Case Brief No 1 Essay Example for Free

Case Brief No 1 Essay extension Harvestons Securities, Inc. v. Narnia Investments, Ltd., 218 S.W.3d 126 (2007) Plaintiff and Defendant The plaintiff/appellant is Harvestons Securities, Inc. The defendant/appellee is Narnia Investments, Ltd. Facts In year 2000, Narnia Investments, Ltd. sued Harvestons Securities, Inc. and several defendants in trial court of Texas. The trial court then allow a default judgment against Harvestons and in favor of Narnia that Harvestons has to pay $365,000, plus attorneys fees, prejudgment interest, and postjudgment interest. Harvestons claimed that it had no actual knowledge of the pending judicial proceeding before November 15, 2004 and filed a timely restricted appeal. Harvestons contends that the help of bring was defective due to the process was delivered to someone different than the one name in the acknowledgement, the psyche to which the process was delivered, JoAnn Kocerek, did non have a authority to accept the process on behalf of H arvestons or the Texas Securities Commissioner and the return of armed service does not show a legal manner of service. At last, the appellate court of Texas reverse the trial courts default judgment and remand this case for further proceedings. Issues (a) Did the return of service shows that process was delivered to someone other than the one named in the citation? (b) Did JoAnn Kocerek has the authority to accept process on behalf of Harvestons or the Texas Securities Commissioner? (c) Did the return of service show a valid manner of service? Holding (a) Yes, the return of service shows that process was delivered to someone other than the one named in the citation. (b) No, JoAnn Kocerek did not has the authority to accept the process on behalf of the Harvestons Securities or the Texas securities Commissioner. (c) No, the return of service does not show a valid manner of service.Reasoning (a) The district clerk issued citation directed to Harvestons Securities Inc. by serving the Texas Securities Commissioner, 200 E 10th Street, 5th Floor Austin, Texas 78701. While The return of service indicates that the citation was served on September 7, 2000, at 200 E. 10th, Austin, Tx. 78701 in Travis County . . . by delivering to Harvestons Securities, by serving the Texas Securities Commissioner, by delivering to JoAnn Kocerek defendant, in person, a true copy of this Citation together with the accompanying copy(ies) of the Petition attached thereto. Though the letter states that the petition call Harvestons as a defendant, the letter does not state that the Commissioner take upd citation addressed to Harvestons. The documents attached to the certificates in question do not reflect a copy of any enclosure that may have accompanied the letter. Nor do these documents reflect that Harvestons received any letter from the Commissioner. Therefore the names are not identified. (b) The face of the remember does not identify Jo Ann Kocerek or her status or affiliation, if any, with the Texas Securities Commissioner. Neither the return nor any other portion of the repose designates Jo Ann Kocerek as an authorized representative of the Commission or indicates that she has the authority to receive service on behalf of Harvestons or the Commissioner. Indeed, it is simply not possible to determine **21 from the record who Jo Ann Kocerek is or whether she is an agent authorized to accept service on behalf of either the Commissioner or Harvestons. Without an indication on the face of the record of her capacity or authority, if any, to receive service, the granting of the default judgment was improper. So JoAnn Kocerek was not authorized to accept the process. (c) Here exist an invalid manner of services because of the reasons above and therefore, Further, a return of citation does not cease to be prima facie evidence of the facts of service simply because the facts are recited in a form rather than filled in by the process server. It is the responsibility of the party requesting service, not the process server, to see that service is properly accomplished. This responsibility extends to seeing that the service is adequately reflected in the record. If proper service is not affirmatively shown in the record, then error exists on the face of the record and a default judgment cannot stand.

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay Example for Free

Robust Face-Name represent Matching Essay1. LoginIn this module is going to explain the Robust Face-Name interpret Matching for Movie grimace Identification designing and how we did the governing body detection and recognition in this project. The images give explain about the facial fetching details. aft(prenominal) that admin going to login with the details which needed for the login page.2. DetectionIn this module we atomic bend 18 going to detect the face of the image reference points. In this module we ar utilise the emgu cv library we must install the emgu cv library. After installing the emgu cv lib in our project we need to add reference with the frame emgu.cv, emgu.cv.util, emgu.cv.ui. When you allow complete the references you will get the emgu controls in the toolbox.3. RecognitionIn this module we atomic return 18 going to contend the face of the movie causes which is we previously stored on the face database. We just found that the give the real name of it. This is going to be d bingle here. Here we are using the With the help of these eigenObjectRecognizer we are going to recognize the face.Chellangess In This Methodology -1. We detect the face in minute this is a big challenge for us because exiting system take more(prenominal) date for detection. 2. to a greater extent challenging problem receivable to the wide variation in the appearance of each grammatical case. 3. It is increase fixity of twin(a) vitrine and identify the caseful.Objectivies -The Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. In this project we present ii ends of world(a) face-name matching based frame acidify for robust character identification. It is use in movies, exposure, cartoons.Problem Analysis -1. It is uncorrectable to daedal character changes are handled by simultaneously interpret partition and graph matching. 2. Many character a re not easily matching and identification face in movies. 3. It is hard to be increase speed of matching character and identify the character.Existing take -This project is used to detect the face of movie characters and recognize the characters in minute process and the alive system are taking the too much time to detect the face. But this one we can do it in a minute process.Proposed Work -In this Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie CharacterIdentification is used to detect the face of movie characters and the Proposed system is taking the minimum time to detect the face. In this One we can do it in a minute process.Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification Jitao Sang, Changsheng Xu, fourth-year Member, IEEEAbstractAutomatic face identification of characters in movies has drawn significant look into interests and led to many interesting applications. It is a challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. Althou gh existing methods demonstrate promising results in clean environment, the performances are limited in complex movie impressions due to the noises generated during the face tracking and face thud process. In this paper we present dickens schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification.The contributions of this work include 1) A noise insensitive character relationship representation is incorporated. 2) We introduce an edit operation based graph matching algorithm. 3) Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 4) Beyond existing character identification approaches, we further perform an in-depth aesthesia analytic thinking by introducing two types of simulated noises. The visualized schemes demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on movie character identification in various genres of movies. Index TermsCharacter identification, graph matching, graph partition, graph edit, sensitivity ana lysis.Fig. 1. Examples of character identification from movie Notting Hill.I. INTRODUCTIONA. Objective and MotivationThe proliferation of movie and TV provides large aggregate of digital video data. This has led to the awaitment of efficient and effective techniques for video content understanding and organization. Automatic video annotation is one of such pick up techniques. In this paper our point is on annotating characters in the movie and TVs, which is called movie character identification 1. The objective is to identify the faces of the characters in the video and score them with the corresponding names in the cast. The textual cues, like cast lists, scripts, furnishs and closed captions are usually exploited. Fig.1 shows an example in our experiments. In a movie, characters are the focus center of interests for the audience. Their occurrences provide lots of clues about the movie structure and content.Automatic character identification is essential for semantic movie i ndex and retrieval 2, 3, scene segmentation 4, summarization 5 and other applications 6. Copyright (c) 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs emailprotected ieee.org. This work was supported in part by the National Program on Key Basic Research come across (973 Program, Project No. 2012CB316304) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90920303, 61003161). J. Sang and C. Xu (corresponding author) are with the National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China and as headspring with the China- Singapore Institute of Digital Media, Singapore, 119613Character identification, though very intuitive to humans, is a tremendously challenging line of work in computer vision. The reason is four-fold 1) Weakly supervised textual cues 7. There are ambiguity problem in est ablishing the correspondence between names and faces ambiguity can arise from a reaction shot where the person speaking whitethorn not be shown in the frames 1 ambiguity can also arise in partially labeled frames when there are multiple speakers in the same scene 2. 2) Face identification in videos is more difficult than that in images 8.Low resolution, occlusion, no rigid deformations, large motion, complex background and other uncontrolled conditions make the results of face detection and tracking unreliable. In movies, the speckle is even so worse. This brings inevitable noises to the character identification. 3) The same character appears quite differently during the movie 3. There may be huge pose, expression and illumination variation, wearing, clothing, even makeup and hairstyle changes. Moreover, characters in approximately movies go through different age stages, e.g., from youth to the old age. Sometimes, there will even be different actors playing different ages of the same character. 4) The determination for the number of identical faces is not trivial 2. Due to the remarkable intra-class variance, the same character name will correspond to faces of huge variant appearances.It will be unreasonable to set the number of identical faces just according to the number of characters in the cast. Our study is motivated by these challenges and aims to go solutions for a robust framework for movie character identification. B. Related Work The crux of the character identification problem is to exploit the relations between videos and the associated texts in order 1 I.e., the name in the subtitle/closed caption finds no corresponding faces in the video. 2 I.e., multiple names in the subtitle/closed caption correspond to multiple faces in the video.Fig. 2. Framework of scheme 1 Face-name graph matching with clunk pre specifiedto label the faces of characters with names. It has similarities to identifying faces in intelligence operation videos 9, 10, 11. H owever, in news videos, candidate names for the faces are available from the simultaneously appearing captions or local transcripts. While in TV and movies, the names of characters are seldom directly shown in the subtitle or closed caption, and script screenplay containing character names has no time stamps to align to the video. According to the utilised textual cues, we roughly divide the existing movie character identification methods into three categories. 1) Category 1 Cast list based These methods only utilize the look list textual resource. In the cast list discovery problem 12, 13, faces are clustered by appearance and faces of a particular character are expected to be collected in a few pure clusters. Names for the clusters are then manually selected from the cast list. Ramanan et al. proposed to manually label an initial set of face clusters and further cluster the rest face causas based on clothing within scenes 14. In 15, the authors have addressed the problem of pur pose particular characters by building a model/classifier of the characters appearance from user-provided training data.An interesting work combining character identification with net image retrieval is proposed in 17. The character names in the cast are used as queries to search face images and constitute gallery set. The test face tracks in the movie are then identified as one of the characters by multi-task joint sparse representation and compartmentalisation. Recently, metric learning is introduced into character identification in uncontrolled videos 16. Cast-specific metrics are adapted to the people appearing in a particular video in an unsupervised manner. The clustering as well as identification performance are demonstrated to be improved. These cast list based methods are easy for understanding and implementation.However, without other textual cues, they either need manual labeling or guarantee no robust clustering and classification performance due to the large intra-cl ass variances. 2) Category 2 Subtitle or Closed caption, Local matching based Subtitle and closed caption provide time-stamped dialogues, which can be exploited for alignment to the video frames. Effingham et al. 18, 3 proposed to combine the film script with the subtitle for local face-name matching. Time-stamped name annotation and face exemplars are generated. The rest of the faces were then classified into these exemplars for identification. They further extended their work in 19, by replacing the nearest neighbor classifier by multiple kernel learning for features combination.In the new framework, non-frontal faces are handled and the coverage is extended. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania utilized the readily available time-stamped resource, the closed captions, which is demonstrated more reliable than OCR-based subtitles 20, 7. They investigated on the ambiguity issues in the local alignment between video, screenplay and closed captions. A partially-supervised multi class classification problem is formulated. Recently, they attempted to address the character identification problem without the use of screenplay 21. The reference cues in the closed captions are busy as multiple instance constraints and face tracks grouping as well as face-name association are solved in a convex formulation. The local matching based methods require the time-stamped information, which is either extracted by OCR (i.e., subtitle) or unavailable for the majority of movies and TV series (i.e., closed caption).Besides, the ambiguous and partial annotation makes local matching based methods more sensitive to the face detection and tracking noises. 3) Category 3 Script/Screenplay, Global matching based Global matching based methods open the conjecture of character identification without OCR-based subtitle or closed caption. Since it is not easy to get local name cues, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem in 2, 22, 4. Our method belongs to this category and can be considered as an extension to Zhangs work 2.In movies, the names of characters seldom directly appear in the subtitle, while the movie script which contains character names has no time information. Without the local time information, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem between the faces detected from the video and the names extracted from the movie script. Compared with local matching, global statistics are used for name-face association, which enhances the robustness of the algorithms. Our work differs from the existing research in threefold Regarding the fact that characters may show various appearances, the representation of character is often stirredFig. 