Gun Control Essays (1114 words) - Gun Politics In The United States

Gun Control "In order to reduce gun vilolence in the U.S., there should be stricter gun regulation." By Don Sunberg U.S. Politics and Government Dr. M. Anderson September 13, 1999 Violence and crime in today's society is inevitable. Human nature is full of hatred, jealousy, and chaos. Throwing guns into the equation adds security for some, and vulnerability for others. Gun regulation is a topic of debate that has been going on for years and looks to be going on for many more to come. Although, each side of the issue seems to have a possibility of security for all, a healthy median of both sides proves to be hard to come by. On the side of no gun regulation, advocates explain that a concealed handgun provides safety, and that people who defend themselves (with guns) may indirectly benefit other citizens. Cab drivers and drug dealers who carry guns produce a benefit for cab drivers and drug dealers without guns (Lott 18). This theory seems like it could be quite effective, but it brings questions of whether drug dealers would even obey gun regulation laws if imposed, since they are already braking the law by dealing drugs. One might ask why do drug dealers need guns? The answer is quite simple, most violent acts are due to drug and alcohol abuse (Write 313). The ability to carry a concealed weapon provides safety to the insecure and vulnerable. Erika Schwartz (the first runner-up in the 1997 Miss America pageant) made her decision to carry a gun after becoming a victim of a carjacking. Other women carry a weapon due to their fear of rape. Laurence Rockefeller's reason to pack heat is because he carries large sums of money and feels that a gun will protect him from becoming a victim of a mugging (Lott 23). Advocates of no gun control say that the current gun regulation of a waiting period to help potential murders time to "cool off" is a total waste of time. Any one who leaves the scene of an argument, drives to a gun shop, buys a weapon, loads it with ammunition, and returns to kill the awaiting victim can hardly be said to be acting in the heat of the moment (Sullum). Gun regulation only prevents the innocent from having the right to protect himself or herself. Felons and criminals will go to all costs to get a weapon to kill, gun regulation or not. Stricter gun regulation, in theory, will get the guns off the streets and into the hands of those deserving and qualified. Sending a message to society that guns are not acceptable and will not be tolerated as a viable source to end an argument, is gun regulation's main goal. A recent effort in our nations capital, Washington D.C., to get guns off the street brought in over 2,300 guns that were turned over as part of a successful buy-back program. A program that has become fairly popular in America, such cities a New York and Minneapolis are looking into a similar program as well (Thurman). In an ideal world, there isn't any violence, guns, or worry. Unfortunately, America isn't that world. Therefore, actions must be taken to achieve that ideal world. Gun regulation doesn't mean absolutely any guns and safety for all, but rather it puts guns in the hands of those qualified to use them. Looking at society today, the problem with gun violence is out of control. Causing gun control activists to emphasize that change must occur. Phillip Cook, and economist at Duke University argues that if you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases the chance that someone will die (Lott 20). This outlook on gun control favors the idea of stricter regulation. Even if someone legally purchases a concealed weapon and three months later goes and gets in an argument, who is to say that that person will not lose control and start repelling rounds? This is a situation that must be addressed and recognized as something that is extremely possible. By allowing random people to carry a concealed weapon is placing a lot of trust into the American society. On the idea of stricter gun control, one needs not to worry about whether gun control actually works of whether it is needed. The important thing is the message it sends. As the issue of gun control heats-up, advocates for both sides of the issue must realize that no matter how many guns we buy-back or how many permits we give out, gun

