Biometrics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Biometrics - Research Paper Example Biometrics recognition is, therefore, the automatic recognition of users based on behavioral and physiological characteristics. Biometrics seeks to establish a users identity based on who she is rather what she possesses like an ID card or what she remembers like passwords. Biometrics gained popularity when body measurements were used by Alphonse Bertillon to identify criminals in the 19th century. It prompted law enforcer to take criminals fingerprints and store them in a database. The stored fingerprints could then be compared with fingerprints lifted from crime scenes. Biometrics are extensively used to identify criminals but has also gained use in employee clearance for sensitive jobs, determining fatherhood, forensics, identification of prisoners. Performance – refers to the achievable recognition speed and accuracy, the resources to be used in achieving the desired recognition accuracy and speed and the environmental and operational factors that affect the accuracy and speed. Different body parts are being used as a form of biometric recognition. Biometrics ranges from DNA matching, chemical biometric, visual biometric, eyes biometrics ( iris recognition, retina recognition ), finger geometry recognition, Hand geometry recognition, signature recognition and behavioral biometrics (typing recognition), vein recognition and gait. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) matching is the process used in the identification of persons by their DNA profiles. DNA profiles are hidden sets of numbers that reflect an individuals DNA composition, which can also be used as a persons identifier. DNA profiling is different from a full genome sequencing that is used in parental testing and criminal investigation. Even though 99.9% of human DNA sequences are similar in every person, unless they are identical (monozygotic) twins. DNA matching uses repetitive sequences that are highly variable, known as variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs), particularly

Graphic design is the branch of visual art Essay

Graphic design is the branch of visual art - Essay Example By effectiveness, we mean how much power a design has to motivate people or help them identify a company. For example, where a one or two letter sign may be effective in identifying a company such as BP, it is not effective for another company simply identified as B. Plus; presentation of an idea does not necessarily mean it was communicated accurately. A scribbled "keep off grass" sign is not as effective as a neatly designed "keep off grass" sign with an appropriately designed logo. Also, just because a sign communicates effectively does not mean what it communicates is good. Governments have become masters at influencing citizens with graphic design by communicating messages sometimes to support darkly political objectives. Graphic design is the branch of visual art dedicated to communicating messages. It is most used in marketing and brand recognition strategies. Having watch and listened to a video of a talk about design given by David Carson, I walk away with certain understandings about graphic design.

