Mothers and Fathers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Mothers and Fathers - Essay Example Depending on what either parent does towards the child, determines the particular reaction the child would have in response to the parent’s behavior. In most instances, infants turn to either parent in certain situations, based on the previous interactions that the two have had (Raver 36). For instance, when an infant feels hungry, most will turn to their mothers considering that in similar instances, mother have always provided the food. Similarly, most infants will turn to their fathers whenever they feel scared for protection. Different factors contribute differently towards the position of a parent in giving care to an infant. Cultural alignments and environments play a critical role in determining how infants view either parent. Naturally, mothers are the primary caregivers in most societies as they stay home with the infants while the fathers fend for the families. However, in an instance in which the mother is the sole provider in the family and, therefore works outside the home, the father then forms a stronger bond with the infant (Kenner & McGrath 42). In such an instance, the infant would view the father as the primary nurturer and caregiver. Based on the considerations above, it is evidently clear that other than for the birthing process and breast-feeding, a mothers position as a caregiver of an infant or child is never biologically different from that of a father; however, it all depends on the circumstances involved. Both the father and mother’s positions as caregivers of an infant rema in the

The relationship between environmental regulation and companies' Essay

The relationship between environmental regulation and companies' commercial competitiveness regarding the Porter Hypothesis - Essay Example This idea was stated twenty years ago and appeared to be disproving for all the previous opinions, which came to the same conclusion: environmental regulation are not beneficial for organizations as they have to spend much for innovations that decreases their profit. Hypothesis by Porter disproves such opinion stating that the strict policy stimulates â€Å"innovation offset†. If resources are used efficiently, the economy will only benefit. Since the hypothesis was stated there has been much controversy around it, many disproving theories have appeared notwithstanding that some of Porter’s words were simply misunderstood (Ambec et al, 2011). Certainly, such a supposition can’t be considered as correct without case study. The given paper will try to define if the Porter hypothesis is correct by analyzing the corresponding literature. The main questions â€Å"Over the past 20 years, much has been written about what has since become known simply as the Porter Hypo thesis (PH). Yet even today, we find conflicting evidence and alternative theories that might explain the PH, and oftentimes a misunderstanding of what the PH does and does not say† (Ambec et al, 2011). Actually, for now experts hesitate to answer the question what influence environment innovations have on organizations. The issue remains unclear. It is obvious that environmental innovations are not provided for free and they become a reason for additional expenses that at first sight can’t bring any advantage to firms. At the same time such regulation create good environment for eco-innovators’ activity (Ambec et al, 2011). To prove or disprove Porter’s hypothesis it is necessary to determine if environmental innovation determined by regulation is as successful as innovation determined by new technical and market opportunities. It is not less important to answer the question if regulatory-based environmental innovation is beneficial for organizations and their activity. The Porter hypothesis is correct The review of literature shows that despite numerous hesitations, controversies and disproving opinions â€Å"Porter spirit† appeared to be contagious that would never happen it the argument were wrong and useless. According to Alex Krauer, "Financial performance and environmental performance can go hand in hand. Eco-efficiency is the key to sustainability, in both economic and ecological terms. The key to eco-efficiency is innovation and productivity improvement" (cited in Bernauer et al). This argument serves as the proof of Porter hypothesis’ popularity, moreover many developed countries try to bring this idea to life. Such approach was given a definition of a â€Å"win-win† opportunity, when both the wolves have eaten much and the sheep have not been touched. Porter states: â€Å"†¦properly designed environmental standards can trigger innovation that may partially or more than offset the costs of complyi ng with them† (cited in Bernauer et al). It means that the environmental regulation does not bring any problems, on the contrary it brings new opportunities. Innovation survey that has been held in Germany revealed that the outcome depends on the field regulation is applied in. The field of company’s activity plays the decisive role. â€Å"Regulations in favor of sustainable mobility contribute to higher sales with market novelties while regulations in the field of water management lower this type of innovation success†

Ability to recall from memory an event Essay Example for Free

Ability to recall from memory an event Essay A study by Loftus and Palmer (1974) into the accuracy of Eye Witness Testimony aimed to find out if changing the wording of a question could distort ones ability to recall from memory an event. They showed their participants a series of car crash videos before asking them to fill out a questionnaire. One of the most important questions included asking the participants what speed the cars were travelling at. They used an independent measures design to divide the participants into 5 conditions: Smashed, Collided, Bumped, Hit, Contacted. The results from this experiment provide good research into accuracy of eyewitness testimony because it found that by changing the wording of a question, it significantly influenced the speeds given by the participants. For example, those in the smashed condition provided the highest average of speed of 40.8mph, whilst those in the contacted conditions average were merely 31.8mph. Similarly, when called back a week later and asked if any broken glass was seen, they found that although there wasnt any present, 32% in the smashed condition said they had seen broken glass. Loftus and Palmer therefore concluded that by using the word smash it gives suggestions of strong impact and thus shows that leading questions have an impact on the accuracy of eyewitness ability to re-call situations. The strengths from this study include providing useful insight for the police so they know that when interviewing witnesses they should be aware of the way they phrase their questions to ensure the memory of the witness isnt distorted in any way. Similarly, it shows that juries should be thoughtful before accepting the validity of a witness when listening to eye witness testimonies.  On the other hand there are also weaknesses to this study. Firstly, it lacks mundane realism and ecological validity because the film shown has less emotional impact than a real life situation would and the participants knew they were about to watch a film so thus transferred their full attention to the video, whereas in real life they would be taken by surprise. Similarly, contradictory evidence from Yuille and Cutshall (1986) weakens the credibility of this study. They interviewed people that had witnessed an incident where someone was shot dead and fatally injured and found that the witnesses accounts were not influenced by the leading questions and were in fact very clear. This suggests that more intense incidents perhaps improve ability of re-call. Other psychological research into anxiety and violence tells us more about accuracy of eye witness testimony. Yerkes-Dodson Law for example believed that an increase in arousal increases performance up to a certain point, which they called optimum level. They believed that once arousal when higher or lower than this level it would affect memory performance. This is supported by Peters (1988) who found that those receiving inoculations in a clinic (an anxiety generating event) found it difficult in accurately identifying the nurse who issued their jab. One can conclude that this was due to the high levels of arousal surrounding the participant during the time of the jab. Moreover, researcher has been conducted into whether attention focus or anxiety was the sole reason behind poor recall. Loftus Burns (1982) found that details of less-violent crimes were more accurate than details of highly violent crimes. Whilst Clifford scott (1978) found that witnesses to violent incidents generally re-call less than witness to non violent, regardless of whether a weapon was used. This shows that the level of violence involved in the incident had a strong influence on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Lastly, there is also research into how age affects accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Studies have shown that children are more likely to get influenced if tested on eye witness testimony than adults due to things such as language ability or memory processes. Evidence into language ability comes from Goodman and Schaaf (1997) who found that the more complex the question, the less accurate the answer given by the child. This suggests that one aspect of ensuring that eyewitness testimony remains accurate is to not test the child on skills that they are not fully developed in yet e.g. complex language. This is backed by a study by Ceci et al (2000) who found that children aged between 3-4 years were more influenced by leading questions. Research into memory processes shows that children may lack detail but not accuracy when it comes to re-call, which was found by Goodman and Reed (1986). Similarly, Memon et al (2003) studied the accuracy of young and older eye witnesses found that after 35 minutes there was no difference in accuracy of identification however, after 1 week, the older generation worsened significantly more than the younger generation.  To conclude, there has been a great deal of research into the accuracy of eye witness testimony and this has shown that there are many things that influence someones ability to re-call a situation accurately. Therefore, one could say that Eye witness testimony isnt the most accurate method.

