Thursday, October 31, 2019
The War of 1812 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words
The War of 1812 - Essay Example At the same time, these military campaigns are considered to have had serious influence on the development trajectories of both Russia and USA: whereas Russia had proved to be the ruler of destinies in Europe, USA began expansion westwards. The set of causes and preconditions that had triggered the outbreak of war between United States and its former metropolis, British Empire, is rather rich. These were primarily maritime and commercial reasons related to the Napoleonic War in Europe (Tucker). Americans treated Britain with contempt, while the British disapproved their former fellow citizens for betraying the king and didn’t take the new state seriously. The period preceding the warfare was marked by the military campaign between France and British Empire, and USA keeping neutrality got between two fires. America had commercial relations with many countries including the two warring parties at that time; and American merchants got into trouble finding themselves between the Napoleonic Continental System and the British Orders in Council that did their best to prohibit the trade with the enemies (i.e. they tried to damage trade systems of each other) (Tucker). British Empire blocked French ports and demanded an additional fee from the American merchants to enter them (America’s Library). The escalation of the conflict was triggered by the search of American commercial ships and impressment of the sailors by the British Navy (McNamara). In 1807, British hostility went as far as to attacking the naval frigate Chesapeake in the coastal waters of Virginia with the intention to capture â€Å"deserters†: three sailors were killed and eighteen were wounded in this attack (Heidler). This incident triggered the outburst of cries for vengeance in the United States, and the majority demanded to declare the war to British Empire.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Liberal Studies Essay Example for Free
Liberal Studies Essay How do economic prosperity and rule of law depend on each other? It is doubtless that economic prosperity and rule of law are indivisible. And to answer how they depend on each other, stating the definition of ‘economic prosperity’ and ‘rule of law’ is inevitable. ‘Economic prosperity’ means that overall, the economy is doing well and most people have sufficient income for essentials and perhaps a little extra. It means that businesses are hiring and jobs are relatively easy to get. However, it does not mean that everyone has a job or that everyone is well off. On the other hand, the ‘rule of law’ means that the law should govern by limiting all conduct and behavior of all people and organizations in the society. Economic prosperity depends on the rule of law. One of the major functions of the rule of law is maintaining social stability. It is a well-known fact that investors and business men tend to invest their money on a stable, peaceful and well-ordered society. The reason is that in a more stable place, with fewer disputes and a well-established legal system, their money will be safer. This enhances economic prosperity. Moreover, in the Basic Law, it is clearly stated that people hold the right of private ownership of property, which means that the efforts of their work and the fruits of production are enjoyed exclusively by themselves. Hence, people are encouraged to work harder for their own benefits and create wealth. This promotes sustained economic growth and long-term prosperity. Also, even before the unification, Hong Kong has always been a famous free port in the world. In accordance to the Basic Law, Hong Kong shall take the low tax policy previously pursued in Hong Kong as reference to enact laws on its own concerning types of taxes, tax rates, tax reductions, allowances and exemptions, and other matters of taxation. Thus, the Hong Kong government does not set trade barriers such as customs tariff and quota on most imported and exported goods. Since no trade barriers are set, more products will flow in Hong Kong and consumers can choose from greater varieties of products. In addition, cons umers can buy products of higher quality but with lower prices. This stimulates consumption, which hopefully leads to an economic growth. In short, the free trade policy has contributed a lot to the overall economic development of Hong Kong. Likewise, the rule of law deals with corruptions. Under the principle of the rule of law, the law is above everything, even the government. Corruption and cronyism discourage domestic and foreign investment. The rule of law eradicates these problems and protects the economy. Simultaneously, the rule of law also depends on economic prosperity. How so? When the economy is prosperous, as stated above, most people have adequate income for daily necessities and perhaps, a little extra. Generally, businesses are hiring and jobs are relatively easy to get. In that case, people have less complains about the government and the society is likely to be more stable. In simpler words, economic prosperity stabilizes the society. Furthermore, when the economy