Water conservation strategies according to green seal requirements Case Study

Water conservation strategies according to green seal requirements - Case Study Example This paper deals with the concept of water recycling and waste water management according to the principles enshrined in Green Seal recommended practices. Water recycling processes can adopt many strategies that strives to conserve water as well as reuse them after separating harmful pollutants and organic matter from it. The strategies also involve practices that encourage the effective use of water and reduction of waste water. Waste water management is not a discipline that merely consists of scientific jargon. It is attainable and sustainable provided one takes the pains to implement it aptly.With the increasing destruction of environmental resources, the need for conservation has significantly increased in the modern world. This is specifically so in the case of resources such as water. Statistics available indicate that sources of potable water will not remain as such if the level of exploitation is to continue at the current rate in the world. In addition to the pressures of p opulation increase and pollution, industrial pressures on potable water are also decreasing the availability of fresh water and there is an urgent need to control water wastage. It is in this context that the need to control water wastage through water recycling gains importance. Wastewater management is an emerging field of science that helps to tackle issues related to water pollution and contamination in the industrial world.The need for waste water management has many ramifications, which is both social as well as economical. As far as the society is concerned waste water management helps to recycle the much needed elixir of life back into the water sources as potable water. Otherwise, water that is recycled can be used to sustain green cover over an area thereby providing for the optimum use of this precious natural resource. On the economic front it may be said that conserving water amounts to saving money in many ways and the initial costs that may be involved can soon be rec ouped in terms of both tangible and intangible benefits for the company. World wide statistics indicate that water, which is a fundamental need for the existence of life on earth, is limited in terms of its availability. Humans have access to less than 0.08% of all the water that is available in earth. To add to the woes it is believed the need for water will increase by about 40% in the next two decades. This perhaps indicates to the immense responsibility that humans have towards conserving water. In the year 1999, the United Nations Environment Programme identified water shortage as one of the two most worrying problems for the millennium. The fact that the other problem, global warming, is also related to water shortage adds gravity to the situation. It is believed that one person in five across the world has no access to safe drinking water. Similarly, one in two lacks safe sanitation [United Nations Industrial Development Organization. 1996] In terms of social ramifications, a reliable supply of water is the basic need for any form of development. The availability and quality of water is essential factor in the nation's ability to protect public health, preserve ecological integrity, ensure sufficient agricultural production, and meet commercial needs. Therefore issues affecting the nation's atmospheric water, surface water and groundwater need to be addressed with priority. Certain facts that point towards the gravity of a water crisis are: About 1.1 billion people, or 18 percent of the world's population, lack access to safe drinking water. In addition, 2.5 billion are without proper sanitation. Even though the freshwater supplies are sufficient for the world's population, water scarcity exists due to poor management and distribution of water resources. Unsafe drinking water is the cause of death of more than five million people each year.

Waste Elimination Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Waste Elimination - Coursework Example In the several groups identified by economist, Taiichi Ohno, there is the imperative need of identifying some of them and breaking them down in an effort to acquire greater understanding of their effects and subsequent characteristics. These waste groups include, damage caused by the waste to the environment, the waste in production and the waste brought about in motion. Baltimore Green Construction is a company based in Maryland that has made tremendous efforts in resolving the various waste issues experienced today. Focusing on the first category identified, there are very many effects caused by waste products to the environment and the affected are not only people, but also other organisms in the environment. One of the major problems that waste products have on the environment is pollution. Pollution is a problem that has affected many countries in the 21st century and the amount of waste products that bring about this is in a very large amount. Characterization of pollution is i nto three groups, one of the vast types is air pollution, the other type of pollution identified is water pollution, and then there is the less but still epidemic soil pollution. Focusing on air pollution, the major factor to identify with this is global warming. Many companies in the contemporary world manufacture and produce goods using industries and factories that do not have proper waste disposal systems. However, one of the ways through which Baltimore Green Construction has

