TSA Screening System Draws Criticism

TSA Screening System Draws Criticism Are the airlines getting a free ride on the taxpayers dime thanks to the Transportation Safety Administrations (TSA) new high-tech and high dollar system to detect fake boarding passes?In these days of print-at-home boarding passes and programs like Photoshop, the number of people illegally boarding planes and flying for free by using fake boarding passes and IDs has increased significantly. To the airlines, this is fraud that results in lost income. To honest, paying passengers, its an insult that results in higher ticket prices. To the TSA, its a gaping hole is security that could result in another terrorist attack.To the rescue comes the TSAs high-tech and high-cost CAT/BPSS Credential Authentication Technology and Boarding Pass Scanning System - now being tested at George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, Luis Muà ±oz Marà ­n International in San Juan, and Washington, D.C. Dulles International at an initial combined cost of $3.2 million.In testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Stephen M. Lord, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office, reported that the estimated 20-year life cycle cost of the CAT/BPSS system is approximately $130 million based on a nationwide deployment of 4,000 units.What CAT/BPSS DoesCosting $100,000 each, and with multiple systems to eventually be installed by the TSA at all U.S. airports serving commercial flights, the CAT/BPSS system automatically compares the passengers ID to an extensive set of security features. Most modern forms of state-issued identification include encoded data, such as barcodes, holograms, magnetic stripes, embedded electrical circuits, and computer-readable text.CAT/BPPS also validates the authenticity of the passengers boarding pass at the first TSA security checkpoint using bar code readers and encryption techniques. The system is compatible with any barcode and can be used with paper boarding passes printed on a home computer, boarding passes printed by the airlines, or a paperless boarding passes that are sent to passengers mobile devices. The system temporarily captures and displays the photograph from the passengers ID for viewing only by TSA agents to help them compare the photo to the person carrying the ID.Finally, CAT/BPPS compares the encoded data on the passengers ID to data on the boarding pass. If they match, they fly.Encountering the CAT/BPSS SystemAccording to the TSA, actually using the CAT/BPSS system will work like this: At the first TSA checkpoint, passengers will hand their ID to the TSA Travel Document Checker (TDC). The TDC will scan the passengers ID, while the passenger scans his or her boarding pass using a built-in scanner. TSA says that testing has shown the CAT/BPSS process takes no longer than the current process in which the TDC visually compares the passengers ID to the boarding pass.In response to concerns about the CAT/BPSS system and personal privacy, the TSA assures that the CAT/BPSS system automatically and permanently deletes all information it has gathered from the ID and the boarding pass. TSA further states that the picture on the passengers ID can be viewed only by TSA agents.Also See: TSA Defends Boarding Gate Drink ChecksIn announcing the development of the CAT/BPSS system, TSA administrator John S. Pistole stated in a press release, This technology will help facilitate risk-based security, while making the process more effective and efficient.What the Critics SayCritics of the CAT/BPSS argue that if the TSA is effective at its primary job - screening for Weapons, Incendiaries, and Explosives - another computer system dedicated only to verifying passenger identity is an unnecessary waste of money. After all, they point out, once passengers have passed the TSA scanning checkpoints, they are allowed to board planes without showing their IDs.Also See: Congressman Takes On Rogue TSA Airport ScreenersWhen the LA Times on June 30, 2011, reported the story of a Nigerian airline stowaway who succeeded in flying from New York to Los Angeles by presenting an expired boardin g pass in another persons name and was found to be in possession of at last 10 similar boarding passes, the TSA issued the following statement:Every passenger that passes through security checkpoints is subject to many layers of security including thorough physical screening at the checkpoint. TSAs review of this matter indicates that the passenger went through screening. It is important to note that this passenger was subject to the same physical screening at the checkpoint as other passengers.While the stowaway succeeded in stealing from the airline by flying free on a clearly fraudulent boarding pass, no evidence was ever found relating the incident to terrorism.In other words, say critics, the CAT/BPSS is another expensive taxpayer-funded solution to something that, if TSA is doing its job properly, should not be a problem in the first place.

