Value proposition & Social innovation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Value proposition & Social innovation - Essay Example For that reason, therefore, in my view, the designing of an effective value proposition should be preceded with a research that aims at understanding the needs, the tastes, and the preferences of one’s potential customers. Through research on the customers’ preferences, one is able to better understand the customers’ preferences, and therefore, be able to empathize with the feelings and the emotions of one’s customers as one designs the value proposition of his or her products. For that reason, therefore, in my view, it is impossible to design an effective value proposition without empathy mapping; this is because I believe that without making a serious effort to understand your customers’ tastes and preferences, it is impossible to design an effective value proposition for your products and services that will capture their attention and their interests. In my reflections on social innovation, I have realized that any business organization that does not take social innovation seriously cannot achieve its intended goals and objectives. This is because, without putting the interests of all the stakeholders of a business organization, and the social and environmental interests, over and above all other interests, a business organization cannot succeed in attaining its goals and objectives. This is because, although, making and maximizing profits is one of the main goals of an organization, an organization that does not put the interests of its stakeholders and its customers cannot succeed in making reasonable profits; the stakeholders and the customers of a business organization need to be treated well so that they can be motivated to serve the business organisation well and to purchase the organization’s products or services. Equally important, without taking good care of the environment, an organization cannot succeed in makin g

Nazi medicine Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Nazi medicine - Research Paper Example The resulting research that came about through the Nazi experiments was eyed with great suspicion and scientists even today are asked to justify their use of the Nazi methods when they employ them. It is viewed as something that is not socially responsible and is an abuse to the science community itself. So the question that arises is that is it alright to use the work of Nazis in the medical field or is it a moral degradation in itself? (Adshead, and Brown 109). The very fact that the ‘data’ that was obtained by the Nazis to conduct their research was nothing but torture and pain is a factor in itself to condemn the Nazi research and its subsequent scientific hypotheses. The dead bodies were frozen, sterilized and inseminated and hence the bodies were more of a subject to torture and humiliation. This situation can very well be put in to an example- it is just as a human consumes a piece of meat and gets rid of the remains in a shabby fashion; the medicines and other research depict the same- the bodies were used to the benefit of the Nazis and then the remains discarded as ‘unwanted’. The subjects were tortured in multiple manners: Firstly, they were made to be observed against their will and were dragged into dangerous experiments. Secondly, the experiments were designed in such a manner that the subjects would deliberately be put through a lot of suffering and fatal outcomes. Thirdly, all the subjects had to nec essarily undergo mutilation and tremendous pain. Amidst such situations, how can one justify the use of the results obtained by these Nazis? (Evans 357) The biggest controversy in using the research of the Nazis revolves around the passive external re warming and active external warming. The passive external re warming is when the research methods use the warmth of the patients’ bodies to complete the research whereas the active external re

Concurrent Processes In Operating Systems

Concurrent Processes In Operating Systems The programming technique, to use interrupts to simulate the concurrent execution of several programs on Atlas computers was known as multiprogramming. It was pioneered by Tom Kilburn and David Howarth. Multiprogramming in early days was done using assembly level language. Slightest mistake in programs could make program unpredictable hence testing them was difficult also the assembly level language had no conceptual foundation. Operating systems designed using this multiprogramming techniques grew very huge and unpredictable their designers spoke about software crisis. This created an urgent research and development need for concurrent programming techniques. Computer scientists took the first step towards understanding the issues related to concurrent programming during mid 1960s, they discovered fundamental concepts, expressed them by programming notation, included them in programming languages and used these languages to write the model operating systems. These same concepts were then applied to any form of parallel computing. Introduction of Concurrent processes in operating systems Processes played a key role in shaping early operating systems. They were generally run in a strictly sequential order. Multiprogramming existed but the processes did not exactly run concurrently instead a time based mechanism was used in which a limited amount of time was given to each process. Even in those days the processors speed was fast enough to give and illusion that the multiple processes were running concurrently. They were called as timesharing or multiprogramming operating systems (November 1961, called CTSS Compatible Time-Sharing System also Multics the predecessors of UNIX developed by MIT) These type operating systems were very popular and were seen as a breakthrough during those times. The major drawback was complexity of the system design which made it difficult to make it more versatile and flexible so that a single all purpose OS could be built. Also the resource sharing done by these processes was primitive or inefficient and it only showed there was a lot of room for research and development. Work on these operating systems made way for concurrent processes. Most of the original concepts related to concurrency were developed during this period. These innovative ideas and concepts went on become the basic principles on which todays operating systems and concurrent applications are designed. (A major project undertaken by IBM in this direction was in 1964 the OS/360 for their new mainframes system 360) To build reliable concurrent processes understanding and developing basic concepts for concurrency was important let us talk about concurrency and some of its basic programming concepts. Concurrency In computer science, concurrency is a property of systems in which several computations are executing simultaneously, and potentially interacting with each other. [Wikipedia] Let us consider a real life example a housing project such as the building of a house will require some work to go on in parallel with other works. In principle, a project like building a house does not require any concurrent activity, but a desirable feature of such a project is that the whole task can be completed in shorter time by allowing various sub tasks to be carried out concurrently. There is no reason any painter cannot paint the house from outside (weather permitting!), while the plasterer is busy in the upstairs rooms and the joiner is fitting the kitchen units downstairs. There are however some constraints on concurrency which is possible. The brick layer will normally have to wait until the foundation of the house had been layered before he could begin the task of building the walls. The various tasks involved in such a project can usually be regarded as independent of one another, but the scheduling of the tasks is constrained