Understanding the APA Format write an article Assignment

Understanding the APA Format write an article - Assignment Example He describes some of the laid strategies used by the company to achieve the success as illustrated in the article. These laid strategies regularly include hosting workshops at their stores, in areas that are theatre-like and providing training in every service they offer. The company also ensures that its store workers have a high level of fluency about the product: the technical experts are well conversant with the product features. With all these strategies, the company can attract customers, particularly the young customers, thereby ensuring significant profits of up to $151 million in 2005 from their sales. Wingfield (2006), however, implies that despite the success of Apple Inc., their particular challenges that the company experiences both from the internal and external environment. For example, some of the strategies set by the company are rejected by the company’s principal partners and customers (retailers): some of them have sued the company claiming that the competi tion is not

Operating a Fleet of Electric Taxis Essay Example for Free

Operating a Fleet of Electric Taxis Essay Abstract. The deployment of electric taxi ? eets is highly desirable from a sustainable point of view. Nevertheless, the weak autonomy of this kind of vehicles requires a careful operation. The way of managing such a ? eet and the question of locating charging terminals for the vehicles are addressed in this paper. Methods for dealing with these tasks are proposed and their e? ciency is proved through simulations. 1. Introduction 1. 1. Context. Centrale OO 1 is a pioneering project aiming to deploy in Paris a ? eet of 100 % electric taxis. The company in charge of the management of the ? eet is the Soci? t? du Taxi Electrique Parisien (STEP).ee The deployment of such ? eets ? nds is main motivation in sustainable issues: electric vehicles release almost no air pollutants at the place where they are operated and have less noise pollution than internal combustion engine vehicles. However, the main drawback of an electric vehicle is its weak autonomy – 80 km in the case of the Centrale OO project. In taxi ? eet management, two kinds of requests can be di? erentiated: booking requests and opportunistic requests. The ? rst ones can be immediate or in advance of travel and have to be processed by the taxi dispatching system which assigns the request to a taxi. The opportunistic requests correspond to the traditional taxi services picking up passengers at cab-ranks or from the side of the road. Of course, this kind of requests is not processed by the dispatching system. The constraints of the management, as expressed by the STEP, are †¢ A taxi must never break down †¢ An opportunistic demand inside Paris and its suburbs must always be satis? ed (legal environment of Paris) †¢ The number of booking demands accepted has to be maximized The charging problem of the taxis must therefore be carefully addressed. At a tactical level, a good assignment of the trips to the taxis is crucial. We propose an e? cient way to manage the electric ? eet in real-time while taking into account the charging tasks. At a strategic level, the charging problem includes the determination of the best location for the charging terminals. The signi? cant initial investment (the cost of an electrical charging terminal is about 20. 000 euros) and the restricted vehicle autonomy give a high relevancy to the charging terminal location task. Indeed, a wrong placement may in e? ect lead to a poor ? eet management with vehicles having di?culties to charge the batteries due to charging terminals saturation or even with vehicles constantly running out of charge to keep operating. Our purpose is to propose a practical way for computing the â€Å"best† locations for the charging terminals. 1. 2. Model. We describe now formally the model we deal with in this paper. We derive also some elementary relations, which gives some informations on the capacity of a given system (in terms of number of trips that can be realized by unit of time). 1. 2. 1. Input description. A complete directed graph G = (V, A) models the network. The vertices are points in the city at which trips start and ? nish. They can moreover be used to locate vehicle charging terminals. The arcs model the possible trips. The duration of a trip is a random variable Ta of expectation ? a . The Key words and phrases. charging terminal location; electric vehicles; ? eet management system; mixed integer programming; simulation; taxi dispatching. This project has been funded by R? gion Ile de France. e 1 See the website http://taxioo. com/index. html for an artistic view. 1 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 demand for each possible trip a ? A is assumed to follow a Poisson process of rate ? a . Actually, this demand is split between a booking demand and an opportunistic demand, see Section 5 for a more accurate description. There are n taxis. A taxi consumes ? Wh by unit of time when it is moving. It stores ? Wh by unit of time when it is charging. The number of charging terminals is denoted by r. Several terminals can be located at the same vertex. ? 1. 2. 2. Elementary relations. Let us denote by ? a the average number of demands for a trip a that are ? a ? ?a . accepted by unit of time. We have ? 1 ? ? ? ?a ? a be the Let ? = ? a be the average number of trips accepted by unit of time and let ? = ? ? a? A a? A average duration of an accepted trip. ? The energy consumption of the system by unit of time is ? . The maximal rate of supply in energy is ? r. Therefore, we have the following inequality (1) ? ? ? ? r hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 A second inequality can be derived by considerations on the time needed to perform the di? erent tasks. Let us consider a taxi over a time window of su? ciently large duration T . Denote by x the time during ? which it stores energy at a charging terminal. Over the time window, it spends in average T n unit of time with a customer on board. Therefore, we have ? T +x? T n During this duration x, it stores a quantity of energy that must cover in average the consumption over the time window. Hence ? ?T ? ? x n Combining these two inequalities leads to (2) ? (? + ? ) ? n Equations (1) and (2) can be summarized in the following inequality. (3) ? ? ? min ? r n , (? + ? )? Knowing the number of taxis, their e? ciency (encoded by ? ), the number of charging terminals, and their e? ciency (encoded by ?), then an upper bound of the number of trips that can be accepted by unit of time can be calculated. 1. 3. Plan. Section 2 is devoted to the literature review for the two problems addressed in this paper, namely ? eet management and charging terminal location. The following sections – Section 3 and Section 4 – detail the approaches proposed for each of these problems. Next, we describe a simulator that has been implemented for the evaluation of the proposed approaches (Section 5). The results of the experiments are described in Section 6. The paper ends with concluding remarks (Section 7). 2. Literature review 2. 1. Taxi dispatching. Traditional taxi dispatching systems are characterized by two principles. First, simple rules such as for example â€Å"nearest vehicle ? rst† or â€Å"least utilized ? rst† are used for dynamic vehicle assignment and second, the geographical space is usually divided into zones. In the literature, most of works on the topic basically focus on customer waiting time minimization by proposing improved methods for rule-based systems. In this context, Shrivastava et al. [SCMK97] describe a fuzzy model for rule selection and Alshamsi et al. [AAR09] propose a new technique for dynamically divide the dispatch areas. The recent apparition of transportation technologies (GPS, EDI, GIS) has widely increased the opportunities for ? eet management optimization. It is also the case for taxi dispatching. For example, Seow et 2 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 al. [SDL10] propose a collaborative model for taxi dispatching where a set of n taxis of the same zone are de? ned as the agents of the model and a set of n customers as the service-requests. The objective is then to maximize the total service quality solving a collaborative linear assignment problem. However, taxi dispatching is not the only aspect that can be optimized. For example, Lee et al. [LSP08] and Jia et al. [Jia08] use real-time vehicle information to propose a model for taxi relocation recommendation based on demand forecasting and a probability model for the design of taxi stops, respectively. Another approach for ? eet management optimization consists in modeling the problem as a variant of the Pick-up and Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (PDVRPTW). The idea is to plan a set of routes satisfying known in advance customer requests. In the taxi management context, Wang et al. [WLC09] propose a bi-criteria two-phase method with an initial feasible assignment ? rst and a tabu search improvement later in order to minimize the number of vehicles and the sum of travel times for advanced bookings. However, the idea to block some vehicles only for advanced bookings might in some cases yield to a ? eet underutilization. Horn and al. [Hor02] and Meng et al. [MMYH10] try to ? ll the gap between simple non-optimized rule-based taxi dispatching systems and static routing approaches. The second paper describes a genetic network programming in order to ?nd the optimal balance between the waiting time and the detour time. The work of Horn [Hor02] is of particular interest in relation to the present work, proposing a taxi dispatching system architecture similar to our ? eet management system. He proposes a system for vehicle travel time minimization composed by a set of insertion algorithms to decide whether a new customer is accepted or not and a set of optimization mechanisms in order to improve the solution. However, some important di? erences exist between our work and these last two ? eet management systems. The ?rst di? erence is that in our case, the constraints related to the restricted autonomy of the vehicles have also to be taken into account by scheduling charging tasks in the routes of the vehicles. The second di? erence is that, unlike us, both articles deal with the multi-customer problem authorizing customers to share the same vehicle at the same time. 2. 2. Location issue. The location problem was originally de? ned by Webber when he considered how to position a single warehouse minimizing the total distance between the warehouse and a set of customers [Web29]. In 1964, Hakimi [Hak64] de? nes the P-median problem, the problem consists in determining the best location for a set of limited facilities in order to minimize the sum of the weighted distances between the clients and the facilities serving these clients. The problem increases its relevance during the last decades. High costs related to property acquisition and facility construction make facility location projects a critical aspect of strategic planning for a wide range of private and public ? rms. Indeed, the fact that facility location projects are long-term investments leads the researchers to focus on dynamic and stochastic location problems (see [OD98] for a review of this extension of the problem). Another important variant of the problem is the Capacitated Facility Location Problem (CFLP) where facilities have a constraining upper limit on the amount of demand they can satisfy. An extension of the CFLP closely to our problem is the Capacitated Facility Location Problem with Multiple facilities in the same site (CFLPM). In charging terminal location, the positions of the terminals are not the only decision variables, the number of terminals at each position have to be ? xed too. However, in some real-world applications, selecting the best location for distance minimization is not the best suitable choice. For example, in electric vehicle charging terminal location, like in other critical applications such as ambulance and ? re terminal location, the interest is to guarantee that the di? erent geographic zones are covered by a facility (closer than a previously ?xed covering distance). This class of problems are known as Covering Location Problems (see [WC74], [SVB93] and more recently [VP10] for a complete review of covering problems). In that context, the covering issue can be sometimes modelled as a problem constraint. However, if the covering distance is ? xed to a small value the problem might become unfeasible. The Maximal Covering Location Problem (MCLP) [CR74] locates the facilities in order to maximize the number of covered customers (customers with a distance to the nearest facility smaller than an initial ?xed distance). An extension of the problem is the maximal covering with mandatory closeness problem which imposes a maximal distance (less stringent than the covering distance) between the geographical zones and the nearest facility [CR74]. These covering models implicitly assume that if a geographical zone is covered by a facility then the facility will be always available to serve the demand. However, in some applications, when facilities have a ? xed capacity, being covered is not su? cient to guarantee the demand satisfaction. We ? nd 3 in the literature some models attempting to overcome this issue by maximizing the number of geographical zones covered by multiple facilities [DS81, HR86, GLS97]. 3. Fleet management We describe in this section two ways for managing the ? eet, a classical and rule-based one (Subsection 3. 1), and an improved one trying to address explicitly the charging issue (Subsection 3. 2). Let us ? rst introduce some notations. Let CRi be a booking customer request. Each customer request CRi is de? ned by a start time Si and an origin-destination pair Oi ? Di . The Si is ? xed by the customer when the customer request arrives. The completion time of a trip is Ci = Si + ? Oi Di , where ? Oi Di is the travel time between the origin and destination of the customer request CRi . Finally, let R : CTj be a taxi charging task scheduled on the charging terminal CTj . 3. 1. A classical rule-based taxi dispatching system. A taxi dispatching system based on the principles of the most common real-world systems (see for example [SCMK97], [LWCT04] or [AAR09]) is described in this section. The architecture of the current taxi dispatching systems are very similar to the system illustrated in Figure 1. The two main components of the system are (1) a customer acceptation mechanism deciding for each new customer if it is accepted (the accepted customers are inserted into a queue of customers) or rejected and (2) a rule-based mechanism assigning accepted customer requests (trips) to the free taxis. For each accepted trip i, the assigning process has to start a few minutes (? ) before the ? xed start time (Si ) in order to maximize the chances to ? nd a taxi to attend the demand. Once a trip is assigned to a taxi, the vehicle is automatically blocked and the taximeter begins counting. hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 Customer Request Rule? based Customer Acceptation Mechanism Time? ordered queue of customers CRn CR2 CR1 Figure 1. Rule-based taxi dispatching system A rule for customer acceptation using the time windows for the trips already accepted is proposed. The idea is to limit the trips that have to be performed at the same time in order to minimize the number of not served customers and to establish a margin of k vehicles to attend opportunistic customers. For each new customer request CRnew the Algorithm 1 determines if it is accepted or not. Algorithm 1: Rule-based checking for customer acceptation for a margin of k vehicles L = {CR1 , CR2 , . . . , CRn }, list of already accepted customers CRnew , new booking customer request nC 0, number of trips performed at the same time than CRnew foreach CRi of L do if CRi is executed at the same time than CRnew ((Si ? Snew Ci ) or (Snew ? Si Cnew ) then Step 1: Increase the number of customers performed at the same time than CRnew (nC nC + 1) if condition to accept the customer (nC n ? k) then Step 2: Insert CRnew to the list of accepted customers L 4. Once the customer request CRi is accepted, it remains in the queue of customers until Si ? ? (? is usually ? xed around 20 minutes). At that moment, the system automatically starts looking for a free taxi having su? cient charge to operate the trip. If di? erent taxis are available, the system assigns the trip to the taxi minimizing the customer waiting time (a parameterizable not announced customer waiting time can be authorized). In the case of no vacant taxis are available, the system waits for a vehicle to become available. If the waiting time for any request exceeds the authorized maximal customer waiting time ?, the customer request is then canceled. Note that the number of unsatis? ed customers can be reduced by using a more restrictive rule for the customer acceptation mechanism. The main advantage of such a system where no future work is planned is the high degree of independence for taxi drivers. On the other hand, the drawbacks are the underutilization of the ? eet and the lost of e? ciency during the peak hours when most of the companies have to close their booking requests systems in order to avoid unsatis? ed customers. Indeed, some real-world systems do not integrate a customer acceptation mechanism leading, in rush hours, to unsatis?ed customers who had been initially accepted and they are ? nally served with an unannounced and, sometimes, intolerable delay or, eventually, never served at all. Furthermore, the charging tasks of the vehicles cannot be controlled leading to a poor ? eet management with vehicles having di? culties to charge the batteries due to charging terminals saturation. 