Philosophy paper option Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Philosophy paper option - Essay Example However, this philosophy has been dynamic from century to century, as scholars from different backgrounds tackle the philosophical commentaries in other rational approaches. Chan explains that it is simple and easy to change with the ethical philosophies in line with the system of development and abandonment of legalism. Confucianism led to absorption of many challenges emanating from doctrines of Buddhism (Rahula, 1974). As a result, the intellectual life dominated and formed Neo-Confucianism. In the â€Å"source book in Chinese philosophy† book there is an attempt to make people in the west understand the culture of Asian people as well as their philosophy. This book explains more on the Chinese philosophy as written by great scholars in the Chinese era. This enables the author to bring a balance between the ancient, modern as well as medieval times. In addition to this, he explains about the different kinds of periods that existed in Chinese history with examples of Taoism, Confucianism and also Buddhism (Chan, 1969). Most of the history regarding Chinese philosophy had features of cultural as well as intellectual developments. Philosophy of Change There exist several ties between the mentioned origins command in the Chinese philosophy and the countries aboard. ... Moral cultivation depended fully on neo-Confucianism of which was keystone in milestones of progression. The characters of wealthy, powerful and authoritative human compares identically with the heavens reach from earths. The brilliance of the sun can well demonstrate the effectiveness of such a man feared by both the living people of the history of China’s philosophy as well as the modern neo-Confucianism and communism in regards to philosophical contexts (Chan, 1969). The relationship between modern philosophy by western philosophy and Chinese, India, Persia and other European countries is very Socratic. This is because most philosophers dealt with the supernatural and mythological underlying of concepts. They also involved metaphysics where they believed fire and water were infinite and boundless in touch and feel. This give them a green right to compose materials on the ways of nature and its relation to supernatural testimonials by time lapse (Nishida, 1992). With the ris e scholars, the ethical structures and seriousness to enlighten or rather straighten the spiritual life and internal righteousness to mould up the external uprightness. Change has come upon in the diverse understanding of philosophy in that philosophers and people all round believed the heaven to be high while the earth to be low. Therefore, they give them a credit of honorable place and humble states in the both places according to ones ethical uprightness. Tranquility was held with constancy as strengthening phenomenon of transformation of earth creatures. These were well classified according to good fortunes and bad fortunes to the natives where good fortunes originated from the heavens while bad fortunes originated from bad and evil people who

Design consideration - Bryant Park ( Design for the crowd) Research Paper

Design consideration - Bryant Park ( Design for the crowd) - Research Paper Example Today it is one of the largest occupied urban parks in the world. The development of Bryant Park is traced back from 1970s. In the early 70s, the park had turned out to be a haven for drug dealers who transacted their business confidently. The prostitutes, idlers and the homeless also had taken their share in the park. The park was by then considered a ‘no-go zone area’ by normal citizens. Sparked iron fence surrounded the park while the dense shrubbery blocked the view from outside, making the inside hazardous. Whyte suggested some ideas that have led to the development of the park to make it friendlier. The fence was demolished and the shrubbery cleared. This was then followed by the establishment of impressive and welcoming entrances. The insides of the park underwent some serious renovation that saw numerous sitting places, tables and cafes installed (Halle, 2003). This was done by the parks support group called the Parks council. The council brought new life to the park, and their effort continued in the succeeding years. Groups like the Bryant parks restoration Council came in to help improve on the condition of the park. The Bryant ark restoration council later opened up the park to the street and encouraged different activities to take part in the park Landscape architectural advisor Laurie Olin also played a major role in helping rehabilitate the park. This person brought in the idea of adding more seats in the park, increasing the access points, lawns and flower beds, expanding the library`s central book stack underneath the Great awn and more so - the restoration of the Bryant statue and the fountains. Wrangles arose amongst the people about the ownership of the park and if Bryant Park could accommodate all the activities and in addition serve as a place of leisure. The park design was maintained, but the park underwent some