VDEC Based Data Extraction and Clustering Approach

VDEC Based Data Extraction and Clustering Approach This chapter describes in details the proposed VDEC Approach. It discusses the two phases of the VDEC process for Data Extraction and clustering. Experimental performance evaluation results are shown in the last section in comparing the GDS and SDS datasets. INTRODUCTION Extracting data records on the response pages returned from web databases or search engines is a challenge posed in information retrieval. Traditional web crawlers focus only on the surface web while the deep web keeps expanding behind the scene. Vision based data extraction provides a solution to extract information from dynamic web pages through page segmentation for creating a data region and data record and item extraction. A vision based web information extraction systems become more complex and time-consuming. Detection of data region is a significant problem for information extraction from the web page. This chapter discusses an approach to vision-based deep web data extraction and web document clustering. The proposed approach comprises of two phases, (1) Vision-based web data extraction, and (2) web document clustering. In phase 1, the web page information is segmented into various chunks. From which, surplus noise and duplicate chunks are removed using three parameters, such as hyperlink percentage, noise score and cosine similarity. Finally, the extracted keywords are subjected to web document clustering using Fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM). VDEC APPROACH VDEC approach is designed to extract visual data automatically from deep web pages as shown in the block diagram in figure 5.1. Figure 5.1 – VDEC Approach Block diagram In most of web pages, there will be more than one data object tied together in data region, makes difficult to search attributes for each page. Unprocessed source of web page for representing the objects is non-contiguous one, the problem becomes more complicated. In existent applications, the users necessitate from complex web pages is the description of individual data object derived from the partitioning of the data region. VDEC achieve the data capturing from the deep web pages using two phases as discussed in the following sections. Phase-1 Vision Based Web Data Extraction In Phase-1 VDEC approach performs data extraction and a measure is introduced to evaluate the importance of each leaf chunk in the tree, which in turn helps us to eliminate noise in a deep web page. In this measure, remove the surplus noise and duplicate chunk using three parameters such as hyperlink percentage, Noise score and cosine similarity. Finally, obtain the main chunk extraction process using three parameters such as Title word Relevancy, Keyword frequency based chunk selection, Position features and a set of keywords are extracted from those main chunks. Phase-2 Web Document Clustering In Phase-2 VDEC perform web document clustering using Fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM), the set of keywords were clustered for all deep web pages. Both the phases of the VDEC helps to extract the visual features of the web pages and supports on web page clustering for improvising information retrieval. The process activities are briefly described in the following section. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED IN VDEC APPROACH Definition (chunk): Consider a deep web page is segmented by blocks. These each block are known as chunk. For example the web page is represented as, , where the main chunk, . Definition (Hyperlink): A hyperlink has an anchor, which is the location within a document from which the hyperlink can be followed; the document having a hyperlink is called as its source document to web pages. Hyperlink percentage Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Keywords in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Link Keywords in a chunk Definition (Noise score): Noise score is defined as the ratio of the number of images in total number of chunks. Noise score, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of images in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Total number of images Definition (Cosine similarity): Cosine similarity means calculating the similarity of two chunks. The inner product of the two vectors, i.e., the sum of the pairwise multiplied elements, is divided by the product of their vector lengths. Cosine Similarity, Where, , à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  Weight of keywords in, Definition (Position feature): Position features (PFs) that indicate the location of the data region on a deep web page. To compute the position feature score, the ratio is computed and then, the following equation is used to find the score for the chunk. (4) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Position features Definition (Title word relevancy): A web page title is the name or heading of a Web site or a Web page. If there is more number of title words in a certain block, then it means that the corresponding block is of more importance. Title word relevancy, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Title Keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of the title keyword in a chunk Definition (Keyword frequency): Keyword frequency is the number of times the keyword phrase appears on a deep Web page chunk relative to the total number of words on the deep web page. Keyword frequency based chunk selection, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of top ten keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Top-K Keywords PHASE-1 – VISION BASED DEEP WEB DATA EXTRACTION In a web page, there are numerous immaterial components related to the descriptions of data objects. These items comprise an advertisement bar, product category, search panel, navigator bar, and copyright statement, etc. Generally, a web page is specified by a triple. is a finite set of objects or sub-web pages. All these objects are not overlapped. Each web page can be recursively viewed as a sub-web-page and has a subsidiary content structure. is a finite set of visual separators, such as horizontal separators and vertical separators. Every separator has a weight representing its visibility, and all