is doing well, hopefully people is going to have more disposable income for consumption, investments etc. So, a prosperous economy will create demand for more protection of property rights, and rule of law. Maintaining the supremacy of the judicial and the rule of law requires resources. A well-doing economy provides more resources for the judiciary to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of legal institutions, including supporting the introduction of modern facilities, case management practices, information sharing, training of judges and other court personnel, and stronger mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability. This further ensures that the court and the law are supreme. The rule of law is secured in consequence. In my opinion, the degree of dependence of economic prosperity on the rule of law is way more than that of the rule of law on economic prosperity. Nevertheless, it is not the main focus of the question, which casts doubt on how the two depend on each other, but not the extent. In conclusion, it is apparent that economic prosperity and rule of law depend on each other a lot. Without the rule of law, firstly, people do not have the right of private ownership of property, which obviously is going to cause many disputes in the community since the result of the hard work of individuals may be taken away from them. Secondly, the free trade policy of Hong Kong since the reign of the British Empire may also lose, which will severely affect the overall economic well-being of Hong Kong consequently. Thirdly, the rule of law eradicates corruptions and relevant activities which deteriorate the economy. From these, we can see how economic prosperity depends on the rule of law. A place could never achieve a prosperous economy if there is no rule of law. In a similar way, without a prosperous economy, the rule of law would definitely not be in good state too. First, the society is going to be more stable as citizens hold less complains about the government. Second, since generally the economy is doing well, it is doubtless that people will have more disposable income thus promote consumption and other business activities, eventually stimulating the economy. Plus, to maintain and secure both judicial supremacy and the rule of law requires resources. Economic prosperity provides those resources to the judiciary. No wonder why people said the rule of law relies on economic prosperity. Last but not least, economic prosperity depends on the rule of law, and vice versa. To have the two is the key to a successful country, where economic development and democracy is balanced.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression
Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression in Ultrasound Imaging Abstract. Ultrasound images are inherently affected by speckle noise, and thus the reduction of this noise is a crucial pre-processing step for their successful interpretation. Bayesian estimation is a powerful signal estimation technique used for speckle noise removal in images. In the Bayesian-based despeckling schemes, the choice of suitable statistical models and the development of a shrinkage function for estimation of the noise-free signal are the major concerns. In this paper, a novel curvelet-based Bayesian estimation scheme for despeckling of ultrasound images is developed. The curvelet coefficients of the multiplicative degradation model of the noisy ultrasound image are additively decomposed into noise-free and signal-dependent noise components. The Cauchy and two-sided exponential distributions are assumed to be statistical models for the noise-free and signal-dependent noise components of the observed curvelet coefficients, respectively, and an efficient low-complexit y realization of the Bayesian estimator is proposed. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed despeckling scheme in providing a signifi cant suppression of the speckle noise and simultaneously preserving the image details. Keywords:Ultrasound imaging, curvelet transform, speckle noise, Bayesian estimation, statistical modeling. Introduction Ultrasound imaging is important for medical diagnosis and has the advantages of cost effectiveness, port-ability, acceptability and safety [1]. However, ultrasound images are of relatively poor quality due to its contamination by the speckle noise, which considerably degrades the image quality and leads to a negative impact on the diagnostic task. Thus, reducing speckle noise while preserving anatomic information is necessary to better delineate the regions of interest in the ultrasound images. In the work of speckle suppression in ultrasound images, many spatial-based techniques that employ either single-scale or multi-scale filtering have been developed in the literature [2-4]. Earlydeveloped single-scale spatial filtering [2] are limited in their capability for significantly reducing the speckle noise. More promising spatial single-scale techniques such as those using bilateral filtering [4] and nonlocal filtering [3] have been recently proposed. This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and in part by the Regroupement Strategique en Microelectronique