Mechanism Of Electromechanical Induction Meter Information Technology Essay

Mechanism Of Electromechanical Induction Meter Information Technology Essay As the dismal economy spawns desperate measures, most of the residents of our beloved city, Karachi are resorting to a hazardous practice which is stealing electricity. Many utilities say energy theft has risen sharply during the recent economic downturn. Culprits include residential customers whose power is turned off when they fall behind on the bills and small businesses struggling to keep their doors open. They are using a wide array of tactics. Some run wires from utility lines directly into a circuit-breaker panel to bypass the electric meter. Others attached cables on either side of a meter, swipe meters from vacant houses when theirs are removed or tamper with meters to lower their electric bills. People from KESC are finding more and more people are stealing electricity because of the poor economy, said by the sources of electricity supplying corporation. It has been investigated that 3,197 cases of theft in January and February, a 28% jump over the year-ago period. Customers have stolen power for decades, costing utilities 1% to 4% of revenue or about RS 49 billion industry wide each year, according to Electric Light Power magazine. Losses are borned by other customers. Many thieves operate home-based marijuana farms that use lots of lights and power. But the problem is basically mushrooming. Meanwhile, consulting firm Detectent has identified a double-digit arise in business thefts the past six months, many by energy-guzzling restaurants. In Landhi, Deen Baksh, 48, was charged last fall with3 meter rigging. DTE Energy says he helped about 50 downtown businesses cut their gas and electric bills by more than RS.1 million or 30% to 50% each the past several years. The practice is actually dangerous. Touching a power line may burn or even kill an untrained person. In Philadelphia this month, an illegal electricity hookup in a row house resulted in a spark a fire that killed a 30-year-old woman and her 8-year-old daughter. Utilities often learn of thefts from meter readers, neighbors or may be abnormal use patterns. They expect to detect fraud earlier as they roll out smart meters that can remotely monitor electricity usage. Electricity theft can be in the form of fraud (meter tampering), stealing (illegal connections), billing irregularities, or unpaid bills. Estimates of the extent of electricity theft in a sample of 102 countries for 1980 and 2000 are studied. The evidence shows that theft is increasing in most of the regions of the world. The financial impacts of theft has reduced income from the sale of electricity and the necessity to charge more to consumers. Electricity theft is closely related to governance indicators, with higher peaks of theft in countries without effective accountability, political instability, low government effectiveness and high levels of corruption. Electricity theft can be lowered by applying technical solutions such as tamper-proof meters, managerial methods such as inspection and monitoring, and in some cases restructuring power systems ownership and regulation. The main purpose of our report is to present solution to economic problems and then economy rate will become higher. And that loss which KESC have to bear due to this problem will be decreased. Economically this idea has great benefit both for masses and society. Once the theft of electricity would be detected then steps will be taken to stop it which will yield in discouraging the people using electricity illegally. Energy will be distributed to everyone justly thus everyone will be paying charges of only the amount they consume. Energy generating and distributing bodies will not be having extra load over their lines thus no power trips and break downs will occur so no extra money required for correcting such problems. CHAPTER NO 01 ELECTRIC METER 1.1 ELECTRIC METERS: An electric meter or energy meter is equipment that can measure the amount of electrical energy consumed by a residence, business, or an electrically powered device. Electric meters are usually calibrated in billing units; the most common is the kilowatt hour. Periodic readings of electric meters give billing cycles and energy used during a cycle. In settings when energy savings during certain periods are desired, meters may measure demand which is the maximum use of power in some interval. In some areas, the electric rates are higher during specific times of day for encouraging reduction in use. Also, in some areas meters have switches to turn off nonessential equipment. Electricity meters work by continuously measuring the instantaneous voltage (volts) and current (amperes) and then finding the product of these to give instantaneous electrical power (watts) which is afterwards integrated against time to give energy used (joules, kilowatt-hours etc.). Meters for smaller services (for instance small residential customers) can be connected directly in-line between source and customer. For larger loads, i.e. more than about 200 amps of load, current transformers are used, so that the meter can be located other than in line with the service conductors. The meters fall into two basic categories, electromechanical and electronic. 1.1.1 Mechanism of electromechanical induction meter. 1. Voltage coil many turns of fine wire encased in plastic, connected in parallel with load. 2. Current coil three turns of thick wire, connected in series with load. 3.Stator-concentrates and confines magnetic field. 4.Aluminum rotor disc. 5. Rotor brake magnets. 6. Spindle with worm gear. 7. Display dials note that the 1/10, 10 and 1000 dials rotate clockwise while the 1, 100 and 10000 dials rotate counter-clockwise. The electromechanical induction meter operates by counting the revolutions of an aluminum disc which is made to rotate at a speed proportional to the power. The number of revolutions is thus proportional to the energy usage. It consumes a small amount of power, typically around 2 watts. The metallic disc is acted upon by two coils. One coil is connected in such a way that it produces a magnetic flux in proportion to the voltage and the other produces a magnetic flux in proportion to the current. The field of the voltage coil is delayed by 90 degrees using a lag coil.[16] This produces eddy currents in the disc and the effect is such that a force is exerted on the disc in proportion to the product of the instantaneous current and voltage. A permanent magnet exerts an opposing force proportional to the speed of rotation of the disc. The equilibrium between these two opposing forces results in the disc rotating at a speed proportional to the power being used. The disc drives a register mechanism which integrates the speed of the disc over time by counting revolutions, much like the odometer in a car, in order to render a measurement of the total energy used over a period of time. The type of meter described here is basically used on a single-phase AC supply. Different phase configurations use additional voltage and current coils in them. 1.1.2 CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT) METERING: Huge businesses or multi storey buildings use so much power that they cant be connected to the network via the usual methods so in order for these sites to be metered, the load needs to be broken down so the meter will be able to cope with it and then be multiplied out again in order to get the full amount of power being used. This is known as CT metering. Actually the load comes into a CT chamber from where it is then distributed from buzz bars containing transformers to CT links and then into the meter. The CT chamber also goes into the customers switchboard. The rating of the transformers finds out the multiplier to be applied when calculating true usage. 