Research Methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Research Methods - Essay Example Discriminant validity is the extent to which the new measure correlates poorly with measures of different, unrelated constructs. It involves conducting a correlational test between the scores of the new measure with the scores of a measure whose construct the test measure does not assess. The result should show little or no correlation. Construct validity is the extent to which a measure of a construct actually assesses what it is intended to assess. Constuct validity results when the measure possesses both convergent and discriminant validities. Test-retest reliability involves the administration of the test measure to numerous respondents comprising a large sample at two different instances. If the measure is reliable, then answers will be consistent for the two test times. The set of answers in both times could be tested by statistical correlation, and if the correlation coefficient is 0.80 or above, then the measure is deemed reliable. Internal consistency reliability is a method of testing whether all the items within a measure consistently measure the same thing. To determine internal consistency, a series correlation tests would be conducted among all the items in the measure with every other item. The average interitem correlation coefficient should be higher than 0.80 for internal consistency to be reliable. In order to improve upon reliability and validity, the correlational tests suggested in the foregoing may be conducted. The test scores should be obtained from a test sample from the intended population, but which will not form part of the actual research

The Clash of Civilizations Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Clash of Civilizations - Term Paper Example Huntington (1998, pp.19) has called this a rediscovery of â€Å"new but often old identities.† Huntington (1998, pp.21) has argued that world has become â€Å"multi-polar and multi-civilizational† which character has been replacing the bipolar world of the cold war period. He (Huntington, 1998, pp.21) has further stated that a new grouping of states has been emerging based on world’s major â€Å"seven or eight civilizations. These civilizations have been listed as the Western civilization, Latin America, former Soviet Union, Eastern world, Muslim countries, Sub-Saharan African nations, and also the lone countries (Huntington, 1998). It is also observed that â€Å"the balance of power among civilizations are shifting†, in favor of Non-Western countries as they are amassing more wealth, political strength and military base (Huntington, 1998, pp.21-23). Drawing attention to the â€Å"gap between Western principles and Western action,† Huntington (1998, pp.184, 21), opined that â€Å"west’s universalist pretentions† has escalated this conflict. He (Huntington, 1998, pp.103) has further suggested that in order to survive the conflicts, West should accept its identity as unique rather than universal and integrate what is called a western identity. Another assumption of this book is that the world is being split into two distinct and separate cultural entities, namely, â€Å"the peoples of Western Christianity, on the one hand, †¦(and)†¦ Muslim and Orthodox people, on the other†(Huntington, 1998, pp.28). Huntington (1998, pp.102) had believed that Aisan civilization and Isl amic civilization would be the two major forces that would put great challenges before the west against its present domination of the world. This analysis of world politics has also concluded that â€Å"Muslims have traditionally divided the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, the