by notions of a task A must be completed b efore task B can begin A second example is that of a railway network. A number of trains making journeys within a railway network, and by contrast with the previous example, when they start and they end is generally independent of most of the other journeys. Where the journeys interact though is at places where routes cross or use common sections of track for parts of journeys. We can in this example regard the movement of trains as programs in execution, and the sections of track as the resources which these programs may or may not have to share with other programs. Hence the two trains run concurrently in case their routes interact sharing the same resources without interrupting each other similar to concurrent processes in operating systems. So as discussed earlier we understand that processes are important to implement concurrency so let us discuss the process as a concept which will introduce us to the most important concept for concurrency i.e. threads! Fundamental concepts Process A process is a running program; OS keeps track of running programs in form of processes and their data. A process is made of multiple threads. Threads The need to write concurrent applications introduced threads. In other words, threads are processes that share a single address space. Each thread has its own program counter and stack. Threads are often called lightweight processes as N threads have 1 page table, 1 address space and 1 PID while N processes have N page tables, N address spaces and N PIDs. Therefore, a sequence of executing instructions is called a thread that runs independently of other threads and yet can share data with other threads directly. A thread is contained inside a process. There can exist multiple threads within a process that share resources like memory, while different processes do not share these resources. A simple thread example There are two classes defined in this example namely SimpleThread which is a subclass of the Thread class and TwoThreads class. class SimpleThread extends Thread { public SimpleThread(String str) { super(str); } public void run() { for (int i = 0; i { System.out.println(i + + getName()); Try { sleep((int)(Math.random() * 1000)); } catch (InterruptedException e) {} } System.out.println(DONE! + getName()); } } The method SimpleThread() is a constructor which sets the Threads name used later in the program. The action takes place in the run() method which contains a for loop that iterates ten times that displays the iteration number and the name of the Thread, then sleeps for a random interval of up to a second. The TwoThreads class provides a main() method that creates two SimpleThread threads named London and NewYork. class TwoThreads { public static void main (String[] args) { new SimpleThread(London).start(); new SimpleThread(NewYork).start(); } } The main() method also starts each thread immediately following its construction by calling the start() method. Following concepts are mostly used at the thread level and also the issues discussed are encountered while implementing concurrency. Race condition A race condition occurs when multiple processes access and manipulate the same data concurrently, and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place.[http://www.topbits.com/race-condition.html] It is not so easy to detect race condition during program execution if it is observed that the value of shared variables is unpredictable, it may be caused because of race condition. In concurrent programming there are more than one legal possible thread executions hence order of thread execution cannot be predicted. Race condition may produce uncertain results. Outcome of race condition may occur after a long time. In order to prevent unpredictable results because of race condition, following methods are used- Mutual exclusion Mutual exclusion (often abbreviated to mutex) algorithms are used in concurrent programming to avoid the simultaneous use of a common resource, such as a global variable, by pieces of computer code called critical sections. (Wikipedia) -Critical Region (CR) A part of code that is always executed under mutual exclusion is called a critical region. Due to this, the compiler instead of the programmer is supposed to check that the resource is neither being used nor referred to outside its critical regions. While programming, critical section resides when semaphores are used. CRs are needed only if the data is writeable. It consists of two parts: Variables: These must be accessed under mutual exclusion. New language statement: It identifies a critical section that has access to variables. There are two processes namely A and B that contain critical regions i.e. the code where shared data is readable and writable. -Semaphores Semaphores are mechanisms which protect critical sections and can be used to implement condition synchronization. Semaphore encapsulates the shared variable and using semaphore, only allowed set of operations can be carried out. It can suspend or wake processes. The two operations performed using semaphores are wait and signal, also known as P and V respectively. When a process performs P operation it notifies semaphore that it wants to use the shared resource, if the semaphore is free the process gains access to the shared variable and semaphore is decremented by one else the process is delayed. If V operation is performed, then the process notifies the semaphore that it has finished using shared variable and semaphore value is incremented by one. By using semaphores, we attempt to avoid other multi-programming problem of Starvation. There are two kinds of Semaphores: Binary semaphores: Control access to a single resource, taking the value of 0 (resource is in use) or 1 (resource is available). Counting semaphores: Control access to multiple resources, thus assuming a range of nonnegative values. -Locks The most common way to implement mutex is using locks. A lock can be either locked or unlocked. The concept is analogues to locks we use in our doors; a person enters the room, locks the door and starts working and leaves the room after finishing the job, if another person wants to enter the room when one person is already inside, he has to wait until the door gets unlocked. Subtasks in a parallel program are often called threads. Smaller, lightweight versions of threads are known as fibres, which are used by some parallel computer architecture and bigger versions are called as processes. Many times threads need to change the value of shared variable, instruction interleaving between programs could be in any order For example, consider the following program: Thread A Thread B 1A -Read variable X 1B Read variable X 2A Increment value of X by 1 2B Increment value of X by 1 3A Write back to variable X 3B Write back to variable X As we can see in the example both the threads are carrying out same steps which are to read the shared variable, increment its value and write back its value to the same variable. It is clear how vital it is to execute these instructions in correct order, for instance if instruction 1A is executed between 1B and 3B it will generate an incorrect output. If locks are used by one thread, another thread cannot read, write the shared variable. Following example explains usage of locks: Thread A Thread B 1A Lock variable X 1B Lock variable X 2A Read variable X 2B Read variable X 3A Increment value of X by 1 3B Increment value of X by 1 4A Write back to variable X 4B Write back to variable X 5A Unlock variable X 5B Unlock variable X Whichever thread locks the variable first, uses that variable exclusively, any other thread will not be able to gain access to shared variable until it is unlocked again. Locks are useful for correct execution but on the other hand they slow down the program. -Monitors A monitor is a mutual exclusion enforcing synchronization construct. Monitors