3. 2. The improved electric vehicle management system. An improved ? eet management system aiming to overcome the weakness of the rule-based taxi dispatching system is proposed in this section. The main objectives of the system are to maximize the number of accepted customers and to minimize the customer waiting time. One of the major issues is how to deal with opportunistic demand. Indeed, this kind of demand is unpredictable and must always be satis? ed, so free taxis must be at any moment able to satisfy the longest trip without running out of charge. This constraint makes the problem considerably more complex forcing the system to provide a mechanism ensuring the feasibility of the already accepted trips each time an opportunistic demand is accepted. The approach proposed consists in maintaining continuously a feasible planning for the taxis and the charging terminals (see Figure 2). Each time a customer asks for a trip, a simple insertion algorithm is run, at the end of which either the trip has been successfully inserted or not. The objective is to assign the customer to the taxi minimizing the customer waiting time (a parameterizable announced customer waiting time can be authorized). If none of the tried delays on the pick-up time leads to a feasible planning, a rescheduling algorithm allowing to reallocate the already accepted customers to the taxis is run. In all these processes, a key routine is often called, namely the charging task manager, which schedules the charging tasks of a taxi, given a planning for the other taxis and the charging terminals. Feasible planning:Temporal and autonomy? related constraints are satisfied Taxi 1 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 Taxi 2 111111 000000 111111 000000 111111 000000 111111 000000 111111 000000 111 000 111 000 CR2 111 000 111 000 CR1 R : CT1 CR4 R : CT2 CR5 VEHICLES Customer Customer Request Acceptation Mechanism Feasible Planning Taxi 000000 n 111111 111111 000000 111111 000000 CR3 R : CT1 111111 000000 111111 000000 1111111111111111111111 0000000000000000000000 Taxi n Taxi 1 CT1 CHARGING TERMINALS CT2 Taxi 2 Figure 2. Customer acceptation mechanism of the electric vehicle management system In the case of an opportunistic demand, which is necessarily accepted, we follow exactly the same scheme except that there is no degree of freedom in the insertion process: the trip is inserted at the front of the planning of the taxi stopped by the customer, and the rescheduling algorithm is also run if it is necessary. 5 3. 2. 1. Insertion algorithm. This algorithm is the ?rst step in order to decide if a new trip CRnew is accepted or not. The objective is to assign the trip to the taxi minimizing the delay on the pick-up time (see Algorithm 2). The algorithm increasely tests the di? erent authorized pick-up times. Once the start time is ? xed, we sequentially try for each vehicle to insert the new request. First the scheduled charging tasks are removed. Then the new request is accepted only if it can be inserted with no constraint violation (the pick-up times of the rest of customers are respected and the current autonomy of the vehicle, without any charging task, is su? cient). In the case that the vehicle autonomy-related constraint is violated, a greedy algorithm trying to schedule a charging task between each pair of trips is proposed. After the charging tasks are inserted, if the taxi is able to perform the trips without running out of charge, then the customer request is also accepted. Algorithm 2: New request insertion algorithm for a maximal authorized delay of ? minutes V = {V1 , V2 , . . . , Vr }, list of taxis CRnew , new booking customer request accepted f alse, variable indicating if the new request is accepted st Snew , start time of the trip while st ? Snew + ?and accepted = f alse do foreach vi of V do Step 1: Delete the charging tasks of the vehicle vi if CRnew starting at st can be inserted in the route of the vehicle vi then if the vehicle autonomy-related constraint is satis? ed then Step 2: CRnew starting at st is inserted in the route of the vehicle vi (accepted true) else Step 3: Insert charging tasks for vi between each pair of trips if the vehicle autonomy-related constraint is satis? ed then Step 2: CRnew starting at st is inserted in the route of the vehicle vi (accepted true) if accepted = f alse then Step 4: Increase the pick-up time for the CRnew (st st + 1) hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 3. 2. 2. Rescheduling algorithm. The rescheduling algorithm is proposed when the new customer is still not accepted after the insertion algorithm. As for the insertion algorithm, the goal is to ? nd a new feasible planning for the vehicles integrating the new request CRnew . The main di? erence is that the trips can be reassigned to di? erent vehicles. The problem without taking into account the autonomy-related constraints can be solved in polynomial time [NSZ02]. The idea is to convert the schedule of trips (without the charging tasks) into a graph and to verify using a max ? ow computation that all trips can be performed by the taxis. To construct the network two vertices are considered for each customer request CRi , the ? rst one vi represents the pick-up time and the second one vi the completion time of the customer request. Four dummy vertices are required: 0, 0 , a source s and a sink t. The arcs of the graph are (s, 0), (0 , t), all the (s, vi ), all the (vi , t), all the (vi , vi ), and all the (vi , vj ) such that the customer request CRj can be performed by the same taxi than the customer request CRi and after CRi , that means if Sj ?Ci + ? Di Oj . Except the arcs (s, 0) and (0 , t), they all have a capacity equal to 1. The arcs (s, 0) and (0 , t) have a capacity equal to n. A maximum ? ow computation in this directed graph determines the schedule feasibility and also proposes a new planning for the vehicles respecting the customers pick-up times. The max ? ow computation is integrated in the rescheduling algorithm in order to check the feasibility of the schedule for a given pick-up time st ? [Snew , Snew + ? ] and, if it is the case, to ? nd a reference planning (planning without charging tasks). A local search explores the neighborhood of the reference planning de? ned by the swap and the reallocation operators [Sav92]. Finally, for each explored planning respecting temporal constraints, the greedy algorithm for charging task scheduling is sequentially applied to the taxis that do not satisfy autonomy-related constraints (that is, taxis whose current charge is not enough to perform all 6 the trips assigned to them without adding charging tasks). If a feasible solution is found, the new customer is then accepted. 3. 2. 3. Charging task manager. As we have already seen, the insertion and the rescheduling algorithm constantly runs a greedy algorithm aiming to insert a charging task between each pair of successive trips of the same route. The algorithms proposed to determine if a new charging task can be integrated in a speci? c charging terminal planning are described in this subsection. The main feature of our problem is that the processing time of the new charging task is not ? xed, instead it is a decision variable de?ned between the interval limited by the minimal charging time for a vehicle pmin (customizable parameter) and the maximal charging time corresponding to the time necessary for a full charge. The problem to be solved by the charging terminal manager can be then formally stated as follows. A charging task Ri is de? ned by its time window [ri , di ], where ri is the earliest start time (earliest arrival time to the terminal) and di the latest end time (latest departure time from the terminal). Let pi be the decision variable corresponding to the processing time of the task Ri , then ri ? Si and Si + pi ? di , where Si is the e? ective start time of Ri . Given a feasible schedule of n charging tasks S n = {S1 , S2 , . . . , Sn , } for the charging terminals located at the same geographical position. We are given a new charging task Rn+1 with a time window [rn+1 , dn+1 ] and a processing time pn+1 inside the interval pmin ? pn+1 ? pmax . The problem consists in ? nding a new n+1 feasible schedule S n+1 = {S1 , S2 , . . . , Sn , Sn+1 } maximizing the processing time of the task Rn+1 (whence without changing the processing time of the other tasks). The mechanism tests ? rst a task insertion aiming to ? nd quickly a feasible solution. The complexity of the algorithm for task insertion maximizing the processing time of the new task is O(n) where the start times and completion times of the scheduled jobs are non-decreasing ordered. If no solution is found after the task insertion algorithm, a dichotomous algorithm allowing to reschedule the tasks is proposed in order to ? nd a solution maximizing the processing time of the new task. For each iteration of the algorithm, a satis? ability test based on constraint propagation involving energetic reasoning is ?rst triggered. The goal of the feasibility test is to detect an inconsistency indicating that it is not possible to ? nd a feasible schedule integrating the new task. Finally, if the energetic reasoning is not conclusive a local search algorithm is proposed in order to ? nd a solution. Satis? ability test: Energetic reasoning. A satis? ability test based on constraint propagation involving energetic reasoning is proposed [LE96]. A ? ctitious energy (which has nothing to do with the electricity) is produced by the charging terminals and it is consumed by the charging tasks. We determine the ? ctitious energy consumed by the tasks (Econsumed ) over a time interval ? = [t1 , t2 ] and we compare this ? ctitious energy with the available ? ctitious energy (Eproduced = m ? (t2 ? t1 )). The minimal ? ctitious energy consumed by the tasks in an interval ? = [t1 , t2 ] is: n+1 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 (4) Econsumed = i=1 max{0, min{pi , t2 ? t1 , ri + pi ? t1 , t2 ? di + pi }} If Econsumed Eproduced , it is then impossible to ? nd a feasible schedule S n+1 integrating the new task. The relevant intervals ? for a complete satis? ability analysis can be enumerate in O(n2 ). The test is restricted to the intervals [t1 , t2 ] speci? ed by {ri } ? {di } ? {ri + pi } ? {di ? pi } where the new task Rn+1 may consume (t1 ? dn+1 and t2 ? rn+1 ). Dichotomous algorithm. A dichotomous algorithm maximizing the processing time of the new task is described in this section (see Algorithm 3). A dichotomy is run on the processing time p as follows. For processing times p ? [pmin , pmax ], the satis? ability test based one the energetic reasoning indicates whether n+1 the necessary conditions are satis? ed or not. If it is the case, a local search mechanism tries to ? nd a feasible schedule. The parallel machine scheduling problem with time windows can be solved by a list scheduling algorithm. It means there exists a total ordering of the jobs (i. e. , a list) that, when a given machine assignment rule is applied, reaches the optimal solution. For our problem, this rule consists in allocating each task to the machine that allows it to start at the earliest (Earliest Start Time or EST rule). The local search mechanism proposed to solve the problem is based on this result. First, the tasks are ordered in a non-decreasing order of their due dates (Earliest Due Date or EDD rule), then the local search consists in 7 exploring di?erent permutations of the list de? ned by the insertion neighborhood (O(n2 )). For each list of task, the machines are assigned according to the EST rule in order to reach a feasible solution. If no feasible schedule is eventually found, the request is rejected. Algorithm 3: Dichotomous algorithm for processing time maximization min pmin max pmax n+1 n+1 Sbest ? while min ? max do Step 1: Fix the processing time p of the new task Rn+1 (p min+max ) 2 if Satisf iabilityT est() then Step 2: Sort the tasks according to the EDD rule Step 3: Local search using the insertion operator if a feasible schedule S n+1 = {S1 , S2 , .. . , Sn , Sn+1 } is found then Step 4: Update the lower limit (min p + 1) n+1 Step 5: Update the best solution (Sbest S n+1 ) else Step 6: No solution exists, update the upper limit (max p ? 1) else Step 7: No solution exists, update the upper limit (max p ? 1) n+1 if Sbest = ? then Step 8: No solution is found (return ? ) else n+1 Step 9: A feasible solution is found (return Sbest ) hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 4. Electric vehicles charging terminal location The EV charging terminal location problem consists in determining the best locations of the charging terminals. The linear programming model has to take into account two important aspects. First, the charging terminals have to be conveniently spread over the geographical area in order to avoid remote geographical zones which di? cult taxi operability and ? eet management. The second aspect is that the model has to determine the number of charging points facilitating the charging process of the taxis by minimizing the risks of terminals saturation. For these purposes, we propose two models, one called the P -median model, the other the Demand-based model. V is the set of geographical points of the problem and J ? V is the set of potential locations where the charging terminals can be located. The number of terminals is limited to r. 4. 1. P -median model. Following Hakimi [Hak64], we de? ne xj to be the decision variables indicating if a facility is located to the point j and yij to be the variables indicating that the geographical point i is assigned to the facility located in j. The linear program minimizing the sum of the distances between clients and facilities can be written as follows. 8 (5) min i? V j? J distij yij s. t. (6) j? J yij yij xj j? J = 1 for all i ? V ? xj for all i ? V, j ? J ? r ? {0, 1} for all j ? J ? {0, 1} for all i ? V, j ? J (7) (8) (9) (10) xj yij hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 4. 2. Demand-based model. Another approach consists in de? ning a model with two distances ? f ar and ? close as proposed by Church and ReVelle [CR74]. The idea is then to spread the terminals by ? xing a maximal distance (? f ar ) between the di? erent geographical zones and the nearest charging terminal and, at the same time, trying to maximize the demand that will be covered by a nearby charging terminal (? close ). We can then de? ne Jif ar (resp. Jiclose ) as the subset of points in J at distance less than ? f ar (resp. ?close ) from i ? V . Conversely, Vjclose is the set of points at distance less than ? close from the point j ? J. Let xj be the decision variable indicating the number of terminals located at point j ? J and yij to be the fraction of the demand di for i ? V covered by a charging terminal located in j at distance less than ? close from i. The linear programming model proposed to solve the problem called Demand-based model is the following. (11) max j? J i? Vjclose di yij s. t. (12) f j? Ji ar xj yij close j? Ji ? 1 for all i ? V ? 1 for all i ? V ? xj for all j ? J ? r ? Z+ for all j ? J ? R+ for all i ? V, j ? Jiclose (13) (14) i? Vjclose di yij xj j? J (15) (16) (17) xj yij The objective function (Eq. (11)) consists in maximizing the pointwise demand covered by a charging terminal considering the distance ? close . Eq. (12) imposes that a geographical zone i ? V must be covered at least for one charging terminal considering the distance ? f ar . Here the mandatory closeness is only required for the geographical zones closer than ? f ar from a potential charging terminal location in order to ? nd a solution even if this constraint is violated for some geographical zones. We stress that an adequately ? f ar make possible to spread the charging terminals over the geographical area. Eq. (13) speci? es that for each geographical zone i ? V the sum of the fractions of demand covered by a charging terminal considering the distance ? close has to be less or equal to the unit.

