The Harlem Renaissance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Harlem Renaissance - Essay Example The Renaissance is considered to have started in 1919 and existed until the mid or early 1930s.The influence of the Renaissance was felt on a scale larger than the United States as it is credited with having impacted on black writers from colonies in the Caribbean and Africa, that were French-speaking and living in Paris. The ideas and beliefs of the movement lived on for a long time after the movement ceased to exist. Majorities of African-Americans who were enslaved and lived in the agrarian south of the United States up to the end of the Civil War. After the civil war, the slaves were free to move and do as they pleased. The African-Americans started striving for political equality, participation in civic positions and self-determination in cultural and economic fields. Black congressional representatives made speeches that addressed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and reprimanded the bill. This necessitated the Civil Rights Act of 1875. However, Democrat whites had regained power in the south leaving the African-Americans without representation in the congress. This allowed them to draft and pass bills that disenfranchised many poor whites and most Negros establishing white supremacist regimes (Ushistory.org, 2013). There was denial of the African-American political and civil rights through terrorizing attacks from lynch mobs and vigilante groups. A convict labor system also forced thousands of African-Americans into unpaid labor on plantations and in mines was reminiscent of slavery. Only a small number purchased land after the civil war. The African-Americans started migrating to the industrially emerging north from the agrarian south that had become increasingly difficult. However, the reception in the north was not a walk in paradise. Northerners were prejudiced against the African-Americans though the legal systems in the states were not as imposing on their rights as the south. White laborers complained of the flooding of the employment market by the Afr ican-Americans and lowering of wages. The â€Å"Negroes† segregated in urban slums by practice (Rau 7). Among these slums was Harlem. The neighborhood was a design for white workers who needed to commute to the city. Nevertheless, the project was overambitious, as the transportation could not cater for the populace. The district abandoned by whites, was sold, and rented to black real estate agents and tenants. The push of blacks from the city’s metropolitan area saw them move to the neighborhood en masse. The brightest black intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and advocates positioned themselves in Harlem bringing institutions, businesses, and a wide range of talents and ambitions with them. The neighborhood became â€Å"the Black Mecca† (Herringshaw 26). A large number of African-Americans joined the neighborhood during the First World War. The activities of the war created a deficit and demand for industrial labor while ceasing the migration of laborers from Europea n countries. This caused the Great Migration of thousands of African –Americans in the city and into the neighborhood of Harlem. After the war, African-American soldiers from units like the Harlem Hellfighters returned to a nation with citizens who had no respect for their accomplishments due to the virulent White Racism (Ushistory.org, 2013). The Renaissance started developing in the late 1910s. The â€Å"Three Plays for a Negro Theatre†

Management Consulting Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Management Consulting - Coursework Example Theoretically, one can understand the significance of Management Consulting only when they understand its definition at two levels. First is the basic level which looks into the broad 'functional view' of Management Consulting. According to Fritz Steele, Management Consulting is, "any form of providing help on the content, process or structure of a task or series of tasks, where the consultant is not actually responsible for doing the task itself but is helping those who are." Looking at this definition one might feel the importance of Management Consulting is over-hyped. However, it is the second definition which views Management Consulting as a "special professional service" that will help clear this misunderstanding. According to Larry Greiner and Robert Metzger, "management consulting is an advisory service contracted for and provided to organizations by specially trained and qualified persons who assist, in an objective and independent manner, the client organization to identify management problems, analyze such problems, recommended solutions to these problems, and help, when requested, in the implementation of solutions." This approach takes Management Consulting at a different level and calls it a 'professional service which can be carried out effectively only with the help of professionals.' Value addition is a profession in which there is tr... Hence in context of Management Consulting, value addition is carried out when knowledge is being transferred from the consultancy to their client. According to Peter Drucker, "what is unique to management is that from the very beginning the consultant played a key role in the development of the practice, the knowledge and the profession of management." In Management Consulting knowledge is not only being transferred in the form of facts and figures, but also as methods, practices and their application which eventually leads to achieving the consultancy's objectives. This transfer of knowledge which finally leads to value addition exists in two dimensions. First is the 'technical dimension' which deals with finding solutions to problems relating to the nature of management of the clients. Second is the 'human dimension' which deals with the interpersonal relation in the client organization and between the client and the consultancy. In legal terms however, the implication of 'creating value' is totally different and inextricably liked with the shareholders of the company. The fact that the shareholders invest their funds in the company and take unlimited risk in doing so, makes it necessary for the company to pay due considerations to the shareholders needs. Today, the process of creating value in a financial scenario is carried out as an 'operational activity' in 3 different ways. One of them is called 'Market Value Added' which describes value as the difference between the market value and the book value of the company's equity. Another view is the 'free cash flow' approach, which takes the view that value is related only when cash produced by a company's operations

Conflict Management neogotiation strategies slp 4 Essay

Conflict Management neogotiation strategies slp 4 - Essay Example Following this the employees are required to face the customers at the counters. There are a total of seven counters of which generally two counters are open during a normal day. On days of high volumes, the other counters are also opened and the employees working at the back end sorting the letter need to take control of the counters. The issue faced here is that there are no clear shifts that are provided to the employees and the duties of who need to be at the counters are not fixed by the management. Due to this, the employees face a huge conflict among themselves. There is a higher demand for the number of people at the back end working on sorting of the mails however the people willing to work in the section are low and this causes an imbalance and issue at the organization very often. The parties involved here are the team leaders versus the employees. The negotiation was done where the managers came to a final timetable of the work of the employees and decided the division of work which is required to be followed on a daily basis. I am on the side of the manager and it was the decision of the manager to discuss with the team leader and plan out a clear cut decision of the timetable for each employee on a daily basis. Before the negotiation Took place, the team leader, manager have held meetings to discuss the cases of the employees and to gain a complete details of the employees. These fell under the pre negotiation steps, based on which the timetables were formulated and the required strategy and preparation have been made. The only emotional reaction for the negotiating table was of an individual with a serious injury and disability. This individual found it difficult to work on the stocks and customer facing. Hence there was an exception made for the case and the rest of the employees were provided with a set timetable. These proposals were