the separators in the same have the same weight. is the relationship of every two blocks in , which is represented as:. In several web pages, there are normally more than one data object entwined together in a data region, which makes it complex to find the attributes for each page. Deep Web Page Extraction The Deep web is usually defined as the content on the Web not accessible through a search on general search engines. This content is sometimes also referred to as the hidden or invisible web. The Web is a complex entity that contains information from a variety of source types and includes an evolving mix of different file types and media. It is much more than static, self-contained Web pages. In our work, the deep web pages are collected from Complete Planet (www.completeplanet.com), which is currently the largest deep web repository with more than 70,000 entries of web databases. Chunk Segmentation Web pages are constructed not only main contents information like product information in shopping domain, job information in a job domain, but also advertisements bar, static content like navigation panels, copyright sections, etc. In many web pages, the main content information exists in the middle chunk and the rest of the page contains advertisements, navigation links, and privacy statements as noisy data. Removing these noises will help in improving the mining of the web and it’s called Chunk Segmenting Operation as shown in figure.5.2. Figure 5.2 Chunk Segmenting Operation To assign importance to a region in a web page (), we first need to segment a web page into a set of chunks. It extracts main content information and deep web clustering that is both fast and accurate. The two stages and its sub-steps are given as follows. Stage 1: Vision-based deep web data identification Deep web page extraction Chunk segmentation Noisy chunk Removal Extraction of main chunk using chunk weightage Stage 2: Web document clustering Clustering process using FCM Normally, a tag separated by many sub tags based on the content of the deep web page. If there is no tag in the sub tag, the last tag is consider as leaf node. The Chunk Splitting Process aims at cleaning the local noises by considering only the main content of a web page enclosed in div tag. The main contents are segmented into various chunks. The result of this process can be represented as follows: , Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   A set of chunks in the deep web page à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of chunks in a deep web page In Figure 5.1, we have taken an example of a tree sample which consists of main chunks and sub chunks. The main chunks are segmented into chunks C1, C2 and C3 using Chunk Splitting Operation and sub-chunks are segmented into . Noisy Chunk Removal A deep web page usually contains main content chunks and noise chunks. Only the main content chunks represent the informative part that most users are interested in. Although other chunks are helpful in enriching functionality and guiding browsing, they negatively affect such web mining tasks as web page clustering and classification by reducing the accuracy of mined results as well as speed of processing. Thus, these chunks are called noise chunks. Removing these chunks in our research work, we have concentrated on two parameters; they are Hyperlink Percentage and Noise score which is very significant. The main objective of removing noise from a Web Page is to improve the performance of the search engine. The representation of each parameter is as follows: Hyperlink Keyword – A hyperlink has an anchor, which is the location within a document from which the hyperlink can be followed; the document containing a hyperlink is known as its source document to web pages. Hyperlink Keywords are the keywords which are present in a chunk such that it directs to another page. If there are more links in a particular chunk then it means the corresponding chunk has less importance. The parameter Hyperlink Keyword Retrieval calculates the percentage of all the hyperlink keywords present in a chunk and is computed using the following equation. Hyperlink word Percentage, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Keywords in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Link Keywords in a chunk Noise score – The information on Web page consists of both text and images (static pictures, flash, video, etc.). Many Internet sites draw income from third-party advertisements, usually in the form of images sprinkled throughout the site’s pages. In our work, the parameter Noise score calculates the percentage of all the images present in a chunk and is computed using the following equation. Noise score, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of images in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Total number of images Duplicate Chunk Removal Using Cosine Similarity: Cosine Similarity Cosine similarity is one of the most popular similarity measure applied to text documents, such as in numerous information retrieval applications [7] and clustering too [8]. Here, duplication detection among the chunk is done with the help of cosine similarity. Given two chunks and, their cosine similarity is Cosine Similarity Where, , à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  Weight of keywords in, Extraction of Main Block Chunk Weightage for Sub-Chunk: In the previous step, we obtained a set of chunks after removing the noise chunks, and duplicate chunks present in a deep web page. Web page designers tend to organize their content in a reasonable way: giving prominence to important things and deemphasizing the unimportant parts with proper features such as position, size, color, word, image, link, etc. A chunk importance model is a function to map from features to importance for each chunk, and can be formalized as : . The preprocessing for computation is to extract essential keywords for the calculation of Chunk Importance. Many researchers have given importance to different information inside a webpage for instance location, position, occupied area, content, etc. In this research work, we have concentrated on the three parameters Title word relevancy, keyword frequency based chunk selection, and position features which are very