du Quebec (ReSMiQ). These techniques depend on the size of the fi lter window, and hence, for a satisfactory speckle suppression, they require large computational time. Alternatively, multi-scale spatial techniques [5], based on partial differential equations, have been investigated in the literature. These techniques are iterative and can produce smooth images with preserved edges. However, important structural details are unfortunately degraded during the iteration process. As an appropriate alternative to spatial-based speckle suppression in ultrasound images, many other despeckling techniques based on different transform domains, such as the ones of wavelet, contourlet, and curvelet, have been recently proposed in the literature [6-8]. Wavelet transform has a good reputation as a tool for noise reduction but has the drawback of poor directionality, which makes its usage limited in many applications. Using contourlet transform provides an improved noise reduction performance due to its property of fi‚exible directional decomposability. However, curvelet transform offers a higher directional sensitivity than that of contourlet transform and is more efficient in representing the curve-like details in images. For the development of despeckling techniques based on transform domains, thresholding [7] has been presented as a technique to build linear estimators of the noise-free signal coefficients. However, the main drawback of this thresholding technique is in the difficulty of determining a suitable threshold value. To circumvent this problem, non-linear estimators [6] have been statistically developed based on Bayesian estimation formalism. For the development of an efficient Bayesian-based despeckling scheme, the choice of a suitable probability distribution to model the transform domain coefficients is a major concern. Also, while investigating a suitable statistical model, the complexity of the Bayesian estimation process should be taken into consideration. Consequently, special attention should be paid to the realization complexity of the Bayesian estimator that results from employing the selected probabilistic model in one of the Bayesian frameworks. In this paper, to achieve a satisfactory performance for despeckling of ultrasound images at a lower computational effort, a new curvelet-based Bayesian scheme is proposed. The multiplicative degradation model representing an observed ultrasound image is decomposed into an additive model consisting of noise-free and signal-dependent noise components. Two-sided exponential distribution is used as a prior statistical model for the curvelet coefficients of the signal-dependant noise. This model, along with the Cauchy distribution is used to develop a low-complexity Bayesian estimator. The performance of the proposed Bayesian despeckling scheme is evaluated on both syntheticallyspeckled and real ultrasound images, and the results are compared to that of some other existing despeckling schemes. Modeling of Curvelet Coefficients The multiplicative degradation model of a speckle-corrupted ultrasound image g(i,j) in the spatial domain is given by g(i,j) = v(i,j)s(i,j)(1) where v(i,j) and s(i,j) denote the noise-free image and the speckle noise, respectively. This model of the noisy observation of v(i,j) can be additively decomposed as a noise-free signal component and a signal-dependant noise: g(i,j) = v(i,j) + (s(i,j) à ¢Ã‹â€ ’1)v(i,j) = v(i,j) + u(i,j)(2) where (s(i,j) à ¢Ã‹â€ ’1)v(i,j) represents the signal-dependant noise. Taking the curvelet transform of (2) at level l, we have y[l,d](i,j) = x[l,d](i,j) + n[l,d](i,j)(3) where y[l,d](i,j), x[l,d](i,j) and n[l,d](i,j) denote, respectively, the (i,j)th curvelet coefficient of the observed image, the corresponding noise free image and the corresponding additive signal-dependant noise at direction d= 1,2,3, ·Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ·Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ·,D. In order to simplify the notation, we will henceforth drop both the superscripts land dand the index (i,j). In this work, in order to reduce the noise inherited in ultrasound images, we propose exploiting the statistical characteristics of the curvelet coefficients in (3) to derive an efficient Bayesian estimator. Thus, one needs to provide a prior probabilistic model for the curvelet coefficients of xand n. It has been shown that the distribution of the curvelet coefficients of noise-free images can be suitably modeled by the Cauchy distribution [9]. The zero-mean Cauchy distribution is given by px(x) = (ÃŽÂ ³/à ₠¬)(x2 + ÃŽÂ ³2)(4) where ÃŽÂ ³is the dispersion parameter. The noisy observation is used to estimate the Cauchy distribution parameter ÃŽÂ ³by minimizing the function 2 Â à †Ë†yyt (t) à ¢Ã‹â€ ’à †(t) eà ¢Ã‹â€ ’ dt(5) where à †Ë†y(t) is the empirical characteristic function corresponding to the curvelet coefficients yof 22 the noisy observation, à †y(t) = à †x(t)à †E(t), à †x(t) = eà ¢Ã‹â€ ’Π³|t|, and à †E(t) = eà ¢Ã‹â€ ’(à ƒà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½/2)|t| deviation à ƒEobtained as with the standard à ƒE= MAD(y(i,j)) 0.6745 (6) In (6), MAD denotes the median absolute deviation operation. Now, in