DNA Fingerprinting1 essays

DNA Fingerprinting1 essays DNA Fingerprinting is also referred to as DNA profiling and DNA typing. It was first developed as an identification technique in England in 1985. The original use was to expose the presence of any genetic diseases. About three years later it became used to identify criminals through the analysis of genetic material and to settle paternity disputes. It is still used for those reasons today. The DNA fingerprinting process is called gel electrophoresis. It is a process that can sort pieces of DNA according to its size. The process is done by taking samples of DNA from the crime scene and comparing it with samples from the accused. Samples are taken from biological materials like blood, semen, hair, and saliva. In the testing process the DNA samples are first entered into the wells in a gel like substance called Agarose. The gel is placed between two electrodes, one negatively charged and the other positively charged. The wells in the Agarose are inserted on the negative side because DNA has a negative charge. Molecules of DNA then travel in lanes toward the positive side. Small molecules will travel farther than the bigger ones, because they have an easier time moving through the gel. So the molecules will then be assorted according to their size. Next, the gel is X-rayed to see the parallel bands (showed by black bars on the film) in each lane. The separated molecule s of DNA form a pattern of parallel bands that show the structure of the DNA. The pattern should never change for one person. In a court of law, the results of a DNA fingerprinting examination can be used to convict or acquit an accused person. If the accused's DNA matches the one at the crime scene then that person could be convicted. Critics believe that a DNA fingerprint may not yet be reliable enough to use in the court system. They question how accurate a DNA fingerprint is and the cost of it. They believe that it is not very accurate ...

Why you should be selected to receive this scholarship Essay - 1

Why you should be selected to receive this - Scholarship Essay Example I have been married, divorced, and have a daughter, who I love dearly. I lost both my beloved parents and a sister within the last 24 months. I recently quit my job of 10 years, after considerable cost-benefit analysis and reflection, to go back to school and to finish my education. Despite the challenges and difficulties, I remain optimistic and steadfast in faith and in the conviction that a better future holds to those who persist. I am a business major with concentration in the field of finance. I am in my second year at a community college, with plans to transfer to a four year program in a university. My long term goal is to graduate with an MBA degree. I currently have a 3.8 cumulative GPA through consistent academic diligence and commitment. I was immensely grateful and appreciative for having been awarded this scholarship last semester. I am hereby applying to be selected from the roster of hopeful applicants for the scholarship since I am currently unemployed and I wanted to focus my full and undivided time to complying with academic requirements, in conjunction with providing physical and emotional support to my daughter. My long term professional goal after graduating with an MBA degree is to become an instrumental part of the management team of a global organization where my knowledge, abilities and skills would contribute to the achievement of organizational goals. I likewise aim to uplift my family and society through the theoretical framework that would be applied towards corporate social responsibility and environmental

AT&T Control Mechanisms Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

AT&T Control Mechanisms - Essay Example All customers of AT&T sign an AUP to signify their conformity to the policies outlined by the company. A failure by a customer to adhere to the policies stated in the AUP may result in the termination of their use of AT&T’s services. This control mechanism is effective in controlling the unlawful use of the services offered by AT&T. It is AT&T’s way of policing their ranks. The AUP is necessary to protect both AT&T and its wide customer base. This control mechanism imposed by AT&T is effective in that it functions as a deterrent for internet users who plan to use AT&T’s service in an unlawful and unacceptable manner. Another control mechanism existing in AT&T is their Code of Business Conduct. All employees of AT&T are required to adhere to this Code as it embodies the values espoused by the company. As Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of AT&T clearly puts it, â€Å"The Code of Business Conduct puts our values into action. It’s more than a set of rule s; it’s the principles we work by and a guide to help us make the right decisions every day† (AT&T Intellectual Property 1). This Code is a control mechanism imposed by AT&T to all its employees to safeguard its reputation of honesty and integrity to its customers. The effectiveness of this mechanism can be measured in the numerous awards and recognitions reaped by AT&T which could be attributed to the outstanding performance of its workforce who are committed to its Code of Conduct. The AT&T Intellectual Property arm is another important control mechanism adopted by AT&T. This division is responsible for protecting AT&T’s portfolio of more than 9,000 patents (AT&T Intellectual Property , par.2). Aside from protecting the company’s portfolio, it is also responsible in managing the licensing and selling of AT&T patents, technology, trademarks and domain names (AT&T Intellectual Property par.3). This control mechanism is imperative in safeguarding AT&Tâ€⠄¢s researches and innovations. Now more than ever, the Intellectual Property is deemed very relevant because of the rapid growth in new technologies. The fourth control mechanism observed at AT&T is the creation in 2009 of the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) Forum â€Å"to provide a venue to formally integrate, leverage, and grow enterprise-wide initiatives to become best-in-class from a diversity perspective† (AT&T Intellectual Property , par.6). According to AT&T, this forum meets quarterly every year and aims to monitor the development of the diversity strategies within the organization. Hand in hand with this Forum is the establishment of the Business Unit Diversity Council to create an awareness of the diversity and inclusion of the workforce at AT&T. The proof of the effectiveness of these control mechanisms is the recognition given by DiversityInc. to AT&T in 2011 as one of the top 50 companies for diversity (AT&T Intellectual Property , par.1). Furthermore, it has alwa ys been included in DiversityBusiness.com’s America’s Top 50 Corporations for Multicultural Business Opportunities. The four control mechanisms described above all contribute to making AT&T the largest communications holding company in the world by revenue. The AUP and the Intellectual Property arm of AT&T are control mechanisms which are targeted towards the external community which AT&T

