Skeletal Disease Essay Example for Free

Skeletal Disease Essay I know that skeletal disease pertain to the bones in the body. These can be deadly and limit the ability to move around and have a good, solid range of motion. I know that skeletal diseases are treated by orthopedics diagnose and treat disorders with bones and orthopedic surgeons operate on the bones. I would like to know what the range of treatments are based upon the diseases. I also would like to know the statistics on skeletal disease and how common it is within America and other countries, such as which has the highest amount of bone cancer and which has the lowest? These questions fascinate me, especially the ones pertaining to cancer. I would like to know about more skeletal diseases in general. My skeletal disease that I chose is bone cancer otherwise known as sarcomas. I chose this one because cancer has always fascinated me. The one thing that kills a lot of individuals across the world not just USA and the bigger countries but no country is exempt. Cancer does not care who it takes, their age, gender, sexual preference, nothing matters to cancer. I want to study cancer in hopes of maybe finding a common pattern that can one day be overcome and then cancer can be eliminated for good. My search started where almost all research papers start, on Google. I searched bone cancer and picked the medical website on cancer. This website gave me good information on the different types of bone cancers and how to determine the difference between bone cancer, bone marrow cancer, and cancers that migrate to the bones. My other website (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21166/full.) gave me statistics on the amount of new cases and deaths in United States of America with new cases and new deaths. I learned, from the first site, that there are many different actual bone cancers like Osteosarcomas, Chondrosarcomas, Ewing tumor, Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma (MFH), Fibrosarcoma, Giant cell tumor of bone, Chordoma. These all have different causes and effects but one thing they all have in common is that they all originate in the bones, not in bone marrow or other organs and metastasizes to the bones. Cancer cells that start in other organs and move to the bone still have same structure as where they began.

Body Image And Eating Behaviour Psychology Essay

Body Image And Eating Behaviour Psychology Essay The complex relationship between body image and eating behaviour have become a major research. Eating practices vary around the world .There is a rapid change in culture due to fastest means of communication. This swing of culture has created affects in developing cultures of Asia, including Pakistan.An ideal figure of extra skinny and underweight model is causing stress and psychological disruption in eating behaviour of both genders. All individuals in their life are conditioned to turn to food for satisfaction and reinforcement. In the college years ,these reinforcements become risky, hazardous and harmful.An evidence found from the fact that after obesity and asthma, the most ordinary chronic illness among youth is disordered eating. (Muazzam Khalid 2008) Evaluating own body individually through related feelings and attitudes is body image. The persistent and obsessive search for weight loss in the course of excessive diet is eating disorder behaviour, which results in an unbalanced diet both quantitatively and qualitatively (Boschi et al., 2003). Many researchers found number of sources of eating disorder.body image is the major source which plays important role in contributing to aquire an eating disorder.The mental image we hold of our bodies including both perceptions and attitudes is known as body image. Having a negative body image can take many forms through cognitive, behavioral, perceptual, and affective manifestations . Feelings of depression, sadness, humiliation, guilt, and stress occurs due to exposure to images of thin models. The amount of satisfaction people have with their body as a whole and as separate parts is body cathexis. Self-esteem and body image is essential part according to many researchers.People compare themselves with others that effects their body image perceptions and force them to diet and exercise excessively.The cycle of lowering their body image could possibly change their clothing choices as well.(Hill,1999) Many young people undergo from disturbed eating behaviours such as dieting and striving for thinness. Many variables are related to self-satisfaction and to their effects on eating behaviour, eating attitudes and body image dissatisfaction or satisfaction. They also affect many areas of emotional function in young people including depression and nervousness and leading to lack of confidence. (Zofiran et al.,2010) According to Monir et al. (2010) eating disorder is more common among overweight-obese adolescents of high social class and they conclude that social background, obesity, pessimistic body image and depression are the main risk factors for developing eating disorder. During adolescence, people are assuming responsibility for their own eating habits, attitudes and behaviours. In fact, attitudes play a significant role in the adoption and maintenance of a range of healthiness and nutritional behaviour that is patterns of eating and time intervals. Awareness about healthy foodstuff choices and food safety can be predisposing factors for recovering eating habits and to adopt a healthy diet, although it is inadequate to motivate healthy eating. Factors that influence eating behaviours need to be better understood to develop helpful diet interventions tailored to persons to improve their healthy eating. Hence, determinants such as behaviour, attitudes, self-efficacy, barriers to change and the meaning of healthy and unhealthy diet and food must be considered. (Turconi et al., 2006) Eating disorders represent severe disruptions in normal eating patterns. The two main diagnoses of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Obesity is not mentioned as a disorder. Individuals with anorexia nervosa have a fear of gaining weight, becoming fat, and refuse to maintain a normal weight. Those suffering from bulimia nervosa engage in over-eating episodes, binge eating, and perform acts that rid the food from their system, such as purging. Some anorexics or bulimics will use laxatives or vomit to counter their over-eating.Individuals with eating disorders are very restrictive about their diet and weight, while desiring the approval of others.(Hill,1999). Anorexia Nervosa  ,an eating disorder categorized by rejection to maintain a healthy body weight, an obsessive fear of gaining weight, and an unrealistic perception of existing body weight. On the other hand, some patients can undergo from anorexia nervosa unconsciously. These patients are classified under atypical eating disorders. Anorexia can cause menstruation to stop, leads to bone loss or loss of skin integrity. It greatly stresses the heart, increasing the risk of heart attacks and related heart problems. The risk of death is greatly increased in individuals with this disease. Social pressures in society and media play an important role in individuals obsession on their outer appearance. The most underlining factor researchers are starting to take notice of is that it may not just be social, but it could also be related to biological and genetic components. Bulimia  characterized by recurrent binge eating followed by compensatory behaviours such as purging. (Fairburn, 1997 ) Makino, Tsuboi and Dennerstein, (2004) found that eating disorders, namely anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, are characterized by clinical disturbances in body image and eating behaviours. For example, anorexia nervosa sufferers have the feeling of being fat even when emaciated. They deny the seriousness of low body weight and have a morbid fear of weight gain with the relentless pursuit of thinness. Bulimia nervosa is defined by an overvaluation of weight shape and the behavioural symptoms of recurrent binge eating accompanied by purging and fasting there have been many reports about eating disorders in Western countries in the late 20th century. It has been claimed that those with eating disorders have mostly been white women and that few cases have been seen in non-Western countries other than Japan. Recently, eating disorders have been reported in non-Western countries, such as the Middle East and the Peoples Republic of China. These recent studies suggest that the prevalence of eating disorders has been rising among non-Western countries as well. However, eating disorders may present differently in different cultures, and diagnostic criteria based on Western norms may not always be appropriate. One of the reported explanations for the development of eating disorders is the social pressure resulting from the standards of female beauty imposed by modern industrial society or Western culture. The increasing globalization and exposure to Western media have been suggested to increase the rate of eating disorders in non-Western countries. Eating disorders are more common in women than men. More men have started entering treatment centers for eating disorders now than in the past. College students have a higher risk of developing an eating disorder, and female students are at an even higher risk. While competing to do well in class, they may also be in competition to be the most attractive.