Management system free essay sample

This document describes the high level design for the CHART/EORS Intranet Mapping Application and the CHART Internet Mapping Application. The purpose of this design is to show the high-level technical approach to meeting the requirements defined in system requirements specification. This serves to identify the architecture of the system and high-level interactions between major system components. 1. 2 Objectives Identify and describe the software architecture for the system. Provide high-level approaches to various technical challenges. Provide a guide for future development efforts, such as detailed design and coding. 1. 3 Scope This high level design encompasses the approach for meeting the requirements as defined in the documents CHART/EORS Intranet Mapping System Requirement Specification and CHART Internet Mapping System Requirement Specification. 2. System Architecture 2. 1 Overview The following diagram shows the system architecture used by CHART mapping applications. The system design utilizes web based multi-tier system architecture. The data storage is managed at the data tier by the databases. We will write a custom essay sample on Management system or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The main business logics are hosted in the two applications in the web server. Because mapping is an area that there are many requirements related to client side interactions with the graphic content of the application, application logics are partitioned based on the most appropriate location to execute them. Some are located on the client browsers to provide instantaneous feedback to the user. The general system operation flow involves the following: 1. Data updates from various sources such as the CHART II CORBA events, EORS data inputs, device and event editing modules are stored in the databases. When a mapping application receives a mapping request, it sends the image map generation request to the ArcIMS map server. The ArcIMS server retrieves the map data from the databases and creates a rendering of the map and saves it as a raster image file. The mapping application generates HTML pages embedded with the image and sends it to the browser client. 3. For the CHART Intranet mapping client, the application also generates the dynamic content in VML format, which encodes the device and event information in vector format. This enables the application to update the dynamic data without having to reload the whole map image. This avoids the heavy load on the map server when the application scales up. 4. When the images and VML data arrives at the client browser, the client displays the map to the user. The user can interact with this data on the client. 2. 2 SQL Server and ArcSDE ArcSDE from ESRI allows managing of geographic information in commercial databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 and Informix. ArcSDE provides functionalities to efficiently store and retrieve spatial information using spatial indexing mechanisms. Managing the spatial servers is the ArcIMS Application Server, which monitors each spatial server’s activity and brokers map requests to the least busy spatial server. The detailed interaction of a map request is as the following: When the ASP. Net page receives a map request, it parses it and uses the ActiveX Connector object model to construct a map request. The connector then sends the map request in ArcXML format to the Application Server. The Application Server then finds the least busy spatial server and forwards the map request to it. The spatial server performs the query against the ArcSDE database, retrieves the data and renders them into a raster image file. The location of the file is then sent back to the connector and the ASP. Net page writes it back to the client as HTML page with the image embedded in it. 2. 4 Web Server (IIS) . Net Framework and ASP. Net The web server hosts and publishes content to the client browser. In the case of the CHART mapping applications, most of the content is dynamic content generated by ASP. Net modules. When IIS recognizes a page being an ASP. Net module (an aspx extension), it passes the request to the . Net Framework to load the module and handle the request. The ASP. Net pages are then loaded into memory and executed. The . Net Framework provides many utilities such as garbage collection, tracing, just-in-time compilation that manages the execution of ASP. Net modules. The ASP. Net page modules are where the CHART mapping application logic is coded. The web server also provides security via the Secured Socket Layer (SSL), allowing interactions between the user’s browser and the web server to be encrypted when necessary. Network Level Security Network layer security will be managed by the network security configurations like firewall and RSA secure ID. 2. 5. 2 Secured Socket Layer (SSL) MDOT has a certificate server to provide digital certificates for the SSL configuration. The server name must remain consistent with the certificate. All links shall use the same server name, otherwise, if the server is referred using an IP address or a local server name, etc. , the user will see an alert indicating the certificate is in-consistent with the resource. IIS supports the configuration of one folder in the web application requiring SSL while other portion does not. The session information remains consistent between SSL portion of the web site and the non-SSL portion. 2. 5. 3 Enterprise User Enters Read-Only View Many of the CHART mapping functionalities are for display and reviewing data, i. e. a read-only view. The design allows enterprise viewers and CHART users to access the read-only portion of the web site without having to input user name and password. This also enables CHART users to reach the viewing area without having to enter their login information again. When system receives a user request to enter the secured area, the system checks whether the current session has been authenticated. If not, system displays login screen. The user shall enter their CHART user name and password. Upon receipt of the user name and password, the system checks it against the CHART II database’s user tables. If they are authenticated, the system stores the user information in the session. The session will be managed in the server until the configured timeout expires. All subsequent requests from the same user session will inherit the same authorization information for the user. 2. 5. 4 CHART User Enters Editing Area Other applications, like future versions of CHART II and CHART Lite, can launch the map editing URL via the HTTPS protocol. The user name and password can be sent via https request. The system verifies their authentication information against the CHART II user database using an OLEDB/ODBC connection. If the authentication information is correct, the system will store this information in the session. The user will be redirected to the map page. If the authentication is rejected, the user request will be redirected to the login screen to reenter the authentication information. Associating a CHART user with an op-center/default map view area: Based on CHART II R1B3 database design, users are not associated with an op-center; rather, the user specifies an op-center during logon. In order to display a default map view area based on an op-center, an external application launching the CHART mapping application will also need to pass in the operation center name to initialize the map to the associated extent. Passing user name and password in URL request: The mapping site shall have a module that verifies the user name and password, then forward the page to the map page, hence avoiding showing the password on URL address box. At the current time, without the full integration with CHART II and CHART Lite, the system will expect plain text user name and password. In the future, an encryption/decryption algorithms agreed between the systems can be added to achieve higher security. 2. 5. 5 EORS Security Currently, the EORS security has not been implemented. EORS functions will be hard-coded with security configuration. 3. Network Configuration The design above depicts CHART network configuration as the Internal network, a Demilitarization Zone (DMZ) network for hosting the web server and connecting out to the external Internet network. There will be two firewalls, one between the Internet and the DMZ network and another one between the DMZ network and the internal network. The map server and database servers are to be hosted in the internal network for maximum security. The initial configuration calls for two physical computers to host the map servers and database servers. In the future, if the system needs to scale up, additional physical servers can be added. The Intranet web server can optionally be hosted on the load-balanced virtual server too. 3. 1. 1 Map Server Load Balancing The design achieves load balancing by a combination of Windows 2000 Advanced Server Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service and the ArcIMS Application Server. The system utilizes two physical server computers. The two servers are configured with NLB. NLB works on the TCP/IP level. Any incoming traffic from web server to the virtual server IP address is load balanced between the two application servers by NLB. ArcIMS Application Server operates at the application level, monitoring each spatial server’s load and operation. When a spatial server is busy, it directs the map request to idling spatial server(s). Each physical map server hosts one ArcIMS Application Server and two ArcIMS Spatial Server instances. An application server failure forces NLB to direct new connections to the remaining application server. When the failed server is recovered, new client connections should once again be shared between the two servers. The two spatial server instances are â€Å"cross registered† to the application servers. As shown in the diagram, Spatial Server A1 and A2 are registered to Application Server B and A correspondingly. This arrangement ensures that when a spatial server is down, the application server can still utilize the spatial server from the other server to serve the map request and the application server continue to function. Also, this configuration also allows ArcIMS to load balance at the Spatial Server level as opposed to just the network traffic level, which is what NLB provides. This configuration can withstand an Application Server failure, a Spatial Server failure, a simultaneous Application/Spatial Server failure or hardware failure of one of the physical map servers. Using two map servers with network load balancing should provide high-availability load balanced ArcIMS web site. 3. 1. 2 Database Load Balancing By running two SQL Server and ArcSDE instances with NLB to balance the load, the system can achieve high availability at the database server layer. The database servers are completely independent and share no hardware components. This type of availability is achievable with the standard edition of SQL Server. The two database servers are setup with Transactional replication. One of the two SQL Servers is configured as the publisher and the other one as a subscriber. All the data modification such as insert, delete and update will be performed on the publisher and changes are replicated to the subscriber. Transactional replication can provide very low latency to Subscribers. Subscribers receiving data using a push subscription usually receive changes from the Publisher within one minute or sooner, provided that the network link and adequate processing resources are available (latency of a few seconds can often be achieved). When the web server and map server requests use the virtual IP address on the load-balanced group of database servers, they are directed to the database server with the least amount of load. If one of the database servers goes down due to hardware failure, NLB detects that this server is down and no longer directs database requests to this machine. The remaining machine handles the database requests and apart from a slight drop in performance the users are unaware that a database server has failed. When the hardware is fixed the offending machine can be brought back online. One limitation exists for this design. It happens when the publisher database is down. In this situation the data updates cannot be committed until the publisher database comes back. But at the same time, all read access from the Internet and Intranet server could still be directed to the secondary server. In the case when the publisher data is going to be down for extended time period, system configuration need to allow system administrator to change the configuration so that the replica will serve as the main database. Compared with clustering solution, this system design provides the maximum database availability and performance benefit. The databases that need to be replicated would include: 1. Background map database. Background map data does not change often. A snapshot replication is sufficient for replicating data updates in one database to the other. 2. CHART/EORS Spatial Database CHART/EORS spatial database stores CHART and EORS device and event information with spatial data. They are dynamically updated throughout the day. Transactional replication will be setup to ensure that data change in one database gets replicated to the other one. 3. SDE metadata. In general, the system can continue to provide access of map and data to both the Internet and Intranet users in the case of failure of any one component in the system. The only exception is that when the publisher database is down, the new data cannot be updated into the system. Users will get delayed information. 3. 1. 3 DMZ Configuration CHART is currently implementing a Demilitarization Zone (DMZ) network to enhance the network security. This entails creating a separate network for the web server computer(s) and separating it from the internal network with a firewall. In an ideal world, the DMZ would have no physical connection to the internal network. This would require two separate map server setups to serve the Internet and Intranet users. The recommended way to implement is to disallow any access from the DMZ to the internal network, but allow access from the internal network to the DMZ. In other words, allow out-bound connections. On each of the ArcIMS server computers, mount a network drive to a shared drive on the Web server. Each ArcIMS spatial server would write the output raster image files to the location on the web server to be delivered to the Internet client browsers. 4. Database Organization To reduce the dependency and operation interference between the spatial data and the attribute data, the EORS spatial database and CHART spatial database will be created as two SQL Server databases. To reduce the performance overhead when joining data between the spatial and attribute data, the EORS spatial database will reside on the same database server(s) as the EORS database. Map Display Mechanism CHART Intranet mapping application requires that changes in event and device data be reflected on all map clients in a near-real-time fashion (within 5 seconds). To do so via the traditional raster map publishing mechanism will result in all clients retrieving updated map every 5 seconds or at least when event/device status update requires a new map to be generated. When there is large number of users of the system, it will result in a high map server load in a concentrated short time period. To resolve this issue, the project team reviewed various technical approaches and summarizes their advantages and disadvantages as the following: 5. 1. 1 Raster (JPEG, GIF or PNG) Image This is a popular approach that utilizes the basic image display functionality of web browsers. It utilizes the server processing power efficiently. The disadvantages are that the images have limited client side intelligence, leaving most of the computation concentrated on the server. It’s capability of handling large number of concurrent map requests is limited. Generally, one map server can support 4-8 requests per second. For CHART’s situation, when an event changes status, if a new map image needs to be generated, it would be about 40 requests per second (200 users at 5 second update interval). Many servers will be required to support the load. With the license fee involved with using GIF format, we will not use GIF for map publishing. Compared with JPG format, PNG graphics do not have the â€Å"bleeding† effect inherent with the JPEG compression algorithm. With the map displaying lines rather than continuous tone images, it is much cleaner. PNG also results in a smaller file, which translates into faster download times for client. The only JPG advantage is server side image generation times. It is recommended to utilize PNG for the Intranet application to produce highest quality images for standardized IE browser while utilizing JPG for the Internet to allow for support of as many browsers as possible. Also, the reduction in image processing time should deliver better web image generation performance. 5. 1. 2 XML Based Vector Graphics 5. 1. 2. 1 Vector Markup Language (VML) VML is a XML based W3C standard in describing vector graphics. Basically, it encodes the vector coordinates of points, lines and polygons in XML format. The support of VML is included in Internet Explorer 5. 0 and later. There is no download needed to display VML encoded vector graphics. It also has built-in support for style sheet and scripting. This makes it possible to modify the display properties and positions of the vector graphics using the JavaScript on the client-side browser. Using this functionality, we can dynamically update the display of devices and events. 5. 1. 2. 2 Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Scalable Vector Graphics is another XML-based W3C standard format for vector graphics. Compared with VML, it requires Java or ActiveX based plug-in to be displayed. Also, based on review of the plug-ins (SVG Viewer by Adobe), there is not as much support for scripting as for VML. 5. 1. 