Target Market for Points.com- One card Research Paper

Target Market for Points.com- One card - Research Paper Example The above represent loyalty programs that grant purchasers additional value. Evidently, point credit assists customer to obtain addition value from the organizations (Marketing donut, 2011). Understanding the market and consumer prospects of Point.com will require an initial analysis of what the organization entails. Point.Com fundamentally seeks to consolidate mileage allowance of its clientele. Therefore, an individual seeking to benefit from the service of this organization requires to launch an account with the organization. Evidently, the organization target individuals that receive mileage rewards. Consequently, this organization endeavour to consolidate the different mileage that their clientele receive. Additionally, the entity target individual with inability to track their rewards. Therefore, Point.com manages its clientele’s rewards. Additionally, ensuring that the clientele accomplish elite status consequently, earning better rewards. Point.com also converts rewar ds to point and finally to monetary value, which the customer can cash. Notably, Point.coms’ clientele pay certain charges for the management of their accounts with the organization and conversion of the rewards and mileage (Uncles & Dowling, 1997). Point.com has a specific target market, which is constituted by the clientele of airlines and hotels. It is exigent to estimate the target market since it encompasses clientele of the service industry firms. However, accomplishment of Point.com’s objective to dominate the market depends on its capacity to manage the clientele’s rewards. Ultimately, the firm has the compulsory resources to dominate the loyalty management sector since it is not capital intensive. Acquiring a substantial market proportion will require considerable time duration since the industry is expanding gradually. Additionally, the entity does not possess a robust marketing program. The above smart analysis reveals that Point.com

Critical Appraisal of Pereira Da Silva; SS Obesity Meanings Essay

Critical Appraisal of Pereira Da Silva; SS Obesity Meanings - Essay Example Therefore, the study explored the expectations and the beliefs regarding the exigencies and the impacts of bariatric surgery (Bowling, 2009:56-58). The methods included a study population comprised of 30 morbidly obese patients. The results were based on three core themes namely: eating behavior, treatment, and obesity. Critical appraisal is an integral process in the evidence-based practice. The aim of critical appraisal is aimed at identifying the methodological flaws in the literature besides, providing the consumers of research evidence with the opportunity to make informed decisions regarding the quality of the research evidence (Trinder & Reynolds, 2000:69-72). The critical appraisal for both the quantitative and qualitative research is appropriate. Developing a critical appraisal framework for healthcare services allows for the need to have competent healthcare treatment for obesity. Therefore, health professionals are required to be intelligent consumers of research, and this entails the ability to publish research something which Pereira da Silva has accomplished. According to Benton and Cormack (2000) argue that there have been tendencies to evaluate qualitative research against the appropriate criteria against the quantitative research. This has led to attempts by various individuals to analyze the qualitative research within a quantitative framework thus raising the questions of credibility, reliability, dependability, and transferability. Hamers and Colison (2005) state that â€Å"there have been various frameworks that have been reviewed and the common features that are related to quantitative and qualitative research established† Generally, the guidelines tend to reflect upon the respective approaches, whereby the guidelines for quantitative research tend to be in the form of checklists, the guidelines for qualitative research tend to be more discursive. Sajiwandani is of the view that there must be a checklist that covers all the points a ppropriate for covering the points appropriate in treating obesity. They must include the hypothesis, operational definitions, reliability, and validity of any questionnaires (Sajiwandani, 1996). According to Sackett et al. (2002) assert that evidenced-based research is the â€Å"integration of the best research-based evidence with clinical expertise and patient’s value.† The evidence-based practice as described in the work of Pereira da Silva gives an equal emphasis on the situation of the patient, the best available research evidence, the patient’s values, wishes, and goals, and the clinical expertise of the practitioner, in this case, those dealing with obesity cases. The Literature Review The researcher uses contemporary material about the topic being discussed; and the meanings of experiences associated with awaiting bariatric surgery. The research on obesity uses a lot of high-quality material of the obesity topic being researched on (Fried, Hainer, & Basd evant, 2007:267). This led to the development of the research question thus allowing the hypothesis testing and identification of the appropriate method of data collection. Data collection involved the use cognitive interviews, questionnaires, open-ended questions, and the focus groups. The interviews were audio-taped, transcribed, and the coded according to the ground analysis methodology.  

