A Soldier Essays

A Soldier Essays A Soldier Essay A Soldier Essay John Carduff October 4, 2010 Eng 101 There are very few material things in this world that I consider important to me but the few that are tell a story about my life. I have been awarded several medals from the United States Army; though all are important to me the one medal of seven that bears the most significance is the Army Achievement Medal for my service on funeral detail. I was put on funeral detail at the end of my contract with the US Army. At the very beginning I felt as though it was more of a burden that I would carry instead of the honor it holds. I have seen many great men put in the ground six feet under and watched as their families wept. This tradition of honoring fallen soldiers will never be lost. The sound of â€Å"Taps† being played on the bugle, the sound of the rifles firing in the air and the soldiers that stand tall in front and fold the flag into a neatly folded triangle. We as a brotherhood must honor these men and women. We as an Army family must lift up those near and dear to the departed. I played a substantial role on the funeral detail. I was given the honor to not only salute those who have died but to present the American flag to their husband or wife, mother or father and even the small children that are left behind. I have seen all their faces and heard them all cry out; though I must maintain my military barring never flinching. I bend down on one knee and tell each of them the same thing every time but it never gets old, â€Å"On behalf of the President of the United States and the US Army it was an honor to serve with†¦Ã¢â‚¬  That is when you mention their name. I have never presented the American Flag to a family member with a dry eye. Though I do not personally know these soldiers I feel a bond that is incomprehensible if you have never served. There is no greater honor in our military today than to honor our fallen soldiers and to show their families just how much their lives meant to the Army as a whole. I am proud to say that I had a part in honoring our soldiers and will always hold that experience close to my heart.

Quotes From William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet

Quotes From William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet,  one of Shakespeares iconic tragedies,  is a play about star-crossed lovers, their romance doomed from the start. It is one of the most famous plays of the English Renaissance, consistently taught and staged at high schools and colleges. As their families feud to the death, Romeo and Juliet, the two young lovers, are caught between disparate worlds. The unforgettable play is filled with fights, secret marriages, and untimely deaths–along with some of Shakespeares most famous lines. Love and Passion The romance of Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most famous in all of literature. The young lovers, despite their families objections, will do anything to be together, even if they must meet in secret. During their private rendezvous, the characters give voice to some of Shakespeares most romantic speeches. What sadness lengthens Romeos hours? / Not having that, which, having, makes them short. / In love? / Out / Of love? Out of her favor, where I am in love. [Act 1, Scene 1] One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun / Neer  saw her match since first the world begun. [Act 1, Scene 2] Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! / For I neer saw true beauty till this night. [Act 1, Scene 5] My bounty is as boundless as the sea / My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite. [Act 2, Scene 2] Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it  be  morrow. [Act 2, Scene 2] See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! /  O that I  were  a glove upon that hand, /  that I might touch that cheek! [Act 2, Scene 2] These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume. [Act 2, Scene 3] Family and Loyalty Shakespeares young lovers come from two families–the Montagues and the Capulets–that are sworn enemies of each other. The clans  have kept alive their ancient grudge for years. In their love for each other, Romeo and Juliet have each betrayed their family name. Their story shows what happens when this sacred bond is broken. What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word, / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. [Act 1, Scene 1] O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name. / Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love / And Ill no longer be a Capulet. [Act 2, Scene 2] â€Å"Whats in a name? that which we call a rose  /  By any other name would smell as sweet.†Ã‚  [Act 2, Scene 2] A plague o both your houses! [Act 3, Scene 1] Fate From the very beginning of the play, Shakespeare announces Romeo and Juliet as a story of destiny and fate. The young lovers are star-crossed, doomed to ill fortune, and their romance can only end in tragedy. The play unfolds with an inevitability reminiscent of Greek tragedy, as forces in motion slowly crush the young innocents who try to defy them. Two households, both alike in dignity  /  In fair Verona, where we lay our scene  /  From ancient grudge break to new mutiny  /  Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.  /  From forth the fatal loins of these two foes  /  A pair of star-crossd lovers take their life  /  Whose misadventured piteous overthrows  /  Do with their death bury their parents strife.†Ã‚  [Prologue] This days black fate on more days doth depend: / This but begins the woe others must end. [Act 3, Scene 1] â€Å"Oh, I am fortunes fool!†Ã‚  [Act 3, Scene 1]

