University of Nairobi Bsc. Civil Engineering Degree...

17/07/2012 University of Nairobi - Degree Programmes University of Nairobi A world-class univ ersity committed to scholarly excellence Search Website Quick Links Faculties/Schools/Institutes About UON Academics Admission Student Life Research Contact Us Home Academics Degree Programmes Degree Information Degree Regulation A-Z List of UON Departm ets a b c d e f g h ijklmn o p q r s t u v w x y z B.sc. (civil Engineering) Degree Code: F16 Duration: 5 Faculty/School/Institute offered: SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Regulations Introduction General Regulations Course Outline Course Description Further Information Entry Requirements Course Description FIRST YEAR OF STUDY - SEMESTER I FCE 101 - Communication Skills (45 hrs) For†¦show more content†¦Number systems, codes, arithmetic and logic operations: Computer number systems and computer codes, arithmetic operations and computer logic operations, introduction to binary number representation, positive and negative numbers, arithmetic operators and examples, ones-and twos-complement, binary subtraction, addition, multiplication, division, real numbers (floating point), strings, arrays. Applications software: Introduction, software packages, selection of software (factors to consider), wordprocessors (e.g. Wordstar), spreadsheets (e.g. Lotus), report generators (e.g. Harvard Graphics), accounting packages (e.g. Dac Easy). Computer graphics (e.g. CAD packages e.g. Autocad), (to be covered through laboratory exercises). Application Software : Packages: wordprocessing, spreadsheets, database management, mathematical programming, statistics (tabulations and regression), project management. Software developments: knowledge-based systems (A.I.) FCE 181 - Chemistry IA (45 hrs) Inorganic Chemistry: Solubility, precipitation, ion-exchange, nitrification and denitrification, oxidation-reduction reactions, absorption, characteristics and significance of some salts and elements (ammonia, nitrates, phosphates, sulphates, silicates, chlorine, oxygen, ozone, carbon, etc.) Physical Chemistry: Ions in solution, ionization energy, chemical energetics and bonding, chemical equilibrium, reaction kinetics. SEMESTER II FCE 104 - Elements ofShow MoreRelatedContemporary Issues in Management Accounting211377 Words   |  846 PagesManagement Accounting Edited by ALNOOR BHIMANI 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oYces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic FranceRead MoreAn Impact Assessment of Science and Technology Policy on National Development of Nigeria61708 Words   |  247 Pagesii AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY ON NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA BY ABUBAKAR ABDULLAHI (MATRICULATION NO. 3081) A Dissertation Submitted to St. Clements University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of Doctor of Philosophy in Management St. Clements University October, 2004 iii DECLARATION I declare that this Dissertation is an output of my own research endeavours. In pursuant of this research work, concerted efforts were made to duly

The Traveling Companion Character Analysis - 803 Words

One of Han Christian Handerson’s superb fairy tales is about a hero who accepts a challenge that many would think is impossible. The hero in the â€Å"The Traveling Companion† began his journey shortly after his dead Father appeared to him in a dream. In his dream, his Father reveals to John a glimpse of his future. John then voyages beyond his home to unknown lands, encountering various people and creatures. Yet, the hero is not alone. He meets a mysterious traveler who soon will become his companion. An addition, the friendship that grows between the hero and his companion is an inspiration. Also, throughout the story the hero experiences magical adventures and faces many trials that support his heroic character. For example, Before the†¦show more content†¦Likewise, on multiple occasions John valiantly stands up for others because of his decency nature towards all things and his loving Father’s words in his dream. John may be poor with material objec ts, but he is rich with the qualities of a chivalry Knight which is noted by his action of taking on a task that princes and royal men have failed at. One of the most critical moment in the traveling companion is when John crosses the threshold by accepting a challenge that princes and noble men have died trying achieve. John understood completely the outcome of the challenge that powerful men have attempted before but he humbly acquires it because of his faith in his father and his heroic quality of perseverance. For example, the old king of the unknown land sorrowfully expresses to John that his fate will be similar as all the other noblemen who lay in the earth with soulless bodies. An addition to that, his dear companion also tells John that it is foolish to proceed. Nevertheless, John heeds to the warnings, but willfully continues the impossible venture. Though many outwardly judge John because he was not a noble like the rest who attempted this endeavor. They will soon realize that he has more nobility than any prince throughout the lands. Still, John was not alone for his faithful companion aided him in this endeavor. His companion would stay up till dawn, finding any possible ways that John could achieveShow MoreRelatedWriting Styles Of Ernest Faulkner And The Sun Also Rises By Earnest Hemingway And As I Lay Dying1528 Words   |  7 Pagesshow how different styles of writing bring different events and characters into play. This is particularly true with the authors William Faulkner and Earnest Hemingway. Their writing styles are exponentially different, but both authors use their differing styles to their advantage. In both The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, characters face issues such as feeling alienated and lost. The characters in As I Lay Dying deal with their issues through more complexRead MoreCARD Report For Literature With Sample1156 Words   |  5 Pagesindex card. This report is a preliminary analysis of the novel. This is not only an assignment in analyzing literature but also in writing. You do not have much time or space, and so every wor d counts. On your report you should include the following: 1. The title of the story and the date of its original publication 2. The author s name and birth and death dates. 3. The name of the central character, together with a description of the character s main traits or features. 4. IdentificationRead MoreAnalysis Of To Build A Fire By Jack London1006 Words   |  5 PagesThe short story, â€Å"To Build a Fire,† written by Jack London took place on the Yukon trail. Further analysis led to the discovery that the story took place in Alaska. The setting became an important aspect within this story due to how much description was given to how cold it was. The cold weather suggests that the time of year was during the winter months. The setting of the story reminds readers that there are harsh places in the world, where nature becomes overwhelmingly powerful. The short storyRead MoreBeloved: Passage Analysis1335 Words   |  6 Pagescherry blossoms, then magnolia, chinaberry, pecan, walnut and prickly pear. At last he reached a field of apple trees whose flowers were just becoming tiny knots of fruit. Spring sauntered north, but he had to run like hell to keep it as his traveling companion. From February to July he was on the look out for blossoms. When he lost them, and found himself without so much as a petal to guide him, he paused, climbed a tree on a hillock and scanned the horizon for a flash of pink or white in the leafRead MoreHeart Of Darkness By Joseph Conrad1149 Words   |  5 PagesDarkness, author Joseph Conrad sheds light on the primal nature in all men, casting a shadow—a darkness that is the result of being freed of societies norms. An in-depth analysis of Joseph Conrad and the work shows how well he is able to combine story elements to make an engaging read. Conrad is able to do this through his characters, such as protagonist Marlow, whose experiences through his journey shows him vividly, the violence and brutality even the gentlest people are capable of. In addition toRead MoreAnalysis of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck1493 Words   |  6 PagesAnalysis of ‘Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck ‘Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck is a classic novel, tragedy, written in a social tone. The authorial attitude is idyllic, however, as the story develops it changes into skeptic. It is evident that Steinbeck knew the setting and places he is writing about. In my opinion Steinbeck drew the subject matter from his own experience of working on ranches, he was interested in special kinds of relationships among men working on ranches with him. ThereRead MoreEssay about Analysis of ‘Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 1488 Words   |  6 PagesAnalysis of ‘Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck ‘Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck is a classic novel, tragedy, written in a social tone. The authorial attitude is idyllic, however, as the story develops it changes into skeptic. It is evident that Steinbeck knew the setting and places he is writing about. Read MoreThe Theme Of Change And Transformation In The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho1382 Words   |  6 Pagesyou the feel that it will be about a boy on a quest filled with the expected trials that test his heart, strength, and character. Elements like this are present, however, the story makes the reader think deeply about the motif dealing with following the signs the universe gives. This is due to various symbols and motifs, one having to do with omens, that Santiago and many characters around him encounter that signal the good or bad to come. In order to understand The Alchemist and why its theme of changeRead MoreEssay on Feminist Protagonists in The Awakenin g and A Dolls House755 Words   |  4 Pageswomens liberation is a common theme in both Kate Chopins The Awakening and Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House. In her analysis of Feminism in Europe Katharine M. Rogers writes, Thinking of Noras painful disillusionment, her parting from her children, and the uncertainties of her future independent career, Ibsen called his play the tragedy of modern times (82). The main characters in each work, Nora Helmer, in A Doll House, and Edna Pontellier, in The Awakening, portray feminist ideas. NeitherRead MoreFogg s The Novel Around The World1222 Words   |  5 Pageswere not civil, and Verne does not present them as such. Varshini is incorrect in saying that the British were a civilizing force in the world because they were unable to enforce their laws, and did little to civilize the areas the colonized. Character Analysis – Phileas Fogg The novel Around the World in 80 Days focuses on the travels of a man named Phileas Fogg. Fogg is an Englishman who lives in Burlington Gardens and spends the majority of his time at the Reform Club playing whist. Verne writes

Bi Polar Essay Research Paper Maggie shows free essay sample

Bi Polar Essay, Research Paper Maggie shows up in the exigency room looking for Abby. When Frank comes to state Abby that her female parent is at that place, Abby takes a short glance and says she does non cognize who that adult female is. So, Maggie waits about in the E.R. for a piece, giving the staff beigels and java. Kerry subsequently informs Maggie that Abby, in actuality, has said she # 8217 ; s lying. Immediately after she was told the intelligence, she goes on a violent disorder throughout the E.R. shouting for her girl. When Maggie sees Abby, she tells everyone that Abby is her girl and Abby greets her female parent. Kerry is surprised at what Abby said because she told Frank that she did non cognize who that adult female was. After witnessing Maggie # 8217 ; s actions, Kerry automatically comes to the decision that Maggie is bipolar, and negotiations to Abby about it. This was a recent episode of E.R. ; in existent life, at least 2 million Americans suffer from what is called Manic-depressive Illness, otherwise known as bipolar upset. It is a mental unwellness affecting episodes of serious passion and depression. The individual # 8217 ; s tempers normally swing from excessively # 8220 ; high # 8221 ; and cranky to sad and hopeless and so back once more, with periods of normal temper in between ( Bellenir276 ) . The separating feature of Bipolar Disorder, as compared to other temper upsets, is the presence of at least one frenzied episode. Additionally, it is presumed to be a chronic status because the huge bulk of persons who have one manic episode have extra episodes in the hereafter. The statistics suggest that four episodes in ten old ages is an mean, without preventive intervention. Every person with bipolar upset has a alone form of temper rhythms, uniting depression and frenzied episodes, which is specific to that person, but predictable one time the form is identified. Research surveies suggest a strong familial influence in bipolar upset. Bipolar upset typically begins in adolescence or early maturity and continues throughout life. It is frequently non recognized as a psychological job, because it is episodicthose. Effective intervention is available for bipolar upset. The most important intervention issue is non-compliance with intervention. As the frenzied episode advancements, co ncentration becomes hard, believing becomes more grandiose, and jobs develop. Unfortunately, the hazard taking behavior normally consequences in important painful effects such as loss of a occupation or a relationship, running up inordinate debts, or acquiring into legal troubles. Many persons with bipolar upset maltreatment drugs or intoxicant during frenzied episodes, and some of these develop secondary substance maltreatment jobs. A frenzied episode is an abnormally elevated, expansive or cranky temper, non related to substance maltreatment or a medical status, that lasts for at least a hebdomad, and includes a figure of perturbations in behaviour and thought that consequences in important life accommodation jobs. Chronic behaviour that appears slightly similar to frenzied behaviour is more likely ADHD or grounds of personality job. It may be helpful to believe of the assorted temper provinces in manic-depressive unwellness as a spectrum or uninterrupted scope. At one terminal is terrible depression, which shades into moderate depression ; so come mild and brief temper perturbations that many people call # 8220 ; the blues, # 8221 ; so normal temper, so hypomania ( a mild signifier of passion ) , and so passion. Some people with untreated bipolar upset have repeated depressions and merely an occasional episode of hypomania ( bipolar II ) . In the other extreme, passion may be the chief job and depression may happen merely infrequently. In fact, symptoms of passion and depression may be assorted together in a individual # 8220 ; assorted # 8221 ; bipolar province ( Bellenir 278 ) . An early mark of manic-depressive unwellness may be hypomania # 8211 ; a province in which the individual shows a high degree of energy, inordinate moodiness or crossness, and unprompted or foolhardy behaviour. Hypomania may experience good to the individual who experiences it. Thus, even when household and friends learn to acknowledge the temper swings ; the person frequently will deny that anything is incorrect. In its early phases, bipolar upset may masquerade as a job other than m ental unwellness. For illustration, it may foremost look as intoxicant or drug maltreatment, or hapless school or work public presentation. If left untreated, bipolar upset tends to decline, and the individual experiences episodes of fully fledged passion and clinical depression. Psychological intervention frequently focuses on the life accommodation jobs that develop because of the frenzied episodes, and in assisting the single acknowledge the oncoming of a frenzied episode and take disciplinary action. Supportive guidance is needed, to assist the single accept that he/she has a chronic psychological job that will hold a major impact on life direction. Anyone with bipolar upset should be under the attention of a head-shrinker skilled in its diagnosing and intervention, every bit good as a psychologist. Psychologists provide the person and his or her household with support, instruction, get bying accomplishments developing, they besides help supervise the symptoms and promote the per son to go on medical intervention. The head-shrinker monitors the medicine that is normally required with this upset. Almost all people with bipolar upset, even those with the most terrible signifiers, can obtain significant stabilisation of their temper swings. One medicine, Li, is normally really effectual in commanding passion and forestalling the return of both frenzied and depressive episodes. Most late, the temper stabilising antiepileptics carbamazepine and valproate have besides been found utile, particularly in more stubborn bipolar episodes. Often these medicines are combined with Li for maximal consequence. Some scientists have theorized that the anticonvulsant medicines work because they have an consequence on tinder, a procedure in which the encephalon becomes progressively sensitive to emphasize and finally begins to demo episodes of unnatural activity even in the absence of a stressor. It is thought that Li Acts of the Apostless to barricade the early phases of this t inder procedure and that carbamazepine and valproate act subsequently. Children and striplings with bipolar upset are by and large treated with Li, but carbamazepine and valproate are besides used. Valproate has late been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for intervention of ague passion. The high authority benzodiazepines clonazepam and Ativan may be helpful adjuncts for insomnia. Thyroid augmentation may besides be of value. For depression, several types of antidepressants can be utile when combined with Li, carbamazepine, or valproate. Constructing a life chart of temper symptoms, medicines, and life events may assist the wellness attention professional to handle the unwellness optimally. Because manic-depressive unwellness is perennial, long-run preventative ( contraceptive ) intervention is extremely recommended and about ever indicated. Bi polar unwellness has been diagnosed in kids under the age of 12, although it is non common in this age bracket. The symptoms can be confused with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity upset, so careful diagnosing is necessary. There is no existent remedy for frenzied depression at present, but through the usage of monitored medicine plans it is possible to smooth out and cut down the frequence of highs and the depressions, and in some instances episodes may be all together prevented. A assortment of medicines are used to handle bi polar upset, but even with optimum medicine intervention, many people do non accomplish full remittal of symptoms. Without intervention, matrimonial break-ups, occupation loss, intoxicant and drug maltreatment, and self-destruction may ensue from the chronic, episodic temper swings. The intervention people have to take will be for the remainder of their lives and some people do non like to trouble oneself taking their medicines. I have neer encountered a indi vidual with bipolar upset, but now I know that when I am walking down the street the faces I see are non merely mundane people. By looking at a individual you know that there is a narrative behind that face. When I watch Television I ever see commercials about depression but I neer thought that so many people are diagnosed, non to advert the many signifiers of depression. Bipolar upset is one of the most hard signifiers of depression to populate a smooth life with. There are many topographic points for people to acquire aid ; I merely hope they take the chances. 317