Rio Antirio Bridge And Millau Viaduct Engineering Essay

Rio Antirio Bridge And Millau Viaduct Engineering Essay Rio-Antirio bridge, the worlds longest suspension bridge, connecting Western Peloponnese with mainland Greece, 1998-2004 Millau viaduct. Millau, france, 1993-2004 Comparison: The two bridges are both phenomenal suspensions bridges in their locations. With taking into account the location of these two bridges, both bridges, Both are considered to be an architectural and engineering marvels. Concrete plays an important role in the construction of suspension bridges. There will be massive foundations, usually embedded in the ground. There are abutments, providing the vital strength and ability to resist the enormous forces. They both have exceptionally large dimensions and resistance to huge forces such as wind in Viaduct case and wave, wind, earthquake and many other natural forces, in Rio-Antirion case. Both bridges were constructed in a limited time constraint and both where successfully delivered on time. The construction was a good opportunity for both countries to create jobs as well as profiting financially and economically from the structures. These two similar structures where created in two different locations, Rio-Antirio bridge in Greece was created over the gulf of Corinth, whilst the Millau viaduct Bridge in France was created over the valley of the river tarn. Both bridges are very long thus the engineers decided to use suspension bridges. They both started construction at about same time. Rio-Antirion in Greece was constructed by a French company, where as Millau-Viaduct in south of France and constructed by a British company. Here are the differences and similarities of the two bridges in case of construction, economical, and many other aspects. Rio-Antirion Bridge: After 5 years of construction the Rio-Anitirio bridge was opened to traffic on 7th of August 2004 The Rio-Antirio bridge was constructed in Greece by a French company, Vinci. Greece needed the construction to be finished before the 2004 Olympics, which was not enough time for most of the construction companies. Also to make the matter worse the bridge had to be constructed on a river, meaning it had to have a high strength to resist the strong tides and earthquakes, as the location of this bridge is extremely prone to earthquakes and tide waves. C:UsersRaminDesktopPhocisS1.gif The Greek government set the French company a fixed price and time to do the job as there was no time for a mistake, Considering these entire situation the French company still decided to go ahead and take the project. If the bridge was not ready by the deadline the French company had to pay a fine as well as the expenses for the construction from that point onwards. The bridge meant much easier and faster transportation for Greek people as it connects the two major cities of Antirio and Rio together (Antirio and Rio, hence the name). In addition, it would be a valuable income for the Greek government economics. As it was close to 2004 Olympics which supposed to take place in Greek. Also because of the transport problem in that location a lot of people will be using the bridge, which meant they have to pay (cars: à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬11.70, motorcycles: à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬1.80, coaches: à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬26.20-à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬56.50 and trucks à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬17.30- à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬38.00). As the bridge connects Rio to Antirio which is in mainland Greece, thus connecting with the rest of Europe. The only means of transport between these two lands was by using ferry or via the isthmus of Corinth at its extreme east end, therefore this bridge was really important for the Greek transportation. The bridge reduces travel time across the straight from 45 minutes via fe rry to less than 5 minutes. Bridge construction: The Rio Antirio Bridges pylons are made from reinforced concrete and pylon legs range from 25m to 45m above sea level. Seabed reinforcement was achieved by using inclusions, which are 2 m diameter hollow steel pipes 25 m to 30 m long. 200 pipes were driven in to the seabed by a crane on a tension leg platform, which was installed at every pier location; this was topped with a 3 m thick, levelled gravel layer. A cone with a diameter of 38 m formed the lower part of the pier.5 The bridge is counted as one of the tallest and longest bridges as it consist of five cable stayed spans and four columns, the longest span is 560 meters. The bridge is 2880 meters long with a width of 27.2 meters across. The towers, particularly their foundations, are the real technical achievement of this project. The seabed on which the foundations rest was specially prepared in order to eliminate the effects of earthquakes. The bridge consists of 6 lanes, 2 lane on each side, 2 emergency on each side as well as a pedestrian and bicycle lane .The total cost of the bridge was about à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 630,000,000, funded by Greek state funds, backed by loans from the European Investment Bank. During the construction, the French company decided to create a suspension bridge, as the distance was to great for any other type of bridge. They had problems before and during construction, such as; the site had difficulties including deep water, insecure materials for foundations, seismic activity, the probability of tsunamis, and the expansion of the Gulf of Corinth due to plate tectonics so this bridge is counted as one of engineers masterpiece. One of the major problems during the construction was, whiles installing a column the tides