(Hill,1999). College-aged women tend to suffer more often from lower body images as well. One study showed that 61% of college women were participating in severe or subtle actions to manage their weight .Other researchers report that a womans body image may be a more vital factor in developing an eating disorder than her actual weight. Objectified body consciousness is the extent to which a woman focuses more on her appearance rather than her internal characteristics. This type of consciousness has three different categories: body surveillance, internalization of cultural body standards, and beliefs about appearance control. Body surveillance, which involves the idea that a womans body is to be desired by men, is the main factor inobjectified body consciousness. Therefore, women will constantly survey their bodies to confirm their adherence to cultural norms. Women begin to see their bodies as outside onlookers . Surveying ones body constantly can lead to a lowered body image and possibly to beco ming vulnerable enough to develop an eating disorder. Internalization of cultural standards occurs when the social standards seem to be coming from within rather than as external pressures. The standards have been integrated and now are part of their lives. This makes one extremely vulnerable and more willing to abide by them. As previously addressed women are experiencing societal pressures constantly. This can lead to the experiencing of multiple negative emotions. Finally, responsibility for appearance is the belief that women are responsible for how their bodies look. They have the power to make their bodies beautiful or unattractive. This leads to the constant judgment of their bodies. Judging ones body also can lead to a lowering of body image and becoming at risk for developing an eating disorder. One study found that the more negative a womans objectified body consciousness is, the higher the eating disorder symptoms (Tylka, 2004). The notion of ideal body image directly impacts a persons body image satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Body image satisfaction refers to ones personal body image being akin to ones concept of his/her ideal body image. Ones ideal body image represents the physical ideal that one seeks to copy, be that a high-fashion model, celebrity, movie star, fitness professional, or other such role model. Body image dissatisfaction refers to the level of ones personal body image differs from ones perceived ideal body image or ones individual feelings of dissatisfaction with ones physical look. Body dissatisfaction is a precursor for negative self-perception or self-worth and can lead to the increase of eating disorders. (Martin, 2010). Having a deformed body image among teenage girls has been related to the development of dysfunctional eating patterns and even disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder for girls brings with it characteristics often perceived as less worthy, as girls generally get rounder and have increased body fat. These changes can serve to extra enhance dissatisfaction among adolescence girls .During puberty, peers can affect body image as well as psychological health. Some girls can become very self-conscious about their weight, which reduces their self-esteem. During that time, girls are susceptible and sensitive (Huebscher, 2010). Having a distorted view of ones body has been linked to low self-esteem among girls, which in turn has been linked to the development of eating disordered behaviour. Research indicates that between 50-88% of adolescent girls feel pessimistically about their body shape or size, while 49% of teenage girls say they know someone with an eating disorder. Furthermore, only 33% of girls say they are the right weight for their bodies, while 58% want to lose weight (Croll, 2005). In contrast to males, females are much more likely to think their current size is too large because they are exposed to thin models on TV, magazine and show lastly, it indicates that for girls, the way they look is the most important pointer of self-worth .During teenage years, some girls go through an awkward phase as their bodies begin to vary, and they become self-conscious. In another survey by the American association of university women (1994), only 29% of the adolescent girls surveyed expressed self-satisfaction, while more than half of the boys felt good about themselves. (Huebscher, 2010) It has been said that more than half of adolescent girls are or think they should be on diets, especially when they go through puberty. This makes sense, because many young females experience weight gain as puberty start. This leads many young women to desire to lose the heaviness in a try to conform to societal expectations (Huebscher, 2010) Body dissatisfaction, the individual assessment of ones figure or body part, has been conceptualized to be a vital part of body image disturbance  .In three large community-based studies, the proportion of adolescent girls reporting body dissatisfaction varied between 24 % and 46 %, where the respective proportions of boys ranged from 12 % to 26 %. Body dissatisfaction appears to either remain stable or increase during adolescence among girls. Among boys, body dissatisfaction has been reported to either decrease or remain stable as they move towards maturity. However, boys are nowadays known to be under increasing pressure to meet their unlikely lean and muscular body ideal. (Makinen ,2012) Body mass is the most reliable biological factor correlated with body dissatisfaction, although the relation seems to differ between genders. Boys have been reported to feel dissatisfied with their bodies when either below or above normal weight, and to be most satisfied when they are of regular weight. In contrast, girls showed a positive linear relationship, such that their body dissatisfaction increased as a function of body weight. Dissatisfaction with ones body tends to manifest in attempts at weight loss in girls, whereas dissatisfaction in boys can either appear as weight gain or weight loss. (Makinen, 2012). According to Davidson McCabe (2006), a poor body image may hamper adolescents development of interpersonal skills and positive relations with other boys and girls.For instance, physical attractiveness has been found to impact on peer relationships all the way back from elementary school, with attractive girls engaging in more positive social interactions than less-attractive girls.There is a relationship between body image and psychological functioning during adolescence.Lastly, they found a strong association between body image concerns and low self-esteem among adolescent girls, which has lead to constructions of body image as an impoltant aspect of female self-esteem . The family plays an important role in the influence of eating behaviors of adolescents, especially girls.Children learn their morals and values from their parent or guardian, and many times model their behavior based on their parents In regard to healthy eating, each family constructs what they feel is necessary and correct in terms of nutrition .Parents or guardians have an important role in a childs life in regards to how to eat, what to eat, and the portion size, which has the potential to influence a persons life-long eating habit and nutritional understanding. Family environment also could influence an adolescent girls