Personal Statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 12

Personal Statement - Essay Example I also became aware of their impact on environment as well as the need for regeneration process in my country. Thus, I became motivated to involve myself with this mission that would be crucial to my nation’s long term sustainable growth and development by acquiring appropriate academic and professional knowledge. I pursued B. Sc Economics in LSE, which allowed me to build up strong quantitative and policy analytical skills that would qualify me to pursue an M. Phil in Planning, Growth and Regeneration. The diverse modules that this course offers have evoked a keen interest in me and I am confident that these will help me attain my aspirations both in professional and academic contexts. Besides, The mentoring from University of Cambridge, will allow me to further hone my skills and train me for a career in housing and urban development in future. I specifically want to exploit the potentials learning that this esteemed university offers in urban planning, spatial policies applied in different countries, and real estate development. Studies in Urban and Environmental Planning will also help me understand the intricacies of relationships between economic growth and environmental sustainability. I desire to specialize in Quantitative Research Methods based on my knowledge in econometrics and sta tistics to learn research techniques for evaluating development opportunities in urban and rural areas. Besides, I have keen interests in environmental issues, real estate as well as regulation and ownership control in vogue in different countries. 2. You may write here your non-academic activities or any special circumstances not evident from other answers in this application that you wish to draw to the attention of the assessors of your application (Max 140 words). I have worked as an intern in Housing and Urban Rural Development Bureau in my city, where I received an opportunity to understand how housing policies and economics have a symbiotic relationship that

Calculus Concepts Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Calculus Concepts - Assignment Example For instance, a function y +3x +2 = 0 is expressed with both dependent and independent variables. Although implicit functions can be converted to explicit functions, it may result to a complex function which may be hard to solve. Implicit differentiation is useful in differentiating implicit functions (functions not in the form y = f(x)). Given a function say , implicit differentiation demands we differentiate all elements of the equation with respect to x, even y variables but not treating y as a constant. This would give: In the second education, all functions of y are differentiated using chain rule where . Once the differential is performed is made the subject of the formula. Implicit differentiation is useful in performing implicit functions. Instead of putting y the subject of the formula and making the function a complex one, implicit differentiation assists in simplifying implicit functions. Logarithmic functions are useful in solving differential problems that involve complex product or quotient rule. In logarithmic differentiation, the function is expressed in the form of the natural logarithm, and it is implicitly differentiated. Given a function with a lengthy product that would give a huge sum while using the product rule, logarithmic differentiation comes in handy. For instance; One of the applications of Calculus is in curve sketching. Curve sketching involves using specific values of functions to estimate its structure. In curve sketching, we have the absolute maximum and a local maximum. The main difference between the two is that the absolute maximum is the maximum value of the function that takes over the whole domain. This means that in a given range, the absolute maximum is the largest value of the function obtained by performing a differentiation of the functions and equating it to zero. On the other hand, the local maximum is the largest value of the functions on a given section but not on the entire domain. The given image below