3. Framework of scheme 2 Face-name graph matching without cluster pre-specified.by the noise introduced by face tracking, face clustering and scene segmentation. Although extensive research efforts have been concentrated on character identificatio n and many applications have been proposed, little work has focused on improving the robustness. We have observed in our investigations that some statistic properties are preserved in spite of these noises. Based on that, we propose a novel representation for character relationship and introduce a name-face matching method which can accommodate a certain noise.Face track clustering serves as an important step in movie character identification. In most of the existing methods some cues are utilized to determine the number of target clusters prior to face clustering, e.g., in 2, the number of clusters is the same as the number of distinct speakers appearing in the script. While this seems convinced at first glance, it is rigid and even deteriorating the clustering results sometimes. In this paper, we loose the restriction of one face cluster corresponding to one character name. Face track clustering and face-name matching are jointly optimized and conducted in a unique framework.sensi tivity analysis is rough-cut in financial applications, risk analysis, signal processing and any area where models are developed 23, 24. Good modeling practice requires that the modeller provides an evaluation of the confidence in the model, for example, assessing the uncertainties associated with the modeling process and with the outcome of the model itself. For movie character identification, sensitivity analysis offers valid tools for characterizing the robustness to noises for a model. To the stovepipe of our knowledge, there have been no efforts directed at the sensitivity analysis for movie character identification. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by introducing two types of simulated noises. A preliminary version of this work was introduced by 1. We provide additional algorithmic and computational details, and extend the framework considering no pre-specification for the number of face clusters. Improved performance as well as robustness are demonstrated in movies wi th large character appearance changes.C. Overview of Our ApproachIn this paper, we propose a global face-name graph matching based framework for robust movie character identification. Two schemes are considered. There are connections as well as differences between them. Regarding the connections, firstly, the proposed two schemes both belong to the global matching based category, where external script resources are utilized. Secondly, to improve the robustness, the ordinal graph is employed for face and name graph representation and a novel graph matching algorithm called Error Correcting Graph Matching (ECGM) is introduced. Regarding the differences, scheme 1 sets the number of clusters when performing face clustering (e.g., K-means, spectral clustering). The face graph is restricted to have identical number of vertexes with the name graph. While, in scheme 2, no cluster number is necessitate and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure (e.g., mean shift, affinity propagation). Moreover, as shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3, scheme 2 has an additional module of graph partition compared with scheme 1. From this perspective, scheme 2 can be seen as an extension to scheme 1. m1)Scheme 1 The proposed framework for scheme 1 is shown in Fig.2. It is similar to the framework of 2. Face tracks are clustered using constrained K-means, where the number of clusters is set as the number of distinct speakers. Co-occurrence of names in script and face clusters in video constitutes the corresponding face graph and name graph. We modify the traditional global matching framework by using ordinal graphs for robust representation and introducing an ECGM-based graph matching method. For face and name graph construction, we propose to represent the character junction in rank ordinal level 25, which scores thestrength of the relationships in a rank order from the weakest to strongest. Rank order data carry no numerical meaning and thus are less sensitive to the n oises. The affinity graph used in the traditional global matching is interval measures of the co-occurrence relationship between characters.While continuous measures of the strength of relationship holds complete information, it is highly sensitive to noises. For name-face graph matching, we utilize the ECGM algorithm. In ECGM, the difference between two graphs is measured by edit distance which is a sequence of graph edit operations. The optimal match is achieved with the least edit distance. According to the noise analysis, we desexualize appropriate graph edit operations and adapt the distance functions to obtain improved name-face matching performance. 2) Scheme 2 The proposed framework for scheme 2 is shown in Fig.3. It has two differences from scheme 1 in Fig.2. First, no cluster number is required for the face tracks clustering step. Second, since the face graph and name graph may have different number of vertexes, a graph partition component is added forwards ordinal graph representation. The basic premise behind the scheme 2 is that appearances of the same character vary significantly and it is difficult to group them in a unique cluster.Take the movie TheCurious Case of Benjamin Button for example. The gunslinger and heroine go through a long time period from their childhood, youth, middle-age to the old-age. The intra-class variance is even larger than the inter-class variance. In this case, simply enforcing the number of face clusters as the numberof characters will disturb the clustering process. Instead of grouping face tracks of the same character into one cluster, face tracks from different characters may be grouped unneurotic. In scheme 2, we utilize affinity propagation for the face tracks clustering. With each sample as the potential center of clusters, the face tracks are recursively clustered through appearance-based similarity charge and propagation. High cluster purity with large number of clusters is expected. Since one character n ame may correspond to several face clusters, graph partition is introduced before graph matching. Which face clusters should be further grouped (i.e., divided into the same subgraph) is determined by whether the partitioned face graph achieves an optimal graph matching with the name graph.Actually, face clustering is divided into two steps coarse clustering by appearance and further modification by script. Moreover, face clustering and graph matching are optimized simultaneously, which improve the robustness against errors and noises. In general, the scheme 2 has two advantages over the scheme 1. (a) For scheme 2, no cluster number is required in advance and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure. Therefore, the scheme 2 provides certain robustness to the intra-class variance, which is very common in movies where characters change appearance significantly or go through a long time period.(b) Regarding that movie cast cannot include pedestrians whose face i s detected and added into the face track, restricting the number of face tracks clusters the same as that of name from movie cast will deteriorate the clustering process. In addition, there is some chance that movie cast does not cover all the characters. In this case, pre-specification for the face clusters is risky face tracks from different characters will be mixed together and graph matching tends to fail. 3) Sensitivity Analysis Sensitivity analysis plays an important role in characterizing the uncertainties associated with a model. To explicitly analyze the algorithms sensitivity to noises, two types of noises, coverage noise and intensity noise, are introduced. Based on that, we perform sensitivity analysis by investigating the performance of name-face matching with repute to the simulated noises.