3 ArcIMS Java Viewer ArcIMS includes a Java Viewer, which provides a Java Applet that can be customized to a certain extent to display vector encoded GIS data on the client side. It requires a download to the client. The Java Viewer reads vector data from ArcIMS feature server encoded using an ESRI proprietary compression format, which makes it difficult to implement special features such as WSMS offsetted road networks because they need to be offset dynamically based on map scale. 5. 1. 4 MapObjects Java MapObjects Java from ESRI provides a set of Java-based objects for GIS functionalities. It has an extensive set of functionality that can satisfy the requirements. But, it requires a license fee of $100/seat, or comparable server-based licensing. It also requires a download to client machine to run it. 5. 1. 5 Summary Based on the research above, the project team recommends the following design: Use raster map for background map display (background data with SHA grid map are often large amount of data, suitable for server side processing) Use XML data format to transport the device and event data from server to browser client. Use JavaScript to create and update the VML vector data elements to display the dynamic layers including all the CHART/EORS devices and events. The diagram above illustrates the map display mechanism: 1. Map server reads the spatial data from background database and sends the published map image to the client browser to be displayed as background. 2. Device and event information is broadcasted from the CHART II system in the form of CORBA events. 3. CORBA event listener receives the event broadcast and saves the data into CHART spatial database. 4. CHART/EORS device and event data are published in XML format to the client. Client browser parses the XML into a XML Document Object Model (DOM) using the XML parser. 5. The client browser then iterate through the DOM tree structure and create corresponding VML elements based on the XML device and event data. The VML elements are displayed on the top of the background raster map image. 6. At a pre-configured interval, the browser client retrieves update of device and event data from the IIS server in XML format and update the VML display based on the updated information. Automated Refresh of Device and Event Data CHART/EORS device and event information needs to be updated at a pre-configured interval. They should be updated separate from the background map to reduce the load on the map server. The technical approach to achieve this will be to use a hidden frame to send the request to retrieve updated device and event data and receive the response. The response will package the data in XML file to be parsed into a document object model (DOM) and display the data on map. The request can be to retrieve all data or only retrieve data newer than last retrieval. When the new device/event is received and it requires changing the display of the device/events, the style assignment for the elements can be changed to update the device and event display. The VML elements will be sent using real-world coordinates (Maryland State Plane 1983). After the data has been retrieved to the client side, the VML map layers can be dynamically projected using the â€Å"local coordinate space†. When user zooms or pan the map, the VML will be projected using the updated coordinates to fit the new map extent without going back to the server to retrieve new data set. 5. 3 Inter-Frame Client Script Synchronization The map page has a few frames and the browser loads them asynchronously. Scripts in one frame may call scripts in another frame that may not have been loaded. The approach to resolve this is to add client-side exception handling and verification routine to ensure that the script is called always after the frame is loaded. 5. 4 Assigning and Editing Event Location The dynamic nature of VML elements in the browser allows adding and modifying VML elements by scripting. When the user clicks or drags the mouse on the map, client-side script manages the transformation of screen coordinates and real-world map coordinates. The coordinates are sent back to the server’s secured URL where the information is extracted and saved to the database. 5. 5 Scalability The CHART mapping application serves not only the Intranet users, but also Internet browser clients. During emergency situations, the load on both the Internet and Intranet servers could get extremely high. The system must be able to scale up to serve large amount of users. The technical approach to solve this issue involves two main facets. As described in the network configuration section, the system will employ network load balancing and allows adding additional hardware in the future. The system should also be able to utilize the caching feature of IIS and ASP. Net to scale up without significantly increase hardware investment. ASP. Net allows caching configuration for individual page modules, such as whether the page is cached and how long it is cached. After the application is deployed, these caching settings can be configured on the web pages. For example, if it is determined that the Internet mapping can be up to 3 seconds late, by setting caching time to 3 seconds, all requests from the Internet will receive a cached response without creating additional load on the map and database server. Exception Management and Recovery CHART II keeps its clients updated via a push model using the CORBA Event Service. The Event Service does not guarantee delivery; therefore it is possible for event data to be lost/dropped (although in practice, this is rare). To account for this possibility, the CHART Web Event Listener will refresh its information about the status of devices and traffic events from CHART II at a configurable interval. Also, each time the Event Listener is started, it will retrieve all relevant data from CHART II. Thus, the update model becomes a push model with an occasional pull to be safe. This process will be used to recover from the following situations: 1. The Event Listener was down and did not receive new data from CHART II. 2. CHART II CORBA event(s) occasionally dropped while the Event Listener is up and running. Another likely scenario is that the CHART II server or service(s) restart. After a typical restart, the CORBA Event Service CORBA objects will be recreated with the same characteristics allowing the Event Listener to continue to automatically receive CHART II CORBA events. As the CHART II services will not be processing events during this time, no events are likely to be missed. Therefore, the Event Listener does not need to do anything special to handle a CHART II server or service(s) restart. Sometimes CHART II maintenance will require that new (and different) Event Service CORBA objects be created. This might happen during a CHART II upgrade, for example. In this case, the Event Listener will need to be restarted so that it can pick up the new objects. Since this type of maintenance does not occur often and the Event Listener restarting is fast, the restart can be handled as part of the CHART II upgrade procedures. Integration with ASP Code in EORS and CHART Web Application The CHART Intranet Mapping, replacing the existing EORS mapping application, will still be launched as a separate window by a URL string with a few parameters identifying the district, view type, etc. The impact on EORS web application should be limited to modifying the URL links. The current CHART Internet Mapping site uses â€Å"include† statement to include site navigation pages from upper level CHART web site’s pages. When upgrading Internet Mapping to ASP. Net, â€Å"include† statement is no longer used. Instead, a ServerXMLHTTP request can be formulated to request the text from the included ASP page and merge them into the mapping ASP. Net pages. The limitation of this implementation would be that the ASP. Net application couldn’t share the session and application variables from the ASP application. Currently, there are only a couple of them, such as database connection string. The ASP. Net mapping application will maintain a separate set of application variables. 6. User Interface Design 6. 1 Intranet Map Site User Interface Design Here following is a high-level frame structure for the Intranet mapping site: 1. AppFrame is the highest-level frame that includes all the child frames. On the top of the page, there will be the title frame, which will host the CHART icon. Also inside the title frame will be a group of tabs, such as Traffic, Roadway Weather, Message Sign, etc. 2. ToolsFrame hosts the map navigation and other map related tools. The ToolsFrame will also host menu system that allows the user to bring up data and other detailed information. HiddenFrame will be used to submit and receive information from the server. 4. ContentFrame is further divided to a map frame on the left and a data frame on the right. The user shall be able rearrange the frame boundary to give more space to the map or data area. Data frame will display data as well as legend, layer control and other items when needed. Management system free essay sample Provide a guide for future development efforts, such as detailed design and coding. 1. 3 Scope This high level design encompasses the approach for meeting the requirements as defined in the documents CHART/EORS Intranet Mapping System Requirement Specification and CHART Internet Mapping System Requirement Specification. 2. System Architecture 2. 1 Overview The following diagram shows the system architecture used by CHART mapping applications. The system design utilizes web based multi-tier system architecture. The data storage is managed at the data tier by the databases. The main business logics are hosted in the two applications in the web server. Because mapping is an area that there are many requirements related to client side interactions with the graphic content of the application, application logics are partitioned based on the most appropriate location to execute them. Some are located on the client browsers to provide instantaneous feedback to the user. The general system operation flow involves the following: Data updates from various sources such as the CHART II CORBA events, EORS data inputs, device and event editing modules are stored in the databases. We will write a custom essay sample on Management system or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page . When a mapping application receives a mapping request, it sends the image map generation request to the ArcIMS map server. The ArcIMS server retrieves the map data from the databases and creates a rendering of the map and saves it as a raster image file. The mapping application generates HTML pages embedded with the image and sends it to the browser client. 3. For the CHART Intranet mapping client, the application also generates the dynamic content in VML format, which encodes the device and event information in vector format. This enables the application to update the dynamic data without having to reload the whole map image. This avoids the heavy load on the map server when the application scales up. 4. When the images and VML data arrives at the client browser, the client displays the map to the user. The user can interact with this data on the client. 2. 2 SQL Server and ArcSDE ArcSDE from ESRI allows managing of geographic information in commercial databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 and Informix. ArcSDE provides functionalities to efficiently store and retrieve spatial information using spatial indexing mechanisms. ArcSDE provides a set of API and administrative utilities that help manage the spatial data storage. For the CHART mapping systems, the combination of ArcSDE and SQL Server manages the spatial information in the relational database. ArcSDE adds spatial functionalities without disrupting standard SQL database capabilities. 2. 3 Map Server (ArcIMS) ArcIMS includes a few components that will play important roles in the CHART mapping application. The workhorse component that processes the data and generates maps is the spatial server. Managing the spatial servers is the ArcIMS Application Server, which monitors each spatial server’s activity and brokers map requests to the least busy spatial server. The detailed interaction of a map request is as the following: When the ASP. Net page receives a map request, it parses it and uses the ActiveX Connector object model to construct a map request. The connector then sends the map request in ArcXML format to the Application Server. The Application Server then finds the least busy spatial server and forwards the map request to it. The spatial server performs the query against the ArcSDE database, retrieves the data and renders them into a raster image file. The location of the file is then sent back to the connector and the ASP. Net page writes it back to the client as HTML page with the image embedded in it. 2. 4 Web Server (IIS) . Net Framework and ASP. Net The web server hosts and publishes content to the client browser. In the case of the CHART mapping applications, most of the content is dynamic content generated by ASP. Net modules. When IIS recognizes a page being an ASP. Net module (an aspx extension), it passes the request to the . Net Framework to load the module and handle the request. The ASP. Net pages are then loaded into memory and executed. The . Net Framework provides many utilities such as garbage collection, tracing, just-in-time compilation that manages the execution of ASP. Net modules. The ASP. Net page modules are where the CHART mapping application logic is coded. The web server also provides security via the Secured Socket Layer (SSL), allowing interactions between the user’s browser and the web server to be encrypted when necessary. . 5 Security 2. 5. 1 Network Level Security Network layer security will be managed by the network security configurations like firewall and RSA secure ID. 2. 5. 2 Secured Socket Layer (SSL) MDOT has a certificate server to provide digital certificates for the SSL configuration. The server name must remain consistent with the certificate. All links shall use the same server name, otherwise, if the server is referred using an IP address or a local server name, etc. , the user will see an alert indicating the certificate is in-consistent with the resource. IIS supports the configuration of one folder in the web application requiring SSL while other portion does not. The session information remains consistent between SSL portion of the web site and the non-SSL portion. 2. 5. 3 Enterprise User Enters Read-Only View Many of the CHART mapping functionalities are for display and reviewing data, i. e. a read-only view. The design allows enterprise viewers and CHART users to access the read-only portion of the web site without having to input user name and password. This also enables CHART users to reach the viewing area without having to enter their login information again. When system receives a user request to enter the secured area, the system checks whether the current session has been authenticated. If not, system displays login screen. The user shall enter their CHART user name and password. Upon receipt of the user name and password, the system checks it against the CHART II database’s user tables. If they are authenticated, the system stores the user information in the session. The session will be managed in the server until the configured timeout expires. All subsequent requests from the same user session will inherit the same authorization information for the user. 2. 5. 4 CHART User Enters Editing Area Other applications, like future versions of CHART II and CHART Lite, can launch the map editing URL via the HTTPS protocol. The user name and password can be sent via https request. The system verifies their authentication information against the CHART II user database using an OLEDB/ODBC connection. If the authentication information is correct, the system will store this information in the session. The user will be redirected to the map page. If the authentication is rejected, the user request will be redirected to the login screen to reenter the authentication information. Associating a CHART user with an op-center/default map view area: Based on CHART II R1B3 database design, users are not associated with an op-center; rather, the user specifies an op-center during logon. In order to display a default map view area based on an op-center, an external application launching the CHART mapping application will also need to pass in the operation center name to initialize the map to the associated extent. Passing user name and password in URL request: The mapping site shall have a module that verifies the user name and password, then forward the page to the map page, hence avoiding showing the password on URL address box. At the current time, without the full integration with CHART II and CHART Lite, the system will expect plain text user name and password. In the future, an encryption/decryption algorithms agreed between the systems can be added to achieve higher security. 2. 5. 5 EORS Security Currently, the EORS security has not been implemented. EORS functions will be hard-coded with security configuration. 3. Network Configuration The design above depicts CHART network configuration as the Internal network, a Demilitarization Zone (DMZ) network for hosting the web server and connecting out to the external Internet network. There will be two firewalls, one between the Internet and the DMZ network and another one between the DMZ network and the internal network. The map server and database servers are to be hosted in the internal network for maximum security. The initial configuration calls for two physical computers to host the map servers and database servers. In the future, if the system needs to scale up, additional physical servers can be added. The Intranet web server can optionally be hosted on the load-balanced virtual server too. 3. 1. 