Journal reflective Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Journal reflective - Essay Example Conceptually, these two aspects have brought a revolutionary paradigm in marketing that mainly focuses on having and taking care of the customers rather than merely attracting them. Notably, though, is the importance of these two elements in business today with respect to the customers and the progress of the organization in context. Delineating from their generality, value concept, and relationship marketing have several other constituents tied to them. Besides, myriad theories combine to link, separate and contextualize the value concept and relationship marketing to the prevailing business environment. Within the value concept, for instance, is the customer-perceived value, mathematically defined as the perceived benefits divided by the perceived sacrifice.3 The sacrifices, in this case, are the costs the customer has to incur during purchase such as purchase price and installation costs among others. To sum up about the value concept, it is very critical for any company aiming to launch competitive values to the clients to carefully analyze and understand the needs of the clients.4 It is the riskiest part of the value concept since the lack of such understanding may dilute customer loyalty. It may be a total waste of resources, and cause a ripple effect of not meeting the objectives of the company. In genera l, the value concept is directly proportional to relationship marketing.5 Arguably, reading this article is not only important to anyone aiming to start a business, but also to the established companies. Clearly, the impact of such reflection on professional learning and professional marketing skills cannot be overemphasized. As already asserted above, the reflection has a direct relationship with both professional learning and the real business environment. For one, it is through the reflection that a learner