Scrutiny of Property as an Investment Class Essay

Scrutiny of Property as an Investment Class - Essay Example Risk is a calculation of what is anticipated to occur but not what is really happening. Investment determinations nevertheless need the inference of an unidentified future return, which is known as expected return. Since there is a series of probable results there is no assurance that the estimation will be accurate, but it is the most excellent likely evaluation. The increase of allocation of anticipated returns about the entire expected mean estimation is typically calculated by the standard deviation (), or its square, the variance (2), and this is the typical risk measure. When assets are pooled in a portfolio, the anticipated return is a subjective mean of the individual asset's predictable return. The weights are the ratios of these assets accommodated in the portfolio. The portfolio risk is composite. The portfolio risk reckons not only on the weights and the individual chances but also on the correlativity between the assets. The correlation coefficient, , assesses joint moves between the two variables and how they vary jointly. The rate can differ from -1.0 to +1.0, even though for majority of the variables, the correlation coefficient lies between these two valu... The threat of the portfolio is the weighted mean of the risks of the assets in the portfolio. When the relationship is -1.0, the return are absolutely negative correlated which means that with the increase or decrease in the value of one variable the other variable will move in the opposite proportions. The correlation coefficient for assets without any correlation at all is zero (Perold, 2004). According to Hoesli, M., and MacGregor, B. D., (2000), "the first stage was to compute the expected return and risk of each individual asset and to use these to calculate the portfolio expected return and risk from all possible combination of weights, using both linear programming and investing." In reality, no two assets can ever be completely correlated as their income is impacted by diverse factors. When all of the correlations are fully correlated, the risk is constantly less than the weighted mean. In this event, some of the risk from one asset can be counterbalanced to an extent by the other asset, so that the standard deviation of the portfolio always remains lesser than the mean risk of the weighted average of the standard deviation of each item. This is the foundation of variegation and portfolio creation. The quantity by which risk is cut down reckons on the correlations among the assets. The lesser the correlation is between rent and capital gains on different assets the further away the correlation will be from +1 resulting in greater profits of variegation. Consequently, investors who hold a broadened portfolio with not completely correlated assets could get rid of the risk linked with the individual assets. According to Brown, Keith C. and Frank K. Reilly,

Managerial Economics Essay Example for Free

Managerial Economics Essay Chapter 1: Introduction to Managerial Economics 4. Describe the importance of the other things equal assumption in managerial economic analysis. 5. Describe what constitutes a market, distinguish competitive from non-competitive markets, and discuss imperfect markets. 6. Emphasize the globalization of markets. NOTES 1. Definition. Managerial economics is the science of directing scarce resources to manage cost effectively. 2. Application. Managerial economics applies to: (a) Businesses (such as decisions in relation to customers including pricing and advertising; suppliers; competitors or the internal workings of the organization), nonprofit organizations, and households. (b) The â€Å"old economy† and â€Å"new economy† in essentially the same way except for two distinctive aspects of the â€Å"new economy†: the importance of network  effects and scale and scope economies. i. network effects in demand – the benefit provided by a service depends on the total number of other users, e.g., when only one person had email, she had no one to communicate with, but with 100 mm users on line, the demand for Internet services mushroomed. ii. scale and scope economies – scaleability is the degree to which scale and scope of a business can be increased without a corresponding increase in costs, e.g., the information in Yahoo is eminently scaleable (the same information can serve 100 as well as 100 mm users) and to serve a larger number of users, Yahoo needs only increase the capacity of its computers and links. iii. Note: the term open technology (of the Internet) refers to the relatively free admission of developers of content and applications. (c) Both global and local markets. 