Our homeland Russia Review Essay Example

Our homeland Russia Review Paper Essay on Our homeland Russia Masha, there were times is that without the state people humanity has lived and the fact that such a life was possible in principle, and then, if you look to the future, it means statelessness unit of social life in translation on Political language it is just simply the destruction of any class relations. When there were no classes it was not the state. It is a historical fact: humanity in its modern guise physical about 35-40 thousand years are in the state organization accounts for at least at least 6-8 thousand years (the earliest).. That is why the question of what gosudrastvo, how it arises and historical perspectives solved only scientifically, that is, from the point of view of systematic knowledge of the trends of contemporary development is not as much as the whole of humanity. And the prospects do not leave even a question: if you want to live without crises live without classes, without a state, how? look at the modern civil societies of Europe and much will be come clear. But do not forget that neither the president nor the Duma, or other sitting at the wheel its just not profitable there reigns a selfish interest in Ball Corporation officials class attitude. So it is not the distant past, and the prospects for the coming tumultuous changes of social life around the world thats the main thing. But these little books setting forth the task to convince Lohan in reverse is nothing but a class lie growing foolish victims, convinced that the interests of officials and the public interest are one and the same the usual lies. Add to this the humility preached by the ROC and receive a full set of tools for the conversion of the citizens in a rather important and humble cattle. Millionaire earned? To this end, it is not necessary to know anything about what the ownership, manufacture, market, capital, in short it is necessary to play the beginning of the 19th century with the illusions of freedom, equality and fraternity. Questions of mora lity, by the way, you can decide at any point without a state-level. Example: when the same Yeltsin spoke at the October plenum of the party apparatus against the entire corporation at the same instant was born the moral assessment of his actions: Boris, youre right! But more often people remain silent, or rather asleep. Moral actions those in which a person, whoever he may be, should be his civic duty, but an understanding of the different debt it is always a class point of view. By the way, the abolition of classes does not eliminate the division between rich and poor and it ought to know, that not everything in one pile. Okay so Im really embarrassed ladies pleasant in all respects, thinking in the state : (( Our homeland Russia Review Essay Example Our homeland Russia Review Paper Essay on Our homeland Russia Our great country can be regarded as a great orchestra, where each instrument fulfills his party , but together they create the music and the State:. Scientists develop new technologies, the military guard the country, workers toil in factories, farmers cultivate the land, and all work together to create prosperity and glory of Russia (c) Going to a birthday to his nephew, I was in thought, what to give him. Clothes did not want to give, I do not understand in the modern toys, so that the choice itself fell on the book. I came into the store, looked at the shelf with literature for children, and I just was not bad: it is necessary of all plenty to choose something useful and interesting. I looked through a pile of encyclopedias, compilations, albums And then my eyes fell on the book Our homeland Russia. Fair? Jarred me in this book is only one: the word homeland, written in small letters. Maybe now well accepted, but I was taught in school differently. The rest of the book just a great encyclopedia of our country, available to all children of primary school age. The child can get to know the state symbols, with its device management apparatus, etc. Understandable language explains to the child what the subjects of the federation and the Federal District; what power, legislative, judicial and executive; that is, th e State Duma, and why there is a President; Whats the difference between urban and rural areas, and what is the use of each; due to which the state is alive and well interesting section about the awards Russia with examples of people awarded. But it is not only about military achievements can be read on the pages of books, but also the achievements of science. Children can meet with Nobel laureates, and learn what they have received such a high award. And, of course, the authors are not spared the major attractions of Russia and its cities. The most detailed account of Moscow, with its monuments, theaters, museums, the Kremlin and Red Square, and St. Petersburg, with its Winter Palace, Admiralty, St. Isaacs Cathedral and the Palace Bridge. But other cities are not forgotten. My native Kirov I, unfortunately, did not find, but happy to read about the Kronstadt and Vyborg. Mentally traveled to the Golden Ring of Russia. And find out what famous Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Oms k, Kazan, Ufa, Chelyabinsk and Rostov-on-Don. I also had time to mentally take a dip in the lake, climb the Everest, relax in the Krasnodar region and even look into the future -. In the Olympic Sochi-2014 We will write a custom essay sample on Our homeland Russia Review specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Our homeland Russia Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Our homeland Russia Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer It was very interesting. For sure, and the kids will love it. At least, my nephew very happy:)

Speaking Engagements Your First Gig as an Author

Speaking Engagements Your First Gig as an Author Speaking Engagements: Your First Gig as an Author Once you’ve done the hard work of writing and publishing your book, it’s time to consider getting some speaking engagements so you can spread the word about your book’s messageand make even more cash from it.As an author, it’s highly possible you’ve convinced yourself that speaking in front of an audience simply isn’t for you- after all, you’re a writer, not a speaker†¦right?That’s not exactly true.While the walls of publishing are coming down, and there’s never been a better time to become a published author.but this means there’s an awful lot of competition out there.Were here to cover this information all about speaking engagements:What are speaking engagements?How do you get paid for speaking engagements?How to book yourself as a speaker10 ways to land your first speaking engagementsThe authors who are willing to put themselves out there- whether in the form of speaking gigs, media, or other in-person appe arances- have the best chance of standing out from the crowd and grabbing the attention of book buyers.NOTE: One of the best ways to land speaking gigs is to place yourself as an authority through writing a book. We teach just that and so much more in our VIP Self-Publishing Program. Learn more about it hereWhat area speaking engagements?Speaking engagements are when you speak in front of a group of people on a specific topic youre knowledgable about.Most people think of Ted Talks when they hear the term speaking engagement.However, not all speaking gigs have to be at the Ted Talk level in order to be considered a speaking engagement. Any scheduled speech you give (even unpaid) in front of a group of people is considered a speaking gig.How do you get paid to be a speaker?Not everyone can get paid to be a speaker upfront. If you want to be a paid speaker, you have to first hone the craft of speaking and then gain experience in the field.Some may get lucky enough to be booked as a pai d speaker upfront but usually, it can take time, experience, and a resume of speaking engagements in order to take home money for it.An easy way to expedite the process of becoming a paid speaker is to increase your authority by writing a book. Becoming a bestseller by self-publishing a book(something we here at Self-Publishing School teach) is even better. Its a surefire sign that you know what youre talking about and have credibility behind you.How do you book yourself as a speaker?Before you can reach the days of paying someone else to book your speaking gigs, you have to put in the work for yourself first.This means doing research and performing a lot of outreach in order to connect with those responsible for booking speakers at different events.Keep in mind that you may have to start small (and well touch on this below) before you can expect to book yourself at larger, paid speaking engagements.How to Land Your First Speaking Engagements as an AuthorWe’re not saying it c an’t be nerve-wracking to stand up in front of a crowd. That’s why we recommend starting small, saying â€Å"yes† to multiple opportunities, and getting lots of practice.This isn’t a one-and-done proposition if you truly want speaking to become an effective piece of your â€Å"professional author† repertoire.So, how exactly should you land that first speaking engagement? Read on for our ten tips, and you’ll soon be writing your notecards for your debut talk.#1 Start LocalConferences are a natural place for speakers of all levels to take the stage. However, don’t feel as though you have to limit yourself to formal settings to find speaking engagements.Any group where your desired audience gathers can provide a chance for you to speak.You could speak to students, to religious organizations, women’s groups, at your library, local business associations†¦the list is endless! Look around your own community and make a mental lis t of all the places where you might ask to speak.#2 Speak to Your NicheIf your book is geared toward a specific niche, explore related groups. For example, if your book is a memoir about overcoming an obstacle- such as domestic violence or cancer or another illness- you could speak to a support group.If your book is about productivity, then seek out entrepreneur groups or the chamber of commerce.If you’re a nurse, and you’ve written a book about health care, then hospitals are a natural place for you to speak. If your story relates to a specific sport, then hit up the closest sport teams.No audience or venue is too small or informal for your first â€Å"official† speech.#3 Find a Natural ConnectionWhile we do recommend starting small and local, look even closer: make sure the group you choose will actually be well-served by hearing your message.Look, there’s nothing worse than standing in front of a crowd that’s bored, or worse- hostile- because you’re wasting their time. There’s an easy way to warm up any crowd, and that’s to have something in common with them. You want your first speaking engagementto be closely related to your book and your book’s message.If your book is all about the stressful life of a lawyer, then you’re not going to want to speak to a group of airline pilots.For your first speaking gig, your goal is to find an audience that will benefit from your book’s message. Ideally, you want to find an audience you naturally connect with, because that connection will make you more relaxed and authentic, which will result in a better speech.#4 Build ExcitementIf you’re not quite ready to beat the bushes in order to grab your first speaking engagementimmediately, then consider building up some excitement first.We authors share a common goal: to get our target readers excited about our book’s message!How do you do that? The good news is the Internet makes bui lding a virtual audience fairly easy these days with consistent effort. You can establish a following of readers through your website, through online forums, via social media, and by writing blog posts, both your own and by writing guest posts for others.Use all of these types of content to build your audience with the goals of increasing book sales and finding your first speaking gig.#5 Hone Your SkillsThink of informal ways to practice your speaking abilities with the goal of scoring a â€Å"real† gig.You can produce videos on your book’s subject, join podcasts, and seek out online interviews to share your voice with the world, gain exposure, and get comfortable with your talking points.By showcasing your speaking talents, you open the door to an invitation to speak in a more structured setting- that even pays more. Plus, you get great practice speaking about your book’s message before you have to stand on a stage in person.#6 Attend a Writer’s Worksh opA great way to get the inside scoop is to meet other authors and pick their brains about their speaking process.How did they find speaking engagements? What are their best speaking tips? What fees do they charge? Meeting other writers gives you a broader network to use as resources on all topics that impact authors- not just the nitty-gritty of drafting books.#7 Speak at an Industry EventThese fact-based speaking engagements areperfect for non-fiction authors. Whether your industry is blogging, healthcare, law, plumbing, or real estate, it’s likely you can find a conference about it.The exact nature of the industry doesn’t have to mirror the topic of your book. Instead, you can focus your talk on skills that can help people in that industry.For example, if your book is about productivity, you can create a talk that’s focused on how your audience can adapt the productivity lessons found in your book to suit their particular industry.#8 Aim Low (at First)The f irst of your speaking engagements probably won’t be a Ted Talk, and that’s okay!The first time, in fact, you may have to volunteer your time to speak at a pretty tiny event. But as the saying goes, you have to walk before you can run. Just keep taking steps toward bigger and better events. With each new speaking gig, your resume will grow- along with your confidence!#9 Practice Makes PerfectWrite a speech today, and read it to yourself daily- before you even have speaking engagements lined up. You want to be able to handle a speaking engagement that’s the very next day if someone called you out of the blue.Once you’ve taken the time to put together your speech about your book, you’ll notice ways to refine it and improve on it day after day when you practice like youre speaking in public.What way when the times comes, you’ll be ready to shine.#10 Say YES!When you’re offered your first speaking engagements- take it!Even if it gives yo u butterflies or if it’s not the â€Å"perfect† fit for your brand, you need to be open to invitations when you’re just starting out. You’ll gain valuable experience, polish your skills, and get your book’s message out there to the public.All good things!Get started now on finding your first speaking gig. No matter the size of your audience, you’ll gain exposure for your message, while achieving the unparalleled life experience of speaking about your passion.Get Started TODAYLike what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row†¦ and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years.Click here to save your spot now!

Visas de trabajo TN para profesionales mexicanos

Visas de trabajo TN para profesionales mexicanos Estados Unidos ofrece visas de trabajo exclusivamente para profesionales mexicanos y canadienses. Estos visados se otorgan al amparo del Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) o NAFTA, por sus siglas en inglà ©s. Requisitos para las visas TN 1. Ser mexicano y tener un pasaporte vigente. 2. Ser elegible para una visa. Si no se cumple este requisito, ser denegada. Tener un tà ­tulo de las profesiones que se pueden acoger a este tipo de visa. Tener una oferta de trabajo para empleo a tiempo completo o a tiempo parcial como un profesional de NAFTA. La oferta puede provenir de una empresa americana o de una extranjera que opere dentro de los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, est explà ­citamente prohibido el autoempleo. Profesiones para obtener la visa TN El listado completo lo publica NAFTA en su pgina oficial en el Apà ©ndice 1603.D.1. Este es el listado de 60 profesiones. En general se necesita tener un tà ­tulo universitario equivalente al Bachelor ´s Degree pero hay excepciones. (Estas agencias pueden validar en Estados Unidos los estudios cursados en Mà ©xico). Entre las profesiones destacan: abogados, arquitectos, bibliotecarios, especialistas en sistemas de computacià ³n, economistas, ingenieros, gerentes de hoteles, diseà ±adores industriales y de interiores, trabajadores sociales, enfermeras o asistentes de investigacià ³n en universidades.Obtener la visa Se realiza la solicitud a la Embajada americana en el DF o al consulado que corresponda. Se inicia el proceso rellenando digitalmente la forma DS-160 para hacer una cita para la entrevista y pagar los aranceles correspondientes para el visado (este dinero no se recupera si la visa es denegada). La cuota es la que corresponde a una visa dentro de la categorà ­a de â€Å"no inmigrante†, categorà ­a TN. En la entrevista se deber acudir con un pasaporte mexicano que expire al menos seis meses despuà ©s de la fecha inicial de expiracià ³n de la visa. Y se deber presentar la carta de empleo de la empresa que requiere al profesional mexicano. Tambià ©n se debern presentar todos los diplomas que acrediten estudios acadà ©micos y todos los documentos que sirvan para probar la experiencia profesional. Antes de acudir a la entrevista, verificar las reglas del consulado sobre el tiempo de antelacià ³n con el que uno debe presentarse. No llevar celular ni ropas de abrigo. Intentar llevar toda la documentacià ³n en un fà ³lder de plstico transparente. Y recordar que no se permite tomar fotos dentro de las oficinas consulares estadounidenses. No se necesita licencia para practicar una determinada profesià ³n en el estado al que se vaya a trabajar. Sin embargo, este requisito sà ­ que puede exigirse despuà ©s de obtener la visa y entrar en Estados Unidos, pero no en el momento de la entrevista para la visa. Este visado est catalogado como una visa â€Å"no inmigrante†. Si es concedida, se entrar en Estados Unidos donde en la frontera se sellar el formulario I-94 de registro de entrada y salida, y que debe conservarse durante toda la estancia en el paà ­s y entregarlo de vuelta a la salida. Validez de la visa La visa ser vlida por un mximo de tres aà ±os. El empleador podr pedir una extensià ³n presentando antes el Servicio de Inmigracià ³n y Naturalizacià ³n (USCIS, por sus siglas en inglà ©s) el formulario I-129. Tener presente que la fecha mxima de estancia en EU no es la que seà ±ala la visa, sino la que est marcada en el I-94. Quedarse un dà ­a ms de la fecha mxima que se encuentra en el registro de entrada y salida equivale a quedarse sin estatus legal y a que la visa se anule de forma automtica.La extensià ³n de la estancia debe pedirse teniendo en cuenta la fecha del I-94, no la de la visa, para los casos en los que ambas no coinciden. Visa para familiares Se puede conceder una visa de acompaà ±ante para el cà ³nyuge y los hijos solteros menores de 21 aà ±os. No es necesario que sean de nacionalidad mexicana. Los familiares podrn vivir en Estados Unidos y estudiar, pero no podrn trabajar. A tener en cuenta Muchas de las personas que pueden aplicar por una TN podrà ­an tambià ©n hacerlo por una H-1B, pero asà ­ se evitan problemas propios de este à ºltimo tipo de visas, como la loterà ­a cuando el nà ºmero de solicitantes es superior al de visados disponibles. A la hora de encontrar trabajo, en principio es ms fcil en los estados con una tasa de desempleo baja. Porque aunque en Estados Unidos hay en la actualidad una situacià ³n cercana en muchas regiones al pleno empleo, lo cierto es que hay grandes diferencias por estados en la situacià ³n econà ³mica y de empleo. Mexicanos y frontera Es posible para los mexicanos acelerar el paso de control migratorio en la frontera terrestre entre Mà ©xico y USA formando parte del programa SENTRI. Adems, el Global Entry permite tambià ©n hacer ms rpido el control de Inmigracià ³n en aeropuertos. Y por supuesto tambià ©n est la visa lser, tambià ©n conocida como de cruce que facilita el paso migratorio. Este es un artà ­culo informativo. No es asesorà ­a legal.