Knowledge Management and IT Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Knowledge Management and IT Services - Essay Example More than ever before, IT infrastructure in Islamic Bank of Britain is both key for business strategy and the source of competitive advantages and critical achievement factor in many industries. At the similar, IT infrastructure that supports commerce has grown quickly in a scope and extensiveness, becoming more and more difficulty than ever and before. More highly, IT enters into a new era where operational fineness counts, IT organization are focusing labors on humanizing IT service levels as also reducing the service release and service support cost as a key driver for delivering IT value. Value added by put into practice control approach, jointly with IT service management, it will benefit the commerce world and enter into a new commerce world. This paper emphasize two well practice IT supremacy, which is control approach labor closer with the organization goal. ITIL, IT service management, which value added to the organization for advantage the Islamic Bank of Britain from civil izing customer approval. This paper also exemplify how risk and control subject on map COBIT control approach, also how ITIL advantage the organization from the service support and service release that been careful as the heart of the ITIL structure for IT service management (Alpar, P. and Kalmring, D. 2001, pp.730-742). "Knowledge" is a set of beliefs, expertise, experiences and assumptions that the human mind uses to form casual relationships between phenomena, and assign meaning to data in order to generate information." (Sanchez and Heene 1997). Research in knowledge management classically classifies knowledge into two essential forms: tacit and explicit knowledge. No doubt, explicit knowledge is knowledge that is clearly articulated and in businesses, such knowledge is often collected, stored and discrete as management information of Islamic Bank of Britain (Bose, R. 2004, pp. 457-468). Tacit knowledge is the

My Paper on Interprenual School of Thought Essay Example for Free

My Paper on Interprenual School of Thought Essay Entrepreneurship is a concept which is defined in many ways. The word entrepreneur means a person who undertakes from the French term called eneteprendre. In terms of business, the term entrepreneur means starting a business. An entrepreneur is a person who manages, organizes, and takes over all the enterprise or business risks. Other definitions include a person who has high ambition and aptitude to initiate change is known as an entrepreneur. The entrepreneurial school of thought is based on vision: a mental representation of strategy created or at least expressed in the head of the leader as perspective, specifically a sense of long term direction of organizations future and a sound vision and visionary CEO can help organization in turbulent times or in very difficult years for the organization also it have shortfalls that hanging on the health and whim of single person, the death or health problem of that person result in crisis of organization. nd one of present day successful entrepreneur and its strategic moves in the direction of the school of thought is discussed. Historical background of the school Throughout the theoretical history of entrepreneurship, scholars from multiple disciplines in the social sciences have grappled with a diverse set of interpretations and definitions to conceptualize this abstract idea. Over time, some writers have identified entrepreneurship with the function of uncertainty-bearing, others with the coordination of productive resources, others with the introduction of innovation, and still others with the provision of capital (Hoselitz, 1952). Even though certain themes continually resurface throughout the history of entrepreneurship theory, presently there is no single definition of entrepreneurship that is accepted by all economists or that is applicable in every economy. Although there is only limited consensus about the defining characteristics of entrepreneurship, the concept is almost as old as the formal discipline of economics itself. The term entrepreneur was first introduced by the early 18th century French economist Richard Cantillon. In his writings, he formally defines the entrepreneur as the agent who buys means of production at certain prices in order to combine them into a new product (Schumpeter, 1951). Shortly thereafter, the French economist J. B. Say added to Cantillons definition by including the idea that entrepreneurs had to be leaders. Say claims that an entrepreneur is one who brings other people together in order to build a single productive organism (Schumpeter, 1951). Over the next century, British economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill briefly touched on the concept of entrepreneurship, though they referred to it under the broad English term of business management. Whereas the writings of Smith and Ricardo suggest that they likely undervalued the importance of entrepreneurship, Mill goes out of his way to stress the significance of entrepreneurship for economic growth. In his writings, Mill claims that entrepreneurship requires no ordinary skill, and he laments the fact that there is no good English equivalent word to encompass the specific meaning of the French term entrepreneur (Schumpeter, 1951). The necessity of entrepreneurship for production was first formally recognized by Alfred Marshall in 1890. In his famous treatise Principles of Economics, Marshall asserts that there are four factors of production: land, labor, capital, and organization. Organization is the coordinating factor, which brings the other factors together, and Marshall believed that entrepreneurship is the driving element behind organization. By creatively organizing, entrepreneurs create new commodities or improve the plan of producing an old commodity (Marshall, 1994). In order to do this, Marshall believed that entrepreneurs must have a thorough understanding about their industries, and they must be natural leaders. Additionally, Marshalls entrepreneurs must have the ability to foresee changes in supply and demand and be willing to act on such risky forecasts in the absence of complete information (Marshall, 1994). Like Mill, Marshall suggests that the skills associated with entrepreneurship are rare and limited in supply. He claims that the abilities of the entrepreneur are so great and so numerous that very few people can exhibit them all in a very high degree (1994). Marshall, however, implies that people can be taught to acquire the abilities that are necessary to be an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, the opportunities for entrepreneurs are often limited by the economic environment which surrounds them. Additionally, although entrepreneurs share some common abilities, all entrepreneurs are different, and their