Quest for Paradise in Lydia Maria Child’s A Romance of the Republic Ess

Quest for Paradise in Lydia Maria Child’s A Romance of the Republic A Romance of the Republic, written by Lydia Maria Child, is an intriguing novel which reflects certain predominant 19th-century views about racism, patriarchy, and class status. One aspect of this story that is unique is the constant use of a flower motif, through which the reader is drawn into a Paradise that is fantastically created, an Eden that is not limited in its range of vision due to the wealth, class, nationality, and color of its individuals, but rather embraces the many hues and varieties of life that any beautiful and perfect garden must possess. Although one could argue that this utopia is never obtainable, Ms. Child successfully demonstrates that a society can be egalitarian, not constructed on class consciousness and struggle, but rather based on the framework of the Constitution, which states that all people are created equal, with unity for all being the ultimate goal. These beliefs in equality are demonstrated through the strategic use of class where the aristocratic faction should not have more value than their lower class counterpoints. They are also reflected in the novel’s use of racial crossing, where many varieties of people, including the pivotal octoroon sisters, Rosa and Flora, can have many potential colors and racial identities. Finally, the egalitarian beliefs are evidenced in cultural differences, where a society can only evolve into a more splendid creation when it derives sustenance from many groups and resources. The fact that this book deals with the aristocracy at all turns presents an excellent summation on the beliefs that money and prest... ...e appreciation of many cultures for the unique and various gifts they contribute to their spheres allows those individuals to branch out into other spheres and impact many new clusters of people. Just as Paradise is beautiful, so is equality. This leaves the reader with the logical progression of: 1) Flowers are beautiful: just as all people are beautiful; 2) Flowers are from many genuses and possess many hues: just as people are from many cultures and have many different colors; 3) People of many colors and cultures are beautiful. When all varieties of people are planted in the same garden and live in peaceful coexistence, they will develop their own accepting culture, which is nothing less than Paradise. Works Cited Child, Lydia Maria. A Romance of the Republic. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997.