petitioning that suited it as a whole. Different activities were located at different places (Carr, 1993). The ren ovation of the park made it enjoy bumper harvest in terms of economic success. Bryant Park today is one of the signature places in New York City. With limited cases of crime, the park is for the workers on sunny weekdays, visitors overflow during the weekend and revel also come to spend their time in the park during the holidays. The park records a large number of people that spend their time in the park daily. The social amenities found in the park have become popular to people thus promoting the businesses that are carried on in the park. District co-operates help run the park, and this means that it has become attractive to white collar job oriented people. The park has launched a free wireless network, and this has made it one of the best parks in the world at the moment. The lawn in the park provides excellent scenery to people enjoying themselves there. The lawn offers tall grass in the Manhattan south of the central park. It serves as launch room for midtown office staffs, as a resting place for the tired pedestrians, and as sitting place for some of the parks events like film festivals and fashion shows. This helps generate a lot of funds that help in the daily running of the park. Various events are carried out on the Great Lawn found in this park. There are many film festivals that are shown on different occasions like in the Monday evenings. Various artists conduct their performances with the aim of generating funds for the park. This has indeed become one of the best sources of revenue

Scientific Management And Its Relevance Today Essay - 7

Scientific Management And Its Relevance Today - Essay Example Those who hold such views think that scientific management was not effective then and cannot be in the present days. This essay argues that Taylor’s scientific management system had its weaknesses, but the weakness can guide research towards making the theory more relevant to the current management realities. Scientific Management and its Relevance Today The result of years of experimentation and research that Taylor and his colleagues conducted in the scientific management theory.  The following four principles anchor the theory: Establishment of a science that would increase production; selection and training of personnel that will improve efficiency and increase production; application of the science established to tasks designed; and building of teamwork between personnel and management to realise the set targets (Cannon, 2009). These principles have continued to inform management practices since the 19th century to the modern days. There are many areas within management , industrial and organizational psychology that scientific management principles are applicable today. Scientific management principles has had the greatest impact in two management subfields of human resource and accounting management. Many organizations have implemented these ideas to cost?accounting and management of personnel (Wren, 2005). Areas were these principles are in operation today includes job design, selection, group processes, job performance criteria, organizational change and development, motivation and incentive systems, worker’s attitude and performance appraisal (Payne, et al. 2006). Examination of some general business practices and techniques is one of the means to prove this (Haden, Humphreys, Cooke & Penland, 2012). According to Wren (2011), studies conducted in recent years have shown that Taylor is the leading contributor to theoretical and practical approaches in management. Management researchers like Heames & Breland (2010) found Taylor at the top in their studies. Bedeian and Wren list Taylor’s book, The Principles of Scientific Management as the number one among the 25 most significant management books since the turn of 20th century. These studies were conducted decades after Taylor made the introduction of scientific management to the world. The result of these studies shows that scientific management principles have become an essential human resource tool for many managers. Application scientific management is apparent, for example, when a customer support representative picks a call under pressure from the 90/10 practice (regulations demanding customer support representatives to pick 90 percentage of calls and assist customers within 10 seconds). This regulation has its roots in scientific management as it is about efficiency and productiveness of personnel. Thus, scientific management is evident in such situations were machine-like accuracy is required for improved profitability (Bell & Martin, 2011). Taylorâ₠¬â„¢s experimentation on time and motion provides guidelines of how long it should take workers to perform a task. Time study reduces wasted motions and set a suitable standard of task performance (Wren, 2011). The study helps in the elimination of motions that do not add value to the organization’s production process. Time and motion sensors also assist employers to make decisions on strategies and techniques needed for efficient specialization.  