International Relations Theory Book Review on The Pentagons New Map by Essay

International Relations Theory Book Review on The Pentagons New Map by Thomas P.M. Barnett - Essay Example Most significantly, the events of September 11, 2001 have prompted a reappraisal of the global threat dynamic that had existed prior to that date. Moreover, the continued destabilization of certain regions in the world such as Africa has given rise to a culture of war, and retribution in the region, a culture that is bread early in the hearts, minds and behaviors of its youngest members. Two works that address these concerns, Thomas Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map, and Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone, expose the dangers and the deleterious effects of disconnection, the former on a global level and the latter on a personal level. In reviewing these two works, this paper will highlight some of the responses and reactions to the phenomena of disconnection and alienation both strategically and in terms of a personal narrative. Barnett's hawkish approach to foreign policy is borne out of a growing concern that the fundamentally dynamic nature of globalization is splitting, swiftly and irrevocably, the world into two paradigmatically opposed groups. The first represents what he refers to as the "Core," or functioning core of globalization. This group includes North America, most of South America, Japan, Australia and Europe, India, and China (Barnett 174). Constituting approximately 4 billion people, this Core is marked by relatively stable governments, rising standards of living and more deaths due to suicide rather than murder. This core represents the communicatively networked, financially robust and mostly secure regions of the world. These regions lie in fundamental contradistinction to the "Non-Integrating Gap" or Gap. These Gap populations include, parts of southwest and southeast Asia, the Middle East, almost all of Africa, and the Balkans. These Gap populations are marked with politically repressiv e regimes, mass and socially omnipresent conflict, and widespread poverty and disease. Ishmael Beah is a former child-warrior from Sierra Leone, and discusses his mind-blowing experiences as a young solider for the RUF in his memoir. The work recounts the horrible atrocities that he both was witness to and perpetrated in his unfortunate position. The rest of his family, brutally murdered in a village raid his isolation and disconnection from family and friends, and his introduction to a dark world of murder, death, and drugs permanently ripped away from Beah any innocence that childhood offers. Recounting both the making and unmaking of a child-solider: from the consumption of a dangerously explosive drug cocktail of cocaine and gun-powder called "brown brown," to the mass indiscriminate killings of civilians and enemy combatants alike and finally to the rescuing by UNICEF field workers-Beah's calm delivery belies a devastatingly isolating and alienating experience in the forests of Sierra Leone. The primary thrust of Barnett's argument is that a reimagining of the World Map must be undertaken by the Pentagon and other security agencies, if the United States and by extension the rest of the Core is to remain secure. Prior to September 11, 2001 threat analysis models assumed that only countries of similar military and economic stability could represent legitimate threats to American sovereignty. Thus throughout the Cold War, we prepared

Smoking, Gender, Sick Role Essay Example for Free

Smoking, Gender, Sick Role Essay How do you think that smoking and gender is related? Why do you think that men/women smoke even though it is known as a deadly practice? Despite the overrun and almost cliched disclaimer from government reminding the general public that â€Å"cigarette smoking can be dangerous to your health,† a lot of people prefer to think and/or act otherwise. While smoking is considered generally bad or quite frankly, repulsive, and met with disgust by some, it is nonetheless acknowledged in society as something relatively acceptable or tolerated. Its social acceptability lies in different aspects or points of view. Most smokers believe, for instance, that breathing in nicotine and burnt paper helps in times of stress, and that cigarettes help them relax. People smoke to clear their heads and think. People smoke when they feel cold, or tired, or lonely, angry, or to socialize, and so on. Smoking, like drinking, has become an effective outlet by which people socialize and vent, and they do, despite the number of diseases that statistics promise every pack of cigarettes come pre-packaged with. More than being provoked by the said factors, the instance of cigarette smoking has come to relate and define ones gender and sexuality. Smoking is generally accepted among men as something which somehow affirms their masculinity. Cigarette smoking in women is seen as a sign or symbol of sophistication, despite what the opposite may connote. Adolescents for the most part, take a significant proclivity and liking to practices considered bad or unacceptable, and smoking is easily one of them. These concepts and images entrenched in society, as well as the previously enumerated factors relating to its validity or acceptability contributes to the instance that is cigarette smoking; the benefits of which appear to outweigh negative implications, of various illnesses and diseases which may or may not result from its practice. 2. What is sick role? Describe the sick role vis a vis birthing in Turkey. A concept brought about by Talcott Parsons in 1961, a sick role is a behavior that an individual is expected or not expected to perform within his/her obligations to society in the event of an illness or disease which incapacitates him/her from doing so. Parsons concept of the sick role affords a sick person the right to be exempted from normal roles prescribed in society, and the freedom not be held responsible for his or her condition. The sick persons only obligations on the other hand, are to condition themselves into recovering from the said sickness, and to find a competent doctor or physician which would attend to their particular sickness or illnesses. In Turkey, culture and tradition demands that a women who has just given birth is not allowed to leave her house in the extent of forty days from the time shes given birth. She is not to be left alone and is to be attended to within the forty days in which she is confined to her house. The said culture and tradition mirrors Parsons concept of sick role, and exempts a woman who has just gone through child birth the necessary and proper duties and obligations society warrants from her by confining her to the bounds of her own home, requiring that she rests, be nursed back to health, and nothing else. References Dichter Ernest. â€Å"Why Do We Smoke? † http://smokingsides. com/docs/whysmoke. html 10 January 2008. Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism. â€Å"Culture and Beliefs. † http://www. kultur. gov. tr/ 10 Jan 2008. â€Å"The Sick Role. † http://www. diligio. com/sick_role. htm 10 January 2

