Sunday, December 29, 2019

Healthy People 2020 Correcting Poor Sleep During Early...

Healthy People 2020: Correcting Poor Sleep in Early and Middle Childhood As Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) approaches the end of its decade, one of the newest issues has been established based on the lack of Americans receiving adequate sleep, as well as causing a major disruption in their ability to function effectively. About 25 percent report having problems either staying asleep or not getting adequate sleep to function properly the next day. A new target group has been brought into the forefront by HP2020 includes Early and Middle Childhood (EMC). The goal for this age group is to promote overall â€Å"health and well-being† and the importance of enhancing five chief components of: â€Å"cognitive, social, emotional, language, and physical development† by creating a healthy pathway to a long life (Healthy People, 2016). According to National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) an estimated 70 million Americans suffer from sleep problems, in which 60 percent are chronic disorders. The NCSDR also estimates $15.9 billion to the national health care bill are correlated to sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, and generalized sleepiness. Consequently, this has increased the cost of lost work production, accidents connected to lack of sleep, and/or contribute to other health problems (National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, 2016). Currently, HP 2020 has one objective specifically for EMC it aimed to â€Å"reduce the proportion of children who have poor quality of sleep (HealthyShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesSociology 14 †¢ Anthropology 14 There Are Few Absolutes in OB 14 Challenges and Opportunities for OB 15 Responding to Economic Pressures 15 †¢ Responding to Globalization 16 †¢ Managing Workforce Diversity 18 †¢ Improving Customer Service 18 †¢ Improving People Skills 19 †¢ Stimulating Innovation and Change 20 †¢ Coping with â€Å"Temporariness† 20 †¢ Working in Networked Organizations 20 †¢ Helping Employees Balance Work–Life Conflicts 21 †¢ Creating a Positive Work Environment 22 †¢ Improving Ethical Behavior 22Read MoreManaging Information Technology (7th Edition)239873 Words   |  960 Pagesconsider some of the technology developments that have already led to pervasive computing in the first decades of this twenty-first century. Computer Hardware: Faster, Cheaper, Mobile Computer-on-a-chip (microcomputer) technology was available as early as the 1970s, and the introduction of the first IBM Personal Computer (PC) in 1981 was the beginning of desktop computing. Today, desktop and portable computers produced by manufacturers around the world have become commodity products with processing