where too strong and placed the pile in the wrong position. As the company had no time to remove the column and replace it again as it was too heavy, it would cost them much more that they had planned so the engineers decided to move the whole process by the distance misplaced. C:UsersRaminDesktopRioAntirioBridge1.jpg The piers of the Rio-Antirio Bridge can slide on their gravel beds to accommodate tectonic movement. Engineering feats As the results of these problems, the engineers had to come up with a solution that is both strong and also flexible during earthquakes. The water depth reaches 65 m, the seabed is mostly of loose sediment, the seismic activity and possibility of tectonic movement is significant, and the Gulf of Corinth is expanding at a rate of about 30 mm a year. For these reasons, special construction techniques were applied. The piers are not buried into the seabed, but rather rest on a bed of gravel, which was meticulously levelled to an even surface (a difficult attempt at this depth). During an earthquake, the piers should be allowed to move laterally on the seabed with the gravel bed absorbing the energy. The bridge parts are connected to the pylons using jacks and dampers to absorb movement; too rigid a connection would cause the bridge structure to fail in the event of an earthquake. It was also important that the bridge not have too much lateral leeway either so as not to damage the piers. There is provision for the gradual expansion of the strait over the bridges lifetime.1*. As result of the bridges enormous size and the risk this carries a yearly maintenance is need to be carried out to ensure the safety of the users. On January 28th 2005, only six months after the opening of the bridge, as the result of a failure in one of the cables the bridge had to be closed to the public. As there where 4 more cables supporting this section of the bridge minimum damage was caused to the bridges core structure. For health and safety there are more than 100 sensors installed on the bridges, which provides 24/7 surveillance of the structure.(JPG) *-refer to reference 1. Millau- Viaduct bridge This bridge was constructed from 1993 to 2004 in southern France. Linking France and Spain by constructing a motor way over the River Tarn. The bridge has been constructed on a 2 km valley divided in two by River Tarn. An English company foster constructed this bridge. The milau viaduct bridge not only has a dramatic sihoutte, but crucially, it also makes the minimum intervention in the landscape. Lit at night, it traces a slender ribbon of light across the valley. Foster partners 2004. Viaduc de Millau is the chosen solution for taking the A75 motorway from Clermont-Ferraud south to Beziers. This is cheaper than the alternative of tunnelling through the hills flanking the river, and will shorten the journey by 100 km and by up to 4 hours in the holiday season, as well as removing much traffic pollution caused by continual traffic jams for local inhabitants in Millau. The government makes money by charging the vehicles using the bridge. The Milau Viaduct Bridge is also being used for extreme sports such as base jumping and repelling. Also is very economical as it saves a lot of time and avoids traffics. The construction process involved approximately five hundred workers working simultaneously on the project, which means it was a good opportunity for France to create many jobs. C:UsersRaminDesktopviaduc_situation_c_2.jpg ` This project was proposed by the owners Compagnie Eiffage du Millau Viaduct (CEVM) and the client SETEC to cross the Tarn gorges by a viaduct/ road bridge. All designs had to satisfy the design brief, but Fosters knew that this bridge posed several novel problems. Tests revealed problems for drivers on such a high, long and thin structure with just two lanes either sides. The bridge is 343 m high and is a multi cable-stayed structure with slender piers and a very light deck, touching the valley at only seven points. It was decided to design a multi cable-stayed bridge (2460 m long) because Lord Foster wanted the bridge to look as transparent and lightweight as possible to reduce cost, but also to attempt to minimise the effect of the structure in its environment as well as reducing wind loadings. The solution was to incline the bridge by 3% to improve road visibility, and to make the whole structure curved to lessen the sensation of floating, even though this would increase the length of the bridge to 2.5 km and add to the cost. To prevent drivers from the distraction of the beautiful scenery, the hard shoulder on both sides was increased in width to three metres. Emergency phones were designed for every 500 metres along the full length on each side.Millau1 Viaduc de Millau The construction consists of: The deck- steels of grade S355 and S460 The piers- reinforcement concrete The cables-steels of grade S355 and S460 The abutments- reinforcement concrete The pylons- steels of grade S355 and S460 (the concrete was used more for its high durability as this bridge is estimated to last 120 years, rather than its high mechanical resistance.) Construction: The structure is continues along its eight cable spans. The two spans at each sides are 204m and the six spans in middle are 342m each. The bridge has 2 lanes and an emergency line at each side. The construction method was beneficial. The factory pre-production of certain parts of the deck reduced the volume of material that had to be worked on on-site, something which never would have been possible with an all-concrete structure. Less equipment, less construction material, fewer trucks going back and forth clogging up traffic in all it added up to less disturbance to the life of the local population. The Millau Viaduct was described by Lord Foster as his