successes depend on the economic situations in which they attempt their endeavors (Marshall, 1994). Since the time of Marshall, the concept of entrepreneurship has continued to undergo theoretical evolution. For example, whereas Marshall believed entrepreneurship was simply the driving force behind organization, many economists today, but certainly not all, believe that entrepreneurship is by itself the fourth factor of production that coordinates the other three (Arnold, 1996). Unfortunately, although many economists agree that entrepreneurship is necessary for economic growth, they continue to debate over the actual role that entrepreneurs play in generating economic growth. One school of thought on entrepreneurship suggests that the role of the entrepreneur is that of a risk-bearer in the face of uncertainty and imperfect information. Knight claims that an entrepreneur will be willing to bear the risk of a new venture if he believes that there is a significant chance for profit (Swoboda, 1983). Although many current theories on entrepreneurship agree that there is an inherent component of risk, the risk-bearer theory alone cannot explain why some individuals become entrepreneurs while others do not. For example, following from Knight, Mises claims any person who bears the risk of losses or any type of uncertainty could be called an entrepreneur under this narrow-definition of the entrepreneur as the risk-bearer (Swoboda, 1983). Thus, in order to build a development model of entrepreneurship it is necessary to look at some of the other characteristics that help explain why some people are entrepreneurs; risk may be a factor, but it is not the only one. Another modern school of thought claims that the role of the entrepreneur is that of an innovator; however, the definition of innovation is still widely debatable. Kirzner suggests that the process of innovation is actually that of spontaneous undeliberate learning (Kirzner, 1985, 10). Thus, the necessary characteristic of the entrepreneur is alertness, and no intrinsic skills-other than that of recognizing opportunities-are necessary. Other economists in the innovation school side more with Mill and Marshall than with Kirzner; they claim that entrepreneurs have special skills that enable them to participate in the process of innovation. Along this line, Leibenstein claims that the dominant, necessary characteristic of entrepreneurs is that they are gap-fillers: they have the ability to perceive where the market fails and to develop new goods or processes that the market demands but which are not currently being supplied. Thus, Leibenstein posits that entrepreneurs have the special ability to connect different markets and make up for market failures and deficiencies. Additionally, drawing from the early theories of Say and Cantillon, Leibenstein suggests that entrepreneurs have the ability to combine various inputs into new innovations in order to satisfy unfulfilled market demand (Leibenstein, 1995). Although many economists accept the idea that entrepreneurs are innovators, it can be difficult to apply this theory of entrepreneurship to less developed countries (LDCs). Often in LDCs, entrepreneurs are not truly innovators in the traditional sense of the word. For example, entrepreneurs in LDCs rarely produce brand new products; rather, they imitate the products and production processes that have been invented elsewhere in the world (typically in developed countries). This process, which occurs in developed countries as well, is called creative imitation (Drucker, 1985) The term appears initially paradoxical; however, it is quite descriptive of the process of innovation that actually occurs in LDCs. Creative imitation takes place when the imitators better understand how an innovation can be applied, used, or sold in their particular market niche (namely their own countries) than do the people who actually created or discovered the original innovation. Thus, the innovation process in LDCs is often that of imitating and adapting, instead of the traditional notion of new product or process discovery and development. As the above discussion demonstrates, throughout the evolution of entrepreneurship theory, different scholars have posited different characteristics that they believe are common among most entrepreneurs. By combining the above disparate theories, a generalized set of entrepreneurship qualities can be developed. In general, entrepreneurs are risk-bearers, coordinators and organizers, gap-fillers, leaders, and innovators or creative imitators. Although this list of characteristics is by no means fully comprehensive, it can help explain why some people become entrepreneurs while others do not. Thus, by encouraging these qualities and abilities, governments can theoretically alter their countrys supply of domestic entrepreneurship. (David Burnett, thechnoprenurial. com September 2000) Main content of the school The most central concept of this school is vision: a mental representation of strategy created or at least expressed in the head of the leader as perspective, specifically a sense of long term direction of organizations future. That vision serves as both an inspiration and a sense of what needs to be done a guiding idea, if you like. True to its label, vision often tends to be a kind of image more than a fully articulated plan (in words and numbers). That leaves it flexible, so that the leader can adapt it to his or her intuition and experiences. The strategic vision is malleable this suggests that entrepreneurial strategy is both deliberate and emergent: deliberate in its broad lines and sense of direction, emergent in its details so that these can be adapted en route. The school of thought focuses on creating new ideas at the right time to suit the market niche. This leads to the success of the entrepreneurial activity. The tendency of the strategy to take the form of niche allows it to protect market position from the forces of outright competition (Blue ocean strategy). Market awareness and creativity are the most essential aspects according to this school of thought. In strategy making it’s dominated by active search of new opportunities in dramatic leaps forward in the face of uncertainty and growth is the the dominant goal of the organization. The process of strategy formation is semiconscious at best, rooted in the experience and intuition of the leader, whether he or she actually conceives the strategy or adopts it from others and then internalizes it in his or her own behavior the power is centralized in the hands of Chief executives. Contribution discussion A sound vision and visionary CEO can help organization to sail cohesively through muddy waters especially in early or very difficult years for the organization. Deliberate in broad line but flexible and emergent in the details. The malleable and emergent nature of vision and cognition of a manager can enable to explore the opportunities that exist focusing on the actions that lead to creation of value in the present day shifting landscape of business environment. Limitation discussion It presents strategy formation as all wrapped up in the behavior of single individual. It didn’t say about the process. Cruising in predefined image or vision can blind someone for potential unexpected danger or developments. Vague vision; strategies are designed manly based on the leaders intuition. How and when to find the right charismatic visionary leader with the qualities is hard and could be subjective. It requires full knowledge of all the processes and operation. It’s risky that hanging on the health and whim of single person, the escape or death of that person result in crisis of organization. Back ground of Liu Yongxing (East Hope Group) After resigned their jobs and sold their bicycles and watches to raise money, Chairman Chen Yuxin and his three brothers Liu Yongyan, Liu Yongxing, and Liu Yonghao returned to their hometown county of Xinjin in Sichuan province end of 1982. With the initial ? 