The Idea Of The Movement Magic Realism Film Studies Essay

The Idea Of The Movement Magic Realism Film Studies Essay Magic Realism is a literary movement. It is associated with a style of writing or a technique that incorporates magical or supernatural (fantasy) events into a realistic event without questioning the unlikelihood of these events taking place together. Magic Realism is best described as literature and art combined. This combination of fantasy and fact is there to question the nature of reality. Magic realism made lived experiences appear extraordinary. By creating this feeling, the magical realist writers have all contributed to a re-envisioning of the Latin American culture as a vibrant and complex one. Magic Realism is a movement that has been misunderstood for many years by many people. It still remains a vague term today though. A large part of the problem of this movement being misunderstood is related to applying the term, Magic Realism, to different art forms and in different periods. Magic realism is applied to two main movements, art and literature, and has recently been applied to works in cinema. The term Magic Realism was applied to paintings from the early 1920s through to the end of the 1950s. Magic Realism is realism that incorporates mysterious or fantastic elements but it still portrays everyday life. The time period of the 1960s was when Magic Realism was applied to literature. At first Magic Realism was only used in reference to works of Latin American writers, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Miguel Angel Asturias, Isabel Allende and Jorge Luis Borges. The usage of Magic Realism has recently been expanded to include works of different origins and works of earlier periods. These include those of Ernst Juenger, Mikhail Bulgakov and Salman Rushie. Most of this literature features considerable amounts of fantasy therefore it is a different type of Magic Realism to the one that had been established in art in the 1920s. Recently some writers of this movement have expanded Magic Realism to apply to Motion Pictures. Examples of these works are films like American Beauty, Big Fish, Chocolat, The Red Violin, and Whale Rider. It is a lot easier in cinema to develop the difficult and complicated combination of realism and fantasy that together makes up the foundation of effective Magic Realism. Magic realism is starting to develop an interest today that it had never commanded during the movements first half of the 20th century. Different sets of standards are used today to define Magic Realism in literature; this is causing confusion about what criteria is applied to contemporary work. The counter movement to Magic Realism came to be known as the Return to Order or the Call of Order. The default approach of Magic Realism is to focus on the coexistence of the real and fantasy on equal terms. The power of Magic Realism has often been assumed to lie to the viewer in the way that the differences between these incompatible elements are erased/not shown. One should always remember that Magic Realism cannot be seen as Science Fiction. Magic Realism is everyday life and it is all around us, all the time. Magic realism has changed the way that people think. Magic Realism brings a spark of life to the imagination instead of people seeing the boring and ordinary, and this then in turn brings excitement to the minds of the reader or the viewer. Magic realism has touched on almost every facet of life, from art to television. There is not one thing that is missing Magic Realism within it. If a viewer can look at an art work and see that there is more than just a picture of an inanimate object in the art work then they have finally grasped the concept of, and are able to appreciate Magic Realism. Some sub topics of Magic Realism are those of literature, fashion, advertising and cinema. Magic Realism is NOT Science Fiction, but, Fantasy and science fiction are alike in the sense that both require the creation of a completely new world. When it comes to advertising, fantasy is great for entertainment but fantasy is not however always so great when it comes to