significant. Each parameter has its own significance for calculating sub-chunk weightage. The following equation computes the sub-chunk weightage of all noiseless chunks. (1) Where à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Constants For each noiseless chunk, we have to calculate these unknown parameters, and. The representation of each parameter is as follows: Title Keyword – Primarily, a web page title is the name or title of a Web site or a Web page. If there is more number of title words in a particular block then it means the corresponding block is of more importance. This parameter Title Keyword calculates the percentage of all the title keywords present in a block. It is computed using the following equation. Title word Relevancy; (2) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Title Keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Title word relevancy, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of the title keyword in a chunk. Keyword Frequency based chunk selection: Basically, Keyword frequency is the number of times the keyword phrase appears on a deep Web page chunk relative to the total number of words on the deep web page. In our work, the top-K keywords of each and every chunk were selected and then their frequencies were calculated. The parameter keyword frequency based chunk selection calculates for all sub-chunks and is computed using the following equation. Keyword Frequency based chunk selection (3) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of top ten keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Keyword Frequency based chunk selection à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Top-K Keywords Position features (PFs): Generally, these data regions are always centered horizontally and for calculating, we need the ratio of the size of the data region to the size of the whole deep Web page instead of the actual size. In our experiments, the threshold of the ratio is set at 0.7, that is, if the ratio of the horizontally centered region is greater than or equal to 0.7, then the region is recognized as the data region. The parameter position features calculate the important sub chunk from all sub chunks and is computed using the following equation. (4) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Position features Thus, we have obtained the values of, and by substituting the above mentioned equation. By substituting the values of , and in eq.1, we obtain the sub-chunk weightage. Chunk Weightage for Main Chunk: We have obtained sub-chunk weightage of all noiseless chunks from the above process. Then, the main chunks weightage are selected from the following equation (5) Where,à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Sub-chunk weightage of Main-chunk. à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Constant, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Main chunk weightage. Thus, finally we obtain a set of important chunks and we extract the keywords from the above obtained important chunks for effective web document clustering mining. Algorithm-1 : Clustering Approach PHASE-2 – DEEP WEB DOCUMENT CLUSTERING USING FCM Let DB be a dataset of web documents, where the set of keywords is denoted by . Let X={x1, x2, †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦, xN} is the set of N web documents, where, xi={ xi1,xi2,†¦.,xin}. Each xij(i=1,†¦.,N;j=1,†¦.,n) corresponds to the frequency of keyword xi on web document. Fuzzy c-means [29] partitions set of web documents indimensional space into fuzzy clusters with cluster centers or centroids. The fuzzy clustering of keywords is described by a fuzzy matrix with n rows and c columns in which n is the number of keywords and c is the number of clusters. , the element in the row and column in, indicates the degree of association or membership function of the object with the cluster. The characters of are as follows: (6) (7) (8) The objective function of FCM algorithm is to minimize the Eq. (9): (9) Where (10) in which, m(m >1) is a scalar termed the weighting exponent and controls the fuzziness of the resulting clusters and dij is the Euclidian distance from key to the cluster center zip. The zj, centroid of the jth cluster, is obtained using Eq. (11) (11) The FCM algorithm is iterative and can be stated as in Algorithm-2. Algorithm-2 : Fuzzy c-means Approach Experimental Setup The experimental results of the proposed method for vision-based deep web data extraction for web document clustering are presented in this section. The proposed approach has been implemented in Java (jdk 1.6) and the experimentation is performed on a 3.0 GHz Pentium PC machine with 2 GB main memory. For experimentation, we have taken many deep web pages which contained all the noises such as Navigation bars, Panels and Frames, Page Headers and Footers, Copyright and Privacy Notices, Advertisements and Other Uninteresting Data. These pages are then applied to the proposed method for removing the different noises. The removal of noise blocks and extracting of useful content chunks are explained in this sub-section. Finally, extracting the useful con

My Teaching Philosophy Essay -- Education Teaching Philosophy

My Teaching Philosophy I believe that education extends far beyond the classroom walls, and involves many more people than students and teachers. People should be learning wherever they go, and should continue learning long after they’ve graduated from high school or college. Education isn’t something that can be quantified with tests or report cards, but is instead something that people carry with them. It’s a survival pack for life, and some people are better equipped in certain areas than in others. People with a solid education are prepared for nearly anything, as they will be able to provide for their own physical, emotional, and aesthetic needs. That being said, I also believe that a crucial part of education does occur within school during the formative years of a person’s life. Regardless of whether a child is fortunate enough to come from an encouraging and loving home, it is the job of the school to provide emotional support as well as intellectual knowledge. â€Å"The school,† of course, is an abstract term which actually means the teachers and administrators. I...

