. In this context, a planter wrote that beside a man being free, they may lack independence, which implied that African Americans needed not be given the right to vote nor the ownership of land. It was later on discovered that the African American slaves’ freedom implied freedom from forced labor. The reconstruction of 1865- 1866, came up with a rules and regulations governing their freedom limits. The African American former slaves were forced to sign labor contracts and start working on the plantations in the South. This was a rule under the president Johnson who as a result was impeached for the violation of human rights. The question on citizenship was so disturbing that even in the 1940s it was not easy for Asians to gain citizenship by naturalization although their children born in America automatically became citizens. There was still lack of freedom for American residents. Racial discrimination resulted from the barriers of citizenship. While Southern economy was based on agriculture, the northern economy was based on industrialization. Many factories were growing fast and making enormous profits in the North where freedom was experienced in transport systems. There was freedom of economy with factories making maximum profits. Unfortunately, that the immigrants of America within the cities especially in the factories worked under stressful and dangerous working conditions. Although some factory owner created habitable places for their workers most of them failed to acknowledge the need for hospitable working and living conditions for their workers. There was need for freedom from poor working conditions. Factory owners needed to be reminded on the need for clean working conditions. The cotton gin increased production at the expense of slave labor. Women fell victims of enslavement and needed to be freed. There was great desire to broaden freedom quotations for African Americans in the U. S factories. Despite the constant strive to gain liberty in different perspectives; White Americans have sluggishly accepted the African and Asian American as equals. It has take centuries to even have African American be recognized as people who need equal constitutional rights. Nevertheless, the situation is changing with modernity to extend of electing a Black American president as recently Barrack Obama was. Non whites have had to fight uncontrollably to gain that position. Numerous reconstruction presidential reconstruction amendments have been put in place in the fight for liberty. Women were termed as unequal; men took a superior position in all domains of learning and economics as well as politics. In conclusion, there are different definitions of the term freedom depending on the region or the speaker. Lincoln discussed freedom in the South as economical in which masters had power over their servants. The servants were basically slaves. He also described freedom in the North as one that set slaves free from all aspects of forced labor, taxation any form of mistreatment. The planter also describes freedom as the one in which a freed slave would only need to get some wages but have no choice of whether or not to work in the whites plantations. It was mandatory for the slave to work for the master in order to ensure freedom of the Southern masters in terms of economic development. Finally citizenship and freedom of the union victory were form of freedom for the U. S residents. However, it is undisputed that most of the early African Americans bought their way to freedom and citizenship through slavery or even participating successfully in the civil war. Some African American had to take part in revolution in the fight for freedom. We still have to reexamine the meaning of freedom in more fields in the U. S where there is discrimination and racial prejudice. References Donald Herbert D. (1995). Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster Eric J. (1993). To wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Eric F. (1995). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology Of the Republication Party Before Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. Herman B. (2000). A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and Freedmen’s Rights, 1861-1866. New York: Fordham University Press. Neely M. E. (1991). The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties. New York: Oxford University Press. Paul C. N. (1971). The Sacred Trust: American Nationality 1798-1898. New York: Oxford University Press.