1 Map Server Load Balancing The design achieves load balancing by a combination of Windows 2000 Advanced Server Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service and the ArcIMS Application Server. The system utilizes two physical server computers. The two servers are configured with NLB. NLB works on the TCP/IP level. Any incoming traffic from web server to the virtual server IP address is load balanced between the two application servers by NLB. ArcIMS Application Server operates at the application level, monitoring each spatial server’s load and operation. When a spatial server is busy, it directs the map request to idling spatial server(s). Each physical map server hosts one ArcIMS Application Server and two ArcIMS Spatial Server instances. An application server failure forces NLB to direct new connections to the remaining application server. When the failed server is recovered, new client connections should once again be shared between the two servers. The two spatial server instances are â€Å"cross registered† to the application servers. As shown in the diagram, Spatial Server A1 and A2 are registered to Application Server B and A correspondingly. This arrangement ensures that when a spatial server is down, the application server can still utilize the spatial server from the other server to serve the map request and the application server continue to function. Also, this configuration also allows ArcIMS to load balance at the Spatial Server level as opposed to just the network traffic level, which is what NLB provides. This configuration can withstand an Application Server failure, a Spatial Server failure, a simultaneous Application/Spatial Server failure or hardware failure of one of the physical map servers. Using two map servers with network load balancing should provide high-availability load balanced ArcIMS web site. 3. 1. 2 Database Load Balancing By running two SQL Server and ArcSDE instances with NLB to balance the load, the system can achieve high availability at the database server layer. The database servers are completely independent and share no hardware components. This type of availability is achievable with the standard edition of SQL Server. The two database servers are setup with Transactional replication. One of the two SQL Servers is configured as the publisher and the other one as a subscriber. All the data modification such as insert, delete and update will be performed on the publisher and changes are replicated to the subscriber. Transactional replication can provide very low latency to Subscribers. Subscribers receiving data using a push subscription usually receive changes from the Publisher within one minute or sooner, provided that the network link and adequate processing resources are available (latency of a few seconds can often be achieved). When the web server and map server requests use the virtual IP address on the load-balanced group of database servers, they are directed to the database server with the least amount of load. If one of the database servers goes down due to hardware failure, NLB detects that this server is down and no longer directs database requests to this machine. The remaining machine handles the database requests and apart from a slight drop in performance the users are unaware that a database server has failed. When the hardware is fixed the offending machine can be brought back online. One limitation exists for this design. It happens when the publisher database is down. In this situation the data updates cannot be committed until the publisher database comes back. But at the same time, all read access from the Internet and Intranet server could still be directed to the secondary server. In the case when the publisher data is going to be down for extended time period, system configuration need to allow system administrator to change the configuration so that the replica will serve as the main database. Compared with clustering solution, this system design provides the maximum database availability and performance benefit. The databases that need to be replicated would include: 1. Background map database. Background map data does not change often. A snapshot replication is sufficient for replicating data updates in one database to the other. 2. CHART/EORS Spatial Database CHART/EORS spatial database stores CHART and EORS device and event information with spatial data. They are dynamically updated throughout the day. Transactional replication will be setup to ensure that data change in one database gets replicated to the other one. 3. SDE metadata. In general, the system can continue to provide access of map and data to both the Internet and Intranet users in the case of failure of any one component in the system. The only exception is that when the publisher database is down, the new data cannot be updated into the system. Users will get delayed information. 3. 1. 3 DMZ Configuration CHART is currently implementing a Demilitarization Zone (DMZ) network to enhance the network security. This entails creating a separate network for the web server computer(s) and separating it from the internal network with a firewall. In an ideal world, the DMZ would have no physical connection to the internal network. This would require two separate map server setups to serve the Internet and Intranet users. The recommended way to implement is to disallow any access from the DMZ to the internal network, but allow access from the internal network to the DMZ. In other words, allow out-bound connections. On each of the ArcIMS server computers, mount a network drive to a shared drive on the Web server. Each ArcIMS spatial server would write the output raster image files to the location on the web server to be delivered to the Internet client browsers. 4. Database Organization To reduce the dependency and operation interference between the spatial data and the attribute data, the EORS spatial database and CHART spatial database will be created as two SQL Server databases. To reduce the performance overhead when joining data between the spatial and attribute data, the EORS spatial database will reside on the same database server(s) as the EORS database. Technical Challenges 5. 1 Map Display Mechanism CHART Intranet mapping application requires that changes in event and device data be reflected on all map clients in a near-real-time fashion (within 5 seconds). To do so via the traditional raster map publishing mechanism will result in all clients retrieving updated map every 5 seconds or at least when event/device status update requires a new map to be generated. When there is large number of users of the system, it will result in a high map server load in a concentrated short time period. To resolve this issue, the project team reviewed various technical approaches and summarizes their advantages and disadvantages as the following: 5. 1. 1 Raster (JPEG, GIF or PNG) Image This is a popular approach that utilizes the basic image display functionality of web browsers. It utilizes the server processing power efficiently. The disadvantages are that the images have limited client side intelligence, leaving most of the computation concentrated on the server. It’s capability of handling large number of concurrent map requests is limited. Generally, one map server can support 4-8 requests per second. For CHART’s situation, when an event changes status, if a new map image needs to be generated, it would be about 40 requests per second (200 users at 5 second update interval). Many servers will be required to support the load. With the license fee involved with using GIF format, we will not use GIF for map publishing. Compared with JPG format, PNG graphics do not have the â€Å"bleeding† effect inherent with the JPEG compression algorithm. With the map displaying lines rather than continuous tone images, it is much cleaner. PNG also results in a smaller file, which translates into faster download times for client. The only JPG advantage is server side image generation times. It is recommended to utilize PNG for the Intranet application to produce highest quality images for standardized IE browser while utilizing JPG for the Internet to allow for support of as many browsers as possible. Also, the reduction in image processing time should deliver better web image generation performance. 5. 1. 2 XML Based Vector Graphics 5. 1. 2. 1 Vector Markup Language (VML) VML is a XML based W3C standard in describing vector graphics. Basically, it encodes the vector coordinates of points, lines and polygons in XML format. The support of VML is included in Internet Explorer 5. 0 and later. There is no download needed to display VML encoded vector graphics. It also has built-in support for style sheet and scripting. This makes it possible to modify the display properties and positions of the vector graphics using the JavaScript on the client-side browser. Using this functionality, we can dynamically update the display of devices and events. 5. 1. 2. 2 Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Scalable Vector Graphics is another XML-based W3C standard format for vector graphics. Compared with VML, it requires Java or ActiveX based plug-in to be displayed. Also, based on review of the plug-ins (SVG Viewer by Adobe), there is not as much support for scripting as for VML. 5. 1. 3 ArcIMS Java Viewer ArcIMS includes a Java Viewer, which provides a Java Applet that can be customized to a certain extent to display vector encoded GIS data on the client side. It requires a download to the client. The Java Viewer reads vector data from ArcIMS feature server encoded using an ESRI proprietary compression format, which makes it difficult to implement special features such as WSMS offsetted road networks because they need to be offset dynamically based on map scale. 5. 1. 4 MapObjects Java MapObjects Java from ESRI provides a set of Java-based objects for GIS functionalities. It has an extensive set of functionality that can satisfy the requirements. But, it requires a license fee of $100/seat, or comparable server-based licensing. It also requires a download to client machine to run it. 5. 1. 5 Summary Based on the research above, the project team recommends the following design: Use raster map for background map display (background data with SHA grid map are often large amount of data, suitable for server side processing) Use XML data format to transport the device and event data from server to browser client. Use JavaScript to create and update the VML vector data elements to display the dynamic layers including all the CHART/EORS devices and events. The diagram above illustrates the map display mechanism: 1. Map server reads the spatial data from background database and sends the published map image to the client browser to be displayed as background. 2. Device and event information is broadcasted from the CHART II system in the form of CORBA events. 3. CORBA event listener receives the event broadcast and saves the data into CHART spatial database. 4. CHART/EORS device and event data are published in XML format to the client. Client browser parses the XML into a XML Document Object Model (DOM) using the XML parser. 5. The client browser then iterate through the DOM tree structure and create corresponding VML elements based on the XML device and event data. The VML elements are displayed on the top of the background raster map image. 6. At a pre-configured interval, the browser client retrieves update of device and event data from the IIS server in XML format and update the VML display based on the updated information. 5. Automated Refresh of Device and Event Data CHART/EORS device and event information needs to be updated at a pre-configured interval. They should be updated separate from the background map to reduce the load on the map server. The technical approach to achieve this will be to use a hidden frame to send the request to retrieve updated device and event data and receive the response. The response will package the dat a in XML file to be parsed into a document object model (DOM) and display the data on map. The request can be to retrieve all data or only retrieve data newer than last retrieval. When the new device/event is received and it requires changing the display of the device/events, the style assignment for the elements can be changed to update the device and event display. The VML elements will be sent using real-world coordinates (Maryland State Plane 1983). After the data has been retrieved to the client side, the VML map layers can be dynamically projected using the â€Å"local coordinate space†. When user zooms or pan the map, the VML will be projected using the updated coordinates to fit the new map extent without going back to the server to retrieve new data set. 5. 3 Inter-Frame Client Script Synchronization The map page has a few frames and the browser loads them asynchronously. Scripts in one frame may call scripts in another frame that may not have been loaded. The approach to resolve this is to add client-side exception handling and verification routine to ensure that the script is called always after the frame is loaded. 5. 4 Assigning and Editing Event Location The dynamic nature of VML elements in the browser allows adding and modifying VML elements by scripting. When the user clicks or drags the mouse on the map, client-side script manages the transformation of screen coordinates and real-world map coordinates. The coordinates are sent back to the server’s secured URL where the information is extracted and saved to the database. 5. 5 Scalability The CHART mapping application serves not only the Intranet users, but also Internet browser clients. During emergency situations, the load on both the Internet and Intranet servers could get extremely high. The system must be able to scale up to serve large amount of users. The technical approach to solve this issue involves two main facets. As described in the network configuration section, the system will employ network load balancing and allows adding additional hardware in the future. The system should also be able to utilize the caching feature of IIS and ASP. Net to scale up without significantly increase hardware investment. ASP. Net allows caching configuration for individual page modules, such as whether the page is cached and how long it is cached. After the application is deployed, these caching settings can be configured on the web pages. For example, if it is determined that the Internet mapping can be up to 3 seconds late, by setting caching time to 3 seconds, all requests from the Internet will receive a cached response without creating additional load on the map and database server. . Exception Management and Recovery CHART II keeps its clients updated via a push model using the CORBA Event Service. The Event Service does not guarantee delivery; therefore it is possible for event data to be lost/dropped (although in practice, this is rare). To account for this possibility, the CHART Web Event Listener will refresh its information about the status of devices and traffic events from CHART II at a configurable interval. Also, each time the Event Listener is started, it will retrieve all relevant data from CHART II. Thus, the update model becomes a push model with an occasional pull to be safe. This process will be used to recover from the following situations: 1. The Event Listener was down and did not receive new data from CHART II. 2. CHART II CORBA event(s) occasionally dropped while the Event Listener is up and running. Another likely scenario is that the CHART II server or service(s) restart. After a typical restart, the CORBA Event Service CORBA objects will be recreated with the same characteristics allowing the Event Listener to continue to automatically receive CHART II CORBA events. As the CHART II services will not be processing events during this time, no events are likely to be missed. Therefore, the Event Listener does not need to do anything special to handle a CHART II server or service(s) restart. Sometimes CHART II maintenance will require that new (and different) Event Service CORBA objects be created. This might happen during a CHART II upgrade, for example. In this case, the Event Listener will need to be restarted so that it can pick up the new objects. Since this type of maintenance does not occur often and the Event Listener restarting is fast, the restart can be handled as part of the CHART II upgrade procedures. 5. Integration with ASP Code in EORS and CHART Web Application The CHART Intranet Mapping, replacing the existing EORS mapping application, will still be launched as a separate window by a URL string with a few parameters identifying the district, view type, etc. The impact on EORS web application should be limited to modifying the URL links. The current CHART Internet Mapping site uses â€Å"include† statement to include site navigation pages from upper level CHART web site’s pages. When upgrading Internet Mapping to ASP. Net, â€Å"include† statement is no longer used. Instead, a ServerXMLHTTP request can be formulated to request the text from the included ASP page and merge them into the mapping ASP. Net pages. The limitation of this implementation would be that the ASP. Net application couldn’t share the session and application variables from the ASP application. Currently, there are only a couple of them, such as database connection string. The ASP. Net mapping application will maintain a separate set of application variables. 6. User Interface Design 6. 1 Intranet Map Site User Interface Design Here following is a high-level frame structure for the Intranet mapping site: 1. AppFrame is the highest-level frame that includes all the child frames. On the top of the page, there will be the title frame, which will host the CHART icon. Also inside the title frame will be a group of tabs, such as Traffic, Roadway Weather, Message Sign, etc. 2. ToolsFrame hosts the map navigation and other map related tools. The ToolsFrame will also host menu system that allows the user to bring up data and other detailed information. 3. HiddenFrame will be used to submit and receive information from the server. 4. ContentFrame is further divided to a map frame on the left and a data frame on the right. The user shall be able rearrange the frame boundary to give more space to the map or data area. Data frame will display data as well as legend, layer control and other items when needed. 5. PromptFrame will display the current tool selected and instructions for user activities. Here is a screen shot of the preliminary user interface design.