provide more structure than conditional critical regions and can be implemented as efficiently as semaphores. Monitors are supported by a programming language rather than by the operating system. They were introduced in Concurrent Pascal and are used as the synchronization mechanism in the Java language. A monitor consists of code and data. All of the data and some of the code can be private to the monitor, accessible only to the code that is part of the monitor. Monitor has a single lock that must be acquired by the task to execute monitor code i.e. mutual exclusion is provided by making sure that execution of procedures in the same monitor are not overlapped. Active task is the term used for the task which owns the monitor lock. There cannot be more than one active task in the monitor. The monitors lock can be acquired by a task through one of several monitor queues. It gives up the lock either by blocking a condition variable or by returning from a monitor method. A condition variable is a queue or event queue that is part of the monitor. Two monitor methods called as wait and notify can only be accessed by a condition variable queue. The behaviour of a monitor is known by the relative priorities and scheduling of various types of queues. The monitor locks are acquired by the processes in the monitor queues. The queues may be combined in some implementations. The tasks compete for the lock when the monitor lock becomes free. Condition Variable: In order to make sure that processes do not enter a busy waiting state, they should notify some events to each other; this facility is provided by Monitors with the help of condition variables. If a monitor function wants to proceed by making a condition true then it has to wait for the corresponding condition variable. When a process waits, it gives up the lock and is taken out from set of runnable processes. When a process makes condition true then it notifies a waiting process using condition variable. The methods mentioned above are used to prevent race condition but they might result into serious problems like deadlock and starvation let us have a look at these problems one at a time as we go further. Deadlock Deadlock refers to a specific condition where two or more processes are each waiting for each other to release a resource, or more than two processes are waiting for resources in a circular chain. Conditions for deadlock to occur 1] Mutual exclusion: Mutual exclusion means only one process can use a resource at a time. 2] Hold and wait: A process may hold a allocated resource while awaiting assignment of other resource. 3] No pre-emption: A resource can be released voluntarily by the process holding it. One process cannot use resource forcefully held by another process. A process that receives such resources cannot be interrupted until it is finished using the resource. 4] Circular wait: A closed chain of processes exists, such that each process holds a resource required by another process in the chain. Deadlock occurs only when circular wait condition is not resolvable and circular wait is not resolvable if first three conditions hold hence all four conditions taken together constitute necessary and sufficient condition for deadlock. In the diagram above we can see that process P1 holds resource R1 and requests for resource R2 held by process P2 , and process P2 is requesting for resource R1. Methods to handle Deadlock 1. Deadlock prevention Deadlock prevention is to ensure that one of the four necessary conditions for deadlock can never hold in following ways: I1. Mutual exclusion: allocate one resource to only one process at a time. 2. Hold and wait: It requires a process to request and be allocated its resources before it begins its execution, or allow process to request a resource only when process has none. This may lead to low resource utilization. It also may give rise to starvation problem, a process may be held for a long time waiting for all its required resources. The application need to be aware of all the resources it requires, if it needs additional resources it releases all the resources held and then requests for all those it needs. 3. No pre-emption: If a process is holding some resources and requests for another resource held by some other process that cannot be allocated to it, then it releases all the resources currently held. The state of pre-empted resource has to be saved and later restored. 4. Circular wait: To make this condition fail, we can impose a total ordering on all resources types. It is also required that each process requests resources in strict increasing order. Resources from the same resource type have to be requested together. 2. Deadlock avoidance In deadlock avoidance, the system checks if granting a request is safe or not . The system needs additional prior information regarding overall potential use of each resource for each process i.e. maximum requirement of each resource has to be stated in advance by each process. 3. Deadlock detection: It is important to know if there exists a deadlock situation in the system hence an algorithm is needed to periodically check existence deadlock. Recovery from deadlock To recover from deadlock, the process can be terminated or we can pre-empt the resource. In terminating processes method we can terminate all the processes at once or terminate one process and then again check for deadlock. Similarly there are mechanisms like fair scheduling that can be used to avoid starvation of resources. -Fair scheduling Fair scheduling is to allow multiple processes to fairly share the resources. The main idea is to ensure each thread gets equal CPU time and to minimize resource starvation. -First in first out (FIFO) FIFO or First Come, First Served (FCFS) is the simplest scheduling algorithm that queues processes in the order they arrive in the ready queue. Scheduling overhead is minimal because context switches occur only when process terminates and re-organization of the process queue is not required. In this scheme, completion of every process is possible, hence no starvation. -Shortest remaining time With this scheduling scheme, processes with least processing time are arranged as the next process in the queue. To achieve this, prior knowledge of completion time is required. Consider a scenario where a shorter process arrives when another process is running, in this case the current process is stopped and is divided into two parts. This results in additional context switching overhead. -Fixed priority pre-emptive scheduling The operating system gives a fixed priority rank to every process, and the processes are arranged in the ready queue based on their priority this results in higher priority processes interrupting lower priority processes. Waiting and response times are inversely proportional to priority of the process. If there are more high priority processes than low priority processes, it may result into starvation of the latter processes. -Round-robin scheduling In this scheduling algorithm, each process is allotted a fixed time unit. There could be extra overhead if time unit per process allotted is very small. Round robin has better average response time than rest of the scheduling algorithms. There cannot be starvation since processes are queued based on any priority. Also there are some desired Properties of Concurrent Programs; these properties will ensure a reliable concurrent program. There are some characteristics that a concurrent program must possess. They can be either a safety or a liveness property. Safety properties assert that nothing bad will ever happen during a program execution. Examples of safety property are: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mutual exclusion à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ No deadlock à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Partial correctness A safety property is a condition