European History Essay

How did Bismarck’s system of alliances help maintain peace? Bismarck’s system of alliances was the goal of keeping France isolated and not to have any military allies. Also, he wanted to keep Russia and Austria-Hungary from going to war. France was still bitter over the losing Alsace-Lorraine from the Franco-Prussian War. Both Russia and Austria-Hungary desired territory from the weakening Ottoman Empire, which was the Balkans. The Three Emperors League was an alliance with Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. This was against radical movements. With the Congress of Berlin, Austria got Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Balkan states ended up becoming independent. The Triple Alliance was Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy was a defensive alliance protection against Russia. The Reinsurance Treaty was between Germany and Russia. If one of them were to be attacked, they promised neutrality. Germany was concerned about war between Austria and Russia. Plus France and Russia being allies. William II ended this treaty and dismissed Bismarck. 2) What were the reasons for Britain and Germany’s love-hate relationship? Between the 1700 and 1800’s, Germany and Britain had a common enemy, which was France. Their racials ties of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic people as well. The rivalry was of course power. Germany was on the rise to power. Economic wise was the colonie and the world market. For the military component, Germany expanded their navy with battleships. Great Britain is known for its naval supremacy and it was threatened by Germany. It ended up being a naval race between the two nations. For the political factors, Great Britain wanted alliances with France, Russia, and the United States. At the Algeciras Conference, Germany attempted to break the friendship between Great Britain and France. They failed and brought them closer. 3) Why was the Moroccan crisis of 1905 a turning point in European diplomacy? France and Great Britain agreed over North Africa. Britain got full control over Egypt and France got full control over Morocco. The Anglo-French Entente was closer relations between France and England. Germany as always wanted to try and break the treaty between France and England. Germany didn’t act diplomatically though. They were now viewed as an international bully. Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States saw Germany as a common threat. These four nations became closer. Austria became Germany’s main ally as well. 4) What impact did the Congress of Berlin (1878) have on the Balkan area? What were the origins and causes of the â€Å"Third Balkan War†? With the Congress of Berlin, Austria-Hungary had power over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Romania and Serbia won independence. Bulgaria won a somewhat say in their government. Austria-Hungary and Russia wanted to control the Balkans. With nationalism, Serbia wanted to expand by gaining Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary ended up annexing both of their wanted territories. Serbians were furious. The First and Second Balkan Wars consisted of fight within Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire about territorial gains. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was on a visit to Sarajevo and ended up getting assassinated by Serbians. It was the Black Hand which was a Serbian terrorist group. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia which was the start of the Third Balkan War. Austria-Hungary wanted to stop nationalism that threatened their empire. 5) Which of the major powers do you believe were most responsible and least responsible for the war? Explain. Austria-Hungary had imperialism in the Balkans and declared war on Serbia. They were also Germany’s main ally. Russia had total support of Serbia. They allied with Serbia and France. All three of them mobilized against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany wrote a â€Å"blank check† to Austria-Hungary. William II’s poor control of international diplomacy lead to the Moroccan crisis and naval build up. In addition, Germany invaded France through Belgium. France became permanently mad at Germany and seeked for revenge. They ended up allying with Russia. This meant the support from Russia meant also from Serbia. Great Britain had a naval build up and entered an alliance with France. This disrupted the balance of power and made it point toward France now. 6) What impact did the war have on the economy and the people at home? How cooperative was the population? The economy changed from a free market system to a state run economy. The government