Speaker Independent Speech Recognizer Development

Speaker Independent Speech Recognizer Development Chapter 4 Methodology and Implementation This chapter describes the methodology and implementation of the speaker independent speech recognizer for the Sinhala language and the Android mobile application for voice dialing. Mainly there are two phases of the research. First one is to build the speaker independent Sinhala speech recognizer to recognize the digits spoken in Sinhala language. The second phase is to build an android application by integrating the trained speech recognizer. This chapter covers the tools, algorithms, theoretical aspects, the models and the file structures used for the entire research process. 4.1Research phase 1: Build the speaker independent Sinhala speech recognizer for recognizing the digits. In this section the development of the speaker independent Sinhala speech recognizer is described, step by step. It includes the phonetic dictionary, language model, grammar file, acoustic speech database and the trained acoustic model creation. 4.1.1 Data preparation This system is a Sinhala speech recognition voice dial and since there is no such speech database which is done earlier was available, the speech has to be taken from the scratch to develop the system. Data collection The first stage of any speech recognizer is the collection of sound signals. Database should contain a variety of enough speakers recording. The size of the database is compared to the task we handle. For this application only little number of words was considered. This research aims only the written Sinhala vocabulary that can be applied for voice dialing. Altogether twelve words were considered with the ten numbers including two initial calling words â€Å"amatanna† and â€Å"katakaranna†. Here the Database has two parts, the training part and the testing part. Usually about 1/10th of the full speech data is used to the testing part. In this research 3000 speech samples were used for training and 150 speech samples were used for testing. Speech database Before collecting data, a speech database was created. The database was included with the Sinhala speech samples taken from variety of people who were in different age levels. Since there was no such database published anywhere for Sinhala language relevant for voice dialing, speech had to be collected from Sinhala native speakers. Prompt sheet To create the speech database, the first step was to prepare the prompt sheet having a list of sentences for all the recordings. Here it used 100 sentences that are different from each other by generating the numbers randomly. 50 sentences are starting with the word â€Å"amatanna† while the other half is starting with the word â€Å"katakaranna†. The prompt sheet used for this research is given in the Appendix A. Recording The prepared sentences in the prompt sheet were recorded by using thirty (30) native speakers since this is speaker independent application. The speakers were selected according to the age limits and divided them into eight age groups. Four people were selected from each group except one age group. Two females and two males were included into each age group. One group only contained two people with one female and one male. Each speaker was given 100 sentences to speak and altogether 3000 speech samples were recorded for training. The description of speakers such as gender and age can be found in Appendix A. If there was an error in the recording due to the background noise and filler sounds, the speaker was asked to repeat it and got the correct sound signal. Since the proposed system is a discrete system, the speakers have to make a short pause at the start and end of the recording and also between the words when they were uttered. Speech was recorded in a quiet room and the recordi ngs were done at nights by using a condenser recorder microphone. The sounds were recorded under the sampling rate of 44.1 kHz using mono channel and they were saved under *.wav format. Sampling frequency and format of speech audio files Speech recording files were saved in the file format of MS WAV. The â€Å"Praatâ€Å" software was used to convert the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency signals to 16 kHz frequency signals since the frequency should be 16kHz of the training samples. Audio files were recorded in a medium length of 11 seconds. Since there should be a silence in the beginning and the end of the utterance and it should not be exceeded 0.2 seconds, the â€Å"Praat† software was used to edit all 3000 sound signals. 