Design Factors Affecting Building Maintenance

Design Factors Affecting edifice MaintenanceThe factors of initiation which allow influence the levels of rising c be of mankind mental synthesiss and works.1.IntroductionMaintenance of public edifices is concern for the continuous development and preservation of the major infrastructure systems such as public and private-owned structures at heart the county which includes janitorial services, heating, cellular respiration and air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing, electrical, landscaping, and lawn care services. Public works, on the other hand, deals with safeguarding of sewer, solid waste, drainage and park, etc. Both public makes and works are grouped together and represented by the County Administrator. Their activities are inter-connected and require cross-departmental and pre- concern coordination.As the community grows constantly with time, the ch onlyenge facing the public buildings and works department at the County Council is to provide and cite the above adequat e infrastructure and facilities regularly. Assuring and completing concern to keep pace with concurrency requirements for a variety of works continues to be a huge business for the County. The County has historically been unable to keep up with the need of society within its premises. Although the public works is still partially funded by the UK Government, the Countys Public kit and caboodle Trust Fund (PWTF) loans remained at near utmost record levels. In this report, we will be discussing the stick out factors influencing the levels of maintenance of public buildings and works.2.Different levels of maintenance for public works at different zonesThe County has tried to maintain a uniform and consistent level of maintenance throughout, for example, the more important and prominent landscaped areas and place around public and private-owned buildings. Under County Council regulations, it can only use funds collected from neighbourhood property owners and private agencies within a zone for be associated directly and within that specified zone. In some zone areas, the evaluations allowed by law have not been sufficient to establish for basic maintenance cost, so essentially, some zones have been less funded for maintenance coverage. This is especially true when considering the costs necessary to replace dying plants and trees, replace or repair vandalized equipment or touch on older parks and irrigation systems 1Decisions for funding in certain zones were based on mailed ballots while others were not in favour of paying for extra maintenance and repair covers. Therefore, in order to keep the maintenance budget balanced, cuts and reductions have been do in the frequency and type of maintenance existence performed in from each one of the under-funded zones. Essentially, the maintenance levels (or standards) are different as a result of the variance in available funds. Property owners and agencies will continue to see a disagreement in the levels of mai ntenance being provided throughout the various zones in the County.The Council has developed priorities for services that most affect the community, particularly when budgets are tight. In those zones where funding is not sufficient to pay for all of the maintenance required, the County Council has set the following levels of maintenance low, medium and high, based on maintenance priorities (i) safety items considered first and primary, (ii) keeping parks safe, open and available to the public, (ii) responding to vandalism, (iii) keeping turf and plant materials in healthy condition and (iv) removing, but not replacing, dead and dying plant materials and (v) thinning and leveling back landscaping to lower maintenance requirements 2.The County will also be making some enhancements to a number of median landscaped areas. The aim is to perform a one-time improvement, such as the installation of low-maintenance ground covering. These efforts will eventually reduce future maintenance c osts and abet all zones to remain within their own budgets.3.Factors of origination for public buildings A Case-Study ApproachSuccessfully designing, constructing and operating high-performance buildings requires the building owner and all members of the design team to set destinations to calumniate future levels of maintenance via minimization of zip consumption and environmental bear on. The team should establish these goals as early as possible in the design make and maintain them through the building occupation. One method for achieving high-performance building goals is to follow the energy design process. This process begins in the pre-design phase and continues after the building is commissioned and occupied. Understanding which strategies are best suited for the building site and function, setting aggressive energy targets early and relying on advanced computer simulations to tax building design options are essential to the overall dependableness process. The buildi ng envelope is designed first to minimize energy consumption. The mechanical, electrical and control systems are designed after optimizing the envelope design. Detailed specifications mustiness accurately reflect the design intent. After construction, the building is commissioned, the owner and operators are instructed on the optimal action of the building and building operation documents are provided for future maintenance reference. A case-study on an actual high-performance building demonstrates how to apply the design process to all public buildings of the future This building incorporates energy-efficient and renewable energy design features including day-lighting, passive heating and cooling and improved thermal envelope. All this energy saving considerations is being intentionally put in place to significantly reduce future maintenance needs and increase reliability of building functionalities 5In a traditional design process, the architectural team determines the building form and articulation of the faade, including orientation, colour, window area and window placement. This architectural design is whence handed off to the engineering science team, who designs the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system, tallys compliance with applicable energy codes, and ensures acceptable levels of environmental comfort for building occupants. From an engineers point of view, energy dependability occurs by improving the design of the HVAC system. It is then the engineers goal to create an efficient system within the context of the building envelope that has been previously designedthe architectural decisions have been finalized and few changes can be made to the envelope design 4For successful realization of low-energy buildings which are less susceptible to failures, an efficient design team must establish a cost-effective energy goal. Once a commitment to energy minimization has been made, the energy-design process can be used to fly the coo p the team towards good decision making and tradeoff analysis without sacrificing the buildings programmatic requirements. The building must incorporate disaster resistant (e.g., able to function if no grid-power is available). The design should meet or lead all the functional and comfort requirements of the building. Low-energy design does not imply that building occupants endure conditions that are considered unacceptable in traditional buildings.The design team develops a thorough understanding of the building site and building functional requirements. A qualitative evaluation of these issues early in the design process often leads to later on solutions for minimizing potential building maintenance needs Many design strategies are applicable to most buildings however, each building is unique, and thus, will have unique reliability design solutions 9.Simulation of a base-case model of the building is done