Disease trends of the delivery healthcare systems Essay Example for Free

Disease trends of the delivery healthcare systems Essay Advances in global health and science have assisted the disease trends. It has become a never ending mission to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease as well as injury and disability. There have been noted demographic changes in the past 50 years that have resulted from changing trends in child, maternal, and adult death rates (CDC, 2011). Among these are rises in obesity and aging. As these health concerns continue to climb we will have a greater impact on the delivery of services from health care. The importance of these trends assists in prevention and protecting one’s self from new diseases and illnesses as well as old ones. One of the noted trends in healthcare is aging. Focusing on the world’s age composition is one way to understand the impacts and changes in further years to come. According to the US Census Bureau (2013), the elderly population age 65 and older during the twentieth century composed one in every twenty five individuals. In the twenty first century, this same population composed one in every 8 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). This showed that the life expectancy of humans has become longer. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2013), the population in the United States in the year of 2010 was 308.7 million. This indicated a near 10 percent increase over the past ten years. This same 2010 census showed that the elderly population composed 13 percent as opposed to only being 9 percent in the year of 2000. The notable change was determined that there were fewer people in the 65-75 age range but there were more individuals in the 75-85 age ranges. It proved that there were more increasingly elderly individuals reaching into their seventies and even eighties. This increase in age showed that life expectancy and advances in medicine have contributed to individuals living longer lives. This would indicate that as long as medicines and healthcare continued to advance, so would the elderly population in growth. Environmental factors directly contribute to population growth. For one, as the population continues to grow in size, the  natural resources and undeveloped land becomes utilized to accommodate this expansion. Clearing the land and making it more desirable offers more room to continue additions in the population. This in turn offers an increase in the resources that can be utilized for healthcare and science in the creation of vaccines and medications. This increased development has also led to the finding of new resources such as unknown species of plants and animals. These newer found resources can be tested to see if they offer any properties in the expansion of healthcare and medications. The Medical Plant Consortium (2013) states, â€Å"Our major goal in this project has been to capture blue prints of medicinal plants for the advancement of drug discovery and development.† The medical plant consortium further adds well known medicines such as digoxin used for cardiac muscle stimulation comes from the fox glove plant and some of the chemotherapy medications such as vinchristine come from the periwinkle plant. Another noted environmental factor is that the population density has grown over the years. In addition to the population growth, land clearing has been increasing for the purpose of crops farmed for human consumption. The combination of needed developed land for farm crops and the growing population has only contributed to more land being cleared for further discoveries. Some of the changing demographics have been an increase in the population density. Over the years due to advancements in medications and healthcare improving the human life expectancy, th ere is an indicated increase of individuals per square mile than years prior. This is due to the slow development of land but also human life expectancy increasing. January 2011 ushered in the first of approximately 77 million baby boomers born from 1946 through 1964 and surging towards the gates of retirement. Each year 3.5 baby boomers turn 55.† This increase indicates that by 2030 there will be more than twice in the elderly population that in the year 2000 (Transgenerational, 2009). The aging trend is likely to experience an increase in the health issues of today. As we live longer there is more wear and tear to our bodies that developed the need for further medical assistance. As we age our blood vessels and arteries become stiffer causing the heart to have to work harder to function. The longer the heart has to function under this strain, the more likely complications will occur. These factors are directly linked to high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. In addition with aging,  ones bones tend to lose bone mass. This not only weakens t hem increasing the risk for fracture but effects muscle function. Over time muscles lose flexibility and strength. These factors contribute to arthritis. According to the CDC (2013), one of ever two persons will knee arthritis and one in every four will develop hip arthritis. This clearly supports that disease and illness will become more likely as we age. In order to reduce health related problems in aging one should remain fit and incorporate an exercise regimen into