A Comparative Study on Open Source ASIC Tools

A Comparative Study on Open Source ASIC Tools Abstract: Most analog and digital electronic circuit designs can be realized at different levels from the transistor to architecture level. As the complexity of Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits (VLSI) design process leads to the usage of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools for design and optimization. Manual design of integrated circuits up to layout is much more complicated and time consuming process, also lack of efficiency in the fabricated chip. So that Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools are widely used in ASIC design. CAD tools provide the common path to simplify the IC design process. But the commercial tools are very much expensive and not able to use as an individual. For that purpose open source EDA tools are used for study of an IC design. In this research, it mainly concentrates on available open source and freeware EDA tools with its usage on IC design and development process are presented and evaluated. This research also gives a fundamental idea on how the open source EDA tools have helped the researchers and students to learn and fabricate their own Integrated circuits. Introduction: Electronics systems are take part a crucial role in every human life. Electronic systems ranging from Integrated Circuits (ICs) to PCB (Printed Circuit Boards) are developed and produced by CAD tools. CAD tools are the collection of rules, algorithms, different methodologies and tools which automate the design, testing and verification of electronic devices. There are many commercial CAD tools are available, which are the industry standard and they are very expensive to bought such licenses. For academic and small scale industries usage of those tools are limited due to the cost. So the alternatives are Free and Open-Source Software EDA tools are the only effective way for students and teachers to learn and implement their ideas by modifying the source code. There are lot of open source and freeware tools are available for analog and digital circuit design. But the problems behind those softwares are integration of multiple tools for a complete design; installation procedure, operating systems, etc. are the various factors. From the above said considerations the tools such as Qflow and Magic from open circuit design tools, Electric from static free software, alliance, LASI, toped, microwind are considered for this research. Open Circuit Design Tools: Alliance: Alliance is a VLSI tool having numerous of tools integrated together with portable libraries. It contains VHDL compiler and simulator, synthesis, auto place and route tools. For digital design a complete set of portable CMOS libraries are provided [1]. Alliance is developed and maintained by ASIM department of LIP6 laboratory at Pierre Marie Curie University, France. Alliance is free and open source software initially developed for teaching VLSI design. Its binaries, source code and cells libraries are distributed under the GNU General Public License. Alliance tool has been used in many research projects. One is Superscalar 128-bit Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) microprocessor [2] was designed by alliance CAD system and IEEE Gigabit HSL Router. The main features of Alliance includes, it supports the standard VLSI description formats like SPICE, EDIF, VHDL, CIF and GDSII. It has built in design and simulation tools. It is easy to learn and use, also convenient to get the resources online. It includes logical synthesis tool which supports VHDL synthesis. The Alliance design flow includes design, synthesis and simulation along with optimization by using different kind of tools. The Alliance tools are independent, interact with each other and has more than 150 documented standard cells and six custom optimized generators [3], also it does not require a high performance workstation like Cadence; however, it is designed for UNIX based platform. Electric: Electric VLSI Design System is a high performance open source EDA tool that provides complete aids in designing the IC layout. It is a sophisticated system which can handle a range of fabrication CMOS technologies. It has many generic analysis and synthesis tools which automates the design process. It integrates the schematic editor, circuit simulator, schematic driven layout generator, layout editor, layout verification and parasitic extraction. The major advantage to Electric VLSI Design System is that, it allows swapping between the designs data with other standard EDA tools in the industry. It supports most popular formats such as EDIF, VHDL, GDS, LEF/DEF, etc. Initially, the Electric VLSI design system was written in C language in 1982 by Steven Rubin [4] at the Fairchild A.I. Laboratory in Palo Alto, California. Later it was ported to Java acquired by Oracle. Irrespective of all other CAD tools Electric had a combination of graphics, connectivity, and accurate geometry for IC design. The Electric design system has a huge database which is built on network structure, primarily to implement connectivity. The network has nodes and arcs [6], which are components in the circuit and connecting wires respectively. These network nodes and arcs have their own geometric data, for a correct representation of the circuit. Electric has an expansive database and can store a large number of structures, design rules are incorporated. The Electric VLSI system provides many features such as: Integrity Schematic, Layout and the supporting packages are integrated in one file. No node extraction Electric provides geometry connectivity information. So there is no need to extract nodes separately Geometry errors simpler design process powerful editing with LVS check