order to formulate the Bayesian estimator, a prior statistical assumption for the curvelet coefficients of nof the signal dependant noise should also be assumed. From experimental observation, it is noticed that the tail part of the empirical distribution of ndecays at a low rate. Hence, in this paper, we propose to use a two-sided exponential (TSE) distribution given by 1 pn(n) =eà ¢Ã‹â€ ’|n|/ÃŽÂ ² 2ÃŽÂ ² (7) where ÃŽÂ ²is a positive real constant referred to as the scale parameter. The method of log-cummulants (MoLC) is adopted to estimate the parameter ÃŽÂ ², and thus the estimated ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“ is obtained by using the following expression: ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“ = exp 1N1        N2 log(y(i,j))+ ÃŽÂ ¾ (8) N1N2 i=1j=1 where ÃŽÂ ¾is the Euler-Mascheroni constant and N1 and N2 defi ne the size N1 ÃÆ'-N2 of the curvelet subband considered. Bayesian Estimator Due to the fact that each of the Cauchy and TSE distributions has only one parameter, one could expect the process of Bayesian estimation to be of lower complexity. The values of the Bayes estimates xˆof the noise-free curvelet coefficients xof a subband under the quadratic loss function, which minimizes the mean square error (MSE), are given by the shrinkage function: xˆ(y) =px|y(x|y)xdx P pn(yà ¢Ã‹â€ ’x)px(x)xdx =P p(yà ¢Ã‹â€ ’x)p(x) (9) It is noted that a closed-form expression for xˆ(y) given by the above equation does not exist. Thus, in order to obtain the Bayesian estimates for the noise-free curvelet coefficients, the two integrations associated with (9) are numerically performed for each curvelet coefficient. Since this procedure requires an excessive computational effort, the bayseian estimates are obtained by replacing the associated integrals in (9) with infi nite series as suggested in [10]. Accordingly, the Bayesian shrinkage function can be expressed as eà ¢Ã‹â€ ’y/ÃŽÂ ²[f (y)ÃŽÂ ¶] + ey/ÃŽÂ ²[ f(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶] xˆ(y) =(10) eà ¢Ã‹â€ ’y/ÃŽÂ ²[f21(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶2] + ey/ÃŽÂ ²[à ¢Ã‹â€ ’f22(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶2] where f11(y) = f12 (à ¢Ã‹â€ ’y) = sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) Im E( à ¢Ã‹â€ ’y+ jÃŽÂ ³)à ¢Ã‹â€ ’Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + à ₠¬ 1ÃŽÂ ²2 à ¢Ã‹â€ ’y+jÃŽÂ ³ à ¢Ã‹â€ ’cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)  Re E1(ÃŽÂ ² + Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) ,(11) f(y) = à ¢Ã‹â€ ’f 1à ¢Ã‹â€ ’y+ jÃŽÂ ³ (à ¢Ã‹â€ ’y) = à ¢Ã‹â€ ’ sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) Re E()+ Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) 2122ÃŽÂ ³1ÃŽÂ ² 1à ¢Ã‹â€ ’y+jÃŽÂ ³Ãƒ â‚ ¬ à ¢Ã‹â€ ’Π³cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)  Im E1(ÃŽÂ ² à ¢Ã‹â€ ’Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + 2 ,(12) ÃŽÂ ¶1 = lim f12 yà ¢Ã¢â‚¬ ’à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¾ (y) = sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) à ¢Ã‹â€ ’Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + à ₠¬ à ¢Ã‹â€ ’cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²), and(13) ÃŽÂ ¶= lim f 11 (y) =sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) +cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) à ₠¬ Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + (14) 222 yà ¢Ã¢â‚¬ ’à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¾ In the equations above, j= à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ ’1, Im{ ·}and Re{ ·}are the imaginary and real parts, respectively, of a complex argument, and E1( ·), Si( ·) and Ci( ·) are, respectively, the exponential, sine and cosine integral functions obtained as in [10]. Experimental Results Extensive experimentations are carried out in order to study the performance of the proposed despeckling scheme. The results are compared with those of other existing despeckling schemes that use improved-Lee fi ltering [2], adaptive-wavelet shrinkage [6], and contourlet thresholding [7]. Performance evaluation of the various despeckling schemes is conducted on synthetically-speckled and real ultrasound images. In the implementation of the proposed speckling scheme, the 5-level decomposition of the curvelet transform is applied. From the experimental observation, applying a higher level of decomposition of the curvelet transform does not lead to any improvement in the despeckling performance. Since the curvelet transform is a shift-variant transform, the cycle spinning [11] is performed on the observed noisy image to avoid any possible pseudo-Gibbs artifacts in the neighborhood of discontinuities. In the proposed despeckling scheme, only the detail curvelet coefficients are despec kled using the Bayesian shrinkage function in (10). The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is used as a quantitative measure to assess the despeckling performance of the various schemes when applied on synthetically-speckled images. Table I gives the PSNR values obtained when applying the various schemes on two synthetically-speckled images of size 512ÃÆ'-512, namely, Lenaand Boat. It is obviously seen from this