Computer Ethics and Its Issues That Concern IT Professionals Essay

Computer Ethics and Its Issues That Concern IT Professionals - Essay Example Computer professionals need to know the boundaries of using the confidential information to avoid invasion of the people's privacy. The basics still settles down into knowing what is good and evil. One of the most basic and the most significant requirement of man is ethics. In order for him to understand the nature of good and evil, he has to have ethics that would explain to him these two opposing ideas. Doing what is right and what is wrong is determined by a person's ethics. Bahm (1994) defines ethics as a science that involves theory and practice. The theories derived out of a person's behaviour should as well be tested and clarified based from the resulting situation. At the same time, both personal and social aspects of man are interdependent such that each individual has his or her own values that enable him to tell whether the choices he made are right or wrong. Because of his values innate in him - for which the concept of ethics was drawn from - is dictated by man's oughtness which "consists in the power that an apparently greater good has over an apparently lesser good, or an apparently lesser evil has over an apparently greater evil, or an apparent good had over an apparent evil, in compelling choices" according to Bahm. Thus, man's choices are dictated by his values for which ethics evaluates and judges, and eventually be practised by his oughtness. (Bahm, p 27, 1994) Ethics isEthics is used to criticise, defend, promote, justify and suggest moral concepts and to answer the questions that concerns morality. (http://www.galilean-library.org/int11.html, para 2, Sept. 21, 2006) Moreover, Baase's (2003) concept of ethics is as simple and as basic as "doing the right thing." Therefore, behaving ethically goes down to the most common and the simplest basis of human good - that is being honest, keeping promises, doing the job well, and not stealing. Ethics had become popular in studying philosophy even during the ancient times. Furthermore, it has been continuously studied and given as much attention since it plays a major role in the formation of man's personality and the society as well where man is a member of. The role of man in the society, therefore, made ethics an important issue that needs to be given as much attention. Since ethics is generally an extensive theme, philosophers break it into several branches that cater to the different aspects of life. Some of these branches of ethics are business ethics, medical ethics, educational ethics, law and order ethics, and so on. Depending on the nature of the ethical branch, a set of codes are identified. Computer Ethics A. History In the 1940's, during the World War II, MIT professor Norbert Wiener saw the social and ethical consequences concerning the technologies used at that time. Therefore, he decided to create a new field of research he called "cybernetics" - the science of information feedback system. He was well aware even before the atomic

Online vs Brick and Mortar Essay Example for Free

Online vs Brick and Mortar Essay In today’s world, everyone is always so busy and sometimes there is just not enough time in the day to get all your work done. Technology is changing to make everything in our lives easier; like the way we pay bills, online banking, find information, get reviews, order tickets, and so much more. One thing that technology has changed that is beneficial for everyone is the way we shop. Brick-and-mortar has always existed, but now with online shopping it has become a competition to the old-fashioned way. Most people spend their days at work, then come home to clean, cook dinner, help the children with homework, and get them ready for bed. With all that going on people sometimes forget things that they were supposed to do. So now instead of bothering to go to the store, you can comfortably sit on the couch and shop for what you need without all the hassle. Online shopping is becoming more popular these days, because you can now get anything you want without leaving your home, it has many benefits, different sale opportunities, but there are also some inconveniences. When you are at the store, have you ever experienced one of those annoying and eager sales people trying to pressure you to buy a certain product that you have no interest in or just looking at? When shopping online you will not experience that problem any more. Online shopping has many advantages that benefit everyone, which going to the traditional store does not offer. Now you do not have to leave your home when you want to go to the store. You will not be wasting money on the gas to get there and back. Also when you shop online you never have to worry about the Internet closing (Top 10 Benefits Of Online Shopping, 2013). Stores have a closing time, except Wal-Mart, and if you don’t make it before closing you are out of luck until the next day. You will not have to worry about if the store is busy or if the lines will be long, because it will only be you on your computer. Online shopping is perfect if your town or state does not have the store that you love to shop at. Now you can get on the computer and still shop there without all the travel time. The best thing about online shopping is that there is normally more selection (Top 10 Benefits Of Online Shopping, 2013). If you went to the store already and if they did not have what you wanted any more, you could go online and there are normally more or different products you can pick from. Another benefit to online shopping is sending gifts (Top 10 Benefits Of Online Shopping, 2013). If your friends or relatives live in a different state, instead of mailing a gift you can go online, buy the item, and have them ship it to the recipient’s home. When shopping online compared to going to the store, you will receive different promotion or discount opportunities. Instead of going to all the stores checking for the best price on a certain item, you can easily look at all the stores online without all the extra work (Top 10 Benefits Of Online Shopping, 2013). Unlike shopping in the store, when shopping online you can Google discount codes for that store and save more money with the codes they offer. If you find yourself online shopping at the same store frequently it would be a good idea to sign up for their e-mail list. You will receive weekly codes free shipping and deals online that they do not normally have in the stores. Online shopping is marvelous to look at other people’s reviews on the product you are about to buy (Top 10 Benefits Of Online Shopping, 2013). If there are terrible reviews, you will save money by not choosing the poorly reviewed item. That benefit is not offered when shopping in the store. There are always inconveniences to trying to buy things online that you would not experience if you went to the store. If you are trying to buy clothing or shoes, you will have to know what your size is or you could order the wrong one. Most stores very in sizes, so it is not wise to order online if you are not familiar with your size from that particular store. When shopping for things like furniture or home dà ©cor, it may be hard to tell the size or exact color so when you get that item you may not like it in person. If you were shopping online for lotion, perfume, or makeup you may not like the scent, color, or feel of that product, but if you went to the store you would not deal with problem like that. Another thing that causes inconveniences is the shipping costs and the amount shopping time (Advantage Disadvantage Of Shopping Online, 1993). Instead of wasting gas money, you have to spend money shipping the products to your house, and it could take days to get there. At that point you are only saving mileage on your car. When shopping online it will be important to know the return policy of that specific store, because all the stores are different. If you order something online, and you cannot return the item you are stuck with it no matter what (Advantage Disadvantage Of Shopping Online, 1993). Also there can be an issue of not having a credit card. If you are the type of person who chooses not to have one, then you cannot order items online. If you go shopping at the store you have the option of paying by cash, check, or credit card. If you do have a credit card and order online then you have to worry about identity theft and making sure that website has a secure checkout (Advantage Disadvantage Of Shopping Online, 1993). Technology will continue to expand, help make our lives easier, and create less of a hassle. Brick and mortar will always be a way to shop, but online shopping will continue to grow and become more popular as technology adapts to the future. When you online shop it makes your shopping time easier and shorter compared to brick-and-mortar shopping. You would not have to bother getting ready or driving there, you could sit in the comfort of your own home while ordering the items you need without leaving your home. Although brick-and-mortar shopping is better to actually see, touch, and try what you will buy, which is something online shopping does not offer (Advantage Disadvantage Of Shopping Online, 1993). When shopping online it is easy to quickly find a coupon to save you some money, which is another thing you can’t do in the store. Online or brick and mortar shopping, everyone has their own preference.

Delay Aware Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT)