their daily life. In addition eating a healthy diet, not smoking, managing stress and taking a daily supplement can help prolong age related diseases (CDC, 2013). Currently the obesity rate in the United States is nearly two of every three persons (Surgeon general, 2009). Research has shown that the united states have the highest population of obesity. A report done from July 2013 shown that the united stated passed the obesity rates of Mexico (Medical News Today, 2013). The U.S. obesity rate has grown from 13 percent in 1960 to 32 percent in 2004 (surgeon general, 2009). References: 1- Centers of Disease Control (CDC), 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/distrnds.html 2- Department of Health and Human services, 2012. http://www.aoa.gov/AoARoot/Aging_Statistics/index.aspx 3- U.S. Census Bureau, 2013. http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/statbriefs/agebrief.html 4- U.S. Census Bureau, 2011. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf 5- PHYS.org, 2013. http://phys.org/news/2011-12-medicinal-benefits.html 6- Transgenerational- design matters, 2009. http://transgenerational.org/aging/demographics.htm 7- Mayo clinic, 2013. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/aging/HA00040 8- Surgeon general, 2009. http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/news/testimony/obesity07162003.html 9- Medical News Today, 2013. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265556.php

Detecting Plasma Leakage in Patients with DHF

Detecting Plasma Leakage in Patients with DHF CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Dengue disease is one of the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. Dengue has become a major international public health concern. The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades. Over 2.5 billion people over 40% of the worlds population are now at risk from dengue. WHO currently estimates there may be 50–100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. Dengue is transmitted to humans by the bite of Aedes mosquitoes. According to WHO (2014), â€Å"Dengue causes a severe flu-like illness, and sometimes a potentially lethal complication called dengue haemorrhagic fever†. About 2.5% of those that are infected by dengue die since dengue has neither treatment nor vaccination.Plasma leakage is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever. So that early recognition of plasma leakage and prompt initiation of appropriate treatment are vital. There are only few researches which are done for plasma leakage detection in patients with DHF. Dengue virus infections may be asymptomatic or may lead to undifferentiated fever, dengue fever (DF) or Dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) with plasma leakage that may lead to Dengue shock syndrome (DSS). DF is generally an acute febrile illness, with severe headache, myalgia, arthralgia and rashes. Leucopenia and thrombocytopenia may also be observed. Although DF may be benign, it could be an incapacitating disease with severe headache, muscle and joint and bone pains. Occasionally unusual haemorrhage such as gastrointestinal bleeding, hypermenorrhea and massive epistaxis may occur. Undifferentiated fever and classical dengue fever can be managed as any other viral fever with symptomatic treatment. However, often it is difficult to differentiate DF from DHF in the early phase (febrile phase) of the illness. DHF is characterized by the acute onset of high fever and is associated with signs and symptoms similar to DF in the early febrile phase. Plasma leakage is the hallmark of DHF which occurs soon after the end of the febrile phase. There is a tendency to develop DSS due to plasma leakage. Therefore suspected DF and DHF patients should be closely monitored to identify patients with DHF. The degree and the rate of plasma leakage in DHF can vary. It can be minimal in some patients while in others it can be very significant. The leak usually starts slowly, increases gradually, slows down and then ceases altogether at the end of leakage phase (usually within 48 hours from the onset). (Ministry of Health, 2012) 1.1 Description of the Research project The main purpose of this research study was to design a system to detect the plasma leakage in patients with DHF by analyzing patients’ medical records .Further, by using this system doctors can intervene early treatment of shock. In recent years machine learning methods have been widely used in medical diagnosis. Medical diagnosis is one of major problem in medical application. Several research groups are working world wide on the development of neural networks in medical diagnosis. Neural networks are used to increase the accuracy and objectivity of medical diagnosis.Detecting plasma leakage is considered as a non-linear problem that shows the complex causal relationship between the variables. However, an artificial neural network that is suitable for problems of extreme complexity not addressable with conventional technologies, either by the conventional computer programming or statistical method. In this research project multilayer feed forward neural network was used to train and test medical records of patients with DHF and DF. The trained network used to test more records of DHF patients to see the network performance and in order to make system practical to use in a real time