to identify maintenance minimization opportunities via low energy consumpt ion using an hourly building simulation computer tool. This computer model simulates annual loads and peak demands for heating, cooling, lighting, plug loads and for HVAC system fans and pumps to determine the energy-use profile and the likelihood of possible failures of the base-case building.The design team brainstorms possible solutions to dependability problems. At this stage, the emphasis is on solutions relating to building geometry. Simulations are performed on variants of the base-case building relating to the list of possible solutions. Issues that will have a profound influence on the architectural aspects of the building are quantitatively explored prior to the conceptual design phase. The energy impact of each variant is find by comparison to the original base-case building and to the other variants. Computerized design tools bring all the architectural and engineering pieces together to predict how the buildings components will interact. In other words, day-lighting sy stems, thermal issues and building control strategies may be addressed by differentbuilding disciplines but successful coordinated building performance can only be achieved by examining the interrelation between these components.The conceptual design is the most difficult part of the building design process. It is essential that the dependability features be integrated into the architecture of the building. The objective is to use the architectural and envelope features to minimize energy costs for heating, cooling, and lighting. Often, energy features that effect the visual impact of the building can also serve as the main architectural aesthetic features, thereby saving costs. If the addition of an energy feature substantially increases the building cost, it is evaluated with the cost-effectiveness criteria already established 6After the architectural features impacting energy use have been determined, the computer model simulating the performance of the proposed building is upd ated to reflect those decisions. A set of simulations is then performed to guide decisions regarding the HVAC system and associated controls. These simulations are primarily to optimize annual dependability of building lighting functions and the occupant comfort. The simulations can also be used to help properly size the equipment. Low-energy buildings defy the industry norms used for equipment sizing. First cost savings in substantially downsized equipment can often be used to pay for improved envelope energy features. At this point, there will be some iteration or trade-off between mechanical system decisions and architectural features however, it is best to optimize the architectural features first. Although the energy design process may increase the cost to design the building compared to the traditional design process, the increased design cost is often offset by reductions in errors and decreased mechanical system cost. Fewer errors occur because careful attention was paid thr oughout the design process and more effort is placed on checking and review. Also, small mechanical systems require less space in the building (requiring less building to be built), and therefore, lower capital costs.Once the simulation work has been completed, occasional simulations will need to be performed as needed in response to unanticipated circumstances. This great power include the need to determine if a substitute component really meets the energy related specifications or review of a construction detail that must be modified because of a problem on the construction site. Scheduled plan reviews and site inspections are crucial to ensure that specified details omitted from the plans do not compromise the energy design. A clear communication path between the constructor, building operator and the design team will help ensure that components are installed properly 10 In many cases, once construction on a particular area is incorrectly completed, it cannot be reinstalled and the building owner is compel to live with the reliability performance consequences.The commissioning process includes testing all subsystems in the building to ensure that they operate as intended. For example, poorly calibrated economizer controls can bring in excess air or poorly calibrated daylight sensors may not turn off the lights, thus cause failure to the equipments. Occasional simulations will be required to help solve problems that emerge during this final phase and to respond to changes in building use that may occur once the building is occupied. The key is that the controls function with the design intent of the building. A good building quickly becomes a bad building with inappropriate control strategies. In addition, it is important to educate the building owner, occupants and the maintenance staff to properly use the building systems as conceived by the design team. The buildings performance can only be optimized if the people running the systems understand how t he systems interact. This would save cost of system errors leading to malfunctions and would eventually reduce the need for future building maintenance.4.ConclusionGood construction practices provide protection and minimum maintenance required for existing high-tech buildings and other features. Continued good behavior of these buildings depends upon the extent and quality of maintenance. The choice of materials and their use, together with the types of finishes and other protective measures should be conducive to easy maintenance and upkeep.An integrated design approach for private high performance buildings have been discussed from construction to commission. A low energy cost reduction was ideally established early and maintained throughout the design process. An integrated set of solutions for architectural design and energy efficiency was determined, including extensive day-lighting, natural ventilation, evaporative cooling and passive solar radiant heating. It is important to design a building that works with the environment in which it is located to minimize the need for maintenance in the long run. The building architecture was formed based on the programmatic and energy goals for the project. Tall vertical elements are naturally preferred to harmonize the building with the surrounding natural environment. The towers were also used to passively cool the building. An HVAC system was designed to work with the building. A PV system was installed to provide emergency power and supplemental power when utility power is available. The building construction and energy costs was significantly less and more reliable than a conventional one. This shows that sustainable buildings need not cost more with no level maintenance requirementsREFERENCES1 A. H. Molof, C. J. Turkstra (1984). Infrastructure, maintenance and repair of public works. New York Academy of Sciences.2 A. P. Chrest (2001). Parking Structures Planning, design, construction, maintenance and repair. Kluwer Academic Publishers.3 Aia Pr (1993). Confronting the changes New considerations in the design and management of public-sector facilities.4 B. Chanter and P. Swallow (2000). Building Maintenance Management. Blackwell Science.5 D. Hunns (1986). Human Factors in Reliability and the Psychology of Communications. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, pp 22-37.6 E. D. Mills (1980). Building maintenance and preservation a guide for design and management. Boston, Butterworths.7 E. Teicholz (2001). Facility Design and Management Handbook. Mc-Graw Hill Companies.8 M. Ruff (1998). Sewer, gas and electric The Public Works trilogy. Grove/Atlantic Press9 R. leeward and P. Wordsworth (2000). Lees Building Maintenance Management. Blackwell Publishers.10 S. B. Birch, Jr, Craftsman Book Co, R. Price and L. Nicholson (2001). Public Works Inspector Manual. Building News.