1000 raised collectively, they established their own business, the Yuxin Fine Breed Farm, to raise quails and chickens. The company had great profit and had established their strong footing in the industry of breading farm. They also have helped to transform the county of Xinjin to the largest quail farm in the world In 1987, Liu Yongxing and his brother Chen Yuxin developed new high-end pig feeds in order to compete with then dominating foreign high-end big feeds products and at the same time with substantial cost advantages. The Liu brothers therefore soon expanded their company into the animal feeds industry and had achieved their second biggest milestone in the making of the company history. By 1995, the Hope Group had won awards of No. 1 of China 100 Feeds Companies and No. of China 500 Private Enterprises. The Hope Group had grown so rapidly that the four brothers decided to split it into four entities: Continental Hope, East Hope, West Hope, and New Hope led respectively by Liu Yongyan, Liu Yongxing, Chen Yuxin, and Liu Yonghao. After separating with other brothers he established the head quarter of east hope group in Chengdu High -Tech Development zone which was moved to shanghai Pudong in April 1999. The east hope group still focuses on feed production, mainly on expanding to the upstream and the downstream along the feed industry chain. Apart from the two feed companies in Vietnam the East hope Group led by him had 68 subsidiary companies in 16 province, cities and autonomous region in china whose main business area was feed production, together with some other related industries such as flour, food, bio engineering , fertilizer ,electrolytic aluminum and investment. During the 20 year development in feed and investment areas, the group had been made rolling development by relying on its own capital its investors include Mingsheng bank , Guang Ming diary industry, Sino Korea BBQ Western Fast food, Beijing Nanshan skiing field ,etc. n order to build world competitive industry chain incorporating aluminum and electricity the group had been engaging in series of projects: electrolytic aluminum plant with the annual yield of 160,000 tons and a power generator set with an annual yield of 310,000 kilowatts in Liaocheng; two phases of construction of 500,000-ton electrolytic aluminum plant and auxiliary generator set and bio-engineering project in Baotou of Inner Mongolia; alumina project in sanmenxia , Henan province. East Hope Group had over 70 subsidiary companies across 16 Provinces, Cities and autonomous regions in China with a total asset of Billions of yuan, and nearly 10,000 employees. The board chairman Liu yongxing had thus won a Variety of Social Honors. The honorsare ? In 2001, Liu Yongxing and his brothers were rated as the top of China’s Most Successful Businessmen byâ€Å"Forbes†, awell-known U. S. financial magazine. ? In 2002, Liu Yongxing was rated as one of â€Å"2001CCTV Top 10 China’s Economic Leaders† and â€Å"Sohu 2001 Top10 Financial Leaders† ? And after that strategically the brothers owned Entereprnual Company diversified in to four different entities. Mr. Liu Yongxing as East hope group keep on focusing the feeding industry and and strategically by rolling development by relying on its own capital it included other companies to build world competitive industry incorporating aluminum and electricity and bio engineering projects and in present day one of Chinas largest privately held industrial materials manufacturers. The company is investing more than $1 billion in an aluminum and power complex and also putting money into commercial real estate in Sichuans capital, Chengdu. Starting with 250 ? on proportion and Sound Vision, Excellence and Charisma Today with 5. 8 Billon $ Mr. Liu Yongxing is 5th and173rd richest person in china and world respectively. throughout his progress he is avisionary person creating new ideas at the right time to suit the market with the pusue of growth semiconsciously that enabled him to be one of influential and great Business manager in the World.

High school Essay Example for Free

High school Essay The dwindling quality of education in Nigeria is a cause for great concern and also calls for a prompt action by all stakeholders to salvage the trend. The current situation is, to say the least, disheartening. A lot of computer science graduates of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, for instance, fail recruitment tests for their inability to switch on a PC. Some of them are obviously getting to touch such machines for the first time. Mass Communication graduates struggle to make simple and correct sentences. Engineering graduates who ought to have conducted researches in the course of their studies, culminating in inventions, get to touch most of the elementary engineering tools for the first time, after their graduation. This is a near hopeless situation for a country that targets to be one of the world’s leading economies by 2020. The implication of the existing trend is that even though there is a high graduate unemployment rate, most of the university and polytechnic graduates in Nigeria are not employable. The loss of confidence in Nigeria’s education system is evident in the amount of money that Nigerians who can afford it, spend on their education in other countries. According to Exam Ethics International, a non-governmental organisation, Nigeria loses N1. 5 trillion annually to education tourism. N160 billion of this amount is allegedly spent by Nigerian parents on their children and wards’ education in Ghana alone while N80 billion is spent on the same purpose in the United Kingdom. President Goodluck Jonathan should be commended for allocating the highest budget to the education sector in the 2013 budget. However, there are other issues that require urgent attention. The emphasis on paper qualification and theoretical knowledge at the expense of competence or practical knowledge and entrepreneurial skills is a big challenge to the sector. The result is that most products of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions are mere certificate carriers and are not qualified to be addressed as university or polytechnic graduates. It is the combination of the ineffective education system and the decreasing white collar job opportunities that have further compounded the nation’s unemployment problem. The diminishing quality of education in Nigeria is indeed, disturbing. Literacy is a human right recognised in the Universal Declaration of Rights and it goes beyond the mere skill of reading and writing. It is a process of transformation that empowers the individual, broadens his critical thinking and provides such individual with the ability to act. The much emphasis on paper qualification has however encouraged fraudulent acquisition of highly graded certificates at the expense of true knowledge acquisition. Some students go to the extent of bribing lecturers or having sex with them to obtain high grades. Government agencies and private organisations further endorse emphasis on paper qualification above competence and skill by discriminating between a polytechnic and a university graduate. This trend has to change. If Nigeria must move at the anticipated economic growth rate, then, the country must learn from great examples like China which derived the strength of its speedy economic development from skills acquisition and technical education. Giving more focus to the development of technical education and skills acquisition will also complement the targeted provision of regular power supply across the country and drastically, reduce unemployment