El Alcoholismo, (Una Monografia) Debe de ser es espaol Essay

El Alcoholismo, (Una Monografia) Debe de ser es espaol - Essay Example Desarrollo.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..4 A. El Alcoholismo Y Lo Que Es†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦4 IV. Discusion.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..5 A. Como El Alcoholismo Se Aparece En Los Adolescentes†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦5 B. Causas†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.6 C. Efectos†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.7 D. Demostracion de la hipotesis.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦..7 E. Lista de Referencias†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..9 C. Introduccion I. Problema El alcoholismo, a diferencia del uso de alcohol excesivo o imprudente, ha sido considerado en el pasado un sintoma de estres comunitario o psicologico, o un conducta desajustada. El alcoholismo se ha transformado en una nueva definicion, y tal vez mas precisa, como una enfermedad compleja en si. Los primeros sintomas incluyen ansiedad sobre la disponibilidad de alcohol, que influye intensamente en la preferencia por el paciente de amigos o actividades. El alcohol es cada vez mas el semblante de una droga que modifica el estado de animo, y menos como una parte de la dieta , un habito social o un rito piadoso. Se caracteriza por una vinculacion emocional y a veces organica del alcohol, y produce un dano cerebral avanzado y por ultimo la muerte. Mientras que el alcoholismo afecta principalmente a los adultos, su uso en adolescentes es un desasosiego creciente. Nuestra tarea sera la de tratar este tema mas alla de ser una diversion, se esta convirtiendo en una preocupacion. Cada vez mas ninos se intoxican cuando van a bailar o juntarse con amigos. A su vez, el consumo empieza a la vez de ninos pequenos, y los padres son cada vez mas condescendiente en este sentido. Se debe explorar lo que lleva el alcohol a los adolescentes. II. Hipotesis En este ensayo uno se va a explorar un desarrollo del alcoholismo y lo que es. El hipotesis va a investigar: como el alcoholismo se aparece en los adolescentes; las causas del alcoholismo; y los efectos del alcoholismo. III. Desarrollo A. El Alcoholismo Y Lo Que Es El alcoholismo es una enfermedad grave. Segun a Astovi za (2000) â€Å"El alcoholismo es una enfermedad cronica, progresiva y fatal caracterizada†¦Ã¢â‚¬  por una dependencia emocional y a veces organica del alcohol (parrafo 5). Se trata de un trastorno fundamental y no un sintoma de otras enfermedades o problemas emocionales. La quimica del alcohol afecta a casi todos los tipos de celulas en el cuerpo, incorporando a las que aparecen en el sistema nervioso central. El alcohol domina sus razonamientos, emociones y movimientos. Una vez que el alcohol ha tenido una persona no puede decirse que la victima esta cometiendo un delito moral. En este estado, el alcoholico no puede usar su animo de voluntad, porque ha perdido el poder de decidir si se debe usar alcohol o se abstiene de el. Se debe preguntar segun al articulo, â€Å"?Que es el alcoholismo?† (2011, p. 1) Es la condicion de una persona que tiene una enfermedad, una persona que bebe tanto alcohol cronicamente. Este persona no puede sostener su forma de beber bajo contro l, aunque le aga dano a su salud, su trabajo,su mente y su familia. El alcoholico se caracteriza por la dependencia del alcohol, tanto psicologica fisica como, la

International tax coursework assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

International tax coursework assignment - Essay Example The international tax system is required to be structured in such a way that any company carrying out its business in more than two countries should be liable to the domestic law of more than one country and the conflict of laws existing between the countries can be resolved by implementing the international law. The company residence acts have been introduced in which the company is considered as the resident of that country where its real business is being carried out. The technical fees services are required to be adopted under which the right to tax is assigned to the respective State of residence. The fundamental change to the international tax explains that the payment for technical services may erode the source country’s tax base. But the payment of technical services is not often taxed by the source country under the provision of United Nation Model Convention Treaty. Therefore the multinational companies often use this technical fees for availing technical, consulting and management services for generating profit from their subsidiaries. The main aim of the base erosion and price shifting is to provide certainty to the international businesses for harmonizing their international tax rules (Thuronyi, 2003). The main reason of addition of this provision to the UN model is that more than 100 treaties have been introduced and formulated but there is absence of proper and definite standard of doing the task. Introduction of different treaty creates a problem for the international tax payers who are required to verify the provisions laid by each treaty for carrying out its business operation within the border and abroad. The OECD transfer pricing guidelines has been formulated for the multinational companies and also for the tax administrations. This principle of transfer pricing is accepted by all the companies across the world. OECD approach associated with the intellectual property explains the functions that is outsourced to the

United States and Israel Essay Example for Free

United States and Israel Essay The Israeli government, unlike the United States, is a multiparty Parliamentary Republic. It runs as nonfederalist government and acts as the central government in Jerusalem. The ultimate authority does not lie in the Constitution like most democratic countries nor the executive branch. The ultimate authority in Israel is the legislative branch—the Knesset. The country has no written Constitution. Government activities and policies are guided by the basic laws passed by the Parliament. The government has three main branches: the executive, the legislative or the Knesset and the judiciary. Unlike a democratic state, these three branches of the government do not hold equal powers. The President has limited power and is not even elected by the people. The President is elected by the Knesset and may serve for a maximum of two terms, each having five year duration. He serves as head of the state but only holds ceremonial functions such as opening the Knessets first session and receiving diplomatic representatives from other countries (MSN Encarta Online Encyclopedia n. pag. ). The judiciary on the other hand decides cases and sees to it that justice is met. The legislative on the other hand is the most powerful body of government. They create the law and control all government processes. It is composed of 120 members who serve on a four year term. Its main function is to determine the members’ confidence in the government. A vote of no confidence is enough to topple the government, however, in Israels history, a vote of no confidence has only happened once—1990 (Jewish Virtual Library n. pag. ). The election process in Israel is not as liberal as in the United States. National elections in Israel happen once every four years and on the municipal level, once every five years. All Israelis who are 18 years old and above have the right of suffrage. However, unlike in the United States where specific individuals are voted for, the Israelis are only allowed to vote for a party. Every party that desire to run for the elections comes up with a list of their candidates and the people choose which list they prefer. The number of candidates from a party that would enter the House of Representatives or the Knesset is proportional to the percentage of votes received by the list. So representation in the Congress is dependent on party support and not really on individual support. In the United States, representation in Congress is not dependent on a certain party list. For someone to claim a seat in the US Senate, he must be at least 30 years old, and resident of the state where he is elected, among others, for the House of Representatives, he must be a resident of the District where he was elected. The US Constitution provides that the Senator and the Congressmen represent the cause of the people within their sector, the members of the Knesset on the other hand do not share the same responsibility. They were not voted to represent a certain district or state, they were voted to create the basic laws for the country and hold the greatest power in the land. In the United States, the powers of Congress are determined by their Constitution. In Israel, the powers of the Knesset are determined by the representatives themselves, the Declaration of Independence and the basic laws of the land (Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia n. pag. ). The citizens in the United States participate freely in the political process as they are granted such right by their Constitution. The Israelis do not enjoy the same right because the Knesset controls the political process. They create the law and give the people limited rights to meddle in the political process, even the Executive branch and the judiciary have limited powers when it comes to the countrys political affairs. Due to the lack of Constitution that will protect their rights, the people of Israel do not have an access to an established and equitable system rule of law. They only have access to the basic laws which were created by the Knesset. This kind of law does not guarantee protection at all times because they are still subject to the whims and caprices of the Knesset. They can easily be abolished and replaced anytime unlike if they have a Constitution, they will have greater rights because it will take a more rigorous process before this law can be amended. A Constitution provides the basic rights of every citizen and equalizes the power of everyone. No one in the Constitution has more power as compared to the other and the implementation of rights provided therein is not subject to the caprices of the law makers. Its stability makes the people more secure that their rights will be protected at all times. The United States, having a Constitution of its own, the people have an access to an established and equitable system of law. However, the absence of a Constitution does not mean that all the rights of the people are already unavailable. The people of Israel exercise the freedom of expression and belief. There is no law that attempts to filter the news that the media conveys, in fact, freedom of the press is deeply enjoyed by communicators. The Declaration of Independence mentions the principle of freedom of expression and secured in the basic law created by the Knesset. Public scrutiny is prevalent in Israeli news. Before 1993, media outfits were government owned but the government decided to change this policy and opened it for private ownership. There are around thirty daily newspapers in Israel, half are written in Hebrew and the other half are written in other languages (MSN Encarta Online Encyclopedia n. pag. ). The media in Israel enjoys the same freedom as the media in the United States. They can report on all aspects and can freely criticize the failings of the government. Arab journalists in Palestine or the Middle East do not enjoy the same rights. The country also hosts people a rich mixture of religious groups and each religion has its own school, councils and courts that decides on domestic issues such as marriage and divorce (Jewish Virtual Library n. pag. ). The Israelis also enjoy the freedom to assemble and to associate. They are not prohibited by the government to air out their sentiments to government policies through rallies and protests (Jewish Virtual Library n. pag. ). Socially, Israelis also enjoy freedom. They provide full equality for women they are not discriminated as compared to other Arab countries. They also recognize the differences of sexual orientation. Unlike most societies, homosexuality is not a sin in Israel. People are respected the way other people express themselves or perceive themselves to be. There is also no discrimination in jobs. The Israeli Arabs can be employed to menial jobs and even as Supreme Court Justices (Jewish Virtual Library n. pag. ) In terms of purchasing private property, the government does not restrict its purchase. Contrary to the speculations of some journalists, an Arab or a Jew may buy private property in Israel. There is no discrimination as to race or belief. However, the government prohibits the purchase of state land or those that are owned by the state to both Arabs and Jews. The prohibition is applicable to all. Some journalists and analysts, however, believe otherwise (Middle East Quarterly n. pag. ). Works cited â€Å"Fact Sheets† n. d. Jewish Virtual Library 11 May 2008 http://72. 14. 235. 104/search? q=cache:oI9BaF-Sxd4J: www. jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/talking/36_liberal. html+freedom+to+assemble+and+associate+in+Israelhl=tlct=clnkcd=3gl=phclient=firefox-a â€Å"Israel† n. d. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. 11 May 2008 http://encarta. msn. com/encyclopedia_761575008_8/Israel. html â€Å"The Israeli Government—How Does it Work? † n. d. Jewish Virtual Library. 11 May 2008 http://72. 14. 235. 104/search? q=cache:d_6PPHEkj0sJ:www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/Politics/how_govt_works. html+The+Israeli+Government+How+Does+It+Work%3Fhl=tlct=clnkcd=2gl=phclient=firefox-a Safian, Alexander. 1997 December. â€Å"Can Arabs Buy Land in Israel? † Middle East Quarterly. http://72. 14. 235. 104/search? q=cache:1bvrvPsLhg4J:www. meforum. org/article/370+private+property+purchase+in+Israelhl=tlct=clnkcd=1gl=phclient=firefox-a â€Å"US Congress† n. d. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. 11 May 2008 http://encarta. msn. com/encyclopedia_761554908_2/Congress. html â€Å"US Government. † n. d. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopeda. 11 May 2008 http://encarta. msn. com/encyclopedia_1741500781/United_States_Government. html

Ku Klux Klan :: essays research papers

Ku Klux Klan In the 1920s, the KKK was a secret society of WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) that targeted blacks, Catholics and minority groups. Their main aim was to put off these people from voting so that the people the KKK wanted in positions of power stayed there. It was first formed in 1865 as a social group for ex-confederate (southern) troops. It became more sinister after 1867 when it directed itself towards preventing former black slaves from voting. After the war the slaves had been given the right to vote, but the KKK thought that blacks were an inferior race and giving them political power was a bad idea. The robes, hoods and rituals of the Klan terrified African Americans in the south which appealed to white racists, and this cumulated in the Klansmen being involved in flogging, mutilating and killing African Americans. Between June of 1920 through October of 1921, it is estimated at much as 85,000 men joined the Ku Klux Klan. Although the Klan was the strongest in the midwest and the midsouth, it was a nation wide epidemic. Klan members fed off of Xenophobic, a fear of foreigners. Klan members believed that every Catholic in public life, no matter what position they held in society, must be watched carefully. â€Å"The modern Klan added an anti-Semitic element.† Klan theoreticians believed that the Jews were not only unproductive, there were also un-American. â€Å"Jew Movies Urge Sex and Vice,† the Klan title screamed like an echo from Ford’s Dearborn Independent. The position of woman in the humanities of the Klan was expressly conventional. The Klan believed in protection of women because they thought women could help in the â€Å"shaping of America†. Even though they believed so strongly in woman protection, this came at a costly price: violence. In the southern states of America, the Ku Klux Klan was involved innumerous violent attacks against African Americans. Klan intimidation was often targeted at schoolteachers and operatives of the federal Freedmen's Bureau. African American members of the Loyal Leagues were also the frequent targets of Klan raids. In a typical episode in Mississippi, according to the Congressional inquiry, â€Å"One of these teachers (Miss Allen of Illinois), whose school was at Cotton Gin Port in Monroe County, was visited ... between one and two o'clock in the morning on March, 1871, by about fifty men mounted and disguised. Each man wore a long white robe and his face was covered by a loose mask with scarlet stripes. Ku Klux Klan :: essays research papers Ku Klux Klan In the 1920s, the KKK was a secret society of WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) that targeted blacks, Catholics and minority groups. Their main aim was to put off these people from voting so that the people the KKK wanted in positions of power stayed there. It was first formed in 1865 as a social group for ex-confederate (southern) troops. It became more sinister after 1867 when it directed itself towards preventing former black slaves from voting. After the war the slaves had been given the right to vote, but the KKK thought that blacks were an inferior race and giving them political power was a bad idea. The robes, hoods and rituals of the Klan terrified African Americans in the south which appealed to white racists, and this cumulated in the Klansmen being involved in flogging, mutilating and killing African Americans. Between June of 1920 through October of 1921, it is estimated at much as 85,000 men joined the Ku Klux Klan. Although the Klan was the strongest in the midwest and the midsouth, it was a nation wide epidemic. Klan members fed off of Xenophobic, a fear of foreigners. Klan members believed that every Catholic in public life, no matter what position they held in society, must be watched carefully. â€Å"The modern Klan added an anti-Semitic element.† Klan theoreticians believed that the Jews were not only unproductive, there were also un-American. â€Å"Jew Movies Urge Sex and Vice,† the Klan title screamed like an echo from Ford’s Dearborn Independent. The position of woman in the humanities of the Klan was expressly conventional. The Klan believed in protection of women because they thought women could help in the â€Å"shaping of America†. Even though they believed so strongly in woman protection, this came at a costly price: violence. In the southern states of America, the Ku Klux Klan was involved innumerous violent attacks against African Americans. Klan intimidation was often targeted at schoolteachers and operatives of the federal Freedmen's Bureau. African American members of the Loyal Leagues were also the frequent targets of Klan raids. In a typical episode in Mississippi, according to the Congressional inquiry, â€Å"One of these teachers (Miss Allen of Illinois), whose school was at Cotton Gin Port in Monroe County, was visited ... between one and two o'clock in the morning on March, 1871, by about fifty men mounted and disguised. Each man wore a long white robe and his face was covered by a loose mask with scarlet stripes.