sculpture in the landscape.The whole thing looks impossibly delicate, Foster said in a telephone interview. This bridge is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the France because of the exceptional dimensions and the natural grandeur of the Aveyronnais landscape. C:UsersRaminDesktopviaduc_c.jpg The deck consists of a trapezoidal profiled metal box girder and to ensure resistance to fatigue a thickness of 14 mm has been used for the whole length of the structure. The deck was designed prefabricated which speeds the process and also is environmentally friendly as it uses much less landscape during construction. The decks are supported by multi-span cables which are constructed from steel too. There are eleven pairs of cables, which support each span. The cable anchors are adjustable at the deck end and fixed on the pylons. C:UsersRaminDesktopmillaudiag1.jpg To install the deck successfully, seven temporary piers were needed. These temporary piers consist of a metal framework in the form of K. The top of each temporary pier is fitted with metal trimmer to receive the beginning supports, known as translators. The highest temporary pier was 173 m high. The entire cost of creating this bridge was 320 million Euros. The bridge consists of eighteen cameras located at various locations on the bridge to ensure the bridge safety 24 hours a day. The cameras are connected to computers to monitor the bridge for traffic, wind loads and any damages that may happen to the bridge.C:UsersRaminDesktop4.jpg The viaduct was ensured to have: Specially designed safety barriers that can withstand impact from heavy lorries. Transparent windbreak screens 3 m. high to limit the effect of the wind on vehicles. Emergency lanes 3 metres wide. Emergency phones every 500 metres. Conclusion: In conclusion, the Rio-Antirion is longer than Millau-Viaduct; however, Millau-Viaduct is considerably higher than Rio-Antirion. The Rio-Antirion is cost approximately double Millau-Viaduct. The environment on which Rio-Antirion was build on can justify this. As more time need to be spend reinforcing the seabed on which Rio-antirion was being build on. Millau-Viaduct is much more environmentally friendly than Rio-Antirion. Both bridges meant an easier and faster way to travel that saves a lot of time. As well as reducing the traffic load on other means of travelling the same distance. Both bridges have similar structure but constructed in different methods. Rio-Antirion was constructed separately on each pier and then reaches to each other. However, Millau-Viaduct was constructed from both ends and reach together in the middle. Each of this methods where chosen as it best suite the environment on which the each bridge was being build on. The Millau-Viaduct was prefabricated in the factory to ensure limited landscaped is used on the site, thus environmentally friendly. Rio-Antirion was constructed much quicker than Millau-Viaduct hence explains the costs. In addition, Rio-Antirion had alot more problems in terms of site location than Millau-Viaduct in case of engineering. Rio-Antirion was constructed completely in water, which increases the expenses as engineers needed to use a specially designed ship to transport the ready made piers to their specific location. The ship had to be hired from another country as the piers were very huge and heavy and Greece did not have any ship capable of handling the weight of the piers.

Formation of the Greek Empire :: essays research papers

"Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a ministry but of the whole people." Pericles was one of the many people who helped shape Ancient Greece to what we know of it today. The famous Greek Empire has bits and pieces from each ruler or group of people who once occupied it: the Mycenaean's, Dorian's, Pericles, Phillip 2, and Alexander the Great. In ancient times, Greece wasn't a united country but more of a group of lands where Greek-speaking people lived. Around 2000.B.C. the Mycenaean?s settled on the Greek mainland seeking to form a civilization. Already having the geography provide to the Greek culture, they put in many ideas and developed a writing system with the help of the Minoans, a group of people who were native to the Greek mainland. They fought a ten-year war against Troy known as the Trojan War. Although they were victorious, the weakened civilization collapsed and a new group of people, the Dorian?s took Greece into what is known as the Dark Age of Greece. Being less advanced than the Mycenaean?s, the writing system was dropped and a new way to tell history was formed through word or epics. Two major city-states or polis formed: Athens and Sparta. Athens developed a limited Democracy, which was ruled by the people through representatives. This proved to be most efficient because all people were treated equal ly. Its was kept under control with a set of laws that harshly punished citizens for even the simplest crimes created by Draco in 621B.C. Solon came into power in 594 B.C., and took out Dracos? wicked methods by making four social classes based on wealth and abolishing debt slavery. Around 500 B.C., Cleisthenes created the Council of Five Hundred in which council members were randomly chosen by only citizens could be in a limited democracy. He also rearranged the social classes formed by Solon into ten groups based on where a citizen lived rather on wealth. Education in Athens was only given to males and when they became of age they then went on to serve in the military. Athens honored cultural things such as art and literature. Sparta was a military state run by an oligarchy government or rule by a small group of citizens based on wealth. Social order in Sparta consisted of citizens, noncitizens and helots. Sparta had the strongest army in Greece.