3. Scope. (a) Microeconomics – the study of individual economic behavior where resources are costly, e.g., how consumers respond to changes in prices and income, how businesses decide on employment and sales, voters’ behavior and setting of tax policy. (b) Managerial economies – the application of microeconomics to managerial issues (a scope more limited than microeconomics). (c) Macroeconomics – the study of aggregate economic variables directly (as opposed to the aggregation of individual consumers and businesses), e.g., issues relating to interest and exchange rates, inflation, unemployment, import and export policies. 2 Chapter 1: Introduction to Managerial Economics 4. Methodology. (a) Fundamental premise economic behavior is systematic and therefore can be studied. Systematic economic behavior means individuals share common motivations and behave systematically in making economic choices, i.e, a person who faces the same choices at two different times will behave in the same way both times. (b) Economic model – a concise description of behavior and outcomes: i. focuses on particular issues and key variables (e.g., price, salary), omits considerable information, hence unrealistic at times; ii. constructed by inductive reasoning; iii. to be tested with empirical data and revised as appropriate. 5. Basic concepts. (a) Margin vis a vis average variables in managerial economics analyses. i. marginal value of a variable – the change in the variable associated with a unit increase in a driver, e.g., amount earned by working one more hour; ii. average value of a variable – the total value of the variable divided by the total quantity of a driver, e.g., total pay divided by total no. of hours worked; iii. driver – the independent variable, e.g., no. of hours worked; iv. the marginal value of a variable may be less that, equal to, or greater than the average value, depending on whether the marginal value is decreasing, constant or increasing with respect to the driver; v. if the marginal value of a variable is greater than its average value, the average value increases, and vice versa. (b) Stocks and flows. i. stock – the quantity at a specific point in time, measured in units of the item, e.g., items on a balance sheet (assets and liabilities), the world’s oil reserves in the beginning of a year; ii. Flow – the change in stock over some period of time, measured in units per time period e.g., items on an income statement (receipts and expenses), the world’s current production of oil per day. (c) Holding other things equal – the assumption that all other relevant factors do not change, and is made so that changes due to the factor being studied may be examined independently of those other factors. Having analysed the effects of each factor, they can be put together for the complete picture. 6. Organizational boundaries. (a) Organizations include businesses, non-profits and households. (b) Vertical boundaries – delineate activities closer to or further from the end user. (c) Horizontal boundaries relate to economies of scale (rate of production or delivery of a good or service) and scope (range of different items produced or delivered). 3 Chapter 1: Introduction to Managerial Economics (d) Organizations which are members of the same industry may choose different vertical and horizontal boundaries. 7. Competitive markets. (a) Markets. i. a market consists of buyers and sellers that communicate with one another for voluntary exchange. It is not limited by physical structure. ii. in markets for consumer products, the buyers are households and sellers are businesses. iii. in markets for industrial products, both buyers and sellers are businesses. iv. in markets for human resources, buyers are businesses and sellers are households. v. Note: an industry is made up of businesses engaged in the production or delivery of the same or similar items. (b) Competitive markets. i. markets with many buyers and many sellers, where buyers provide the demand and sellers provide the supply, e.g., the silver market. ii. the demand-supply model basic starting point of managerial economics, the model describes the systematic effect of changes in prices and other economic variables on buyers and sellers, and the interaction of these choices. (c) Non-competitive markets – a market in which market power exists. 8. Market power. (a) Market power the ability of a buyer or seller to influence market conditions. A seller with market power will have the freedom to choose suppliers, set prices and influence demand. (b) Businesses with market power, whether buyers or sellers, still need to understand and manage their costs. (c) In addition to managing costs, sellers with market power need to manage their demand through price, advertising, and policy toward competitors. 9. Imperfect Market. (a) Imperfect market where one party directly conveys a benefit or cost to others, or where one party has better information than others. (b) The challenge is to resolve the imperfection and be cost-effective. (c) Imperfections can also arise within an organization, and hence, another issue in managerial economics is how to structure incentives and organizations. 