that is true at all points in the execution of a program. Liveness properties assert that something good will eventually happen during a program execution. Examples include: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Fairness (weak) à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Reliable communication à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Total correctness Communicating sequential process Communicating sequential process was introduced in a paper written by C. A. R. Hoare in 1978. In this paper he described how various sequential processes could run in parallel irrespective of the processor (i.e. it can be a single core or multi-core processor). CSP is an integration of two terms, Communication and Sequential process. A communication is an event that is described by a pair C, V, where C is the name of the channel on which communication takes place and V is the value of the message which passes through this channel by C .A. R. Hoare. In a Sequential Process new process cannot be started until the preceding process has completed. As CSP was more of a programming language so most of the syntax and notations were inherited from ALGOL 60 programming language. Most of the notations were single character instead of English words. For example,? and ! represents input and output respectively. CSP inherits the concept of Co routines over old programming structures such as subroutines. The structure of Co routines is comprised of COPY (copies character from output of one process to the input of second process), SQUASH is used to replace specified character with other characters, DISASSEMBLE, ASSEMBLE and REFORMAT. -OCCAM One of the renowned implementation of CSP is occam. It is named after William of Ockam. It is a strict procedural language. It was developed at INMOS. Occam2 programming language is used in most of the software developing companies across the world. It is an extension of occam1 which lacks multi-dimension arrays, functions and other data type support. Occam2 came into existence in 1987s. The latest version is occam2.1 which was developed in 1994. BYTESIN operator, fixed-length array returned from procedures, named data types etc. were some of the new features of occame2.1. the compiler designed for occam2.1 named KRoC (Kent Retargetable occam Compiler) is used to create machine code from different microprocessors. Occam-pi is the name of the new occam variant which is influenced by pi-calculus. It is implemented by newer versions of KRoC. JCSP Java programming language also implements the concept of CSP by JCSP. JCSP is a complete programming implementation of CSP i.e. it does not contain deep mathematical algebra. JCSP is used to avoid race condition, deadlock, live lock and starvation programmatically via java programs. The main advantage of JCSP is that most of the algebraic part is already developed and stored in libraries so the programmer does not require strong mathematical skills. To invoke a method he needs to import these inbuilt libraries. Concurrency Test Tools Design a concurrent application is very challenging task. Maintaining interaction between concurrently executing threads is very difficult task for programmer. It is very difficult to understand the nature of threads from one run of a program as they are nondeterministic. As result, it becomes very difficult for testing and debugging. So it is good idea to invest in techniques which can avoid this conditions aid in the process of development. We are exploring these ideas with tools for concurrency. CHESS This is one of the important tools, created by Microsoft Research, which is used to test multithreaded code systematically. CHESS facilitates both model checking and dynamic analysis. It has the potential to detect race conditions, livelocks, hangs, deadlocks and data corruption issues. Concurrency errors are detected by investigating thread schedules and interleaving and for this it chooses a specialized scheduler on which it repeatedly runs regular unit test. The specialized scheduler creates specific thread interleaving. CHESS controls state space explosion using iterative context bounding which puts a limitation on number of thread switching. This supports scientifically experimented concept that most of the concurrency bugs can be revealed with less number of thread switches. This concept is far better than traditional model checking. CHESS uses Goldilocks lockset algorithm to detect deadlock and race condition. For reporting a livelock, it is anticipated that programmes terminate and exhibit fairness for all threads. THE INTEL THREAD CHECKER Similar to CHESS, INTEL THREAD CHECKER is used for detecting problems in concurrency like data races and deadlock and it also finds out erroneous synchronization. The thread checker makes use of source code or the compiled binary for making memory references and to monitor WIN32 synchronization primitive. At the time of execution, information given by the compiled binary is used for constructing partial order of execution; this step is followed by happens before analysis of the partial order obtained. For improving efficiency and performance, it is better to remember latest access to shared variable than to remember all accesses. The disadvantage of this tool is it cannot find all bugs while analysing long-running applications. RACERX Unlike first two dynamic analysis tools we have discussed above, RACERX is a static analysis tool. It is not required to comment the entire source code rather user gives table which contains specification of APIs which are useful in gaining and releasing locks. Using such small sized tables proves to be advantageous because they lessen the overhead of annotating entire source code. The working of RACERX is carried out in several phases. In the first phase, RACERX builds a Control Flow Graph once it has iterated through each source code file. CFG consists of information about function calls, use of pointers, shared memory and other data. When building CFG is done, calls to these APIs are marked. This first phase is followed by analysis phase which involves checking race condition and deadlock. The last phase is post processing errors reported, the purpose is to prioritize errors by their significance and harmfulness. CHORD This tool is used for Java language, it is context sensitive static analysis tool. Its flow insensitive nature makes it more scalable than other static tools with the disadvantage of low accuracy. It also deals with the distinguishing synchronization primitives available in Java. ZING ZING, a pure model checker tool, verifies the design of multi threaded programs. It has the ability to model concurrent state machines using its own language that describes complex states and transition. It assures the design quality by verifying assumptions and confirming the presence or absence of some conditions. KISS Microsoft Research developed another model checker tool, named KISS (Keep It Simple and Sequential) for concurrent C programs. It converts a concurrent C program into a sequential program that features the operation of interleaving and controls non-determinism. Thereafter, the analysis is performed by a sequential model checker. While using this tool, the programmer is expected to justify the validation of concurrency assumptions. Introduction of multi-core processors increased the importance on concurrency by many folds. Concurrency and multicore processor Multi core processors The computer industry is undergoing a paradigm shift. Chip manufacturers are shifting development resources away from single-processor chips to a new generation of multi-processor chips known as multicores. Multiple processors are manufactured by placing them on the same die. Hence they share the same circuit. A die is a small block of semiconducting material, on which a given functional circuit is fabricated. A) Single Core B) Multi Core Why