Racial Discrimination Essay

Racism and Discrimination are represented in the short story â€Å"Country Lovers† and the poem â€Å"What It’s like to be a Black Girl†. Both the short story and this poem have a main character which is protagonist black female. Both of the women deal with discrimination because of their race. Racism is something that we see, hear and experience in our everyday lives. Racism is something that people don’t speak about or address the issue, for example in the short story â€Å"Country Lovers†. The short story â€Å"Country Lovers† was written by Nadine Gordimer in 1975(Clugston, 2010). This short story is about a love between a black girl named Thebedi and white boy named Paulus Eysendyek taken place in Africa. The two of them played together much of their childhood days. Eventually time passed and they began growing up and distance themselves from one another. Paulus was the son of the farm owner and Thebedi’s father worked for Paulus’s father. They both knew that their friendship wasn’t accepted in the public. Throughout this short story there are examples of dramatic effects. The first examples is when the narrator talks about Paulus going away to school† This usefully coincides with the age of twelve or thirteen; so that by time early adolescence, is reached, the black children are making along with the bodily changes common to all, an easy transition to adult forms of address, beginning to call their old playmates missus and baasie little = master† (Clugston, 2010). The friendship created between them during their childhood still remains. Paulus’ and Thebedi’s parents never told them, they couldn’t see each other but yet, there was always this unspoken knowledge that Paulus and Thebedi couldn’t be friends publicly. An example of the unspoken racism Paulus came home from school and brought Thebedi a gift. She told her father the missus had given them her reward for some works she had done at the farmhouse. She  told the girls in the kraal that she had a sweetheart nobody knew about tat away, away on another farm, they giggled, teased, and admire her. (Clugston,2010). The loss of innocence and love that shouldn’t be was described when Paulus watches Thebedi play in the water. â€Å" The school girls he went swimming in the dams or pools on neighboring farms wore bikinis but the sight of their dazzling bellies and thighs in the sunlight had never made him feel what he felt now when the girl came up the bank and sat beside him, the drops of water beading off her dark legs the only points of light in the earth-smelling deep shade. They were not afraid of one another, they had known one another always, and he did with her what he had done that time in the store room at the wedding, and this time it was so lovely, so lovely, he was surprised and she was surprised by it, he could see in her dark face that was part of the shade, with her big dark eyes, shiny as soft water, watching him attentively: as she had when they used to huddle over their teams of mud oxen, as she had when he told her about detention weekends at school.† (Clugston 201 0) At the end of this short story when Paulus arrived home from veterinary college for the holidays. The racism is very real throughout the city. Paulos finds out that the young black girl Thebedi had given birth to a baby. He goes to Thebedi’s hut to see for himself. When her reaches the hut and see’s the baby. He struggled for a moment with tears, anger and self-pity. He asked,† You haven’t been near the house with it?† (Clugston, 2010) His reaction showed that he knew their relationship could never be public knowledge. He was ashamed of her and the baby. As the story comes to an end Paulus returned to the hut where Thebedi and the baby lived: â€Å"She thought she heard small grunts from the hut, the kind of infant grunt that indicates a full stomach, a deep sleep. After a time short or long she didn’t know that he came out and walked away plodding stride (his father’s gait) out of sight, towards his father’s house† (Clugston, 2010). The realization that Paulus killed the infant child that day when returned to Thebedi’s hut. â€Å"The baby was not fed during the night and although she kept telling Najabulo it was sleeping, he saw for himself in the morning that the baby was dead. He comforted her with words and caresses. She did not cry but simply sat, staring at the door (Clugston, 2010). Reading this story showed racial discrimination in the community. It showed a community divided because of race. And because of racism, it cause a sad tragedy between two people that was madly in love. The poem â€Å"What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl† (For those of you who aren’t)† (Clugston, 2010), which was written by Patricia Smith in 1991. An explanation in its purest form of â€Å"What It’s like to be a Black Girl (for those of you who aren’t) by Patricia Smith, the explanation from the first three syllables† First of all,† the author gives a sense of a story being told. She uses sentence structure and language to show the reader the seriousness of her topic Smith’s poem. Smith’s poem gives reader’s an insider’s view into a young black girl’s transition to a woman at a time when being black was hard for society to deal with color of black people. Puberty is defined by biological changes a young girl’s body experiences starting around age 9 to age 15. â€Å"It’s being 9 year old and feeling like your edges are wild, like there’s something, everything, wrong.† (Smith, 4). The puberty transformation for a young girl has to be difficult. The poem† What’s it’s like to be a Black Girl†, is a look into the mind of a black girl growing in a society that promotes racism and discrimination, both of race and gender. Not knowing where you fit into society being a young black girl and also trying to accept your body going through puberty changes. As a black girl, taught to be ashamed of who you are, how you look and where you come from. This black girl wanted society to accept her or she would rather be white in order to be accepted in society. Nadine Gordimer was born in 1923,† She has lived in South Africa since birth except for a year she spent in college has devoted all her adult life to  writing-13 novels and 10 short stories collections, her work have been published in 40 different languages. The socioeconomic system is a dominant theme in her writing, later her works reflect challenges accompanying the changing attitudes in the country toward racism. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991† (Clugston, 2010). Patricia Smith who was born in 1955, was an African American poet and performance artist has won the National Poetry slam four times. The hardship that black women suffered in the poem and the short story is still being suffered by black women and black men growing up being discriminating against created a dramatic story. While reading this poem, I could understand being a black man and raise by a black woman in Tuskegee, Alabama the discrimination she was feeling even though it was a different time and place. At times, the story and poem showed emotions of happiness and sadness. In conclusion, I feel both authors was feeling the same way about racism and discrimination. The views of racism and discrimination was demonstrated in Nadine Gordimer’s†Country Lovers† and Patricia Smith’s† What It’s like to be a Black Girl† (For those of you who aren’t). In both readings, as a reader you could see the hardship that each character faced because of racism and discrimination of black people especially black women. References Clugston, R.W.(2010). Country Lovers, Nadine Gordimer. In Journey into Literature (chapter3) Clugston, R.W. (2010). Poems For Reflection, In Journey into Literature( chapter 2 section 2)

Family and Tan Ling Wei

I am an ordinary soon to be 20 years old girl from an ordinary family with extraordinary fantasies. My name is Tan Ling Wei, but since everybody is having a difficult time to pronounce Chinese names, I would rather be called as Zoey. I’m a Malaysian Chinese, and I was born in a big city with big shopping malls – Kuala Lumpur. When I was younger, I used to stay in Bentong which is my hometown in Pahang with my parents together with my grandparents. Since my parents were busy earning for a living, my grandparents were my guardians. Grandpa was my favourite person because he was the one who pampered me the most.He would grant whatever wish I wished for, even if it was the stars in the sky which takes about more than 50,000 years to make the journey. I remembered there was once, my grandpa took me out on a bike to buy me a school bag. I was so young and I did not know how to place my legs on the passenger seat, consequently I hurt my foot by getting it trapped in the bicycl e wheel. I was crying very loudly on the way home because I couldn’t stand the pain and there was a lot of blood. Grandpa’s face was full with guilt when he saw his beloved grandchild got hurt. Eventually, the crying stopped after grandpa’s continuous comforting.The biggest gratitude goes to my mom. She’s not only an ordinary fulltime housewife, but also my dad’s part time personal assistant. On the other hand, she is the one who travels up and down to send me to university and my brother to school. Well, to put it in a nutshell, she has no time for herself at all. When I was 2 years old, I was admitted into the hospital and told that I had bronchitis. She was the one who took up the responsibility to take care of me, staying in the ward with me even when she was pregnant with my brother. A mother’s love is indeed instinctual, unconditional and forever for her child.The closest person when I was young was my dad. He was the one who would pat iently read me poems and stories when I was a baby. Whenever he got back from his work, he would snuggle me in his arms and sing me nursery rhymes. But as I age and hit puberty, our relationship drifted apart. I stopped having physical contacts with dad. Perhaps I was shy since I started noticing changes between females and males. However, the love I had for dad has never changed. Instead of expressing, it lays hidden. Ever heard of love and hate and relationship? Well, that’s the relationship I have with my 17 years old brother.When we were young, we were like cats and dogs, fighting for toys, practically we fight for everything even until today. Even so, blood is thicker than water. Whenever we face any problems in life, we would console each other, and of course be there for each other. My brother and I have one thing in common, that is we love playing computer games. Whenever there’s free time, both of us would spend time playing Blackshot together either as team m ates or rival to kill the time. Which girl would ever play computer games? That’s the common question whenever I come across to any of my friends.Well, that would be me. The reason why am I so boyish is because when I was a toddler, I mixed mostly with my cousin brothers. When I finally got into a primary school, my friends were all boys, because they were less dramatic. During the recess time, the boys would invite me to the field for football. Overtime, my character died hard and hence the boyishness and clumsiness. I love to read since I started my high school. According to one of my Indian good friend, my English was very bad when I was in form 1. We still laugh about it today whenever she tells the story of me speaking broken English in class.I started mixing around with the English educated friends to improve my English. Whenever I’ve difficulty understanding any English vocabulary, I would reach out to my friends and ask for an explanation. Furthermore, I starte d to build up the interest in reading. In the year 2008, when I was in my form 3, Twilight Saga had become famous as a romance novel about vampire love story. Since then, I started to have crazy fantasies of becoming a vampire as I could be an immortal and that I could keep my youth forever. As silly as I could be, reality is always cruel. No one can ever live as an immortal.Everyone’s life will come to an end eventually when the time comes. Well, that’s my autobiography, a really simple one but of course, there’s much more in life that I couldn’t express in words here in this essay. I believe nobody is perfect. Everyone has their own flaws, so do I. Life is just like a roller coaster with ups and downs. It just boils down to every individual on how they deal with it. Last but not leaset, I would like to end with a favourite quote of mine about life, â€Å"Life doesn't require that we be the best, only that we try our best. †- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Imagery in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest Essays

