The Blind Side Essay Example for Free

The Blind Side Essay Belonging is a sense of enlightenment felt when an individual gains an understanding of themselves in relation to others and society. Once the characters belong to their family and to themselves, belonging to society and the rest of the world becomes easy. â€Å"Looking for Alibrandi† by Marlina Marchetta and the film â€Å"The Blind Side† directed by John Lee Hancock, both show how each character gains an understanding of themselves and their family therefore leading to them to belong to society. Throughout the novel, Josie’s perceptions of herself and Nonna’s relationship undergo a significant transformation. Initially, Josie does not feel she belongs to her Nonna because of the limitations she places on her. It is only at the end of the novel that Josie learns the true heart-ache and suffering her Nonna went through for her mother. Marchetta uses the intimate feel of a diary to relate to the story of the three women bound by strong ties of family. It shows how each of the women belongs to each other and it also shows the barriers to their relationships. Linear Structure gives the book a strong sense of continuity and ensures a steady pace of the story line. At the beginning of the novel Josie says â€Å"She drives me crazy. Sometimes I have to grit my teeth sometimes to control myself†, showing that she does not feel she belongs to her Nonna. Towards the end she states â€Å"I cried because I was loved by two of the strongest women I would ever meet in my lifetime†. The discovery that she does truly belong to her Nonna encourages Josie to be her own person and to live her life emancipated from any rigid stereotypes that are barriers to belonging. Once she belongs to her Nonna, she then realises she belongs to herself, making belonging to society easier. Cultural identity is a very strong factor in Josie’s life. At first it is a barrier to her belonging to society and she rails against it as being old-fashioned and sexist. She realises towards the end of the book that her culture has made her who she is and what she is capable of becoming. Throughout the novel her references to her culture are often sarcastic or mocking. Josie asserts light heartedly that without the Italian tendency for being chatty and loud â€Å"Telecom would go broke†. Marchetta uses humour to show how Josie speaks with the voice of today’s youth and she speaks of issues that are contemporary and with which readers can relate to. Initially, at school especially, she feels victimised by her race and doesn’t belong. She is bitter and resentful to those not like her and often resorts to physical abuse in response to ‘wog’ insults. â€Å"Simply because like religion, culture is nailed into you so deep you can’t escape it†. This conveys that even though sometimes Josie wishes she wasn’t Italian that makes her who she is. After she learns to accept that towards the end of the novel, she starts to belong to herself and to her culture and then making it easier to belong to her school. At first Josie does not feel as if she belongs to her family, however she comes to a realisation that her culture isn’t a barrier to her belonging; she can then belong to herself and to society. Just like Josie, Michael Oher realises that his race isn’t a barrier to belonging to his family, he belongs to himself and he becomes accepted in society.

Speaker identification and verification over short distance telephone l

SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION AND VERIFICATION OVER SHORT DISTANCE TELEPHONE LINES USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS Ganesh K Venayagamoorthy, Narend Sunderpersadh, and Theophilus N Andrew gkumar@ieee.org sundern@telkom.co.za theo@wpo.mlsultan.ac.za Electronic Engineering Department, M L Sultan Technikon, P O Box 1334, Durban, South Africa. ABSTRACT Crime and corruption have become rampant today in our society and countless money is lost each year due to white collar crime, fraud, and embezzlement. This paper presents a technique of an ongoing work to combat white-collar crime in telephone transactions by identifying and verifying speakers using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Results are presented to show the potential of this technique. 1. INTRODUCTION Several countries today are facing rampant crime and corruption. Countless money is lost each year due to white collar crime, fraud, and embezzlement. In today’s complex economic times, businesses and individuals are both falling victims to these devastating crimes. Employees embezzle funds or steal goods from their employers, then disappear or hide behind legal issues. Individuals can easily become helpless victims of identity theft, stock schemes and other scams that rob them of their money White collar crime occurs in the gray area where the criminal law ends and civil law begins. Victims of white collar crimes are faced with navigating a daunting legal maze in order to effect some sort of resolution or recovery. Law enforcement is often too focused on combating â€Å"street crime† or does not have the expertise to investigate and prosecute sophisticated fraudulent acts. Even if criminal prosecution is pursued, a criminal conviction does not mean that the victims of fraud are able to recover their losses. They have to rely on th criminal courts awarding restitution after the conviction and by then the perpetrator has disposed of or hidde most of the assets available for recovery. From the civil law perspective, resolution and recovery can just be a difficult as pursuing criminal prosecution. Perpetrators of white collar crime are often difficult to locate and served with civil process. Once the perpetrators have been located and served, proof must be provided that the fraudulent act occurred and recovery/damages are needed. This usually takes a lengthy legal fight, which often can cost the victim more money than t... ...phone speech†, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vol. 2 no. 3 March 1995, pp. 46 - 48. [2] J.M.Naik, L.P.Netsch, G.R.Doddington, â€Å"Speaker verification over long distance telephone lines†, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 23-26 May 1989, pp. 524 - 527. [3] A.L.Mcilraith, H.C.Card, â€Å"Birdsong Recognition Using Backpropagation and Multivariate Statistics†, Proceedings of IEEE Trans on Signal Processing, vol. 45, no. 11, November 1997. [4] G.K.Venayagamoorthy, V.Moonasar, K.Sandrasegaran, â€Å"Voice Recognition Using Neural Networks†, Proceedings of IEEE South African Symposium on Communications and Signal Processing (COMSIG 98), 7-8 September 1998, pp. 29 - 32. [5] V.Moonasar, G.K.Venayagamoorthy, â€Å"Speaker identification using a combination of different parameters as feature inputs to an artificial neural network classifier†, accepted for publication in the Proceedings of IEEE Africon 99 conference, Cape Town, 29 September – 2 October 99. [6] H.Demuth, M.Beale, MATLAB Neural Network Toolbox User’s Guide, The Maths Works Inc., 1996. [7] T.Kohonen, Self-organizing and associate memory Spring Verlag, Berlin, third edition, 1989.