self-esteem due to weight or shape-related criticism by family members or others.The research indicates that family members who criticize their adolescent daughter contribute significantly to body dissatisfaction .As adolescent girls go through the changes that puberty brings, family members sometimes say negative things that can contribute to their adolescent daughter feeling sad, depressed or convinced they must lose weight to make their family love them. 19 percent of high school girls replied receiving direct encouragement from parents to diet . Research indicates if a member of a family stresses an individual within the family to conduct a diet, he or she may develop low self-esteem or body image. Within the family realm, children may feel the direct pressure to meet the demanding standards in their education, sports, and peer relationships, which may result in poor body image and selfesteem (Green Pritchard, 2003). Parents who give parental feedback in terms of dieting, may have a tremendous impact on their adolescent daughters overall development of body satisfaction (Green Pritchard, 2003). Therefore, if an adolescent girl has a mother who is very critical about weight control, and stresses that looking thin is the only way of looking good, it is known that the adolescent will model her weight control behaviors in order to lose weight. The adolescent girl may stm1 to think the same way as her mother and likewise believe the only way a person is attractive is if they are thin. Because of the beliefs adolescent girls learn from their mothers, it has been said that girls whose mothers diet and are concerned with their weight and shape are more likely than their peers to develop unhealthy weight control and practices (Field et al., 2001). The amount of media exposure an adolescent girl receives also can affect the way she perceives her body and can lead her to become dissatisfied and believe she needs to diet. The media portrays an image that if you fit the thin ideal, then you are more outgoing, successful, popular and satisfied, which are not attainable for those who do not fulfill the ideal of being thin .The media also does not show that airbrushing is almost always used to modify appearances .So when adolescent girls look at these distorted images, they do not realize that a computer has helped create the thin, beautiful model who does not look that way in reality . (Green Pritchard, 2003). The thin ideal is communicated through societys stereotype of obesity, meaning that being fat is bad and thin is good . Dealing more with magazines and seeing frail thin air-brushed models can make an adolescent girl want to look like that. Magazines targeted at female adolescents are full of images of young, slim, attractive, blemish-free females with small waists, large chests, and only ever-so-slightly-rounded hips.Disproportionate dolls also give off a negative body image for young teens. If Barbie were real, her neck would be too long and thin to support the weight of her head, and her upper body propOliions would make it difficult for her to walk upright (Croll, 2005). RATIONALE Many college students especially female suffer from disturbed eating behaviours such as dieting and striving for slimness. Body shape is one of the most important concerns among females .the rationale for choosing this topic was to aware the society, parents and peers not to criticize others body shape and eating behaviour. Parents and society criticize adolescents specially girls due to overweight or too slim. The purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between body shape and eating behaviours among college students. In Pakistani society the ratio of disturbances in eating habits is increasing day by day it is now one of the most prevalent mental health issues resulting from psycho-social conditions. With day to day development and progress in field of health a countless number of patients suffering from severe mental disorders visit hospitals and clinics for the treatment. Unfortunately there is no concrete information available regarding the prevalence of disordered eating behaviours so far in Pakistan. So far no efforts have been made to overcome the maladjusted eating behaviours in society. In this modernized culture of 21st century, females having zero size physiology are considered to be ideal. We might even say that it is the culture that idolizes role models who represent anorexia. Our children, teens and young adults are influenced by these role models by seeing them in glamorous situations on television, in magazines, on the Internet, in large display-ads at the mall, on billboards and in other public advertising venues. Engrossed in a world filled with the ultra-thin role model, it has become too difficult for regularly-sized girls to feel good about their appearance. This is particularly to be disappointed that our clothing manufacturers design the majority of best fashion out fits for small-sized bodies. Earlier researches has shown that exposure to ultra-thin models in fashion magazines leads to excessive dieting and body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls. Only those girls who already had body-image problems were at risk for negative effects. With emerging trends and concepts regarding body image/body dissatisfaction and the presence of eating disorder in Pakistan. Unfortunately, very few cases have been reported to doctors and mental health professionals due to stigmatization in our society people are very reluctant to admit eating a problem. During the last decade some awareness and knowledge about eating disorder has grown considerably but the concept of disordered eating is still neglected and unresolved in Pakistan. Pakistani media and Barbie doll images plays a crucial role in prevalence of symptoms of disturbed eating behaviour in females. People in Pakistan avoid consulting mental health professionals for their problem, due to stigmatization. Therefore in such a situation current study is an effort to find out the existence of disturbed eating habits and satisfaction level towards individuals body image which can help in future remedies to overcome the health risks especially in youngsters. OBJECTIVES Find out the relationship between body image and eating attitudes among girls and boys Compare the concern for body shape among boys and girls To investigate gender differences in eating attitudes and behaviors HYPOTHESIS H1: There is significant relationship between body shape and eating behaviour among girls and boys H2: Girls are more concerned with body shape than boys H3: There will be significant difference between the eating attitudes of both genders. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A study was conducted to examine how body image, Body Mass Index (BMI), and eating attitudes were related among students of age 18 to 26 years old. The samples were made up of 356 students, where 165 were male while 191 were female. Body image was assessed using the Figure Rating Scale. BMI was calculated based on measures of height and weight, and eating behaviour was assessed using Eating Behaviour Patterns Questionnaire. This study found the relationship between eating behaviour and BMI status, only snacking and convenience as well as emotional eating is associated with BMI status. While for relationship between eating behaviour and body image, only body image perception was found to be associated with emotional eating. For relationship between body image and BMI status, body image perception was found to be associated with BMI status. Male adolescents were more prone to be affected by snacking and convenience as well as cultural and lifestyle. Male adolescents were prone to be af fected by body image. Gender did not have an effect on BMI status. This study underlines the importance of being aware of the relationships between body image, BMI, and eating behaviour.(Zofiran et al. 2011) Makinen et al. (2012) conducted a study to examine body dissatisfaction and its relationship with body mass, as well as self-esteem and eating habits, in girls and boys. Body dissatisfaction is often associated with body mass, low self-esteem and abnormal eating habits. Many researches investigating body dissatisfaction and its associations were conducted on females but few suggest that males also suffer from these problems. Participants were 695 girls and 711 boys with age of 17 to 21. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Body Dissatisfaction subscale of the Eating Disorder Inventory were used as self-appraisal scales. Eating data was also self-reported. Results show that girls were less satisfied with their bodies than boys. Boys expressed greater satisfaction when they were underweight and most dissatisfaction when they had excess body weight. The boys reported higher levels of self-esteem than did the girls whereas girls expressed most satisfaction with their bodies when they were underweight, more dissatisfaction when they were of normal weight and most dissatisfaction when they had excess body weight. Their self-reporting abnormal eating habits were less satisfied with their bodies than those normal eating habits. A study was conducted on 235 students who were given the questionnaires of eating attitudes, self-esteem, reasons for exercise, and their ideal versus current body size and shape. Prediction was that boys want to be heavier whereas girls had no such desire to be heavier. Only girls were associated with body dissatisfaction with the concept of self esteem. Specific reasons for exercise were found to correlate with low self-esteem and disordered eating, regardless of sex. The differences were not extremely significant (p Tylka (2004) states that body dissatisfaction is so prevalent among women in our society that it isnt very useful in identifying women who may have eating disorders, women are more likely to have eating disorders when their body dissatisfaction is accompanied by other issues most importantly, a tendency to obsessively examine their bodies and think about how they appear to others. From her study she concluded that about 3 to 8 percent of women have some type of eating disorder, but many women maybe most women are dissatisfied with their bodies. It shows that there are factors such as constant body monitoring that strengthen the relationship between body dissatisfaction and eating disorders and may help identify women at risk. The detailed findings of this research were published in a recent issue of the Journal of Counselling Psychology. In two related studies, Tyke tried to identify factors that strengthen the link between body dissatisfaction a womans unhappiness about her overal l body shape or about specific body parts such as stomach or thighs and eating disorders. One study involved 304 college women and the other 373 women aged 17 to 58. The results showed body surveillance was the strongest factor that predicted which women with body dissatisfaction were likely to report symptoms of eating disorders. Body surveillance involves actions like continually looking at yourself in the mirror to see how you look, Tylka said. Women who do this tend to ignore their internal feelings and emotions and concentrate on their outward appearance. They think of their bodies as objects.For example, some women may ignore their feelings of hunger because they are more concerned with how eating may affect how they appear to others. Tylka discovered that another factor that strengthened the link between body dissatisfaction and eating disorders is neuroticism a personality trait in which people tend to be anxious, nervous, worrying, and insecure. The third related factor wa s having a family member or friend who has an eating disorder. Women who have any of these three factors coupled with body dissatisfaction are the ones who may be most at risk for disordered eating. According to Davis (1999), girls often engage in fat talk, in which they complain and find fault with their bodies. When a girls friends constantly talk about how fat and ugly they are, she may begin to feel the same. This can lead to an unhealthy and difficult cycle to break. Further, friends may encourage each other to engage in unhealthy behaviours such as dieting and eating disorders and even compete to be the thinnest or smallest. Unfortunately, this pressure to conform is perpetuated by media and culture. According to Health Canada (1997), In the western culture, slim is promoted not only as beautiful, healthy and sexy but self-disciplined and good. Attractive people are perceived to be kind, interesting, outgoing, and to have a variety of socially desirable character traits (p.28). Therefore, a cultural value system becomes equated with thinness, and in turn attractiveness, so that anyone who deviates from this ideal may view oneself as incompetent, bad, and ugly. Approximately two-thirds of adolescent girls at any age are dissatisfied with their weight, the proportion increasing with actual weight. Slightly more than half of all girls are dissatisfied with the shape of their bodies, an attitude which also is positively correlated with body weight. Girls are most likely to be distressed about excess size of their thighs, hips, waist and buttocks, and inadequate size of their breasts. Those who are dissatisfied with their bodies are more likely to engage in potentially harmful weight control behaviours, such as dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diuretic use, laxative use and diet pill use. Those who diet are more likely to begin in early adolescence, to be white than black, to be of higher socioeconomic status, to engage in other eating-related practices and to have a poor body image and self esteem. Boys who are underweight are most likely to be dissatisfied with their weight and many with normal weight wish to weigh more. Approximately one-third of boys are dissatisfied with their body shape, desiring larger upper arms, chest and shoulders. Dieting and purging are less likely than exercise to be chosen by boys as methods of weight control. Dieting among boys is more likely to be associated with increased body weight and some sports, such as wrestling. Body consciousness and altered body image are widespread among adolescents, and may be associated with potentially harmful eating practices in both sexes, but more so in girls. (Moore, 1993). This study was conducted to examine the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms and body image disturbance in a group of adolescent females. Two groups were included in this study. One of them was the inpatients diagnosed with mood disorder and other were community group taken from colleges. The study measured attitude toward eating and body image using the EAT-26 and the BSQ-34. There was no difference in the risk of developing an eating disorder between the psychiatric group and the community group (p > .05). ). A significant difference was observed in age (p Johnson, Powers and Dick(1999) found in their studies that 9% of the female college athletes were diagnosed for an eating disorder where as 58% was found at high risk for development of disordered eating behaviour. The same study reflects 1% of male diagnosed as eating disorder and 38% were at risk for developing disordered eating behaviours. Eating disorders have become very prevalent in todays society, especially among college Females. Multiple factors are involved in the development of an eating disorder. This experiment tested the primary research hypothesis that college females are more susceptible to develop an eating disorder after being exposed to pictures of womens bodies. As a result of new research, the testing of males and more minorities was also included in this study. A pilot study involved college females (n=18) viewing a PowerPoint presentation (independent variable) and completing a survey. Pilot data showed no statistically significant effect of the independent variable. The present study found strong correlations relating both genders and their susceptibility to develop an eating disorder: females with a low self-esteem and negative body image, who feel pressure from the media, along with males with high muscle dissatisfaction are more likely to develop an eating disorder. (Hill, 1999) Mousa et al. (2009) The study indicated that young females often experience eating disturbances associated with weight concerns, particularly in Western and developed countries. The ob

Accurate Drainage Network Extraction From Satellite Imagery