Delay Aware Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) Delay Aware Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) Approach for MANET Abstract Route discovery and data transmission in Mobile Ad-Hoc networks (MANETs) are the key procedures which influence the performance of the network. The data transmission through the discovered route with in minimum delay is considered as a major problem in the MANET. Hence this paper proposed an approach called Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) approach to minimize average delay. In this approach, the broadcast has been converged to two zones after the initial broadcasting in order to minimize the broadcast delay. Based on the data size and the Time to Live (TTL), the data transmission is initiated via multipath or single path. Game theory approach (GTA) is a powerful mathematical tool for analyzing the strategic communications among several decision makers. Hence this paper utilizes the GTA for switching the path between inter-zonal and intra-zonal nodes for different source data to provide a successful data transmission. The simulation results show that the approach is efficien t in terms of delay, packet delivery ratio, and localization error when compared to the existing approaches. Keywords: Routing, MANET, MSZT, game theory approach, delay 1. Introduction A multi-hop wireless Ad hoc network (MANET) is composed of mobile nodes, which can communicate without any aid of centralized Infrastructure (T.Durga , 2015) The demand of different multimedia applications such as surveillance system and video on demand service over MANET has been increasing rapidly in recent years. However, it is not easy to support the data transmission according to the end-to-end delay requirements over MANETs. A number of routing protocols have been proposed for Ad hoc mobile networks to improve the QoS ((K.S.Dinesh , 2014). Most of the routing protocols use the minimum hop numbers as a metric of route cost while taking routing decisions. However they ignore the some important link capacity properties because of simplicity and ease of implementation. Each node in the network may have different traffic load and hence, nodes which have more active neighbors may experience more collisions (Rakesh Kumar, et, al., 2010). Uncertainly some of the over loaded nodes may fall on the minimum hop route, it may considerably introduce a longer delay, even though the number of nodes in the chosen route is minimum. In addition, if some of the over loaded nodes are congested; it may result in huge packet drop rates and consequent retransmission. This may increase the end – to – end delay between two end points. Thus in this paper Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) routing approach has been proposed in order to reduce average delay. The approach reduces the number of broadcast after the initial broadcast in the network. Multipath data transmission is enabled based on the TTL and the data size. The game theory approach is used to switch the path between inter-zonal and intra-zonal nodes for different source data, which is a powerful mathematical tool. The path switching while during the data transmission provides a successful data transmission by checking the path availability. Thus this approach enhance the QoS demanded MANET applications The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the recent related work on the delay aware MANET. Section 3 describes the system model of the proposed Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) routing approach. The explanation of the Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) routing approach is presented in the section 4. Section 5 describes the simulation results. Finally, section 6 renders the conclusion 2. Related Work (Saad M. Adam, et, al., 2013) presents an reactive routing protocols overview in terms of QoS requirements in MANET. Due to the requirements has been fulfilled for the commercial, real-time, and multimedia applications in MANET. The delay has been considered as one of the important QoS metric to satisfy the application requirements. The delay optimization approach has been presented by the authors (Syed Jalal Ahmad, et, al., 2015) for multimedia application in MANET. The Knapsack algorithm is used for buffer management to maximize and minimize the in order and out order packets simultaneously. The buffer internals are exploited and the adjusting the buffer usage dynamically makes the node to transmit the packet in the preferred order to its successive nodes. The simulation results show that the approach transmits multimedia data packet without loss and in minimum delay. (K. Sasikala,et, al., 2014) proposed the finite state machine for queue and transmission management mechanism to minimize the packet delay time in MANET. Information about the delay for each data flow in the queue is maintained in a node. A timer is fixed to each flow in a node and it has been updated dynamically. Based on the nodes characteristics the queue is controlled to minimize the packet delay. (Obaidat, M, et, al., 2011) proposes a multipath routing protocol for MANETs. The protocol establishes the route, which having the lowest delays relied upon the communication of various layers. The performance of the protocol is compared with the AODV and AOMDV. (V. R. Budyal and S. S. Manvi, 2013) presents a clever agent based on-demand QoS routing methodology in MANET. The intelligent agent utilizes the neuro-fuzzy logic aided by Q-learning. The DSR protocol has been enhanced to discover all the multiple paths and the condition of the path from source to destination. The fuzzy membership function has been optimized by the software agents and if then rules are made to take decision in the system. A cross layer design is made for delay concerned Node Disjoint Multipath AODV in Ad Hoc Network by the author (GawasMahadev A, et,al., 2014). The channel and link information has been obtained by applying the cross layer design between the MAC and routing layer. The path status has been updated subsequently by concerning the lowest delay attained at each intermediate node. The protocol is compared with the AODV and NMDR and it perform better than the other two in terms of routing overhead and packet delivery ratio. 3. Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) The Multipath Switching Zone traversal routing approach is proposed in this paper to minimize the average delay in the network. The approach is implemented after the initial broadcast from the source. The MSZT is composed of two parts such as route discovery and path switching. 3.1 Route Discovery During the initial broadcast the source node obtains the information about the location of the destination node by using the GPS service. After the initial broadcast, the source node divides its communication range into four equal zones for further broadcasting. The node broadcast the RREQ message through one or at most 2 zones, where the broadcast should be destination oriented zone based on the location information of the destination node. Only one node must be selected in each zone for forwarding the broadcast. Alike the source node, the forwarding node also divides its communication range into four equal zones and forward the broadcast in the same manner. The process will take place until the destination node is reached. Before the data transmission via the shortest path, the Expected Transmission Time (ETT) and the TTL value has to be estimated to enable multipath through the different zones in order of increasing the packet delivery factor (PDF). Expected Transmission Time (ETT) is the time taken for transmitting a data packet successfully to the destination. The ETT is estimated based on the data size of a packet. (1) Here ETX is the expected transmission count i.e. expected number of transmissions that a node needs to transmit a packet successfully to a neighbor. The ETX can be estimated as follows (2) Where dforward is the received probes from a A dreverse is the received probes from B Where t is the average time a single data packet requires to be delivered and the t can be estimated as follows (3) The maximum Time to Live (TTL) is a timer data part in the IP header which specifies RREQ packet life time before it is discarded (Cheng-Yuan Ho,et, al., 2007). All the RREQ fields in its route cache have been maintained in order to find the route minimum Time to Live (TTL) value after TTL time expires and the information about the TTL is available in the RREP packet. If the ETT is greater than the TTL, then the packets are fragmented and then the packet has been transmitted over the multiple paths. 3.2 Path Switching Algorithm based on the Game theory Approach Game theory is a mathematical tool for analyzing and estimating how a person behaves in strategic situations. The game is composed of three fundamental components: a set of players, a set of strategies, and a set of payoffs. Nodes (players) are the decision takers in the game. The strategies are the various options available to nodes such as (TTL, node availability) (Badr Benmammar, Francine Krief, 2014). At last the utility function (payoffs) make a choice of all possible outcomes for each player. The components of the proposed game theory approach are given in the table 1. Table 1Components of the proposed Game Theory Approach After each transmission, the next hop zonal node must update the path availability (zone availability) to its predecessor node. The competition is between the multiple paths available between the source nodes to the destination node. After each successful data transmission the payoff is considered such as the availability and the TTL in order to stay on the same path otherwise path is switched to the next highest probability value of the available path. For each available path a probability value is estimated and it is formulated as follows (4) Here the total hops is the number of hops in the path and the not available hops is the number of hop which is not available for next data transmission due to the reason â€Å"the node is available for other source node in the network†. This information is updated to the source after each successful transmission. The proposed path switching algorithm based on the game theory approach is shown in the figure 1. Figure 1 Path switching algorithm based on the game theory approach 5. Simulation Results The proposed Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) routing approach make an effort to minimize average end to end delay to enhance the network performance. The NS2 simulation has been adopted to evaluate the performance of the MSZT approach and the simulation setup is shown in the table 2. The performance of the MSZT is compared with other existing approach such as Zone Tree Routing (ZTR), Path State Routing (PSR). The metrics used to measure the performance of the proposed approach are broadcast delay, localization error and packet delivery factor. Table 2 Simulation Setup A. Performance metrics Broadcast Delay: Broadcasting is the fundamental process where the probe transmission from the source to all other forwarding nodes to arrive at the destination. The broadcast delay is the difference between the packet receiving time (prt) by destination and the packet transmitted time (ptt) from the source node. (5) Localization Error: Localization error (LE) is accounted as a one of the performance metric in the scattered network and it yields the LE of a node. (6) Where EMax is the maximum LE (7) (8) Where a is the radius based on the communication range of node i in a network model and it can be determined as follows (9) Where N is the number of nodes A is the area of the network and is the connectivity order ie the number of neighbor nodes linked to the node i The average value of LE for a network can be determined as follows (10) Packet Delivery Factor Packet delivery factor is defined as the ratio of the number of packet arrived at the destinations to those transmitted data packets by the source. (11) B. Discussion In the proposed approach the broadcast delay has been minimized by converging the broadcasting to one or at most two zones. The nodes distance increases then the broadcast delay increases simultaneously. Figure 2 shows the broadcast delay concerning the distance. The broadcast delay attained by the proposed MSZT for 10 m distance is 15 ms, while the PSR and the ZTR incurred 16ms, 19ms. Figure2 Broadcast delay The localization is directed in our approach by broadcasting towards the destination oriented zones after the initial broadcast. The increase in distance between the nodes affects the localization error. Figure 3 shows the localization error concerned with the distance. The localization error attained by the proposed MSZT for 10 m distance is 2%, while PSR and ZTR attained 16%, 18%. Figure 3 Localization error The multipath switching algorithm in the proposed approach improves the packet delivery factor by considering the TTL and path availability. When the number of group (paths) involved in the data packet transmission increases then the packet delivery factor (PDF) will decrease. While in the proposed a minimum number of zones have been utilized than the existing methods in the network. Figure 4 shows the packet delivery considering the number of groups. For 2 groups the proposed approach MSZT acquired 0.94, while the PSR and ZTR incurred 0.91, 0.83. Figure 4 Packet Delivery Factor 6. Conclusion This paper proposes a Multipath Switching Zone Traversal (MSZT) routing approach for achieving a minimum average delay in a network. The number of broadcast has been converged to two zones after initial broadcast in order to minimize the broadcast delay. Multiple paths have been selected through different nodes presents in different zone. While during data transmission the TTL and the data size has been checked to provide a successful data transmission with minimum transmission delay. Furthermore a game theory approach based path switching algorithm has been proposed after each successful data transmission to improve the delay metric for each data transmission. The simulation results show that the proposed routing approach performs better than the existing approaches in terms of Localization error, broadcast delay and Packet delivery factor References 1.Syed Jalal Ahmada , V.S.K. Reddyb, A. Damodaramc and P. RadhaKrishnad, â€Å" Delay optimization using Knapsack algorithm for multimedia traffic over MANETs†, Expert Systems with Applications, Elsevier, vol 42, issue 20, pages 6819-6827. 2. K. Sasikala, Dr. R. S. D. Wahidabanu, â€Å" Adaptive packet scheduling technique to minimize the packet delay time in MANET by maintaining a Queue for each flow through FSM Mechanism†, Journal of Convergence Information Technology(JCIT), Vol 9, No 3, 2014. 3. Saad M. Adam , Rosilah Hassan, â€Å"Delay aware Reactive Routing Protocols for QoS in MANETs: a Review†, Journal of Applied Research and Technology, Elsevier, vol 11, issue 6, pages 844-850, 2013. 4. Obaidat M, Ali M.A, Obaidat M.S, Obeidat S, Shahwan I, â€Å"A Novel Multipath Routing Protocol for MANETs†, International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing (WiCOM), pages 1-6, 2011. 5. Cheng-Yuan Ho, Yaw-Chung Chen, and Cheng-Yun Ho, â€Å"Improving Performance of Delay-Based TCPs with Rerouting†, International conference on Communication letters, IEEE, vol 11, no 1, 2007. 6. Badr Benmammar, Francine Krief, â€Å"Game theory applications in wireless networks: A survey† International Conference on Software Engineering, Applications of Information Systems in Engineering and Bioscience, 2014. 7. V. R. Budyal and S. S. Manvi, â€Å"Intelligent Agent Based Delay Aware QoS Unicast Routing in Mobile Ad hoc Networks†, International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering, vol 8, no 1, 2013. 8. GawasMahadev A, Gudino, Lucy J, Anupama K. R, Rodrigues, Joseph, â€Å"A Cross-Layer Delay-Aware Node Disjoint Multipath Routing Algorithm For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks†, International Journal of Wireless Mobile Networks, vol 6, issue 3, page 39, 2014. 11. K.S.Dinesh , â€Å"Routing Overhead Reduction and Selection of Stable Paths in MANET†, International Journal of Inventions in Computer Science and Engineering (IJICSE), vol 1, issue 9, pages 2348-3539, 2014. 12. T.Durga , â€Å"Maximizing the Network Lifetime by Using a Mobile Aware Topology Control Algorithm in MANET†, Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology, pages 2349-2252, vol 2, issue 3, 2015. 13. Rakesh Kumar, Manoj Misra and Anil K. Sarje, â€Å"A Simplified Analytical Model for End-To-End Delay Analysis in MANET†, International Journal Computer Application (IJCA), no 4, article 6, 2010.