hospital setting. The diagnostic performance of the proposed network is validated with Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity. 1.2 Literature Survey 1.2.1 Current methods for plasma leakage detection 1.2.1.1 Hemoconcentration Currently, clinical identification of plasma leakage is difficult until DHF develops. The most common method of monitoring leakage relies on identification of haemo-concentration, determined by tracking changes in HCT measurements, with a rise of more than 20% from baseline considered evidence of significant leakage. However, this method can be rather insensitive, particularly if the patient is receiving parenteral fluid therapy, and it is also limited by the fact that an individual’s baseline value is rarely known. (Ministry of Health, 2012) 1.2.1.2 Ultrasonography Studies using ultrasound have demonstrated that pleural effusions, ascites and gall bladder wall oedema are common during the critical phase, and correlate with disease severity. In addition, serial ultrasound studies indicate that subclinical plasma leakage can be detected as days 2 to 3 of fever, and is better at predicting likely disease progression than other marker of plasma leakage such as HCT measurements. Gallbladder wall oedema appears to precede the development of ascites and effusions, and may therefore be a helpful early predictor of outcome. Thus ultrasonography is a useful monitoring tool, and where available, should be considered in the overall assessment during the febrile phase. However, there are certain limitations, particularly the lack of defined normal ranges for the parameters of interest, the variability in measurements obtained by different operators, and the lack of specificity of the findings. (Srikiatkhachorn, Krautrachue, Ratanaprakarn, al, 2007) 1.2.1.3 Chest X-Ray Chest X-ray is recommended to increase the sensitivity of detecting pleural effution. Pleural effusion detected clinically may not be obvious in a Chest X Ray (CXR)-PA, but may be seen only in a CXR right lateral decubitus film. (Ministry of Health, 2012) 1.2.2 Expert Systems An expert system can be divide into two sub-systems the inference engine and the knowledge base. The knowledge base represents facts and rules. The inference engine applies the rules to the known facts to deduce new facts. Inference engines can also include explanation and debugging capabilities CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND THEORY 2.1 Vital Parameters 2.1.1 Pulse The pulse is how many times a minute that our arteries expand and contract in response to the heart. This rate is exactly equal to the heartbeat. 2.1.2 Pulse Pressure 2.2 Neural network 2.2.1 Artificial Neural network vs Biological Neural Network An artificial neural network is a mathematical model or computational model based on biological neural network. In other words, it is an emulation of biological neural system. An ANN is a network of highly interconnecting processing elements (neurons) operating in parallel. Natural neurons receive signals through synapses located on the dendrites or membrane of the neuron. When the signals received are strong enough (surpass a certain threshold), the neuron is activated and emits a signal though the axon. This signal might be sent to another synapse, and might activate other neurons.(Gershenson,2003) 2.2.2 Model of Neural Network Artificial neuron is a highly abstracted model of the natural neuron. Inputs of artificial neuron behave like synapse of a biological neuron which are multiplied by weights (strength of the respective signals), and then computed by a mathematical function which is called Transfer function (also known as Activation function) in order to determine the activation of the neuron. The model of a neuron also includes an externally applied bias (threshold) that has the effect of lowering or increasing the net input of the activation function. 2.2.3 Multilayer Feed forward (MLF) Neural Network A MLF neural network consists of neurons that are ordered into layers. The first layer is called the input layer, the last layer is called the output layer, and the layers between are hidden layers. A neural network that has no hidden units is called a Perceptron. However, a perceptron can only represent linear functions, so it isn’t powerful enough for the kinds of applications. A multilayer feed forward neural network can represent a very broad set of nonlinear functions. Therefore, it is very useful in practice. 2.2.4 Transfer function The behaviour of an ANN depends on both the weights and transfer function that is specified for the units. There are three transfer functions most commonly used for multilayer networks. 