Accurate Drainage Network Extraction From Satellite Imagery Ferdousi Khatun 1, Pratikshya Sharma1 Computer Science and Engineering Department, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology Majhitar, Sikkim Abstract. The extraction of the drainage hydrographical network is a key for various types of study such as hydrological analysis, geomorphology, environmental science, terrain analysis and still a research topic in the field of GIS. Drainage network are extracted through satellite image (e.g. Digital Elevation Model (DEM)) processing, contour map processing and raster map processing. Due to the advances in satellite imagery high resolution DEM are captured by many satellite recently. The DEMs is advantageous over toposheet because it provide consistent data with global coverage. Accurate drainage extraction from DEMs is used for hydrological analysis, morphometric analysis, terrain analysis and many other area as DEM provide the fastest path to extract feature. This paper provides the evolution of satellite imagery and accurate drainage network extraction process for various application namely geomorphometric analysis, hydrologic analysis, terrain analysis etc. also describe the ste ps involved to extract drainage stream network from DEM an up-to-date process. Keywords: DEM, ASTER-GDEM, SRTM, Cartosat 1 DEM 1 Introduction Water is the main and most important component on earth surface and drainage pattern is the essential hydrologic, geomorphologic element for analysis. Drainage pattern is a network that is generally formed by the waterbodies, lakes, streams, and rivers in a particular drainage basin which is also known as drainage system or river system. It has many application area like hydrologic modelling of micro watershed, groundwater prospect zone mapping, geomorphometric parameter analysis, water resource planning and management, flood hazard prediction and mitigation, river pattern change detection ,irrigation management etc. field. But drainage pattern extraction on flat surface and less complex terrain is still in research topic. The traditional process of generating the drainage map is from toposheet or contour map that depict the large scale detail of a geographic space. Generally it contains five layer of information, river and waterbody as blue color, road as red, forest as green, conto ur as brown and a black color for text feature. However, channel networks extraction from topo maps require tedious time, and cartography expert needed to provide subjective decision. In brief the steps to extract drainage from contour map is aerial element removal, linear element extraction to produce linear feature map, thinning, dilation, color segmentation and generate segmented layer map [1]. But generation of separate layer map has a limitation it will only work on digital contour map or historical map or high quality toposheet because poor quality toposheet suffer from false color aliasing and mixed color problem. Also available toposheet are old publication 10-20 years back. River pattern also change their position in some places due to landslide, flood or many natural phenomenas thus accurate drainage network is not provided by toposheet [2]. The satellites are capable of producing advanced digital elevation data(e.g., Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission -SRTM-, Interferometr ic Synthetic Aperture Radar for Elevation -IFSARE-) , Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model(ASTER GDEM V2), Cartosat -1 (Cartosat DEM 1.0), Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) etc. so analysis became easier. Early satellite technology does not able to capture the DEM directly so for hydrologic and geomorphologic analysis DEM was generated from various satellite like QUICK BIRD,IKONOS, Landsat tm etc.[3].The most widely used satellite imagery ASTER-GDEM,SRTM-DEM etc. are freely provided by USGS(http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/) site with 1,3 arc second spatial resolution and Cartosat-DEM is provided by ISRO(http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/bhuvan_links.php) and used for analyzing the data for various study. The above mention satellite has their specific configuration and suitable for either mountain area, flat surface, medium complex terrain area for accurate river network extraction. The accuracy of ASTER GDEM SRTM -DEM and is almost same [4] . In some cases Cartosat 1 DEM better sound than SRTM DEM for extracting drainage. DEMs with higher resolution provide detailed drainage networks that has greater impact on the drainage map analysis as statistical values become lower when resolution of DEM changes from fine to rude [5]. 1.1 Evaluation of Satellite Imagery for Drainage Extraction DEM plays a crucial role for generating drainage network. In past years the DEMs were available at a global coverage in a 1 KM resolution like GTOPO-30(Global Topography in 30 arc sec).After that Shuttle SRTM ,version 4,C-band DEM of 90m resolution and the ASTER (version 2, 30 m resolution) was launched that provide better resolution which solves the problem regarding spatial resolution. The hydrology analysis became easier in INDIA after launch of Cartosat DEM (version 1) at 30 m in 2011.These data are openly accessible and easily downloaded from USGS and ISRO website. Various purchased stereo-images from Cartosat 1,landsat 7 ETM+,QuickBird,IKONOS,SPOT,SAR are used for generating the DEM using software and can be applied for hydrologic analysis[6],[7],[8],[9][10].Lot of studies is going on hydrological analysis and geomorphometric analysis from DEMs. In India most research is done best on DEM for river basin analysis, estimation of soil loss, water resource evaluation and topographi c characterization[11],[12],[13],[14].The high resolution DEMs provide finer extraction of land surface component like drainage network, slope facets and higher accuracy than a toposheet.The morphometric parameter are heavily depend upon the scale of the feature extrcated.Research is going on which satellite provided imagery is relevant for accurately extract the stream network in various surface area like mountain, flat surface, less complex terrain area.In some cases SRTM is very good for drainage analysis[15],[16]. For accuracy assessment the complete elevation criterion is more focused and less importance given to how the various morphometric variables that are derived, vary from one dataset to the other, as well as how their prepared maps differ. 1.2 Importance of Drainage Network in GIS Drainage means the deportation of surplus water from a given place. In geomorphology and hydrology a Drainage pattern is a network that is generally formed by the waterbodies, lakes, streams, and rivers in a particular drainage basin. They are depend on topography of the land. The shape, size, number of the drainage basins found in an area vary with the topography. A drainage system are of six different type namely Dendritic Drainage, Parallel Drainage, Trellis Drainage, Radial Drainage, and Rectangular Drainage and Deranged Drainage. In hydrological studies, geomorphological analysis DEMs are primary element for catchment boundary, delineation of watershed boundary, estimation of various catchment parameters such as slope, contours, aspects, etc. and morphometric attribute like no of tributaries, stream order, stream length, bifurcation ratio, relief ratio etc. By examining various hydrological and morphological parameter the irrigation management department supply water in dry weat her for agriculture crop production, water resource management department, flood hazard zone prediction and mitigation department, drainage management department are being very beneficial in recent year. 1.3 Review of Drainage Extraction Methods The mesh network of attached stream pertaining to a land is the river pattern or drainage pattern. These network formation is mainly depend on the morphological aspect of the terrain i.e. slope, varied resistance of rocks and geology and topology of the land. When a DEM is consider for drainage network extraction, the main steps are (1)fill depression,(2)flow direction,(3)flow accumulation and (4)stream network generation. A DEM is the representation of land elevation in digital form that are mainly stored as a rectangular matrix with integer or floating-point values. Among various algorithm the DEM pixels computation is based on D8 method that is first introduced by OCallaghan and Mark (1984)[17].But this algorithm has some derelictions. As per D8 algorithm single flow direction is calculated by comparing the elevation of its 8 neighboring cells where the cells with higher elevations flow towards adjacent cells with lower elevation as the water flow from high elevation to low due to gravity. However parallel flow lines generation in flat areas