rate. Objectives of the Universal Basic Education Scheme, the 6-3-3-4 Senior Secondary School Education system and some other education policy initiatives have not been achieved. As a matter of fact, Nigeria has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. According to the United Nations’ Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 775 million people are still considered non-literates and 85 per cent live in 41 countries including Nigeria. About 40 million adults in Nigeria are illiterates and overall illiteracy rate is near 57 per cent. Only about 500,000 people are reportedly enrolled in adult literacy classes nationwide and this translates to one out of every 80 illiterates. The United States Agency for International Development reports that there are 30 million primary school age children in Nigeria but estimated 10 million are not enrolled in school. Government should therefore, demonstrate the needed seriousness in addressing the prevalent low literacy level and give more attention to the quality of education while working to widen access to primary education. Federal, state and local governments across Nigeria should wake up to their responsibilities in providing qualitative primary, secondary and tertiary education to citizens of Nigeria. Parents also have a role to play in managing the negative impact of modern technology on their children’s academic performances. For instance, research shows that the habit of abbreviation and deliberate use of wrong spellings for sending text messages contributed to the high failures in English language, recorded at the Senior Secondary School Examination and Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in recent years. Twitter and Facebook fun chat sessions are also addictive and minimise study concentration levels for many students. Both government and private owners of educational institutions should ensure that the required infrastructure for learning is adequately provided. The welfare of all categories of school teachers must equally be given adequate attention. This is one way of discouraging lecturers from yielding to the temptation to receive bribes or sleep with students in order to award them high scores, thereby leaving them in a state of intellectual emptiness. There are other challenges facing Nigeria’s education sector such as inadequate funding, labour unrest and brain drain. Therefore, all efforts must be made by the federal and state governments to avoid unnecessary labour unrest that keeps students of both federal and state tertiary institutions at home for long periods of time. In most cases, this poses a big distraction to the students who after leaving the academic community for too long a time to mingle with non-academically inclined peers, begin to lose interest in academics and academic activities. Besides, it makes education far more expensive for students, especially those on self sponsorship. The federal character clause in the 1999 Constitution should also be reviewed because it is one of the factors working against the quality of the nation’s education system. For instance, the federal character principle makes it difficult for most of the tertiary institutions to recruit fresh quality PhD holders as lecturers. Qualified applicants are rejected for some factor like state of origin. Professors and other categories of lecturers are also constantly retiring without replacements. These anomalies are really worrisome and all stakeholders must do something urgently. Personally, and without mincing words, there is no problem with either the old system or the new system but the problem lies in the administration and management of the Nigerian educational system. A look at recent trend with the rate of passage in national examinations, the education system has collapsed. Unfortunately, policymakers are not paying attention to that; rather, the policymakers are just making policies that will not help the system. Whether, it 6-5-4, 6-3-3-4, 9-3-4 or any other system the educational system in Nigeria have been caught in the web of inefficiency which is characteristic of the present day Nigeria. The justification being advanced by government and its agencies on the reason for the change is laughable. Education is the process by which an individual is encouraged and enabled to fully develop his or her potential; it may also serve the purpose of equipping, bringing up, training and rearing the individual to be a productive member of the society. People oriented governments achieve these objectives through a conscious and purposeful driven policies aimed at developing the potentials of her citizenry by equipping schools, employment of qualified manpower, upgrading of educational infrastructures in line with world standards etc. However, in Nigeria, we are still debating the appropriateness of the system to adopt in this 21st century. It leaves one to ponder where this country is heading towards. From the analysis you have given so far, what do you think are the problems? A cursory look at the Nigerian educational system shows that the system is faced with a number of problems. The Nigerian educational system has a history of failure because of politics. The appointment of education ministers and key positions in the educational sector are not done on merits rather on party affiliations, tribe and friendship. The effect of such appointments is what we are witnessing in Nigeria now. We take things for granted in this country and everything to us is business. Capable personnel that should be at the helm of affairs in the education sector are sacrificed for party loyalty and selfishness. This is one intractable problem in the education system. Indiscipline manifests in such areas as examination malpractices and secret cultism, unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancies, bribery and corruption. Crises in the universities have led to brain-drain syndrome. Potential teachers shy away from academics in search of greener pastures in other sectors of the Nigerian economy or outside the country. If this trend is not checked through improved working conditions for academicians and appeals to their patriotic spirit, the result could be disastrous for the country. The managers of primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in Nigeria are in consensus that these institutions are grossly under-funded. Evidence exists on the degree of dilapidation that characterises primary and secondary school buildings in parts of the country; the non-payment of teachers salaries and allowances as a result of which strikes are the order of the day; the lack of necessary teaching and  learning materials at all levels of the educational system; poor working conditions of all teachers in the country, among other factors have led to the death of the Nigerian educational system. The education sector is poorly funded. Teachers are not paid their salaries on time. The teachers who are supposed to implement the curriculum and give it their best shot are all distracted looking for money to survive. There is no effective system in the country for training good teachers at the nursery/primary and secondary school levels, teachers who are attuned to the demands of human resource capacity in the age of globalisation. A weak primary education system automatically produces weak students for the secondary schools, which are no better either, and so the chain of mediocrity continues up to the higher education level and the cycle completes itself with the same garbage fed back into society with serious implications for national competitiveness and productivity. We are all witnesses to the unnecessary changes in government policies concerning the educational sector. The frequent changes in the system do not allow for consistency thus the basis for measurement