1.1.3 METER USED IN THE PROJECT: The meter used in our final year project is electromechanical induction meter. 1.2 UNIT OF MEASUREMENT: Kilowatt hour is the most common unit of measurement on the electricity meter which is equal to the amount of energy used by a load of one kilowatt over a period of one hour, or 3,600,000 joules. Some electricity companies also use the SI mega joule instead. Remote current and voltage sensors are be read and programmed remotely by modem and locally by infra-red. The circle with two dots is the infra-red port give the reading. Tamper-evident seals are also present in some meters. Demand is usually measured in watts, but averaged over a period, most often a quarter or half hour 1.3 ELECTRICITY THEFT: Meters can be controlled to make them under-register, effectively permitting power use without paying for it. This theft or fraud can be dangerous and also dishonest. Electricity theft can be in the form of i)fraud (meter tampering) ii)stealing (illegal connections) iii)billing irregularities iv)Unpaid bills. Another common method of tampering on older meters is to attach magnets to the outside of the meter. They magnetically saturate the coils or current transformers, preventing the alternating current from forming eddy currents in the rotor, or inducing voltages in the current transformer. Also rectified DC loads cause mechanical (but not electronic) meters to under-register. DC current does not cause the coils to make eddy currents in the disk so this causes reduced rotation and a lower the bill. Some combinations of capacitive and inductive load can also interact with the coils and mass of a rotor and cause reduced or reverse motion. 1.3.1 Basic Layout Of The Project Including Electricity Theft Possibilities: Bypass wire Breaker to cut out the meter Home Neutral Wire, neutral current iN Phase wire, phase current iP Earth wire Meter Case 1: If there is no bypassing of the meter and the entire load is OFF. iN (Neutral current) = iP (Phase Current) = 0 Case 2: If there is no bypassing of the meter and the entire load is ON. iN (Neutral Current) = iP (Phase current) = some value Case 3; If there is meter bypassing and the entire load is ON. iP (Phase current ) = 0 iN (Neutral Current) = load The first target is to sense / measure phase and neutral current. And if case 3 is verified than it will be a theft case. 1.3.2 Outcomes Of Electricity Theft: The evidence shows that theft is vastly increasing in most regions of the world. The financial impacts of theft have resulted in reduced income from the sale of electricity and the necessity to charge more to consumers. Electricity theft is closely concerned to governance indicators, with higher levels of theft in countries without effective accountability, political instability, low government effectiveness and high levels of corruption. Power theft has surely become an infamously prevalent practice in many parts of the country, both rural and urban. Many cases go unreported in various cities and villages, costing a lot to our countries burdened economy. People actually pay some local electrician a little money to reverse the electricity meter of the house and/or slow its pace. Some people also learn the trick from an electrician and help their family/friends steal electricity. 1.3.3 General Methods To Reduce Electricity Theft: Electricity theft can be reduced by Applying technical solutions such as tamper-proof meters. Managerial methods such as inspection and monitoring. Restructuring power systems ownership and regulation.. A common method of tampering on older meters is to attach magnets to the outside of the meter. These magnetically saturate the coils or current transformers, preventing the alternating current from forming eddy currents in the rotor, or inducing voltages in the current transformer. Rectified DC loads cause mechanical (but not electronic) meters to under-register. DC current does not cause the coils to make eddy currents in the disk, so this causes reduced rotation and a lower bill. Some combinations of capacitive and inductive load can interact with the coils and mass of a rotor and cause reduced or reverse motion. CHAPTER NO 02 MEASUREMENT OF AC CURRENT: 2.1 DESCRIPTION: Here we have considered household power is single-phase electric power, with two or three wired contacts at each outlet. The live wire (also known as phase, hot or active contact), carries alternating current between the power grid and the household. The neutral wire completes the electrical circuit by also carrying alternating current between the power grid and the household. The neutral is staked into the ground as often as possible, and therefore has the same electrical charge as the earth. This prevents the power circuits from rising beyond earth, such as when they are struck by lighting or become otherwise charged. The earth wire or ground connects cases of equipment to earth ground as a protection against faults (Electric Shock). 2.2 MEASUREMENT OF AC CURRENT: Its very difficult to measure ac current and produce voltage proportional to it. For measurement of ac current Hall Effect devices are mostly used. They produce the voltage proportional to the magnetic field in the air gap by inserting Hall Effect magnetic field sensor in the current transformer core air gap. The circuits below measure the ac current without using Hall Effect devices. 2.2.1 WORKING: FIG 1: An electric current J2 is introduced in the secondary winding of the coil which is proportional to the primary winding J1.Th secondary current can be controller by means of number of turns on primary and secondary winding. The primary winding either have one turn or a number of turns wrapped around it while the secondary winding has usually multiple turns around it. If the current transformer is ideal then the current in the secondary winding is equal to that in primary winding. But if it is possess non-ideal characteristics then the current in both windings will not be equal due to substantial phase angle, error of ratio, and/or wave shape in its output. They are the function of: The properties possess by magnetic core. How much burden on it. How much dc component present in the primary current. FIG2: Due to burden in the secondary the currents in the secondary and primary arent equal. Fig 2is used to reduce this effect .V4 is the voltage which is proportional to the rate of magnetic flux and is introduced by terminating the sense winding 10 to high impedance; the effective burden can be reduced by applying it tin series to the secondary winding after it is being amplified. Now the currents in secondary will be proportional accurately to that in primary since the magnetic flux changes in the core is reduced to zero. Smaller flux changes and higher accuracy will be achieved by higher gains in the amplifier circuit while on the other hand this leads to instability and associated =oscillations in the circuit. This technique is a better measure of ac current but the problem raised may be due to the dc component in the primary current FIG 3: Compensation voltage is generated by using secondary current as input and this voltage is required for driving the secondary current. The voltage generated V1 is proportional to the driving current J2 and the output voltage V3 is produced as an information signal. The advantage of above circuit is that instead of using Hall Effect sensors ordinary current transformers can be utilized to measure the ac current with a dc component .The above current sensor has the following properties: Even in the presence of primary current the current transformer gives accurate output. This circuit uses a relatively inexpensive and simple magnetic core. Stable over temperature and time. Primary current in in effected by noise. The voltage V3 is utilized further to obtain a dc voltage. For this purpose this ac output is passed by a rectifier circuit in order to obtain a dc voltage