Fire Detection Using Surveillance Cameras Environmental Sciences Essay

With the increasing figure of surveillance cameras being installed in everyplace, there is a greater demand for computing machine vision applications for sensing of unnatural events. Fire sensing utilizing surveillance cameras has become an of import country of research. Most current fire dismay systems are based on infrared detectors, optical detectors, or ion detectors that depend on certain features of fire, such as fume, heat, or radiation. However, these traditional fire dismay systems are non alerted until the atoms really reach the detectors, and they are normally unable to supply any extra information, such as the location and size of the fire and the grade of combustion. In contrast, vision sensor-based fire sensing systems offer several advantages. First, the equipment cost is lower, as such systems are based on CCD ( Charge Coupled Device ) cameras, which have already been installed in many public topographic points for surveillance intents. Second, the response clip for fire and fume sensing is faster because the camera does non necessitate to wait for the fume or heat to spread. Third, because the camera besides functions as a volume detector, as distinguishable from traditional point detectors, it can supervise a big country, making a higher possibility of fire sensing at an early phase. Finally, in the instance of a false dismay, the system director can corroborate the being of a fire through the surveillance proctor without sing the location. The purpose of this undertaking is to observe fire in picture by analysing the frame-to-frame alterations of specific low-level characteristics depicting possible fire part. These characteristics are colour, country size, surface saltiness, boundary raggedness, and lopsidedness within estimated fire parts. Because of flickering and random features of fire, these characteristics are powerful discriminants. The bing system for fire sensing algorithms in picture chiefly focuses on the colour facet of fire and on the form form to analyse the sum of fire gesture, which leads to a faulty consequence. Uniting both the spatial and temporal features of fire and fume can take to a better consequence. Besides the bing method chiefly deals with inactive camera, which is non the instance in newscast pictures. Computer vision-based fire sensing algorithms are applied in closed-circuit telecasting surveillance scenarios with controlled background. It can be applied non merely to surveillance but besides to automatic picture categorization for retrieval of fire calamities in databases of newscast content. In the latter instance, there are big fluctuations in fire and background features depending on the picture case. Chapter 2 LITERATURE SURVEY Early sensing of fire is an of import jobs, hence there have been many methods proposed to work out this issue. Color, geometry, and gesture of fire part are all indispensable characteristics for efficient categorization of fire from non-fire parts. In general, in add-on to colour, a part that corresponds to fire can be captured in footings of the spacial construction defined by the boundary fluctuation within the part. The form of a fire part frequently keeps altering and exhibits a stochastic gesture, which depends on environing environmental factors such as the type of firing elements and air current. These factors form the utile characteristics for observing fire. Based on these factors several utile characteristics for observing fire are: colour, country size, surface saltiness, boundary raggedness and lopsidedness.2.1 ColorFire has really distinguishable colour features, and although empirical, it is the most powerful individual characteristic for happening fire in video sequen ces. Based on trials with several images in different declarations and scenarios, it is sensible to presume that by and large the colour of fires belongs to the red-yellow scope, as in the instance for hydrocarbon fires, which are the most common type of fires seen in nature. For the type of fires considered ( hydrocarbon fires ) , it is noticed that for a given fire pel, the value of ruddy channel is greater than the green channel, and the value of the green channel is greater than the value of bluish channel. Unique colour scope of fire can be estimated in RGB and HSI individually. Hardware by and large display or present colour via RGB. So a pel is associated with a three dimensional vector ( R, g, B ) . HSI ( Hue, Saturation and Intensity ) is the manner of show which follows that how human sees. Here hue represents the sensed colour like orange or purple. Saturation measures its dilution by white visible radiation. HSI extract strength information, while chromaticity and impregnation correspond to human perceptual experience. Fire pels have a colour that runs from ruddy to orange to yellow to about white. This graduated table indicates the energy of the fire, with the redder the fire, the less temperature and radiant heat it is let go ofing. Color cues may be the most of import property when acknowledging fires in fire sensing. A colour infinite is a agency of stipulating colourss, and they can be classified into three basic dividers: HVS ( human ocular system ) based colour infinites ( e.g. RGB ) , application-specific ( e.g. CMY, YCbCr ) , and CIE colour infinites ( e.g. CIELab ) . To observe fire pels, a method is proposed [ 2 ] utilizing the Red channel threshold, which is the major constituent in an RGB image of fire fires and impregnation values. The colour chance theoretical accounts are so generated utilizing a unimodal Gaussian distribution from sample images that contain dynamic fire scenes. Fire pels are so detected utilizing