were they introduced? As we grow further in terms of processing power the hardware industry faces three main challenges Power Amount of power consumed by processors has been increasing as more and more powerful processors have been introduced to the market. The environment cost and the energy needs have compelled the manufacturer as well as organisations to reconsider their strategies to an extent where change in way the processors are manufactured or operate was inevitable. Processors can be overclocked or underclocked. Overclocking a processor increases the number of instructions it can execute but at the same time increases the power consumption; also overclocking a processor does not guarantee a performance improvement as there are many other factors to consider. Increasing the number of processors per core (quad or eight) will further improve the power to performance ratio. Memory clock Memory clock has not improved like the CPU clock hence adding a limitation on the processor performance. Often the instruction to be fetched must be retrieved from relatively slow memory, causing the CPU to stall while waiting for the instruction to be returned. So instead of building faster CPUs underclock it and have more number of cores with their own dedicated memories to have more instructions executed in the same given time. Also the clock speed in itself wont grow infinitely due to fundamental physics it has hit a wall. Chips melt above 5GHz of clock speed. Many possibilities are opened by placing two or more powerful computing cores on a single processor. True concurrent applications can be developed only on multicore processors. On single core processors concurrent applications can overload the processor degrading the performance of the application. On multi-core systems, since each core has its own cache, the operating system has sufficient resources to handle most compute intensive tasks in parallel. What are the effects of the hardware shift on concurrent programming? The free lunch of performance in terms of ever faster processors is over- Microsoft C++ guru Herb Sutter. For past five decades the ever increasing clock speed has carried the software industry through its progress but now the time has come for the software engineers to face the challenge staring directly at them which they have managed to ignore so far. Also as more and more cores are added to hardware the gap between the hardware potential and the s

Credebility of Hypnotherapy :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is the purpose of this paper to bring attention to the credibility of people in the field of Hypnotherapy (Hypnosis, Self-Hypnosis, and Guided Imagery). By reading through several websites it became apparent that no Ph.D. is necessary to be a Hypnotherapists. All that is required is that you pass and complete 200+ hours of Hypnotherapy training.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marla A. Sloane at the website www.marlasloane.com is a Member of the American Board of Hypnotherapy and a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists. Sloane is currently working on her Ph.D. She has shown in the past a strong drive in academics by completing high school at age 16, getting a college degree, and starting a corporation. The name of the Corporation however was not stated; nor was the college at which she obtained her degree. She is currently a Registered Hypnotherapist and claims to be able to â€Å"recreate your destiny.† She does have testimonials form people she has treated that support her claim. She sites hypnotherapy being used to help overcome Kevin Costner’s seasickness (which she did not assist in) and states that statistically it is the best way to stop smoking and lose weight. Sloane also sites a random experiment comparing two basketball teams where one was under hypnosis and did better overall.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Chaplain Paul G. Durbin Ph.D. at the website www.durbinhypnosis.com has Professional Affiliations and Awards from numerous organizations. These awards and affiliations can be viewed at www.durbinhypnosis.com/bio.htm. Durbin was in the military, served as Special Assistant to Chief Chaplain, and had a title of Brigadier General. Durbin received his Bachelor of Arts from the College of Louisiana, his Master of Divinity from Emory University in Atlanta GA, his Ph.D. from the American Institute of Hypnotherapy in Irvine CA, and has completed 4 quarters of Clinical Pastoral Education at Walter Reed A.M.C., Washington D.C.. Durbin has been published in hundreds of times in magazines of Religion and Hypnotherapy. Durbin Has also written two books, one of which is out of print, and one of which is in it’s second publishing. Kissing Frogs: Practical Uses of Hypnotherapy published by Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company (educational 1st-college material) and received two awards. The awards were the Pen and Quill Award from NBHA and the Outstanding Performance Award from IMDHA. Durbin did not however have testimonials on his site to back his claims and he uses biblical passages to help promote his business.

The Importance of Time Management for the Adult Learner

Time management is a critical skill that is needed in many different aspects of life. We need to manage our time while caring for our family at home, while at work and also for any other hobbies or interests, such as college. The typical college student is no longer the teenager who just graduated high school. A large majority of college students are considered adult learners. The adult learner is someone who enrolls in college later in life as an adult with more responsibilities. As an adult college student there are far more challenges than as a teenage college student.The majority of adult students blame the reason why they struggle in school or delay going back to school is time restriction (Arthur & Tait, 2004, p. 2). Time management is the key to success for an adult enrolled in college. Time management, as defined by Oxford Dictionaries is, â€Å"the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively; especially at work† (â€Å"Time Management,† 2013).I t is not only crucial to use time effectively and productively in the workplace but also at home, in school and any other tasks that take up time in the day. C.  Shields (1994) describes time management as, â€Å"The art of balancing your efforts, prioritizing what you could do as opposed to what you should do. It requires you to make choices and postpone short-term gratification for long-term gains. Managing your time means overcoming the bad habits that allow you to put off what needs to be done. It means controlling yourself† (p. 93). It is important to maximize available time and find a balance between home, work and school. The best way to maximize available time is to plan all that you can (Shields, 1994, p. 95).Planning out your time in advance will help the adult student look ahead to what time is available for all of their responsibilities. The use of a monthly calendar and day to day planner are useful tools (Shields, 1994, p. 95). It is important to find a balanc e with all the responsibilities and activities an adult student may have. According to Ashby and Abbot in the article, Too Little Time to Learn â€Å"mature adult students often find it difficult to cope with the various personal and work related demands made on time available for study and professional development† (Ashby & Abbot, 1999, p. 3).The fact is there are only twenty four hours in a day. One person can only do so much with their personal time (â€Å"Time Management for Adult Learners† 2005). Realistically a person needs approximately eight hours to rest, most working people spend approximately eight to nine hours at work, leaving eight hours for other daily demands (Tait & Arthur, 2004, p. 3). The last eight hours available are what need to