at the output. CHAPTER #03: MICROCONTROLLERS 3.1 INTRODUCTION: Microcontrollers are devices that have CPU, RAM, ROM, I/O ports, and timers all on a single chip. In other words all are embedded on a single chip. For applications in which cost and space are critical issue microcontrollers are preferred for their above mentioned features. Microcontroller is one of the major components of this design as it plays key role of the coordination between all the components. It inputs current signal and evaluates the theft. The result is then sent to remote office by connecting mobile to microcontroller. AT commands are used for communication between mobile and microcontroller. Microcontrollers are available with different instruction set, registers, speed, packaging and costs. There are many different types of microcontrollers. Freescales 6811, Intel 8051, Zilogs Z8, and PIC 16X from microchip technology are popular 8 bit microcontrollers. Nowadays 16 bit and 32 bit microcontrollers are also available. Microcontrollers are not compatible with each other because each has a different instruction set and registers. Certain important points must be kept in mind while selecting a microcontroller for a particular application. Firstly it must be able to satisfy all computational needs. These computational needs include capacity and speed. Speed: While choosing a microcontroller it should be operating at the speed that is required for the application Capacity: For certain applications programs are too long and they exceed on chip RAM capacity. Therefore it is necessary to consider on chip RAM memory. Secondly it must be compatible with devices used in application. This is an important issue. There are many microcontrollers which support only a particular baud rate and are incompatible with the devices that operate at the higher baud rate. Thirdly it must be available in required quantities and at the required costs. 3.2 POPULAR MICROCONTROLLERS: Two important microcontrollers that are widely used are 8051 and PIC. 3.2.1 8051 Family: There are many members of 8051 family which are produced by different vendors and have different features. Some of the well known are: 8051: 8051 was originally produced by Intel corporation .It has 4Kbytes ROM and 128bytes on chip RAM .Other products are 8052 and 8031 microcontrollers. These two have additional features such as increased ROM capacity, speed and timers. AT89C51:One of the most widely used 8051 microcontrollers is AT89C51 from Atmel Corporation. It is one of the most widely used from 8051 microcontrollers because of its easy availability and low cost. OTP version of 8051: One time programmable versions of 8051 are also widely used. Because of its low cost it is used for mass production. 3.3 PREVIOUS APPROACH: Earlier for project purpose Atmel89C51 was selected and ADC0808 was used along with it to convert current to digital. 3.3.1 ATMEL 89C51: It is one of the most commonly used controllers. The reasons behind its popularity are: It is widely available. Programming language is very simple. All its development tools are readily available. 3.3.1.1 Features: It is low powered and 8 bit microcontroller. 32 I/O lines. 6 interrupts 2 timers. 4K flash memory Serial programming is also possible. The figure below shows the pins of Atmel AT89C51. If AT89C51 is used for the current implementation then following points need to be considered: 3.3.1.2 Interfacing ADC With Microcontrollers: It does not have built in ADC therefore an external ADC is interfaced to entertain analog inputs. Normally ADC0808 and ADC0848 are used. 3.3.1.3 Serial communication: For serial communication it has built in UART mode. There is a special serial register known as SBUF. 3.3.1.4 ADC0808: As current is analog quantity and 8051 can only accept digital inputs therefore an ADC was needed .For this purpose ADC0808 was preferred as it is easily available in markets and compatible with 8051. Due to the compatibility issue atmel8951 was replaced by pic16F877A. 3.3.2 PIC: PIC stands for programmable Interface controller and it is made by microchip technology. PIC is widely preferred for industrial applications due to their low cost, capacity, extensive features and wide availability of development tools like its programmer, compiler etc. 3.3.2.1Features Of PIC: It follows Harvard architecture that is code and data spaces are separate. They even have a separate bus. This allows program and data to be fetched simultaneously. Code space is implemented as ROM whereas for data space we have general purpose RAM. However addressable data space is small. There is only one accumulator. Most of the PIC controllers are 8-bit microcontroller that all data should be in 8 bits and all operations are also performed in 8 bits chunks. They also support instructions, operations and commands that allow user to work on single bit. It has predefined instruction set with few changes for different versions .The instruction set includes instructions that support direct memory addressing as well as indirect addressing. It also supports conditions and branching. Newer versions of pic also have built in ADC into the microcontroller. PIC have hardware call stack which cannot be accessed through software. They save return addresses. TYPES OF PIC MICROCONTROLLERS: There are many PIC series of which well known are as follows: PIC17 SERIES PIC18 SERIES PIC32 SERIES PIC24 SERIES PIC16 SERIES For the project PIC16f877A is covered in detail therefore PIC 16 series is discussed briefly. 3.3.2.2 PIC16 Series: PIC16 Series are small, fast, and are available in most of areas. There are many different variants of pic16 series in which some have more I/O pins some have ADC, some have more memory. 3.4 CURRENT APPROACH: 3.4.1 PIC16F877A: For this project pic 16f877A has been used .The reasons behind using it were as follows: It is widely available in most of the areas. It has built in 10 bit ADC that was needed for our project. Its compiler and programmer were also easily available. It supports baud rate required for our application and it is compatible with devices that are used. It is relatively easy to program. The details of the pins are provided in the Appendix A 3.4.1.1 Features Of PIC16F877A: It is a 40 pin device 5 I/O ports A, B, C, D and E some pins are multiplexed so that they can be used for peripheral functions. 15 interrupts 8 A/D input channels 35 single word instructions and 1 instruction is composed of 14 bits. 20 MHz operating speed Data memory of 368 bytes EEPROM memory of 256 bytes 3 timers 2 analog comparators. 3.5 HARDWARE SECTION: Hardware design of PIC consists of combining different modules and devices with the controller that work together in order to attain information from the E-meter and read into the micro-controller. In this section ports, oscillators, registers of PIC that are used for implementing the design are briefly discussed: 3.5.1 Oscillator: External oscillator with a frequency of 12 MHz is used in order to achieve clock speed of 8MHz.The baud rate is set at 9600kbps. Internal oscillator of pic is not used. 3.5.2 I/O Ports: As the current has to be sensed through the microcontroller therefore portA is used and is configured for analog input (AN0 to AN7). Its corresponding direction register is TRISA. 3.5.3 Analog to Digital Converter Module: PIC16F877A has eight pins for Analog-to-Digital (A/D) Converter module. The conversion of an analog input signal results in a corresponding 10-bit digital number. It can even operate in sleep mode. The A/D clock must be derived from the A/Ds internal RC oscillator. The AD module has four registers adresh, adresl, adcon0 and adcon1. The 10 bit AD result is stored in adresh and adresl registers.ADCON1 is used for configuration of port pins. The operation of AD module is controlled through ADCON0. 