these RGB chance theoretical accounts. The Gaussian chance distribution can be estimated as follows: where Ii ( x, Y ) is the colour value for the ith colour channel R, g, B in an image, ?i the average value of Ii ( x, Y ) , and ?i the standard divergence of Ii ( x, Y ) . To simplify the calculation, the distributions of colour channels of each pel are assumed to be independent, and the joint chance denseness map of the R, g, B chance distribution is given by:2.2 Area SizeArea is an of import characteristic of fire, the fire country represented by the figure of fire pels will be consecutively increasing if the fire has an instable and developing fire. To place a fire ‘s growing, we can cipher the size fluctuations of fire country from two back-to-back images. If the consequence is more than a predefined threshold value, there is a likely fire ‘s growing. For the estimated fire pel country, because of the fire flickering, a alteration in the country size of the possible fire mask occurs from frame to border. Non-fire countries have a less random alteration in the country size. The normalized country alteration ?Ai for the ith frame is given by: where Ai corresponds to the country of the fire blobs stand foring the possible fire parts in the PFM. In instance a difficult determination regulation is used, fire is assumed if ?Ai & A ; gt ; ?A, where ?A is a determination threshold. One of the chief features of fire is a changeless alteration of form due to the air flow caused by air current or firing stuff. Thus, campaigner fire parts are ab initio detected utilizing a simple background minus theoretical account. This procedure is indispensable for bettering fire sensing public presentation and cut downing sensing clip. Assorted algorithms have been late proposed to divide foreground from background. First, traveling pels and parts are extracted from the image. They are determined by utilizing a background appraisal method [ 3 ] .In this method, a background image Bn+1 at clip instant N + 1 is recursively estimated from the image frame In and the background image Bn of the picture as follows:( ten, Y ) stationary( ten, Y ) travelingwhere In ( x, y ) represents a pel in the n-th picture frame In, and a is a parametric quantity between 0 and 1. Traveling pels are determined by deducting the current image from the background image. T is a threshold which is set harmonizing to the scene of the background.2.3 Surface CoarsenessUnlike other false-alarm parts, like a xanthous traffic mark, fire parts have a important sum of variableness in the pel values. Filter Bankss are often used in texture analysis when seeking to depict a given form. In the instance of fire, nevertheless, it is really difficult to depict its texture with any given theoretical account. The entropy observed in fire can change significantly in frequence response ( cyclicity is frequently non present ) and gradient angles, for illustration. The discrepancy is a well-known metric to bespeak the sum of saltiness in the pel values. Hence, we use the discrepancy of the blobs as a characteristic to assist extinguishing non-fire blobs in the Potential Fire Mask.2.4 LopsidednessThe lopsidedness measures the grade of dissymmetry of a distribution around its mean. It is zero when the distribution is symmetric, positive if the distribution form is more dis persed to the right and negative if it is more dispersed to the left. Fire parts have high pel values for the green and specially for the ruddy channel. Very frequently, we observe a impregnation in the ruddy channel, taking the histogram to the upper side of the scope. This causes the lopsidedness of this distribution to hold a high negative value. For this ground, we employ the lopsidedness as an utile characteristic to place fire parts.2.5 Boundary raggednessGiven a metameric fire part, we retrieve its boundary utilizing a classical Laplacian operator, and so it is convenient for us to recover its 8-connected boundary concatenation codification [ 8 ] . From the concatenation codification, we can easy cipher the margin L of the boundary. Based on the margin and the country of fire part, we calculate the rotundity as L2/S, which describes complexness of the form, i.e. more complex form has greater value. Roundness can assist to acquire rid of the inerratic bright topics in the earl y clip. Traveling pels and parts in the picture are determined by utilizing cagey border sensing for the old estimation of the background strength value at all pixel places. Accurate sensing of traveling parts is non every bit critical as in other object trailing and appraisal jobs. We are chiefly concerned with real-time sensing of traveling parts as an initial measure in the fire and fire sensing system. We choose to implement this suggested method because of its computational efficiency. A fire in gesture has a comparatively inactive general form ( determined by the form of firing stuffs ) and quickly altering local form in the unobstructed portion of the boundary line. The lower frequence constituents of fire part boundary are comparatively steady over clip, and the higher frequence constituents change in a stochastic manner. Consequently, we use a stochastic theoretical account to capture the characteristic random gesture of fire boundaries over clip.Chapter 3PROPOSED WorkThe fire sensing method that is proposed in this paper foremost extracts the characteristics of fire like colour, country size, surface saltiness, boundary raggedness and lopsidedness. In this paper a probabilistic attack for fire colour sensing is used. Using this attack a Potential Fire Mask ( PFM ) is created and based on this mask the remainder of the chara cteristics are extracted. All these characteristics are so