and benchmarking for corrective measures cannot be achieved. The management of the educational sector in Nigeria is so inconsistent with every new minister of education trying to introduce something new, without any rigorous study of the situation. The implication is a sector that lacks direction. It is partly this confusion in government policies that has compelled many middle class families to patronise American, British and Turkish-style educational institutions which are all available in Nigeria. Another major problem facing the Nigerian educational system is lack of interface between the various coordinating government agencies. The authorities responsible for the supervision of primary, secondary and tertiary education work in isolation. It could be argued that the ministry of education is the coordinating ministry. However, we have seen a situation where Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC officials are not coordinating with SUBEP. West African Certificate Examination, WACE is an autonomous body; Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, JAMB also has its own mandate. What do you think is the solution to the problems? As stated earlier, the problem is not in the system of education, the problem lies in the administration and management of the Nigerian education system. There must be political will on the part of government to formulate and implement policies that enhances the growth of the Nigerian educational system. We must not pay lip service to the problem, but a conscious and radical approach must as a matter of urgency, be adopted to address the failure currently observed in this sector. As a matter of fact, the government should declare a state of emergency on the educational system. This is necessary if the schools should produce the next generation of leaders. Coordinating ministries, agencies and parastatals must as a matter of urgency interface with one another. Products of primary schools naturally progress to secondary schools and this set of students ultimately enters the university. Therefore, there must be a way of ensuring that the coordinating agencies co-exist harmoniously and their objectives should be geared towards achieving a better standard of education in Nigeria. On the part of government, a blueprint on the way forward for the Nigerian education system should be formulated after a national conference on education, where all stakeholders are allowed to make an input. This blue-print when fully developed, should have a time frame. The time frame should be realistic and achievable and it should be a criminal offence for any person to deviate from the blueprint. Such a process will ensure consistency in administration of government policies which is a major problem facing the Nigerian education system. Consistency allows for benchmarking, monitoring and control. Proper funding of the education system is also a panacea to the problems observed in the Nigerian education system. A situation where the government budget on education is less than five percent of the total budget is appalling. Proper funding here involves allocating funds to areas that will improve the system, areas such as provision of computers to schools, rehabilitation of dilapidated school buildings, provision of conducive working environment for staff and enhanced welfare package for teachers etc should be pursued if the sector is to grow. The participation of the private sector in the Nigeria education system should also be encouraged and enhanced. There are private schools– primary, secondary and university that have facilities that are far better than most state schools. The owners of these schools are opening a window for the proper development of the Nigerian student. Lastly, for the Nigerian education system to grow, corruption must be expunged from the fabrics of Nigerians. Nigerians are so undisciplined such that they diverted major part of the resources meant for the education system to their personal accounts. We must fight corruption and indiscipline by ensuring that people are made to account for whatever is entrusted to them. Some people are of the view that the academic curriculum should be reviewed so that our tertiary education will be more skill-based. What is your take on this? There is no gainsaying that the tertiary education curriculum in Nigeria should be beefed up, making it more skill-based than what we have presently. I am in support of improved skill-based curriculum. A skill- based curriculum would assist to empower the graduate to become good entrepreneurs and self reliant after school. There are no jobs in Nigeria, even when they exist; it is only the fortunate ones that get it leaving others’ jobless. Therefore, in order to remain relevant the Nigerian graduate must be totally equipped with all the necessary skill to survive. Entrepreneurs tend to start ventures that build on specific skills they have already developed and knowledge they have already acquired in a certain occupation, industry or school. However, in Nigeria, tertiary school’s curriculum is not skill-based hence Nigerian students are not developed from schools to become entrepreneurs. Do you subscribe to the opinion that majority of Nigerian graduates are unemployable? The Nigerian graduate is a product of the society, and when the system is massed up; do we then expect any good thing to come out from them? Obviously, what a man sows so shall he reap. An unemployable person is someone that is not acceptable for employment. With all sincerity, majority of present day Nigerian graduates fit the above definition of an unemployable person. The decay in the Nigerian educational system could be blamed for this assertion. As earlier stated, the present day university curriculum is not programmed for skill-based graduates. Imagine a computer science or engineering graduate who cannot code in a simple programming language seeking the post of a software developer. How can such a person be employed by a serious software company? The solution is an inclusion in curriculum skill-based courses like most private universities are doing. This will help to address the problem. The attitude of most Nigerian graduates is appalling. They put up irresponsible attitudes in even their job search. No wonder, most firms require professional certificates for employment. It is believed that such professional bodies must have imbibed in the candidate some professional ethical standards. The desire to make it quick in life and at all cost by Nigerians makes most graduates to apply for positions they are not qualified for. If a job specification says they need a B. Sc degree holder in accounting with at least three years experience, and someone is applying for the same position with B. Sc degree in economics. The recruiter has a reason for what he or she is looking for; you will only succeed in annoying the recruiters, and he or she will throw you out. Another major reason for massive youth unemployment in Nigeria is that they are often times short on personal development. Most of us today are what we are not because the school gave us everything needed but we took out time to personally develop ourselves. The present day Nigerian graduate does not even think of personal enhancement and it is actually showing. Lack of information is also a major problem. Many graduates do not have access to vital information that could get them employed. Some people hear of vacancies after the deadline or don’t even get to hear at all. This is the major reason why the Nigerian graduate is unemployable. A situation where teachers collect bribe to pass student, students buying WACE results, parents paying JAMB officials, sorting of courses and lecturers demanding for sex from female students to pass exams. How then can you employ such graduates?