organized price and wage controls, quotas, production and what to be produced. The food and resources vital for war had to be rationed. Due to nationalism, the population was supportive of the â€Å"total war† efforts of their governments, in the beginning of the war. 7) Did the war have any effect on the power of organized labor? On women in society? The labor unions cooperated with governments on production and wages. The government gave back by allowing labor leaders in policy making councils. The unions were accepted in the European countries as legitimate organizations. Women were now in demand for labor because men were off at war. Women became a more visible part in society and this gave a boost for the modern women’s rights movement. 8) What evidence is there that the strain of the war was beginning to take its toll on the home front in Russia, Austria, France, and Germany by 1916? Russia had a lot of war casualties. The population was vital of the czar’s leadership. Nicholas II went to the front to lead the troops. While he was away, Alexandra and Rasputin were in charge. Austria’s chief minister was assassinated. Frances Joseph died as well. The Czechs and Yugoslavs called for autonomous democracies. France and their troops refused to fight. There were labor strikes during the war. Clemenceau ruled practically as a dictator. Germany had Karl Liebknecht, who was a radical social leader, spoke out against war. This had the radicals to protest. There was an expanding anti-war legislation in the Reichstag and massive break strikes in Berlin. 9) What were the reasons for the Russian Revolution in March 1917? Who were the Soviets? The war demoralized troops which led to mass desertions. Many peasant soldiers returned home and angry with weapons. Also the war produced massive food shortages and there were bread riots in St. Petersburg. These riots spread like wildfire. Nicholas II ended up stepping down and leaving Russia. The Soviet and the provisional government ended up trying to rule Russia. The social classes were going for political liberty. The upper middle class were expecting better results from the war. Workers demanded better wages and good. Peasants asked for land reform. The Soviets was a political organization in St. They were against the czar’s government and operated separately from the Kerensky’s provisional government. For example, Army Order #1. 10) What were the reasons for the Bolshevik victory in the civil war? The democracy ended up turning into an anarchy. Not one individual group or person had clear dominance to take power. Lenin and Trotsky were talented leaders who competed for power. Trotsky created an organized and centralized army that was able to outperform the whites. While Lenin was able to appeal to the urban workers and soldiers who were for socialism, successfully. The Bolsheviks ruled the center of Russia while the white were scattered out over thousands of miles. There was a secret police and the use of terror. The â€Å"White Armies† were decentralized and didn’t organize movements. They didn’t have a clear political objective that rallied the enemies of the Bolsheviks into an united front. Foreign military aid was too late and little and rallied nationalistic Russian against the whites. 11) What happened to the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires after 1918? Austria-Hungary became Austria. They lost land to Italy which was Tyrol. They became independent states which were Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. Austria ended up becoming a small, militarily insignificant European nation. The Ottoman Empire ended up becoming Turkey. France got Lebanon and Syria. While Britain received Iraq and Palestine. The empire was diminished and Turkey’s borders were the Anatolian peninsula and the Bosporus. Both of these nations were once dominant in power and now were put down to secondary status, which is ironic. 12) What were the goals of Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau at the Versailles Peace Conference? President Wilson of the United States created the Fourteen Points. He wanted national self determinations, rights of small countries, and League of Nations. David Lloyd George was focused on restoring Germany to a reasonable economic strength. He perceived that Germany could be a balance to the communist Russia. Georges Clemenceau seeked revenge against Germany for the two invasions in the last forty years. He wanted to create a buffer state between France and Germany. He wanted protection against future attacks and permanent demilitarization of Germany. Germany had to pay large war reparations and it weakened them, yet gave France a chance to rebuild.