table that, in all cases, the proposed despeckling scheme provides higher values of PSNR compared to that provided by the other schemes. To have a better insight on the despeckling performance of the various schemes, the results in Table 1 are visualized in Figure 1. It is obvious from this fi gure that the superiority of the proposed scheme over the other schemes is more evident when a higher level of speckle noise is introduced to the test images. In order to study the performances of the various despeckling schemes on real ultrasound images, two images obtained from [12] and shown in Figure 2 are used. Since the noise-fr ee images cannot be made available, one can only give a subjective evaluation of the performance of the various despeckling schemes. From Figure 2, it is clearly seen that the schemes in [2] and [6] provide despeckled images that suffer from the presence of visually noticeable speckle noise. On the other hand, the scheme in [7] severely over-smooth the noisy images thus providing despeckled images in which some of the texture details are lost. However, the proposed despeckling scheme results in images with not only a signifi cant reduction in the speckle noise but also a good preservation of the textures of the original images. Table 1: The PSNR values obtained when applying the various despeckling schemes on Lenaand Boatimages contaminated by speckle noise at different levels. 34 [2] 32[6] 30[7] Proposed 28 26 24 22 20 18 0.10.20.30.40.50.71 Standard deviation of noise (a) 32 [2] 30[6] 28[7] Proposed 26 24 22 20 18 16 0.10.20.30.40.50.71 Standard deviation of noise (b) Fig. 1: Quantitative comparison between the various despeckling schemes in terms of PSNR values: (a) Lenaimage; (b) Boatimage. Conclusion In this paper, a new curvelet-based scheme for suppressing the speckle noise in ultrasound images has been developed in the framework of Bayesian estimation. The observed ultrasound image is fi rst additively decomposed into noise-free and signal-dependant noise components. The Cauchy and twosided exponential distributions have been used as probabilistic models for the curvelet coefficients of the noise-free and signal-dependant noise components, respectively, of the ultrasound image. The proposed probabilistic models of the curvelet coefficients of an observed ultrasound image has been employed to formulate a Bayesian shrinkage function in order to obtain the estimates of the noise-free curvelet coefficients. A low-complexity realization of this shrinkage function has been employed. Experiments have been carried out on both synthetically-speckled and real ultrasound images in order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed despeckling scheme. In comparison with some other ex isting despeckling schemes, the results have shown that the proposed scheme provides higher PSNR values and gives well-despeckled images with better diagnostic details. (b) (c)(d)(e)(f) (g)(h)(i)(j) Fig. 2: Qualitative comparison between the various despeckling schemes. (a)(b) Noisy ultrasound images. Despeckled images obtained by applying the schemes in (c)(g) [2] ,(d)(h) [6] ,(e)(i) [7] and (f)(j) the proposed scheme. References Dhawan, A.P.: Medical image analysis. Volume 31. John Wiley Sons (2011) Loupas, T., McDicken, W., Allan, P.:  An adaptive weighted median fi lter for speckle suppression in medical ultrasonic images. IEEE transactions on Circuits and Systems 36(1) (1989) 129-135 Coup ´e, P., Hellier, P., Kervrann, C., Barillot, C.: Nonlocal means-based speckle fi ltering for ultrasound images. IEEE transactions on image processing 18(10) (2009) 2221-2229 Sridhar, B., Reddy, K., Prasad, A.: An unsupervisory qualitative image enhancement using adaptive morphological bilateral fi lter for medical images. International Journal of Computer Applications 10(2i) (2014) 1 Abd-Elmoniem, K.Z., Youssef, A.B., Kadah, Y.M.: Real-time speckle reduction and coherence enhancement in ultrasound imaging via nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 49(9) (2002) 997-1014 Swamy, M., Bhuiyan, M., Ahmad, M.: Spatially adaptive thresholding in wavelet domain for despeckling of ultrasound images. IET Image Process 3(3) (2009) 147-162 Hiremath, P., Akkasaligar, P.T., Badiger, S.: Speckle reducing contourlet transform for medical ultrasound images. Int J Compt Inf Engg 4(4) (2010) 284-291 Jian, Z., Yu, Z., Yu, L., Rao, B., Chen, Z., Tromberg, B.J.: Speckle attenuation in optical coherence tomography by curvelet shrinkage. Optics letters 34(10) (2009) 1516-1518 Deng, C., Wang, S., Sun, H., Cao, H.: Multiplicative spread spectrum watermarks detection performance analysis in curvelet domain. In: 2009 International Conference on E-Business and Information System Security. (2009) Damseh, R.R., Ahmad, M.O.: A low-complexity mmse bayesian estimator for suppression of speckle in sar images. In: Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2016 IEEE International Symposium on, IEEE (2016) 1002-1005 Temizel, A., Vlachos, T., Visioprime, W.: Wavelet domain image resolution enhancement using cycle-spinning. Electronics Letters 41(3) (2005) 119-121 Siemens  Healthineers: https://www.healthcare.siemens.com/ultrasound. Accessed:  2017-01-06.