Navel Model to Image Separation in Scanning Tinny Letter

Navel Model to Image Separation in Scanning Tinny Letter Somayeh Komeylian Department of Tel-Communication Engineering, Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran Armin Mehrabian Department of Medical, Mashhad Medical Science University, Mashhad, Iran Saeed Komeylian Factory of graduated students, Department of Tel-Communication Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran In this paper, a navel model has been introduced to image separation in scanning tinny letter. The proposed model is based on Almeida et al. (2006) model. First, the basic image separation method has been explained, and then the proposed pre-processing methods have been presented. In addition, separation method presents based on two sampled wavelet and contour transform which has adaptive structure. The result showed that proposed model has a good quality with a little runtime. On the other hand, this model which use directional filter bank has better effect in separation with approximately two level of decomposition. Finally, the two mainly proposed algorithms (NSWT and Improved NSCT) shows that, we achieve to really good results which our separated images have absolutely good quality by using preprocessing and these methods simultaneously. Keywords: Image separation; contour let; non-subsample wavelet. When we scan or photograph a paper document, especially if the paper is thin or transparent, the image from the backside often appears on the image from the front page. This is a routine problem which is usually occurs, when the electronic version of an old document or a book is needed. Extracting sources from mixture images is a problem of blind source separation. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is one of the good solutions for this problem, which is done with linear and nonlinear ICA in [3] and [4], respectively. The results show that the nonlinear solution is better, because images are mixed through a nonlinear procedure. In [3] authors use a nonlinear method, which is named MISEP that is based on multilayer perception used in neural network. In the most of ICA methods the result are achieved from adaptive or iterative algorithms, which are time-consuming procedures. Another work was based on the nonlinear de-noising source separation (DSS) method [6]. This method is supposed when two images have independent sources and have different frequency components in the same locations. These conditions are the same as those exist when a source is contaminated by noise. Therefore, nonlinear de-noising might be used for source separation. The separation method used here is similar to that implemented in [6]. However, we believe that human visual perception uses different edge directions in the mixed subjects to separate them. Therefore, we improved the method in [6] which based on exact high frequency separation. As well known, wavelet analysis offers limited directional information in representing image edges when separable one-dimensional transforms are used for images. Minh N. Do and Martin Vetterli developed a true two dimensional representation, called contour let [7], which can capture the intrinsic geometrical structure that is key in visual information. Compare to the recent image representations this construction results in a flexible multi-resolution, l ocal and directional image expansion using contour segments. Moreover, sub sampling process in the wavelet transform change the geometric information of image details like edges. So, non-subsample wavelets are introduced for decomposing the image frequency components with better saving its geometric information. For comparing the results with [6], here we use the images that Mr. B. Luis. Almeidamade in his laboratory. He dealt with a difficult version of image mixture problem, corresponding to the use of onionskin paper, which causes a strong nonlinear mixture. The source and mixture images are shown in figures 1 and 2. More information about images is available in [1] and [2]. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 explains the basic image separation method which is used in this paper. Section 3 introduces the proposed pre-processing methods. Section 4 presents separation method based on non-sub sampled wavelet and non-sub sampled contour let transform which has adaptive str ucture. Section 5 explains the experimental result. Section 6 has some discussions about the results. Section 7 gives the concluding remarks. The nonlinear image separation procedure based on de noising source separation [1] is based on wavelet transform, and uses very basic information about the sources and the mixture procedure. This information is based on two observations: First; the high frequency components (details) of common images are sparse. As a consequence, the wavelet coefficients from two different source images will seldom both have significant values in the same image location. Fig. 1 :Five source image pairs [1]. Second: Each source is more strongly represented in the image acquired from that side of the paper in which that source is printed than in the image acquired from the opposite side. The schematic representation of the separation method is shown in Figure 3. In this figure, the mixed images are first pre-processed by the following relation: where elements of Q matrix is the auto covariance of mixture matrix. This equation applies a linear transformation to the mixed sources. The nonlinear process is based on wavelet analysis which iteratively decomposes the approximation coefficients Aj(the low frequency component) at level j to four components (the approximation at level j+1, and the details in three orientations; horizontal, vertical, diagonal). Fig. 2: Five mixture image pairs after scanning [1]. components (the approximation at level j + 1, and the detail sin three orientations; horizontal, vertical, diagonal). After performing wavelet decomposition on mixed images for a certain number of levels, a competition is performed between the corresponding high frequency components from the two mixture images in each side of paper, according to following equation: are the wavelet coefficients of a given type (for example vertical coefficients at the first decomposition level) of the decomposition of the i th mixture image, x3à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢i are the corresponding coefficients from the other mixture image, and a is a parameter that controls the strength of the competition. Fig.3: Schematic representation of wavelet-based separation method[1] This competition was applied to all horizontal, vertical and diagonal wavelet coefficients at all decomposition levels. The competition computes mask mi through a soft winner take all function [1], and then applies this mask to the wavelet high frequency coefficients of the mixture images, so that the coefficients are intensified in the image in which they originally were stronger and weakened in the image in which they were weaker. The separated images then will be synthesized using the wavelet coefficients compute competition in high frequency. In [1], one-dimensional discrete wavelet basis are separately used in horizontal and vertical directions. In the first step we assume the mixing procedure is a linear process and try to estimate the mixing matrix and implement the inverse matrix for separation. Although, we know the linear assumption is not completely right, however, it can be used as a pre-processing step to separate the mixed images. Since the source images are not available, the mixing matrix should be estimated through a statistical approach. The following approach is written for this purpose. If