Friday, December 20, 2019

Business For The Glory Of God - 1506 Words

Business for the Glory of God is a book that helps Christians work in Business for God. Wayne Grudem did an excellent job of sharing and providing the purpose and meaning of business and ways to glorify God while conducting said business. The main themes Grudem talks about include; ownership, productivity, employment, commercial transactions, profit, money, inequality of possessions, competition, borrowing and lending, attitudes of the heart and the effect on world poverty. He kept his thoughts short and to the point, allowing for the important information to be shared with his readers. I agreed with all of his main thoughts, especially when he spoke about his discussion on money and attitudes of the heart; however, there is significant neglect in the area of government regulations throughout the book. In this review I will discuss the good and the neglect. Wayne Grudem starts his book with an introduction to answer the most basic question when it comes to reading this book; â€Å"i s business basically good or evil?† (Grudem, 2003) To really understand Grudem and his message it is important to know where the bible and you stand on the answer to that question. â€Å"But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.† (Deuteronomy 8:18) We are also told multiple times in the Bible to â€Å"fear not,† this fear can put a stop to a business idea or business all together andShow MoreRelatedBusiness For The Glory Of God Essay965 Words   |  4 PagesAuthor’s Main Themes Grudem’s, Business for the glory of God is a sleek, contemporary how to guide that offers ways Business in itself glorify God, in particular the business component’s â€Å"Ownership,† â€Å"Productivity†, â€Å"Employment†, ‘’Commercial Transactions†, â€Å"Profit†, â€Å"Money†, â€Å"Inequality of Possessions†, â€Å"Competition†, and â€Å"Borrowing and Lending†. He takes each component and demonstrates a connection with theological principles. The author stresses man was created to glorify God. If we imitate God’s attributesRead MoreBusiness for the Glory of God1318 Words   |  6 PagesRunning head: THE BIBLE’S TEACHING ON THE MORAL GOODNESS OF BUSINESS Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teachings on the Moral Goodness of Business A Review Assignment Write a 5-7 page review, you should briefly articulate the author’s main positions or themes and then interact with them. That is, choose one or two main points that you agree with and/or two in which you do not agree, supporting your thoughts with well-reasoned arguments. Jessica N. Eppes Liberty University ProfessorRead MoreBusiness For The Glory Of God1643 Words   |  7 PagesWayne Grudem, the author of, â€Å"Business for the Glory of God†, states that there are many ways that a Christian can use business to glorify God. Some of the main ways are Ownership, Employment, Profit, Money, Productivity and Borrowing and Lending. All of these things can bring glory to God in the way they mirror the nature that is God and His provision for man. God gave humans ways to provide food, clothing and shelter, not only for themselves, but for others also. He intended us to be a componentRead MoreBusiness For The Glory Of God1541 Words   |  7 Pagesread the book by W. Grudem, Business for the Glory of God: The Bible s instructing on the Moral Heavens of Business. Mr. Grudem examines the Christian side of business which gives an elaborative clarification of what one may experience. He clearly demonstrates that in all the different parts of business, which incorporates benefit, proprietors hip, cash, loaning, getting, and rivalry. By and large, the author obviously outlines that individuals who work in the business world are for the most partRead MoreBusiness For the Glory of God Essay1455 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction Business for the Glory of God persuades one to view business in a different light. There are many views, both positive and negative, one could take on business. If one could see business as a way to help others, it may be achievable for them to see business as a way to glorify God. For example, some may do business to assist their families. If left with an excess they might even consider charity. Wayne Grudem establishes the theme by enacting a scenario where someone talking toRead MoreTitles Business For The Glory Of God1526 Words   |  7 Pages In the book titles Business for the Glory of God, Wayne Grudem’s main theme is that â€Å"business itself glorifies God† (Grudem). Grudem touches on ownership, profit, money, competition, and borrowing and lending, glorify God because they are reflective of God’s nature (Grudem). First, I agree with Grudem’s point that â€Å"owning possessions is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God, but also many temptations to sin† (Grudem 19). â€Å"The heavens are the heavens of theRead MoreOverview of Business for the Glory of God Essay examples1313 Words   |  6 PagesIn his book, â€Å"Business for the Glory of God† Wayne Grudem discusses why business and making a profit from it is not evil and can be used for the glory of God. While this book is not an in depth analysis, it does provide a brief overview of why the author believes that business can be and should be used to glorify God. In the book, the author starts off by posing the question of whether or not business itself is good or evil. Of course, business by itself is neither good nor evil it is the peopleRead MoreBusiness for the Glory of God Book Review Essay2084 Words   |  9 PagesBusiness for the Glory of God: The Bible’s teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business Book Review by: Marquetta Preston Liberty University Abstract Grudem, W. (2003). Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business. Wheaton: IL: Crossway. ISBN: 978-1581345179. The book, â€Å"Business for the Glory of God†, By Wayne Grudem, is a book that gives insight to how business as a whole can be a blessing to the world. God gave His people abilities to conduct businessRead MoreBusiness for the Glory of God Book Review Essay3161 Words   |  13 PagesBook Review For Business for the Glory of God By: Wayne Grudem October 10, 2011 The Review: Business for the Glory of God Wayne Grudem wrote the book ‘Business for the Glory of God,’ this book is based on biblical teachings. The book discusses issues such as ownership, productivity, employment, commercial transactions, profit, money, inequality of possessions, competition, borrowing and lending, attitudes of heart and effect on world poverty from a biblical standpoint, each are â€Å"fundamentallyRead MoreBusiness for the Glory of God: The Bibles Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business By: Dr. Wayne Grudem1688 Words   |  7 Pagescomplementarian view of gender equality (Wayne Grudem, ). In 2003, Dr. Grudem released a book titled â€Å"Business for the Glory of God: The Bibles Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business†. Within this work, Dr. Grudem tackles intricate and arguable matters, in which he unravels what the Bible teaches regarding the moral goodness of business. Applying the idea of moral goodness with business, however, is often a contradictory concept in lieu of the malicious and often scandalous behavior that

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Optical Character Recognition for Cursive Handwriting free essay sample