10. Local vis a vis global markets. (a) Local markets – owing to relatively high costs of communication and trade, some markets are local, e.g., housing, groceries. The price in one local market is independent of prices in other local markets. 4 Chapter 1: Introduction to Managerial Economics (b) Global markets owing to relatively low costs of communication and trade, some markets are global, e.g., mining, shipping, financial services. The price of an item with a global market in one place will move together with the pries elsewhere. (c) Whether a market is local or global, the same managerial economic principles apply. (d) Note: Falling costs of communication and trade are causing more markets to be more integrated across geographical border – enabling the opportunity to sell in new markets as well as global sourcing. Foreign sources may provide cheaper skilled labor, specialized resources, or superior quality, resulting in lower production costs and/or improved quality. ANSWERS TO PROGRESS CHECKS 1A. The managerial economics of the â€Å"new economy† is much the same as that of the â€Å"old economy† with two aspects being more important – network effects in demand and scale and scope economies. 1B. Vertical boundaries delineate activities closer to or further from the end user. Horizontal boundaries define the scale and scope of operations. ANSWERS TO REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Marketing over the Internet is a scaleable activity. Delivery through UPS is somewhat scaleable: UPS already incurs the fixed cost of an international collection and distribution network; it may be willing to give Amazon bulk discounts for larger volumes of business. 2. Number of cars in service January 2002 + production + imports – exports – scrappage during 2002 = Number of cars in service January 2003. Number of cars in service is stock; other variables are flows. 3. [omitted]. 4. No, models must be less than completely realistic to be useful. 5. (a) Average price per minute = (210 + 120 x 4)/5 = 138 yen per minute. (b) Price of marginal minute = 120 yen. 6. (a) Flow; (b) Stock; (c) Stock. 5 Chapter 1: Introduction to Managerial Economics 7. (a) The electricity market includes buyers and sellers. (b) industry consists of sellers only. The electricity 8. (a) False. (b) False. 9. [omitted]. 10. If there are scale economies, the organization could product at a lower cost on a larger scale, which means wider horizontal boundaries; and vice versa. 11. Yes. Horizontal boundaries: how many product categories should it sell? Vertical boundaries: should it operate its own warehouses and delivery service? 12. Intel has relatively more market power. 13. (b). 14. Both (a) and (b). 15. Competitive markets have large numbers of buyers and sellers, none of which can influence market conditions. By contrast, a buyer or seller with market power can influence market conditions. A market is imperfect if one party directly conveys benefits or costs to others, or if one party has better information than another. WORKED ANSWER TO DISCUSSION QUESTION Jupiter Car Rental offers two schemes for rental of a compact car. It charges $60 per day for an unlimited mileage plan, and $40 per day for a time-and-mileage plan with 100 free miles plus 20 cents a mile for mileage in excess of the free allowance. a. For a customer who plans to drive 50 miles, which is the cheaper plan. What are the average and marginal costs per mile of rental? (The marginal cost is the cost of an additional mile of usage.) b. For a customer who plans to drive 150 miles, which is the cheaper plan. What are the average and marginal costs per mile of rental? c. If Jupiter raises the basic charge for the time-and-mileage plan to $44 per day, how would that affect the average and marginal costs for a customer who drives 50 miles? 6 Chapter 1: Introduction to Managerial Economics Answer (a) It is helpful to sketch the total rental cost as a function of the mileage (see figure below). The breakeven between the two plans is at 200 miles per day. For 50 miles, the time-and-mileage plan is cheaper. Average cost = $40/50 = 80 cents per mile. Marginal cost = 0. Total cost ($) time-and-mileage plan unlimited mileage plan $60 $40 0 100 200 Quantity (miles per day) (b) For the 150 mile customer, the time-and-mileage plan is still cheaper. Average cost = $(40 + 0.2 x 50)/150 = 33 cents per mile; marginal cost = 20 cents per mile. (c) After the increase in the basic charge, the average cost = $(44 + 0.2 x 50)/150 = 36 cents per mile, while marginal cost = 20 cents per mile. The increase in the basic charge doesn’t affect the marginal cost. 7

Effects of South West Monsoon (SWM) on Cloud Cover and Shape