trying to sell a product or service. When it comes to selling a product, there needs to be an element that hooks us to reality. It helps for advertising when a detail is added that can easily be imagined by the listener, viewer or reader. Magic Realism works in advertising for exciting the imagination of the viewer, listener or reader, but there should be an attachment or hook to reality to keep things realistic. Magic Realism is all about fantasy meeting reality. When it comes to racial and gender ideologies, one does not have to worry about any of these ideologies within Magic Realism. Magic realism is about fantasy, there is not discrimination or rights or wrongs. There are no gender or racial ideologies used in any form or sub topic of magic realism. Women and men are equal in these works and all races are equal. Magic realism has no race and no gender; it is about fantasy meeting reality. Magic Realism creates the perfect fantasy world that we would all love to live in. Magic Realism is the key to the decline of racial and gender ideologies. Through the combination of fantasy events with realism it allows for the study of alternate perceptions of the world, offering different views of history and identity, and also giving voice to cultural minorities. People view the world differently; they see a fantasy that has been made up. Magic realism allows people to express what they really feel and what they imagine a world to be like.

Origin of Paper :: Essays

The word paper comes from the Greek term for the ancient Egyptian writing material called papyrus, which was formed from beaten strips of papyrus plants. Papyrus was produced as early as 3000 BC in Egypt, and sold to ancient Greece and Rome. The establishment of Great library at Alexandria put a drain on the supply of Papyrus, so According to the Roman Varro, Pliny's Natural History records (xiii.21), parchment was invented under the patronage of Eumenes of Pergamum, to build his rival libray at Permagum. parchment or vellum, made of processed sheepskin or calfskin, replaced papyrus, as the papyrus plant requires subtropical conditions to grow. In China, documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo, making them very heavy and awkward to transport. Silk was sometimes used, but was normally too expensive to consider. Indeed, most of the above materials were rare and costly. While the Chinese court official Cai Lun is widely regarded to have first described the modern method of papermaking (inspired from wasps and bees) from wood pulp in AD 105, the 2006 discovery of specimens bearing written characters in north-west China's Gansu province suggest that paper was in use by the ancient Chinese military more than 100 years before Cai in 8 BCE [1]. Archà ¦ologically however, true paper without writing has been excavated in China dating from the 2nd-century BCE. In America, archaeological evidence indicates that paper was invented by the Mayas no later than the 5th century AD.[1] Called Amatl, it was in widespread use among Mesoamerican cultures until the Spanish conquest. In small quantities, traditional Maya papermaking techniques are still practiced today. Paper is considered to be one of the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China. It spread slowly outside of China; other East Asian cultures, even after seeing paper, could not figure out how to make it themselves. Instruction in the manufacturing process was required, and the Chinese were reluctant to share their secrets. The paper was thin and translucent, not like modern western paper, and thus only written on one side. Books were invented in India, of Palm leaves (where we derive the name leaf for a sheet of a book). The technology was first transferred to Korea in 604 and then imported to Japan by a Buddhist priest, Dam Jing (曇å ¾ ´) from Goguryeo, around 610, where fibres (called bast) from the mulberry tree were used. After further commercial trading and the defeat of the Chinese in the Battle of Talas, the invention spread to the Middle East, Production was started in Baghdad, where the arabs invented a method to make a thicker sheet of paper.