Determining Attributes to Maximize Visibility of Objects

Determining Attributes to Maximize Visibility of Objects A Critique on  Determining Attributes to  Maximize Visibility of Objects Muhammed Miah Gautam Das Vagelis Hristidis Heikki Mannila Vidisha H. Shah 1. Summary of the published work Das, Hristidis, and Mannila (2009, p. 959) discussed about the ranking function and top k retrieval algorithms that helps user (potential buyers to search for the required product from the available catalog. The problem is how a user (potential seller) should select attributes of new tuple that the product stands out from the other available products. So there are several formulation that were developed by the author and few that are already in practice. According to authors, to run a query(search) keywords are entered on basis of which search is conducted (p. 959). The query anserwing system may return all the values that fulfill the condition it is also called as unranked retrieval or Boolean retrieval, or can rank the answers and return top k values known as ranked retrieval or Top-k retrieval. The example given by the author is objects can be ranked on the attribute based on price or based on relevance. The example and a problem related to it is described by the author. A user wants to classify an ad to rent an apartment in an online newspaper (p. 959). The given ad (tuple) has various attributes like number of bedrooms, location and so on. The cost factor is also involved in any ad so accordingly attribute that will provide better visibility should be selected. To understand which attributes provide better visibility we can built it on basis of previous sellers recommendation (tradition technique) or an argument by which we can view the ranking function buy which we can understand which attribute will lead to high ranking score. Example adding an attribute swimming pool can increase the visibility, or a catchy title or indexing keywords (for an article). Let D be the database of some product that has been advertised already (competitor). Author is considering that the database can be a relational table or a text document (p. 960). If database is a relational table then each tuple i n the table is a product and every column is an attribute related to the product. If database is a collection of text document then each document contains data regarding a specific product (ad). The set of queries or search conditions that have been executed in past by the user is stated as Q. therefore Q is the â€Å"query log† or â€Å"workload†. The query log is the record of the queries that have been used buy the potential buyers in the past. So the query could be like SQL query or query based on key word that will return a tuple from D(database). The problem given by the author is when a D(database), Q(query log), new tuple t and integer m are given determine best m attributes for tuple t such that when the shortened version of the tuple t with m attributes is inserted in d then the number of queries from Q retrieving tuple t is maximized (p. 960). In this paper variant of m is also considered that is when m is given by the user or when m is not mentioned. In this paper author has consider several variants like Boolean (unranked retrieval) (P 960), categorical variant, text and numeric data variant and conjunctive and disjunctive query semantics. Budget variant is also considered where in if m is not given the objective of maximizing the visibility is achieved keeping m minimum. No- budget variant is also considered where value of m is not given and the only aim is to gain maximum visibility of the object and for that all possible attributes can be added. In the preliminaries section author describes that for the given database D it contains tuples {t1, t2,†¦.tm}. Each tuple t has various attributes { a1, a2,†¦. an}. Tuple t will have either value 1 or 0. 0 implies that the attribute is absent and 1 implies that the feature is available. Tuple Domination means that if a tuple has all attributes value 1 that that tuple dominates. Tuple compression of t which has m attributes. It retains all 1’s in m and converts rest all attributes to 0 (p. 961). In Conjunctive Boolean with query log(CB-QL) variant the problem definition stated by the author is when a Q with Conjunctive Boolean retrieval semantics, tuple t, and integer m are given then have to compute compressed tuple with m attribute with maximum visibility(p. 961). For this problem author uses NP-Completeness Results and derives the Theorem that the decision version of CB-QL problem is NP-hard. Author explains various algorithms for Conjunctive Boolean with query log (p. 961). First is Optimal Brute Force Algorithm. As stated earlier that CB-QL is NP-hard so during worst case optional algorithm will run in polynomial time. The problem can be solved by a simple. This problem can be solved by simple brute force algorithm. So can be called as Brute Force-CB-QL which will consider all the combination of all m attributes of the tuple t such that the combination will satisfy to achieve maximum visibility among Q. In Optimal Algorithm Based on Integer Linear programming an ILP framework CB-QL can be described as follows, new tuple t be a Boolean vector has various attributes {a1,a2,†¦an}. Q be the query log and S be the total number of queries in query log. So the task is to This integer linear formulation is attractive unlike other general IP solvers, ILP solvers and are also usually more efficient(p. 962). According to author in Optimal Algorithm that is Based on Maximal Frequent Item Sets according to the author this algorithm is based on Integer Linear Programming, but this has certain limitation so author says it is impractical if there are more than few hundred of queries in the Q query log. The author has develop an alternate approach for the same which scales large query logs very well (p. 963). This algorithm is called MaxFreqItemSets-CB-QL, for this author has defined the frequent item set problem, Complementing the Query Log, Setting of the Threshold Parameter, Random Walk to Compute Maximal Frequent Item Sets, Complexity Analysis of a Random Walk Sequence, Number of Iterations, Frequent Item Sets at Level M _ m, Preprocessing Opportunities, The Per-Attribute Variant. Author says in Greedy Heuristics algorithm becomes slow for large query logs when maximal frequent item set based algorithm has better scalability then the IPL based algorithm (p. 964). So author has developed suboptimal greedy heuristic for solving CB-QL. The algorithm consist of ConsumeAttr-CB-QL computes the number of times each attribute appears in Q. Using this top m attributes that have highest frequency is computed. The algorithm ConsumeAttrCumul-CB-QL first selects the attributes from the query log Q that has occurred maximum times and then finds the attribute that occurs second highest in the Q, and so on. The algorithm ConsumeQueries-CB-QL picks the query with minimum number of attributes first, and then selects all attributes specified in the query. In next section author explains problem variant for text data. In the text database there is a collection of documents, and each document consist a data of a particular ad (p. 965). The problem definition for text data is that query is a set of keywords and have to retrieve top-k documents via query specific scoring functions and make the document maximum visible. According to author text database can be directly mapped into Boolean database (p. 965). So the algorithm and the working can be made similar to that of Boolean Data but author says that there is a problem with attribute selection for text data is NP-complete. It can convert it into Boolean considering each key word as a Boolean attribute. So according to author since text database can be converted to Boolean database in the algorithm for text data the are two issues firstly to view each text keyword as a Boolean attribute in query log Q, and none of the optimal algorithms are feasible for text data (p. 965) . Second issue is that in text data the scoring functions that are used takes account of the document length and leads to decrease the score if keyword has low frequency. In the next section author has described about the experiments that were conducted and there results. For this experiments system that was used had following configuration P4, 1 GB RAM, 3.2- GHZ processor, 100 GB HDD, Microsoft SQL Server 2,000 RDBMS. Algorithms were implemented in C# Language, for backend RDBMS and connectivity was done using ADO. 2 data sets were used for Boolean data and publication titles were used for text data experiments. 