Rebellion in The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood Essay -- Rebel The

Rebellion in The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood 'Rebel' is a term, which is highly weighed down with emotion. In society today we perceive a rebel to be a figure opposing a much stronger majority. We distinguish the rebel to be a character who fights for his/her own ideals. We see a person that will do anything almost being ruthless to destroy the boundaries set up against him/her by the stronger mass. We witness the rebel as an individual who deliberately defines a battlefield and two fighting fronts. The rebel is constantly is resisting. The only way he/she can defend his morals and values are to strike the greater that condemns his/her values and morals. Unfortunately today there are many misconceptions and preconceptions relating to the essence of a true rebel. Society tends to comprehend the rebel to be figure fighting on the front lines, spilling blood for his cause. Especially the media has delivered this image of a rebel. We must acknowledge the fact there are other forms of rebels and rebellions. It is not fair to say that the form of rebel that is described above is not valid, but still we must make a suitable distinction. We must not always consider the rebel to be an individual like 'William Wallace' who fought for his country's independence by using violence as his primary weapon. In the course of history we have witnessed another category of rebels. Characters such as Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King and Emmeline Pankhurst all gave birth to another form of rebel, the rebel that fought for his values passively. They did not confront the enemy with the sword but with words. The novel 'The Handmaids Tale' by Margaret Atwood tells the story of a near future oppressive society govern... ...poke out against them in the loudest voice possible. Offred's cassettes did more than just speak her voice. I feel that the true reason why Offred did not assign her name is because she wanted to speak universally. Offred wanted to speak in the name of all handmaids. In studying Offred's rebellion we can see that she suffered an internal conflict. Offred's plight is always human as well as ideological. She wanted to rebel but at the same time she was scared of loosing herself in the process. Offred had to win the conflict within her before she could start the external battle. Offred won this conflict and decided that her humanity was the risk for a great cause, love. 'As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they will be; but directly women say: "We withhold our consent," we will not be governed any longer as long as government is unjust.'

Crime in Brave New World: What Constitutes Crime?

The novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was a satirical book that criticized human trends and created, according to the present course of human development, an ideal society, where everyone belongs to a particular social class which they are unable to escape.In this regulated society, certain aspects of life are considered sinful, and regarded as crime, and are forbidden from even being brought up in social settings. But one of Huxley’s most serious crimes in his novel is that of family loyalty. The Utopia and its PoliciesThe scenario described in the book was that of a utopia, but it was only so in that everyone adhered strictly to certain policies. There was little freedom, or room for rebellion or even modest social exploration in this scenario, as such engagements could challenge the state, which endeavored to keep everything in place. This meant to appease the state, everyone would have lead a bland life with little social freedom and hardly any civil liberties, and th ey were to perform the duty the state had given them.The future society, which in this book takes place in London during the year 2540 AD, is built around certain ideals which are represented time and again by the conformation of people to the ideology created. Crime as Something that Contradicts State Informal crime is represented by anything that goes against the ideals of the society.The society is The World State, where everything is peaceful and coordinated, so long as everyone follows their given life directions (which are actually more like instructions, or restrictions on anything other than what each was intended to do).The state is stable as everyone works in accord with it, but doing so means that everyone must realize basic social restrictions, which, in the actual world, would often be privileges. Conformity and tacit and constantly expressed consent to this society are imperative parts of its existence, as it draws from every person within it.The World State’s C onformity Requirement, and Assembly Line Structure The World State uses a definite class system, and from young ages, children are taught to except the given class they were born into, as it was best for them.In the novel, the year the book takes place in is the â€Å"year of our Ford, 632,† which is taken from the Ford motor company and its assembly line technique. This technique is applied to the public in The World State, as everyone is supposed to do their part, and not doing so, or exploring any alternatives to someone’s given and directed path of life represents that person’s committing a crime. Anything that could challenge conformity, or this assembly line lifestyle is crime in this society.Sexual exploration, or even talk of such taboos as pregnancy and drugs are examples of crimes, as they are mentally stimulating, which seems to be the basic component of all crime. But the biggest crime might be adherence to family. Families inevitably create loyalty. This takes the loyalty of the individual to the state away, and gives it to other individuals. Alliance is wrong, because alliance represents loyalty to some entity other than the state, which only exists by collecting everyone’s undisputed loyalty.Savages: Those who Manage to Break Away or Avoid the Restrictive State â€Å"‘Wanted to have a look at the savages. Got a permit for New Mexico and went there for my summer holiday. With the girl I was having at the moment. She was a Beta-Minus, and I think’ (he shut his eyes), ‘I think she had yellow hair.Anyhow she was pneumatic, particularly pneumatic; I remember that,’† Huxley’s director stated at one point, illuminating the fact that people who have and exercise free will, and do as they please by living outside of the Utopia, are savages (chapter six section two).At the same time as he is explaining his trip to the savage reservation, he is designating aspects of The World State, as the girl he is describing was not actually he daughter, but only implemented by the state to be so. She was predestined to follow his line of life.Instead of natural pregnancy, citizens of the utopia use pregnancy substitutes, which are medical procedures that impregnate women without the assistance of men. The closest thing to any sort of rebellion citizens of The World State have access to is the drug soma, which intoxicates in a sort of technical way.There are no dangerous side effects, and this makes it somehow conform with the ideal society. Breaking Away from and Taking from the Brainwashing Society: The Ultimate Crime Because the society described in Brave New World is one where societal brainwashing (usually exercised by sleep education, or hypnopaedia) is commonplace, people believe that the state is best for them. Alternatives to the state are therefore commonly discouraged, although education can ultimately allow freedom from this restricting society, and allow people to enj oy aspects of the peaceful life of savages.â€Å"Education for freedom must begin by stating facts and enunciating values, and must go on to develop appropriate techniques for realizing the values and for combating those who, for whatever reason, choose to ignore the facts or deny the values,† Huxley wrote in Brave New World Revisited, in chapter eleven (1958). But because the society taught the same values to everyone according to their class, education beyond those values was considered an act of rebellion, and was therefore deemed criminal.Such education allowed for people to recognize, and possibly embrace loyalties to entities other than The World State, which would lead to the destruction of the state. And even basic loyalties, such as those amongst families or friends, took some of every individual’s allegiance to the state, which, in Brave New World, constituted the most serious of crimes, discouraged by the state by expulsion from a not so perfect utopia.Bibli ographyHuxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited. New York.