Failure and Life Essay

Everyone wants to learn the secrets of being successful in life. There are many people who have achieved success in this world. Success doesn’t come to those who wait†¦.. And it doesn’t wait for anyone to come to it. Most successful men have not achieved their destination by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand. The difference between failure and success is dong things nearly right and doing a thing exactly right. Nobody is born a success, they create it. Knowing the secrets of success and correctly implementing them will certainly help one to achieve success in life. â€Å"Why, all men strive and who succeeds?† asks Browning. Every man wants to have success in life, but few are able to achieve it. Those who fail are in the habit of attributing their failure to bad luck, to unfavorable circumstances, to the hostility of enemies, to everything except their own defects and shortcomings. Yet if we study our own lives impartially, we will have to admit that our failures are mostly due to our personal defects and seldom to external circumstances. The age-old doctrine is that if we are able to know our own merits and demerits we should be able to correct our defects. Self-confidence is essential for success â€Å"Self-trust†, said Emersion, â€Å"is the first secret of success†. We must have confidence in our capacity to triumph over all obstacles. Timidity and nervousness lead to hesitancy. Another quality that goes hand in hand with self-confidence is the possession of a strong will and determination. If we have will, we will find the way to do a thing. We must summon all our powers, physical and mental, and bring them to bear on the performance of a work. It there is this single-minded devotion, success is bound to come. Of course, success can come in those fields of life in which one’s aptitudes find sufficient scope and one’s ambition is related to one’s powers and parts. Therefore, we must know how to choose our vocation, according to our taste and temperament, our capability. We must have pleasure in our work. Often failures in life come through a mistaken choice of life’s vocation. If we are able to choose our career according to our natural inclinations, the chances of success are very bright. Another important quality is to know and seize an opportunity when it comes our way. If we let opportunity pass, another may not come for years. Man is the architect of his own destiny. A study of the lives of great men bears this out. Those who talk about destiny and the stare are only allowing external forces to get the better of us. The fact often is that most of us have not determination enough; the lives of most of us are full of hours spent in indolence, of opportunities wasted. Let us, therefore, if we want to succeed in life, fight with all our might against doctrines, which make us, lose self-confidence and destroy our initiative. It is no use trying for the impossible. ‘One must not hitch one’s wagon to a star.’ The impracticable is undesirable. Everything in the world is worth attempting, if it lies outside the reach of a man. Prevention is better than cure Outlines : It is an old saying which holds true in daily life. Tt means that we should prevent a disease by observing a simple rule of ‘hygiene instead of later on letting the disease spread and require loti of efforts for its cure. Prevention is always better than cure because i,t nips the trouble in the bud. This principle is highly useful in daily life and can save a lot of botheration vvhich.woukl , otherwise have to be faced. ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is another saying which means more or less the same thing. Essay : ‘Prevention is better tnan cure† is a wise saying which ha^ comedown to us since ages. It holds true for ever. The wisdom of the saying lies in the fact that a little effort in the early pha^ of a problem helps to solve it before it becomes too difficult to be solved. This principle is always observed by wise people to succeed in life. Those who do not observe this principle usually suffer even if they are intelligent and hard-working. Observance of this principle becomes a part of one’s nature ; indifference to this principle also becomes a bad habit leading to uneasy consequences. If one sees symptoms of a disease, it is advisible to immediately go to the doctor, get it diagnosed and follow the treatment. Any negligence at the earlier stages of a disease leads to complications and deterioration. Going to the doctor at a late stage will not only mean more expense but may also endanger the life of the person. Prevention is, therefore, better than cure. Unclean stat e of affairs in one’s household can lead to many diseases. The members of one’s family can catch malaria or any other disease owing to the mosquitoes that multiply in an unclean place. Stagnant water, dirty latrines, unclean floors and dirty and stale food, over-ripe fruits and the like can cause so many diseases whose cure will cost a lot of botheration and money. It is better to remove all these unclean habits and prevent the occurrence of the disease. Prevention is better than cure again. If one is a student, it is better to study regularly. If one ignores one’s lessons in the early stages so as to work hard during the examination days, one is in for trouble. One’s early carelessness can cost one success in the examination. One should study tiie lessons regularly in keeping with the requirements of the class, under instructions of the teacher, if one wants to fare well in the examination. One should prevent failure than face the failure and try hard to overcome it. One may have to hire a costly tutor or lose one’s health—physical and mental—to recoup the lost time. Prevention is better than cure again. The principle also holds good in the matter of building good habits. If a person wants to develop good habits » he must lay a sound foundation for them. To keep to the morals and principles of good character, it is desirable to avoid bad habits of drinking, smoking, etc. Once† one starts on the wrong lines, there is no end to the dirty ways. It is always better to avoid dirty habits from early childhood. We should nip the evil in the bud from the very beginning. â€Å"MY GRANDPARENTS MY ROLE MODEL† Grandparents are an important part of every child’s life, because they can give valuable and positive directions. Their unconditional love, warm, and strong bond they had with their grand children helps to the growth of a child as it has on me. The habit of helping to look after one’s grandchildren is only present in members of the human race. No other known animal on the planet seems to have this particular trend. Strangely also, the tradition of grandparents playing an important role in the birth and upbringing of grand-children seems to be a universal trend among humans. All of us know grandparents as symbols of wisdom; they speak from experience and tell us how to go to where they have been. They may not be up to date in matters of science and other branches of knowledge but they would have been through the ‘school of hard knocks.’ It is grandparents who tell us that though money and other symbols of wealth are nice to have, the real values in life are of the non-material kind. They themselves had probably discovered this through a lifetime of pain and sorrow. It is very unfortunate today that, as part of the modern life-style, we are losing contacts with our grandparents. It is just not wise at all, but it is happening all around us, that after five million years of evolution, we are now discarding some of the most beautiful aspects of being a human. Pushing grand-parents out of the scene is one of them. Many of them are being exiled in old people’s homes, where being deprived of something useful to do and of being loved and wanted, they waste away to early ends. One can only hope and pray that the trend will be reversed, if not for the sake of our grand-parents for the sake of the wisdom they have to offer all of us.