In this paper, a new analytic scheme, which uses a sequence of segmentation and recognition algorithms, is proposed for offline cursive handwriting recognition problem. First, some global parameters, such as slant angle, baselines, and stroke width and height are estimated. Second, a segmentation method finds character segmentation paths by combining gray scale and binary information. Third, Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is employed for shape recognition to label and rank the character candidates. For this purpose, a string of codes is extracted from each segment to represent the character candidates. The estimation of feature space parameters is embedded in HMM training stage together with the estimation of the HMM model parameters. Finally, the lexicon information and HMM ranks are combined in a graph optimization problem for word-level recognition. This method corrects most of the errors produced by segmentation and HMM ranking stages by maximizing an information measure in an efficient graph search algorithm. The experiments in dicate higher recognition rates compared to the available methods reported in the literature. Index Terms? Handwritten word recognition, preprocessing, segmentation, optical character recognition, cursive handwriting, hidden Markov model, search, graph, lexicon matching. ? 1 HE most difficult problem in the field of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the recognition of unconstrained cursive handwriting. The present tools for modeling almost infinitely many variations of human handwriting are not yet sufficient. The similarities of distinct character shapes, the overlaps, and interconnection of the neighboring characters further complicate the problem. Additionally, when observed in isolation, characters are often ambiguous and require context information to reduce the classification error. Thus, current research aims at developing constrained systems for limited domain applications such as postal address reading [21], check sorting [8], tax reading [20], and office automation for text entry [7]. A well-defined lexicon plus a well-constrained syntax help provide a feasible solution to the problem [11]. Handwritten Word Recognition techniques use either holistic or analytic strategies for training and recognition stages. Holistic strategies employ top-down approaches for recognizing the whole word, thus eliminating the segmentation problem [9]. In this strategy, global features, extracted from the entire word image, are used in recognition of limited-size lexicon. As the size of the lexicon gets larger, the complexity of algorithms increase linearly due to the need for a larger search space and a more complex pattern representation. Additionally, the recognition rates decrease rapidly due to the decrease in betweenclass-variances in the feature space. The analytic strategies, on the other hand, employ bottom-up approaches, starting from stroke or character- T INTRODUCTION level and going towards producing a meaningful text. Explicit [23] or implicit [16] segmentation of word into characters or strokes is required for this strategy. With the cooperation of segmentation stage, the problem is reduced to the recognition of simple isolated characters or strokes, which can be handled for unlimited vocabulary. However, there is no segmentation algorithm available in the literature for correctly extracting the characters from a given word image. The popular techniques are based on over-segmenting the words and applying a search algorithm for grouping segments to make up characters [14], [10]. If a lexicon of limited size is given, dynamic programming is used to rank every word in the lexicon. The word with the highest rank is chosen as the recognition hypothesis. The complexity of search process for this strategy also increases linearly with the lexicon size, if the flat representation of lexicon is used. More efficient representations such as trie and hash tables can be used in order to reduce the search space. Application of the preprocessing techniques to a given image, may introduce unexpected distortion (closing loops, breaking character, spurious branches etc. ) to the data, which may cause unrecoverable errors in the recognition system. Most of the existing character recognition systems threshold the gray-level image and normalize the slant angle and baseline skew in the preprocessing stage. Then, they employ the normalized binary image in the segmentation and recognition stages [10], [16], [3]. However, in some cases, normalization may severely deform the writing, generating improper character shapes. Furthermore, through the binarization of the gray scale document image, useful information is lost. In order to avoid the limitation of binary image, some recent methods use gray-level image [13]. There, however, the insignificant details suppress important shape information. The scheme developed in this study, employs an analytic approach on gray-level image, which is supported by binary image and a set of global features. Document image is not . The authors are with the Computer Engineering Department, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. E-mail: {nafiz, vural}@ceng. metu. edu. r. Fig. 1. System overview. preprocessed for noise reduction and normalization. However, global parameters, such as lower-upper baseline and slant angle are estimated and then incorporated to improve the accuracy of the segmentation and recognition stages. The scheme makes concurrent use of binary and gray-level image in a mixed way to extract the maximum amount of information for both segmentat ion and recognition. The segmentation algorithm, proposed in this study, segments the whole word into strokes, each of which corresponds mostly to a character or rarely to a portion of a character. Recognition of each segment is accomplished in three stages: In the first stage, characters are labeled in three classes as ascending, descending, and normal characters. In the second stage, Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is employed for shape recognition. The features extracted from the strokes of each segment are fed to a left-right HMM. The parameters of the feature space are also estimated in the training stage of HMM. Finally, an efficient word-level recognition algorithm resolves handwriting strings by combining lexicon information and the HMM probabilities. The proposed system receives the gray-level word image as input, assuming the segmentation of input image into individual words is performed. Although the system is designed for cursive handwriting, methodologies used in the system are easily applicable to machine or hand-printed characters. System overview is summarized by the block diagram representation in Fig. 1. Global parameter estimation, segmentation, and feature extraction stages employ both gray-level and binary images. The parameters for HMM and feature space are estimated by using the correctly segmented character images in training. These parameters are then used in feature extraction and HMM ranking of character segments. Finally, the word-level recognition algorithm maximizes an information measure, using the HMM probabilities and lexicon information, resulting with ASCII strings. If the input image consists of isolated characters, the segmentation stage is omitted. Global Parameter Estimation. The output of the global parameter estimation stage is the word-level features, such as average stroke width/height, baselines, skew, and slant angles (see Section 3). First Level Character Classification. The baselines and character size information estimated in HMM training stage are used to decide on the ascending and descending character thresholds in a given word image. The character size information contains the height-to-width ratios of ascending, descending, and normal characters (see Section 4). Segmentation. Initially, the word image is divided into segmentation regions each of which contains a segmentation path. Then, a search process finds the segmentation path in each region in order to split the connected characters. The algorithm performs the search process by combining the characteristics of gray scale and binary images. The proposed method slightly over-segments the word image (see Section 5). Feature Extraction and HMM Training. Since HMM is most successful in the recognition of one-dimensional string of codes, it is critical to represent the two-dimensional information of character images as one dimensional strings. A feature extraction scheme proposed by the authors of this study [1] is employed in this stage, where a set of directional skeletons is extracted by scanning a fixed size window in arious directions (see Section 6. 1). HMM training is performed on the selected output of the segmentation stage for the estimation of both HMM parameters and the parameters of feature space. These parameters are composed of the character window size, number of scanning directions, and number of regions in each scanning direction. The parameters, which give the maximum recognition rate for the trainin g set, are then used to form the feature space of recognition stage (see Section 6. 2). HMM Ranking. Each string of codes extracted from a character segment is fed to the HMM recognizer.