Computational Lingustics Essay

Computational Lingustics Essay Computational Lingustics Essay Computational Linguistics Computational linguistics is a discipline between linguistics and computer technology, which is concerned with the computational aspects of our languages. This area of computer science can correlate with the field of Artificial Intelligence. Put simply, computational linguistics is a set of programs that turns human speech into words and motions. There are a couple of different areas of computational linguistics that make up its entirety; theoretic computational linguistics and applied computational linguistics. These two areas can be divided into sub-areas and from the sub-areas they can be itemized even further. Theoretical computational linguistics is organized into theoretical linguistics and cognitive science. This specific region deals with formal theories about the linguistic understanding that a human needs for producing, understanding, and interpreting language. This area has made significant advances; its complexities can only be interpreted and managed by man ironically only with the help of computers. â€Å"These computers computational linguists are able to cultivate formal representations simulating characteristics of the human language and then incorporating that into programs.† (1) These programs are what form the overall core for the assessment and additional development of their theories. Alongside these comprehensive concepts lays an alternative role that plays a huge contribution to the understanding of theoretical computational linguistics and that part is cognitive sciences. These programs are able to interpret the words given to them by dissecting the syntax and e xtensiveness of the our languages and then able to match it up with its programming; a computer that can teach itself. The other portion of computational linguistics is called applied computational linguistics which targets the real-world outcome of modeling human language use. The methods, techniques, tools, and applications in this area are often subsumed under the term language engineering or (human language technology. The current computational linguistic systems are far from achieving human ability of communicating they have numerous applications. The goal for this is to eventually have a computer program that will have the same communication skills as a human being. Once this is achieved it will open doors never thought possible in computing. After all the major problem today with computing is communication with the computer. Today’s computers don’t really understand our language and it is very difficult to learn computer language, plus computer language doesnâ⠂¬â„¢t correspond to the structure of human thought. Even if the computer understands your language its abilities are really limited. The major problem with this type of software is the interpretation of your speech. Since no one speaks exactly the same, one word you say might sound like a different word that someone else would say. As a result each individual person must â€Å"teach† their computer the way that they speak. That process can often be a tedious and time consuming. Even after you â€Å"teach† your computer they way that you speak its still not a hundred percent that it will recognize what you are saying. Because of that this type of software isn’t very efficient today, but once that barrier is broken this technology will revolutionize the computing industry. After all, all you will need to operate a computer is your voice. An excellent example of how this type of technology will benefit man kind is language translators. What I mean, is that with this technology it will let people create multi-language translators that will aid in business transactions, peace conferences, etc. It w ill bring humanity one step closer to become equal because we wont have the difference of languages to get in our way. Another area that this technology