How Democratic Britian Was by the 1928? Essay

â€Å"Democracy is the government of the people, for the people, by the people† (Abraham Lincoln, President of the USA, 1860-1865)† For any country to be called democratic, certain conditions have to exist. Firstly, all adults should have the right to vote but the right to vote did not in itself make Britain democratic. Between 1850 and 1928, other features of a democracy were created. These features included a fair system of voting, a choice of who to vote for and access to information to make an informed choice. It should also be possible for people from all backgrounds to become Members of Parliament themselves and parliament should be accountable to the voters. Although the transition from a political system dominated by aristocracy to one of universal suffrage was a long and protracted one by 1928, most of the features of a democracy had been met. Consequently Britain had become more democratic than it was in 1850. It is no wonder that John Kerr describes Britain as being â€Å"nowhere near being democratic in 1850.† The state of democracy in Britain had been set by the Great Reform Act of 1832 which increased the number of men who could vote in a general election and redistributed parliamentary seats so that there was a more equal ratio of MPs to constituents. However Britain was still far from being democratic. The system was not fair as voting took place in hustings meaning there was no secret ballot, making it possible for candidates to bribe and intimidate the voters and general elections were only held every seven years. Another aspect of the British political system that was undemocratic was the unequal distribution of seats and MPs still representing county and borough constituencies with great variations in size of population. Moreover, the Tory dominated House of Lords was unelected and it could stop the elected majority of the House of Commons getting bills though parliament a nd only wealthy men could stand as candidates for election as there was a property qualification. It could be suggested that Britain was undemocratic in 1850 as working class men and all women were excluded from the franchise and only 7% of the population were entitled to vote. Between 1850 and 1928 a series of acts were introduced that extended the franchise. The Second Parliamentary Reform Act of 1867 was the first piece of legislation that tried to amend the political system. As a result of this Act, the size of the electorate increase to 2.5 million including the skilled working class meaning a third of males were now able to vote. However, the vote still depended on property and the one year residency requirement discriminated against a large proportion of the working class. The introduction of the Representation of the People Act in 1884 doubled the electorate making the number of voters five million and the franchise qualification was now the same in both boroughs and counties. Although Sir Albert Maine described the new system as an â€Å"unmoderated democracy† there was still a long way to go until Britain became democratic. The men who did not have the franchise in 1867 such as the soldiers and male domestic servants were still deprived of the vote in 1884 and as with 1867 plural voting still existed and no women were allowed to vote. The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the franchise to all adult males because of their important role in the Great War meaning that all males over the age of twenty one were now enfranchised. For the first time, women over the age of 30 were given the vote provided they were educated, married and had a home. Although this was a major step towards democracy as regards women’s suffrage, it mus t be noted that there was not equal universal suffrage, and that women would have to wait until the 1928 Equal Franchise Act to be set on equal voting terms as men without qualifications, to receive the vote at the age of 21. As a result of the increase in voters in towns, changes were made to National Party Organisation as party leaders had to find ways of persuading the electors to vote for their candidate. National organisations such as the Conservative Central Office in 1870 and the National Liberal Federation in 1877, were developed by the parties to canvass support at elections. Liberal and Conservative Associations were developed in all major towns and electors were encouraged to join and attend meetings. Liberal and Conservative clubs were set up as social centres to encourage support such as the Reform Club in Manchester and the Carlton Club. This led to more central co-ordination of policy and strategy. Propaganda and persuasion would be the means of enlisting the support of the voters and the parties had to ensure that their known supporters were registered as voters. The Conservative Primrose League was created to canvass support in small towns and the counties. Tighter discipline was imposed in both parties and the result was a development of political parties and their organisations. Overall, better representation helped the growth of democracy as well as better access to information as manifestos had to be created and distributed to the population. The 1970 Education Act (1872 in Scotland) increased the literacy levels in the country so that information about political parties and their policies became more accessible to the population. By the late 19th century literacy was fairly well established and daily national newspapers became vital sources of information. The development of the railways was crucial in giving the population better access to information. The population was able to make more informed choices in elections as they became more aware of political issues. Socialist groups eventually joined with the Trade Union movement to form the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 which in 1906, became the Labour Party- a party that claimed to represent the working class. This meant that the electorate had a genuine choice of parties with different political ideologies: the Conservatives, Liberals and the Labour Party. Consequently, this pushed Britain forward towards democracy as different can different parties can voice different views on how to deal with the problems the country faces. Although Britain had become more democratic with better access to information and a choice of parties certain aspects of the system were unfair until legislation was introduced to improve this. The Reform Act of 1867 improved the distribution of seats making the system fairer in addition to extending the franchise. The facts show that many small boroughs lost one or even both of their MPs who were then redistributed to areas of the country that were under-represented. For example, Scottish constituencies were allocated 5 seats. However, democracy was still far from being reached in Britain as MPs were still not evenly distributed, the electorate largely remained the same and balance of political power was not altered. The Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 moved Britain closer towards democracy as it aimed to construct constituencies of equal size to have a fairer representation of the people. As result of the Act, 79 towns with a population of under 15,000 lost both their seats and the total number of MPs was increased from 652 to 670. In fact, in his book â€Å"The extension of the Franchise 1832-1931† puts forward his opinion: â€Å"together, the 1884 Franchise Act and the 1885 Redistribution Act brought about one of the most radical changes in the parliamentary election system during the nineteenth century. Bribery and corruption were still present in elections in the late 1860s and two laws were passed in an effort to eliminate this. The Secret Ballot Act of 1872 allowed voting to be done in secret so electorates were free from intimidation. It meant that the newly enfranchised working class would not be pressurized into voting for their landlords in fear of losing their home or jobs. The secret ballot was an improvement in Britain towards democracy and the Chief Commissioner of Police in London reported there had been no trouble at the elections. However, employers were still bribing their workers and between 1867 and 1885 four towns were disenfranchised due to corrupt practices. Moreover, an opponent of the Act Lord John Russell, argued it would undermine the â€Å"legitimate influence of the aristocracy, over people who looked to them for leadership†. Many believed that it was you duty to tell people how you voted, it was considered† honest and British† and there was a belief that secrecy would lead to further corruption. The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act was introduced in 1883 and it meant that if there was any corruption in any election it would lead to a heavy fine or imprisonment. There was less intimidation; the new code of ethics had moved Britain forward towards democracy. S.Wood said that â€Å"elections certainly became more orderly†. Despite these steps towards democracy, plural voting still existed and MPS were still not paid. Even though the property qualification for MPs was abolished in 1857 meaning that ownership of land was no longer a prerequisite for becoming an MP but one issue that still had to be resolved was the payment of MPs. This made the Parliament Act of 1911 a â€Å"great achievement† according to Stephen J. Lee as MPs finally got a salary of  £400, meaning that anyone could stand as an MP, whether they are working, middle or upper class. However, in reality working class men could not afford to give up their day job to become a politician so very few working class men stood as candidates. In addition, the Act reduced the life of the government from seven years to five years .The House of Lords which Lloyd George described as â€Å"five hundred men, ordinary men chosen accidentally from among the unemployed,† no longer had power over bills to do with taxation or government spending and could only delay bills for up to two years. Despite the fact this made the elected house more accountable to the voters, Britain was still not fully democratic as the House of Lords still had some power despite being an unelected body. Although Britain had made strides towards democratic by 1928 there were still other factors that were undemocratic such as universities still having Seats in Parliament until 1949 and the franchise was not being given to 18 year olds until 1969.Moreover, elections in Britain use the First Past the Post System meaning the person with the most votes wins the election. However this could be seen as being unfair in that the percentage of seats the larger parties end up with in Parliament is always greater than the percentage of votes they have achieved in the election. For example, in the 2005 General Election although the Labour Party got 36.2% of the votes, they had 55% of the Seats in Parliament. For many years, smaller parties like the Liberals gave argued for a system of Proportional Representation which makes the proportion of seats a party has equal to the percentage of votes the party got in the election. First Past the Post was confirmed as the voting system for general elections in the United Kingdom in 1918 and this has not changed since. By 1928, Britain had become a more democratic country as all the features that would be expected in a democracy were in place such as universal suffrage, the secret ballot and better representation. There was a choice for voters of different backgrounds of three main political parties and working class candidates were able to stand for election as MPs were paid. Furthermore, access to information was greater than it had been in 1850. However, 18 year olds were not given the vote until 1969 and the electoral system is still an issue today as many people argue that Proportional Representation should be used in British elections.