Imagery in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest Essays Imagery in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest Paper Imagery in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest Paper The Image of Insanity In a world of technology and cities of massive population, in which strangers abound and close relationships are limited, society itself appears to be one large, emotionless machine, chi guying along with no care whatsoever for the individuals that make up the huge entity. A proponent of rebellion against conformity himself, Ken Keyes expresses his views on the demutualization of society in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest through vivid imagery. More than a novel about the struggles of the individual characters or a representation of the dilemma of insane versus sane, One Flew is a statement about the cause f insanity. Through the imagery in Chief Bromides narration, Keyes reveals that the demutualization and conformity Of society is the true cause Of insanity. The patients of the mental hospital are constantly seen as an entity separate from the rest of society. The ward is isolated, and initially the only mention of the outside world is in a figurative sense. The Public Relation man and the women who he takes on tours of the hospital and the entrance of Big Nurse from the outside both reveal that the world continues moving outside, but Chief can see out the windows for the first half of the novel. Because Nurse Ratchet must unlock the door to enter, it gives the ward a further feeling of separation from the rest of society. This distinct difference marks the reason that these men are in the ward to begin with: they do not fit in to their roles in society. As Harding says to McCarthy at one point, All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippy-hopping through our Walt Disney world. Oh, dont misunderstand me, iv?re not in here because were rabbits Were all here because we can adjust to our arbitrator (Keyes 61 Here Harding is revealing both the separation between the ward and the rest f the world, and that the reason the patients are in the ward to begin with is that they cant integrate With society properly. A common vein of Keyess works is the alienated and nonconformist individuals, who attempt To overcome their limitations and to retain their sanity (Ken Keyes). In One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, the nonconformists are already labeled insane and are struggling to find a place and retain some sense of individuality while the Combine attempts to turn them into effective parts of society. Nurse Ratchet is the face of the Combine in this endeavor, a perfect representative f a standardized, conformist, correct outside world, whose elemental desire is to protect itself against non-conformity or incorrectness (Wieldier). In this strictly regimented world of the ward the nonconformist patients have already given up for the most part, and the only thing preventing them from becoming just another part Of society is their own personalities, which are seemingly out of control. Into this attempt to make the patients fit into conventional society, where Ratchet is trying to build A little world Inside that is a made-to-scale prototype of the big world Outside (Keyes 48-49), tepees McCarthy, the embodiment of individuality and nonconformity. McCarthy is the architect of the patients rebellion against Big Nurse Ratchet and the obedient and unquestioning society she represents. He begins the fight against Big Nurses mechanized world. McCarthy represents individuality and self-reliance. He is the wild-west good guy who is a figure of the untamed natural world itself (Swallowing 124-125). In contrast, the Combine and society are euthanized, described in very mechanical terms. The term Combine itself implies the mechanical nature. The unification of society as one, the combining every person into one mass, without any identification of the individual, and also a combine, or a harvester, a machine that gathers crops, or in this case, people. According to Broaden, the bastards who work for the Combine Slip one of their machines in on you (Keyes 12). He also describes a nighttime scene in which the dorm sinks down into the basement where robot-like workers move in repetitive motions in a furnace-like room, and a patient named Plastic is hooked by his heel and treated like a side of meat (78-81 In these Ways the Combine harvests the people who cannot fit in with the structure and rules of society. Everything about the ward is described in a mechanical way. The imagery rev eals that this made-to-scale copy of the Outside has become completely euthanized. All of the workers, and especially Big Nurse, appear robotic. She carries wheels and gears, needles, pliers and copper wire (10) and makes precise, always calculated movements and gestures. Even her facial expressions are calculated and cold. The imagery of the black boys is slightly more humankind, as they are described as having emotions, but the Hum of lack machinery, humming hate and death and other hospital secrets (10) still provides mechanical imagery. Even the ward itself is managed in a strict manner, with a very repetitive routine. As Tanner describes, The phantom machines Broaden describes in the walls and in the people are part of a significant pattern of imagery used to develop the central theme concerning technological manipulation (22). Titles like Vegetables, Wheelers, Chronics, Acutest, and even the black boys are another sign of how the ward suppresses individuality and dehumidifies the patients in order to mold hem into proper members of society, because society itself is euthanized. Therefore, Macarthur first acts of rebellion occur when he first enters the ward. He goes against procedure by refusing to shower, and then he crosses the line between the segregated groups. Despite [knowing] right away hes not a Chronic (Keyes 22), he goes around the room and shakes the hands of not only the Acutest, but also the Chronics and even the Vegetables. As unconsciously as this he begins his rebellion against the ward, against the Combine, and against accepted society. As the representative Of individuality, McCarthy is the key fighter in the small scale war. Far from being euthanized, the imagery Keyes uses to portray McCarthy is very natural, rough and untamed. Beat up and rough, with a palm that was callused, and the calluses were cracked, and dirt was worked into the cracks. A road map of his travels up and down the West (27), McCarthy held the spirit of untamed nature and the West, the very epitome of individual work and self-reliance. Once the Keeps imagery set the stage in the readers mind, the contrasting imagery of Machine and Nature is identified, [and] the battle lines for the entrap conflict are readily apparent (Tanner 28). The patients rebellion progresses the conflict between nature and euthanized society. [T]he symbolic rebellion of these characters is transformed into a full-scale political protest directed specifically at the existing power structure (Lieberman). This existing structure being the mechanized, technological society represented by the Combine. Keyes was using the attitude of his time period to add to the realization that One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was a parallel to the events of the real world. He gave he readers something more to think about, critiquing an American society that was portrayed in the serious media of the sass as consisting of a lonely crowd Of organization men, Offered affluence only if willing to pay the price Of conformity (Tanner 18). It was the distressed and tense feelings that were prevalent in this style of society that led to the activism and rebellion of the sis (Ken Kef). As a representation of that rebellious attitude, One Flew utilizes the same tensions and mind-sets to promote the patients rebellion. Although the rebellion starts off with a somewhat political appearance, including the sit-down strike that the men go on when Ratchet, despite us poised encouraging a democratic-style ward, refuses to let them watch the World Series despite having voted to be able to (Keyes 127-128), as it continues, it becomes associated with nature in some ways as well. As the exact opposite of machinery and technology, nature became the sign of the patients successes in the covert war. As the rebellion scene most associated with nature, the fishing trip that McCarthy organized for the patients represented the peak of their success. In fighting standardized society, the men are fighting the very thing which isolated them and cast them aside. Because they could not or would not conform, they were sometimes driven or sometimes simply labeled as insane. The machines and other images he sees are the product of [his] fear- distorted imagination Fear, paranoia, weakness, and disorientation from nature (Tanner 27). In some ways the patients of the mental hospital are no less sane than the people out of it, but they are unable to adjust to the reality of society. Lieberman interprets the patients insanity in a similar way, stating that many of them are not mad at all, unless they have been unhinged by the craziness in the world at large. This logic is supported by the fact that most of the men were voluntarily committed, and it is revealed that many of them got worse within the hospital. Chief Broaden is such a character. Harding implies that it was the treatments the doctors used that actually did the most damage. He says, Ive heard that the Chief, years ago, received more than two hundred shock treatments. Imagine what this could do to a mind that was already slipping (Keyes 65). In the past, mental illnesses were often wrongly diagnosed or completely ignored, and treatment id little more than chain or cage the patient, while actual treatments often comprised of medication, electroshock therapy, or cryosurgery that could do more damage than good (Historical Context). In addition, it has been questioned whether mental hospitals dont actually cause people to appear insane or act insane in response to a bizarre setting (Hornlike 113). Keyes, along with many other modern writers, presents madness more as a moral condition that stands as an indictment of modern society, simply a product of social corruption (Lieberman). As McCarthy says, You boys dont kook so crazy to me' (Keyes 22). Although a large percentage of the patients clearly have some mental problems, he sees some issues as being simply a part of being human, and therefore imperfect. To him insanity is not an explanation of anything A dead-end label, an excuse. To be crazy is not to be without sense (Hornlike 114). Even some Of the more insane men seem to have a deep meaning behind their insanity. During a dream-like sequence, Broaden comes across Colonel Matters, a Chronic patient who makes bizarre metaphors such as Mexico is The wall-nut, and Broaden alkalizes Hes been saying this sort of thing for the whole six years hes been here, but never paid him any mind, figured he Didnt make a lick of sense. Now, at last, I see what hes saying (Keyes 120). As Broaden explains, the man was making his own sort of sense, even if no one else understood. McCarthy also understands this type of logic, and teaches the inmates of the insane asylum to create their own truths (Pick), which is, in a way, what Broaden has done in his creation of the mechanical underworld that no one else can see. The relationship between nature and machinery in the conflict f the rebellion also reveals the affects that the demutualization of society has on people. There is a correlation throughout the novel between the imagery used (mechanical or natural) and the mental health of the patients, and especially the Chief. Although it is hard to pinpoint a time where Chief can be declared completely sane, his perception of reality definitely improves throughout the novel. He continues to think of things in terms of the Combine and the machines, but he no longer sees things that arent really there, he is just interpreting what he sees in strange ways. His improvement can be edged by the imagery he presents in his narration. The first event that reveals his improvement is when the fog machine supposedly breaks. Before this the fog was almost a defense mechanism for Broaden, one he used to shield himself from other people and from reality. When McCarthy argues with Big Nurse about watching the World Series, the fog rolls in heavy and surrounds Broaden, but one of the things he sees in the fog is his father, who he tends to associate with nature because his childhood was surrounded by the natural world. After this, Chief continues through a dream-sequence tit the fog all around, but when McCarthy calls for a vote, he manages to push through the fog and raise his hand, connecting him back to reality. This meeting supposedly causes the fog machine to break, and Broaden remains in touch with his own version of reality for quite some time after this. The next big step for Broaden is when he wakes up to reality in the middle of the night, walks to the window, and is actually able to see outside. Here he begins to recapture some of his former feelings about nature (Madden 1 55), but the power of the machine is reinforced when a dog he sees is run over by car in the same scene. Despite this reminder, the Chief continues to regain his sanity. He begins to remember more of his childhood memories, most of which are associated with nature (Madden 155-156). In this way, the more he sees and remembers nature, and the more vivid his imagery of nature is, the more sane he is, as well. In contrast to Broaden, McCarthy begins to lose touch with nature and, eventually, with sanity. He enters the novel and the hospital bigger than life and restores the inmates power, [but] ends as a clockwork version Of his former self* (Pick). At the end of the novel, just before Broaden executes him and then escapes, McCarthy is described as a crummy sideshow fake (270), by the patients who dont believe he could ever become less than the Wild West style hero he was to them. His face is empty, like a dummy. He has finally been caught and euthanized by the Combine. After killing the fake McCarthy, Broaden escapes from the hospital by tearing out a control panel and tossing it through the safety-glass window. He heard the wires and connections tearing out of the floor. The glass splashed out in the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping art (Keyes 271-272). This imagery shows nature escaping from the machine, just as Broaden is finally escaping from the control of the Combine. He is finally able to get away and reaffirm his connection with nature, and by doing so he IS able to reinforce his recovered sanity. The fact that his escape from depredations and euthanized society is so closely linked with his sanity confirms Keyes belief that society causes insanity. Keyes uses imagery through One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to present to the reader the idea that the focus on technology, machinery and diversification in our society s associated with insanity, while nature is, in contrast, connected to sanity.

Alphabetical List of the Elements

Alphabetical List of the Elements There are 118 elements on the periodic table. Heres a list of the chemical elements, arranged alphabetically according to IUPAC name: ActiniumAluminumAmericiumAntimonyArgonArsenicAstatineBariumBerkeliumBerylliumBismuthBohriumBoronBromineCadmiumCalciumCaliforniumCarbonCeriumCesiumChlorineChromiumCobaltCoperniciumCopperCuriumDarmstadtiumDubniumDysprosiumEinsteiniumErbiumEuropiumFermiumFleroviumFluorineFranciumGadoliniumGalliumGermaniumGoldHafniumHassiumHeliumHolmiumHydrogenIndiumIodineIridiumIronKryptonLanthanumLawrenciumLeadLithiumLivermoriumLutetiumMagnesiumManganeseMeitneriumMendeleviumMercuryMolybdenumMoscoviumNeodymiumNeonNeptuniumNickelNihoniumNiobiumNitrogenNobeliumOganessonOsmiumOxygenPalladiumPhosphorusPlatinumPlutoniumPoloniumPotassiumPraseodymiumPromethiumProtactiniumRadiumRadonRheniumRhodiumRoentgeniumRubidiumRutheniumRutherfordiumSamariumScandiumSeaborgiumSeleniumSiliconSilverSodiumStrontiumSulfurTantalumTechnetiumTelluriumTennessineTerbiumThalliumThoriumThuliumTinTitaniumTungstenUraniumVanadiumXenonYtterbiumYttriumZincZirconium Source Emsley, J. (2003). Natures Building Blocks: An A–Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-850340-8.

How could you use a baptismal candle with year 1 in a RE lesson Essay

How could you use a baptismal candle with year 1 in a RE lesson - Essay Example This is symbolic of the truth of the Word of God as it provides a light and a lamp to guide the path of the believer. Darkness is symbolic of ignorance and death. The lit candle can illuminate for the believer the path of life. (Thurston, 1908) Let the student brainstorm other symbolic function of candle in the Christian faith. Candles can be symbolic of love. The warmth they generate can be felt during a marriage ceremony. The bride and groom often light a candle at this time to symbolize their love. Their closeness, just like the flame, can produce both warmth and pain. Let the student think further by letting them discuss the origin of light and its symbolic effect on our life. Jesus himself claimed to be the "Light of the World" (John 8:12). The candle can symbolize Jesus Christ, as the believer carries the light of Christ with him or her. The candle itself burns away, as does the material body, but the fire represents the eternal truth of those who believe. The flame of the candle is symbolic of faith itself. If not guarded, the flame may be extinguished. The believer must protect the flame of faith as she or he does the flame of the candle against the winds of lifes experiences. (Sheehy, 2002:47-59) Sheehy, Kieron (2002). The Effective Use of Symbols in Teaching Word Recognition to Children with Severe Learning Difficulties: a comparison of word alone, integrated picture cueing and the handle technique. International Journal of Disability, Development & Education, 49(1), pp.

Family Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Family Law - Essay Example Thus, the clause most applicable in this case is one of â€Å"unreasonable behaviour† on part of James. (Family Law Act 1996) It is important to note that the reason for divorce has very little bearing on how the court decides the award of maintenance amount, property ownership/share, etc (Cook 2006). Similarly, decisions regarding the children are made independent of property issues and spouse maintenance issues. Even though the Victorian house is inherited by James, there is no guarantee that he will retain his complete ownership of the house after divorce. Though Susan has not contributed financially to the home or the bills during the marriage, she still has a right to make a claim, for she has â€Å"contributed in kind†. Her complete care for the children allowed James to concentrate on his career. Thus, Susan has a â€Å"beneficial interest† on the property and the court will consider the house as â€Å"Matrimonial Property† (www.dca.gov.uk). The court even has the power to transfer ownership, if need be. Before deciding on how to share the property, the court will take into account the length of the marriage, the parties’ age, their lifestyle needs, their earning capacity and the children’s needs. (Family Law Act 1996) Essentially, when a couple seek divorce, a court can, and quite often does, divide up the matrimonial assets, his, hers and theirs, in any way it sees fit. The resolution of financial disputes in a divorce case is also known as â€Å"ancillary relief†. Regardless of who owns the property, the court may have it transferred to the other and this applies to all property owned either by James or Susan as well as the jointly owned ones. (Watson-Lee 2006) Ownership and Tenancy are two different things. Susan had indicated her wish to continue living in the house along with the children. Susan is being reasonable in making this claim. Given the previous case histories of divorce cases, it could be

A Short story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

A Short story - Essay Example Based on his dad interest in driving and education, Tom used to be driven to the school every day in the morning and in the evening. His father, though a good driver who emulated the road signs and rules was a tough driver who drove with a high speed unless there was a traffic jam. During his trip to the school, Tom used to ask his father many questions as to why he was driving in that high speed and go between cars yet the car was not involved in an accident. His father did not lie to him but informed Tom that diligent and confident is the major aspect that a good driver is supposed to follow. This made Tom to have an interest in driving. Tom’s dad was a person who wanted his children to develop their career at their early ages. During the holidays, Tom used most of his free time driving with James, his father. In this way, Tom closely interacted with his father and he was in a better position to ask all the disturbing questions that he was asking as they were driving to and from the school. His father on the other hand, allowed Tom to drive in flat areas where there were no cars in order to avoid accidents. Most notably, the father taught Tom on all the aspects of driving including the physical parts of a motor vehicle and the road signs. When being taught by his father Tom used to disturb him with all sought of questions. Being eager to know how to drive and become an excellent driver, Tom loved the way his father drove the family and this inspired him. Whenever the car could get a puncture, James would repair the puncture and the journey would continue without delay. The basic mechanic process that Tom†™s dad used to undertake any time the car experienced problems inspired Tom since he would look at his father going down the car and try to make things work in the right manner. Though Tom’s dad used to allow Tom to drive in lowlands and where their were no vehicles, his father one day as they were driving from school to