How to Improve Your ACT Reading Score 8 Expert Tips

How to Improve Your ACT Reading Score 8 Expert Tips SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with ACT Readingscores between 14 and 24? You're not alone- hundreds of thousands of students are scoring in this range. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and score 26 or higher. Here, we'll discuss how to improve your ACT Reading score effectively, and why it's so important to do so. Unlike other fluffy articles out there, I'm focusing on actionable strategies.Put these eight strategies to work, and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your ACT score. Brief note: This article specifically targets lower-scoring students- i.e., those scoring below 26 on ACT Reading. If you're already above this range, my perfect 36 ACTReading score article is more appropriate for you as it contains more advanced strategies. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, go over what it takes to score a 26, and then jump into our top ACTReading tips andstrategies. Stick with me- this is like building a house. You need to lay a solid foundation before you can put up the walls and pretty windows. Similarly, we need to make sure we understand why you're doing what you're doing before we can dive into tips and strategies. In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to a 26. But if your goal is a 24 or lower, these concepts still equally apply to how you should study. This is a pretty long article, so here's what we'll be covering (in case you want to skip around or review a section): Getting a 26 on the ACT: Understand the Stakes Know That You Can Get a 26 ACT Score or Higher What It Takes to Get a 26 in ACT Reading Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality ACT Reading Sources Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know Getting a 26 on the ACT: Understand the Stakes At this score range of 14-24, improving your ACT Reading scoreto a 26 or higher will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. Let's take a popular school as an example: the University of California, Riverside. The average ACT score of admitted applicants to UC Riverside is 23(out of 36). Its 25th percentile score is 22, and its 75th percentile score is 28. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 56%. In other words, a little more than half of all applicants are admitted.But the lower your ACT score is, the worse your chances are of getting in. In our analysis, if you score around 22, your chance of admission drops to just 43%. But if you raise your score to 26, your chance of admission goes up to 75%- that's a really good chance of admission!And the higher your score gets, the more certain you are to get in. In short, improving your ACT Reading score will bump up your average composite score.And improving your ACT composite score, even by just 5 points, can make a huge difference in your chances of getting into your target colleges. For the Reading section, this is especially true if you want to apply to humanities majors and programs, such as English or communications. They expect you to have a strong Reading score. If you have a low one, they'll doubt your ability to do college-level humanities work. Even if you're a math superstar and are applying to a science major, schools still need to know that you can process difficult texts at a college level. A low Reading score will cast huge doubt on you. It's really worth your time to improve your ACT score. Hour for hour,it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college. Curious what chances you have with a 26 ACTscore? Check out ourexpert college admissions guide for a 26 ACT score. Know That You Can Get a 26 ACT Score or Higher This isn't just supposed to be a vague happy-go-lucky message you see in a fortune cookie. I mean, literally, you and every other student can do this. In my job here at PrepScholar, I've worked with thousands of students scoring in the lower ranges of around 14-20. Time after time, I see students who beat themselves up over their low scores and think improving them is impossible. They often say the following: "I know I'm not smart." "I just can't read passages quickly, and I don't know how to improve my ACT Reading score." "I was never good at English, and my English teachers have never told me I did a good job." This breaks my heart. Because I know that, more than anything else, your ACTscore is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. Not your IQ and not your school grades. Not how Mr. Crandall in 10th grade gave you a C on your essay. The key point here is thatACT Reading is designed to trick you- and you need to learn how. Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you feel as though the questions are different from those you've seen in school? I bet you've had this problem: withACT Reading passages, you often miss questions because of an "unlucky guess." You try to eliminate a few answer choices, but the remaining choices all seem like they are equally likely to be correct. So you throw up your hands and randomly guess. The ACT is purposely designed this way to confuse you.Literally millions of other students have the exact same problem you do. And the ACT lovesthis. Normally, in your school's English class, your teacher tells you that all interpretations of a text are valid. You can write an essay about anything you want, and English teachers aren't usually allowed to tell you that your opinion is wrong. They can get in trouble for telling you what to think, and they feel bad about restricting your creativity. But the ACT has an entirely different problem. It's a national test, meaning it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. It's even used in many states as a statewide standardized test. As a result, the test needs to be rock solid. And every question must have a single, unambiguously, 100% correct answer. There's only ever one correct answer. Find a way to eliminate three incorrect ones. Imagine if this weren't the case. Imagine that a Reading question had two answer choices, both of which might beplausibly correct. When scores come out, every single student who got the question wrong would probably complain to ACT, Inc., about the test being wrong or misleading. If this were true, ACT, Inc., would then have to throw out the question, which is a huge hassle. Have too many of these incidents, and there'd be a big scandal about the ACT failing to do its job. ACT, Inc., wants to avoid this nightmare scenario. Therefore, every single Reading passage question has only one correct answer. This is an important concept to remember. It makes your life a lot easier- all you have to do is eliminate the three wrong answer choices to get the single right one. But the ACT purposely disguises this fact to make life more difficult for you. It asks questions that are typically worded as so: It can reasonably be inferred that: Which of the following best describes: The author's contemporaries for the most part believed: Notice a pattern here? The ACT always disguises the fact that there's only one unambiguous answer. It tries to make you waver between two or three answer choices that are most likely. And then you guess randomly. And then you get it wrong. You can bet that students fall for this. Millions of times every year. Students who don't prepare for the ACT in the right way don't appreciate this. But if you prepare for the ACT in the right way, you'll learn the tricks the ACT plays on you.And you'll raise your score. The ACT Reading section is full of patterns like these. To improve your score, you just need to do the following: Learn the types of questions the ACT tests, such asthe ones above Learn strategies to solve these questionsusing skills you already know Practice with a lot of realistic questions so you learn from your mistakes The point is that you can learn these skills, even if you don't consider yourself a good reader or a great English student.I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, though, let's see how many questions you need to get right to get a 26 on Reading. What It Takes to Get a 26in ACTReading If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you need to get that score on the actual test. Remember that we're aiming for a Reading test score of 26,out of 36. Here's the raw score to ACT Reading Score conversion table. (If you could use a refresher on how the ACT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this guide.) Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled 40 36 29 26 19 19 9 12 39 35 28 25 18 18 8 38 34 27 24 17 17 7 10 37 33 26 23 16 16 6 10 36 32 25 23 15 16 5 8 35 32 24 22 14 15 4 7 34 31 23 21 13 14 3 6 33 30 22 21 12 14 2 5 32 29 21 20 13 1 3 31 28 20 19 10 12 0 1 30 27 Source: Official ACT Practice Test 2017-18 Note that if you're aiming for a 26 in ACT Reading, you'll need a raw score of 29/40.This is a 72% score. This has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to get right about 3/4 of all Reading questions.We'll go into more detail below about what this means for your approach to this ACT section. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you'll need to get to a 26. For example, if you're scoring a 20, you'll need to answer about eight more questions correctly on ACT Reading in order to get a 26. Once again, if your goal is a 20, the same analysis applies. Just find your target raw score using the chart above. OK- so far we've covered why scoring a higher ACT Reading score is important, why you're fully capable of improving your score, and the raw score you'll need to get in order to hit your target score of 26. I hope a lot of this was useful and changed how you thought about ACTprep. Now, we'll get into the real, working strategies you should use in your ACT Reading prep. 8 Strategies to Improve Your Low ACT Reading Score In this section, we introduce our eight best strategies that are guaranteed to raise your low ACT Reading score. Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy From the thousands of students I've worked with, by far the most common problem students have with ACTReading passages is that they keep running out of time before they can get through all the questions. This is a problem because, unlike ACT Math, the passage questions aren't arranged in order of difficulty. Therefore, by not completing all the questions in time, you could miss easy questions at the end that you would have gotten right if you'd only had enough time. What's the cause of this? The most common one I see is that students are reading the passages in far more detail than they actually need to be.Once again, this is a consequence of what you learn in English class. In English, you've probably gotten (stupid) tests that quiz you about what Madame Bovarysaid in a particular scene, or what color Tom's T-shirt was. So of course you've learned to pay attention to every single detail. The ACTis different. For a passage that's 90 lines long, there will be only 10 questions. Many of these don't even refer to specific lines- they talk about the point of the passage as a whole,or the tone of the author. The number of questions that focus on small, line-by-line details is low. Therefore, it's a waste of time to read a passage line by line, afraid that you'll miss a detail they'll ask you about. The best way to read a passage: skimming it on the first read-through. This is why I recommend thatall students try this ACT Reading passage strategy: Skim the passage on the first read-through. Don't try to understand every single lineor write notes predicting what the questions will be. Just get a general understanding of the passage. You want to finish reading the passage within three minutes, if possible. Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a line number, go back to that line and try to make sense of the text around it. If you can't answer a question within 30 seconds, skip it. (More on this strategy later.) These steps are important because Reading questions ask about far fewer lines than the passage actually contains. For example, lines 5-20 of a passage might not be relevant to any question that follows. Therefore, if you spend time trying to deeply understand lines 5-20, you’ll be wasting time you could've spent elsewhere. Some students take this strategy to the extreme by reading the questionsbefore the passage. If a question refers to any specific line or lines, they mark those in the passage. This then gives them a guide to focus on important lines when they actually start to read the passage. Different strategies work for different students. You need to try out different ones so you can see which one gives you the best results. But by and large, I'm confident that you're spending way too much time reading the passage. Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers I talked above about how the ACT always has one unambiguously correct answer. This has a huge implication for the strategy you should use to find the right ACT Reading answer. Here's the other way to see it: out of the four answer choices, three of them have something that is totally wrong about them.Only one answer is 100% correct, which means the other three are 100% wrong. You know how you try to eliminate answer choices and then end up with a few at the end that all seem equally likely to be correct? You're not doing a good enough job of eliminating answer choices. Remember- every single wrong choice can be crossed out for its own reasons. You have to learn how to eliminate three answer choices for every single Reading question. "Great, Allen. But this doesn't tell me anything about how to eliminate wrong answer choices." Thanks for asking. There are a few classic wrong answer choices the ACTloves to use. Here's an example: Imagine you just read a passage focusing on how human evolution shaped the environment. It offers a few examples. First, it talks about how the transition from earlier species such asHomo habilus to neanderthals led to more tool usage like fire, which caused wildfires and thus shaped the ecology. It then talks about Homo sapiens 40,000 years ago and their overhunting of certain species, such as the woolly mammoth, to extinction. Sounds like a plausible passage, right? It fits into that weird style of ACT Reading passages that's oddly specific about a topic you've likely never thought deeply about before. We then run into a question asking, "Which of the following best describes the main subject of the passage?" Here are our possible answer choices: A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals B: The study of evolution C: How the environment shaped human evolution D: The plausibility of evolution E: The influence of human development on ecology (Note that we're using five answer choices for illustration even though the ACT only has four.) As you're reading these answer choices, a few of them probably started sounding really plausible to you. Surprise! Each of the answers from A-D has something seriously wrong with it. Each one is a classic example of a wrong answer type given by the ACT. Let's look at how we can tell these are incorrect. Wrong Answer 1 (A): Too Specific A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals This type of wrong answer focuses on a smaller detail in the passage. It’s meant to trick you because you might think to yourself, "Well, I see this was mentioned in the passage, so it’s a plausible answer choice." Wrong! Think to yourself: can this answer choice really describe the entire passage? Can it basically function as the title of this passage? In this case, you’ll find that A is just way too specific to convey the point of the overall passage. Wrong Answer 2 (B): Too Broad B: The study of evolution This type of wrong answer has the opposite problem than the one above- it’s way too broad. Yes, theoretically the passage is about the study of evolution, but only one aspect of it (human evolution) and particularly as it relates to its impact on the environment. To give another crazy example- let's say you talked to your friend about losing your cell phone. He saysthe main point of your conversation was the universe. Well, while you were talking about the universe in some form (you're part of the universe just like everyone else is!), this was actually only a tiny, tiny fraction of your conversation. Just the same, answer choice Bis far too general. Wrong Answer 3 (C): Reversed Relationship C: How the environment shaped human evolution This wrong answer choice can be tricky because it mentions all the right words. But of course the relationship between those words needs to be correct as well. Here, the relationship is flipped.The passage is about how humans affected the environment- not the reverse. Students who read too quickly make careless mistakes much like these because all the words sound right at a glance! Wrong Answer 4 (D): Unrelated Concept D: The plausibility of evolution Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on the tendency of students to overthink the question. If you’re passionate about arguing about evolution in your personal life, this might be a trigger answer since any discussion of evolution becomes a chance to argue about its plausibility. Of course, althoughthis concept appears nowhere in the passage,some students just won’t be able to resist choosing answer choice D. Do you see the point? On the surface, each of the answer choices sounds possibly correct. But possibly isn't good enough. The right answer needs to be 100%, totally right. Wrong answers might be off by even one word- and you need to eliminate those. Carry this thought into every ACT Reading passage question you do. Next strategy: find your weak links and fix them. Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them ACT Reading passage questions might look similar, but they actually test very different skills. At PrepScholar, we've categorized the major passage skills as follows: Big Picture/Main Point Little Picture/Detail Vocabulary in Context Inferences Author Function That's a good number ofskills! More than is obvious when you're reading a passage on the test. Each of these question types uses different skills in regard to how you read and analyze the passage.They each require a different method of prep and focused practice. If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in Reading than you are at others. You might be better at getting the big picture of a passage compared to an inference. Or you might be really strong at understanding the author's tone but not so strong at figuring out the meaning of a phrase in context. If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of homework, you have extracurriculars (for example, maybe you're an athlete or a member in your school band), and you have friends to hang out with. This means that for every hour you study for the ACT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible. In concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the "dumb" way. They just buy a book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're shocked. I'm not. Studying effectively for the ACTisn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover all your bases with a very thin layer of understanding. What these students did wrong was this: they wasted their time on subjects they already knew and didn't spend enough time on their weaknesses. Studying effectively for the ACT is like plugging up holes in a leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole and fill it. You then need to find the next biggest hole and fix that, too. Soon you'll see that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to ACT Reading? You need to find the sub-skills you're weakest in and then drill those until you're no longer weak in them. Fixing up the biggest holes. With ACT Reading, you need to figure out whether you have patterns in your mistakes. Are you consistently running out of time on reading passages? Having trouble with Inference questions? Really struggling with interpreting details? For every question you miss, you must identify what type of question it is. Once you notice patterns in the questions you miss, you need to practice this sub-skill extra hard. Say you miss a lot of inference questions (this is typically the hardest type of question for students to get). Your goal is to find a way to get focused practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes and improve. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACTprep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty ACT skills - in Reading, English, Math, and Science. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality ACT Reading Sources ACT Reading passages are very specific in how they work. ACT Reading questions, too, are very specifically phrased and constructed to have bait answers. If you want to improve your Reading score, you have to use realistic ACT Reading sources.If you don't, you'll develop bad habits and end up training the wrong skills. Think about it like this: let's say you're trying out for a baseball team. Instead of practicing with real baseballs, you decide to practice with Wiffle balls instead.It's a lot cheaper and easier, and hitting the ball makes you feel good. So you train and train and train with a Wiffle ball. You understand how the Wiffle ball curves when it's thrown, how to hit it, and how to throw it. Finally, you try out for the baseball team. A pitch comes, but it's way faster than you've ever practiced with before. It doesn't curve like a Wiffle ball does. Swing, and a miss. You've trained with the wrong thing, and now you're totally unprepared for baseball. This is not real baseball. ACT Reading works in the exact same way. Train on badly written tests, and you'll develop poor habits and unhelpful strategies. The very best sources for ACTReading passages areofficial ACT practice tests.This is why we include official practice testsin our ACT prep program- we can gauge your progress and train you on the real thing. Unfortunately, there's a limited number of official practice tests: five free PDFs online, and five in the old third edition of theofficial ACT prep guide(the newest edition includes three practice tests, but these overlap significantly with the free ones online). Thus, to have enough questions to practice on, you'll need to find other sources of questions. The first suggestion is to use prep resources customized for the ACT.Be careful, though- most companies release poor quality passages and questions (most books you see on ACT Reading are pretty terrible, frankly). This is especially harmful for ACT Reading because the style of passages and what questions ask are complex, as opposed to ACT Math which is more straightforward. To write realistic questions, you need to understand the test inside and out. That's why at PrepScholar, we've created what I believe are the highest quality Reading questions available anywhere. This is what we've done: We've deconstructed every available official ACT practice test, question by question, answer choice by answer choice. We've statistically studied every question type on the test, and we understand exactly how questions are phrased and how wrong answer choices are constructed. As head of product, I'm responsible for content quality. I hire only the most qualified content writers to craft our test content. This means people who got perfect scores on the ACT, who have hundreds of hours of ACT teaching experience, and who graduated from Ivy League schools. This results in the most realistic, highest quality ACT Reading questions. Even if you don't use PrepScholar, you should be confident that whatever resource you do use undergoes the same scrutiny as we use.If you're not sure, or you see reviews saying otherwise, it's best to avoid it. For more tips on what ACT resources to use,learn what my favorite ACT Reading books are. Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Vocab gets way too much attention from students. It feels good to study vocab flashcards because it seems like you're making progress. "I studied 1,000 vocab words- this must mean I improved my score!" This is why other test prep programs love teaching you vocab- you feel as though you're learning something and it's worth your money. But the truth is, learning vocab doesn't really help you. Fortunately, vocab doesn't play more than a minor role in your ACT Reading score. This has always been less of a problem for the ACT than the SAT, which used to feature vocab-heavy Sentence Completion questions. Thankfully, the SAT removed these questions in 2016. But still, a lot of students look for ACT vocab lists to study with, and it's just not a good use of time. The only real questions you'll need to use vocab skills for are the Vocab in Context questions. Here's an example of one from an official ACT practice test: As it is used in line 13, the word popular most nearly means:A)well likedB)commonly knownC)scientifically acceptedD)most admired Wait- "popular"? They're asking a question about the word "popular"? Yes, it's a common word, but the key to this question is understanding how it's used in context.Popular can mean all the things listed in the answer choices, but only one of them is actually correct in this case. Here's the source sentence: It includes the area known in popular legend as the Bermuda Triangle. In this case, popular is used to describe a legend that's well known, so answer choice B is the best choice. Here are examples of words you'll need to understand in context on the ACT: adopted concentrated humor nostalgia read something These are all reasonable words you've probably heard before. The trick to these questions is to actually understand how the word is used in the passage- not to focus on what you think it means. So don't waste too much of your time studying vocab, and think twice before you're convinced by someone that it's a good use of your ACT prep time. Don't spend a lot of time studying vocab- most likely, it's not the best use of your time. This time is far better spent learning how to deal with Reading passages better.There are so many more questions about passages that it's a better use of your time to learn passage strategies and how to answer Reading questions. Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Here's an easy strategy most students don't do enough. Remember what I said above about raw scores? To score a 26, you only need a raw score of about 29 (that's 29 correct answers out of a total of 40 Reading questions). This varies from test to test, but it's pretty consistent in general. What does this mean?You can completely guess on 15 questions, get four of them right by chance, and still score a 26 on Reading. Once again, you can completely guess on almost 40% of all questions and still hit your goal! Skip questions carefree like this woman. Why is this such a powerful strategy? It gives you way more time on easy and medium difficulty questions- the questions you have a good chance of getting right. If you're usually pressed for time on the ACT Reading section, this will be a huge help. Here's an example: on the Reading section, you get 35 minutes to answer 40 questions. This is usually pretty hard for most students to get through- it's just 52 seconds to answer each question, including the time it takes to read each passage. The average student will try to push through all the questions. "I've got to get through them all since I've got a shot at getting each question right," they think. Along the way, they'll probably rush and make careless mistakes on questions they should have gotten right. And then they spend five minutes on really hard questions, making no progress and wasting time. Wrong approach. Here's what I suggest instead. Tryeach question but skip it if you're not getting anywhere after 30 seconds.Unlike math, the Reading passage questions aren't ordered in difficulty, so you can't tell right away which questions are harder or easier. You need to try each one but then skip it if it's costing you too much time. By doing this, you can raise your time per easy/medium question to 100 seconds per question or more. This is huge! It's a 100% boost to the time you get per question.As a result, this significantly raises your chances of getting easy/medium questions right. And the questions you skipped? They're so hard you're honestly better off not even trying them. These questions are meant for 30-36scorers. If you get to 26, then you have the right to try these questions- but not before you get to 26. How do you tell which questions are going to take you the most time?This varies from person to person, but here are a few common question types: Questions without a line number that make you hunt for a detail: You'll spend a lot of time rereading the passage looking for a certain detail if you can't remember where it was originally mentioned. "EXCEPT" questions: These are specifically designed to waste your time. They'll ask something like, "The author mentions all of these details EXCEPT: ... " and your job is to find which three are mentioned and which one isn't. Inference questions that ask you what the author most likely meant: These are usually quite difficult because they take multiple steps to solve: (1) What did the author explicitlysay in the passage? and (2) What does the author most likely mean? But don't just take my word for it. You need to figure out your own weaknesses after doing a lot of practice. They might not be the same question types as the ones above. Approach your Reading prep with this in mind. If you notice yourself getting stuck on a question, pay attention to what type of question it is and see whether there's a pattern. For example, do you always get stuck on that particular question type? Strategy 7: Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand exactly why you missed a question, you'll make that mistake over and over again. Think about it like learning how to cook. The first time you learn to chop vegetables, you might cut your finger accidentally. Ouch- that hurts. But you quickly learn from your mistakes- you start to keep your fingers away from the knife and hold the knife differently. After all, if you don't learn from your mistake, you'll keep cutting your finger over and over again. Why would you treat ACT prep any differently? Too many students scoring at the 18-24 level refuse to study their mistakes. It's not fun.I get it. It sucks to stare your mistakes in the face. It's draining to learn skills you're not good at. So the average student will skip reviewing their mistakes and instead focus on areas they're already comfortable with. It's like cozying up with a warm blanket. Their thinking goes like this: "So I'm good at Big Picture questions? I should do more Big Picture problems! They make me feel good about myself." The result? No score improvement. You don't want to be like these students. So here'swhat you need to do instead: On every practice test or question set you take, mark every question that you're even just 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every question you marked and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you can do to avoid making this mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (e.g., Big Picture, Little Picture, Inference, etc.). It's not enough to just think about it and move on, or to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question. For Reading Passage questions, you must find a way to eliminate every incorrect answer. If you were stuck between two answer choices, review your work to figure out why you couldn't eliminate the wrong answer choice. If you don't do this, I guarantee you will not make progress. But if you do take this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflections on why you might've missed them. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know You probably already know this one but if you don't, you're about to earn some serious points. The ACT has no guessing penalty. This means you have no reason not to guess and fill up every blank on your answer sheet. So before you finish the Reading section,make sure every blank question has an answer filled in.When you look at your answer sheet, you shouldn't see any blank questions. For every question you're unsure about, make sure you guess as best you can.If you can eliminate even just one answer choice, this gives you a much better shot at getting it right- from 25% to 33%. If you have no idea, just guess! You still have a 25% chance of getting it right, after all. Most people know this strategy already, so if you don't do this, you're at a serious disadvantage. Here's a bubbling tip that will save you a few minutes per section. When I first started taking tests in high school, I did what many students do: after I finished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and filled it in. Then I solved the next question. This was my pattern: finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question 2, bubble in answer 2. And so forth. This approach actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct tasks: solving questions and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to different areas of the test. Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, and then bubble all of them in at once at the end. This has a couple of huge advantages: You focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot. By saving just five seconds per question, you get back three minutes and 20 seconds on the Reading section. This is huge! These extra secondscan buy you time to solve three more questions, which will dramatically improve your score. Be very careful, though, as you do not want to run out of time before you've bubbled in all your answers. Definitely make sure you bubble in your answers to that point with at least 10 minutes remaining. If the proctor calls time and you haven't bubbled in any answers yet, you're going to get a 1 on Reading! Overview: How to Raise Your Low ACT Reading Score These are the eight main strategies I have for you to improve your ACT Reading score. If you're scoring 12, you can improve it to 18.If you're scoring 20, you can boost it to 26.I guarantee you'll get a score increase, as long as you put in the right amount of work and study using the tips I've given you above. The main point is this: you need to understand where you're falling short and constantly drill those weaknesses. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes- in other words, don't ignore any of them. This is really important to your future. Make sure you give ACT prep the attention it deserves- before it's too late and you get a rejection letter you didn't want. If you want to go back and review any of the strategies, here's a quick listing: Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality ACT Reading Sources Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides you can use to raise your ACT score. For ACT Reading, learn the#1 fundamental, most important strategy.It's an expansion of one of the strategies in this guide and certain to raise your score. Curious how to prep to get a perfect ACT Reading score? Read our in-depth guide to getting a perfect 36 on the Reading sectionfor our best tips. What's a good ACT score for you? Figure out your ACT target score todayusing our step-by-step guide. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by ACT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today:

The eNotes Blog New Tennessee Williams Short StoryUncovered

New Tennessee Williams Short StoryUncovered Williams Crazy Nights is set to be published after spending 80 years hidden from the public. Another day, another case of newly uncovered literature from a deceased author. Last year, we heard of recent discoveries of work from Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Today it was revealed that famous Southern playwright Tennessee Williams has new work for readers to enjoy. The story is described by the Guardian as one in which a college freshman recounts the details of a romance that reaches the ultimate degree of intimacy before ending. Its believed that the story actually describes Williams own relationship with his college  girlfriend Anna Jean ODonnell, who shares a name with the love interest of Crazy Nights. If thats the case, the short could provide the puzzle piece missing from fans insight into  Williams romantic life. Crazy Nights is set to be published in The  Strand  magazine. Managing editor Andrew Gulli describes how this latest reveal reflects the writing style of Williams other famous works, like  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  and A  Streetcar Named Desire: It seems to have been written when Williams was rather young, probably around the 1930s.  There is a theme of disappointment, the old mendacity theme from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He could show how, beneath the cloak of respectability, his characters had horrible insecurities and dark secrets. Williams was a master of showing the desperation and need humans have for companionship, and was equally skilled at showing how relationships go sour and lead to cynicism. Well, we at are certainly looking forward to the new material! How about you? For more on Tennessee Williams, check out biography and study guides to his famous works below: Tennessee Williams Biography The Glass Menagerie Study Guide Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  Study Guide A Streetcar Named Desire Study Guide

Money Laundering Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Money Laundering - Research Paper Example Money Laundering It can be said that money laundering is not a cause in itself but it is a symptom that speaks about illegal activities in its root. Main Features of Money Laundering As such, money laundering is an age old activity because its underline cause lies in illegal activities such as drug trafficking, illegal production, smuggling, or tax evasion. All these underground activities have a single motive of making huge profits. Criminals attempt to legalize this money so that it can be used to acquire assets or used for their secret missions such as terrorist activities. In ‘promotional’ money laundering, money so garnered is reinvested in the illegal activities itself. The crux is that all these activities fall under a term ‘specified unlawful activities’ (SUA). Money laundering has drawn attention of the authorities in the recent years due to its role in terrorist activities as noticed during 9/11. Money laundering is rampant in most parts of the world and can cause serious economic and social implications because of its magnitude or malicious motives. Circumstantial Evidence and Money Laundering Investigators in the US need not prove that the money launderer was aware about the unlawful activity. That means that circumstantial evidence is enough for the investigator to prove that money launderer has generated the money through illicit means and juries will make note of this evidence during the trial. Thus, in the US, the money laundering charge can be proved by the investigating agency under Title 18, Section 1956, US Code through SUA proceeds; financial transaction with the sole aim to conceal or intent to conceal the proceeds; and the knowledge by culprit that the proceeds have resulted from illegal activity. It is important to note here that even clean money sent from outside the US with the purpose to promote an SUA will fall into charge of a money laundering. Thus, the intent to promote an SUA along with the movement of funds from or to t he country is enough to put someone under a charge of money laundering (Leff, 2012). Money Laundering through Spending The Title 18, Section 1957, US Code deals with another kind of the money laundering charge, known as the money spending statute that prescribes that when the culprit moves over $10,000 illegally earned proceeds through a legal ‘financial institutions’ then he or she may be convicted under the law with a 10-year maximum penalty. The investigator need not prove any other thing except the simple facts of transaction unlike proving intent of the money launderer promoting an SUA under Section 1956. Further, the word 'financial institutions' is broadly defined to include not only banks or credit unions but jewelry stores, casinos, travel agencies, most merchants, brokers, and many others through which a culprit can spend their illegally earned proceeds (Leff, 2012). Money Laundering Threat Assessment (MLTA) In 2005, for the first time, the US government did M oney Laundering Threat Assessment (MLTA).The purpose was to help regulators, policy makers and the law enforcement agencies to understand the depth and gravity of money laundering and develop strategy to thwart it. Under the MLTA, thirteen money laundering methods were analyzed in detail. The amount of dirty money in the US is certainly huge and globalization has given further impetus to this activity through on line payment possibility. Under MLTA several initiatives have been taken

Harley-Davidson Technology Strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Harley-Davidson Technology Strategies - Essay Example Talon is essential in mapping customer demand to enhance supply chain efficiency (Haag, Baltzan and Philips 91). Talon has enhanced Harley-Davidson managers’ decision making capabilities by availing of a 360-degree view into enterprise-wide information, which is critical to strategic goal setting and decision making at all levels of the organization. # 2 An Executive Information System details specialized system supporting senior executives within the organization. A digital dashboard is critical in integrating information from diverse components onto a single display. The application of digital dashboards contributes to enhancement of a company’s return on investment. Some of the principal metrics that Harley-Davidson executives may want to monitor on digital dashboard encompass sales by region, sales by season, best selling product, worst selling product, relationships between product sales, statistics on online orders versus in-store purchases and statistics detailin g best and worst selling dates per month. # 3 Executive Support Systems emanate from integration of Executive Information Systems with Decision Support Systems. ... Other benefits include timely delivery of information and better understanding of the information, filtering data to enable quick tracking and utilization of the information. # 4 Electronic commerce and communications can enhance sales as it avails of an extended platform for accessing dealerships. This can drive up profits as it enables bypassing dealers and ensuring that dealers remain at the centre of the customers’ buying experience. Online selling of accessories is essential to satisfying online buying experience. Some of the metrics that Harley-Davidson applies in monitoring on a digital dashboard include the time taken to process orders, the number of returned orders and the number of incorrect orders. This is critical to the delivery of prompt, consistent and rewarding experiences to all the loyal customers. The decision to adopt online selling will also enable Harley-Davidson to enter fresh markets and create additional revenue streams, besides redefining business rel ationships (Haag, Baltzan and Philips 92). Ethical consideration is critical as it influences the company’s brand image, as well as how sales, marketing and advertising principles are employed to make the company profitable. The anonymity of online transactions and the speed at which information is relayed make ethics an integral consideration. The key considerations revolve around privacy, intellectual property concerns and accessibility of information. # 5 Customer satisfaction is essential in building of a long-term, profitable relationship, which eventually translates to customer loyalty. Harley-Davidson should anticipate customer’s needs, enhance responsiveness and deliver consistent service so as to improve

International Business continutes to increase inexorably and the World Essay

International Business continutes to increase inexorably and the World Trade Organisation supports this by encouraging countries - Essay Example Additionally, the WTO has sought to realize objectives such as global economic integration and increase in global incomes. However, the WTO quest to promote free trade has encountered various challenges. These challenges include countries that trade under protectionist policies other countries have refused to open their economies totally. Despite the handicaps, WTO has accomplished some of its objectives. This is because there has been a gradual rise in the global trade (Bradford 2003, p. 30). WTO has sought to enhance free trade by campaigning that nations trade freely. However, it has not accomplished the above objective. This is because numerous nations have adopted various protectionist policies that have prevented free and fair trade. Additionally, bodies such as European Union have sought to protect their constituent nations by barring entry of certain comedies to this region. However, the political and trading block has also increased trade among its nations. Protectionism is the key hindrance to free trade in the world. UK has adopted various policies that prevent free trade. Some of the policies entail massive taxation, quotas and total ban. The adoption of such policies by nations has resulted from various reasons. Such reason primarily relates the saturation of the economy with cheap products that have pricing advantages. Despite the phenomenal trade increases that would occur on the elimination of protectionism, there would be negative economic implications. Countries would lose some of their sectors owing to importation of certain products into their economy (Bradford & Lawrence 2004). There are countries such as China, India and Brazil that produces certain products at lower cost owing to low expenditure of labour and other inputs. Exporters from such countries would have a competitive edge over most producers globally. Therefore, nations that experience higher cost in the production of similar goods would encounter reduced clientele. The cheap pr oducts would floods markets globally. As such, manufacturer in countries such as UK may suffer owing to flooding of the economy with such goods. The local industry in these nations would suffer greatly owing to free trade. Conversely, nations producing items at low cost would have a massive competitive advantage over their rivals. This would result in economic prosperity of such nations. Protectionist policies enacted by the UK government seek to protect its producers who are vulnerable to products subsidized by global powerhouses. This has been the key justification for the protectionist policies. Despite the justification by leading nations for enacting such policies, it is evident that they have been the key hindrance to free and fair trade. Leading nations incur higher cost since they pay higher remuneration. As such, their firms incur higher costs. This translates to higher prices. Irrespective of the quality of such product, they can compete with other gods owing to pricing. T he above reason is solid for enacting protectionist policies (Chorev 2007, p.45). Free trade would increase entry of goods in all nations. As such, some of the industry would close down as detailed above since they cannot survive competition on the global front. The closure of these industries would culminate in job losses. One the key concerns of government is unemployment. If the government allows free trade, then there will be substantial job losses. Any government that would