Life in the Universe: The Significance of Planet X

The Internet is replete with sites touting proof of extraterrestrial life in the universe; television programs found on channels with a scientific slant, such as Discovery, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, SciFi, and Nova, explore the possibilities of extraterrestrial life on a regular basis; a slew of books have been published by those claiming to have had close encounters with alien beings, or to have witnessed events that suggest the presence of such. Many of these claims have been proven fraudulent or misinterpreted, yet some remain persuasive. Currently, there is some compelling evidence that extraterrestrial beings might not only exist, but might also have visited our planet throughout history. While a great majority of this evidence can be dismissed as the meanderings of the bored, mentally ill, or those interested in making money on the naivetà © of others, some of it is not so easily discharged. As far back as recorded history exists, there are suggestions of extraterrestrial visitations; artistic renderings of strange objects in the sky, beings that do not look human, and societies who function at a technological level that defies the development of the era. While modern technology might afford us evidence considered more empirical or irrefutable, in the past, no such evidence could be had. Historically, there are numerous depictions in art that suggest an awareness of alien beings or spaceships. One such painting entitled The Madonna with Saint Giovannino by the 15th century artist Domenico Ghirlandaio, depicts a flying saucer type object in the sky over Mary's shoulder, and a man with his dog, staring up at it. It seems clearly to be an alien spacecraft. Now, while paintings are clearly not the same as photographs, but merely renderings from the psyche of the artist, there still has to be some pertinent reason why an artist would place something so odd in his painted sky. The obvious suggestion here, is that he might have seen such an object, or the consciousness of the time was at least partly centered on these things. In 1486, Carlos Crivelli's painting, The Annunciation with Saint Emidius depicts a spaceship that is sending a beam of light to the head of Mary. But what if faith is not the only avenue toward belief? What if scientific data in the form of archeology, astronomy, physics and other disciplines point to the truth of extraterrestrial presence on our planet? Numerous hieroglyphs have been found that are clearly representations of objects in the ancient sky, objects that suggest a technology far advanced for the era. The fact that these objects were airborne at all, was of course cause for investigation. One such relief carving found in the beams of the ceiling of the New Kingdom Temple at the Giza Plateau in Egypt, clearly depicts a modern day helicopter, a submarine, a glider or perhaps a space shuttle (Crystal). It would be difficult to explain these images away as anything other than what they appear to be. Delving deeper into the antecedents for these ideas leads to examination of advanced cultures of the past. The Sumerian culture is one of the most advanced cultures ever known, yet they existed during a time period where most people lived in a primitive fashion. Still, they created many mathematical concepts, geometry, algebra, and were the first to develop the zodiac, dividing the heavens into the 12 houses; the first to develop 400 characters of cuneiform writing, and the first to display a complete understanding of astronomy. â€Å"Ooparts is the term used to describe the purportedly out of place in time artifacts, toys, tools, technical devices, depictions and documents which have come to light through archaeological excavation or discovery† (Freer). The Sumerians' culture is filled with ooparts that cannot be explained in any way other than they were influenced by another species from a more advanced culture. Sumerians recorded a great deal of their own history, even the day to day mundane events. It is clear from their records that they lived among beings they referred to as the Anunnaki. These beings were purportedly from the plant Nibiru, and had come here to colonize. This is where the Sumerians gained their incredible knowledge base, apparent in all their artifacts and records. For instance, the Sumerians knew the number of planets and the distance of the planets from Earth—how? We didn't even know that until we sent probes in the 1970's. How could they know so much about astronomy? All of this knowledge, though, is authenticated by artifacts left behind (AncientX). Religion aside, the theory with the most veracity, also seems the most far-fetched: that an alien race colonized our planet half a million years ago, and we are a product of genetic engineering and cross breeding. Russian-born archeologist Zecharia Sitchin, not only believes that, but has presented an impressive amount of data that would seem to prove his theory. Sitchin was raised in Palestine, gaining a formidable knowledge of ancient Hebrew, among other languages, and is â€Å"one of the few scholars who is able to read and understand Sumerian† (XFacts). Through study of Sumerian culture and artifacts, he has pieced together the historical details that explain this outlandish postulate. According to Sitchin, the Sumerians spoke of 12 planets in the solar system, contrary to our current knowledge of nine. They counted the sun and moon in that number, so according to them, there is one other planet in our solar system. This planet was known as Nibiru by the Sumerians, and current day references are usually â€Å"Planet X† which is a play on both the unknown and the fact that â€Å"X† is the Roman numeral for â€Å"ten,† and Nibiru would be the tenth planet, if we continue to discount the sun and moon as planets. Modern science has discovered that â€Å"the human genome contains 223 genes that do not have the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree (Sitchin)† The question then becomes: where did those mysterious genes come from? Another interesting indicator is that lead NASA scientists believe there is another planet beyond Pluto, based on the inability of Pluto's mass to cause certain disturbances in orbit, referred to as perturbances, and wobbling movements of that planet. These movements suggest a gravitational pull beyond Pluto that can only be explained by the presence of another large planet, two to five times the size of earth. Scientists have also recently put forth the Orpheus Theory—that a rogue planet collided with Earth, and this created a new version of Earth, and our current moon, and also explains the asteroid belt, among other things. This theory supports what the Sumerians recorded 6,000 years ago (XFacts), which would suggest strongly that the Sumerians had knowledge of many things that cannot be explained other than with the input from another race from another planet. This information alone, should be enough to justify further investigation into not only the presence of a 10th (or 12th) planet, but the possibility that there are other lifeforms that have come from that planet to Earth in the past, and could do it again in the future. Further along in the historic timeline, we have discovered more tangible reasons to explore the idea of intelligent life in the universe aside from our own.   In 1938, an archeological dig in the Baian-Lara-Ula mountain between China and Tibet, produced a collection of graves in a series of interlocking caves. On the walls, were pictograms of the celestial sky, connected by dots. In the graves, were the remains of humanoids that were not like any known. The skeletons had oversized craniums, and short, spindly limbs, and all were much shorter than normal.   The team members considered that maybe these were the skeletons of apes, but as the archeologist Dr. Chi Pu Tei reportedly said, â€Å"Whoever heard of apes burying each other?† Soon afterward, Dr. Tei, discovered a disk-shaped stone in the floor of the cave which had a perfectly round hole in the center and an engraved line spiraling outward on the stoneThe team unearthed hundreds of these ancient carved stones buried in the floor of the cave, obviously remnants of a people who lived 12,000 years ago. With a magnifying glass, closer inspection was done of the groove in the stones, which so resembled an ancient phonograph record. It was a record, but not of the musical variety, unless you count the strange tone it made when they later spun the stone on a makeshift turntable. The score (pun intended) was really a continuous line of hieroglyphics. In 1962, Dr. Tsum Um Nui began to transcribe the writings, and decode them. He discerned that the stones told the story of the Dropa, who came down from the clouds in their aircraft† (AncientX). As the story went, they were stranded after a crash-landing, and before the local people understood that they were peaceful, and were repulsed by their appearance, so they hunted them down and even killed some. The Dropa were unable to repair their aircraft in order to return to their home planet. Today, it is known that there are two tribes indigenous to the area who possess odd anatomical features—larger heads, shorter bodies, yellowish skin. The local lore about these â€Å"invaders that came from the sky† matches the bodies found in the cave. Nui composed a paper for submission to the university, regarding the contents of the Dropa Stone messages but was denied publication by the Academy of Prehistory, and he was even told not to discuss his findings. The University felt that the world could not be told of the story of the Dropa, who apparently came to earth from another planet in a space craft, crash-landed and were subsequently stranded. But the information did beg the question about possible descendants having survived, and the connection this information might have with the history of the ancient Sumerians. All cultures since then commonly believed that they were descended from â€Å"heavenly beings.† This is perhaps an indication of the accuracy of oral tradition. But many other hieroglyphs and petroglyphs and petrographs around the world speak of this event, and often depict spacecraft and other-worldly beings. Contrary to our wishes, there can be no absolutes in some perennial questions. The possibility that alien life forms visited the Earth is one of those examples. I don't believe anyone has enough empirical evidence to take a staunch position on the existence of extraterrestrial visitations, versus the non existence of them.   Therefore , conclusions one way or another are merely postulates, theories and entertainments. What can be known, is that technologically advanced cultures have existed in antiquity, and that there is compelling evidence that these might have been influenced by intelligent life from another planet. Without empirical proof, however, the questions remain a mystery. There are other considerations that must be addressed. The capability of aliens to visit our planet, would naturally suggest a technologically advanced civilization far exceeding our own. Therefore, had they wanted to make themselves clearly known, they could have. The fact that they haven't revealed themselves boldly, can mean either they do not wish to for whatever reason, or that â€Å"they† do not exist. With mounting evidence indicating the existence of these other worldly beings, it becomes more and more difficult to ignore the possibilities, and more and more likely that we may all find ourselves questioning the paradigm of our ultimate source. With the elliptical orbit of Planet X/Nibiru expected to make its 3600 year pass near Earth in 2013, we may be doomed to another impact that will create a new Earth 3, or we may find ourselves shaking hands with a visiting delegation of Anunnaki. Either way, nothing will ever be the same again. Works Cited AncientX: Jason Martell's Research. â€Å"The 12,000 Year Old Dropa Stones.† 2006. Retrieved on 22 October 2006 from ;http://ancientx.com/nm/anmviewer.asp?a=61;. Crystal, Ellie. â€Å"Ancient Egyptian Flying Vehicles.†. Crystalinks. 2006. Retrieved on 21 October 2006 from ;http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientaircraft.htm;. Freer, Neil. â€Å"Sumerian Culture and the Anunnaki.† UFO Evidence. 2006. Retrieved on 20 October 2006 from ;http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc147.htm;. Sitchin, Zecharia. â€Å"The Case of Adam's Alien Genes.† 2001. Retrieved on 21 October 2006 from ;http://www.sitchin.com/adam.htm;. XFacts Research. 2003. Retrieved on 21 October 2006 from ;http://xfacts.com/x.htm;. ;