On the Implant Communication and MAC Protocols for a WBAN

On the Implant Communication and MAC Protocols for a WBAN Abstract Recent advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), wireless communication, low-power intelligent sensors, and semiconductor technologies have allowed the realization of a wireless body area network (WBAN). A WBAN provides unobtrusive health monitoring for a long period of time with real-time updates to the physician. It is widely used for ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, and military applications. The implantable and wearable medical devices have several critical requirements such as power consumption, data rate, size, and low-power medium access control (MAC) protocols. This article consists of two parts: body implant communication, which is concerned with the communication to and from a human body using RF technology, and WBAN MAC protocols, which presents several low-power MAC protocols for a WBAN with useful guidelines. In body implant communication, the in-body radio frequency (RF) performance is affected considerably by the implants depth inside the human body as well as by the muscle and fat. We observe best performance at a depth of 3cm and not close to the human skin. Furthermore, the study of low-power MAC protocols highlights the most important aspects of developing a single, a low-power, and a reliable MAC protocol for a WBAN. Keywords: In-body, on-body, RF communication, Implant, WBAN 1. Introduction Cardiovascular diseases are the foremost cause of deaths in the United States and Europe since 1900. More than ten million people are affected in Europe, one million in the US, and twenty two million people in the world [1]. The number is projected to be triple by 2020, resulting in an expenditure of around 20% of the gross domestic product (GDP). The ratio is 17% in South Korea and 39% in the UK [2]. The healthcare expenditure in the US is expected to be increased from $2.9 trillion in 2009 to $4 trillion US dollars in 2015 [3]. The impending health crisis attracts researchers, industrialists, and economists towards optimal and quick health solutions. The non-intrusive and ambulatory health monitoring of patients vital signs with real time updates of medical records via internet provide economical solutions to the health care systems. A wireless body area network (WBAN) is becoming increasingly important for healthcare systems, sporting activities, and members of emergency as well as military services. WBAN is an integration of in-body (implants) and on-body (wearable) sensors that allow inexpensive, unobtrusive, and long-term health monitoring of a patient during normal daily activities for prolonged periods of time. In-body radio frequency (RF) communications have the potential to dramatically change the future of healthcare. For example, they allow an implanted pacemaker to regularly transmit performance data and the patients health status to the physician. However, the human body poses many wireless transmission challenges. This is partially conductive and consists of materials having different dielectric constants and characteristics impedance. The interface of muscles and fats may reflect the RF wave rather than transmitting it. The key elements of an RF-linked implant are the in-body antenna and the communi cation link performance. Also, in the case of many implants and wearable sensors, a low-power MAC protocol is required to accommodate the heterogeneous traffic in a power-efficient manner. This article is divided into two parts: body implant communication and WBAN MAC protocols. In the body implant communication part, we look at the RF communication link performance at various depths inside a human (artificial) body. In the MAC part, we review the existing low-power MAC protocols and discuss their pros and cons in the context of a WBAN. We further provide alternative MAC solutions for in-body and on-body communication systems. The rest of the article is divided into three sections. In section 2, we present a discussion on body implant communication including in-body electromagnetic induction, RF communication, antenna design, and the communication link performance. Section 3 discusses several low-power MAC protocols and realizes a need for a new, a low-power, and a reliable MAC protocol for a WBAN. The final section concludes our work. 2. Body Implant Communication There are several ways to communicate with an implant that includes the use of electromagnetic induction and RF technology. Both are wireless and their use depends on the application requirements. Further, the key elements of an RF-linked implant are the in-body antenna and the communication link performance. The following part discusses in-body electromagnetic induction, RF communication, antenna design, and the communication link performance. 2.1. In-body Electromagnetic Induction Several applications still use electromagnetic coupling to provide a communication link to an implant device. In this scheme, an external coil is held very close to the body that couples to a coil implanted just below the skin surface. The implant is powered by the coupled magnetic field and requires no battery for communication. Data is transferred from the implant by altering the impedance of the implanted loop that is detected by the external coil and electronics. This type of communication is commonly used to identify animals that have been injected with an electronic tag. Electromagnetic induction is used when continuous, long-term communication is required. The base band for electromagnetic communication is typically 13.56 MHz or 28 MHz, with other frequencies also available. The choice of a particular band is subject to regulation for maximum specific absorption rate (SAR). The inductive coupling achieves best power transfer efficiency when uses large transmit and receive coil s. It, however, becomes less efficient when the space is an issue of the device is implanted deep inside the human body. Furthermore, inductive coupling technique does not support a very high data rate and cannot initiate a communication session from inside of the body. 2.2. In-body RF Communication Compared with the electromagnetic induction, RF communication dramatically increases bandwidth and supports a two-way data communication. The band designated for the in-body RF communication is medical implant communication service (MICS) band and is around 403 to 405 MHz. This band has a power limit of 25  µW in the air and is usually split into ten channels of 300 kHz bandwidth each. The human body is a medium that poses numerous wireless transmission challenges. It consists of various components that are not predictable and will change as the patient ages, gains or losses weight, or even changes posture. Values of dielectric constant (ÃŽ µr), conductivity (ÏÆ') and characteristic impedance (Zo) for some body tissue are given in table 1 [4]. This demonstrates that these two tissue types are very different. Also, the dielectric constant affects the wavelength of a signal. At 403 MHz, the wavelength in the air is 744mm, but in muscle with ÃŽ µr = 50 the wavelength reduces to 105mm, which helps in designing implanted antennas. 2.3. In-body Antenna Design A modern in-body antenna should be tuneable by using an intelligent transceiver and software routine. This enables the antenna coupling circuit to be optimised. Due to the frequency, and available volume, a non-resonant antenna is commonly used. It has a lower gain than a resonant antenna. This makes design of the antenna coupling circuit very important. Antenna options are dictated by the location of the implant. A patch antenna can be used when the implant is flat. Patch antennas are comprised of a flat insulating substrate coated on both sides with a conductor. The substrate is a body compatible material with a platinum or a platinum/iridium conductor. The upper surface is the active face and is connected to the transceiver. The connection to the transceiver needs to pass through the case where the hermetic seal is maintained, requiring a feed-through. The feed-through must have no filter capacitors present; these are common on other devices. An implanted patch antenna is electrically larger than its physical size because it is immersed in a high (ÃŽ µr) medium. It can be much larger electrically if the substrate is of higher (ÃŽ µr), such as titania or zirconia. A loop antenna can also be attached to the implant. This antenna operates mostly by the magnetic field, whereas the patch operates mostly by the electric field. The loop antenna delivers performance comparable to that of a dipole, but with a considerably smaller size. In addition, the magnetic permeability of muscle or fat is very similar to that of an air, unlike the dielectric constant that varies considerably. This property enables an antenna to be built and used with much less need for retuning. A loop antenna can be mounted on the case in a biocompatible structure. 2.4. In-body Link Performance The demonstration system consists of a base-station, an implant, antennas, and a controlling laptop. The base-station contains a printed circuit board (PCB) with a wakeup RF circuit, a Zarlink ZL70101 IC, and a micro-controller. It sends a wakeup signal on industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) 2.4 GHz band to power up the implant to communicate. It also supports communication within the MICS band. The implant contains a Zarlink ZL70101 IC, a micro-controller, and a battery. The power limits of the wakeup signal for ISM and MICS bands transmitters are 100mW and 25  µW respectively. Experiments that measure the performance of an implant inside a living body are difficult to arrange. The alternative is to use 3D simulation software or a body phantom defined in [5]. The use of 3D simulation software is time consuming and hence practically not valuable. Therefore, measurements are generally performed using the body phantom and immersing a battery-powered implant into it [6]. Since no additional cables are attached to the test implant, the interference errors in the measurements are minimal. The body phantom is filled with a liquid that mimics the electrical properties of the human body tissues. The test environment is an anechoic chamber that includes a screened room. The interior walls of the room have sound-absorbent cones to minimize any reflections from walls or the floor that could distort the results. In real life, however, the results will be affected by the reflections from walls, desks, and other equipment and hardware. The body phantom is mounted on a woo den stand (non-conductive). The distance from the body phantom to the base-station is 3m. The MICS base-station dipole antenna is mounted on a stand. 1(a) shows the anechoic chamber with a body phantom (on the wooden stand), a log periodic test antenna (foreground), and a base-station dipole (right). The log periodic antenna is used to calculate the power radiated from the body phantom. A depth is defined as the horizontal distance between the outer skin of the phantom and the test implant. Vertical polarization of the implant is the case when the long side of the box and the patch antenna is vertical. The link performance is measured once the communication link is established. The measurements include the effective radiated power (ERP) from the implant, the received signal at the implant from the base-station, and the link quality. Measurements are made over a set distance with all the combinations of implant and test antenna polarisations, i.e., vertical-vertical (V-V), horizontal-vertical (H-V), vertical-horizontal (V-H), and horizontal-horizontal (H-H) polarisations. Typical results are shown in 1(b) where the ERP is calculated from the received signal power and the antenna characteristics. The measurement of the signal levels is done with the log periodic antenna and the spectrum analyzer. It can be seen in the that there is a significant difference in signal levels with polarisation combinations and depths. For a V-V polarisation, the ERP increases from a 1cm depth to a maximum between 2 and 7 cm, and then it decreases. The gradual increase is due to the simulated body acti ng as a parasitic antenna. The also shows how the signal level is affected by the depth with different polarisation. Such a test needs to be done with the antenna that is to be used in the final product. To measure the received signal at the implant, the Zarlink ZL70101 has an inbuilt receive signal strength indication (RSSI) function that gives a measure of the signal level detected. RSSI is a relative measurement with no calibration. The implant receives and measures a continuous wave signal transmitted by the base-station. In this case, the implant and the base-station antennas are vertically polarised. 1(c) shows an increase in the signal level at a depth between 3 and 4cm for a 15dec power. The power settings refer to the base-station and are cond to set the ERP to 25  µW. Signal levels are not valuable unless they are related to data transmission. One way to maintain the link quality is to measure the number of times the error correction is invoked during the transmission of 100 blocks of data. Two types of error correction codes, i.e., error correction code (ECC) and cyclic redundancy code (CRC) are invoked to maintain data integrity and reliability. The fewer ECC and CRC invocations result in better link quality. In 1(d), the error correction is lowest at a depth between 3 and 5 cm. A sample of ECC data collected at a 3cm implant depth is given in Table 2. The Count indicates the number of data blocks, the Time (ms) indicates the block transmission time, and the ECC indicates the number of times it is invoked. During the transmission of 100 blocks of data at a 3cm depth, the ECC is invoked 368 times, which is further equivalent to an average 3.68 times (as given in 1(d)). 2.5. Discussion The ERP, RSSI, as well as the ECC and CRC plots show that the implant demonstrates the best performance at a depth between 3 and 5 cm. The depth and position of an implant is not chosen for engineering performance but for the best clinical reasons. The implant designer must be aware of the possible losses through the human body. The attenuation and the parasitic antenna effects vary from patient to patient, with the position of the implant and with the time as the patient gains, or looses weight. Therefore, these factors need to be built into the link budget. 3. WBAN MAC Protocols Some of the common objectives in a WBAN are to achieve maximum throughput, minimum delay, and to maximize the network lifetime by controlling the main sources of energy waste, i.e., collision, idle listening, overhearing, and control packet overhead. A collision occurs when more than one packet transmits data at the same time. The collided packets have to be retransmitted, which consumes extra energy. The second source of energy waste is idle listening, meaning that a node listens to an idle channel to receive data. The third source is overhearing, i.e., to receive packets that are destined to other nodes. The last source is control packet overhead, meaning that control information area added to the payload. Minimal number of control packets should be used for data transmission. Generally MAC protocols are grouped into contention-based and schedule-based MAC protocols. In contention-based MAC protocols such as carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocols, nodes contend for the channel to transmit data. If the channel is busy, the node defers its transmission until it becomes idle. These protocols are scalable with no strict time synchronization constraint. However, they incur significant protocol overhead. In schedule-based protocols such as time division multiple access (TDMA) protocols, the channel is divided into time slots of fixed or variable duration. These slots are assigned to nodes and each node transmits during its slot period. These protocols are energy conserving protocols. Since the duty cycle of radio is reduced, there is no contention, idle listening and overhearing problems. But these protocols require frequent synchronization. Table 3 compares CSMA/CA and TDMA protocols. 3.1. WBAN MAC Requirements The most important attribute of a good MAC protocol for a WBAN is energy efficiency. In some applications, the device should support a battery life of months or years without interventions, while others may require a battery life of tens of hours due to the nature of the applications. For example, cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers should have a lifetime of more than 5 years, while swallowable camera pills have a lifetime of 12 hours. Power-efficient and flexible duty cycling techniques are required to minimize the idle listening, overhearing, packet collisions and control packet overhead. Furthermore, low duty cycle nodes should not receive frequent synchronization and control information (beacon frames) if they have no data to send or receive. The WBAN MAC should also support simultaneous operation on in-body (MICS) and on-body channels (ISM or UWB) at the same time. In other words, it should support multiple physical layer (Multi-PHYs) communication or MAC transparency. Other important factors are scalability and adaptability to changes in the network, delay, throughput, and bandwidth utilization. Changes in the network topology, the position of the human body, and the node density should be handled rapidly and successfully. The MAC protocol for a WBAN should consider the electrical properties of the human body and the diverse traffic nature of in-body and on-body nodes. For example, the data rate of in-body nodes varies, ranging from few kbps in pacemaker to several Mbps in capsular endoscope. In the following sections, we discuss proposed MAC protocols for a WBAN with useful guidelines. We also present a case study of IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and S-MAC protocols for a WBAN using NS2 simulator. 3.2. Proposed MAC Protocols for a WBAN In this section, we study proposed MAC protocols for a WBAN followed by useful suggestions/comments. Many of the proposed MAC protocols are the extension of existing MAC protocols originally proposed for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). 3.2.1. IEEE 802.15.4 IEEE 802.15.4 has remained the main focus of many researchers during the past few years. Some of the main reasons of selecting IEEE 802.15.4 for a WBAN were low-power communication and support of low data rate WBAN applications. Nicolas et.al investigated the performance of a non-beacon IEEE 802.15.4 in [7], where low upload/download rates (mostly per hour) are considered. They concluded that the non-beacon IEEE 802.15.4 results in 10 to 15 years sensor lifetime for low data rate and asymmetric WBAN traffic. However, their work considers data transmission on the basis of periodic intervals which is not a perfect scenario in a real WBAN. Furthermore, the data rate of in-body and on-body nodes are not always low, i.e., it ranges from 10 Kbps to 10 Mbps, and hence reduces the lifetime of the sensor nodes. Li et.al studied the behavior of slotted and unslotted CSMA/CA mechanisms and concluded that the unslotted mechanism performs better than the slotted one in terms of throughput and lat ency but with high cost of power consumption [8]. Intel Corporation conducted a series of experiments to analyze the performance of IEEE 802.15.4 for a WBAN [9]. They deployed a number of Intel Mote 2 [10] nodes on chest, waist, and the right ankle. Table 4 shows the throughput at a 0dBm transmit power when a person is standing and sitting on a chair. The connection between ankle and waist cannot be established, even for a short distance of 1.5m. All other connections show favourable performance. Dave et al. studied the energy efficiency and QoS performance of IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11e [11] MAC protocols under two generic applications: a wave-form real time stream and a real-time parameter measurement stream [12]. Table 5 shows the throughput and the Power (in mW) for both applications. The AC_BE and AC_VO represent the access categories voice and best-effort in the IEEE 802.11e. Since the IEEE 802.15.4 operates in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed band, the possibilities of interference from other devices such as IEEE 802.11 and microwave are inevitable. A series of experiments to evaluate the impact of IEEE 802.11 and microwave ovens on the IEEE 802.15.4 transmission are carried out in [13]. The authors considered XBee 802.15.4 development kit that has two XBee modules. Table 6 shows the affects of microwave oven on the XBee remote module. When the microwave oven is ON, the packet success rate and the standard deviation is degraded to 96.85% and 3.22% respectively. However, there is no loss when the XBee modules are taken 2 meters away from the microwave oven. 3.2.2. Heartbeat Driven MAC Protocol (H-MAC) A Heartbeat Driven MAC protocol (H-MAC) [14] is a TDMA-based protocol originally proposed for a star topology WBAN. The energy efficiency is improved by exploiting heartbeat rhythm information in order to synchronize the nodes. The nodes do not need to receive periodic information to perform synchronization. The heartbeat rhythm can be extracted from the sensory data and hence all the rhythms represented by peak sequences are naturally synchronized. The H-MAC protocol assigns dedicated time slots to each node to guarantee collision-free transmission. In addition, this protocol is supported by an active synchronization recovery scheme where two resynchronization schemes are implemented. Although H-MAC protocol reduces the extra energy cost required for synchronization, it does not support sporadic events. Since the TDMA slots are dedicated and not traffic adaptive, H-MAC protocol encounters low spectral/bandwidth efficiency in case of a low traffic. For example, a blood pressure node may not need a dedicated time slot while an endoscope pill may require a number of dedicated time slots when deployed in a WBAN. But the slots should be released when the endoscope pill is expelled. The heartbeat rhythm information varies depending on the patient condition. It may not reveal valid information for synchronization all the time. One of the solutions is to assign the time slots based on the nodes traffic information and to receive synchronization packets when required, i.e., when a node has data to transmit/receive. 