Essay on The Effect of Mozart

Essay on The Effect of Mozart Essay on The Effect of Mozart These are some of my thoughts but they go through out this whole essay†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦enjoy my piece of mind, heart, and soul in this essay. I chose this piece because I really feel that this program could and does have an effect on youth. Even with the studies that they have done and it does show that this does make a different in the children who have done the testing. They show there are four different groups, one was playing the piano, two is voice, three drama and four they did not do anything in the group. It took several weeks to put this all to work and when they finished, it showed that the children who were in the group for voice did better than all of them. I feel that if these young children really listen to the music and understand music for not just the lyrics but the actually music part of the song. If they learn how to clear their mind and focus on one thing, setting their mind free to observe their surroundings. I think that they would be able to focus more in life itself. By that they would be able to concentrate in school and do better when they tried to do their school work. I think that you would have to talk to the children and see what they feel and understand about music, that they want to listen to, see what meaning it has on them. I don’t think that it is just Mozart. I think that it can be any music that the child feels and understands. Why do we have to label it? If we were just to ask them what they felt when they listened to the music that they wanted to hear that it would be totally different, from studies telling them that they had to listen to a certain type of music. Everyone learns differently. Maybe someone can’t listen to a certain type of music. Maybe they would get distracted when listening to it. My view before the research that I did on this subject, well I thought that it was pretty interesting. Me myself†¦I love music just letting my mind escape from reality for that moment in time I feel that I’m free for those brief minutes of the song. Rather it has lyrics or no lyrics. I can listen to music and study better, than not listening to music when I study. I usually do better on my test when I do listen to music when I am studying. But if I don’t listen to music during studying I don’t do as good. I feel that I can take more in and understand it. Maybe it’s putting what I’m studying to music. Just like remembering lyrics to a song which lots of kids and youth already know? The Mozart Effect They call this the Mozart Effect. In the 1990’s there was a study done on young children that when they were to listen to Mozart classical music that it would only last 10-15 minutes after they had listened to his music. They also did a test on monkeys for them to listen to this music, but it had no success. They also ended up in 1998 studies show that again there were four different groups, this time they were a little different from the one that was in 1990’s. Instead of drama class they worked on computers. It shows that the children that had the keyboard class did better up to a day after (they had the last piano class) that they could still piece together a puzzle faster than any of the other groups. In most of the research that was done for the 1990’s to the last time that test were taking that listening to Mozart last still 10-15 min. What if they tried in a class letting the music play throughout the whole time while the youth were writing have one day p lay this music to write than the next day do a different situation where they could not listen to any thing of assort and see which would work better. As I write right now I am listening to Mozart and everything seems to be coming to me more easy than when I first starting writing this essay. At that time I was not listening to any music. As I stated earlier I feel that music can clear a mind and things can come to you differently. As a child I did not see myself wanting to listen to this type of music, at the time kids are into different