A Challenging Situation Essays - Computer Programming Lessons

A Challenging Situation Essays - Computer Programming Lessons A Challenging Situation University of Washington Admissions Essay The challenging family situation I would like to share with you is our move from Korea to the United States. In 1989, my life was changed when my family immigrated to a new country, hoping for a better future. My life in Korea was hopeless, because I was a failing student with not much interest in school. I spent the majority of my time in Arcades, wasting my coins on video games. Rather than studying with my friends, as I had told my parents I would, I obsessed over the games. The only positive aspect to my life was my private computer programming lessons. Programming in Apple BASIC presented me with an opportunity to create my own world. One day, my parents told me that we were going to move to the United States of America, and I developed a strong feeling that my life soon would change forever. After spending eleven years in Korea, our family moved a totally different environment. This I knew would be my toughest challenge to date. As a fifth grader attending a new elementary school in a new country, I felt left out because of my inability to communicate. Some kids assumed that I did not understand them at all, so they made rude remarks about me. I understood them, maybe not completely, but I knew the intent of their messages. All that I had was my Apple II computer at which I just sat and programmed when I came home from school. At home, my parents pressured me to study all of the time, but I was frustrated and wanted to return to Korea. I wanted to go back and talk freely with my friends and play games with them. My parents often told me that they decided to move here because of the educational opportunities, yet I continued to rebel and refused to listen to what they said. Over time, my English improved. I moved on to regular sixth grade classes; some of which were challenging, but tolerable because of my teachers whom were willing to help. I always enjoyed class trips to the computer lab, where I would start programming on the computer. Other kids would start to gather around and treat me like a genius. Before long, I made more friends and found that I was enjoying school. Thoughts of going back to Korea faded, and my grades rose to a satisfactory level. This pleased my parents who now encouraged me to invite friends to dinner. When my friends came over, I became the translator between my parents and my friends. Since then, I often translate for my parents in any occasion where translation is needed. Talking to some adults was intimidating and sometimes embarrassing, but I felt mature and responsible. The rest of my school year went by very smoothly, and my self-confidence grew. Now I help other Korean people with language difficulties, helping them t o understand English and American customs. Prior to my arrival to the United States, I thought everything would be nice and easy, but it did not turn out that way. Life was difficult, since I had to learn a new language, culture, and customs. One of the best things I learned was that my parents were right. This experience helped change me from a hopeless kid to a confident and responsible young adult. From this experience, I have learned that if one sets goals, works hard towards those goals, dedicates oneself to those goals, and takes advantage of opportunities presented, they can achieve anything.

Hijacked train Essays

Hijacked train Essays Hijacked train Essay Hijacked train Essay Australian men pulled the emergency brake on an E-Z Express freight train in Toronto, and planted a bomb in the front engine. The hijackers held 50 male employees hostage onboard the train for 10 days. The reason for this unforeseen hijacking is due to the five million dollars of gold bars onboard. The train that was on route to Hamilton, Ontario was headed for Hamilton Harbor. The harbor is known for its easy access to the seaway where the gold was destined for Europe. This operation was supposed to be confidential through ISIS, but there was a breach of confidentiality in the system and now the RECAP is doing a thorough investigation on how it was leaked. After several lengthy negotiation tactics with the men, they were able to work out a deal to let a painfully sick crew member out of the train. They were not able to work out any other deals as the demands were too high. The RECAP then took it to the next level. They sent out 3 Z- 500 Jet planes to fly over the train to hopefully get hostages o duck down, where they would be safer. Then the Marines Special Force Unit started to shoot the train, in the first class areas and in between compartments, killing 10 hijackers. Through this hijacking process 12 hostages were killed, on the scene and several others died in hospitals due to hypothermia, land lack of food and water. The police were not able to recover to the dead bodies until several days later. Salina Amnesia, the wife of Bernie Amnesia one of the crew members said, I just cant believe it, how could someone do something so bad to someone who they never even known? Ten days after the hijacking first started, the hijackers surrendered due to the harsh weather conditions, below zero and shortage of food. Six hijackers survived and were later convicted and sentenced from six to nine years. The Australian government hasnt offered any apologies as of now. Rick Hansen one of the twenty hijackers told reporters, This isnt the last of me, I will be back Hijacked train By Antidisestablishmentarianism

U.S. Median Age Highest Ever

U.S. Median Age Highest Ever The median age in America reached its highest point ever at 37.2 years, up from 32.9 years in 1990 and 35.3 years in 2000, according to recently released data from Census 2010. By median age, the U.S. Census Bureau means that half of the American people are now older and half younger than 37.2 years. According to the Census Bureau’s report Age and Sex Composition: 2010, seven states recorded a median age of 40 or older in 2010. The report also showed that between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. male population grew 9.9%, while the female population saw a 9.5% increase. Of the total 2010 Census population, 157.0 million people were female (50.8%) and 151.8 million were male (49.2%). Between 2000 and 2010, the population 45 to 64 years old grew 31.5% to 81.5 million. This age group now makes up 26.4% of the total U.S. population. The large growth among 45- to 64-year-olds is primarily because of the aging of the baby boom population. The 65-and-older population also grew faster than most younger population groups at a rate of 15.1% to 40.3 million people, or 13.0% of the total population. While attributing the jump to aging baby boomers, Census Bureau analysts noted that the 65-and-over population actually increased at a slower rate than the overall population for the first time in the history of the census. Baby boomers are considered to be persons born from 1946 to 1964. According to the Census Bureau, the average retirement age in the U.S. is 62, with the average life expectancy after retirement is 18 years. However, as the U.S. Social Security Administration advises, actually starting to draw Social Security retirement benefits at age 62, rather than waiting until your full retirement age comes with risks and rewards. While the median age increased by nearly two and a half years between 1990 and 2000, said Campbell Gibson, a senior Census Bureau demographer, the growth of the population aged 65-and-over was by far the lowest recorded rate of growth in any decade for this age group. The slower growth of the population 65 and over, Gibson said, reflects the relatively low number of people reaching 65 during the past decade because of the relatively low number of births in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The increase in median age from 32.9 years in 1990 to 35.3 in 2000 reflects a 4-percent drop in the number of persons between 18 to 34 years old combined with a 28-percent increase in the population between 35 to 64 years of age. The most rapid increase in size of any age group in the profile was the 49 percent jump in the population 45-to-54-years-old. This increase, to 37.7 million in 2000, was fueled mainly by the entry into this age group of the first of the baby boom generation. Besides data on age, the U.S. profile contains data on sex, household relationship and household type, housing units, and renters and homeowners. It also includes the first population totals for selected groups of Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and Hispanic or Latino populations. The findings above are from a Census 2000 profile of the U.S. population, released May 15, 2001. Here are more highlights from Census 2000: The number of males (138.1 million) edged closer to the number of females (143.4 million), raising the sex ratio (males per 100 females) from 95.1 in 1990 to 96.3 in 2000.The nations housing units numbered 115.9 million, an increase of 13.6 million from 1990.The average household size in 2000 was 2.59, down slightly from 2.63 in 1990.Of the 105.5 million occupied housing units in 2000, 69.8 million were occupied by owners and 35.7 million by renters; the homeownership rate increased from 64 percent to 66 percent.The number of non-family households rose at twice the rate of family households 23 percent versus 11 percent.Families maintained by women with no husband present increased three times as fast as married-couple families 21 percent versus 7 percent. Married-couple families dropped from 55 percent to 52 percent of all households.A nation of loaners? In 1940, less than 8 percent of all Americans lived alone. Today, almost 26 percent live by themselves.

Johann Sebastian Bach Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Johann Sebastian Bach - Essay Example Bach struggled to secure his position at Arnstadt, after that he moved to St. Blasius in Mhlhausen from where he obtained organistship. Bach ws universally acclaimed for his keyboard performance. He served as Hofkonzertmeister to the duke of Weimar, where his job responsibility the composition of sacred music, "the great cantata, Ich hatte viel Bekmmerniss, was probably the first work of his new office". Bach was also appointed as "Kapellmeister to the duke of Cthen". During this period he initiated his work on "book of the Wohltemperirtes Klavier, the solo violin and violoncello sonatas, the Brandenburg concertos". Bach was deeply inspired by Handel, he therefore made "copy of his Passion nach Brockes". Bach developed the finest Passion and Der Tod Jesu which were revealed after his death, it was Bach who transformed Brockes. The major achievements of Back include "the Passion according to St. Matthew and the B Minor Mass". The importance of Bach in the history of music can never be ignored or avoided. His role can never be regarded as oil-fashioned, "a true composer the effect on the history of music was immediate and profound". ... Cultural, Religious and Philosophical Aspect of Bach: Detail Analysis The St. Matthew by Bach is considered "the most monumental Passion ever composed". It was written in 1729, the master piece was written with the support of C.F. Henrici. The historians have commented that there is deep background behind this music, and the music has political and cultural aspects attach to it. As per record, "there are four Passions based on the particular Evangelist: John, Luke, Matthew, or Mark". At the time when Bach composed St. Matthew, it was regarded as "being one of the greatest sacred choral works ever composed", it has been also regarded as "the greatest classical composition in the entire field". As per musicians, Bach has used "double chorus and orchestra which are integral parts of the work's architecture and enhances its majestic nature". As per historians, on weekly basis "a Passion was performed in one of Leipzig's two principal churches, St., Thomas and St. Nicholas". It is realised that "Bach probably faced no harder task among his duties as Thomask antor and music director of the city of Leipzig than the preparation of the yearly Passion music". In 1739, the music developed by Bach received criticism from the town council, however Bach hold clerk and informed them that he was not worried and "did not care, for got nothing out of it anyway, and it was only a burden". It is on record that the composer "spoke as a man embittered by numerous and protracted disputes with the Leipzig authorities". It is acknowledged that "the challenges involved in the creation of a Passion seem to have engaged him keenly". As per historians, Bach had