Free Essays on Picaso

I INTRODUCTION Picasso, Pablo Ruiz y (1881-1973), Spanish painter and sculptor, generally considered the greatest artist of the 20th century. He was unique as an inventor of forms, as an innovator of styles and techniques, as a master of various media, and as one of the most prolific artists in history. He created more than 20,000 works. II TRAINING AND EARLY WORK Born in Mlaga on October 25, 1881, Picasso was the son of Josà © Ruiz Blasco, an art teacher, and Marà ­a Picasso y Lopez. Until 1898 he always used his father's name, Ruiz, and his mother's maiden name, Picasso, to sign his pictures. After about 1901 he dropped "Ruiz" and used his mother's maiden name to sign his pictures. Picasso's genius manifested itself early: at the age of 10 he made his first paintings, and at 15 he performed brilliantly on the entrance examinations to Barcelona's School of Fine Arts. His large academic canvas Science and Charity (1897, Picasso Museum, Barcelona), depicting a doctor, a nun, and a child at a sick woman's bedside, won a gold medal. III BLUE PERIOD Between 1900 and 1902, Picasso made three trips to Paris, finally settling there in 1904. He found the city's bohemian street life fascinating, and his pictures of people in dance halls and cafà ©s show how he assimilated the postimpressionism of the French painter Paul Gauguin and the symbolist painters called the Nabis. The themes of the French painters Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as the style of the latter, exerted the strongest influence. Picasso's Blue Room (1901, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.) reflects the work of both these painters and, at the same time, shows his evolution toward the Blue Period, so called because various shades of blue dominated his work for the next few years. Expressing human misery, the paintings portray blind figures, beggars, alcoholics, and prostitutes, their somewhat elongated bodies reminiscent of... Free Essays on Picaso Free Essays on Picaso I INTRODUCTION Picasso, Pablo Ruiz y (1881-1973), Spanish painter and sculptor, generally considered the greatest artist of the 20th century. He was unique as an inventor of forms, as an innovator of styles and techniques, as a master of various media, and as one of the most prolific artists in history. He created more than 20,000 works. II TRAINING AND EARLY WORK Born in Mlaga on October 25, 1881, Picasso was the son of Josà © Ruiz Blasco, an art teacher, and Marà ­a Picasso y Lopez. Until 1898 he always used his father's name, Ruiz, and his mother's maiden name, Picasso, to sign his pictures. After about 1901 he dropped "Ruiz" and used his mother's maiden name to sign his pictures. Picasso's genius manifested itself early: at the age of 10 he made his first paintings, and at 15 he performed brilliantly on the entrance examinations to Barcelona's School of Fine Arts. His large academic canvas Science and Charity (1897, Picasso Museum, Barcelona), depicting a doctor, a nun, and a child at a sick woman's bedside, won a gold medal. III BLUE PERIOD Between 1900 and 1902, Picasso made three trips to Paris, finally settling there in 1904. He found the city's bohemian street life fascinating, and his pictures of people in dance halls and cafà ©s show how he assimilated the postimpressionism of the French painter Paul Gauguin and the symbolist painters called the Nabis. The themes of the French painters Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as the style of the latter, exerted the strongest influence. Picasso's Blue Room (1901, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.) reflects the work of both these painters and, at the same time, shows his evolution toward the Blue Period, so called because various shades of blue dominated his work for the next few years. Expressing human misery, the paintings portray blind figures, beggars, alcoholics, and prostitutes, their somewhat elongated bodies reminiscent of...

sarafina essays

sarafina essays Gender Discrimination is when a person that could be a man or a woman is discriminated against because of their gender, according to www.miamisci.org. Gender discrimination can occur in many different places, for many different reasons. The motives of the discriminators are unclear, but not justifiable. Gender discrimination can occur in the work place, at a school, or university. Overall, gender discrimination can exist in many different areas of the work place. It could be that women that graduate with degrees in a certain area are hired at lower positions and/ or lower starting salaries than men. How about a company handled in majority by female that will not hire males in prominent position. Usually, in education males or motivated more so than girls, they are give more complicated tasks, and are perceived to have a better field of potential profession choices, according to Tracey Roberts article at www.msu.edu. Because I have never giving a survey before I wasnt sure of how I wanted to present the survey to the student on campus. Eventually, I decided to randomly ask students in my class, in the library, and students walking on campus. I started by asking the students what classification they were. Then, I asked them if they would mind participating in a quick survey. I explained that it was for my Life Spans class regarding gender discrimination. After explaining what the survey was for the students agreed to take the survey. I used four open-ended questions they are: do you feel the gender discrimination occurs on campus? Explain? Is gender discrimination a major problem on campus?, Is gender discrimination against females or males the most?, and Do you believe that gender discrimination is a general problem that needs to be addressed? I personally, asked the students the questions and recorded their answers. When I completed the survey I thanked the student for participating. I felt th at the topic was very interes...