Friday, October 25, 2019
Health Care :: social issues
Health Care Within the health care arena there is a growing concern about the needs of the elderly. Families wonder if their loved ones are getting the proper care that they need With the growing costs of health care and the decreasing resources of primary care physicians it is feared that only the physical needs of the patient are met. Concerns rise about the social psychological and environmental needs or the elderly. A study by Barbara Berkman and associates tries to provide some answers to people concerned with this issue According to the study many people are not aware of the social services they may have available to them. Because of this, many elderly people are not getting the care they need outside of the physical care necessary to "live." It is felt that screening a patient for social or emotional needs is becoming increasingly important. The focus of this study was to devise a questionnaire to identify the psychological, social and environmental needs of elderly patients. Three hospitals from different geographic locations were chosen for this study. At each hospital a care coordinator was chosen to be responsible for questionnaire review, communication with physicians, and further assessment and intervention when deemed necessary. Lists of patients 65 and older were generated from the caseloads of primary care physicians from the three hospital sites. The questionnaires were mailed out with physicians cover letters and consent forms in the summer of 1993. In the questionnaire patients were asked to assess their self-percieved notions of there medical and psychosocial needs, as well as the level of their functioning. Upon reciept of the completed questionnaires the care coordinators from each hospital assess the results of the survey. Those patients assessed as being high risk received follow up phone calls. Depending on the situation, high risk patients were given information only, indirect referrals, or direct referrals. The findings for the study indicate that approximately 56% of all people surveyed were in need of intervention. The three highest relative risks for all three sights were: difficulty with food preparation, difficulty in doing house work, and difficulty getting around the home. All three hospital settings agree that patients who reported having problems in the survey were judged to need intervention more than those who did not report having problems. Although the study had good intentions, I feel the study was unclear in its objectives. The study was to design an assessment tool that would identify the psychosocial and environmental needs of elderly patients.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Health and Fitness Essay
For many years there has been a debate between which is better for weight control and all around health and fitness, Cardiorespiratory Exercise or Weight Training. Many people tend to focus only on one aspect of the physical wellness. For example women, like myself may focus more on cardiorespiratory and flexibility training more so than Weight training. This is out of fear of injury, or the muscles becoming too bulky. Women tend to want to burn more calories, therefore they focus on exercises’ such as aerobics, walking, swimming, and jogging. Research shows that working out with weights has health benefits beyond simply bulking up one’s muscles and strengthening bones. Studies are finding that more lean muscle mass may allow kidney dialysis patients to live longer, give older people better cognitive function, reduce depression, boost good cholesterol, lessen the swelling and discomfort of lymphedema after breast cancer and help lower the risk of diabetes. Although Weight training has its benefits for variety of reasons; it also has its downside. Weight training promotes short term stiffness of the blood vessels, which could promote High Blood Pressure over time and increase the load on the heart. This would not be good for someone who has a history of Hypertension. A variety of studies have shown that the best way to offset the cardiovascular stress caused by strength training is to combine cardiorespiratory endurance exercise such as a brisk walk, bicycling, or elliptical machine, immediately after a weight training exercise. Regular aerobic exercise causes your lungs to process more oxygen with less effort; your heart to pump more blood with fewer beats; and the blood supply directed to your muscles to increase. As a result, by performing cardiovascular exercises, you are increasing your body’s endurance and efficiency. Miriam Nelson of the American College of Sports Medicine states, â€Å"Ideally, you want a combination of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise and moderate-intensity strength training†Bottom line to all of this research is both Resistance training and Cardiorespiratory exercise is good for the body, if done in the right order. http://www.the-invisible-gym.com/why-is-cardiovascular-training-and-resistance-training-important.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042001772.html