be utilized for family, school and other interests. This can be done effectively if the adult learner is motivated. If an adult learner is not motivated to manage their time the likelihood of success is decreased.Ineffecti ve time management can cause many things to go incomplete or get turned in late, increase stress on the adult student, and overall may cause the student to give up. Effective time management can increase the student’s motivation and success, reduce their stress level, and increase their sense of fulfillment (Girard, 1999). Managing a family and working towards a degree of higher education can be very demanding. It is important to have the support of your spouse, children and loved ones while working towards a degree (Shields, 1994, p. 90).Men and women play different roles in the household. According to Charles Shields, â€Å"the more the traditional roles and responsibilities within the family, the greater the guilt the woman experienced about her student role,† (Shields, 1994, p. 90). Generally, female students feel more pressure and strain then male students due to the society’s stereotypical idea of roles in a family (Shields, 1994, p. 90). The biggest adjus tment may be that as a student you will not be as available as before due to the demands of school work. Family time will be affected but worth it in the end.It can be difficult to find the support needed; therefore it is important to emphasize the benefits of a higher education to yourself first. If the student believes in himself or herself then it will be easier to convince the family to believe in him or her. In most cases, the family and children will benefit from a spouse and/or parent with a college education. It is important as the demands of school, work and family increase the adult learner reminds themselves of that (Shields, 1994, p. 92). Compromise is another important characteristic needed from all involved.The student needs to make everyone aware that compromise is needed to succeed. Ideally the partner or spouse will need to take on the extra tasks and details that the adult learner will not have time for. Also explaining to the kids involved the mommy or daddy will not have as much available time as they use to and it will not last forever. It is important to share the end goal with the family that way everyone is aware of what the student is working towards and what the reward will be in the end. It can be difficult to study at home with a family there.Planning ahead and preparing an ideal study spot can help make studying easier (â€Å"Time Management for Adult Learners† 2005). If studying needs to take place at home, getting up early before everyone is awake or staying up after everyone goes to bed can be helpful, that way distractions are limited. Also giving the adult student a time out from the family will help obtain some time for studying (â€Å"Time Management for Adult Learner† 2005). It is important to take every opportunity available to study even if it’s not the ideal situation because it is not always going to be easy to arrange time for it (Arthur & Tait, 2004, p.7).Another time demand that can be a challeng e for an adult learner is balancing work and school. In today’s career world more and more companies are looking to hire competent people with a college education. This leaves little choice for someone who wants to compete in the competitive job field without a higher level of education. Also many returning students go back to school for the purpose of career advancement. Completing your program of study is a step forward on your career path (Shields, 1994, p. 117). Finding the time to study for classes and work on assignments can be difficult with a part time or full time job.The pressures and time consumption from a job compete heavily with the time available for learning (Arthur & Tait, 2004, p. 3). According to Sargant (2000), â€Å"Employment status plays a major role in learning opportunities. For many people, the workplace provides resources and opportunities to take up learning and often the motivation to learn† (p. 4). A suggestion to make the time constraint more manageable between school and a career is to inform your job of what your goals are and if they can better the company.If your career is looking to hire the most qualified and educated employees, they may be willing to work on a different schedule. Planning ahead and looking into career advancement can motivate the adult learner when completing college classes. There are many tips and tools that an adult learner can use to help manage their time. The first step is to list all of the assignments and tasks that need to get done and prioritize the list (â€Å"Time Management for Adult Learner† 2005). Start with the most important task and proceed through the list to the least important.It can also be helpful to start with the most time consuming task, ensuring it will be completed (Fry, 2012, p. 5). As an adult leaner it is important to know how long it will take to perform certain tasks or complete assignments. It will make estimating the appropriate amount of time needed easier and more accurate (Fry, 2012, p. 6). A to-do list can help prevent procrastination and keep a student on track (Fry, 2012, p. 6). Move forward unfinished tasks to the next day. This will create continuity between one day and the next (Shields, 1994, p. 94).Once a to-do list is created, the next step is incorporate it into a day to day calendar and a monthly planner. An important aspect of time management is to plan ahead. Incorporating every assignment, appointment and activity that requires the student’s time is essential. This will allow the student to know what needs to be done and to budget time accordingly (Shields, 1994, p. 94). Once the planning stage has been completed it will be important for the student to stay on track with the plan. Keeping the end goal in mind will help the learner stay focused.It is important to maintain realistic goals and to share the goals with others. Involving others in your efforts towards time management can help motivate them to h elp you succeed (Shields, 1994, p. 99). As the adult learner takes on more and more it will be important for the student to delegate (Chang, 2013, p. 28). One person cannot be expected to do it all, therefore ask for help and think about what you don’t need to do (Shields, 1994, p. 99). It is always ok to ask for help. According to Chang (2013), â€Å"it is better to say no, rather than yes and not be able to complete something.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Setting boundaries gives a solid foundation to focus on your priorities while minimizing distractions† (p. 28). Saying no to someone or something is all part of effective time management. The last tip in managing time as an adult learner is reward oneself. Setting and achieving small goals throughout the process of obtaining a college degree can be beneficial towards motivation and dedication. According to Shields (1994), â€Å"It is important to work when you are supposed to work and play when you deserve it or need it† (p. 100). In conclusion, an adult learner has more demands and responsibilities than the typical college student.The adult college student has to find time for an education, career and family. It can be difficult to find a balance between all three, but with proper time management it can be done. There are many tools available to the adult student to stay motivated while properly managing time such as planning ahead, creating a to-do list and creating a calendar. Keeping your family and employer involved in your goals can help as well. All of the information in this paper will be beneficial to an adult enrolling in college. Once again, the key to success as an adult learner is proper time management.

Night World : Witchlight Chapter 9