Effects of South West Monsoon (SWM) on Cloud Cover and Shape INTRODUCTION An investigation of the cloud shape stability and the cloud covering is presented on the immediate pre and post south-west monsoon (SWM) commencement. The study focuses on Sri Lankan region bounded by longitude 700E-950E latitude 00-200N during the months April, May June in the years 2012 and 2013. Monsoon onset is a remarkably abrupt event and has established the criterion to determine the onset date which is noticeably controversial and a complicated issue. The prime aim of this paper is to understand the vagaries of the cloud dynamics on the before, inception after the SW monsoon and the analysis are carried out purely based on the computer based image processing rather than chemical physical processes. Cloud shape stability which is determined by the pixel orientation based on the neighbourhood begins to drop in April-May and remains in that low level in subsequent months of both years while cloud cover which is determined by the brightness of the pixel starts to go up in the same period and remains in that high level in the following months as well. The south-west (SW) monsoon brings somewhat organized heavy rainfall to Sri Lanka. The economy of the country is largely influenced by the SW monsoon because major industries such as agriculture and power generation are highly depended on rainfall. Therefore, studying the commencement of SW monsoon and its structure is significant. There is no universally accepted definition or criterion to determine the monsoon onset and previous studies exhibited considerable year to year variation of SW monsoon onset [1]. Further, the climate system is a highly uncertain dynamical system which involves large number of factors such as precipitation, temperature, outgoing long wave radiation, wind speed and direction, humidity etc. Monsoon is also an onset-active-break-revival life cycle phenomenon [11]. Therefore, the establishment of a criterion to determine the onset is a noticeably controversial and complicated task. Major monsoon area of the world exists in South and East Asia and the Indian Ocean monsoon interact with the South China Sea monsoon [10]. Most of the previous studies relating to the monsoon onset were based on wind, precipitation, outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) and brightness temperature [1, 9, 11]. According to the summarization done by Wang et al from 1992 to 2001, only in one among seventeen (17) stud ies was involved with cloud data [1]. However, Wonsick et al document the seasonal progression of the Asian monsoon by analysing clouds and convection in the pre-peak and post-monsoon season [6]. Moreover, maximum cloud zone and the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) over the Indian region during the SW monsoon was investigated by Sikka et al and it has been found that the two maximum cloud zones are present during June-September, one of 150N and the other of equatorial region [4]. Most of the monsoon studies based on clouds as well as other variables were highly pertinent to China and Indian region. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no or very little research have been done to investigate the monsoon commencement in Sri Lankan region using the cloud patterns. In addition to the monsoon studies, there are certain studies relating to clouds. Among those, identification of tracer clouds done by Nilanjan et al [7] and automated cloud classification done by Bryan et al [3] motivated us to study the seasonal c loud dynamics. Thirty minute interval cloud images were downloaded from the http://202.54.31.45/ARCHIVE/ASIA-SECTOR/INFRARED. Images are taken from the Indian National Satellite System (INSAT) KALPANA 1 geostationary satellite. These images are derived from the emission by the earth and its atmosphere at thermal infrared wavelength of 10.5-12.5 Â µm and they cover the latitude range 100S-500N and the longitude range 450E – 1050E. The ground resolution at the sub satellite point is nominally 8 Km x 8 Km. Images are stored in the above web site as colour RGB JPEG format. Pixel resolution of the images is about 1200 x 1024 (72 dpi x 72 dpi) with 24bits depth including image header. The region bounded by the longitude 700E-950E and the latitude 00-200N extracted from the original image and the grey converted image is used for this study. This extracted bounded region provides a good coverage for the island of Sri Lanka. Moreover, this study investigates the cloud images from January 2012 to July 2013. Our objective of this research is to distinguish the strange behaviour of the clouds during the potential SW monsoon onset period. Sequel of this paper is as follows: next section describes the methodology followed by the results and discussion. The last section is allocated for a conclusions and recommendations. METHODOLOGY Local orientation which is used as a feature of a satellite image is a major contributor to determine the cloud shape life time. Local orientation which is also called the linear symmetry (LS) is characteristics by the least change of grey value in one direction and maximal change in the orthogonal direction [2,5]. Therefore, a linear symmetry tensor for an image is constructed with respect to the local neighbourhood for each pixel of the image. In this way, local symmetry tensors of the concerned bounded area of the 30 minute interval satellite images were constructed. By preserving the first image as the reference image, comparison takes place