Is punishment always the right solutions to stop crime? Essay

Punishments are meted out for three reasons – deterrence, retributivism, and incapacitation. The first, deterrence seeks to prevent future wrong doing. Retributivism is linked to notions of justice where crime must be met with an appropriate punishment. The last, incapacitation, seeks to protect society at large from criminals. This essay will examine whether punishment is always the right solution to stop crime, in light of the reasons for dishing out punishment to criminals. From the perspective of justice, punishment is the right solution to stop crime, as justice must be upheld in society. However, from a more pragmatic point of view, punishment may not always be the right way to stop crime as it is often ineffective. Instead of just meting out punishment, the right solutions should focus on educating and reforming the offenders as well as educating the general public for the sake of a better society in the future. Read more: Essays on crime Deterrence From a practical perspective, punishment is not always the right way to stop crime as its deterrence effect is limited. For the offenders, deterrence presents a threat of negative consequences to prevent offenders from engaging in criminal activity in the future; for the public, deterrence send a message to the general population to show that if one engages in criminal activity, there will be severe consequences. The assumption is that human beings are rational to weigh the benefits and loses of committing a crime. It might seem that the prospect of receiving a death sentence would deter murderers from committing such offences. However, many studies on deterrence and the death penalty do not support this idea. The deterrence theory is not always applicable to all the cases, especially for violent. This is because most of the time when the offenders commit violent crimes, their criminal intent overshadows their ability to think rationally of the consequences of their wrongful act. For instance, terrorists are willing to sacrifice their lives to commit the crime, so even the most severe punishment death penalty does not serve as a deterrence for them. Also, a recent study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology reported that 88% of the country’s top criminologists surveyed do not believe the death penalty acts  as a deterrent to homicide. These statistics all shows that the deterrence effect of the punishment cannot always erase people’s intent of committing crime. As long as offenders are willing to take the consequences, the deterrence effect does not work on them. In contrast, the alternative of civic education, can help erase people’s intent of committing the crime. Unlike the deterrence effect, it has an edifying effect. With implanting the right positive values, the potential offenders would learn how to find alternative methods to release their anger to someone or to distract themselves from committing the crime. In this way, their negative intent can be erased and result in stopping the crime. Therefore, in my opinion, the civic education is more effective than punishment and it should be right solutions to stop the crime. Retributivism While in many cases, punishment metes out the appropriate justices, this is not true in all the cases. Sometimes, punishment may be blind to the causes of the crime and the circumstances of the criminal. The result is that punishment is not always the right method to stop the crime. Retributivism is a form of justice, whereby when an offender breaks a law, they are required to forfeit something in return. It is based on the principle of lex talionis: â€Å"An eye for an eye, a life for a life†, which states that whatever crime carried out will be punished proportionally. Another purpose of retributivism is to bring the closure for the victims for a short term, however, this only brings short term benefits for victims. In the long run, the retributivism does not serve to solve the real problems of the offenders. There are many cases that criminals may be wrongfully accused and sentenced to death. Cases like Li Yan, a Chinese woman who killed her abusive husband after 4 months o f brutal domestic violence was sentenced to death. However, her action can be regarded as self-defense. Hence, Amnesty International East Asia has tried to call for a reversal of the sentence. The real problem behind this crime is the lack of protection of women from the domestic violence in China. However, the judgment only focused on how Li Yan should give her life for a life. The punishment actually fails to address the fundamental causes of crimes and fails to do true justice, given that the criminal has sympathetic circumstances. In many cases, offenders committing crimes may due to some reluctant difficulties or they need  survive in a harsh conditions. Therefore, instead of just meting out the punishment blindly, it is more important to ensure that true justice is done, such that criminals are not wrongfully convicted. This can be done by solving the social issues behind the crime and it is a more proper solution to stop the crime. Incapacitation Incarcerating dangerous people to get them off the street and remove them from society helps prevent future harm by these criminals. Imprisonment punishes people by removing their right to personal liberty. However, the incapacitation effect does not serve to educate and reform the offenders. Once the offenders are released from prison, they may easily commit the crime again. Jon Venables, 31, was released from jail just over 3 years ago, but was soon was sent back to prison for distributing child pornography. When he was ten years old, he served 8 years for killing two-year-old kid called James Bulger. James’s parents were furious with the decision to release such a danger person as they believe it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime against a child. There are many offenders like Jon Venables who always repeat the same crimes. This shows that incarcerating the offender is not able to reform him into a good person. Solutions should achieve the purpose of e ducating and reforming the offender on top of imposing a penalty for their wrong doings so as to stop him recommitting the crime. The incapacitation effect of the punishment clearly fails to serve this purpose. Many offenders start getting into their criminal habits since young. The lack of correction from their parents or school indulges their wrongfulness and results in the difficulties of reforming them after they are grown up. Therefore, punishment is not always the right solutions to stop crime as it does not change or reform offenders’ habits and concepts. Compare to civic education, it is clearly far more efficient for stop the crime as it help form the good habits and moral concepts in people. Moral education enlightens the general public’s sense of justice. Implanting positive values in youth is the best way to prevent crimes as foster the good characters and habits need to start cultivating from childhood. The punishment is essential for society to function. We sleep well at night because criminals are being locked up and punished, and victims feel that they have achieved redress for the wrong suffered. A  survey in 2005 shows that 95% of Singaporeans feel that death penalty should stay as it increases the sense of security. Hence, while it is true that sometimes criminals are wrongfully convicted, and that they may not be deterred or reformed, we do need a system of punishments in place due to our notion of justice. We cannot completely adopt an educational or rehabilitative approach. In conclusion, while punishments can be the right way to stop crimes (at least in terms of justice and how punishments are a reflection of the moral code of society), the effectiveness of punishments can be limited, hence perhaps it should be implemented in conjunction with other approaches.