2.2.5 Supervised Learning Supervised learning is an approach to find the input-output relationship based from the training using a set of data. Fig. 2.6 represents the block diagram of supervised learning. Learning system is fed with the input data and generates output, which is then compared with the target to compute the error signal by arbitrator. The error is sent to the learning system for further training until the minimum value of error is generated. (Muhammad Akmal Sapon, 2011) 2.2.6 Backpropagation Algorithm The backpropagation algorithm is used in feed-forward ANNs. Artificial neurons are organized in layers and send their signals â€Å"forward†, and then the errors are propagated backwards. The network receives inputs by neurons in the input layer, and the output of the network is given by the neurons in the output layer. There may be one or more intermediate hidden layers. The backpropagation algorithm used for supervised learning. The network computes the error that is the difference between output and desired target and the backpropagation algorithm calculate how the error depends on the input, output and weights. The backpropagation technique reduces this error, until the ANN learns the training data. 2.2.7 Training the network CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND IMPLEMENTATION In this research project Microsoft Excel 2010 was used to analysis the collected data and MATLAB R2013a (8.1.0.604), 64-bit(win64) software was used as a tool to implement and to train the Neural Network. 3.1 Data Collection The records of 10patients with DHF and 6 patients with DF from September 2013 to April 2014which are obtained from centre for clinical Management of Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic fever government hospital in Negombo. The data consists of total 1081 instances which 164 instances belonged to the leaking phase and 139 instances belonged to the non-leaking phase. Each data consists of 10 variables such as heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, PCV, Temperature and all are coded as numeric values. The patients are both male and female between 18 to 60 years old and who have over 50kg weight. These measurements are taken at equally spaced time points (hourly) since the patient was admitted to the hospital. 3.2 Data Preparation One of the most important parts in data preparation is to determine the best variables that contribute to the decision-making. The data selection step requires some detailed knowledge of the problem domain and the underlying data. Therefore, the selections of the variables are based on the advice of the doctors and also the review of the literatures. Even though there are quite a number of variables entered into the Observation Chart, only five variables are identified as the important variables that contribute to the detection of plasma leakage. They are as follows, 3.3 Neural Network Training The training method was supervised training. Input vector contained 490 data for leakage phase and 591for non-leakage phase. The respective target for each was2-element class vector with a 1 in the position of the associated leaking or non-leaking. A two-layer feed-forward network with 20 sigmoid hidden neurons was created. The tansig(Tan-Sigmoid) is chosen as the transfer function for both hidden and output layers. The input vectors and target vectors are randomly divided into training, validation and test sets. From input vector 70% are used for training set,15% are used to validate that the network is generalizing and to stop training before overfitting, and the last 15% are used as a completely independent test of network generalization. The network was retrained until the network performance approach a satisfactory level (beyond 85%) of supervised training by using different training algorithms and increasing number of hidden neurons. 3.4 Testing The trained neural network saved and it was used to test the new dataset. The new dataset consist of 50 leakage phase and 50 non-leakage phase data. Correct classifications and misclassifications were recorded. CHAPTER 4: DATA AND ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 4.1 Performance Performance is measured in terms of mean squared error, and shown in log scale below figure 5.1. It rapidly decreased as the network was trained. Performance is shown for each of the training, validation and test sets. The version of the network that did best on the validation set is was after training. This figure does not indicate any major problems with the training. The validation and test curves are very similar.If the test curve had increased significantly before the validation curve increased, then it is possible that some over fitting might have occurred. 4.2 Confusion Matrix Confusion matrix contains information about actual and predicted classifications done by a classification system for supervised learning system. In confusion matrix, diagonal cells (in green cells) show the number of cases that were correctly classified, and the off-diagonal cells (in red cells) show the misclassified cases. The blue cell in the bottom right shows the total percent of correctly classified cases (in green) and the total percent of misclassified cases (in red). In this study, as shown in above figure 5.2, accuracy of training, testing and validation process are 90.9%, 80.9% and 79.0% respectively. Overall accuracy for correct classification is 87.6% and misclassification is 12.4%.Therefore the results show fairly good recognition. 4.3 Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves The coloured lines (green and blue) in each axis represent the ROC curves for training, testing and validation. The ROC curve is another visualization of quality of the network. It is a plot of the true positive rate (sensitivity) versus the false positive rate (1-specificity) as the threshold is varied. A perfect test shows points in the upper-left corner, with 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity. In this study, the network performs fairly good.