185 queries in query log were created for the experiments, 205 distinct keywords were created by other students. The experiment worked well for Boolean data CB-QL where top m attributes were given and had maximum visibility for 185 queries. Individual experiments were done to calculate the execution time of each algorithms of CB-QL. Various statistical data is given by the author that gives how individual algorithm runs under various workload. Various similar experiments were done for text data also and its algorithm and similar statistical d ata is given by the author (p. 965). In the next section various other problem variants for Boolean data, categorical and numeric data are considered. In that author has first explain Conjunctive Boolean-Data (CB-D) in which author describes its problem definition for maximum visibility given D(database), Q(query log), t (new tuple) and m(integer). For the given problem definition complexity results for CB-D and its algorithm are given by the author (p. 967). Then next variant considered is Top-k – Global Ranking (Tk-GR) and Top-k – Query-Specific Ranking (Tk-QR) and in that author considers Top-k retrieval using Global and Query-Specific Scoring Function. Then problem definition for Tk-GR and Tk-QR is stated by the author and then its complexity and algorithm for the same are given(P.968). Next variant considered by the author is Skyline Boolean (SB) where skyline retrieval semantics are considered then problem definition for SB then its complexity and algorithms are discussed. In the similar way remainin g variants Conjunctive Boolean—Query Log—Negation (CB-QL-Negation), Maximize Query Coverage (MQC), Categorical and Numeric Data are discussed by the author(P. 969). In conclusion author describes that how the best attributes for the problem can be selected from the data set given query log. Author has presented variants for many cases like Boolean data or categorical or text data and numeric data (p. 972). And has showed that even though the problem is NP complete the optimal algorithms are feasible for small inputs. Author has also presented greedy algorithms that can produce good approximation ratio. 2. My Opinion on published work The use of internet and network has increased tremendously and with that the data available on network has increased but the main problem is information to knowledge conversion that is finding data that is useful to the user, over spam. The algorithm discussed by the author can be used to improve the visibility of the document. In the paper author has not just given algorithm for Boolean type data but also text data and other variant that is the algorithm can be used for real time data that is in various forms. The main focus of the author is on potential seller and what all attributes should be added to maximize the visibility of the advisement or the document on the web so that the potential buyers can view that document in first few options, but this can be used other way round to and using this spam can be created, a document that is a fake document that has various attributes which are not true but are added added to gain maximum visibility, which should not be even displayed in the given category. The author makes assumption about the competitors or say other advertise, and assumptions about the users preferences are made as well. The queries in the query log where written by random students and not according to what actual users want, so there is no guarantee that this will work equally well in real time environment and will actually maximize the visibility with real time users and on real network. As given by the author in every problem definition of every variant that given D database and given Q query log but in real time for many application neither D(database) nor Q(query log) is available for analysis so user have to make assumptions about the competitors and users (potential buyers) need and there after have to decide the Top-k attributes from the subset of all the attributes that will help the user to achieve maximum visibility with minimum number of attributes. In the paper the author has given various variant by which the visibility of the object can be maximized in various cases and has various optimal algorithms and greedy algorithm. Optimal algorithm gives optimal outputs but works well for small inputs only as and when the size of input increases the algorithm does not work well. Greedy algorithm produces approximate results that can be seen from the experiments done by the author with various variants. According to Ao-Jan Su, Y. Charlie Hu, Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, and Cheng-Kok Koh Page rank of any document or advertisement is not only depended on the attributes but also on key words in host name, the key words in the URL, HTML header so with the selection of proper attributes in the document user also needs to keep a check on above mentioned factors also to maximize the visibility of the object.(2010, P. 55) Angelica Caro has given a table of Data quality and visibility rankings for Spanish university portals. In which author has given DQ* ranking, Visibility ranking, Partial visibility rankings in terms of Site, Links and Popularity, Distance* where *DQ means data quality and *Distance between the data quality and visibility rankings. Teal numbers indicate the portals that are relatively close in both rankings. So from the result given by the author it is seen that there is not a precise order that is the data quality of a site can be ranked 1 but visibility is 19 because it is based on other factors also like its popularity, links, sites and distance. So even if the DQ is not very good but it is popular or it has many incoming links can lead to improve the overall ranking of the page and thereby maximizes the visibility of the page. The statistic of the site that has ranks first in visibility is data quality is 5 visibility is 1 site 1 links 1 popularity 3 distance 4 so it can be seen that to gain maximum visibility we cannot just depend on attributes of the data that is not just data quality but there are various other factors that is required to be considered to improve visibility of the object, that is not considered in the paper by the author.(2011, p. 46). References Ao-Jan Su, Hu, Y.C., Kuzmanovic, A., Cheng-Kok Koh (2010). How to Improve Your Google Ranking: Myths and Reality.2010 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference onWeb Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT),1, 50-57.doi: 10.1109/WI-IAT.2010.195 Caro, A., Calero, C., Moraga, M.A.(2011). Are Web Visibility and Data Quality Related Concepts?.Internet Computing, IEEE, 15(2), 43-49.doi: 10.1109/MIC.2010.126 Miah, M., Das, G., Hristidis, V., Mannila, H. (2009). Determining Attributes to Maximize Visibility of Objects.Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Transactions on,21(7), 959-973.doi: 10.1109/TKDE.2009.72