Cultural Revolution in China

pagan Revolution in ChinaThe pagan Revolution left wing an imprint on China for Decades and really shaped and influenced all political things that took place in China and also to an ex cardinalt left a bombastic direct effect on China itself and a lasting legacy that resonated in mainland China and outside China that influenced many different things. This will be proven by first going through what exactly is the pagan Revolution, because it is important to look at what the Cultural Revolution actually is. This will nonhingness into the next part of having a look at the direct impact of the Cultural Revolution on China. pursuance that this essay will move onto spirit at the exact legacy the Cultural Revolution has left on China by breaking it down into individual parts.The Cultural Revolution or as it is known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Clark, 2008) was a socio political event that began in the Peoples Republic of China in 1966 and ran for ten years until 1976. The Revolution was set into motion by Mao Zedong, the leader of China and the head of the communist caller based in China. The set stopping point of the rotary motion was the reinforcement of Chinese Communism by removing all capitalist, traditional and cultural elements from the Chinese society and enforcing Maoist orthodoxy within the Communist companionship. The Revolution was formally launched in May 1966 after Mao had alleged that wealthy elements in Chinese Society were infiltrating the Chinese Government and Society with the aim of restoring capitalism. He insisted that these elements be completely removed though a rough class struggle. In response to his calls, Chinese youth formed Red Guard groups around the country and began their campaign. Mao in support of this ordered the party and the army not to interfere. The movement though dispel into all perspectives of Chinese culture, politics and military. This resulted in huge spread factional struggles in all aspects of Chinese life. It resulted in the near decimation of the Chinese Communist Party leaders to such an extent that only four of the 17 members of the 1956 Politburo survived to the Ninth Congress in April 1969 Mao himself, his acolyte Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai and Li Xiannian all the rest been either imprisoned or killed. Additionally millions of people were arrested in these violent factional struggles that took place across the country. These people were subject to a wide arrange of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. (Johnston, 2010) As well as this a large(p) portion of the public were forcibly displaced, most noticeable was the transfer of pretty much all urban youth in the final stages of the Cultural Revolution to the rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement, to learn from the peasants. On top of this sticking to the gaol of wiping out all traditional Chinese Culture numerou s historical relics, artefacts were destroyed and Cultural and religious sites were either ransacked or destroyed. While Mao declared the Revolution over in 1969, its active phase lasted until 1976. From 1969 to 1976 on that point was a gradual return to normalcy as China really began to take the right course after realising the revile the CulturalRevolution had caused. Following Maos death and the arrest of the gang of four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gained power and by 1978 most of the Maoist reforms that were associated with the Cultural Revolution had being dispose and any mention or evidence of the Cultural Revolution been highly censored and hidden from the public. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution it has been treated widely as a negative phenomenon that damaged China for decades afterwards.Essentially the Cultural Revolution directly impacted all of Chinas population in one form or another. During the Revolution, all economic activity in any form was v irtually halted, with the revolution been the primary objective of the country. At the beginning of the Cultural revolution large numbers of red guards were brought to Beijing with all expenses paid by the government, these large numbers resulted in the railway system been thrown into turmoil. As per the Revolutions goals countless antique Chinese buildings, antiques, artefacts, books and paintings were destroyed by the Red Guards. In addition to the economic damage, the ten years of the Cultural Revolution brought the Chinese education system to a virtual standstill. University entrance exams were abolished in the early stages of the revolution and not restabilised until 1977 under Deng Xiaoping. Most intellectuals were viewed as a threat to the revolution and were sent to rural prod camps and many of those who survived left China shortly after the revolution ended. Many survivors and independent observers suggest that almost anyone with skills over that of the average person was made the rank of political struggle in some way. (Dirlik, 1993) In the view of Western observers from the US and followers of Deng Xiaoping, the revolution resulted in almost an entire generation of Chinese people being inadequately educated. An example of this is when measurements of literacy resumed in the 1980s.When they did resume it painted a bleak picture of the impact the revolution had on Chinas education system, somewhat counties in Zhanjiang had illiteracy rates as high as 41% some 20 years after the revolutionThis effect may urinate been less if not for the by the elimination of qualified teachers (Johnston, 2010) Which forced many of the districts to rely solely upon chosen students to re-educate the next generation. Overall the direct impact of the Cultural Revolution was that basically everything economic stopped and there was a total breakdown of almost everything and China pretty much lost all of the good for you(p) workforce which meant they had no high level e ducated workers like doctors, teachers etc.The first legacy the Cultural Revolution left on China was on the Chinese communist party itself. To try and make sense of Maos leadership of the Cultural Revolution while limiting any damage to the party and their genuineness to remain in power, the successors that followed Mao needed to really give a historical judgement that worked in Maos and the communist parties favour. On June 27th 1981, the central delegation released the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the Peoples Republic of China, an functionary assessment of major historical events since 1949. (Myers, 1995) This Resolution while noting Maos leadership in the Revolution, stated that the chief responsibility for the grave Left error of the Cultural Revolution, an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in duration, lies with blighter Mao Zedong (Myers, 1995). It lessened the blame on him by asserting that the revolution was manipulated by the counterrevolutionary groups of both Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, who both caused worst problems and Mao never play a direct part in any of this (Myers, 1995). This official view was primarily aimed at separating Maos actions during the Cultural Revolution from his activities during the Chinese Civil War. This was quite nicely summed up by Deng Xiaoping when he stated that Mao was 70% good, 30% bad (Kilfi, 1999)This has resulted in Mainland China, the narration of this time been based solely on the Party line which manages to not solely blame Mao for any of the problems that occurred during this time. As if any of the blame for the Cultural Revolution was placed solely at the feet on Mao, it would cause questions to be asked about the Communist Partys legitimacy to power.The next legacy it has left on China is impacting on Contemporary China itself this legacy on Contemporary China is linked to the legacy left on the Communist party to an extent that the party lin e on what happened during the Cultural Revolution has spread into contemporary China. The legacy has been left to such an impact that the revolution itself has been actively covered up and any mention of it has been removed. Any sort of Public discussion on the Cultural Revolution in public is strictly limited in China. To this day the Chinese government bear ons to block news organisations from mentioning any expand from the Cultural Revolution, and any sort of online discussions and books about the revolution are subject to high levels of scrutiny. Education materials on the Revolution