we show the source signals as S, mixture signals X and the mixing matrix as A, then we have: X= AS (4) In equation (5) we assume that the variables are zero-mean. This means we deal with the mean subtracted source and mixture images. From Eq (5) the autocorrelation matrix of mixed images is: From Equation (6) and (7) we could write: (8) (9) Since b>a, then only the plus sign is correct and from equation 6 we have : X1 + X2 = (a2 + b2) (S1 + S2)(11) A. First Pre-processing Method We assume that total energy of pictures before mixing and after that are equal. We use equation 11 and have some manipulation from these simple equations for a and b. a2 + b2 = 1 (12) (13) (14) B. Second Pre-processing Method We assume that when a packet of light emitting from scanner laser, b is the amount of light which went through the paper and a is the amount of light which reflect from first side of paper. In this method, we assume that, the amount of light which go through the paper and the amount of light which reflect back, together are constant. We have: a + b = 1(15) (16) But in this case, when we extract images, the contrast of images is high. For this effect we use modified form of this equation as below: a+b = 1.4(17) (18) C. Third Pre-processing Method We know from equation 5 that: (19) This equation has four undefined parameter and from equation 8 we have three equations. Assume that for normal deviation of mixture images and primary image we have: (20) This is the other equation to solve four undefined parameters. By solving(19),we can determine a and b. : (21) Where s1 and s2 are separated sources through a linear process. Fig.4: Result of implementing the proposed pre-processing method Since, we estimated the mixing matrix through non-exact assumptions it should be examined to show how it can separate the mixed images. Therefore we applied these three pre-processing method.We see that these three equation which derive from previous assumption has approximately the same extraction Figure (4-a) shows the mixed and processed images. From Fig4 b) we can see the proposed linear process 3 could approximately separate the mixed images. Although, s1 and s2 are not completely separated, we use the linear process as pre-processing step and those may be used for final separation through the nonlinear process that will be explained in the next section. The results of applying our pre-processing method to one pair of mixed images are shown in Fig. 4. The results show that the proposed method has partly separated the mixed images. The most important goal of this separation method is to obtain a sparse edge and contours of images that are placedin high frequency component of images. Wavelets for decomposition is not good [9] because when we use wavelets, in each level of decomposition, a down sampler shrink the size of the remainder and competition in high frequency is not exact and when we reconstruct image from that, blocking effect appear. Because assume the size of image is odd. In down sampling we have not an exact decomposition and in reconstruction, images dont have a good quality and appear some block. In first method we use NSWT which approve those blocking effect. This method has very short runtime and is acceptable for approximately all application. The other method is based on NSCT. This method is composed of pyramid decomposition and directional filter bank. Pyramid decomposition is shown in figure5 and directional filter bank is shown in figure 6. When we use these two decomposition at the same time we have a composed method which is shown in figure 7. Fig.5: Pyramid Decomposition Fig.6: Directional filter bank Directional filter bank have a good property that can describe diagonal line in pictures and if we use it for separation we have a better result. For each decomposed frequency based part, we use our well-known mask which is described before. We present an adaptive form of NSCT which is announced below. Fig.7: Combining two methods We first decompose in first level and apply separation mask. Then we reconstruct images and use correlation factor among them. If it is too low for example 0.01, extraction is good. If it is higher than some threshold we decompose image in further level and use separation mask. In this method, it is not necessary that we define decomposition level at first. NSCT has other good performance which is shift invariant. This property has no blocking effect. In this section we present experimental result from our method which are NSWT and improved NSCT. These two methods have an approximately complete separation result. First method has low runtime but in order to compare it with NSCT, the last one has a better separation result because we use directional filter bank and it could better separate high frequency in two images in every direction which we want. In NWST we use 6 and 7 level decomposition and since it has fast algorithm to decompose picture in wavelet form. In improved NSCT we use an adaptive form which it has little runtime and can separate in each direction we want. In figure 8 we show the experimental result for NSWT and in figure 9 we show the other one for NSCT. Fig.8: The result with NSWT Fig.9: The result with improved NSCT We see from the results that, our separation methods have better results in compare with the proposed methods in references. In our case, we derive very simple equations that can separate two mixture images linearly, which leads to a from the results that, our separation methods have better results in compare with the proposed methods in references. In our case, we derive very simple equations that can separate two mixture images linearly, which leads to a time-efficient algorithm. The two mainly proposed algorithms (NSWT and Improved NSCT) shows that by using preprocessing and these methods simultaneously, we achieve to really good results and our separated images, have absolutely good quality. In this paper we present a new preprocessing method which has a simple function and high precision in separating mixture images with linear form. Also we use two other separation rule that approximately separate images completely. NSWT has a good quality with a little runtime. On the other hand, NSWT which use directional filter bank has better effect in separation with approximately two level of decomposition. References [1] Mariana S.C. Almeida and Luis B. Almeida, Wavelet Based Nonlinear Separation Of images, Instituto de Telecommuincacoes, Lisboa, Portugal, 1-4244-0657 -9/06, 2006 IEEE. [2] Luis.B.Almeida,http://www.lx.it.pt/~lbameida/ica/seethrough/index.html. [3] L.B. Almeida, MISEP-Linear and Nonlinear ICA Based On Mutual Information, Journal of Machine Learning Research, vol. 4, pp. 1297-1318, 2003 [4] L.B. Almeida, Separating a Real-life Nonlinear Image Mixture, Journal Of Machine Learning Research, vol.6, pp. 1199-1229, July 2005. [5] Mariana S.C Almeida and Luis B Almeida, Wavelet Based Separation of Show-through and Bleed-through Image Mixtures, Instituto de Telecommuincacoes, Lisboa, Portugal, November 2007. [6] M.S.C.Almeida, H.Valpola and j. Sarela, Separation Of Nonlinear Image Mixtures By Denoisind Source Separation in Independent Component Analysis and Blind Signal Separation, J. Rsca, D. Erdogus, J.principe and S.Haykin, Eds.,Belin,Germany,2006 [7] Duncan D., Y. Po and Minh N. Do, Directional Multi-scale Modeling of Images Using the Contourlet Transform, IEEE Transactions on image processing, vol. 15, Issue 6, Jun 2006, p.p.1610-1620 [8] AzadehBamdadMoghadam, NSCT based for image extraction, Master of science Thesis in Iran University of Science and Technology,Spring2008. [9] Gonzalez and Woods, Digital Image Processing 3rd Edition 2008.