3.2.3. Reservation-based Dynamic TDMA Protocol (DTDMA) A Reservation-based Dynamic TDMA Protocol (DTDMA) [15] is originally proposed for a normal (periodic) WBAN traffic where slots are allocated to the nodes which have buffered packets and are released to other nodes when the data transmission/reception is completed. The channel is bounded by superframe structures. Each superframe consists of a beacon used to carry control information including slot allocation information, a CFP period a configurable period used for data transmission, a CAP period a fixed period used for short command packets using slotted aloha protocol, and a configurable inactive period used to save energy. Unlike a beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 superframe structure where the CAP duration is followed by CFP duration, in DTDMA protocol the CFP duration is followed by CAP duration in order to enable the nodes to send CFP traffic earlier than CAP traffic. In addition, the duration of inactive period is configurable based on the CFP slot duration. If there is no CFP t raffic, the inactive period will be increased. The DTDMA superframe structure is given in 2(a). It has been shown that for a normal (periodic) traffic, the DTDMA protocol provides more dependability in terms of low packet dropping rate and low energy consumption when compared with IEEE 802.15.4. However, it does not support emergency and on-demand traffic. Although the slot allocation based on the traffic information is a good approach, the DTDMA protocol has several limitations when considered for the MICS band. The MICS band has ten channels where each channel has 300 Kbps bandwidth. The DTDMA protocol is valid only for one channel and cannot operate on ten channels simultaneously. In addition, the DTDMA protocol does not support the channel allocation mechanism in the MICS band. This protocol can be further investigated for the MICS band by integrating the channel information in the beacon frame. The new concept may be called Frequency-based DTDMA (F-DTDMA), i.e., the coordinator first selects one of the channels in the MICS band and then divides the selected channel in TDMA superframe (s) according to the DTDMA protocol. However the FCC has imposed several restrictions on the channel selection/allocation mechanism in the MICS band, which further creates problems for the MAC designers. 3.2.4. BodyMAC Protocol A BodyMAC protocol is a TDMA-based protocol where the channel is bounded by TDMA superframe structures with downlink and uplink subframes as given in 2(b) [16]. The downlink frame is used to accommodate the on-demand traffic and the uplink frame is used to accommodate the normal traffic. There is no proper mechanism to handle the emergency traffic. The uplink frame is further divided into CAP and CFP periods. The CAP period is used to transmit small size MAC packets. The CFP period is used to transmit the normal data in a TDMA slot. The duration of the downlink and uplink superframes are defined by the coordinator. The advantage of the BodyMAC protocol is that it accommodates the on-demand traffic using the downlink subframe. However, in case of low-power implants (which should not receive beacons periodically), the coordinator has to wake up the implant first and then send synchronization packets. After synchronization, the coordinator can request/send data in the downlink subframe. The wake up procedure for low-power implants is not defined in the BodyMAC protocol. One of the solutions is to use a wakeup radio in order to wake up low-power implants before using the downlink subframe. In addition the wakeup packets can be used to carry control information such as channel (MICS band) and slot allocation information from the coordinator to the nodes. Finally, the BodyMAC protocol uses the CSMA/CA protocol in the CAP period which is not reliable for a WBAN. This should be replaced by slotted-ALOHA as done in DTDMA. Further details on low-power MAC protocols (originally proposed for WSNs) for a WBAN are given in Appendix I. 3.3. Case Study: IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and SMAC Protocols for a WBAN In this section, we investigate the performance of a beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4, preamble-based TDMA [17], and SMAC protocols for an on-body communication system. Our analysis is verified by extensive simulations using NS-2. The wireless physical parameters are considered according to a low-power Nordic nRF2401 transceiver (Chipcon CC2420 radio [18] is considered in case of IEEE 802.15.4) [19]. This radio transceiver operates in the 2.4-2.5 GHz band with an optimum transmission power of -5dBm. We use the shadowing propagation model throughout the simulations. We consider a total of 7 nodes firmly placed on a human body. The nodes are connected to the coordinator in a star topology. The distribution of the nodes and the coordinator is given in 3(a). The initial nodes energy is 5 Joules. The packet size is 120 bytes. The average data transmission rate of ECG, EEG, and EMG is 10, 70, and 100 kbps. The transport agent is a user datagram protocol (UDP). Since the traffic is an uplink t raffic, the buffer size at the coordinator is considered unlimited. In a real WBAN, the buffer size should be configurable based on the application requirements. For energy calculation, we use the existing energy model defined in NS-2. The simulation area is 33 meter and each node generates constant bit rate (CBR) traffic. The CBR traffic is an ideal model for some of the medical applications, where the nodes send data based on pre-defined traffic patterns. However, most of the nodes in a WBAN have heterogeneous traffic characteristics and they generate periodic and aperiodic traffic. In this case, they will have many traffic models operating at the same time, ranging from CBR to variable bit rate (VBR). 3(b) shows the throughput of the IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and S-MAC protocols. The performance of the IEEE 802.15.4, when cond in a beacon-enabled mode, outperforms PB-TDMA and S-MAC protocols. The efficiency of a MAC protocol depends on the traffic pattern. In this case, S-MAC protocol results poor performance because the traffic scenario that we generated is not an ideal scenario for the S-MAC. 3(c) shows the residual energy at various nodes during simulation time. When nodes finish their transmission, they go into sleep mode, as indicated by the horizontal line. The coordinator has a considerable energy loss because it always listens to the other nodes. However, the energy consumption of the coordinator is not a critical issue in a WBAN. We further analyze the residual energy at the ECG node for different transmission powers. There is a minor change in energy loss for three different transmission powers as given in 3(d). This concludes that reducing the transmission power only d oes not save energy unless supported by an efficient power management scheme. The IEEE 802.15.4 can be considered for certain on-body medical applications, but it does not achieve the level of power required for in-body nodes. It is not sufficient for high data rate medical and non-medical applications due to its limitations to 250 kbps. Furthermore, it uses slotted or unslotted CSMA/CA where the nodes are required to sense the channel before transmission. However, the channel sensing is not guaranteed in MICS band because the path loss inside the human body due to tissue heating is much higher than in free space. Bin et.al studied the clear channel assessment (CCA) range of in-body nodes which is only 0.5 meters [20]. This unreliability in CCA indicates that CSMA/CA is not an ideal technique for the in-body communication system. An alternative approach is to use a TDMA-based protocol that contains a beacon, a configurable contention access period (CCAP), and a contention free period (CFP) [21]. Unlike the IEEE 802.15.4, this protocol is required to use a slot ted-ALOHA protocol in the CCAP instead of CSMA/CA. The CCAP period should contain few slots (3 or 4) of equal duration and can be used for short data transmission and a guaranteed time slot (GTS) allocation. To enable a logical connection between the in-body and the on-body communication systems, a method called bridging function can be used as discussed in [21]. The bridging function can integrate in-body and on-body nodes into a WBAN, thus satisfying the MAC transparency requirement. Further details about bridging function are given in [22]. 3.4. Discussion Since the CSMA/CA is not suitable due to unreliable CCA and heavy collision problems, it can be seen that the most reliable power-efficient protocol is a TDMA-based protocol. Many protocols have been proposed for a WBAN and most of them are based on a TDMA-based mechanism. However, all of them have pros and cons for a real WBAN system that should operate on Multi-PHYs (MICS, ISM, and UWB) simultaneously. The MAC transparency has been a hot topic for the MAC designers since different bands have different characteristics in terms of data rate, number of channels in a particular frequency band, and data prioritization. A good MAC protocol should enable reliable operation on MICS, ISM, and UWB etc bands simultaneously. The main problems are related to MICS band due to FCC restrictions [23]. According to FCC, â€Å"Within 5 seconds prior to initiating a communications session, circuitry associated with a medical implant programmer/control transmitter must monitor the channel or channels the MICS system devices intend to occupy for a minimum of 10 milliseconds per channel.† In other words, the coordinator must perform Listen-before-talking (LBT) criteria prior to a MICS communication sessions. The implants are not allowed to On the Implant Communication and MAC Protocols for a WBAN On the Implant Communication and MAC Protocols for a WBAN Abstract Recent advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), wireless communication, low-power intelligent sensors, and semiconductor technologies have allowed the realization of a wireless body area network (WBAN). A WBAN provides unobtrusive health monitoring for a long period of time with real-time updates to the physician. It is widely used for ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, and military applications. The implantable and wearable medical devices have several critical requirements such as power consumption, data rate, size, and low-power medium access control (MAC) protocols. This article consists of two parts: body implant communication, which is concerned with the communication to and from a human body using RF technology, and WBAN MAC protocols, which presents several low-power MAC protocols for a WBAN with useful guidelines. In body implant communication, the in-body radio frequency (RF) performance is affected considerably by the implants depth inside the human body as well as by the muscle and fat. We observe best performance at a depth of 3cm and not close to the human skin. Furthermore, the study of low-power MAC protocols highlights the most important aspects of developing a single, a low-power, and a reliable MAC protocol for a WBAN. Keywords: In-body, on-body, RF communication, Implant, WBAN 1. Introduction Cardiovascular diseases are the foremost cause of deaths in the United States and Europe since 1900. More than ten million people are affected in Europe, one million in the US, and twenty two million people in the world [1]. The number is projected to be triple by 2020, resulting in an expenditure of around 20% of the gross domestic product (GDP). The ratio is 17% in South Korea and 39% in the UK [2]. The healthcare expenditure in the US is expected to be increased from $2.9 trillion in 2009 to $4 trillion US dollars in 2015 [3]. The impending health crisis attracts researchers, industrialists, and economists towards optimal and quick health solutions. The non-intrusive and ambulatory health monitoring of patients vital signs with real time updates of medical records via internet provide economical solutions to the health care systems. A wireless body area network (WBAN) is becoming increasingly important for healthcare systems, sporting activities, and members of emergency as well as military services. WBAN is an integration of in-body (implants) and on-body (wearable) sensors that allow inexpensive, unobtrusive, and long-term health monitoring of a patient during normal daily activities for prolonged periods of time. In-body radio frequency (RF) communications have the potential to dramatically change the future of healthcare. For example, they allow an implanted pacemaker to regularly transmit performance data and the patients health status to the physician. However, the human body poses many wireless transmission challenges. This is partially conductive and consists of materials having different dielectric constants and characteristics impedance. The interface of muscles and fats may reflect the RF wave rather than transmitting it. The key elements of an RF-linked implant are the in-body antenna and the communi cation link performance. Also, in the case of many implants and wearable sensors, a low-power MAC protocol is required to accommodate the heterogeneous traffic in a power-efficient manner. This article is divided into two parts: body implant communication and WBAN MAC protocols. In the body implant communication part, we look at the RF communication link performance at various depths inside a human (artificial) body. In the MAC part, we review the existing low-power MAC protocols and discuss their pros and cons in the context of a WBAN. We further provide alternative MAC solutions for in-body and on-body communication systems. The rest of the article is divided into three sections. In section 2, we present a discussion on body implant communication including in-body electromagnetic induction, RF communication, antenna design, and the communication link performance. Section 3 discusses several low-power MAC protocols and realizes a need for a new, a low-power, and a reliable MAC protocol for a WBAN. The final section concludes our work. 2. Body Implant Communication There are several ways to communicate with an implant that includes the use of electromagnetic induction and RF technology. Both are wireless and their use depends on the application requirements. Further, the key elements of an RF-linked implant are the in-body antenna and the communication link performance. The following part discusses in-body electromagnetic induction, RF communication, antenna design, and the communication link performance. 2.1. In-body Electromagnetic Induction Several applications still use electromagnetic coupling to provide a communication link to an implant device. In this scheme, an external coil is held very close to the body that couples to a coil implanted just below the skin surface. The implant is powered by the coupled magnetic field and requires no battery for communication. Data is transferred from the implant by altering the impedance of the implanted loop that is detected by the external coil and electronics. This type of communication is commonly used to identify animals that have been injected with an electronic tag. Electromagnetic induction is used when continuous, long-term communication is required. The base band for electromagnetic communication is typically 13.56 MHz or 28 MHz, with other frequencies also available. The choice of a particular band is subject to regulation for maximum specific absorption rate (SAR). The inductive coupling achieves best power transfer efficiency when uses large transmit and receive coil s. It, however, becomes less efficient when the space is an issue of the device is implanted deep inside the human body. Furthermore, inductive coupling technique does not support a very high data rate and cannot initiate a communication session from inside of the body. 2.2. In-body RF Communication Compared with the electromagnetic induction, RF communication dramatically increases bandwidth and supports a two-way data communication. The band designated for the in-body RF communication is medical implant communication service (MICS) band and is around 403 to 405 MHz. This band has a power limit of 25  µW in the air and is usually split into ten channels of 300 kHz bandwidth each. The human body is a medium that poses numerous wireless transmission challenges. It consists of various components that are not predictable and will change as the patient ages, gains or losses weight, or even changes posture. Values of dielectric constant (ÃŽ µr), conductivity (ÏÆ') and characteristic impedance (Zo) for some body tissue are given in table 1 [4]. This demonstrates that these two tissue types are very different. Also, the dielectric constant affects the wavelength of a signal. At 403 MHz, the wavelength in the air is 744mm, but in muscle with ÃŽ µr = 50 the wavelength reduces to 105mm, which helps in designing implanted antennas. 2.3. In-body Antenna Design A modern in-body antenna should be tuneable by using an intelligent transceiver and software routine. This enables the antenna coupling circuit to be optimised. Due to the frequency, and available volume, a non-resonant antenna is commonly used. It has a lower gain than a resonant antenna. This makes design of the antenna coupling circuit very important. Antenna options are dictated by the location of the implant. A patch antenna can be used when the implant is flat. Patch antennas are comprised of a flat insulating substrate coated on both sides with a conductor. The substrate is a body compatible material with a platinum or a platinum/iridium conductor. The upper surface is the active face and is connected to the transceiver. The connection to the transceiver needs to pass through the case where the hermetic seal is maintained, requiring a feed-through. The feed-through must have no filter capacitors present; these are common on other devices. An implanted patch antenna is electrically larger than its physical size because it is immersed in a high (ÃŽ µr) medium. It can be much larger electrically if the substrate is of higher (ÃŽ µr), such as titania or zirconia. A loop antenna can also be attached to the implant. This antenna operates mostly by the magnetic field, whereas the patch operates mostly by the electric field. The loop antenna delivers performance comparable to that of a dipole, but with a considerably smaller size. In addition, the magnetic permeability of muscle or fat is very similar to that of an air, unlike the dielectric constant that varies considerably. This property enables an antenna to be built and used with much less need for retuning. A loop antenna can be mounted on the case in a biocompatible structure. 2.4. In-body Link Performance The demonstration system consists of a base-station, an implant, antennas, and a controlling laptop. The base-station contains a printed circuit board (PCB) with a wakeup RF circuit, a Zarlink ZL70101 IC, and a micro-controller. It sends a wakeup signal on industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) 2.4 GHz band to power up the implant to communicate. It also supports communication within the MICS band. The implant contains a Zarlink ZL70101 IC, a micro-controller, and a battery. The power limits of the wakeup signal for ISM and MICS bands transmitters are 100mW and 25  µW respectively. Experiments that measure the performance of an implant inside a living body are difficult to arrange. The alternative is to use 3D simulation software or a body phantom defined in [5]. The use of 3D simulation software is time consuming and hence practically not valuable. Therefore, measurements are generally performed using the body phantom and immersing a battery-powered implant into it [6]. Since no additional cables are attached to the test implant, the interference errors in the measurements are minimal. The body phantom is filled with a liquid that mimics the electrical properties of the human body tissues. The test environment is an anechoic chamber that includes a screened room. The interior walls of the room have sound-absorbent cones to minimize any reflections from walls or the floor that could distort the results. In real life, however, the results will be affected by the reflections from walls, desks, and other equipment and hardware. The body phantom is mounted on a woo den stand (non-conductive). The distance from the body phantom to the base-station is 3m. The MICS base-station dipole antenna is mounted on a stand. 