Leadership Qualities Essays - Christian Soteriology, Free Essays

Leadership Qualities Essays - Christian Soteriology, Free Essays Leadership Qualities The most meaningful and challenging experiences in my life have been through sports and the 4-H club. They have instilled the values of perseverance, confidence, and teamwork within me. I feel that my peers and others could learn valuable life lessons through participating in these organizations. They are not just clubs, but a guiding light for life. For example in sports I have had the opportunity to play on both losing and winning teams. This has given me a different perspective of looking at things. I now realize that even if you fail or lose that is no reason to give up, you still have to get right back up. Just realize your mistakes and errors. Then come back the next time, mentally and physically, ready to meet the challenge. To often in life youth and adults alike fail at something and automatically think that they cannot do it, and give up. Instead of just pushing themselves to run another lap, lift another set, study for another hour, or learn another theorem. Imagine a world if the early American settlers had given in to the British, if the North had given in to the South after the first loss of the civil war, or if Michael Jordan had given up after being cut from the team in high school. People just need to learn to have perseverance and believe in themselves. 4-H has been a series of stepping stones for me. When I first started out at age four I was shy and afraid to do things that I had not done before, but now I have blossomed into a confident and outgoing young man. I no longer fear getting up in front of large groups and speaking because of the experiences I've had in public speaking events. In addition, 4-H has given me the chance to develop myself as a leader. Over the years I have held various leadership positions on the club, county, and district levels. Also, 4-H has given me the chance to go into the community and help people by leading youth in workshops, assisting the handicap and elderly, and also learn from what others have to teach. In both of these organizations I learned the need for teamwork. For example last year my football team went 0-11 and the main reason because of that was we were not a team. Everyone had there own agendas and goals that they wanted to accomplish. In addition, if we were down everyone would try to put the blame on someone else instead of trying to lift one another up. It took us a while, but we finnaly learned that we must ban together as one. This year we are playing as a team and winning games.To often in life people tend to act like this, pulling someone down to make themselves look good for ther own personal gratifacation. People could learn from this mistake that my team made last year and start helping one another. So fellow students I say to you, when you are in a jam and breaking into a cold sweat and your first desire is to give up or quit, rethink the problem. Then be up and about the task at hand. When you try and reach out to give others a helping hand you not only help them, but you will be giving yourself a boost too.

Global warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 8

Global warming - Essay Example People have changed the land use that has increased the emission of greenhouse gases. For instance, deforestation has led to increased emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that was previously stored in vegetation. Kuwait is located on the Arabian Gulf; the country is made up the mostly flat desert. The climate of Kuwait can be severe, with temperatures that are freezing and scalding. The increased temperatures in Kuwait are as a result of increased industrialization and urbanization. However, some researchers have said that the raised temperatures are not as a result of the industrialization. Kuwait has numerous environmental issues that are severely affecting its biophysical ecosystem, as well as the human health. The rapid industrialization and the careless environmental oversight have resulted in these issues. One of the major issues is the desertification that has remained a serious problem. The government of Kuwait are taking measures to address this problem through restoring the desert lands to forests. Another major issue affecting Kuwait is the increased pollution. The different forms of pollution have increased with growth in industrialization. The government is taking precautions to ensure that this issue does not go beyond the limit. Therefore, the government is setting up the pollutant treatment infrastructure that is adequately addressing this

Sweeping Political and Economic Changes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Sweeping Political and Economic Changes - Essay Example Customer expectations can be fulfilled or even exceeded by opting for quality systems whether the organization concerned is a manufacturing industry or an analytical laboratory offering services of chemical analyses. 2. DEFINITION OF QUALITY According to Mulmi,(2009, p7-8)the term ‘Quality’ has been defined in many a different way by various authorities on quality. For example he cites, Joseph M Juran’s definition of quality as ‘fitness for use’, Philip B Crosby’s definition as ‘Quality is conformance to requirement, it is respect to humanity’ and the American National Standards Institute’s definition of quality as the ‘totality of the features and characteristics of a product that bears on its ability to satisfy the stated or implied needs’. The International Organization for Standardization has defined quality as the ‘Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements’ (ISO: 2 005a, 3.1.1). ... 3. SELECTIING A CONTEXT-THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY Cases (2000,p xix) defines Analytical Chemistry as a ‘metrological science that develops, optimizes and applies measurement processes intended to derive selecting chemical information of global or partial type from natural or artificial objects or systems in order to solve analytical problems’. Fifield & Kealy (2000,p524) point out that a typical analytical laboratory carries out development and day-to-day application of analytical methods in optimum conditions. According to them, the successful functioning of activities in an analytical laboratory necessitates the simultaneous management of a number of related but different operations. Reproducibility, reliability, and efficiency of operation of various instruments are as much necessary as are collation and interpretation of data which result in the generation of valid conclusions drawn from them. In the present context, the Analytical Laboratory has been taken to illust rate the impact of quality issues in this dissertation. 4. QUALITY ISSUES RELEVANT TO AN ANALYTICAL LABORATORY Analytical laboratories are organizations that obtain process and communicate information about the composition, structure and relative amounts of constituent elements in matter or systems, from a chemical or biochemical point of view. The quality system, administrative system and technical system that govern the operations of a laboratory are together termed as the management system by the ISO ( 2005b, p1). Due to the increasing use of management systems, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure that analytical laboratories do operate to a quality management system while at the same time become capable of demonstrating their technical competency to international standards.  

The book FREEDOM by Johnatan Franzen. Journalist critics of the book Assignment

The book FREEDOM by Johnatan Franzen. Journalist critics of the book - Assignment Example d arranges marriages of contemporary time, it can be said that as an author he has developed his skills and deviated his way of writing technically and topically. This owing to the reason that he is able to captivate in comic and tragic hue at the same plane the provocations and the pressures the concept of liberty brings forth, the thrilling days of teenage immersed in sexual interests culminating almost into lust, the most provoking social issue of American society pertaining to mid-life crisis, collapsing of the wages in the suburb areas and the pang of staying under the reign of a heavy weight empire all come under one umbrella within the plot of the novel â€Å"Freedom†. Like most of the common topics of American literature, American dream does not find a very potent place within the plot of the novel, but the tinge of the issue can be traced within a microcosm of middle class American society. A deep delineation to the plot of the novel and close introspection to the motif launches the readers into a plethora of thought process where it is very clear that the novel captures a span of time frame as its background with some deliberate intentions. The time frame against which the plot of the novel, â€Å"Freedom† is set initiates during the last decades of the twentieth century and ends at the beginning of Obama administration. The novel captivates a wide time frame; therefore the socio-political and socio-economic ups and downs are tracked in the novel from a very close counter. The contour of American society is very evident through the book as it displays a volley of characters almost in a Dickensian way, â€Å"In the earliest years, when you could still drive a Volvo 240 without feeling self-conscious, the collective task in Ramsey Hills was to relearn certain life skills that your own parents had fled to the suburbs specifically to unlearn† (Franzen 4). The language is lucid and the syntax is clear. As regards to the anatomy of the book, then there are small

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Project Management for Business--The failure of Fire Control Essay

Project Management for Business--The failure of Fire Control - Essay Example Moreover, in December 2010, the department cancelled the project after reviewing that it would not be delivered within the planned timeframe. The project examines why the department failed to convey the project and the extent to which it minimized the waste arising from the final decisions to terminate the project. Project management advances the coordination, control and planning of diverse and complex activities of commercial, industrial, management change, and IT projects.Moreover, thedevelopments of projects share common similarities in the projection of ideas and activities into new ventures’. This report entails a fire control project, aimed at improving the efficiency, technology and flexibility of English fire and rescue service by replacing forty-six local control rooms with an effective network of nine purpose-built regional control centers. Besides, the control centers use national computer system that handle calls, manage incidents and mobilize equipment. Consequently, the main purpose of this project was to predict and foresee many dangers’ and problems as possible during the planning and organization of activities to finish the project successfully. It started before the incorporation of any resource and continued until all work was finished. The development of the project incorporated other parties such as a project manager and relevant stakeholders in information technology (IT). According to the National Audit Office (2011), suggests that the aim of a project manager is to ensure that the result satisfies project sponsors or purchasers and principled stakeholders within the promised timeframe. Furthermore, the project was not to use more money and other resources than those originally included in the budget. Following the cancelation of this project, the report addresses the department for communities and local government, to ensure that organizations learn lessons from mistakes

Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Media - Essay Example A very interesting article ha been put forth by renowned writer Naomi Rockler Gladen titled ‘Me against the Media’, where Gladen writes about the struggles faced by herself to teach the very subject –advertising. She writes that the age group between 18-34 has become a target market for most products and services and this group may be known as the â€Å"The Age of Acquisition.† This is because it is people between this very age group that fall prey to all kinds of tricks played by the corporations and companies worldwide in order to carry on their advertising and promotion techniques. She provides the example of the movie â€Å"Father of the Bride† where she helps her students understand how the father was against a big and extravagant wedding for his daughter but how that decision according to the other family members was just outright unacceptable. This is because in today’s day and age of consumerism no person from the younger generations wants to compromise on any kind of usage when it comes to products and services that have carved a niche for them in the market. Despite presenting the clip, Naomi’s students failed to understand how consumerism has taken over globally without students and young people understanding that they are simply being used by big companies in the form of walking talking forms of print media for the sole benefit of the companies. Most of the dream and ambitions that the younger generations have today are closely linked with consumerism. They dream of acquiring products and services that have high brand values and a niche market. So then is it the fault of these big companies and multinationals if these people are putting themselves into the trap? (Gladen, Naomi Rockler) The main problem, Naomi writes, is that the happiest moments that these younger generations possess in their lives are not linked with familial or friendly relations and ties – they are linked with consumerism. Younger people fail to