Psychology - Career Guidance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Psychology - Career Guidance - Essay Example There are a number of models and techniques being used to provide planning services to clients for career counseling and development. Most common ways of provision of career planning counseling is done through self-assessment, reality testing and decision-making techniques (Watts 1996). These are the most commonly used techniques which were used traditionally. However, modern models have been initiated in order to provide a wholesome manner of providing career counseling and development to clients. Moreover, self-directed manner for career counseling is another model which has been used by a number of counselors over the time which has had limited results previously. It is due to this reason that other types of models were coined (Watts 1996). Most recently, interviews were used as a cost-effective manner of providing effective career planning advises to clients. These interview based techniques and traditional techniques influence Gerarad Egan to create a model that could make use of all the techniques to make sure that development is noticed and undertaken in real manners unlike any other therapies being conducted for psychological practices. Working model of Egan covers development aspect as crucial to objective achievement (Watts 1996). Among different models that are applied for career planning and development of clients, Egan Model is considered as one of the most effective model for counseling purpose. It is because of three staged model mechanism that allows easy evaluation of clients’ choice, transition and different clients need (Watts 1996). The stage I of the Egan model allows effective relationship building process between the counselor and client. This will allow the client to focus on the options from which he or she can actually find out the best possible choices for themselves. In other words, it could be said that the stage I in Egan’s model, clients can actually set up priority chart and

International Intercultural Management Assignment - 2

International Intercultural Management - Assignment Example In order to understand the role of culture in developing particular management practices in Saudi Arabia it would be necessary primarily to define culture, as a concept related to the organizational environment. Reference should be also made to the theories of culture – at the level that they indicate the potential elements of culture and its impact on the organizational strategies. Then, the interaction between culture and management in Saudi Arabia would be more easily understood. 2.1 Culture – definition Culture is a concept related to a wide range of activities. Within organizations, the term culture is used in order to reflect the priorities of the firm, from an ethical perspective, as promoted through its daily operations. In accordance with Ahlstrom et al. (2009, p.36) ‘culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and actions’. From a similar approach, Schein (2010) notes that culture has three different levels: ‘a) artifacts, i.e. processes and objects that are visible and easy to understood, b) espoused beliefs and values, i.e. ideas, goals and values and c) basic underlying assumptions, meaning the unconscious beliefs and values’ (Schein 2010, p.24). In the context of the organization, culture, as a concept, can be differentiated; the aspects of culture in modern organizations are reflected in the theories presented in the next section. In the context of the organizational environment, culture is of critical importance.

Conflict & Intra-professional Relationships at the Workplace Research Paper

Conflict & Intra-professional Relationships at the Workplace - Research Paper Example Workplace conflict has long been viewed as an all negative thing, but the truth is that it is neither all positive nor all negative; it has both positive and negative implications (Masters & Albright, 2002; Duddle & Boughton, 2007). Conflicting intra-professional relations, however, increase the level of job stress among workers. Many studies have verified this (Healy & McKay, 2008 & McVicar, 2003). Different people use different coping strategies to manage workplace conflicts (masters & Albright, 2002). The way a workplace conflict is handled is the actual determinant of whether the effects of the conflict will be positive or negative. Perception of conflict is a subjective behavior and varies from person to person, but this perception is a factor that affects the coping strategy to be used greatly (McVicar, 2003). Like all fields of work, workplace conflict and conflicting intra-professional relations are also present in the field of nursing. In fact, one study by Hutchinson and co lleagues (2006) also confirms the presence of Bullying in a sensitive profession like nursing. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of conflict and intra-professional relationships in the field of nursing by presenting a critique of two prescribed journal articles in the same field. Almost, J. (2006). ‘Conflict within nursing work environments: concept analysis’. Journal of  Advanced Nursing, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 444-453.   This article is by Joan Almost, who is a faculty member of nursing at the University ty of Toronto, Canada. Titled ‘Conflict within nursing work environments: concept analysis’, this article was accepted for publication on the 27th of July, 2005; and was published in the Journal of Athe advanced Nursing in 2006, volume 53, issue 4. The article is based on a theoretical literature review of available academic material on workplace conflict within nursing, aimed at explaining and exploring the process of workplace conflic t. The data was collected by searching for some popular online academic databases for relevant articles submitted in the last 25 years.

Paired associates learning enhanced by imagery Lab Report

Paired associates learning enhanced by imagery - Lab Report Example Thirty-seven members were assigned to the imagery (experimental condition) and thirty-eight participants were assigned to the repetition condition (control). Data from each section were combined in the analysis. A set of 80 common, concrete nouns were provided in an appendix of Neath's text Human Memory. With the use of a random numbers table, 20 random pairs were created. Each subject participated in just one condition and the responses were divided into two groups: 1) word pairs 1-10; 2) word pairs 11-20. These conditions enabled the distinction of what factors have an effect on the performance of the participants, the subjects themselves or the order of the stimuli. Group data was analyzed T test. Result did not show any significant result (p> 0.05) deviated from the null hypothesis of equal contribution at the level of significant 0.05 for the overall effect of order (1-10 vs. 11-20). However, the effect of order showed significance for the imagery rehearsal condition. The total average of right answers by the participants showed a greater improvement for those in the imagery rehearsal condition. In conclusion imagery rehearsal condition enhances performance in paired associates learning. Paired-associate learning was "invented by Mary Whiton Calkins in 1894 and involves the pairing of two items (usually words)-a stimulus and a response" ("Paired-associate learning", n.d.). PAL is aided by mnemonic strategies (Kintsch, 1970 as cited in Chang, H. T., Klorman, R., Shaywitz, S. E., Fletcher, J. M., Marchione, K. E., Holahan, J. M., Stuebing, K. K., Brumaghim, J. T., Shaywitz, B. A., 1999). 'Encoding strategies employed in this and additional memory tasks include rehearsal, that is, simple repetition of the paired associations; organization by theoretical or semantic categories; elaboration, that is, generation of arbitrary relations between items'(Schneider & Bjorklund, 1998 as cited in Chang, H. T., et al.); or visualization, that is, formation of visual images (imagery) of something in mind ("Visualize", 2005). For decades, it has been an issue if what can help in enhancing the performance of an in paired-associate learning. For example, Rohwer (1966 as cited in Bower G. H. & Winzenz, D., 1970) stated that 'reading a declarative sentence linking the word pair as subject and object nouns generated better summon up than simply studying the pair without a sentence context'. Additionally, Bobrow & Bower (1969 as cited in Bower G. H. & Winzenz, D., 1970) established that 'college students kept in mind a noun pair much better if they generated their individual sentence linking the word pair rather than just learning the pair in a pre - constructed sentence'. There seems to be a gradual 'improvement in recall going from habitual repetition toIt is often said that "visual memory is superior to verbal memory on recognition tasks" (Shepard, 1967; Standing, Conezio, & Harber, 1970 as cited in Jonides, Kahn, & Rozin, 1975). With this fact can we infer that visual imagery is a tool in doing a better wor k in paired-associate learning' This study will focus on the hypothesis that: Imagery rehearsal condition enhances performance in paired associates

Impact upon the Merger Case between BRITIVIC and AG Barr Essay

Impact upon the Merger Case between BRITIVIC and AG Barr - Essay Example The main aim of this article is to analyze the case of the merger of Britvic as a strategy to compete with Coca-Cola and the various issues that arose post-merger. In the UK, carbonated soft drink market can be identified as tight oligopolistic market structure according to Shepherd’s classification of markets but majority dominated by Coca-Cola with a 57% market. Britvic is one of Coca Cola’s rival in a position of the second biggest but only with 14% market share. Faced with the much stronger market position of Coke Cola Company, in 2013, Britvic announced the intention to merge with AG Barr, which has the third biggest market share by 4%, as one way of acquiring enough strength to compete with the Soft Drinks Giant. In response, the Office of Fair Trade announced the need to make a thorough competition analysis for the two companies to identify the possible impacts of the merger in the market. The merger between is a typical horizontals merger as both companies produce the homogenous product. According to Britvic, a merger will help the company to gain enough ground to compete with Coca-Cola which would reduce their dominance because horizontal integration in the industry would have the significant impact upon changing of the market structure. If the monopoly effect in the industry can be declined due to two small market share equipped companies combined to compete against the dominant company, the consumers will have a higher bargaining power and may have the opportunity of purchasing soft drinks at a cheaper price. However, the Office of Fair Trade identifies that the merger will result in the formation of two giants, which will reduce completion and the risk of hiked prices after the merger.