3.5.4 USART: In order to generate alarm at remote office, controller is connected to mobile. The phone is connected to Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (USART) module which is one of the two serial I/O modules of PIC16F877A. USART is also known as a Serial Communications Interface or SCI. USART uses standard Non-Return to- Zero (NRZ) format (one Start bit, eight or nine data bits and one Stop bit). The USART transmits and receives the LSB first. The transmitter and receiver function independently. 3.6 SOFTWARE DESIGN: 3.6.1 Development Tools: The code is written in pic basic pro language. The code is then converted to hex via microcode studio and hex code is loaded into pic16F877A through quad programmer. Microcode studio is used because its free version is easy available on internet. For compiler three header files are made. One file is used by compiler other is used by programmer. The file with the extension .BAS is used by pbp .Pbp then makes .ASM file from it. It then makes .ASM file from it. If code is error free then assembler required output file with hex code in it. This hex code is loaded in the pic by quad programmer. 3.6.2 Program Code: There are multiple parts of the software design, as the micro-controller plays many parts in the coordination of the instrumentation panel. Firstly internal ADC of the PIC16F877A is configured to sense the current. The next step for the code is to check if input is greater than 0 .If it is greater than 0 then a message is sent to remote office through mobile. For this AT commands are used that are specially made for communication between GSM modules and microcontroller. Other than the mentioned AT commands in the following table are in appendix B COMMANDS PURPOSE ATZ AT+CMGF 3. AT+CMGS 4. AT+CMGL Recall Stored Profile Message Format Send Message List Messages CHAPTER NO 04: WIRELESS ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES: 4.1 EVOLVING WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES IN PAKISTAN: There are two important wireless access technologies that can be used within Pakistan and are feasible for our project and that are: WIMAX GSM 4.2 GSM TECHNOLOGY: For mobile telephony systems in the world, the most popular standard is GSM. The GSM Association estimated that 80% of the global mobile market uses the standard. 1.5 billion People across more than 212 countries and territories uses GSM technology for their benefits. This means that subscribers can use their phones throughout the world between mobile network operators, enabled by international roaming arrangements. GSM is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system because GSM differs from its predecessor technologies in that both signaling and speech channels are digital. GSM also facilitates the wide-spread implementation of data communication applications into the system. The GSM standard provides an advantage to both consumers, who may benefit from the ability to roam and switch carriers without replacing phones, and also to network operators, who can choose equipment from many GSM equipment vendors.GSM also pioneered cheapest implementation of the short message service (SMS), also called text messaging, which has since been supported on other mobile phone standards as well. A worldwide emergency telephone number feature is also provided by this standard. GSM also supports indoor coverage and may be achieved by using an indoor picocell base station, or an indoor repeater with distributed indoor antennas fed through power splitters, to deliver the radio signals from an antenna outdoors to the separate indoor distributed antenna system. When a lot of call capacity is needed indoors then these are typically deployed; for example, in airports or shopping centers. However, this is not a prerequisite, since indoor coverage is also achieved by in-building penetration of the radio signals from any nearby cell. The modulation technique used in GSM is Gaussian minimum-shift keying (GMSK). It is a kind of continuous-phase frequency shift keying. In Gaussian minimum-shift keying, the signal to be modulated onto the carrier is first smoothed with a Gaussian low-pass filter prior to being fed to a frequency modulator, so it greatly reduces the interference to neighboring channels (adjacent-channel interference). 4.2.1 GSM CARRIER FREQUENCY: GSM networks operate in a number of different carrier frequency ranges (separated into GSM frequency ranges for 2G and UMTS frequency bands for 3G), the most 2G GSM networks operating in the 900Â  MHz or 1800Â  MHz bands. The 850Â  MHz and 1900Â  MHz bands were used instead, Where these bands were already allocated (for example in Canada and the United States). In some countries the 400 and 450Â  MHz frequency bands are assigned In rare cases because they were previously used for first-generation systems. In Europe Most 3G networks operate in the 2100Â  MHz frequency band. Regardless of the frequency selected by an operator, it is divided into timeslots for individual phones to use. That is why it allows eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency. These eight radio timeslots (or eight burst periods) are further grouped into a TDMA frame. In the same timeslot half rate channels use alternate frames. The channel data rate for all 8 channels is 270.833Â  kbit/s, and the frame duration is 4.615Â  ms. The transmission power limited in a handset to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM850/900 and 1 watt in GSM1800/1900. 4.2.2 NETWORK STRUCTURE: The network is structured into a number of discrete sections: The Base Station Subsystem (the base stations and their controllers). The Network and Switching Subsystem (the part of the network most similar to a fixed network). This is also called the core network. The GPRS Core Network (the optional part which allows packet based Internet connections). For maintenance of the network, the Operations support system (OSS). 4.2.3 SMS MODES IN GSM: We have two types of SMS modes in GSM SMS Text Mode SMS PDU Mode The text mode (It is unavailable on some phones) is simply an encoding of the bit stream. It is represented by the PDU mode. There are several encoding alternatives when displaying an SMS message and Alphabets may differ. The most common options are PCCP437, PCDN, 8859-1, IRA and GSM. These are

The Role of Financial Intermediation in Banking

The Role of Financial Intermediation in Banking Financial intermediaries exist to solve or reduce market imperfections such as differences in preferences of lenders and borrowers, transaction cost, shocks in consumers consumption and asymmetric information. Theories developed to explain how financial intermediaries reduce market imperfection: Asset transformation Transaction cost reduction Liquidity insurance Informational economies of scale and delegated monitoring Asset Transformation Asset transformation is a process performed by financial intermediaries to transform particular types of assets into to others. This is to satisfy the need of borrowers for long term capital and the need of lender for high degree of liquidity in their asset. Financial intermediaries transform the primary securities issued by firms into indirect securities by lenders. They issue liabilities (deposit claims) which are short term, low risk and high liquidity, and use parts of these funds to acquire larger, high risk and illiquid claims. 