continue to abide by the official view of the events, blocking younger people from learning the truth about the revolution. Almost all of the government documents from the time of the Cultural Revolution remain classified and are not open to the public or inspection by independent academics. At the national museum of China in Beijing, the Cultural Revolution is not mentioned much at all in any o f its historical exhibits. The reason the government really actively tries to remove the Cultural revolution from Chinese history is the it still considers itself at least in one part or another an inheritor of its legacy . Which really means that the government is worried that keep academic probing and popular widespread discussions will eventually lead ideological conflict and increase social instability and it may threaten the foundations of Communist rule. (Johnston, 2010) This has led to the maintenance of Political and Social Stability been the highest priory of the Chinese government since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, this includes the securing of the Communist party as well. This has led the government to really bear the line that it has no interest in re-evaluating any issue that might lead to a split in the Chinese leadership, or which might polarize the Party on ideological grounds. (Slavicek, 2010) Overall the Legacy of the Cultural Revolution on contemporary Chin a is that the government basically fears any knowledge of the revolution in todays world may once again stir up trouble for the CommunistPartyOutside of mainland China it has left a legacy of inspiring events in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places around the world. In Hong Kong an anti-colonial pro-communist strike was launched was launched in 1967, which was directly inspired by the Cultural Revolution. In Taiwan a Chinese Cultural Renaissance was launched to counter what was considered to be a destruction of traditional Chinese values by the Communists on the mainland. Worldwide, Mao as a response of the Cultural Revolution emerged as a symbol of the anti-establishment, grassroots populism, and self-determination. His revolutionary philosophies found adherents in the Shining Path of Peru, the U.S.-based Black Panther Party (Slavicek, 2010) In Modern times, matters surrounding the Cultural Revolution raised again in 2007, when the Hong Kong Chief Executive remarked that the Cultural Revolution represented the dangers of democracy, remarking People cease go to the extreme like what we saw during the Cultural Revolution , when people take everything into their own hands, then you cannot govern the place (Johnston, 2010) The evidence is there that the Cultural Revolution has of course left a legacy on Chinas Special territories and has spread to the rest of the world as well in one aspect or another and acts as a symbol of anti-establishment around the worldConcluding the Cultural Revolution even though it happened decades ago has and will continue to leave a legacy and will continue to impact China and influence events around the world. It has also made in a way the Chinese worried of fully integrating modern democracy into Chinas political system as it would cause them to come clean about the Cultural Revolution and damage Communist rule

Case Study Of The Three Gorges Dam

Case Study Of The Three Gorges decametre upThe following case study on the Three Gorges Dam illustrates the pros and cons of concrete gravity dyke crook and is an excellent complement to the material discussed in the technical paper.Chinas Three Gorges Dam (TGD) is the largest power generating countersink in the world. The TGD is a hydroelectric concrete gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River, in Hubei province.5 It is located in the Xilingxia gorge which is one of the three gorges of this river.5 Costing a descend of over 30 zillion US dollars 6, the TGD project was put in place for some(prenominal) reasons including flood protection, energy production, increased navigability throughout the Yangtze River and access to tonal water for the citizens. 3 The building of this dam is having a major impact on Chinas national economy, and its performance is critical to the large universe living in Three Gorges region. 3 Upon its completion, the dam will measure 2.6 kilometres in length, 186 meters in height and it will form a 645 kilometre long reservoir in the midsection of the Yangtze. 3 The dam is designed to generate an output of 17680MW which includes 26 generators at 680 MW per unit. 3 The following figure demonstrates the exact location of Three Gorges dam. epitome 3 Map of the Three Gorges DamIn terms of social system, the dam will be composed of 32 primary generators which will allow the dam to reach its maximum power output capacity. 26 generators are found on the dam itself while the remaining are create below a neighbouring mountain.6. Furthermore, a ship lift capable of vertically transporting ships (weighing as much as 3000 tons) from one water level to another will be built on the north side of the Three Gorges Dam.6. Other than the ship lift, a series of locks have been installed designed for boats weighing up to 10 000 tons most four hours are needed for transit of these vessels. 6. The ship lifts and locks constructed as part of the TG D are truly beneficial aspects as they promote increased navigability throughout the Yangtze River. By transporting more freight on the river, a reduction in emissions caused by the trucking industry is predicted,6 which is beneficial to the environment. The following table shows a summary of several specifications of the damTable 3 TGD Physical Summary (http//scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-12142004-125131/unrestricted/SAllin_010304.pdf)LocationDam SiteSandouping, Hubei Province, ChinaDam Crest185 metersDam distance2,000 metersReservoir SpecificationsNormal Pool Level175 meters discharge Control Level145 metersTotal Storage Capacity39.3 billion cubic metersFlood Control Storage22.1 billion cubic metersPower GenerationInstalled Capacity17,680 MWUnit Capacity26 units, 680 MW/unitInundationLand632 km-long, 19 cities, 326 towns cultivatable Land30,000 hectaresPopulation1,980,000 peopleAs mentioned previously, prevention or mitigation of the effects of floods is one of the pri mary reasons for the construction of the Three Gorges Dam since Chinese records show that about one major flood per decade occurs in the area, some killing over 300 000 people. 3 The TGD which has a total of 22 billion cubic meters of capacity destined to flood accommodate will allow China to control some major floods which also have a colossal impact on the economy.3 Energy production is also a major benefit involved in the construction of the dam. In fact, with its output of 18 trillion KW, the TGD is worlds most powerful plant. It was found that the TGD would produce a total of nearly 10% of the available energy in China.3 A third reason for the construction of the dam would be for consistent access to fresh water for consumption or agricultural use. In fact, it is known that the Yangtze Rivers water level fluctuates significantly which could guess the amount of water available for use the TGD will be able to supply this water consistently, mitigating the effects of these flu ctuations in the water level of the river. 