A Rose for Emily By William Faulkner :: Free Essay Writer

Faulkner’s "A Rose For Emily" is told by a resident of Jefferson, Mississippi, a town in which the Grierson family is the closest thing to true aristocracy. To the outside world it might have appeared that Miss Emily Grierson grew up wealthy and happy, however it was a lonely life for her father ruled Emily with an iron fist, turning away every suitor. No man was good enough for his daughter. The first thing Emily did after her father’s death was find a boyfriend named Homer Barron. She went out driving with Homer, and bought him expensive and personal things like a silver toilet seat and a nightshirt. The towns people assumed she had secretly gotten married because with her father dead, a big social wedding would be in bad taste. Emily became a very stubborn old lady who refused to pay her taxes due to a tale that Colonel Sartoris who was the mayor at the time had told her. According to Sartoris, her father had lent the town some money, and therefore all of her taxes were remitted. Miss Emily would manage to make her self disappear for a certain period of time. This would cause people to talk because no one would know where she was or what she was doing. When her father had died people called and dropped by the house to give Miss Emily their condolences. She told them that he was not dead and that he was still alive. She refused for her father’s body to be disposed of. The town thought she had gone crazy. They talked a lot of Miss Emily’s servant. They made racial comments about him, and noticed when Miss Emily’s house started giving off some sort of bad odor, and complained to Judge Stevens about the smell. For a while Emily convinced herself that the townspeople still respected her. When Emily found out Homer was gay, she realized his company would cause her to be pitied and laughed at. A Rose for Emily By William Faulkner :: Free Essay Writer Faulkner’s "A Rose For Emily" is told by a resident of Jefferson, Mississippi, a town in which the Grierson family is the closest thing to true aristocracy. To the outside world it might have appeared that Miss Emily Grierson grew up wealthy and happy, however it was a lonely life for her father ruled Emily with an iron fist, turning away every suitor. No man was good enough for his daughter. The first thing Emily did after her father’s death was find a boyfriend named Homer Barron. She went out driving with Homer, and bought him expensive and personal things like a silver toilet seat and a nightshirt. The towns people assumed she had secretly gotten married because with her father dead, a big social wedding would be in bad taste. Emily became a very stubborn old lady who refused to pay her taxes due to a tale that Colonel Sartoris who was the mayor at the time had told her. According to Sartoris, her father had lent the town some money, and therefore all of her taxes were remitted. Miss Emily would manage to make her self disappear for a certain period of time. This would cause people to talk because no one would know where she was or what she was doing. When her father had died people called and dropped by the house to give Miss Emily their condolences. She told them that he was not dead and that he was still alive. She refused for her father’s body to be disposed of. The town thought she had gone crazy. They talked a lot of Miss Emily’s servant. They made racial comments about him, and noticed when Miss Emily’s house started giving off some sort of bad odor, and complained to Judge Stevens about the smell. For a while Emily convinced herself that the townspeople still respected her. When Emily found out Homer was gay, she realized his company would cause her to be pitied and laughed at.