Electronic Commerce Essay -- Ecommerce E-commerce

Electronic commerce   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the fastest growing industries today is electronic commerce. Almost anything can be purchased, traded, or sold all via the Internet. A person sitting in their living room dressed in pajamas on a rainy Saturday morning in mid December can hookup to the internet and place their bid on a new chess set for the holidays without ever setting foot in the department stores. They can pay for it with their credit card through a secure transaction and have it delivered right to their door in a couple of days for less than they could get it retail. An article by Jan Thomas said that the electronic commerce industry is booming and that it has grown at an alarming rate of over 2000 percent since last year. She continued to say that she predicts that it will continue to grow at an even faster rate, as more and more products become available online and that knowledge of Internet commerce is really happening. (34)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the major reasons that this industry is booming is because purchasing over the Internet has been made very easy compared to the traditional way of shopping. Ordinarily a consumer will take the kids and pile in the family car and head to the local shopping mall. Once they get there they will find what they are looking for only to be told by the rude, pushy sales person that it is out of stock. After they get pushed into something other than what they came for they will wait in a line similar to that of Space Mountain at Disney World....

Exemplification Essay: Bulimia Nervosa :: Expository Exemplification Essays

People with bulimia nervosa consume large amounts of food and then rid their bodies of the excess calories by vomiting, abusing laxatives or diuretics, taking enemas, or exercising obsessively. Some use a combination of all these forms of purging. Because many individuals with bulimia "binge and purge" in secret and maintain normal or above normal body weight, they can often successfully hide their problem from others for years. Lisa developed bulimia nervosa at 18. Like Deborah, her strange eating behavior began when she started to diet. She too dieted and exercised to lose weight, but unlike Deborah, she regularly ate huge amounts of food and maintained her normal weight by forcing herself to vomit. Lisa often felt like an emotional powder keg--angry, frightened, and depressed. Unable to understand her own behavior, she thought no one else would either. She felt isolated and lonely. Typically, when things were not going well, she would be overcome with an uncontrollable desire for sweets. She would eat pounds of candy and cake at a time, and often not stop until she was exhausted or in severe pain. Then, overwhelmed with guilt and disgust, she would make herself vomit. Her eating habits so embarrassed her that she kept them secret until, depressed by her mounting problems, she attempted suicide. Fortunately, she didn't succeed. While recuperating in the hospital, she was referred to an eating disorders clinic where she became involved in group therapy. There she received medications to treat the illness and the understanding and help she so desperately needed from others who had the same problem. Family, friends, and physicians may have difficulty detecting bulimia in someone they know. Many individuals with the disorder remain at normal body weight or above because of their frequent binges an purges, which can range from once or twice a week to several times a day.

Modern Man Has Become Enslaved by Time :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Modern Man Has Become Enslaved by Time In no characteristic is existing society in the West so sharply distinguished from the earlier societies, whether of Europe or the East, than in its conception of time. To the ancient Chinese or Greek, to the Arab herdsman or Mexican peon of today, time is represented by the cyclic processes of nature, the alternation of day and night, the passage from season to season. The nomads and farmers measured and still measure their day from sunrise to sunset, and their year in terms of seedtime and harvest, of the falling leaf and the ice thawing on the lakes and rivers. The farmer worked according to the elements, the craftsman for as long as he felt it necessary to perfect his product. Time was seen as a process of natural change, and men were not concerned in its exact measurement. For this reason civilizations highly developed in other respects had the most primitive means of measuring time: the hour glass with its trickling sand or dripping water, the sun dial, useless on a dull day, and the candle or lamp whose unburnt remnant of oil or wax indicated the hours. All these devices were approximate and inexact, and were often rendered unreliable by the weather or the personal laziness of the tender. Nowhere in the ancient or mediaeval world were more than a tiny minority of men concerned with time in the terms of mathematical exactitude. Modern, western man, however, lives in a world that runs according to the mechanical and mathematical symbols of clock time. The clock dictates his movements and inhibits his actions. The clock turns time from a process of nature into a commodity that can be measured and bought and sold like soap or sultanas. And because, without some means of exact time keeping, industrial capitalism could never have developed and could not continue to exploit the workers, the clock represents an element of mechanical tyranny in the lives of modern men more potent than any individual exploiter or than any other machine. It is therefore valuable to trace the historical process by which the clock influenced the social development of modern European civilization. It is a frequent circumstance of history that a culture or civilization develops the device that will later be used for its destruction.