Psychology and Sensation Seeker

Take a look at the material on sensation seeking on page 286 (Ch. 11). Do you consider yourself a sensation seeker? Why or why not? What are the advantages and disadvantages of your level of sensation seeking? I am not a sensation seeker because I prefer peace and happiness. I am the type of person that likes to see the same people and have a routine to follow which I feel comfortable in. The advantages of my level of sensation seeking are that I am more likely to find peace and happiness compared to someone who has a higher level of sensation seeking.The disadvantages might be people calling me boring and not having as much fun as I should be having. How would you rate your own achievement motivation? Why? In what ways is this an advantage to you? In what ways is it a disadvantage? I would rate my own achievement motivation very high. I say this because I fit all of the descriptions mentioned in the book and I enjoy excelling in the things I do. When I have an easy task in front of me I find it boring but when I have a difficult task I tend to feel worried because I might do poorly.This is an advantage because I know it pushes me to do better in all of the things I do in my life. It is a disadvantage because my self-esteem can be lowered when I don’t do well on something and it might also affect those around me. What did you learn about yourself from reading about the trait theories of personality? I learned that I have the following traits: Openness, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. I am opened to new ideas, self-disciplined, sociable, talkative and affectionate.I am a weird mix because I am opened to new ideas but I tend to like routines and being comfortable with my surroundings. At the same time I am sociable, talkative and affectionate which is kind of weird. To better explain I am a junior accountant at a commercial real estate company who sits in a cubicle all day but I am very outgoing and talkative like a salesperson. I always get complimen ts from people for being so outgoing while being an accountant which is a weird thing. What did you learn about yourself from reading the other theories of personality? List and explain at least three things. ) I now know I am aware of my actions which is something I never really thought about before. I also learned that I am a person who enjoys doing things for the thrill that comes from doing things instead of doing things for the outcome. I also learned that I am self-disciplined which is something I never paid attention to before either. These are great things I learned about myself from reading the theories of personality which I would of never thought of before.How will you use this material on personality to improve your relationships (personal and/or professional)? I will use this information in order to better understand myself and other in both my personal and professional life. I know no two people are alike and now I can manage to speak to them and treat them based on th eir personality so they feel comfortable. I will also use this material to better understand myself and my way of thinking in order to excel at the things I do.

Cultural Imperialism And The United States - 1475 Words

During my time in Guatemala, I believe that the social issues I came in the most contact with were hegemony and cultural imperialism, or in other words, the influence the United States has over Guatemala. No matter where I was, whether it be the streets of the small town of San Miguel or the larger, more developed city of Guatemala City, I could not help but notice how much of an impact the United States has. Throughout the course of a month we learned a lot about the root causes of poverty- America as a hegemon- through both readings and discussion. The footprint the U.S. has left in Guatemala was apparent not only while reading and learning about the history of Latin America, but while visiting the country itself. In addition, we had the†¦show more content†¦As you walk or drive through Guatemala, you are sure to see countless billboards, much like in the U.S. Being from the U.S., this seems completely normal. The signs even looked very similar. When I took a closer look a t the signs, I noticed why they looked so similar. There were American models on the signs. In particular, I noticed a blonde-haired woman on the front of a billboard advertising shampoo. I also noticed American women on billboards advertising jeans and beer. When looking into bars I saw calendars with American women as well. It was impossible not to notice the influence that the U.S. had not only on methods of advertising, but also on the images used. In addition to noticing the U.S. hegemon while on the streets of Guatemala, I also noticed it while living with the people. While staying with host families, we were given the opportunity to take in an entirely different culture- or so we thought. Even though living amongst Guatemalans was a very new experience, it was also very evident that the U.S. had impacted the traditional Guatemalan way of life. The first thing that I noticed while living with my host family was the way they dressed. My host parents wore what can be considered as â€Å"traditional† clothing. They had not let any outside influence impact their decision in clothing. However, my host siblings we not mirroring their parents. My host siblings ranged from fourteen years old to about thirty years old. They wore much more casualShow MoreRelatedThe World War II And The Middle East1332 Words   |  6 Pages20th centuries, imperialism served a mode of global exploration and expansion of economic, political and religious influence. Glory was at stake; the opportunity to expound upon their influence on the balance of power galvanized most of Europe to explore and colonize Central Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In the period of European imperialism, imperialism served as conveyer of status and power in world affairs; the more imperialist territory, a more powerful nation state. 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