4.1.2 Pronunciation dictionary The pronunciation dictionary was implemented by hand since the number of words used for the voice dialing system is very few. It is used only 12 words from the Sinhala vocabulary. To create the dictionary, the International Phonetic Alphabet for Sinhala Language and the previously created dictionaries by CMU Sphinx were used. But the acoustic phones were taken mostly by studying the different types of databases given by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Sphinx Forum (CMU Sphinx Forum). Two dictionaries were implemented for this system. One is for the speech utterances and the other one is for filler sounds. The filler sounds contain the silences in the beginning, middle and at the end of the speech utterances. The attachment of the two types of dictionaries can be found on the Appendix A. They are referred to as the languagedictionaryand thefiller dictionary. 4.1.3 Creating the grammar file The grammar file also created by hand since the number of words used for the system is very few. The JSGF (JSpeech Grammar Format) format was used to implement the grammar file. The grammar file can be found in Appendix A. 4.1.4 Building the language model Word search is restricted by a language model. It identifies the matching words by comparing the previously recognized words by the model and restricts the matching process by taking off the words that are not possible to be. N-gram language model is the most common language models used nowadays. It is a finite state language model and it contains statistics of word sequences. In search space where restriction is applied, a good accuracy rate can be obtained if the language model is a very successful one. The result is the language model can predict the next word properly. It usually restricts the word search which are included the vocabulary. The language model was built using the cmuclmtk software. First of all the reference text was created and that text (svd.text) can be found in Appendix A. It was written in a specific format. The speech sentences were delimited byandtags. Then the vocabulary file was generated by giving the following command. text2wfreq svd.vocab Then the generated vocabulary file was edited to remove words (numbers and misspellings). When finding misspellings, they were fixed in the input reference text. The generated vocabulary file (svd.vocab) can be found in the Appendix A. Then the ARPA format language model was generated using these commands. text2idngram -vocab svd.vocab -idngram svd.idngram idngram2lm -vocab_type 0 -idngram svd.idngram -vocab svd.vocab –arpa svd.arpa Finally the CMU binary of language model (DMP file) was generated using the command sphinx_lm_convert -i svd.arpa -o svd.lm.DMP The final output containing the language model needed for the training process is svd.lm.dmp file. This is a binary file. 4.1.5Acoustic model Before starting the acoustic model creation, the following file structure was arranged as described by the CMU Sphinx tool kit guide. The name of the speech database is â€Å"svd† (Sinhala Voice Dial). The content of these files is given in Appendix A. svd.dic -Phonetic dictionary svd.phone -Phoneset file svd.lm.DMP -Language model svd.filler -List of fillers svd _train.fileids -List of files for training svd _train.transcription -Transcription for training svd _test.fileids -List of files for testing svd _test.transcription -Transcription for testing All these files were included in to one directory and it was named as â€Å"etc†. The speech samples of wav files were included in to another directory and named it as â€Å"wav†. These two directories were included in to another directory and named it using the name of the database (svd). Before starting the training process, there should be another directory that contains the â€Å"svd† and the required compilation package â€Å"pocketsphinx†, â€Å"sphinxbase† and â€Å"sphinxtrain† directories. All the packages and the â€Å"svd† directory were put into another directory and started the training process. Setting up the training scripts The command prompt terminal is used to run the scripts of the training process. Before starting the process, terminal was changed to the database â€Å"svd† directory and then the following command was run. python ../sphinxtrain/scripts/sphinxtrain –t svd setup This command copied all the required configuration files into etc sub directory of the database directory and prepared the database for training. The two configuration files created were feat.params and sphinx_train.cfg. These two are given in Appendix A. Set up the database These values were filled in at configuration time. The Experiment name, will be used to name model files and log files in the database. $CFG_DB_NAME = svd; $CFG_EXPTNAME = $CFG_DB_NAME; Set up the format of database audio Since the database contains speech utterances with the ‘wav’ format and they were recorded using MSWav, the extension and the type were given