3. Finally, increased navigability in the river is another benefit related to the construction of this dam. The Three Gorges Dam allows for a direct access from the Pacific Ocean into mainland China, which in turn promotes increased get by in the cities in the end, increased navigability will create new job, new markets will emerge, and there will be a better economic vigor in general.3 It is take place that there are significant benefits to the construction of this dam, as it will not only have a positive impact on the Chinese economy, but it will also increase the quality of life of Chinese citizens and contribute to human development.Unfortunately, some argue that the environmental and social worth to be paid with respect to the construction of the Three Gorges dam outweighs its benefits to society. In fact, the environmental impacts including effects on biodiversity, emissions, erosion and sedimentation as well as waste, and the soc ial effect of relocation of millions of citizens causes great harm to the Chinese population.The following information on the environmental and social effects of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam is written with the help from a report from Samuel Robert Fishleigh Allin which will be listed in the references used for this technical paper.Environmental effectsThe construction of dams definitely has a prejudicious impact on the environment. Some of the impacts involved are greenhouse gas emission, loss of aquatic biodiversity, loss of water quality, loss of wildlife, and creation of wetlands. The construction of the dam negatively alters the composition of the water in the Yangtze River, already one of the most polluted rivers in the world due mainly to coal shipping. First, the dust resulting from the construction itself will enter and pollute the water. It is found that the oxygen levels as well as the temperature of the water, which affects fish downstream, are also altered upon the dams completion. Furthermore, greenhouse gases are released from the sectionalisation of vegetation and silt, which lowers the surrounding air quality. Also, a silt build-up in the river could possibly affect the reservoirs of the dams increasing the possibility of floods, upstream from the dam. The flow of silt throughout the river is very crucial to aquatic wildlife without it in proper quantities, the organisms can be deprived of a sufficient quantity of nutrients. Moreover, the Three Gorges Dam affects the stream flow of the River and this disrupts the aquatic ecosystems which are very dependent on the timing of the water level fluctuations. Finally, one more aspect that is more related to the health and safety of the population is the fact that the TGD was built near a fault line and the magnitude and force that this dam exerts on the ground can increase the chances that an earthquake occurs. complaisant effectsIt is important to account for the different negative soc ial impacts before launching the construction of a large dam. The most significant social deductive reasoning related to the Three Gorges Dam is the fact that over one million people living near the reservoir area had to be relocated, many already living in severe poverty, while the compensation for relocation was often inadequate. Water from the Three Gorges Dam is expected to flood 13 cities and over blow 000 acres of farmland which really disturbs the peoples everyday life as it results in loss of jobs and well being. Some of the difficulties involved in the move process include medical services, schools, drinking water and food as well as electricity. Also, another social impact is the fact that some of the archaeological sites near the dam including historical artefacts will become inaccessible due to the construction of the dam. On the other hand, one social benefit of the TGD is flood control provided by the dam will save people from disasters in the future as the frequen cy of a major flood is expected to be at 1 in 100 years frequency. To end the section on social impacts a figure of the scope of the resettlement area caused by the construction of the TGD is shownhttp//www.ctgpc.com/benefifs/images/06.jpgIn conclusion, although the construction of the Three Gorges Dam is great for the development of the Yangtze River, contributes to the Chinese economy, and presents benefits such as flood control, energy production, increased navigability and access to fresh water, it is clear that the negative social and environmental price to pay to sustain these benefits is a major cause of concern for the future.

The Manhattan Project :: History

The Manhattan ProjectOn the morning of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola mirthful flew over the industrial city of Hiroshima, Japan and dropped the first atomic bomb ever. The city went up in flames caused by the immense power equal to round 20,000 tons of TNT. The project was a success. They were an unprecedented assemblage of civilian, and military scientific brain powerbrilliant, intense, and young, the people that helped develop the bomb. Unknowingly they came to an isolated mountain setting, know as Los Alamos, New Mexico, to design and build the bomb that would end World War 2, but begin serious controversies concerning its sheer power and destruction. I became arouse in this topic because of my interest in science and history. It seemed an appropriate topic because I am presently studying World War 2 in my Social Studies Class. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were always taught to me with some opinion, and I always wanted to know the bomb itself and the unbiased effects that it had. This I-search was a great opportunity for me to actually satiate my interest. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the US effort during World War II to produce the atomic bomb. It was appropriately named for the Manhattan Engineer District of the US soldiery Corps of Engineers, because much of the early research was done in New York City (Badash 238). Sparked by refugee physicists in the United States, the program was slowly organized afterwards nuclear fission was discovered by German scientists in 1938, and many US scientists expressed the fear that Hitler would attempt to build a fission bomb. thwart with the idea that Germany might produce an atomic bomb first, Leo Szilard and other scientists asked Albert Einstein, a famous scientist during that time, to use his influence and write a letter to electric chair FDR, pleading for support to further research the power of nuclear fission (Badash 237). His letters were a success, and President Rooseve lt established the Manhattan Project. Physicists from 1939 onward conducted much research to give away answers to such questions as how many neutrons were emitted in each fission, which elements would not capture the neutrons but would moderate or reduce their velocity , and whether only the lighter and scarcer isotope of uracil (U-235) fissioned or the common isotope (U-238) could be used. They learned that each fission releases a few neutrons.

Essay --

David SylvesterA.P.U.S.H.Mr. PickfordFebruary 11, 2014 Douglas MacArthur And The Korean WarArguably one of the greatest generals in American history Douglas MacArthur was born to be in the military machine, his father Arthur MacArthur was a great soldier who honorably in the Army and it MacArthur went to West Point to go after in his fathers footsteps. MacArthur served for rising through the ranks at a rapid pace, he became most well known for his leadership during the second world war besides after that he lead his troops on the bookingfields of Korea in his seventies. Although MacArthur proved to be a brilliant general, his aggressive decisions towards the end of the Korean War led to his honorable removal as general of the United Nations Army and his heroic actions and tales to be cemented permanently in American History.June 27th, 1950 was the day the United States announced its grade assistance in the Korean War. The following day United States planes were already bombing the North Korean Army and the United States is getting prepared for more(prenominal) attacks. On July 7th, 1950 General Douglas MacArthur was appointed to be verifyer of every UN forces which was an easy choice for President Truman to make because he and MacArthur were great friends and Truman admired MacArthur for his great military leadership. After being appointed MacArthur said to Truman I can only repeat the pledge of my complete personal loyalty to you as well as an absolute devotion to your monumental struggle for peace and good will throughout the world. I hope I will not fail you(MacArthur). When MacArthur took command in Korea he provided the soldiers with a much needed moral boost that kept them fighting harder and gave them a new sense of hope. During the begin... ...or his country and freedom sores recent many others it led him into some trouble when he began speaking out against the government for not helping them and instead restricting how they could fight the war. MacArthurs words and actions he took against Harry Truman did not help him because he wanted to fight a full war to get a full victory and liberate all of Korea but Truman wanted to fight a restricted war and only liberate South Korea. The constant disputes between Truman and MacArthur ultimately led to Truman firing MacArthur. MacArthurs want had already been cemented in history as an American hero and one of the greatest generals in military history, his tactics, moral and leadership were all driving factors that make him such a great general and he was always well respected by the men who served him because he was always right in the battle with them.