3 Main Transformations Maturity Transformation As the liabilities of financial intermediaries mature faster than their assets, financial intermediaries mismatch the maturity of the assets will maturity of the liabilities by making long-term loans and fund them by issuing short-term deposit. Size Transformation The amount required by borrowers are much more than the amount made available by lenders. Financial intermediaries will then collect and combine the funders from lenders as required by the borrowers. Liquidity Transformation Financial intermediaries provide financial or secondary claims or loans. Deposits which are held under liabilities of banks balance are low risk and high liquidity, while loans which are held under the assets of banks balance are riskier and illiquid. To hold liabilities and assets of different degree of liquidity, financial intermediaries will diversify their portfolios. More diversification will lower the default probability. Risk Transformation Financial intermediaries must be seen by the lenders as a safe place to make deposits. However, the loans made by the intermediaries to the borrower bear some default risk. Therefore, financial intermediaries have to transform risk to reconcile the preferences of borrowers and lenders. Firstly, banks use credit scoring to select good borrowers with good repaying loans history to minimize the risk of loss of each loan. Second is to diversify risk by lending to different types of borrowers. Banks try to avoid heavy concentration on an economic activity or on a particular area. They also limit the amount that can be loan out. Example: From 1985-1989, 400 Texan banks failed which are resulted from heavy concentration on their loan portfolio in real estate dependent on the oil businesses. Third is by pooling risks. Variability of losses can be reduced by making loans to many borrowers. Although by making out many loans does not reduce the loss in the portfolio of loans overall, but it increase the bank accuracy of prediction and limits maximum loss for which the intermediaries has to allow. How financial intermediaries reduce transaction costs? Financial intermediaries reduce transaction costs by internalizing them. They make network and information system available to lenders and borrowers. As such, lenders and borrowers do not have to find a suitable counterpart each time they want to make a transaction with the other party. Financial intermediaries also provide standardized products which help to reduce the information cost related with scrutinizing individual financial instruments. They also use tested procedures and routines. Theory of transaction costs Economies of scale refer to the transaction costs per dollar of output is reduced as the number of financial transactions increase. Example: When using loan contract for many loans, the unit cost of a contract per loan is lower than a loan contract drawn up individually when undertaking direct lending. Economies of cost refer to the cost of producing at least 2 products together is lower that producing them individually. It is concerned with deposit and payment services, because deposits are legal financial claims which allow banks to collect funds to sustain their lending activities and satisfy the request of making payments. Expertise They developed expertise to lower transaction cost. Financial intermediaries such as banks and mutual funds develop in information technology such as ATM to provide liquidity service. Asymmetric Information Adverse Selection It arises when borrowers who are likely to produce undesirable results are the one who are actively seeking loans, because they know that they are unlikely to pay it back. Adverse selection increases the probability that the loan might become a bad credit risk. Hence, lenders may decide not to loan out, even when there is good credit risk. Moral Hazard It is the risk that occurs after the transaction has been made. It is the risk that the borrower may engage in activities which is undesirable from the lenders point of view because there a likelihood that the loan will not be repaid. Therefore, lenders may decide not to make loan. How adverse selection influence financial structure? Equity Market When borrower wanted to make investment and yet is unable to distinguish between good and bad firms, he is only willing to pay the price the price that reflects the average quality of firms. However, the firms have more information than the investors and will know the quality of the projects. Good firms will not be willing to sell the securities because they know that their securities are undervalued. Only bad firms are willing to sell their securities at the average price because the price is higher than the value of bad firms securities. However, investors may not want to buy securities from bad firms and end up decides not to buy any. Bond Market A potential investor will only be willing to buy a bond if the interest rate is high enough to compensate him the average default risk between the good and bad firms. Good firms will not want to borrow funds because they know that they are less risk adverse and should not pay an interest that is higher than what they originally should pay for. Only bad firms are willing to pay for such interest rate. However, investor does not wish to buy bond from bad firms. Subsequently, there will be fewer bonds sold in the markets. Tool used which helps to reduce or solve adverse selection problems Private production and sales of information Government regulation to increase information Financial intermediaries Private companies such as Standard and Poors, Moodys and Value Line gather firms financial position and investment activities, and sell them to potential investor. Such information will help investors in making more accurate investment decisions. However, this does not completely solve the asymmetric problem because of the free-rider problem. The free-rider problem occurs when individual who do not pay for the information take advantage of the information of which others has paid for. An investor who has paid for the information knows which the are good firms. He decides to buy securities of good firms that are undervalued. The free-riding investors observe which securities is the investor who paid for information is buying, will buy the same securities. This leads to increase in demand of the securities and soon the price of that security will increase to reflect the true value. As a result, because of these free-riders, the investors who bought the information will not benefit. As such, he will realize that he should not buy the information in the first place. If other investors also realize this, private companies may not be able to make enough profit from producing the information, and less information is produced in the market and so adverse selection will interfere with the efficient function of securities markets. Government regulation to increase information Government could regulate financial markets to ensure that firms disclose all information so that investors could distinguish between good firms and bad firms. In United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the government agency that requires firm selling securities to be certified in adhering to standard accounting principles and disclose honest information about their sales, assets and earnings. But, government intervention on disclosing information does not solve adverse selection completely because accounting principles can be manipulated. Also bad firms can slant information which is required to transmit public to make them look like good firms. By doing so, they can get higher price for their securities. Thus, investors will have problem again to identify which firms are the good ones. Financial intermediaries Financial intermediaries such as banks have developed expertise in the production of information so that they can evaluate the quality of firms better. Banks produce information through the transactions on the borrowers bank accounts. From the transactions, banks will be able to determine the suitability of credit and ability to repay the loan. Banks then acquire funds from depositors and lend them to good firms. By lending the money to good firms, banks will be able to earn a higher return than they pay to depositors. Banks will then earn profit and can continue in producing information. Also, banks can make profit because it can avoid free-rider problem. They make