How and why did USA become involved in the Vietnam War Essay

In march 12, 1947 with the truman doctrine and the newly introduced policy of containment usa decided to award itself with status of policeman of the world giving themselves a permission to intervene anywhere in the world when they consider it is neccessary. This was the policy that allowed them to interpose in vietnam. Vietnamese people under the leadership of ho chi mihn, founder of viet minh defeated french at diem bien phu who had controll over whole indochina (thailand, vietnam, combodia, laos). Although usa was sending aid to french they didn’t help much because president eisenhower has just been elected to end the korean war therefore he didn’t want to involve usa in another conflict. However after french defeat and the devision of vietnam into north which was communist and south usa started to realize the danger of communism spreading into asia and saw vietnam as a puppet in hands of ussr and china. in convinction that responsibility for the ‘domino effect’ will be theirs if they won’t do anything. n 1954 usa prevented the re-uniting free elections from taking place, foreboding uniting vietnam under communist goverment. this time they showed their resilient attitude, considering their disapproval with ussr, not holding free elections in their sattelites. nevertheless there were no elections and usa picked up anti-communist diem to become a president of south vietnam. This decision led to many protest especially from buddhist monks since diem was ignorat to their religion and culture, he himself being christian. uring his reign he forbade any elections and set members of his family into important positions. his corruption and way of controling south vietnam was the reason for more and more people joining the national front for the liberation of south vietnam, the viet cong. although usa didn’t agree with his governance after his murder they continued to support his equally corrupt successor. Meantime, in usa after kennedy’s assasination new president was elected with completely different attitude. b johnson seemed more considered about vietnam and sent more and more military personel, the so called ‘advisors’ to vietnam. During his leadership he achieved the tonkin gulf resolution under suspicious coincidences of the tonkin gulf incident, giving him ultimate power to launch immediate attack or start war without the need of consulting the idea with senate or advisors. lbj was the most involved president in vietnam war and he started the open war with vietnam. When advisors were not enough and the infiltration of north vietnamese in south vietnam became with increasing number of attacs intorelable problem, in march 1965 lbj decided to launch the operation rolling thunder, bombing of the North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh’s trail which was the major mean of supplying south vietnam by Viet Cong. within a short time usa realized that this tactics is not appropriate but they were in convinction that easing would signal their weakness. n addition this operation lasted for eight years where high explosives, herbicides to destroy the jungle and defoliant agent orange were used and more bombs were dropped on vietnam than on germany by all the allies during the second world war. despite the growing objections johnson launched full-scale war with the first conventional warfare in ia drang valley which both sides considered as victory. Although americans inflicted greater losses than they have suffered (a:300 v:2000), vietnamese held their position s. This way the war continued for number of years marked with unsuccessful negotiations with main problem of diplomacy frequently undermined by military activity at a critical moment. In 1967 in south Vietnam were held the ‘free’ elections but without any communist party. Thieu was elected with a low vote but finally usa could say they are defending democratically elected goverment. in following years after the failure of previous operations, operations search and destroy was introduced which main aims were defending us bases, launching search and destroy missions. Another operation, an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the peasant was also complete failure, highlighting the main American problem – misapprehension of the culture of Vietnamese people. The Vietnam war being the first televised war hugely influenced it and seeing the happenings in vietnam many student protests took place in usa, especially after the Mai Lay massacre which shocked people being the evidence that something in this war has gone wrong. n 1967 increase of bombing by more than 50%, generals still requsting more men and viet cong still holding their positions even advancing (the tet offesnive 1968) and more than 3 000 000 casualities made johnson slowly realize that this war he will not win. In 1968 johnson after many absurd years of fighting informed public that usa will halt bombing, awaiting peace talks. the president has given up ending this terrible mistake and resignated, Vietnam finally became free, united and communist.