accordingly as â€Å"wav† and â€Å"mswav†. $CFG_WAVFILES_DIR = $CFG_BASE_DIR/wav; $CFG_WAVFILE_EXTENSION = wav; $CFG_WAVFILE_TYPE = mswav; # one of nist, mswav, raw Configure Path to files This process was done automatically when having the right file structure in the running directory. The naming of the files must be very accurate. The paths were assigned to the variables used in main training of models. $CFG_DICTIONARY = $CFG_LIST_DIR/$CFG_DB_NAME.dic; $CFG_RAWPHONEFILE = $CFG_LIST_DIR/$CFG_DB_NAME.phone; $CFG_FILLERDICT = $CFG_LIST_DIR/$CFG_DB_NAME.filler; $CFG_LISTOFFILES = $CFG_LIST_DIR/${CFG_DB_NAME}_train.fileids; $CFG_TRANSCRIPTFILE = $CFG_LIST_DIR/${CFG_DB_NAME}_train.transcription; $CFG_FEATPARAMS = $CFG_LIST_DIR/feat.params; Configure model type and model parameters The model type continuous and semi continuous can be used in pocket sphinx. Continuous type is used for continuous speech recognition. Semi continuous is used for discrete speech recognition process. Since this application use discrete speech the semi continuous model training was used. #$CFG_HMM_TYPE = .cont.; # Sphinx 4, Pocketsphinx $CFG_HMM_TYPE = .semi.; # PocketSphinx $CFG_FINAL_NUM_DENSITIES = 8; # Number of tied states (senones) to create in decision-tree clustering $CFG_N_TIED_STATES = 1000; The number of senones used to train the model is indicated in this value. The sound can be chosen accurately if the number of senones is higher. But if we use too much senones, then it may not be able to recognize the unseen sounds. So the Word Error Rate can be very much higher on unseen sounds. The approximate number of senones and number of densities is provided in the table below. Configure sound feature parameters The default parameter used for sound files in Sphinx is a rate of 16 thousand samples per second (16KHz). If this is the case, then the etc/feat.params file will be automatically generated with the recommended values. The Recommended values are: # Feature extraction parameters $CFG_WAVFILE_SRATE = 16000.0; $CFG_NUM_FILT = 40; # For wideband speech its 40, for telephone 8khz reasonable value is 31 $CFG_LO_FILT = 133.3334; # For telephone 8kHz speech value is 200 $CFG_HI_FILT = 6855.4976; # For telephone 8kHz speech value is 3500 Configure decoding parameters The following were properly configured in theetc/sphinx_train.cfg. $DEC_CFG_DICTIONARY = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/$DEC_CFG_DB_NAME.dic; $DEC_CFG_FILLERDICT = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/$DEC_CFG_DB_NAME.filler; $DEC_CFG_LISTOFFILES = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/${DEC_CFG_DB_NAME}_test.fileids; $DEC_CFG_TRANSCRIPTFILE = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc/${DEC_CFG_DB_NAME}_test.transcription; $DEC_CFG_RESULT_DIR = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/result; # These variables, used by the decoder, have to be user defined, and # may affect the decoder output $DEC_CFG_LANGUAGEMODEL_DIR = $DEC_CFG_BASE_DIR/etc; $DEC_CFG_LANGUAGEMODEL = $DEC_CFG_LANGUAGEMODEL_DIR/ ${CFG_DB_NAME}.lm.DMP; Training After setting all these paths and parameters in the configuration file as described above, the training was proceeded. To start the training process the following command was run. python ../sphinxtrain/scripts/sphinxtrain run Scripts launched jobs on the machine, and it took few minutes to run. Acoustic Model After the training process, the acoustic model was located in the following path in the directory. Only this folder is needed for the speech recognition tasks. model_parameters/svd.cd_semi_200 We need only that folder for the speech recognition tasks we have to perform. 4.1.6Testing Results 150 speech samples were used as testing data. The aligning results could be obtained after the training process. It was located in the following path in the database directory. results/svd.align 4.1.7Parameters to be optimized Word error rate WER was given as a percentage value. It was calculated according to the following equation Accuracy Accuracy was also given as a percentage. That is the opposite value of the WER. It was calculated using the following equation To obtain an optimal recognition system, the WER should be minimized and the accuracy should be maximized. The parameters of the configuration file were changed time to time and obtained an optimal recognition system where the WER was the minimum with a high accuracy rate. 4.2Research phase 2: Build the voice dialing mobile application. In this section, the implementation of voice dialer for android mobile application is described. The application was developed using the programming language JAVA and it was done using the Eclipse IDE. It was tested in both the emulator and the actual device. The application is able to recognize the