private loans which are not traded in open markets. As such, other investors cannot follow what the bank did and bid the price of loan where the bank does not get any gain for the information it produces. Fact: Banks are important to developing countries. When banks produce information, the problem on asymmetric problem is less severe, and it will be easier for firms to issue securities. Information in developing countries is difficult to get as compared to developed countries. Therefore, banks have to play the role in producing information. Collateral Collateral which is property that promised to the lender if the lender default, reduces the adverse selection problem because it reduces the lender losses if the borrower goes into default. How moral hazard influences financial markets Moral hazard occurs after the transaction takes place. It is the risk that the borrower may engage in risky activities which is undesirable from the lenders point of view, because the loan may be unpaid. Because of the presence of moral hazard problems, firms find it easier to raise fund with debt instruments rather than with equity contracts. Moral hazard in equity contracts Equity contracts subject to a type of moral hazard known as principal-agent problem. In a firm, there are managers and stockholders. Usually, managers and stockholders are different people. Managers are the ones who have more information than the stockholders while the stockholders own most of the firms equity. The separation of ownership and control and with the presence of asymmetric information, managers may act in their own interest rather than the interest of the stockholder because managers have fewer incentives to maximize the profit that the stockholder do. Tools to help reduce/solve moral hazard in equity markets Production of information: monitoring To reduce moral hazard problem, stockholders can engage in the monitoring of the firm activities by auditing the firm frequently and checking on what the management is doing. However, monitoring can be very costly. (Monitoring is a costly state verification). This also explains in parts why equity is not an important element in the financial structure. However, this could also cause free-rider problem. Free-rider problem reduces the moral hazard problem. Because, when stockholder knows that other stockholders are paying for the monitoring activities, he can free ride on their activities. If all stockholders share the same mentality, no stockholders will be willing to pay for the monitoring activities. Government regulation to increase information Governments enforce laws to ensure that firms are adhering to accounting standards which can verify the profit easier, and impose penalties on people who committed fraud in hiding or stealing the profit. However, this measure is not very effective because managers have the incentive to make fraud difficult to be proven. Financial intermediaries active in the equity market An example of financial intermediaries is the venture capital firm which cans helps to reduce moral hazard arising from the principal-agent problem. They use fund of their partners to help entrepreneurs in setting up new businesses. In exchange for the use of funds provided by venture capital firm, venture capital firm get an equity shares in the new business. Because verifying profit is important in eliminating moral hazard, venture capital firms usually insist on having several of their own people to participate in the management of the firm. Also, the equity in the firm cannot be sold to anyone but to the venture capital firm. Therefore, other investors are unable to free-ride on the venture capital firms activities on verifying profit. Debt Contracts Debt contract is a contractual agreement by which the borrower promised to pay lender fixed amount at regular intervals. The amount of profit made by firm will not affect how much will the lender be receiving. Therefore, whether did the managers have been hiding or stealing profit or engaging in activities which do not increase the level of profit earned, it is of no concern to the lenders, so long as the firm is able to make payment. Only when the firm is unable to make payment as promised, then will the lenders have to know how much profit is the firm getting. As such, less monitoring is required for debt contracts and therefore, lowering the cost of state verification. This also explains why debt contracts are used more often than equity contracts to raise funds. The concept of moral hazard explains why stocks are not the most important source of financing for businesses. How moral hazard influences financial structure in debt markets Although debt contracts has lower moral hazard as compared to equity contracts, but debt contracts are still subjected to moral hazard. Because debt contracts only require firms to pay a fixed amount and allow them to keep profit above this amount, firms have an incentive to take on risky investment projects Tools to help reduce/solve moral hazard in debt markets Making debt contract incentive-compatible High net worth makes the debt contract incentive-compatible; it aligns the incentive of the borrower with that of the lender. Firms with higher net worth are more likely to act in the way that are desirable form the lenders point of view, and thus reducing moral hazard problem, and it will be easier for firms to borrow. Monitoring and enforcement of restrictive covenants By introducing restrictive covenants into debt contracts, moral hazard problems are be reduced, as restrictive covenants is a provision which restricts firms activities by either ruling out undesirable behavior or encouraging desirable behavior. There are mainly four types of covenants/ Covenants to discourage undesirable behaviors Such covenants restrict firms to use the debt contracts to finance on fixed assets or inventories. Others may restrict firms to engage in risky activities such as acquiring other businesses. Covenants may also disallow firm to issue new debt or dispose it asset, and may also restrict dividend payments if ratios such as leverage ratio, ratio of debt to equity has up to a certain level. Covenants that encourage desirable behavior Such covenants require the borrower to have a life insurance that pays off the loan upon the death of the borrower. Such covenants may also encourage firms to keep it net worth high because firms with high net worth reduce the moral hazard problem. Hence, it minimizes the chance that the lenders may be making losses. These covenants require firms to maintain minimum holding of asset relative to the size of the firm. Covenant to keep collateral valuable Such covenants encourage borrower to keep the collateral in good condition and it must be in the possession of the borrower. Covenants to provide information Such covenants provide information about its activities periodically in the form of quarterly accounting and income reports. Such covenants may also allow the lender to audit the firms anytime. This explains why debt contracts are complicated legal documents with restrictions on borrowers behavior. Covenants reduce moral hazard but do not eliminate them, as it not difficult to rule out every risky activity. Also, to ensure that firms are complying with the covenants, monitoring must be enforced. However, monitoring is very costly. Investors may free-ride on the monitoring activities undertaken by other investors. Financial intermediaries, particularly banks are able to avoid the free-riders problems

mardi gras :: essays research papers fc