1(a) shows the anechoic chamber with a body phantom (on the wooden stand), a log periodic test antenna (foreground), and a base-station dipole (right). The log periodic antenna is used to calculate the power radiated from the body phantom. A depth is defined as the horizontal distance between the outer skin of the phantom and the test implant. Vertical polarization of the implant is the case when the long side of the box and the patch antenna is vertical. The link performance is measured once the communication link is established. The measurements include the effective radiated power (ERP) from the implant, the received signal at the implant from the base-station, and the link quality. Measurements are made over a set distance with all the combinations of implant and test antenna polarisations, i.e., vertical-vertical (V-V), horizontal-vertical (H-V), vertical-horizontal (V-H), and horizontal-horizontal (H-H) polarisations. Typical results are shown in 1(b) where the ERP is calculated from the received signal power and the antenna characteristics. The measurement of the signal levels is done with the log periodic antenna and the spectrum analyzer. It can be seen in the that there is a significant difference in signal levels with polarisation combinations and depths. For a V-V polarisation, the ERP increases from a 1cm depth to a maximum between 2 and 7 cm, and then it decreases. The gradual increase is due to the simulated body acti ng as a parasitic antenna. The also shows how the signal level is affected by the depth with different polarisation. Such a test needs to be done with the antenna that is to be used in the final product. To measure the received signal at the implant, the Zarlink ZL70101 has an inbuilt receive signal strength indication (RSSI) function that gives a measure of the signal level detected. RSSI is a relative measurement with no calibration. The implant receives and measures a continuous wave signal transmitted by the base-station. In this case, the implant and the base-station antennas are vertically polarised. 1(c) shows an increase in the signal level at a depth between 3 and 4cm for a 15dec power. The power settings refer to the base-station and are cond to set the ERP to 25  µW. Signal levels are not valuable unless they are related to data transmission. One way to maintain the link quality is to measure the number of times the error correction is invoked during the transmission of 100 blocks of data. Two types of error correction codes, i.e., error correction code (ECC) and cyclic redundancy code (CRC) are invoked to maintain data integrity and reliability. The fewer ECC and CRC invocations result in better link quality. In 1(d), the error correction is lowest at a depth between 3 and 5 cm. A sample of ECC data collected at a 3cm implant depth is given in Table 2. The Count indicates the number of data blocks, the Time (ms) indicates the block transmission time, and the ECC indicates the number of times it is invoked. During the transmission of 100 blocks of data at a 3cm depth, the ECC is invoked 368 times, which is further equivalent to an average 3.68 times (as given in 1(d)). 2.5. Discussion The ERP, RSSI, as well as the ECC and CRC plots show that the implant demonstrates the best performance at a depth between 3 and 5 cm. The depth and position of an implant is not chosen for engineering performance but for the best clinical reasons. The implant designer must be aware of the possible losses through the human body. The attenuation and the parasitic antenna effects vary from patient to patient, with the position of the implant and with the time as the patient gains, or looses weight. Therefore, these factors need to be built into the link budget. 3. WBAN MAC Protocols Some of the common objectives in a WBAN are to achieve maximum throughput, minimum delay, and to maximize the network lifetime by controlling the main sources of energy waste, i.e., collision, idle listening, overhearing, and control packet overhead. A collision occurs when more than one packet transmits data at the same time. The collided packets have to be retransmitted, which consumes extra energy. The second source of energy waste is idle listening, meaning that a node listens to an idle channel to receive data. The third source is overhearing, i.e., to receive packets that are destined to other nodes. The last source is control packet overhead, meaning that control information area added to the payload. Minimal number of control packets should be used for data transmission. Generally MAC protocols are grouped into contention-based and schedule-based MAC protocols. In contention-based MAC protocols such as carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocols, nodes contend for the channel to transmit data. If the channel is busy, the node defers its transmission until it becomes idle. These protocols are scalable with no strict time synchronization constraint. However, they incur significant protocol overhead. In schedule-based protocols such as time division multiple access (TDMA) protocols, the channel is divided into time slots of fixed or variable duration. These slots are assigned to nodes and each node transmits during its slot period. These protocols are energy conserving protocols. Since the duty cycle of radio is reduced, there is no contention, idle listening and overhearing problems. But these protocols require frequent synchronization. Table 3 compares CSMA/CA and TDMA protocols. 3.1. WBAN MAC Requirements The most important attribute of a good MAC protocol for a WBAN is energy efficiency. In some applications, the device should support a battery life of months or years without interventions, while others may require a battery life of tens of hours due to the nature of the applications. For example, cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers should have a lifetime of more than 5 years, while swallowable camera pills have a lifetime of 12 hours. Power-efficient and flexible duty cycling techniques are required to minimize the idle listening, overhearing, packet collisions and control packet overhead. Furthermore, low duty cycle nodes should not receive frequent synchronization and control information (beacon frames) if they have no data to send or receive. The WBAN MAC should also support simultaneous operation on in-body (MICS) and on-body channels (ISM or UWB) at the same time. In other words, it should support multiple physical layer (Multi-PHYs) communication or MAC transparency. Other important factors are scalability and adaptability to changes in the network, delay, throughput, and bandwidth utilization. Changes in the network topology, the position of the human body, and the node density should be handled rapidly and successfully. The MAC protocol for a WBAN should consider the electrical properties of the human body and the diverse traffic nature of in-body and on-body nodes. For example, the data rate of in-body nodes varies, ranging from few kbps in pacemaker to several Mbps in capsular endoscope. In the following sections, we discuss proposed MAC protocols for a WBAN with useful guidelines. We also present a case study of IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and S-MAC protocols for a WBAN using NS2 simulator. 3.2. Proposed MAC Protocols for a WBAN In this section, we study proposed MAC protocols for a WBAN followed by useful suggestions/comments. Many of the proposed MAC protocols are the extension of existing MAC protocols originally proposed for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). 3.2.1. IEEE 802.15.4 IEEE 802.15.4 has remained the main focus of many researchers during the past few years. Some of the main reasons of selecting IEEE 802.15.4 for a WBAN were low-power communication and support of low data rate WBAN applications. Nicolas et.al investigated the performance of a non-beacon IEEE 802.15.4 in [7], where low upload/download rates (mostly per hour) are considered. They concluded that the non-beacon IEEE 802.15.4 results in 10 to 15 years sensor lifetime for low data rate and asymmetric WBAN traffic. However, their work considers data transmission on the basis of periodic intervals which is not a perfect scenario in a real WBAN. Furthermore, the data rate of in-body and on-body nodes are not always low, i.e., it ranges from 10 Kbps to 10 Mbps, and hence reduces the lifetime of the sensor nodes. Li et.al studied the behavior of slotted and unslotted CSMA/CA mechanisms and concluded that the unslotted mechanism performs better than the slotted one in terms of throughput and lat ency but with high cost of power consumption [8]. Intel Corporation conducted a series of experiments to analyze the performance of IEEE 802.15.4 for a WBAN [9]. They deployed a number of Intel Mote 2 [10] nodes on chest, waist, and the right ankle. Table 4 shows the throughput at a 0dBm transmit power when a person is standing and sitting on a chair. The connection between ankle and waist cannot be established, even for a short distance of 1.5m. All other connections show favourable performance. Dave et al. studied the energy efficiency and QoS performance of IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11e [11] MAC protocols under two generic applications: a wave-form real time stream and a real-time parameter measurement stream [12]. Table 5 shows the throughput and the Power (in mW) for both applications. The AC_BE and AC_VO represent the access categories voice and best-effort in the IEEE 802.11e. Since the IEEE 802.15.4 operates in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed band, the possibilities of interference from other devices such as IEEE 802.11 and microwave are inevitable. A series of experiments to evaluate the impact of IEEE 802.11 and microwave ovens on the IEEE 802.15.4 transmission are carried out in [13]. The authors considered XBee 802.15.4 development kit that has two XBee modules. Table 6 shows the affects of microwave oven on the XBee remote module. When the microwave oven is ON, the packet success rate and the standard deviation is degraded to 96.85% and 3.22% respectively. However, there is no loss when the XBee modules are taken 2 meters away from the microwave oven. 3.2.2. Heartbeat Driven MAC Protocol (H-MAC) A Heartbeat Driven MAC protocol (H-MAC) [14] is a TDMA-based protocol originally proposed for a star topology WBAN. The energy efficiency is improved by exploiting heartbeat rhythm information in order to synchronize the nodes. The nodes do not need to receive periodic information to perform synchronization. The heartbeat rhythm can be extracted from the sensory data and hence all the rhythms represented by peak sequences are naturally synchronized. The H-MAC protocol assigns dedicated time slots to each node to guarantee collision-free transmission. In addition, this protocol is supported by an active synchronization recovery scheme where two resynchronization schemes are implemented. Although H-MAC protocol reduces the extra energy cost required for synchronization, it does not support sporadic events. Since the TDMA slots are dedicated and not traffic adaptive, H-MAC protocol encounters low spectral/bandwidth efficiency in case of a low traffic. For example, a blood pressure node may not need a dedicated time slot while an endoscope pill may require a number of dedicated time slots when deployed in a WBAN. But the slots should be released when the endoscope pill is expelled. The heartbeat rhythm information varies depending on the patient condition. It may not reveal valid information for synchronization all the time. One of the solutions is to assign the time slots based on the nodes traffic information and to receive synchronization packets when required, i.e., when a node has data to transmit/receive. 3.2.3. Reservation-based Dynamic TDMA Protocol (DTDMA) A Reservation-based Dynamic TDMA Protocol (DTDMA) [15] is originally proposed for a normal (periodic) WBAN traffic where slots are allocated to the nodes which have buffered packets and are released to other nodes when the data transmission/reception is completed. The channel is bounded by superframe structures. Each superframe consists of a beacon used to carry control information including slot allocation information, a CFP period a configurable period used for data transmission, a CAP period a fixed period used for short command packets using slotted aloha protocol, and a configurable inactive period used to save energy. Unlike a beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 superframe structure where the CAP duration is followed by CFP duration, in DTDMA protocol the CFP duration is followed by CAP duration in order to enable the nodes to send CFP traffic earlier than CAP traffic. In addition, the duration of inactive period is configurable based on the CFP slot duration. If there is no CFP t raffic, the inactive period will be increased. The DTDMA superframe structure is given in 2(a). It has been shown that for a normal (periodic) traffic, the DTDMA protocol provides more dependability in terms of low packet dropping rate and low energy consumption when compared with IEEE 802.15.4. However, it does not support emergency and on-demand traffic. Although the slot allocation based on the traffic information is a good approach, the DTDMA protocol has several limitations when considered for the MICS band. The MICS band has ten channels where each channel has 300 Kbps bandwidth. The DTDMA protocol is valid only for one channel and cannot operate on ten channels simultaneously. In addition, the DTDMA protocol does not support the channel allocation mechanism in the MICS band. This protocol can be further investigated for the MICS band by integrating the channel information in the beacon frame. The new concept may be called Frequency-based DTDMA (F-DTDMA), i.e., the coordinator first selects one of the channels in the MICS band and then divides the selected channel in TDMA superframe (s) according to the DTDMA protocol. However the FCC has imposed several restrictions on the channel selection/allocation mechanism in the MICS band, which further creates problems for the MAC designers. 3.2.4. BodyMAC Protocol A BodyMAC protocol is a TDMA-based protocol where the channel is bounded by TDMA superframe structures with downlink and uplink subframes as given in 2(b) [16]. The downlink frame is used to accommodate the on-demand traffic and the uplink frame is used to accommodate the normal traffic. There is no proper mechanism to handle the emergency traffic. The uplink frame is further divided into CAP and CFP periods. The CAP period is used to transmit small size MAC packets. The CFP period is used to transmit the normal data in a TDMA slot. The duration of the downlink and uplink superframes are defined by the coordinator. The advantage of the BodyMAC protocol is that it accommodates the on-demand traffic using the downlink subframe. However, in case of low-power implants (which should not receive beacons periodically), the coordinator has to wake up the implant first and then send synchronization packets. After synchronization, the coordinator can request/send data in the downlink subframe. The wake up procedure for low-power implants is not defined in the BodyMAC protocol. One of the solutions is to use a wakeup radio in order to wake up low-power implants before using the downlink subframe. In addition the wakeup packets can be used to carry control information such as channel (MICS band) and slot allocation information from the coordinator to the nodes. Finally, the BodyMAC protocol uses the CSMA/CA protocol in the CAP period which is not reliable for a WBAN. This should be replaced by slotted-ALOHA as done in DTDMA. Further details on low-power MAC protocols (originally proposed for WSNs) for a WBAN are given in Appendix I. 3.3. Case Study: IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and SMAC Protocols for a WBAN In this section, we investigate the performance of a beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4, preamble-based TDMA [17], and SMAC protocols for an on-body communication system. Our analysis is verified by extensive simulations using NS-2. The wireless physical parameters are considered according to a low-power Nordic nRF2401 transceiver (Chipcon CC2420 radio [18] is considered in case of IEEE 802.15.4) [19]. This radio transceiver operates in the 2.4-2.5 GHz band with an optimum transmission power of -5dBm. We use the shadowing propagation model throughout the simulations. We consider a total of 7 nodes firmly placed on a human body. The nodes are connected to the coordinator in a star topology. The distribution of the nodes and the coordinator is given in 3(a). The initial nodes energy is 5 Joules. The packet size is 120 bytes. The average data transmission rate of ECG, EEG, and EMG is 10, 70, and 100 kbps. The transport agent is a user datagram protocol (UDP). Since the traffic is an uplink t raffic, the buffer size at the coordinator is considered unlimited. In a real WBAN, the buffer size should be configurable based on the application requirements. For energy calculation, we use the existing energy model defined in NS-2. The simulation area is 33 meter and each node generates constant bit rate (CBR) traffic. The CBR traffic is an ideal model for some of the medical applications, where the nodes send data based on pre-defined traffic patterns. However, most of the nodes in a WBAN have heterogeneous traffic characteristics and they generate periodic and aperiodic traffic. In this case, they will have many traffic models operating at the same time, ranging from CBR to variable bit rate (VBR). 3(b) shows the throughput of the IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and S-MAC protocols. The performance of the IEEE 802.15.4, when cond in a beacon-enabled mode, outperforms PB-TDMA and S-MAC protocols. The efficiency of a MAC protocol depends on the traffic pattern. In this case, S-MAC protocol results poor performance because the traffic scenario that we generated is not an ideal scenario for the S-MAC. 3(c) shows the residual energy at various nodes during simulation time. When nodes finish their transmission, they go into sleep mode, as indicated by the horizontal line. The coordinator has a considerable energy loss because it always listens to the other nodes. However, the energy consumption of the coordinator is not a critical issue in a WBAN. We further analyze the residual energy at the ECG node for different transmission powers. There is a minor change in energy loss for three different transmission powers as given in 3(d). This concludes that reducing the transmission power only d oes not save energy unless supported by an efficient power management scheme. The IEEE 802.15.4 can be considered for certain on-body medical applications, but it does not achieve the level of power required for in-body nodes. It is not sufficient for high data rate medical and non-medical applications due to its limitations to 250 kbps. Furthermore, it uses slotted or unslotted CSMA/CA where the nodes are required to sense the channel before transmission. However, the channel sensing is not guaranteed in MICS band because the path loss inside the human body due to tissue heating is much higher than in free space. Bin et.al studied the clear channel assessment (CCA) range of in-body nodes which is only 0.5 meters [20]. This unreliability in CCA indicates that CSMA/CA is not an ideal technique for the in-body communication system. An alternative approach is to use a TDMA-based protocol that contains a beacon, a configurable contention access period (CCAP), and a contention free period (CFP) [21]. Unlike the IEEE 802.15.4, this protocol is required to use a slot ted-ALOHA protocol in the CCAP instead of CSMA/CA. The CCAP period should contain few slots (3 or 4) of equal duration and can be used for short data transmission and a guaranteed time slot (GTS) allocation. To enable a logical connection between the in-body and the on-body communication systems, a method called bridging function can be used as discussed in [21]. The bridging function can integrate in-body and on-body nodes into a WBAN, thus satisfying the MAC transparency requirement. Further details about bridging function are given in [22]. 3.4. Discussion Since the CSMA/CA is not suitable due to unreliable CCA and heavy collision problems, it can be seen that the most reliable power-efficient protocol is a TDMA-based protocol. Many protocols have been proposed for a WBAN and most of them are based on a TDMA-based mechanism. However, all of them have pros and cons for a real WBAN system that should operate on Multi-PHYs (MICS, ISM, and UWB) simultaneously. The MAC transparency has been a hot topic for the MAC designers since different bands have different characteristics in terms of data rate, number of channels in a particular frequency band, and data prioritization. A good MAC protocol should enable reliable operation on MICS, ISM, and UWB etc bands simultaneously. The main problems are related to MICS band due to FCC restrictions [23]. According to FCC, â€Å"Within 5 seconds prior to initiating a communications session, circuitry associated with a medical implant programmer/control transmitter must monitor the channel or channels the MICS system devices intend to occupy for a minimum of 10 milliseconds per channel.† In other words, the coordinator must perform Listen-before-talking (LBT) criteria prior to a MICS communication sessions. The implants are not allowed to