Paired associates learning enhanced by imagery Lab Report

Paired associates learning enhanced by imagery - Lab Report Example Thirty-seven members were assigned to the imagery (experimental condition) and thirty-eight participants were assigned to the repetition condition (control). Data from each section were combined in the analysis. A set of 80 common, concrete nouns were provided in an appendix of Neath's text Human Memory. With the use of a random numbers table, 20 random pairs were created. Each subject participated in just one condition and the responses were divided into two groups: 1) word pairs 1-10; 2) word pairs 11-20. These conditions enabled the distinction of what factors have an effect on the performance of the participants, the subjects themselves or the order of the stimuli. Group data was analyzed T test. Result did not show any significant result (p> 0.05) deviated from the null hypothesis of equal contribution at the level of significant 0.05 for the overall effect of order (1-10 vs. 11-20). However, the effect of order showed significance for the imagery rehearsal condition. The total average of right answers by the participants showed a greater improvement for those in the imagery rehearsal condition. In conclusion imagery rehearsal condition enhances performance in paired associates learning. Paired-associate learning was "invented by Mary Whiton Calkins in 1894 and involves the pairing of two items (usually words)-a stimulus and a response" ("Paired-associate learning", n.d.). PAL is aided by mnemonic strategies (Kintsch, 1970 as cited in Chang, H. T., Klorman, R., Shaywitz, S. E., Fletcher, J. M., Marchione, K. E., Holahan, J. M., Stuebing, K. K., Brumaghim, J. T., Shaywitz, B. A., 1999). 'Encoding strategies employed in this and additional memory tasks include rehearsal, that is, simple repetition of the paired associations; organization by theoretical or semantic categories; elaboration, that is, generation of arbitrary relations between items'(Schneider & Bjorklund, 1998 as cited in Chang, H. T., et al.); or visualization, that is, formation of visual images (imagery) of something in mind ("Visualize", 2005). For decades, it has been an issue if what can help in enhancing the performance of an in paired-associate learning. For example, Rohwer (1966 as cited in Bower G. H. & Winzenz, D., 1970) stated that 'reading a declarative sentence linking the word pair as subject and object nouns generated better summon up than simply studying the pair without a sentence context'. Additionally, Bobrow & Bower (1969 as cited in Bower G. H. & Winzenz, D., 1970) established that 'college students kept in mind a noun pair much better if they generated their individual sentence linking the word pair rather than just learning the pair in a pre - constructed sentence'. There seems to be a gradual 'improvement in recall going from habitual repetition toIt is often said that "visual memory is superior to verbal memory on recognition tasks" (Shepard, 1967; Standing, Conezio, & Harber, 1970 as cited in Jonides, Kahn, & Rozin, 1975). With this fact can we infer that visual imagery is a tool in doing a better wor k in paired-associate learning' This study will focus on the hypothesis that: Imagery rehearsal condition enhances performance in paired associates

658 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

658 - Essay Example e main reason why there is a difficulty in the United States educational reform is because the reforms have failed in changing the conditions of learning and teaching for the teachers and students (Elmore, 2004). He adds that the failure has been caused by lack of establishment of accountability frameworks, lack of support for teachers in analyzing their practices and lack of continuous learning across and within schools. The chapter is relevant to the district roles in supporting and leading reforms in the system-wide education. Elmore mentions several times that most education reforms fail to get their teaching instructional core. He demonstrates that the legislation of â€Å"No Child Left Behind† brings more pressure on reform, but does not bring focus that would be essential for classroom reforms. He also has a compelling argument regarding internal accountability as a core factor that promotes external accountability (Elmore, 2004). Therefore, it means that for the occurrence of internal accountability, there must be necessary capacities such as the focus of workload complexity, school reforms, community and parent relationships and finally student and school

Coming of Age Essay Example for Free

Coming of Age Essay There have always been challenges that a young adolescent must make to become an adult. Whether it was one hundred years ago, or today in this day and age, the challenges are ever so present. Unfortunately, the challenges faced back then were far more harsh and difficult for the young adults compared to the present. They lacked the technology, resources, and knowledge we now possess today. Most jobs one hundred years ago had to be physically done by people, not machines, which the 21st century seems to love. Although times are now different in the sense of materials and knowledge, the society and traditional structure of becoming an â€Å"adult† still stands; you get a job, you get married – you are an adult. There are plenty more things that need to be done and prepared for before even entering the work world, let alone becoming an adult. One hundred years ago, someone my age would have already been working on a farm or in a warehouse with production of some sort. They might be already married with a baby on the way and one already born. Life was very out of the ordinary compared to what we are accustomed to today. A young person was considered an adult at a very early age, typically because he/she started working very young to provide for a family. Life expectancy one hundred years ago, if you survived birth without any antibiotics, was not very long. For women it was fifty-six and men, fifty-two. Due to the short-lived lives of parents, children had no choice but to learn how to fend for themselves in this wild world we call life. Almost all of these jobs, lacking any requirement for education, were not the safest, cleanest, or best paying jobs. Not everyone went straight to work; some had the luxury of going to school to further their education so that they may obtain a good, high paying job. Those who were lucky enough to have the money to pay for an education are the ones who set the high demand for education in the world today. Only the children of the wealthy were educated, and they became wealthy as well. That was the mind set, which led to current day policy. Everyone goes to school. There are some people that go straight to work after high school. Similar to one hundred years ago, the jobs they obtain typically are not the highest paying jobs that require less education, typically are labor union jobs or â€Å"off the books† working. In this country, you need an education if you want to work anywhere, even at McDonalds. Education has become such a big part of the world today.

Red Badge Of Courage Essay -- essays research papers

Death, Blood and Destruction The Red Badge of Courage, a Civil War novel by Stephen Crane, may be examined on various levels. One of those levels is a story about the cruelty and disasters of war. Young Henry Flemming, the protagonist, has dreamed his whole life of being in the army and despite his mother's discouragement, he enlists with a Union regiment. Soon learning that the army is a big bore, Henry begins to view himself "merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration". Clearly, Henry does not know why he is going to fight, he just knows that he is part of a large group of men. As the novel unfolds, it is plain that Crane is writing about the horrors and tragedies of war, even by using the idea of contrasting the events of the war with nature. Although many critics have viewed the book as a naturalistic or realistic novel, some specific examples can describe how it relates to the anti-war theme. As Henry is on guard duty one evening, he converses across the river with a Confederate soldier. "The youth liked him personally," says Crane. Henry's feeling towards his enemy shows that he is unclear about the war's purpose. At this point Henry probably would like to flee home. Henry is seeing the enemy as real and humane. He then describes how he feels shame about the war. Henry definitely knows that the war is wrong and that the people that have died and the soldier...

John Stuart Mills Philosophy of Happiness Essay -- John Stuart Mill P

John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Happiness Along with other noted philosophers, John Stuart Mill developed the nineteenth century philosophy known as Utilitarianism - the contention that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Bentham, in particular, is acknowledged as the philosophy’s founder, it was Mill who justified the axiom through reason. He maintained that because human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, they are not merely satisfied with physical pleasures; humans strive to achieve pleasures of the mind as well. Once man has ascended to this high intellectual level, he desires to stay there, never descending to the lower level of existence from which he began. In Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism, Mill contends that â€Å"pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends† (Mill, 7). Before addressing his argument, Mill defines the topic, â€Å"The creed which accepts as the foundation of moral s, ‘Utility’, or the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle’, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure† (Mill, 7). Like a true philosopher, Mill proposes objections to the utilitarian principle, which he then attempts to refute. Pleasure, according to Mill, has rather arrogantly been regarded as being little more than attempting to keep a pig satisfied. Because man has the intellectual capacity for reason, he should aspire for something more. Mill argues that is exactly what man does. He does not merely attempt to seek momentary pleasure, but in utilitarianism, has the option to choose that which provides him with the most pleasure. According to Mill, â€Å"Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure† (Mill 8). Many have refuted Utilitarianism’s ideals and declared that man can live just as well without happiness. Mill acknowledges that this may be true in theory, that men do not conduct their lives in total pursuit of happiness, they still need a gauge with which to measure morality. Happiness ... ... This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require that happiness is a good† (Mill 27). Simply, the normal rules concerning one’s desire for happiness do not apply. Happiness may mean different things to different people but as long as the quest of these desires do not inflict pain on others, this is an acceptable means to an end. Mill is ultimately successful in that he points out that contrary to popular belief, utilitarianism is not a completely selfish motivation that does not take into consideration the desires of others. Virtue, while not completely synonymous with happiness, is a constituent of it. Thus, it is an attribute desirable to society as a whole. One who causes pain in others cannot be described as virtuous. In the final analysis, John Stuart Mill successfully proved his view by noting that happiness is not a completely comprehensive term. It is comprised of many components and represents different things to different people. Whether one is intent on wealthy, famous, or vituous, he is merely exercising different means to the same end which includes pleasures and freedom from pains. John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Happiness Essay -- John Stuart Mill P John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Happiness Along with other noted philosophers, John Stuart Mill developed the nineteenth century philosophy known as Utilitarianism - the contention that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Bentham, in particular, is acknowledged as the philosophy’s founder, it was Mill who justified the axiom through reason. He maintained that because human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, they are not merely satisfied with physical pleasures; humans strive to achieve pleasures of the mind as well. Once man has ascended to this high intellectual level, he desires to stay there, never descending to the lower level of existence from which he began. In Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism, Mill contends that â€Å"pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends† (Mill, 7). Before addressing his argument, Mill defines the topic, â€Å"The creed which accepts as the foundation of moral s, ‘Utility’, or the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle’, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure† (Mill, 7). Like a true philosopher, Mill proposes objections to the utilitarian principle, which he then attempts to refute. Pleasure, according to Mill, has rather arrogantly been regarded as being little more than attempting to keep a pig satisfied. Because man has the intellectual capacity for reason, he should aspire for something more. Mill argues that is exactly what man does. He does not merely attempt to seek momentary pleasure, but in utilitarianism, has the option to choose that which provides him with the most pleasure. According to Mill, â€Å"Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure† (Mill 8). Many have refuted Utilitarianism’s ideals and declared that man can live just as well without happiness. Mill acknowledges that this may be true in theory, that men do not conduct their lives in total pursuit of happiness, they still need a gauge with which to measure morality. Happiness ... ... This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require that happiness is a good† (Mill 27). Simply, the normal rules concerning one’s desire for happiness do not apply. Happiness may mean different things to different people but as long as the quest of these desires do not inflict pain on others, this is an acceptable means to an end. Mill is ultimately successful in that he points out that contrary to popular belief, utilitarianism is not a completely selfish motivation that does not take into consideration the desires of others. Virtue, while not completely synonymous with happiness, is a constituent of it. Thus, it is an attribute desirable to society as a whole. One who causes pain in others cannot be described as virtuous. In the final analysis, John Stuart Mill successfully proved his view by noting that happiness is not a completely comprehensive term. It is comprised of many components and represents different things to different people. Whether one is intent on wealthy, famous, or vituous, he is merely exercising different means to the same end which includes pleasures and freedom from pains.