taken together into a classifier which classifies the part as fire or non-fire part.3.1 Potential Fire Mask creative activityHarmonizing to most fire sensing documents presented in the literature and based on our ain experiments, we notice that fire has really distinguishable colour features. Based on trials with several images in different declarations and scenarios, it is sensible to presume that by and large the colour of fires belongs to the red-yellow scope. For the type of fires considered ( hydrocarbon fires ) , it is noticed that for a given fire pel, the value of ruddy channel is greater than the green channel, and the value of the green channel is greater than the value of bluish channel, as illustrated in Fig. 3.1. Fig.3.1. Histogram of a fire part inside the black square, for the ruddy, green, and bluish channels. Several extra features besides hold, which are discussed in the followers, where colour sensing metric is proposed. This sensing metric is used to bring forth the PFM, which will so be further analyzed with the other non-color fire characteristics. Let a fire pel at place ( m, N ) in an image be represented by degree Fahrenheit ( m, N ) , where degree Fahrenheit ( m, n ) = and francium, fG, and fB are the ruddy, green, and bluish channels representation of degree Fahrenheit, severally. Let, and stand for the sample norm of the pels in a fire image part, for the ruddy, green, and bluish channels, as shown in Fig. 1. Interpretation, , and as random variables, we employ a Gaussian theoretical account for these variables, such ~N ( , ~N and ~N. With these premises, allow us specify ( 3.1 ) ( 3.2 ) ( 3.3 ) Where post exchange ( x0 ) represents the rating of the chance denseness map ( PDF ) of a random variable ten at value x0. In this instance, represents the mean value in the ruddy channel of an ascertained set of pels. Fig. 3.2 illustrates that the maximal value for DCR is obtained when = . Fig.3.2. Graphical representation of the parametric quantities in ( 1 ) . Maximal assurance is obtained when = . can be interpreted as a normalized metric that indicates the chance that a given part represents fire harmonizing to the ruddy channel distribution. For illustration, if in ( 1 ) is really close to, is really near to 1 and we assume with chance that the ascertained part represents a fire part ( sing the ruddy channel merely ) . To widen this to the three colour channels, in the followers we employ, , and as given in Eqn ( 3.4 ) . Using the definitions ( 1 ) – ( 3 ) , the proposed sensing metric to bespeak whether the ascertained part represents fire is given as = + + ? ( + + ) + ( 3.4 ) Based on the metric DC a binary image PFM is generated for each frame, such that where ?C is a assurance threshold degree and the values 1 or 0 indicate the presence of absence of fire at the matching location in the image f. The threshold ?C is the same for all pixel locations.3.2 Randomness of Area SizeFor the estimated fire pel country, because of the fire flickering, a alteration in the country size of the PFM occurs from frame to frame.Non-fire countries have a less random alteration in the country size. The normalized country alteration ?Ai for the ith frame is given by where Ai corresponds to the country of the fire blobs stand foring the possible fire parts in the PFM. In instance a difficult determination regulation is used, fire is assumed if ?Ai & A ; gt ; ?A, where ?A is a determination threshold.3.3 Surface CoarsenessWe use the discrepancy of the blobs as a characteristic to assist extinguishing non-fire blobs in the PFM. Therefore, fire is assumed if the blob has a discrepancy ? & A ; gt ; , where is determined from a set of experimental analyses.3.4 LopsidednessThe lopsidedness measures the grade of dissymmetry of a distribution around its mean. It is zero when the distribution is symmetric, positive if the distribution form is more dispersed to the right and negative if it is more dispersed to the left, as illustrated in Fig. 3.3. Fig. 3.3. Illustration of the consequence of positive and negative lopsidedness on a distribution. Fire parts have high pel values for the green and specially for the ruddy channel. Very frequently, we observe a impregnation in the ruddy channel, taking the histogram to the upper side of the scope. This causes the lopsidedness of this distribution to hold a high negative value. For this ground, we employ the lopsidedness as an utile characteristic to place fire parts. Let the sample lopsidedness of the ruddy channel be defined as where J is the figure of pels in the blob. A possible fire part nowadays at frame I is assumed as existent fire if where is a determination threshold.3.5 Boundary RoughnessFire does non hold a specific boundary feature on its ain. Therefore, we propose the usage the boundary raggedness of the possible fire part as a characteristic, given by the ratio between margin and convex hull margin. The bulging hull of a set of pels S is the smallest convex set incorporating S. The boundary raggedness is given by where is the margin of S and is the margin of the bulging hull of S. To calculate the margin, a simple attack is to number the figure of pels connected horizontally and vertically plus v2 times the figure of pels connected diagonally.A difficult determination regulation is used, fire is assumed if & amp ; gt ; , where is a determination threshold.Chapter 4EXPERIMENTAL RESULTSIn the experiments, different sorts of fires pictures such as edifice, wild land and residential fire, incorporating shootings captured at twenty-four hours clip, twilight or dark clip were taken. This diverseness is convenient to measure the public presentation of the system under different lighting and quality conditions. ( B ) ( degree