Has the US lost the plot in Latin America Essay

Has the US lost the plot in Latin America - Essay Example He is described as one of the most important intellectuals of our time. "US Perspectives and Foreign Policy in Latin America" homes in on the Heritage Foundation. Wikipedia describes Heritage's stated mission as to: "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." "Venezuelan "Bolivarian Revolution" and Bolivia's "Movement Towards Socialism" lays down the ideological basis of the emerging economic models of both Bolivia and Venezuela. The Power and Interest News Reports (PINR) [url: http://www.pinr.com/ ] was chosen as the main source for its largely unbiased views. "Left versus Left'" offers glimpses of how a radical socialist criticizes other avowed leftists or center-left politicians. James Petras, a Latin American expert and self-described "revolutionary and anti-imperialist" activist and writer, was chosen for his controversial views and mastery of Marxist political economy. "Prognosis" lays down the conclusions of the main themes: (1) "Does the rise of left wing presidents in Latin America represent a threat to the US," (2) "Focus with a case study of Bolivia; the rise of anti neo liberal leaders - could they combine to create an alternative model for development Compare to empirical evidence and the rise of populism in the past;" and (3) "Examining the prospects of an 'alternative' to capitalism; the search for a non dependent model is back on the agenda because of the wave of anti American feeling and the rise of relations for example between Brazil and China." Has the U.S. lost the plot in Latin America "There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble. It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America. " -- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), April 2006 1 I. Introduction The BBC, the world's largest broadcasting corporation, ran a series on Latin America early this year. The BBC asserted that while the U.S. government has been busy implementing its war against terrorism in Iran and Afghanistan, its relations with Latin America turned sour, from Mexico down to Peru. Strong anti-American feelings, or what one Peruvian leader called "the neo-liberal economic model that has failed to benefit our nation", converted into a string of electoral victories by what the West perceives as left-leaning governments. 2 A "leftward" drift is apparent in Latin America's southern hemisphere since the start of the decade. In Venezuela, leftist Hugo Chavez garnered 56.93% of the votes in 30 July 2000. In Brazil, center-Left Luis Inacio LULA da Silva won 61.27% in the second round of elections in October 27, 2002. In Argentina, left-leaning Nestor Kirchner was sworn in as president on May 25, 2003 to a four-year term of office after his rival, Carlos Menem, decided

Music of the Disenfranchised & How it Changed the Nation Essay

Music of the Disenfranchised & How it Changed the Nation - Essay Example With this, Steel then succumbs to the 3d images and chooses the ones behind Titan are NOT them. As the show is carried out, Octus and Ilana rout the animal. The one day from now, the band concludes that they are well known due to Lance, and kick him out. Spear educates the two regarding this, however Ilana demands he is still a great musical artist, and afterward gets the thought of beginning their band at the "Galactic Trio". Whats more as Ilana is discussing what parts the three can play, the scene closes. The method for world is the way in which individuals commonly act or things ordinarily happen (Strayer, 2-3). In this disappointed music, the conventional spectator is invested with significant intelligence and information of the method for the world she was knowledgeable in the methods for the world before she had taken the cover/ he was amazingly blameless of the methods for the

Alzheimer disease Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Alzheimer disease - Essay Example These neurons and synapses are lost when the individual begins to develop Alzheimer’s disease. The cerebral cortex and subcortical regions are impacted because gross atrophy is found in these regions (Pashek & DiVenere, 2006: p. 143). The temporal lobe and parietal lobe witness degeneration which can lead to the progression of the disease. AD causes specific brain regions to shrink which has been corroborated by the presence of MRI and PET reports (Wilson et al, 2008: p, 45). Definition Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a form of dementia that is incurable. It is a progressive disease in which the conditions of the patient worsen with the passage of time with the ultimate outcome being death. The disease was first identified by a German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer in the early 20th century. AD is found to be prevalent in people above the age of 65 years. Currently, it is estimated that there are 26.8 million patients with the disease (Small & Perry, 2005: p. 125). The causes of the disease are unknown while medication seems to alleviate some of the symptoms. Disease Start AD starts when individuals suffer from short term memory loss. They might also be suffering from language problems and encountering difficulty in concentrating. Additionally, behavioral problems might be exhibited in individuals with mood swings and anger being the primary symptoms (Small et al, 2003: p. 353). The difficulties in perception, executive functions, and movements can also signal the onset of the disease among individuals. This gradually worsens with the passage of time as more intermediate and severe forms of symptoms are witnessed in individuals. Role of Environment Empirical studies are studying the impact of environmental factors upon the development of AD in individuals. This approach seeks to move away from the widespread emphasis on genetic factors as being the primary cause of AD (Small et al, 2005: p. 5). Studies are being conducted to investigate the relationship between cognitive decline and vascular and metabolic conditions. For instance, a study was conducted by the Rhode Island Hospital which found a link between nitrates in the environment and Alzheimer’s disease. Nitrates are found in increasing numbers in the environment as well as in processed foods. People who are vulnerable to heart disease might have a greater chance of developing AD. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes are considered to be having a possible link with the development of AD (Tomoeda et al, 2006: p. 151). Research is still being conducted into the role of environmental factors in developing AD. This research is still inconclusive which means that there is the need for clear and precise goals. it is through the use of innovative and creative strategies that success can be attained within a short period of time. It is hoped that the study of the causes of AD will help in the development of effective and efficient medications to combat the disea se. Causes The exact causes of AD are still unknown despite decades of research into the problem. Genetics is considered to partly cause this disease as autosomal dominant inheritance has been witnessed in patients (Blacker et al, 2009: p. 1198). The oldest hypothesis is that AD is caused because the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is diminished in brains. However, this hypothesis has become unacceptable because medications that

Has the US lost the plot in Latin America Essay

Has the US lost the plot in Latin America - Essay Example He is described as one of the most important intellectuals of our time. "US Perspectives and Foreign Policy in Latin America" homes in on the Heritage Foundation. Wikipedia describes Heritage's stated mission as to: "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." "Venezuelan "Bolivarian Revolution" and Bolivia's "Movement Towards Socialism" lays down the ideological basis of the emerging economic models of both Bolivia and Venezuela. The Power and Interest News Reports (PINR) [url: http://www.pinr.com/ ] was chosen as the main source for its largely unbiased views. "Left versus Left'" offers glimpses of how a radical socialist criticizes other avowed leftists or center-left politicians. James Petras, a Latin American expert and self-described "revolutionary and anti-imperialist" activist and writer, was chosen for his controversial views and mastery of Marxist political economy. "Prognosis" lays down the conclusions of the main themes: (1) "Does the rise of left wing presidents in Latin America represent a threat to the US," (2) "Focus with a case study of Bolivia; the rise of anti neo liberal leaders - could they combine to create an alternative model for development Compare to empirical evidence and the rise of populism in the past;" and (3) "Examining the prospects of an 'alternative' to capitalism; the search for a non dependent model is back on the agenda because of the wave of anti American feeling and the rise of relations for example between Brazil and China." Has the U.S. lost the plot in Latin America "There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble. It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America. " -- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), April 2006 1 I. Introduction The BBC, the world's largest broadcasting corporation, ran a series on Latin America early this year. The BBC asserted that while the U.S. government has been busy implementing its war against terrorism in Iran and Afghanistan, its relations with Latin America turned sour, from Mexico down to Peru. Strong anti-American feelings, or what one Peruvian leader called "the neo-liberal economic model that has failed to benefit our nation", converted into a string of electoral victories by what the West perceives as left-leaning governments. 2 A "leftward" drift is apparent in Latin America's southern hemisphere since the start of the decade. In Venezuela, leftist Hugo Chavez garnered 56.93% of the votes in 30 July 2000. In Brazil, center-Left Luis Inacio LULA da Silva won 61.27% in the second round of elections in October 27, 2002. In Argentina, left-leaning Nestor Kirchner was sworn in as president on May 25, 2003 to a four-year term of office after his rival, Carlos Menem, decided