Keller reacted instantly and instinctively. She changed. She did it on the leap this time. Rushing the process along, pushing it from behind. She wanted to be entirely a panther by the time she landed on the girl's back. But some things can't be rushed. She felt herself begin to liquefy and flow†¦ formlessness†¦ pleasure†¦ the utter freedom of not being bound to any single physical shape. Then reformation, a stretching of all her cells as they reached to become something different, to unfurl like butterfly wings into a new kind of body. Her jumpsuit misted into the fur that ran along her body, up and down from the stomach in front, straight down from the nape of her neck in back. Her ears surged and then firmed up, thin-skinned, rounded, and twitching already. From the base of her spine, her tail sprang free, its slightly clubbed end whipping eagerly. That was how she landed. She knocked the girl cleanly over, and they both went rolling on the floor. When they stopped, Keller was crouching on the girl's stomach. She didn't want to kill the girl. She needed to find some things out first. What kind of Night Person the girl was, and who'd sent her. The only problem was that now, as she knelt with her hands gripping the girl's arms, staring into dark blue eyes under soft brown- bangs, she couldn't sense anything of the Night World in the girl's life energy. Shapeshifters were the uncontested best at that. They could tell a human from a Night Person nine times out of ten. And this girl wasn't even in the â€Å"maybe† range. She was giving off purely human signals. Not to mention screaming. Her mouth was wide open, and so were her eyes, and so were her pupils. Her skin had gone blue-white like someone about to faint. She looked utterly bewildered and horrified, and she wasn't making a move to fight back. Keller's heart sank. But if the girl was human and harmless, why hadn't she listened when Keller had shouted at her? â€Å"Boss, we have to shut her up.† It was Winnie, yelling above the girl's throaty screams. As usual, Nissa didn't say a word, but she was the one who shut the music room door. By then, Keller had recovered enough to put a hand over the girl's mouth. The screaming stopped. Then she looked at the others. They were staring at her. Wide-eyed. Keller felt like a kitten with its paw in the canary cage. Here she was, sitting on this human girl's midriff, in her half-and-half form. Her ears and tail were a panther's, and she was clothed from her snug boots to her shoulders in fur. It fit her like a black velvet jumpsuit, a sleeveless one that left her arms and neck bare. The hair on her head was still a human's and swirled around her to touch the floor on every side. Her face was human, too, except for the pupils of her eyes, which were narrow ovals, reacting to every change of light and shadow. And her teeth. Her canines had become delicately pointed, giving her just the slightest hint of fangs. She blinked at Galen, not sure what she saw in his expression. He was definitely staring at her, and there was some strong emotion pulling his face taut and making that white line around his mouth. Horror? Disgust? He was a shapeshifter himself-or he would be if he could ever make up his mind. He'd seen her in panther form. Why should he be shocked at this? The answer flashed back at Keller from some deep part of her brain. Only because I'm a monster this way. Panthers are part of nature and can't be blamed for what they do. I'm a savage thing that doesn't manage to be either an animal or a person. And I'm dangerous in this form. Neither half of me is really in control. Someone who's never changed could never understand that. Galen took a step toward her. His jaw was tense, but his gold-green eyes were fixed on hers, and his hand was slightly lifted. Keller wondered if it was the gesture of a hostage negotiator. He opened his mouth to say something. And Iliana came to life, jumping up and running past him and shrieking at Keller all at once. â€Å"What are you doing? That's Jaime! What are you doing to her?† â€Å"You know her?† â€Å"That's Jaime Ashton-Hughes! She's Brett's sister! And she's one of my best friends! And you attacked her! Are you all right?† It was all shrieked at approximately the same decibel level, but on the last sentence, Iliana looked down at Jaime. Keller moved her palm from Jaime's mouth. As it turned out, though, that didn't seem to be necessary. Jaime raised her free hand and began to make swift, fluid gestures at Iliana with it. Keller stared, and then her insides plummeted. She let go of the girl's other arm, and the gestures immediately became two-handed. Oh. Oh†¦ darn. Keller could feel her ears flatten backward. She looked unhappily at Iliana. â€Å"Sign language?† â€Å"She's got a hearing impairment!† Iliana glared at Keller, all the while making gestures back at Jaime. Her motions were awkward and stilted compared to Jaime's, but she clearly had some idea what she was doing. â€Å"I didn't realize.† â€Å"What difference does it make how well she can hear?† Diana yelled. â€Å"She's my friend! She's president of the senior class! She's chair for the Christmas Benefit bazaar! What did she do to you, ask you to buy a teddy bear?† Keller sighed. Her tail was tucked up close to her body, almost between her legs, and her ears were flatter than ever. She climbed off Jaime, who immediately scooted backward and away from her, still talking rapidly with her hands to Diana. â€Å"The difference,† Keller said, â€Å"is that she didn't stop when I told her to. I yelled at her, but†¦ I didn't realize. Look, just tell her I'm sorry, will you?† ‘You tell her! Don't talk about her as if she isn't here. Jaime can lip-read just fine if you bother to face her.† Diana turned to Jaime again. â€Å"I'm sorry. Please don't be mad. This is terrible-and I don't know how to explain. Can you breathe now?† Jaime nodded slowly. Her dark blue eyes slid to Keller, then back to Diana. She spoke in a hushed voice. Although it was flat in tone and some of the sounds were indistinct, it was actually rather pleasant. And the words were perfectly understandable. â€Å"What†¦ is it?† she asked Diana. Meaning Keller. But then, before Diana could answer, Jaime caught herself. She bit her lip, looked at the floor for a moment, then braced herself and looked at Keller again. She was frightened, her body was shrinking, but this time her eyes met Keller's directly. â€Å"What†¦ are you?† Keller opened her mouth and shut it again. A hand closed on her shoulder. It was warm, and it exerted brief pressure for an instant. Then it pulled away, maybe as if revolted because it was resting on fur. â€Å"She's a person,† Galen said, kneeling down beside Jaime. â€Å"She may look a little different right now, but she's as much of a person as you are. And you have to believe that she didn't mean to hurt you. She made a mistake. She thought you were an enemy, and she reacted.† â€Å"An enemy?† There was something about Galen. Jaime had relaxed almost as soon as he got down on her level. Now she was talking to him freely, her hands flying gracefully as she spoke aloud, emphasizing her words. Her face was pretty when it wasn't blue with suffocation, Keller noticed. â€Å"What are you talking about? What kind of enemy? Who are you people? I haven't seen you around school before.† â€Å"She thought-well, she thought you were going to hurt Diana. There are some people who are trying to do that.† Jaime's face changed. â€Å"Hurt Diana? Who? They'd better not even try!† Winnie had been twitching throughout this. Now she muttered, â€Å"Boss†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"It doesn't matter,† Keller said quietly. â€Å"Nissa's going to have to blank her memory anyway.† It was too bad, in a way, because this girl's reaction to the Night World was one of the most sensible Keller had ever seen. But it couldn't be helped. Keller didn't look at Diana as she spoke; she knew there was going to be an argument. But before it started, she had one final thing to say. â€Å"Jaime?