with its LS tensor and that of the subsequent images till the correlation drops below a specified threshold. In this study the threshold is 0.9. As long as this correlation of the subsequent image is higher than the threshold, is considered as the same cloud shape with the reference image. The time period until the drop of the correlation of the LS tensors below the threshold is considered as the life time of that particular cloud shape. This process was continued by taking the next immediate image as the new reference image and mean value of the life times is taken as the cloud shape life time for the particular day. In addition, the cloud cover was determined in the said area of the image using the feature of brightness of the pixel. If the pixel brightness is higher than the global threshold which is determined by the otsu’s method, it is considered as the cloudy pixel. As such the cloud cover area was calculated for the chosen area of image by counting the number of cloudy pixels. Similarly, the average was taken as the cloud cover of the particular day. Finally, the cloud shape life time and the cloud cover were analysed in the months of April, May and June which include the SW monsoon potential onset period [8, 10], of the years 2012 2013 which is presented in the following section. All calculations and analysis were done using the software MATLAB and Microsoft Excel. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION To look at the vagaries of the cloud dynamics in the immediate pre and post south-west monsoon commencement, monthly variation of cloud shape life time and cover from January 2012 to July 2013 are calculated and presented in figure 1 with the standard deviation. In both years, cloud shape stability life time start to drop in April-May and after the drop, this low level sustains during the entire peak monsoon period (June-September) in year 2012. Similar trend can be seen up to July in the year 2013. On the other hand, cloud cover starts to increase in same period and remains in that higher value during the whole peak period of monsoon in year 2012. Once again that trend can also be observed up to July 2013. According to the previous studies, Wang et al (2004), Wonsick et al (2009) and Tsing-Change Chen et al monsoon build up on average from 2nd week of May to 1st week of June[1, 6, 8, 10]. When we closely look at how a cloud behaves in this previously identified monsoon onset period, interestingly, we can see a remarkable change of behaviour in both cloud shape life time and the cloud cover occurred in the data considered for this study. First of all, highest cloud cover is increased by 48.56% than the previous day on May 19, 2012. Similarly in 2013, this happens on May 25 which is a 48.47% increase than the previous day. After goes up that high level of cloud cover is averagely 40 per cent or higher in 2013 while it is 40 per cent or higher in most of the days in 2012 remains till mid-June. This is shown in the figure 2. While cloud cover is increased on May 19 2012, the cloud shape stability time is strangely dropped by 51% on the same day when compared with that in the previous day. As shown in figure 3, after this drop the average low life time sustains till mid-June. For example, cloud shape life time of May 18, 19 and 20 are 12.42, 6.08 and 7.36 hours respectively and then it does not increase to a level as high as 12 hours. Similar behaviour can be observed in 2013 too. As higher cloud cover increased occurred on May 25, 2013, cloud shape life time brings to 6.42 hours on that day from 9.83 hours on previous day. This is a 34.75% drop which remains at that low life time as low as 5 hours up to mid-June. We can also see that the cloud shape life time drop occurred on May 20, 2013 by 37.66% than the previous day. However, the following day again it goes up by 50%. In addition, on May 28, 2013, once again we can observe the life time diminish by 38.98% but that drop brings 4.92 hours of life time on May 27 to 3.0 hours on May 28 which is not higher than 5.0 hours either of days and it is not a reasonably long run downward trend. Therefore, the life time drop occurred in May 25, 2013 is unusual. According to the literature, summer monsoon first appeared in South China Sea (SCS) and moves progressively northward [1]. The consistency between the above said dates and onset dates of the previous studies on south china sea and indian monsoon region are significant [1, 9]. In the literature, we can find a considerable amount of studies for defining onset of the monsoon. Some of them are based on multivariable. Certain studies have tried to define the onset using a single variable. However, resulting onset dates for some years were greatly divers because the choice of local variables are sensitivity to the region [1]. One of salient feature of most definitions is that a remarkable change the value of chosen factor or factors and sustains that value to some reasonable period. For instance, Wang et al define the South China Sea (SCS) summer monsoon onset as an index of 850 hPazonal winds average over the central SCS (USCS) is positive and remains positive on