is the restriction of formation of concentrated channel flow and is a vital limitation of D8 method. The most important problem while delineating stream network using DEM is the presence of sinks, for flat area and depressions it is difficult to set the ends of stream network and the flow direction assignment in individual cells. Thus for accurate extraction the sinks are removed from DEM in the first step. In 1988 an new developed algorithm is introduced by Jensen and Domingue to remove the sinks prior to the flow directions calculation by increasing the elevation value of nodes within each depression pixel to the level of the lowest node on the depression boundary. Next A new method to calculate the upslope areas using rectangular grid DEM and representation of flow directions is introduced known as D-infinity where the direction of flow is not restricted to check its 8 adjacent cells[18].Some research is also done based on multipath flow direction but it is time consuming and more manual effort required for calculation[19][20].To improve the existing method a path based methods to resolve the nondispersive drainage flow direction in grid based DEM is introduced. It improved the D8 a few extent but fails to eliminate local level bias [21]. Over the past 20 years, many improved method based on routing flow through pits and flats have been introduced. The technology developed and the drainage is extracted bas ed on heuristic information. An innovative algorithm is presented by W. Yang and co -authors in 2010 based on heuristic information that accurate extract the drainage network but fails to detect unrealistic parallel drainage lines, unreal drainage lines and spurious terrain features and has a closer match with the existing pattern [22]. More recently in 2012 Mr.Magalhaes have proposed a very simple and innovative approach where the DEM is considered as island and the outside water level raises step by step until the whole DEM is submerged. So gradually it flood the cells of the DEM, next filling the depression and spread it on flat to flow towards a neighbor if that neighbor has a assigned direction of flow that does not point back to the early visited cell. In such manner, the flow direction assignments grow iteratively into flat surfaces from areas. After that flow direction is calculated and accumulation flow is generated that is the final step of stream network generation or dra inage network computation [23].In 2013 a flooding algorithm is proposed by Antonio et.al to extract the drainage on flat surface and able to works on unprocessed DEMs avoiding the problems caused by flats and pits, able to extract watercourses with a width greater than one cell and identify fluvial landforms such as marshes, lakes or river islands that are not directly managed by most of previous solutions[24]. 1.4 Literature Survey Research is going on which satellite imagery provide the accurate result for drainage extraction. DEMs provide us a digital representation of the continuous land surface. Advanced remote sensing technologies (e.g. SRTM, ASTER-GDEM, Cartosat 1.DEM etc.) are capable of generating new elevation data and freely availbale.High resolution DEM provide accurate drainage extraction. During past 20 years many satellite generated imagery is used to extract the drainage pattern and examined on various terrain like mountain area, medium complex terrain and flat surface. But the accurate extraction which is very essential for hydrologic and morphological analysis is still lacking some feature.Gajalakshmi K. and Anantharama V. recently analyses the accuracy between Cartosat 1 DEM and SRTM DEM.As per experiment in gradually undulating terrain, elevation values of Cartosat-DEM are lower than SRTM-DEM. whereas the stream parameter values of Cartosat-DEM are higher than SRTM-DEM[25]. Sarra Ouerghi et.a l. comparers the ASTER-GDEM and SRTM DEM for drainage extraction. The analysis found that ASTER GDEM is more pronounced in flat and less complex terrain [26]. Sample drainage network represented in fig 1.4. Fig 1.4. Stream networks derived from Topo DEM, ASTER GDEM, and SRTM [26] Table 1. Summary of Survey SL No Title Description Remarks 1 Water Body Detection and Delineation with Landsat 5 TM Data. Landsat 5 TM + imagery used to map river line waterbody and compared with Aerial image. Manual classification of Landsat imagery and Aerial imagery. Error in image registration occur. 2 DSM generation and evaluation from QuickBird stereo imagery with 3D physical modeling. QuickBird stereo imagery is used for generating the DEM and 5m contour generation and drainage pattern extraction. Manual process to prepare DEM Automatic extraction missing. Resolution high but time consuming process. 3 Cartosat-1 derived DEM (CartoDEM)towards Parameter Estimation of Microwatershed and Comparison with ALTM DEM. Cartosat-1 and ALTM DEM is compared for drainage pattern extraction and Microwatersheds parameter analysis in MadhyaPrades. Suitable for Mountain area but not suitable for plain area.Saveral steps required to process the DEM and extract the data. 4 Assessment of extraction drainage pattern from topographic maps based on photogrammetry Aerial Image and four toposheet is processed for drainage mapping and compare the both. Satellite imagery accurately extract drainage, some drainage is missing in toposheet. Several image processing steps required to extract pattern from satellite image. 5 A GIS based approach in drainage morphometric analysis of Kanhar River Basin, India. ASTER-DEM,Landsat ETM+,SOI toposheet for morphometric analysis All morphometric parameter has not been introduced. 2. Conclusion The extraction of drainage networks can be done form of contour map, raster map or DEMs.The satellite provided DEMs are very efficient to extract the drainage network in all terrain because the satellite gives the up-to-date changes happen on earth surface like change position of river network, new waterbody etc. feature is capture via highly sensitive sensor present in satellite. Thus less time required to extract the pattern from satellite provided DEM.Survey found that automatic extraction is accurately extract the pattern rather than topographic map with less error. The Cartosat 1 DEM is very useful for mountain area, SRTM and ASTER-GDEM is suitable for medium and flat surface where terrain is less complex. References: Tiange Liu Qiguang Miao Pengfei Xu Jianfeng Song Yining Quan. : Color topographical map segmentation Algorithm based on linear element eatures. Springer Journal,Multimedia Tools and Application, Volume 75, Issue 10, (2016)5417-5438 Samih B. Al Rawashdeh. : Assessment of extraction drainage pattern from topographic maps based on photogrammetry. Springer, Arabian Journal of Geosciences , Volume 6, Issue 12, (2013) 4873-4880 T. Toutin. : DSM generation and evaluation from QuickBird stereo imagery with 3D physical modelling. International Journal of Remote Sensing, VOL. 25, NO. 22, (2004)5181-5193 Sarra Ouerghi, Ranya Fadlalla Abdalla ELsheikh, Hammadi Achour, Samir Bouazi : Evaluation and Validation of Recent Freely-Available ASTER-GDEM V.2, SRTM V.4.1 and the DEM Derived from Topographical Map over SW Grombalia (Test Area) in North East of Tunisia. Springer Paper, Journal of Geographic Information System, 7, (2015) 266-279 Gajalakshmi K. and Anantharama V. : Comparative Study of Cartosat-DEM and SRTM-DEM on Elevation Data and Terrain Elements. Cloud Publications International Journal of Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS. Volume 4, Issue 1, (2015) 1361-1366 Toutin T, Chenier R, Carbonneau Y 3D geometric modelling of Ikonos Geo images. In: Proceedings of ISPRS joint workshop .High resolution from Space, Hannover(2001). Toutin T.: DEM from stereo Landsat 7 ETM+ data over high relief areas. Int J Remote Sens 23(10) (2002)2133-2139 Toutin T. : DSM generation and evaluation from QuickBird stereo imagery with 3D physical modelling. Int J Remote Sens 25(22) (2004)5181-5192. Poli D, Li Z, Gruen. : A SPOT-5/HRS stereo images orientation and automated DSM generation. Int Arch Photogramm Remote Sens 35(B1) (2002)130-135 Hirano A, Welch R, Lang H.: Mapping from ASTER stereo image data: DEM validation and accuracy assessment. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 57 (2003)356-370 Chopra R, Dhiman RD, Sharma PK.: Morphometric analysis of subwatersheds in Gurdaspur District Punjab using remote sensing and GIS techniques. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 33 (2005)531-539. Kale VS, Shejwalkar N.: Western Ghat escarpment evolution in the Deccan Basalt Province: geomorphic observations based on DEM analysis. J Geol Soc India 70 (2007)459-473. Sreedevi PD, Owais S, Khan HH, Ahmed S.: Morphometric analysis of a watershed of South India using SRTM Data and GIS. J Geol Soc India 73 (2009) 543-552 Ghosh P, Sinha S, Misra A.: Morphometric properties of the trans-Himalayan river catchments: clues towards a relative chronology of orogenwide drainage integration. Geomorphology 233 (2015) 127-141 Gorokhovich Y, Voustianiouk A.: Accuracy assessment of the processed- SRTM based elevation data by CGIAR using field data from USA and Thailand and its relation to the terrain characteristics. Remote Sens Environ 104 (2006) 409-415 Weydahl DJ, Sagstuen J, Dick OB, Ronning H.: SRTM DEM accuracy over vegetated areas in Norway. Int J Remote Sens 28(16) (2007) 3513-3527 OCallaghan J, Mark DM.: The extraction of drainage networks from digital elevation data. Compute Vis Graph Image Process 28(3) (1984) 323-344 David G. Tarboron.: A new method for the determination of flow directions and upslope areas in grid digital elevation models, WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 33, NO. 2, (1997) 309-319 Zhang Yu, Liu Yong-xue, Chen Zhen-jie. : Multi-flow direction algorithms for extraction drainage network based on digital elevation model. Geospatial Information Science, 6753(2B) (2007) 1-9 Tarboton D G. : A new method for the determination of flow directions and upslope areas in grid digital elevation models [J]. Water Resources Research, , 33(2) (1997) 309-319 Orlandini S, Moretti G, Franchini M, Aldighieri B, Testa B. : Path- based methods for the determination of nondispersive drainage directions in grid-based digital elevation models. Water Resour Res 39(6) (2003) W. Yang1,2, K. Hou1,3, F. Yu2 , Z. Liu4 , and T. Sun1. : A novel algorithm with heuristic information for extracting drainage networks from raster DEMs, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 7, (2010) 441-459 Magalhaes, S.V.G., Andrade, M.V.A., Franklin, W.R., Pena, G.C. : A new method for computing the drainage network based on raising the level of an ocean surrounding the terrain, in: Proceedings of 15th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science, Avignon (France), (2012) 391-407 Antonio Rueda , Josà © M. Noguera , Carmen Martà ­nez-Cruz.: A flooding algorithm for extracting drainage networks from unprocessed digital elevation models. Computers Geosciences Volume 59, (2013) 116-123 Gajalakshmi K. and Anantharama V.: Comparative Study of Cartosat-DEM and SRTM-DEM on Elevation Data and Terrain Elements. International Journal of Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS, Volume 4, Issue 1, (2015) 1361-1366 Sarra Ouerghi, Ranya Fadlalla Abdalla ELsheikh, Hammadi Achour, Samir Bouazi.: Evaluation and Validation of Recent Freely-Available ASTER-GDEM V.2, SRTM V.4.1 and the DEM Derived from Topographical Map over SW Grombalia (Test Area) in North East of Tunisia.Journal of Geographic Information System, 7, (2015) 266-279

General Analysis Of John Irvings Works :: essays research papers

John Winslow Irving stands out as one of the finest contemporary American authors. Born in Exeter, New Hampshire in July 1942, Irving attended an Exeter prep school at which his stepfather taught history. Although he excelled at English, he was discouraged by the fact that he was dyslexic, a condition which wasn't recognized back then and so had trouble keeping up. An avid wrestler, he attended the University of New Hampshire on a wrestling scholarship. There, he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, who encouraged him to write. "It was so simple," he remembers. "Yount was he first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying." Similarly inspired by Dicken's work, particularly A Christmas Carol, and studying under GÃ ¼nter Grass in Vienna, Irving began to write what would later become his first novel, Setting Free the Bears (Irving, 1968). When he returned from Austria he married, and when his first child was born at age 23, he sold his 750 cc Royal Enfield- duly noted in Bears- and continued to write. Following the scant success of Bears, Irving wrote The Water Method Man in 1972, the story of a perpetual graduate student who can't seem to take anything to completion. Although it was criticized for lack of depth and character development, it incorporates an interesting shifting narrative and alternating time periods, which makes the book seem less traditional. Like Bears, both books contain mild autobiographical information. Fred- the implied narrator of the book- attended Exeter, studied in Vienna, and has a wrestling background. In 1978, he published The World According to Garp, which was instantly a success and made Irving a literary hero overnight. It is the story of "TS Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields, a feminist leader ahead of her times. Theirs is a world of sexual extremes and even sexual assassinations. Yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both ribald and robust ." TS Garp, a wrestler and writer, has to deal with his mother's prominence in the feminist movement (though Jenny Fields herself was loath to call herself a feminist). Garp also contains characteristics that seem to earmark works of Irving: unfortunate accidents, wrestling, rich subplots, an intricate cast of characters, and a humor that mocks things that are traditionally sober and tragic. There is something to be said about Irving's talents that he can create humor of such tragedy, as in the terrible car accident, and not seem crass or dark.

White Attitudes Towards Nature Essay -- Racial Relations, Indian, Whit

In Luther Standing Bear’s â€Å"Nature† and Louis Owens’s â€Å"The American Indian Wilderness†, the authors dictate differences in Indian and white relationships with nature. They stress how Indians see nature, their balanced relationship with it, and how Indians know wilderness is just a European idea. Though agreeing here, Standing Bear focuses on how Indians truly lived while Owens reveals more of both sides and has hope that white views can shift. Standing Bear thinks the difference in how whites and Indians see nature stems from childhood. He believes Indian children are aware of nature because they have been taught to â€Å"become conscious of life† and spend time observing the wild around them (9). By seeing the world this way, their love and respect for it flourishes (10). He says this appreciation sharply contrasts to ignorant whites who thoughtlessly play as children, ignoring everything but each other, and grow up disregarding the knowledge nature gives, seeing only what they can use. He thinks whites are bored with nature because they do not have the â€Å"Indian point of view† (11). The distance whites have from nature harms their relationship with it and humans, making them less compassionate when they do not see â€Å"man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard† (Standing Bear 12). Similarly, Owens says whites see nature differently because of childhood experiences. Instead of growing up daily in nature, white children sporadically go camping, and thus view nature as a tourist attraction instead of a second home. He states Indians embrace nature because it has a stronger family significance to them that whites do not see. Indians call the Cascades the â€Å"Great Mother† because of stories they have heard growing up, and things like this ca... ...s have led him to think whites will never change and that the two races â€Å"[can] not understand each other† (12). On the other hand, Owens has hope for whites because he did not grow up with Indian traditions and he witnessed the U.S. Forest Service protecting nature when he was sent to burn the shed. (11). Indians comprehend and value nature more than whites and these authors recognize that. They believe the trouble with white attitudes is they do not truly see nature or form harmonious relationships, and whites think they can be separated from their idea of wilderness. Although Standing Bear is critical of whites and believes they will never change, Owens thinks they will if they continue to redefine how they view nature and try to connect with it. Overall, both authors want whites to respect the Indian way of living with nature and aspire to be that way also.