XML Query Routing in P2P Systems | Paper Critique

XML Query Routing in P2P Systems | Paper Critique Critique on XML Query Routing in Structured P2P Systems (Leonidas Fegaras, Weimin He, Gowtham Das, David Levine) Rahul Rayineni The structured peer-to-peer network is a decentralized architecture which consists of large number of nodes that share data and resources with other nodes. They use a distributed hash table to determine the location of data. The nodes in structured P2P systems maintains a list of neighbors so that they from a overlay network in which lookup time for a key take logarithmic number of routing hops between peers. They offer better availability and scalability than unstructured P2P systems but the main difficulty in using these systems lies in data placement and query processing as queries are more complex. If the queries are not properly optimized routing and processing takes lot of time. This paper demonstrates about data placement, querying, and indexing large data repositories distributed over an existing DHT based P2P systems like pastry (Reference 4 and 6). According to Leonidas Fegaras, Weimen He, Gautam das, and David Levine, There are lot of earlier proposals like XPath lookup queries in P2P networks(Reference1) and Locating data sources in large Distributed Systems(reference 3) on indexing and querying XML data distributed data over a P2P network but there is no work reported on complex XML query processing with full text search that uses data synopses to selectively route queries to peers. The framework proposed in this paper is implemented on DHT-based P2P system Pastry (Reference 4 and 6). But this framework can be implemented on any P2P infrastructure. This frameworks works on summarized data namely structural synopsis and data synopsis for mapping XML queries. The high query routing precision, low data placement and low maintenance overheads are achieved through novel data synopses structures. This framework gives more accurate evaluation of textual and containment constraints in a query compared to bloom filters. The publishing process makes the documents available to other peers while unpublishing is removing the document by the owner. If the peer wants to update the document first it will unpublish the document and later publish it again to reflect the document updates. According to Leonidas Fegaras, Weimen He, Gautam Das, and David Levine, The XPath syntax is modified to add the predicate e ~ S, where e is an arbitrary XPath expression that returns true if at least from the sequence returned by e matches the search specification, S. A search specification is an IR-style Boolean keyword query that takes the form term | S1 and S2 | S1 or S2 | (S) where S, S1 and S2 are search specifications. A term is a keyword that must be present in the text of an element returned by the expression e. The label path of an XML document consists of child/attribute steps and can distinguish non-empty set of data nodes in the document. There are two types of data synopses used in this framework in which one is content synopses that contain structural summary nodes associated with bit matrices. The second one is positional filters which are bit vectors consists of internal structure summary nodes and their positions. To achieve good load balance with small number of nodes structural summary information and data synopsis are distributed over the existing P2P network. This framework is capable of finding all possible structural summaries applicable to the query with one DHT lookup. The content synopses consists of index terms along with their positions. Index terms are formed breaking the document in to simple terms. The position of the index term depends on the position of its begin/end tags. The position of the elements tag depends on the number of the begin and end tags preceding the elements. So index terms of a same element consists of same positional range. The positional bit vector consists of all the positions of the document. According to Leonidas Fegaras, Weimen He, Gautam Das, and David Levine, The search specification e ~ t1 and t2 for two terms t1 and t2 becomes true if and only if there is at least one document node returned by e that contains both terms. Using one-dimensional term bitmaps alone, such as bloom filters, and checking whether both the t1 and t2 bits are on, will give us a prohibitive number of false positives. The core operation in this framework is containments filtering, CF(F,V) which test element containment. Here F is positional filter and V is a bit vector. The output of the above function is new positional filter F. In the bit vector V, if there is at least one bit is on with in this range it copies all the bits in F to F. Data placement involves placing of structural summary and data synopsis. The structural summaries are routed to every peer using every different tag name. Thus, with a single DHT lookup we can able to find out all structural summaries matching the structural footprint of the query. The label path of data synopsis is used in placing it. Since Multiple documents consists of label path , the synopsis from these documents is placed at a single peer. Thus with single DHT look up we can locate all the documents. Query routing involves collecting and filtering documents all the way. The triples(peer, document, positional-filter) are used as communication between the peers. They contain id of a matching document and owner of the document along with the document positions. At each peer size of the list is reduced by removing the documents whose positional filter are zeroes. The network updates like node arrival, departure and failure are handled by novel methods when the node arrives the overlay network, it invokes the Pastry method notifyReady() and start sending and receiving messages. It receives all the information like structural summaries and data synopses from its predecessor. Similarly when a node decides to leave the network, it routes all its structural summaries and data synopses to its successor and leave the network. This can be done using one single message. When peer doesnt find a matching structural summary the predecessor node may be failed. In this case peer chooses another tagname and search request to other peers to find structural summary. The Id of the failed predecessor is used to check for the node failure. If the predecessor is failed it will abort the query and scan the list again for the documents and send a message to publisher to publish the data. The main advantage of this method it will abort only one query at a time and d ata synopsis is restored that is associated with the failed peer The closest work to this is done by L.Galanis, Y.Wang, S. R.Jeffery, and D.J.DeWitt. locating data sources in large distributed systems.(Reference 3). In this framework, the distributed indexing targets location of data sources which is different from the framework in this paper. The structural summaries are similar to the one that are presented in this paper. Here they use the tag name of the element that contain the text as search key which is contrary to the framework in this paper in which text was broken before indexing and label paths are used as keys. They dont address the indexing cost also. According to Leonidas Fegaras, Weimen He, Gautam Das, and David Levine, the framework proposed by Galanis (Reference 3) is more suitable for data-centric XML data rather than to document-centric ones, since the later may include large text portions inside specific tag names, which results to the routing of large parts of document to the same nodes. Another related framework is by A. Boni fati, Xpath Lookup Queries in P2P Networks. WIDM 2004. in which XML data fragments are indexed based on their path. The search key is the hash value of its path. This framework answer simple Xpath queries in one peer hop. The drawback of this framework is it requires additional hops to retrieve complex data fragment. Also this framework doesnt support XPath predicates. There are other distributed summaries for XML data like XSketch(Reference 5) which is used in selectivity estimation than in query routing. In the paper presented by J.M. Bremer and M. Gertz on distributing XML repositories (Reference 2), the structural summary is used as a global scheme to show how XML data are fragmented and distributed over the network. My opinion of this paper, it provides best framework for XML routing in structured P2P networks. The data synopsis and content synopsis used for indexing are better than regular bloom filters. The framework maps a query with full-text search into a distributed program that migrates from peer to peer. The index terms used in this framework are label paths which are better single tag names used in the previous frameworks for routing XML data. The containment filtering of this framework is efficient in addressing the containment relationships between predicates in a query. It can find all structural summaries of a query using one DHT lookup. It can handle complicated XPath queries using structural summaries. The network updates are handled effectively using novel methods which are very crucial in structured P2P networks. The data placement strategy gives load balancing in the system. The framework is easily scalable and it can be implemented on top of any existing P2P infrastructure. References A. Bonifati, et al. XPath Lookup Queries in P2P Networks. WIDM 2004. J.-M. Bremer and M. Gertz. On Distributing XML Repositories. WebDB 2003. L.Galanis, Y.Wang, S.R.Jeery, and D. J. DeWitt. Locating Data Sources in Large Distributed Systems. VLDB 2003. Pastry. http://freepastry .rice.edu/. N. Polyzotis and M. Garofalakis. Structure and Value Synopses for XML Data Graphs. VLDB 2002. A. Rowstron and P . Druschel. Pastry: Scalable, Distributed Object Location and Routing for Large-Scale Peer-to-Peer Systems. International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms 2001. The Motorcycle Diaries | An Analysis The Motorcycle Diaries | An Analysis During these novels it can be seen how important is the background in there, whether historical background and social one were deeply connected in the way the plot was developed, creating contrast and reflection about that current time in both stories. Besides, even they were written in different years they are a critical informers about the lack of moral in the American society in the 20s and in the other hand, the economical situation in Latin-America -specifically in South America -; the poverty that took part during the 50s and in some way also modified thinking and performance of that society. In a very short review, The Motorcycle Diaries tells the trip of two friends the 29 years old Alberto Granado and the main and later revolutionary character the 23 years old Ernesto Che Guevara, both university students of medicine that travel from Argentina to Venezuela, go passing from Chile, Peru and Colombia. Here the criticism of the social injustices of exploited mine workers; persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Incan civilization are the main themes of the novel. Opposite to The Motorcycle Diaries, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of Jay Gatsby, the Buchanan Family and Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story. The novel shows how the American society of the 20s recreated in the New York city was unwrapped in an environment of luxury, individualism, shallowness and appearances, all reflected in each of the characters in the plot of the book and at the same time are part of what Fitzgerald always idolized and wanted to get for himself. However, it is very important to remember that both stories were written in order to show to the reader deep situations that Fitzgerald like Guevara were involved with, trying to face them and leave a moral maybe. According to Che Guevara this trip was not only another experience gained during youth but also made of him another completely person; in his spirit: The person who recognizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least Im not the person once was (à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦). Our America with a capital A, has changed me more than I thought (Page 16). But what are the experiences that made of him a totally different person, as it was mentioned previously, the poverty of this continent, the one of he belonged and the political practices far away of the real needs of people changed his view of the life. According to Guevara the hospitality of Chile To meet in Chile means invite (to a house)à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ page 101 because in contrast with Argentina, Chile did not suffer the mix-up between Creoles and the Saxons that lived in the south in that country: creoles and Indians lived together in distances of each others. The lack of opportunities that Chilean people had for having a better life style was reflected and also how the community, reflection of society in general, disapproved the other people conditions coexisting in that way a kind of a mutual bitterness between the people who is a little bit better than the other one who lived in bad conditions, and the ones who are under the standard level of quality of life between the other people over their living conditions whose reproach them: and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life, and consequently, a bitterness for healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were a personal insult to those who have to support them. (Page 70) Continuing in Chile and according to different issues that took part in the stay in this country; specifically in Valparaiso, they could find lots of social problems that the established government during that time did not solve, like the overcrowding and the almost inexistence of economical help for the community exposed in the following mention: is time that politicians and put less effort wasting time in the goddesses of their propaganda and more money, ( ), for solving the work in social profits. (Page 72). Moving forward in the story, the corruption, deceive, and the naivety of police and common citizens were involved each other. Moreover, placed in the North of Chile, Chuquicamata, they met a couple in the desert night who were communist, and where the men told them about the time he was in jail due to his political tendency; while the woman, his wife, followed him leaving their child with someone else until they got some money. This situation was particularly hard and sad for both Alberto and Che Guevara; for the last one added: (The couple) was the living image of proletariat in any place around the world (page 77) and according to Guevaras words being communist was considered like a sin while. That spirit produced the long for something better in the future, at least that was what the couple expected to get at the end, but is it worth putting your life in risk, in a work place where you can get a pulmonary disease and even dye, an leaving somebodys children alone just because of dreams? At this moment; at the beginning of the end, Granado and Guevara leave Chile for going on with their objectives at the north of this continent; and something else, even this is the goodbye of this long and narrow country Guevara keeps talking about the social differences evidenced and experienced by them and most of all, how the more powerful people in the history of this country, and in most of the countries for sure, applied his vigour over the rest of the common people immortalized in: the act of Valdivia represents the never deny effort of the men for achieving a place where to exert his irrefutable authority (page 85). Finally, some reflections written tell now the social situation of Chile, like he said in the whole South America and even worse. First of all the lack of awareness of health in everywhere, streets, hospitals and also in Chile existed low opportunities for working and the people; thereby, Chile showed a lower quality of life than Argentina, and no mattering those previous features of this isolated country, the life can be easily carry in the way people work hard and, of course, they do not belong to the communist party. While they were in Peru they could experienced that most of Peruvians believed that Argentina was like the land in which peoples dreams were made come true, and not only Peron was great but also Evita (Perons wife), where everything was good just because the Indians were not punished by the white man. Guevaras life, consciously or unconsciously, went around the pursuit of social justice, corruption and democracy. Since they started their journey and specifically when they arrived in Chile they were focused in different issues that embodied those moral behaviour in people and in the particular idiosyncrasy due to, nevertheless they went all over Chile, they could identified the cultural characteristics between southern and the more north people. And being in Peru they could be aware about their same life philosophy and ideals. However, some believes of those friends were not jut part or applicable in hierarchical relationships but also in the more typical important ones; between the community itself. When we kept on the route, the old Indian took off from his clothes a very appetizing corn and he offered it to us. Quickly we realized that he democratically divided into the same share out of the corn. (Page 115). In the same way, the emphasis of people who had been fired because of their political thinking, it is also an issue that must be not only for reader be aware of that but also Ernesto Guevara as itself and most of all to understand what was happening on that time; oppression against who were apposite to the government believes. Those situations were reflected in the couple of Chuquicamata and Puno a Peruvian indigenous who was expelled of the government due to the already mentioned facts. Summary from this fragment can be assumable during that decade South America was overwhelmed by the power of its leaders. Moreover, Punos words reflected about that current situation between the conqueror who have the nation and the forced ones who were trying to do their best in order to obtain what belongs(ed) to them; however, Guevara had interpreted those words like offensive to the Inca people: to themselves, so at that moment more than a potential Marxist el Che seemed an anarchist; against everything and everyone that subjugated to other, the Incas in this opportunity. At this moment, Guevara showed himself like a critical thinking person and at the same time a dreamer with clear aims for his life and for the other too. The Great Gatsby , like The Motorcycle Diaries, presented in its plot a social issue during the 20s, placed in America the story moved through the high society. The lack of values like honesty, friendship, loyalty, love, among many others is present into those peoples hearts. The well known American dream evoked the worst part of people for both the upper class and the recent one. But this is not just a fiction and successful story; whereby, the story itself was yet the reproduction of that society involved in individualism and shallowness. Therefore, that reality was embodied by Fitzgerald in this book. Throughout the story a big number of themes can be deeper developed. Every character is different to the other but all of them share the same behaviour, laying each other, being aware of appearances, and making the other pay for their own mistakes. Finally, whereas Gay Gatsby, the main character of the novel, it is important to focus on his personality and his life was developing since he worked to the rich man and then when he met Daisy and the goals in his life made them strong. After that, during the reunion with Daisy he showed for once one hundred percent honest and that proved the power of his dreams, which they came true partly but consequently, made of him a totally different person, ostentatious, layer and criminal and finally triggered his dead. For concluding, both novels are recognized by the whole globe, like inb Time Magazine on June the 14th of 1928 (page 5) due to his relation with the historical and social context in which both were written. The Motorcycle Diaries novel revealed the poverty in Latin American and in the other hand The Great Gatsby reflect the high American society before the Black Thursday in which the American dream was the symbolic icon of this society. Thereupon, some reflection can be drawing assuming that no matter how much money somebody have do not define what people are and there is plenty of evidence for that when Guevara told about the poor economical development in Latin America, however, he and Alberto could did their trip because the peoples help in most of the places they arrived. Opposite to that reality, Americas financial situation seemed good as well as the comfortable life for Americans, but if Guevara and company had decided do their journey to America they would certainly had to gi ve up to that odyssey, because people were not as generous as the one in the South. Expression totally opposite can be contrasted quickly, in order to understand the huge and deep feelings and thinking that separates our main characters. Expressions like proletariat and bourgeois page 125 can be easily found in the Latin American novel and that represented the social communist tendency of the writer. But in accordance to the social context of Fitzgerald novel, we can find lots of quotations which named luxury, fashionable, exuberant, money, and so on. So it can be easily to reader identify the environment in which this two celebrated plays were written. But as it was mentioned before, is it worth leave important thing away from you just for getting a dream?, or not just things but also people like leave your children them suffering in a place instead leave your dreams that make them suffering in a place where their dreams did not care at all. The best examples for each ones are the life in Valparaiso and Chuquica-mata. Or putted it in another way, is it worth to fight for a dream that maybe never would become real, until putting your life in danger, like Gay Gatsby did it with not worthwhile people like Daisy; and most of all, the characterization in Great Expectations suggests that money causes people unconsciously to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Here you can reflect by yourself.