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Definition and Examples of Sorites in Rhetoric
Definition and Examples of Sorites in Rhetoric In logic, sorites is a chain of categorical syllogisms or enthymemes in which the intermediate conclusions have been omitted. Plural: sorites. Adjective: soritical. Also known as chain argument, climbing argument, little-by-little argument, and polysyllogism. In Shakespeares Use of the Arts of Language (1947), Sister Miriam Joseph notes that a sorites normally involves repetition of the last word of each sentence or clause at the beginning of the next, a figure which the rhetoricians called climax or gradation, because it marks the degrees or steps in the argument. Etymology: From the Greek, heap​Pronunciation: suh-RITE-eez Examples and Observations Here is an example [of sorites]: All bloodhounds are dogs.All dogs are mammals.No fish are mammals.Therefore, no fish are bloodhounds. The first two premises validly imply the intermediate conclusion All bloodhounds are mammals. If this intermediate conclusion is then treated as a premise and put together with the third premise, the final conclusion follows validly. The sorites is thus composed of two valid categorical syllogisms and is therefore valid. The rule in evaluating a sorites is based on the idea that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If any of the component syllogisms in a sorites is invalid, the entire sorites is invalid.(Patrick J. Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic, 11th ed. Wadsworth, 2012) St. Paul uses a causal sorites in the form of a gradatio when he wants to show the interlocking consequences that follow from a falsification of Christs resurrection: Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection from the dead? But if there be no resurrection from the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our teaching vain, and [if our preaching is vain] your faith is also vain (I Cor. 15:12-14).We might unfold this sorites into the following syllogisms: 1. Christ was dead / The dead never rise / Therefore Christ did not rise; 2. That Christ did rise is not true / We preach that Christ is risen / Therefore we preach what is not true. 3. Preaching what is not true is preaching in vain / We preach what is not true / Therefore we preach in vain. 4. Our preaching is vain / Your faith comes from our preaching / Therefore your faith is vain. St. Paul, of course, made his premises hypothetical to show their disastrous consequences and then to contradict them firmly: But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead (I Cor. 15:20).(Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Figures in Science. Oxford University Press, 1999) The Sorites Paradox While the sorites conundrum can be presented as a series of puzzling questions it can be, and was, presented as a paradoxical argument having logical structure. The following argument form of the sorites was common: 1 grain of wheat does not make a heap.If 1 grain of wheat does not make a heap then 2 grains of wheat do not.If 2 grains of wheat do not make a heap then 3 grains do not...._____∠´ 10,000 grains of wheat do not make a heap. The argument certainly seems to be valid, employing only modus ponens and cut (enabling the chaining together of each sub-argument involving a single modus ponens inference.) These rules of inference are endorsed by both Stoic logic and modern classical logic, amongst others.Moreover its premises appear true. . . .The difference of one grain would seem to be too small to make any difference to the application of the predicate; it is a difference so negligible as to make no apparent difference to the truth-values of the respective antecedents and consequents. Yet the conclusion seems false.(Dominic Hyde, The Sorites Paradox. Vagueness: A Guide, ed. by Giuseppina Ronzitti. Springer, 2011)​ The Sad Sorites, by Maid Marion The Sorites looked at the PremissWith a tear in his wistful eye,And softly whispered a Major TermTo a Fallacy standing by.O sweet it were to wanderAlong the sad sea sand,With a coyly blushing PredicateClasping thy willing hand!O happy are the Mood and Tense,If such indeed there be,Who thus Per Accidens may roamBeside the briny sea.Where never Connotation comes,Nor Denotation een.Where Enthymemes are things unknown,Dilemmas never seen.Or where the tree of PorphyryBears stately branches high,While far away we dimly seeA Paradox pass by.Perchance a Syllogism comes,In haste we see it flyHither, where peacefully it restsNor fears Dichotomy.Ah! would such joys were mine! AlasEmpiric they must be,Till hand in hand both Mood and TenseAre joined thus lovingly.(The Shotover Papers, Or, Echoes from Oxford, October 31, 1874)
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