Jones Blair Case Study Essay

Jones †¢ Blair is a company that produces and sells architectural paint it also sell paint sundries which include paintbrushes and rollers. It caters to over 50 countries which are divided into two sectors the DFW area and the non-DFW area. Of the two the DFW area has been proven to be the most successful area for the company. In 1999 the company made 80 million in sales and 60% of this was contributed by the DFW area. There are two segments within the company’s main sales attributes and these are between the do it yourself market and the professional market. With regards to the professional market in the DFW area this accounted for 70% of sales In the non-DFW area 70% of sales were made through the do-it-yourself market. During a meeting the company discussed the problem of where and how to carry out marketing efforts. They were left with four options: 1) Cut the price by 20%. 2) Hire one additional sales rep. 3) Spend additional $350,000 on advertising. 4) Stay the same. A detailed look into each option. 1) Cut the price by 20%. The shopper research programme indicated that dealers will back off the brand when the customer appears price sensitive. By cutting the price by 20% this will allow the company to be on par with national brands. The current contribution margin for the company is 35% if the price was to be cut by 20% then the new contribution margin would be reduced to: 35% – 20% = 15% with the current sale volume being $12 million and a price cut of 20% the sales would have to increase significantly for the price cut to be effective. According to Barrett â€Å"we are now the highest price paint in our service area† the fact that the company still has increasing sales despite being the highest cost brand of all the competitors this shows that the company is being perceived as giving high quality goods where people don’t mind about paying extra for their brand. If the company was to cut the price by 20% this may leave doubts in peoples minds about whether or not the brand is actually as high quality as they had thought. The fact that they can get away with charging a higher price for their brand they should stick with it. 2) Hire one additional sales rep. Currently the company has 8 sales reps which are responsible for the following tasks: Monitoring inventories. Taking orders. Assisting in store display. Coordinating cooperative advertising programmes. A survey indicated that the sales reps were very well liked, helpful, professional and knowledgeable with regards to paint. These reps are paid a salary and also a 1% commission. The cost of hiring an additional sales rep would be $60,000 a year, this is excluding commission. The vice president feels that the current sales reps aren’t aggressive enough and the fact that only 5 new accounts were made in the last 5 years something needs to be done. Only 16% of the accounts come from the non-DFW area so maybe a focus needs to be placed onto this area. If this was to be done, an additional sales rep be assigned to the non-DFW area this could lead to a significant increase in sales. 3) Spend additional $350,000 on advertising. The vice president of advertising believes that there is a need for an awareness level of 30% among do-it-yourselfers to affect their sales. An emphasis on television coverage will reach non-DFW consumers in 15 countries. Research shows that ads affect the buying process Since most consumers consider the store before the actual brand maybe the advertising should be focused more-so on corporate ads rather than brand ads. The company spends 3% of its net sales on advertising therefore the current cost of advertising is: 3% of 12 million = 360000 with an additional spend of $350000 on advertising the total cost of advertising would be: 360000+ 350000= $710,000. This would almost double the cost of advertising and since there’s an emphasis on television this could prove to be a risky option, especially since brand awareness isn’t the main attribution to buyer behaviour. Another factor to consider is the fact that 75% of the audience of the advert aren’t buying paint. 4) Stay the same. The final option for the company would be to keep everything the same which is advised by the vice president of finance. Since the company is continuing to make profit he feels that if you were to take the other options that there would have to be a significant increase in the sales volume which may not be a result. Although most of the options offer different benefits and of course different drawbacks we don’t think there is an outright option to choose. With regards to the cut in price of 20% we don’t believe this option should be chosen. The fact that the company is allowed to charge the higher price and is perceived as being a high quality brand why should they risk losing all of this by accepting the price cut. The next option with regards to hiring an additional sales rep we feel that the fact that they have 8 sales reps already would the addition of another really make a significant impact on sales. Rather than focusing on hiring a new one we believe that if they focused more-so and possibly retraining their current sales reps this could prove to be more effective. The fact that the sales reps are already considered highly by the customers is a bonus. If more effort was put into them and how they could improve efficiency then this could be worthwhile to the company. The company could divide up the sales reps into the necessary markets and possibly by offering them incentives this could increase their performance. By hiring an additional sales rep doesn’t necessarily promise a change in sales. With regards to an increase of advertising spending of $350,000 we wouldn’t recommend this option. As the company wants to put an emphasis on television and the fact that 75% of the audience don’t buy paint, the 25% of the audience that do doesn’t seem like a big enough market coverage to invest such a lot of money into. Instead we feel they should look into other marketing options. The fact that with regards to buyer behaviour that customers choose the store first before the brand maybe the company should look into advertising within the actual stores. They could look into what stores are proven to be more popular and focus advertising attention on these. With the last option as staying the same although the company is continuing to make profits we feel like this could be the easy option. Rather than just being content with what is currently happening with the business they should focus on improving the business. The fact is that more and more competitors may enter the market or even people may change their buying behaviour but ultimately the company should try and always be a brand considered.

Making a Difference through Charity Works

We are all aware that not all people are the same. Although some may say that all people are equal, we can’t still deny the fact that some are just too lucky while others are not. Some have more than enough foods served in their dining table three times a day while others consider themselves fortunate already if they get to eat at least once a day. Some can afford to go to expensive private schools to study while others cannot study even in public schools where tuition fee is free. Some can enjoy the luxury and comfort of a big and fully air-conditioned house while others sleep on dirty and cold sidewalks. These situations are just some realities that cause people to doubt if equality really exists on earth. However, if we look at its brighter side, these situations will make us realize how blessed we are. These will make us think that we should be very thankful that we can eat at least three times a day, that we can afford to go to school and to get the best education that we deserve, and that we can sleep comfortably on our own home. And because we are blessed with these things, we must give back to other people who are less fortunate than us. It takes a caring and special person to undertake charity work, as it takes that same special character to make charity donations. Charity work can be a long, hard and sometimes laborious task. However, it is highly rewarding for the individual doing it and the recipient of the benefits. Charitable works for me can be best defined as the willingness of an individual to provide as many smiles on as many faces as he/she could imagine. Charity is a global act and is not confined to a certain nation, people or a country. It is an act of gratitude and support to those who need help, keeping in mind that earth is one small village. Above all, charity should not be an ostentatious display of wealth. Although it is an act of kindness, it could lose power when it is more concerned about hogging media glare than lending support to the needy and desperate. Charity could also mean love. I believe that the root of charity is love, love for our fellowmen and love for God. Anybody can be an active part of a charity work. It can be you or me or our neighbors. The fulfillment anybody can feel through helping others is incomparable. And I do believe that we can make a difference through participating actively on charity works. I am only one and I know I can’t change the world alone but if I can convince you, my friends, your friends, and our friends’ friends to be more responsible in giving back to our community, for sure we can make a big difference. Charitable work, in its simplest form therefore, is helping one another and the community as a whole.