Retirement Investments in the USA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Retirement Investments in the USA - Essay Example Some of them may look good on papers but in practice, it may not bring dividends to the retired people. Some other investment plans are exempted from tax at the time of investments, but on maturity, people were forced to pay heavy amounts as taxes. This paper analyses benefits and drawbacks of various retirement options available in the United States at present like the IRA, Roth IRA, SEP IRA, 401k and Roth 401k etc. Â  IRA refers to Individual Retirement Accounts whereas Roth IRA (named after its legislative sponsor William Roth) refers to an Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA) allowed under the tax law of the United States. Â  Kennon (2010) has mentioned some of the major advantages and disadvantages of IRA’s and Roth IRA’s. In his opinion IRA’s are attractive because; IRA taxes are paid only on earnings, it is available to everyone without any income restrictions, funds can be used to purchase a variety of investments like stocks, bonds, certificates of deposits etc (Kennon). Some of the retirement investment options available in America at present are constrained to ordinary people because of the income restrictions. For example, Roth IRA schemes are available only to a particular community who earns more. The investor in IRA’s need does not worry much about the taxes as the tax is calculated based on the earnings rather than the principal amount. For example, it is possible that an investor in an IRA scheme may gain or lose heavy amounts because of the fluctuations in the stock market. Only the persons who gain something from their investments need to pay taxes whereas th e losers need not pay anything as taxes in case of IRA’s. Â  The major drawbacks of IRA’s are related to the withdrawal rules according to Kennon (2010). Investments in IRA’s cannot be continued by an investor when he crosses the age of 70.5 years. Moreover, an investor needs to pay 10% penalty if the funds were withdrawn before the age of 59.5 years (Kennon).

The Massive Government Cover-Up of the Attack on the USS Liberty Essay

The Massive Government Cover-Up of the Attack on the USS Liberty - Essay Example There were many questions that remained unanswered during the last 40 years, but recently declassified documents and newly uncovered testimony has shed new light on the events surrounding this tragic event. Examining what we know about the reports from the time, and the information that has been made public since, makes a convincing case that the attack was a deliberate action by the Israeli government and resulted in a massive cover-up by the Navy inquiry. The official explanation at the time was that in the heat of battle the Israeli Air Force had misidentified the USS Liberty as an Egyptian vessel. Yet, according to a CIA memo of June 13, 1967, 5 days after the attack, the agency reported that two Israeli Mirage fighters had orbited the Liberty on a reconnaissance flight just six hours before the attack (Central Intelligence Agency, 469). The CIA further reported that the weather was clear, the ship was plainly marked, and had a US flag flying. (Central Intelligence Agency, 470). In addition the Liberty was 200 feet longer than the Egyptian ship and had an Ensign that was clearly visible and appropriately marked. To examine the case of mistaken identity requires that we evaluate what the Israelis knew and when they knew it. The initial air assault took place at 13:58 hours and a second wave occurred at 14:04 (Bregman, 89). These flights consisted of machine gun strafing and napalm, which damaged the deck, antennas, and some communications capability. Israeli tape recordings from that day verify that Colonel Shmuel Kislev, the Commander of Israeli Air Control, knew that it was an American ship by 14:14 hours (Bregman, 89). At 14:26, 12 minutes after they had confirmed it was a US ship, Israeli torpedo boats arrived at the scene. By 14:31, 17 minutes after verifying identification, the Israeli boats had fired 5 torpedoes (Bregman, 89). One of the torpedoes hit the Liberty, killed 25 crewmen, and put the USS Liberty out of commission. Motives for the attack are difficult to ascertain in the aftermath of war. Military and governments sometimes act as organisms with no clearly definable goal. A plausible explanation has been offered that contends Israel feared that the Liberty would intercept sensitive communications regarding their plans to attack Syria's Golan Heights. If the US were alerted to the plan, they might have tried to prevent what Israel perceived as a vital operation. A CIA report identified Defense Minister Moshe Dyan as the Israeli leader that ordered the attack (Brands, 211). Dyan had gambled that Johnson would not fully investigate the incident. According to Brands, Johnson made a minimal effort to investigate the area, but was concerned about alarming the Egyptians or the Russians (212). After Johnson was unable to gather any information from the scene, the Israelis apologized. Not wanting to destroy the fragile alliance with Israel, Johnson accepted the apology and ordered the incident to be kept quiet (Brands, 212). The following day, Israel launched an attack against Syria, which wrapped up the final phase of the Six Day War. There could be little believability that the Israelis were unaware of a major US intelligence ship just off their coast in international waters. It had been in the Mediterranean since June 5 (Joint Chiefs of Staff). The cover story of mistaken identity was so weak, that according