Toys R Us and Subsidiaries Essay -- GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

Toys R Us and Subsidiaries Running Head: Toys "R" Us Financial Analysis Note: Consistent with the financial report, all amounts are expressed in millions except per share data. Ernst & Young, LLP, independent auditors for Toys "R" Us Inc. and Subsidiaries issued an unqualified opinion on the company’s financial statements as of February 1, 1997 and on the consolidated results of operations and cash flows for the three years ending February 1, 1997, February 3, 1996 and January 28, 1995. The report by the independent auditors and their issuance of an unqualified opinion serves to provide reasonable assurance to stockholders, management, regulatory agencies and the public, that the financial statements are materially correct. Materiality is interpreted to mean that there are no unrecorded adjustments which would impact the decisions or opinions of the readers of these financial statements. The inclusion of the auditors’ report in the year-end financial report lends credibility to the presentation and allows the users including investors and potential investors to rely on the information as presented. Common Stock & Treasury Stock The company does not have preferred stock and has not declared or paid dividends on its common stock. As of February 1, 1997, Toys "R" Us, Inc. and subsidiaries had authorized 650 shares of par value $.10 common stock, of which 300.4 shares were issued. 12.6 shares were held in treasury stock leaving 287.8 shares issued and outstanding. The book value of the common stock issued and outstanding was $14.56 which is down from February 3, 1996 at which time the book value was $18.8. The total paid-in capital for common stock was $ 518.8 as of February 1, 1997 and $572.8 as of February 3, 1996. The average price per share received by the company for all common stock issued since inception of the corporation as of February 1, 1997 was $ 1.73. Ratio Analysis "There’s a saying that the nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." (Maciag, 1998) It is important to choose carefully the ratios to be analyzed to be sure that there is relevance between the data and the conclusions drawn from it. When choosing industry standards, it is important to select like industries with commonalties that support comparison of results. It would not be appropriate to compare the financial statement of t... ... beating the industry averages for inventory turns. In addition their receivables consistently exceed industry standard by a significant amount. References Enhanced Analytics. (May 16, 1999). S&P Personal Wealth. Available: http://www.personalwealth.com. Industry Info. (May 16, 1999). S&P Personal Wealth. Available: http://www.personalwealth.com. Maciag, Gregory, A. (April 13, 1998). A wake-up cal for industry standards. National Underwriter. P29. Meigs, Robert F.; Williams, Jan R.; Haka, Susan F.; Bettner, Mark S., (1999) Accounting. p 619. Mills, John R.; Yamamura, Jeanne H. (October 1998). The power of cash flow ratios. Journal of Accountancy. V186 n4 p53(7). Stocksheet: Media General Quick Source Data-One Wev Page—Toys R Us INC. (5/16/99) Available: http://www.stocksheet.com. Thomson Investors Network Company Report: Toys "R" Us Inc. (5/15/99). Available: http://www.thomson.com. Vital Stats. (May 16, 1999). S&P Personal Wealth. Available: http://www.personalwealth.com. Wallstreet Research Net Report: Toys R Us Inc. (May 7, 1999). Available: http://www.wsrn.com. Berry, Donna Gorski. (Mid-Oct 1998). Mouths of the millennium. Dairy Foods. 73.74.