spoken digits by any speaker and dial the recognized number. To do this process the trained acoustic model, the pronunciation dictionary, the language model and the grammar files were needed. The speech recognition was performed by using these models in the mobile device itself by using the pocketsphinx library. It is a library written in C language to use for embedded speech recognition devices in Android platform. The step by step implementation and integration of the necessary components were discussed in detail in this section. Resource Files When inputting the resource files to the Android application, they were added in to theassets/directory of the project. Then the physical path was given to make them available for pocketsphinx. After adding them, the Assets directory contained the following resource files. Dictionary svd.dic svd.dic.md5 Grammar digits.gram digits.gram.md5 menu.gram menu.gram.md5 Language model svd.lm.DMP svd.lm.DMP.md5 Acoustic Model feat.params feat.params.md5 mdef mdef.md5 means means.md5 mixture_weights mixture_weights.md5 noisedict noisedict.md5 transition_matrices transition_matrices.md5 variances variances.md5 Assets.lst models/dict/svd.dic models/grammar/digits.gram models/grammar/menu.gram models/hmm/en-us-semi/feat.params models/hmm/en-us-semi/mdef models/hmm/en-us-semi/means models/hmm/en-us-semi/mixture_weights models/hmm/en-us-semi/noisedict models/hmm/en-us-semi/sendump models/hmm/en-us-semi/transition_matrices models/hmm/en-us-semi/variances models/lm/svd.lm.DMP Setup the Recognizer First of all the recognizer should be set up by adding the resource files. The model parameters taken after the training process were added as the HMM in the application. The recognition process was depended mainly on this resource files. Since the grammar files and the language model were added as assets, these two can be used for the recognition process of the application as well as the HMM. The utterances can be recognized from either the grammar files or language model. The whole process is coded using the Java programing language. 4.3Architecture of the developed Speech Recognition System

Processed Food Should or Should not Be Banned from School Meals? Essay

Processed food should be banned from school meals due to increasing health issues in children, increasing academic deficiency and increasing production cost to produce processed foods. There are people who would oppose to this idea due to population growth and an increasing food demand. However, this escalating demand of food is forcing the food industry and other government agencies to resolve the current hunger and lack of resources issues, by hiring processing factories and private companies to manufacture processed foods. The greater part of school age children consume processed foods on a daily basis. The purpose of this study is to examine what are processed foods? What are the associated problems? Also, to determine if processed foods affect students’ health and their academic performance. In addition, what is the position of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and food industry in the distribution of processed foods in schools? Also, to determine the outcome of this study, the behavior and health of students along with the governing agencies were analyzed to establish, if processed foods should be banned from schools or just monitored carefully. Discussion of key terms What are processed foods? It is food â€Å"composed of synthetic chemical additives, such as colorings, preservatives, sugar substitutes and trans-fats† (Fitzgerald, 2006, p.72). Fitzgerald reported that by the â€Å"1970s most meats and dairy products that were factory farmed were laced with growth hormones, antibiotics and a range of pesticides† (p.72). Furthermore, food that is frozen, packaged and canned is considered processed food. A brief explanation of the chemical additives in processed food. 1. Pre... ...with over twenty-five years' experience in the book publishing industry. He is an expert in general-interest non-fiction publishing, specializing in topics from business and personal finance to politics, current affairs, history, autobiography, self-help, and personal development. Before founding his company, Weber served as managing director of the Times Business imprint at Random House (1994-1997). This book is a life changing book. It was inspirational, informative and gave you insight about the things we do not know about the food we eat. The documentary was graphic and detailed, informing you of the process from the farm or the fields, to the manufactures, to the labeling and packaging companies. It informed me, about the school lunches, how some of the meals at school are made, to the politics behind it. This book is also a collectible.