subsequent days (3 pentads) with accumulating mean greater than one [1]. Moreover, according to Tsing Chen et al wind field and rainfall are other important widely used factors for determining the onset. Again, these factors reach a certain critical amount and sustain that value for some consecutive d ays which is adopted as the criterion of monsoon onset [10].Similarly, we are able to identify the remarkable change of cloud shape life time and the cloud amount and sustain that change a considerable number of days in the same fashion. conclusions/RECOMMENDATIONS In 2012, within the potential SW monsoon onset period of 2nd week of May to 1st week of June (according to the previous studies), highest cloud cover increase occurred on May 19 and it is 48.56% higher than the previous day. After it goes up it remains in that value of around 40 per cent most of the days till mid-June and averagely higher in the entire peak SW monsoon period (June-September). On the other hand, cloud shape stability on the same day is dropped by 51 per cent than the previous day. Again this is the highest drop within the monsoon onset potential period. Similarly after the cloud shape life time goes down, it remains till mid-June and mean value is as low as the same within the whole monsoon peak period. Similar observation can be seen in that period of 2013 too. Highest cloud cover increase of 48.47% than the previous day is occurred on 25th May, 2013 and it remains till mid-June at as high as 40%. Moreover, the cloud shape life time too behaves as same as the previou s year. When compared with the previous day it is dropped by 34.75% on 25th May and that this low value remains in subsequent days till mid-June. In the light of the above findings, there is a sound reason to explain that the level of cloud cover and their shape life time are good indicators for determining the arrival date of the SW monsoon. On the other hand determining the monsoon structure such as arrival and withdrawal date, break time and its strength is a challenging demand. In the future, we expect to develop the image processing tools for capturing the structural information of the satellite cloud images in order to describe and figure out weather patterns as well as monsoon. REFERENCES B. Wang, Linho, Yongsheng Zhang, and M. M. Lu, 2004: Definition of South China Sea Monsoon Onset and Commencement of the East Asia Monsoon, Journal of Climate, 17, 699-710 Bigun, J., Gosta, H. Grandlund, Optimal Orientation Detection of Linear Symmetry, 1987, Proceedings of the IEEE First International Conference of Computer Vision. London, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp 433-438 Bryan A Baum, Vasanth Tovinkere, Jay Titlow, and Ronald M Welch, 1997: Automated Cloud Classification of Global AVHRR Data Using a Fuzzy Logic Approach, Journal of Applied Meteorology, 36, 1519-1540 D. R. Sikka, and Sulochana Gadgil, 1980: On the Maximum Cloud Zone and the ITCZ over Indian Longitudes during the Southwest monsoon, Monthly Weather Review, 1840-1853 H. L. Premaratne and J Bigun, 2002: Recognition of Printed Sinhala Characters Using Linear Symmetry, The 5th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, Melbourne, Australia, 23-25 January 2002 Margaret M Wonsick, Rachel T Pinker and Yves Govaerts, 2009: Cloud Variability over the Indian Monsoon Region as Observed from Satellites, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 48, 1803-1821 Nilanjan Ray, Dipti Prasad Mukherjee and Jyotirmoy Das, 1999: Identification of Tracer Clouds: A Shape-based Approach, Current Science, 76, 916-923 S. Ramanayake, Lareef Zubair, and H. B. Nayakekorala, 1998: Week of Onset and Withdrawal of the Southwest Monsoon in Sri Lanka, SLAAS annual conference 54:251-252, December 1998 Tsing Change Chen and Ming Cheng Yen, 1994: Interannual Variation of the Indian Monsoon Simulated by the NCAR Community Climate Model: Effect of the Tropical Pasific SST, Journal of Climate, 7, 1403-1415 Tsing Change Chen and Jau-Ming Chen, 1995: An Observational Study of the South China Sea Monsoon during the 1979 Summer: Onset and Life Cycle, Monthly Weather Review, 123, 2295-2318 Tsing Change Chen, Ren Yow Tzeng and Ming Cheng Yen, 1988: Development and Life Cycle of the Indian Monsoon: Effect of the 30-50 Day Oscillation, Monthly Weather Review, 116, 2183-2199

Hyperspace :: essays research papers

Hyperspace A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension Imagine a you are sitting next to a pond. Now imagine such as how the fish in that pond would view the world around them. Living their entire lives in the pond, the fish would believe that their â€Å"universe† consisted of the murky water and the lilies. Spending most of their time foraging on the bottom of the pond, they would be only dimly aware that an alien world could exist above the surface. The nature of that world would be beyond their comprehension. You could sit only few inches from the fish, yet be separated from them by an immense chasm. You and the fish lives would be spent in two distinct universes, never entering each other’s world, yet were separated by only the thinnest barrier, the water’s surface.