Celsius ) ( vitamin D ) ( vitamin E ) Fig 4.1 ( a ) Input picture frame, ( B ) Histogram of R, G and B sets, ( degree Celsius ) Potential Fire Mask ( PFM ) , ( vitamin D ) morphologically closed PFM, and ( vitamin E ) the concluding PFM. Table 4.1 Table demoing some illustrations of the country alteration, surface saltiness and lopsidedness in the back-to-back frames. Frame Number Area ( Number of pels ) Area Change Surface Coarseness Lopsidedness 1 11159 No alteration Detected Negative 2 11159 Detected Negative 99 17623 Change Detected Negative 100 17717 Detected Negative 207 19058 Change Detected Negative 208 19203 Detected NegativeCONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKIn this paper, we have proposed a new sensing metric based on colour for fire sensing in picture. In add-on, we have exploited of import ocular characteristics of fire, like country size, surface saltiness, lopsidedness and boundary raggedness of the fire pel distribution. The lopsidedness, in peculiar, is a really utile form because of the frequent happening of impregnation in the ruddy channel of fire parts. In contrast to other methods which extract complicated characteristics, the characteristics discussed here allow really fast processing, doing the system applicable for existent clip fire sensing. As the portion of minor undertaking, all the characteristics for fire sensing have been extracted. Now, these characteristics need to be fed into a classifier to sort the given picture frame as incorporating fire or no fire. A Bayes classifier can be employed for this intent.

History of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Essay

In 1996, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted to improve availability and continuity of health insurance coverage, combat fraud and abuse in health care delivery, provide access to long term care services and simplify administration of health insurance by standardizing information exchange between healthcare organizations. This act primarily protects the privacy and security of an individual’s health information in response to the rapid grown of health insurance and information systems (Questions and Answers on HIPAA). Transmission standards and code sets were included in HIPAA to standardize health-related information and to facilitate faster electronic data interchange (EDI) which allows exchange of information from computer to computer. The transactions and code set standards apply to patient-identifiable health information transmitted electronically. Without the need for human involvement or intervention to complete the process, the practitioner will be able to cut costs by eliminating third party clearing houses, administrators or billing services (Kibbe, 2001, p. 8). With the standardized information exchange, availability of patient information electronically can be obtained with ease. To protect the security and confidentiality of this information, Privacy Rule was issued to implement the requirement of HIPAA. The major goal of the privacy rule is to assure that an individual’s health information is protected from unauthorized access and disclosure while still allowing the exchange of information through EDI to facilitate payments and to provide high quality health care. Individually identifiable health information, called Protected Health Information (PHI) is any data that contains the individual’s past, present or future physical or mental health, provision of health care to the individual, and the payment of such in the past, present or future. It is the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) responsibility to ensure that the Privacy Rule is enforced and implemented with respect to voluntary compliance activities and civil money penalties (Office of Civil Rights, 2003). There are some instances, however, when disclosure of PHI is needed or permitted. Covered entities (health care providers, clearing houses, etc. ) may disclose protected health information to the public health authorities when public health and safety are at risk. This happens when an individual contracted a communicable disease that raises public concern. If an employee developed a work-related illness or injury and the employer requests for the employee’s PHI in compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other similar state law, the covered entities may release information about the individual. Likewise, information for treatment procedures requiring historical information and provided for by several health care services is granted to the health service providers, including consultations and referrals between providers regarding a patient. Protected Health Information of abused, neglected or domestic violence victims may also be disclosed to appropriate government authorities (such as reporting suspected domestic abuse to social welfare agencies) as long as the individual gives consent to disclosure, or the disclosure is authorized by law (Office of Civil Rights, 2003). The passage and implementation of HIPAA definitely improved the conditions of health care services. Uniform transmission and code sets standards paved the way for more efficient processing system, standardizing the way physicians, health insurance and health care providers handle and exchange information. With increased efficiency, costs are decreased. As Kibbe (2001) puts it in his article, â€Å"If there’s a silver lining to the HIPAA regulations, it’s here. These standards can save your practice time and money. † Although accessibility of information is one benefit of HIPAA, Privacy Rule protects the individuals from unauthorized disclosure of their Protected Health Information ensuring confidentiality and security of data exchanged in the process.