Interracial Marriage Essay

Today interracial marriages are happening more and more despite that many disapprove as we become more diverse, both racially and ethnically. In the past, though considered to be taboo interracial marriages are a quickly growing segment of the population. Interracial marriage is a marriage of two individuals each of different races. The focus of this paper is to address interracial marriage increase, effects on children, acceptance and challenges, and my personal views. Interracial marriage is used to describe marriages that take place between people who are from different racial or ethnic groups. Interracial marriage can convey a relationship between a Black and an Asian, a White and a Korean, a Hispanic and an Asian, a White and a Hispanic, a Black and a White, and etc. However, when people talk about race relations, the focus is on Blacks and Whites. 1. Interracial marriages hits a new high 2. Interracial marriages and the effect on children 3. Acceptance of interracial marriage 4. Difficulties and challenges of interracial marriage 5. Views on interracial marriage Interracial Marriages Hits a New High For most of U. S history, in most communities, such unions were taboo. Interracial marriage approval is at a high point in the United States at 86 percent, a Gallup poll indicated. The poll of 1,319 adults found the United States is on the verge of unanimity on the topic of interracial marriage, Gallup reported. Ninety-six percent of African-Americans, who have always been more approving of marriage between blacks’ whites, approve of such unions, while 84 percent of whites approve. The gap of approval ratings between blacks and whites has narrowed considerably. The gap since 1997 has been averaging 13 percentage points. From 1968 to 1994, the average gap was 32 points. When Gallup first asked about interracial marriage in 1958, only 4 percent of those asked approved. Approval of black-white marriages is slightly lower among Southerners, Republicans, conservatives and those in lower education levels. The elderly are the least approving group at 66 percent (UPI. com, 2011). Interracial Marriages and the Effect on Children No matter what ethnic groups are involved, one major result of these marriages are children. Children are far more negative than a lot of adults are today regarding interracial relationships. It’s not that they approve or disapprove; it’s more like they don’t understand. If a child has never been exposed to other races or seen two different races married and living together than their first reaction might be to think its â€Å"weird†. When kids don’t understand something their first reaction is to tease the child with the interracial parents. There are more serious effects of a child being interracial †¦ labeling and racism. Encountering an identity crisis, which group does she/he belong to? Having siblings that can actually pass as white, who may result in receiving privileges that society may deny the child of more color (darker). Acceptance of Interracial Marriage The willingness of people entering into interracial relationships has grown and so does acceptance. There still some that frown upon mixed marriages with the belief that marriage is tough enough without having to deal with the burden racial differences. A report released by the Pew Research Center says that 43 percent of Americans believe that marriage between people of different races has been productive in our society while only 10 percent believe it has changed America for the worse (AFRO. com, 2012). Difficulties and Challenges of Interracial Marriage As an interracial couple you will possibly face extra challenges in your marriage from people outside your marriage. These include antagonistic and unfair treatment from others, suffering rejection from family members or disinheritance, and dealing with prejudices from friends. All of these things combined can push a couple into social segregation. If you or a couple you know is dealing with these kinds of things (even same-race couples do), think about the following: Have confidence in your choice; Deal with your feelings; Stand up for each other and your marriage; Surround yourselves with supportive people. What can cause an interracial marriage to fall apart is the inability of a couple to handle their differences and a failure to talk about stress and prejudice created by others (Marriage Matters, 2009). The problems and issues that used to occur with interracial marriages are no longer as adamant and noticeable. Views on Interracial Marriage Interracial marriages are more common today than ever before and I support it. There are cultural differences, but if anything, I believe that in interracial marriages couples can help each other to grow as a person. Love as no boundaries†¦what difference does the color of your skin make if two people are in love. You can’t help with whom you fall in love with, and people should stop seeing mixed race relationships as a political statement. If people attempt to understand the different beliefs, traditions and values of the diverse groups that make up this world, then they could work together for the good of all. Love has no color! Interracial marriage in the United States has been fully legal in all U. S. states since the 1967 Supreme Court decision that deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage at much earlier dates. The United States has many ethnic and racial groups and interracial marriage is fairly common among most of them (The Full Wiki, n. d. ). In conclusion ethnic groups bring diversity and wealth to a society by introducing their own ideas and customs. Interracial marriages introduce such variety. In a picture-perfect world, everyone should celebrate this. However, the world is not perfect. I think that the more love there is in this world, the better off we all are†¦ regardless of whom it is we love.