† She moved and got instant attention. â€Å"I'm sorry. Really. I'm sorry I frightened you. And I'm really sorry if I hurt you.† She stood up, not waiting to see if she was forgiven. What difference did it make? What was done was already done, and what was about to happen was inevitable. She didn't expect to be forgiven, and she didn't care. That was what she told herself, anyway. Diana did argue. Keller tried not to let Jaime see much of it, because that would only make her more scared and miserable, and the end really was inescapable. Leaving her memory intact would be dangerous not only for Iliana but for Jaime herself. â€Å"It's death for a human to find out about the Night World,† Keller said flatly. â€Å"And it's worse than death if the dragon and his friends think she's got any information about the Wild Power. You don't want to know what they'll do to try and get it out of her, Iliana. I promise you don't.† And, finally, Iliana gave in, as Keller had known she would have to from the beginning. Nissa moved up behind Jaime like a whisper and a shadow and touched her on the side of her neck. Although witches were the experts at brainwashing, at inserting new ideas and convictions, vampires were the best at wiping the slate clean. They didn't use spells. It was something they were born with, the power to put their victim into a trance and smooth away hours or even days of memoiy. Jaime looked into Nissa's silvery-brown eyes for maybe seventy seconds, and then her own blue eyes shut, and her body went limp. Galen caught her as she feU. â€Å"She'll wake up in a few minutes. It's probably best if we leave her here and get out,† Nissa said. â€Å"Lunch is over, anyway,† Keller said. In the quiet minutes while Jaime was being hypnotized, Keller had finally managed to convince her body that there was no danger. It was only then that she could relax enough to change back. Her ears collapsed, her tail retracted. Her fur misted into jumpsuit and skin. She blinked twice, noticing the difference in brightness as her pupils changed, and the tips of her fangs melted into ordinary teeth. She stood up, shifting her shoulders to get used to the human body again. They were all subdued as they escorted Iliana back to classes. The quietest of all was Keller. She had overreacted, let her animal senses throw her into a panic. It wasn't the first time in her life. The first time in her life had been when she was about three†¦ but better not to think about that. Anyway, it wasn't even the first time in her career as an agent for Circle Daybreak. An agent had to be ready for anything at any moment. Had to have radar running, in front, in back, and on all sides, all the time, and be prepared to react instinctively at the slightest stimulus. If that sometimes caused mistakes-well, it also saved lives. And she wasn't sorry. If she had to do it over, she'd do it again. Better one nice brown-haired girl scared than Iliana hurt. Better, Keller thought with bleak defiance, one nice brown-haired girl killed than Iliana in the hands of the enemy. Iliana represented the future of the entire daylight world. But†¦ Maybe she was getting too old for this kind of job. Or maybe too jumpy. Iliana sat moodily during afternoon classes, like a fairy who'd lost her flower. Keller noticed Winnie and Nissa being extra vigilant-just in case their boss got preoccupied. She flashed them a sarcastic look. â€Å"You waiting for me to slack off?† She poked Nissa in the ribs. â€Å"Don't hold your breath.† They smiled, knowing they'd been thanked. And Galen†¦ Keller didn't want to think about Galen. He sat quietly but intently through each class, and she could tell his senses were expanded. He didn't try to speak to her, didn't even look at her. But Keller noticed that every so often he rubbed his palm against his jeans. And she remembered the way his hand had pulled back from her shoulder. As if he'd touched something hot. Or something repulsive†¦ Keller gritted her teeth and stared at various blackboards with dry and burning eyes. When the last bell finally rang, she made the whole group wait in the chemistry classroom while the school emptied out. Iliana watched and silently steamed as her friends all left without her. Even the teacher packed up and disappeared. â€Å"Can we go now?† â€Å"No.† Keller stood at the second-story window, looking down. All right, so I'm a tyrant, she thought. A nasty, unsympathetic, whip-wielding dictator who jumps on innocent girls and won't let people out of school. I like being that way. Iliana wouldn't argue. She stood rigidly a few feet away, looking out the window herself but refusing to acknowledge Keller's presence. Finally, Keller said, â€Å"All right. Nissa, get the car.† Galen said, â€Å"I'll do it.† The answer to that, of course, was, â€Å"No way.† But Galen was going on. â€Å"It's something useful I can do. I've been standing around all day, wishing I was trained at something. At least driving I can handle. And if anybody comes after me, I can run fast.† The answer to that was still no. But Keller couldn't bring herself to say it, because she couldn't bring herself to face him for a long debate. She was afraid of what she might see in the depths of those gold-green eyes. It would be funny if she'd managed to turn the prince of the shapeshifters off from shapeshifting altogether. Wouldn't it? â€Å"Go on,† she said to Galen, still looking down onto the circular driveway in front of the school. After he had gone, she said to Nissa, â€Å"Follow him.† That was how everyone happened to be where they were in the next few minutes. Keller and Iliana were at the window, staring out at a cool gray sky. Winnie was at the door to the chemistry room, watching the hallway. Galen was a floor beneath them somewhere inside the school, and Nissa was a discreet distance behind him. And standing beside the circular driveway, obviously waiting for a ride, was a girl with familiar brown hair. She was reading a book that didn't look like a textbook. Jaime. It all happened very fast, but there were still distinct stages of warning. Keller was aware of them all. The first thing she noticed was a blue-green car that cruised down the street in front of the high school. It was going slowly, and she narrowed her eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver. She couldn't The car passed on. I should make her get away from the window, Keller thought. This wasn't as obvious a conclusion as it seemed. The Night People weren't in the habit of using sharpshooters to pick off their targets. But it was still probably a good idea. Keller was tiredly opening her mouth to say it when something caught her attention. The blue-green car was back. It was at the exit of the circular driveway, stopped but facing the wrong way, as if it were about to enter. As Keller watched, it revved its engine. Keller felt her hairs prickle. But it didn't make any sense. Why on earth would Night People want to park there and draw attention to themselves? It had to be some human kids acting up. Hiana was frowning. She had stopped tracing patterns in the dust on the windowsill. â€Å"Who's that? I don't know that car.† Alarms. But still†¦ The car roared again and started moving. Coming the wrong way along the driveway. And Jaime, right below them, didn't look up. Diana realized at the same time Keller did. â€Å"Jaime!† She screamed it and pounded the window with one small fist. It didn't do the slightest good, of course. Beside her, Keller stood frozen and furious. The car was picking up speed, heading straight for Jaime. There was nothing to do. Nothing. Keller could never get down there fast enough. It was all going to be over in a second. But it was horrible. That giant metal thing, tons of steel, was going to hit about a hundred and ten pounds of human flesh. â€Å"Jaime!† It was a scream torn from Diana. Below, Jaime finally looked up. But it was too late.