Beauty and Beast

Beauty and Beast is a story of love, liberty, freedom, and identity in the society. It exposes the readers to a widower merchant living in his mansion with his six children, three daughters, and three sons. Even though the three girls are beautiful, the youngest, Beauty is the prettiest. She is equally kind and pure-hearted. The other two are selfish, spoiled and vain. In explicating the things that happen in the story, the author uses different literary tools to make the story electrifying while giving the readers an outlook that contrasts the inner beauty with the outer one (Warner, 1995). The stylistic devices are essential for the progression of the characters and development of the plot.The merchant finally loses everything at the sea. Live becomes challenging and the family moves to a farmhouse where they work for a living. As stated in the story, â€Å"Suddenly the merchant lost his fortune, and the only property he had left with was a small country house quite far from the city† (Zipes, 2005 pp. 806). From the statement, it is apparent that the life has taken a different twist for the family and it has to adjust to the new status to survive. Some years later, he gets the news that one of the ships that had sent off has landed on the port after escaping destruction. He then leaves for a journey to check on it but before leaving, he asks his children what they would want him to bring for them. The sons ask for weapons and horses, the oldest daughters' requests for jewels and good dresses while Beauty is only comfortable with a rare rose.However, it does not ogre well with him as he finds out that his ship has been apprehended to settle his debts. He is left with no money to buy the gifts that he promised his children. While on his way returning home, he is lost in the storm and cannot trace his way home. He looks for shelter and bumps into an elaborate palace, where he finds tables with sufficient food and drink, which appears to have been left for him by an unknown person. He accepts the gifts and spends the night at the palace, but in the morning sees a rose and remembers to take it to her daughter, Beauty. That decision opens a bandura box for more challenges that force him to accept tough conditions for his safety. After plucking the rose, the Beast told him â€Å"You're very ungrateful† he then added, â€Å"I saved your life by offering you hospitality in my c astle, and then you steal my roses, which I love more than anything else in the world. You shall die for this mistake† (Zipes, 2005 pp. 808). Life becomes tougher every moment for the merchant. The Beast makes a demand that he would only let him go if he would allow one of his daughters to return. Even though not happy about it, he has no otherwise than to accept the condition. The Beast gives him enough wealth, fine clothes, jewels, but tells him that Beauty should not know about their agreement (Warner, 1995). When he reaches home, he talked to his children. His sons are willing to go, but the merchant is unready to allow them to go. Beauty then agrees to go, and upon arrival, she is well received by the Beast who graciously tells him that she is the mistress of the castle and that the Beast would be her servant. Beauty spends three months in the castle but was troubled by the fact that every time before she goes to bed, the Beast would ask for her hand in marriage. She insists that she is only a friend, but not interested in getting married to him. She says, â€Å"I'll always be your friend. Try to be content with that† (Zipes, 2005 pp. 812). At night, he dreams of a good-looking prince persuading her to accept the proposal. At first, she cannot comprehend the relationship between the prince and the Beast but later realizes that he is a captive in the palace. One major takeaway from the story is that even the dreadful people in the world also have something good out of him.Later, the Beauty gets sick and asks the Beast to allow her to go home to see her father. She agrees to get back soon, but while home, her sisters become envious and uses tricks to shed false tears after rubbing onions on his eyes. They do so to make her delay so that the Beast would get angry with her. She then feels guilty for having broken the promise she made to the Beast (Zipes, 2005). She uses the mirror to see him back in the palace but is horrified to see him heartbroken near the rose bush where her father had plucked her gift. She weeps over him telling him that she loves. Suddenly, the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince that she has always seen in her dreams. He narrates to her that he was turned into a beast by a fairy and that the only thing that could save him is finding a true love.To conclude, the story has a lot for the readers to learn and disinter. For instance, through Beauty, one can appreciate the character. The content of one's character enables him or her to attract good things, including the lost fortunes. Through the Beast, one can appreciate that even the dreadful people have the other side of life that can be appreciated. Finally, even if the family was challenged and walked from grace to grass, through one good person, their glory could be restored.