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now imagine that you are in a rainstorm next to the same pond. You notice that the pond’s surface was bombarded by thousands of tiny raindrops. The pond’s surface would eventually become turbulent, and the water lilies were being pushed in all different directions. To the fish the water lilies would be getting pushed around by themselves without anything pushing them. Since the water around them would appear invisible, much like the air and space around us, they would be baffled that the water lilies could move around by themselves.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now imagine that there is fish â€Å"scientists† that would concoct clever invention called a â€Å"force† in order to hide their ignorance. Unable to comprehend that there could be waves on an unseen surface, they would conclude that lilies could move without being touched because a mysterious invisible being called a force acted between them. They might give this illusion impressive names (such as action-at-a-distance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many scientists believe we are like the fish swimming contentedly in that pond. We live our lives in our own â€Å"pond,† confident that our universe consists of only the see and touch. Like the fish, our universe consists of what is familiar and visible. We smugly refuse admit that parallel dimensions or universes can exist next to ours, just out of our grasp.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of these dimensions is the 2nd dimension. To the 2 dimensional beings or Flatlanders, our dimension is incomprehensible to the Flatlanders. The 3rd dimension is to complex for the Flatlanders brain.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Flatlanders can not have a digestive tract simply because the being would be split in half.

Are Reason and Emotion Equally Necessary in Justifying Moral Decisions Essay

Emotion and reason are two different ways of knowing but can both be used in the same situation. However, does one have a higher weighting than the other when it comes to making moral decisions? Using reason to make a knowledge claim or moral decision requires rationality and is justifiable, meaning that everyone would be able to understand the argument for it. Emotion on the other hand is usually simply a ‘gut feeling’ or an opinion of an individual and therefore has no evidence or points to support a decision. An example could be when it comes to whether it’s right or wrong to murder someone. It’s generally accepted that it isn’t because, using reason to justify this, everyone should have equal rights and it’s unfair for one person to take the life of another. One person may have the opinion that they do have the right to murder someone else but their argument would not be as strong since it would simply be their opinion of the case. Another example could be homosexuality. Many people who are against it claim that it’s wrong because ‘it’s not natural’ but when thinking of the argument rationally, this would mean cars, airplanes and TVs would also be considered wrong since those things aren’t natural either. Arguments made using ethics and emotions are not usually consistent and this is why reason is a better way of knowing because it can be applied to many cases. However, sometimes both emotion and reason can be used equally in justifying a moral decision such as when it comes to abortions. According to ethics and emotions, abortion is murder (since the baby is a human being) and murder is wrong (as all lives are valuable and it’s unjust to take another one’s life). Reason can come in to justify these arguments as well as add the point of the medical complications and effects abortions bring. On the side for the legalisation of abortions, justifiable points includes if the baby has a life-threatening disease or if the mother does that would be pass down and therefore the baby would lead an unhappy and sick life, if the parents are unfit for the responsibility of parenthood (for example, alcoholics, drug-addicts, teenagers), if the mother was unmarried and lived in a strict eligious society, if it was caused by rape and therefore would be unfair to the women as well as cause psychological harm and the fact that the government is intervening and reducing the freedom of choice for women simply goes against basic civil rights. Emotions are involved in the decision to abort a baby because mothers want what’s best for their baby and in most abortion cases, the reason behind it is because they feel their baby would not live the life they deserve . Whether it’s because they’d spend most of the life in a hospital with an incurable illness or because the mother knows that she wouldn’t be good enough for the parenting job. When it comes to making any decisions, whether it’s a moral one or not, reason should be considered more as it uses rationality and therefore is easier to explain and justify a decision to others. Emotions aren’t necessarily permanent or consistent and so it would be more difficult to try to get others to understand why you’ve made a certain decision.