Mardi Gras, literally â€Å"Fat Tuesday,† has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous’ sometimes hedonistic event. Buts its roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the â€Å"last hurrah† before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. That is why the enormous ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday. There are well-known season-long Carnival celebrations in Europe and Latin America, including Nice, France; Cologne, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The best known celebration in the United States is in New Orleans and the French-Catholic communities of the Gulf Coast. Another popular site for the celebration of Mardi Gras is Galveston, Texas. Mardi Gras has become a major influence to the people and the economy of Galveston. With its great history and deep economic impact Mardi Gras is beneficial to both the community and visitors to the Island.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first celebration took place in 1867, when a dramatic entertainment and masked ball took place in t he old Turner Hall. The dramatic entertainment was a scene from â€Å"‘King Henry IV,’ featuring Alvan Reed (a justice of the peace weighing in at 350 pounds!) as Falstaff† (Mardi Gras!). The first time Mardi Gras was celebrated to any great extent was in 1871, when there were two night parades by separate organizations, one known as the Knights of Momus and the other as the Knights of Myth, both of which devised masked ball, exquisite costumes. In the years that followed, the parades and balls grew more elaborate and attracting attention throughout the state. After the hurricane of 1900 the events were discontinued for several years. The celebrations were gradually revived, but not on an extensive scale. It was not until 1914 that a group called the â€Å"Kotton Karnival Kids† staged parades for both Mardi Gras and the Galveston Cotton Carnival. â€Å" The 1917 masked ball took on added glamour with the first official appearance of King Frivolous and his court,...†(Mardi Gras!). The king was given the key to the city. With the outbreak of World War I, Mardi Gras was confined to small single day festivities. Shortly after the war the celebration a new revival. It was not until the threat war once again placed the celebration on hold. â€Å"In 1985, native Galvestonian George P. Mitchell and his wife, Cynthia, launched the revival of a citywide Mardi Gras celebration† (Mardi Gras!). Now under the supervision of the Galveston Park Board of Trustees, Mardi Gras spans two weekends and several days in between with parades, masked balls, and many different theatrical entertainments.

Black Men in Public Spaces Essay

When comparing my essay situation that I wrote about my dad’s run in with racism to Staples essay, one could say that they are both similar and different. In general, their situations were similar because both incidents involved some form of racism. Staples story and my dad’s story both took place in the 1980’s. However, I believe these types of racism are still very much alive. The difference between Staples situation and my dad’s was their responses and how they chose to handle their situations. My father’s story, I felt displayed courage on his part. He didn’t have to act a certain way, change himself, or adapt to his environment to fit in. He did what he needed to do and did not think twice about it. He walked into a diner full of people who stared at him as if he were from another planet. Yet he still went about his business and ordered his food while feeling the piercing stares burn through his flesh. Although he felt uncomfortable bein g the only Asian man in sight, he ignored the staring faces. The differences I found in their situations were that Staples coped with racism by, ‘smothering the rage’ he had to change who he was. This can be perceived in different ways. You can look at this and think that he was a coward who didn’t want to deal with what was in front of him, or you can look at this and think that he was a smart person who had courage to find his own ways to cope. We may not all agree that Staples way of dealing with things is the correct way however, it was the way he chose. He taught himself to take precaution by, allowing room between people in front of him and himself when walking, when he felt that people were uncomfortable, he would, ‘whistle melodies from Beethoven, Vivaldi, and other classical composers’. Instead of dealing with being misperceived as a killer, rapist, or murderer, he adjusted his daily way of life around others. I believe this type of racism towards young male men is common. I am a woman, and am afraid for my life about being raped, killed, or mugged. I grab on tight to the strap of my purse when I am in neighborhoods that are likely targets of purse snatchings. It is very common to hear about women who were raped by ‘young males, wearing jeans, with a sweater and their hands in their pocket’ this is a common description of almost 95% of all young males walking around late in the evening. I can relate to the women because I am a woman and I believe I would have also been afraid just like Staples ‘first victim’ was afraid. She’s a woman, she’s walking alone, walking in a dark alley and a male fitting the  description I stated above is behind her also walking alone. I’ve felt this type of anxiety when walking alone at night, or when I am running alone on a trail. It just isn’t safe being a woman walking alone in this society. If I heard a jogger running, or someone walking behind me whistling, I too w ould be afraid. I believe it was wise for Staples to come up with such a creative solution. He had to do what he felt he needed to in order to survive, in order to not get arrested, or be mistaken for someone he is not and until society changes their stereotype of young African American males, his tactics for coping is a great idea. He goes on to say how ‘black men trade stories like this all time’ because they are misperceived as a killer, rapist, or a mugger, they are automatically put in a position of being in danger. Staples did what he had to do to survive. It’s almost as if he has found a way to add a bit of humor to the situation. I’ve always believed in the saying, ‘You cannot change the things that are thrown your way, or others peoples actions, but what you can change is the way you react to them’. It is easy to say ‘why do I have to change? Why can’t society change, why can’t others change?’ Yes, this maybe the answer of all answers the answer that makes the most sense however, the reality is you can’t change anyone but you can change yourself and your reaction to things. I believe Staples coping strategies with being misperceived, were effective. Staples, and African American male talks of how he would walk the streets at night and would whistle classical music, to ease fears of the people around him who may think he’s a killer, or a mugger. He felt that he had to change his mannerisms and learn to adapt to being misperceived. It’s easy to say, why should Staples change? Why can’t society or everyone else change? Is it Staples responsibility as a young black man to alert the people around him that he is not a threat? Staples also says that ‘black men trade stories like this all the time’ which leads me to believe that society views the majority of African American males as dangerous. What I would do differently would be that I would probably stop going out so late at night. Staples never said in his story why he had to go out so late at night and why he went out alone most of the time. Maybe he worked late,  or had late classes? Whatever his situation, he was unable to avoid going out late at night. In my opinion I think I would tried to avoid the situation completely. I would not go out alone and if were forced too, I would bring a friend or family member with me. It’s hard to say whether I would handle things differently. I am a woman, I am not African American and I don’t feel I can ever relate to what Staples went through but since we cannot change the stereotypes of society, we must change ourselves as a person to not let these situations make us into a bitter person, and our reaction to situations like this.