Semantic Priming: Effects of Related and Unrelated Words

Semantic Priming: Effects of Related and Unrelated Words Semantic Priming: Effects of Related and Unrelated Words on Response Times Introduction to Cognition, Biological Psychology and Quantitative Research Methods Abstract The aim of this experiment was to measure the response times on the string of letters that were shown to the participants on a computer screen. The task of the participants was to decide whether the string of letters were words or non-words. The hypothesis of the experiment was that the response time in the lexical decision task would be significantly faster for target words related to the prime than for target words unrelated to the prime. The experimental design was repeated measures, where participants responded to all the stimuli that were propounded. Participants were presented with a string of words related to the prime, words unrelated to the prime, non-word created from a word related to the prime and a non-word created from a word unrelated to the prime. The findings of the experiment showed that participants responded faster when the letter strings were related words rather than unrelated words. This is because related words are closely associated in implicit memory, theref ore the response times of the participants will be faster in recognising the words. Explanations for the results of the experiment will be discussed further in the report. Introduction Priming is an effect on implicit memory in which the reaction time of a response to a stimulus is faster due to having previous experience of the stimulus. For example, individuals can recognise a word faster if it is paired with a related word. For example, â€Å"table† and â€Å"chair† and are slower at recognising words if they are unrelated. For example, â€Å"nurse† and â€Å"butter† (Refer to appendix A). In the study of Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) we refer to semantic priming, where semantic refers to the logic and language individuals store in their implicit memory. Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) suggested that the response times were faster when the string of words were related because a part of the memory is activated in which the retrieval of words from semantic memory is faster. Associative priming and the lexical decision task is an extension of the study by Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971). In their experiment they hypothesized that recognition of a word is faster when it is associated with its prime. In their experiment they presented 12 participants with two strings of letters, one above the other. Their task was to press the ‘yes’ key if the two strings were words and the ‘no’ key if one or both were non-words. In their results, they found that response times were faster when the target string consisted of related words such as ‘bread’ and ‘butter’ or ‘nurse’ and ‘doctor’ proving their hypothesis to be correct. Furthermore, another psychologist McNamara (1992) demonstrated results from a similar experiment of associative priming. He also found that mean response times were faster when words were related rather than unrelated. He also found that errors rates (percentage of errors) were much higher in the non-related condition than in the related condition. The present experiment is in favour of that of Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) and McNamara’s (1992) because similar results were obtained from both research studies. The difference to the present study to that of Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) was that the string of words were not presented simultaneously, they were presented one after the other and the participants were to decide if both strings were words or if one of both were non-words. From this it is unknown which letter string is the one that the participant responds to from their implicit memory. However the present experiment could allow us to investigate the effects of the time between the letters are presented on the effects on response times. Another modification that was made was that in the present experiment, was that one letter was changed in either a related or an unrelated word. This allows us to investigate the eff ects of the response time on the identification of words. Previous research by Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) and findings from the present experiment are relevant in explaining how the long term memory is organised in individuals. The hypothesis of the experiment was that the response time in the lexical decision task would be significantly faster for target words related to the prime than for target words unrelated to the prime. Participants 150 participants took part in the present experiment, all being part of the same educational institution. The participants consisted of mixed gender with majority being female. The age of the participants varied from 18 and above and they were also from various ethnicities. The type of sampling that was used in the experiment was opportunity sampling because the participants were available to take part in the experiment at that time. Apparatus As the experiment was computer based, each participant had access to a computer. The program was written in TCL for Windows, and ran on PCs using the Windows 7 operating system. There were two types of stimuli used in the experiment; words and non-words, related and unrelated words. Key findings in the experiment showed that participants responded faster when words were related to each other; for example, ‘bread’ and ‘butter.’ Thus, participants responded slower when words were unrelated to each other; for example, ‘table’ and ‘nurse.’ Design The experiment was set up in an educational institution and the task was carried out using computer equipment. There were 150 participants involved in the experiment and consisted of first year psychology students. This was an opportunity sample, as the participants were available at the time the study was being carried out. The program was written in TCL for Windows, and ran on PCs using the Windows 7 operating system. The design of the experiment was repeated measures where participants were presented with all the stimuli. There were two independent variables for this experiment: related or unrelated words and word or non-words. The dependent variable was the response time in which participants decided if the string of letters were words or non-words. The conditions in the experiment were to press the ‘L’ key or the ‘A’ key if the string of letters were words or non-words. The experiment program showed the participant which key to press for each response. The controls that were used in the experiment were the ways in which the stimuli were presented. The target was presented 300, 600 or 900 milliseconds after the prime was presented on the computer screen. When the results were presented the times after the stimuli were presented were averaged out. Procedure The participants carried out the experiment simultaneously. The participant was seated in front of the computer throughout the experiment. The stimuli were presented one after the other on the screen after which the participant had to make the choice if the string of letters presented were words or non-words. The participant responded by pressing the ‘A’ or ‘L’ key on the keyboard; these were random for each participant. Response time was measured by the computer programme. The experiment lasted around 20 minutes. Participants were shown 18 trials in which the target string was a word related to the prime, 18 trials in which the target string was a non-word, 18 trials in which the target string was a non-word created from a word and 18 trials in which the target string was a non-word from a word unrelated to the prime, which means there were 72 trials in total. (Refer to appendix B). Results The inferential test chosen for the present experiment was a repeated measure t-test. Using a repeated measures t-test, with alpha set at 0.05, response times for the related words were significantly faster than the unrelated words (t=-3.762, df=149, p=0.000, two tailed). Similarly, using a repeated measures t-test, with alpha set at 0.05, response times were significantly faster for related non-words than for unrelated non-words (t=0.974, df=149, p=0.332, two tailed). The difference between the mean response times in each condition varied, the mean response time was faster when the target string was a word related to the prime and was slower when the target string was a pseudo word unrelated to the prime. McNamara (1992) reports that lexical decisions are made faster because semantic memory consists of interconnected nodes (Refer to appendix C). When a stimulus is presented, a part of the semantic memory is activated and the spreads across the network activating related nodes. The c loser the nodes, the closer the words are associated in semantic memory. Mean Reaction Times and Standard Deviations in Lexical Decision Task Discussion The hypothesis of the experiment was accepted because response time in the lexical decision task was significantly faster for target words related to the prime than for target words unrelated to the prime. This is in favour of Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) experiment as previously mentioned because in their experiment, their mean response time was fastest when the target string was a word related to the prime; similarly with the present experiment. The results of the present experiment demonstrates that Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) and McNamara’s (1992) theory of semantic priming is both valid and reliable. An opportunity sample was used in the experiment and may be considered as a weak research method by many researchers. Therefore this kind of sample may produce a biased sample as it is easy for the researcher to gather participants from their social group; in this case, a sample of students from the same educational institution. Hence the results of the experiment are not generalizable to a whole population. Since majority of the participants involved in the experiment consisted of students, the results can be affected because a much educated, mature individual will have more knowledge of the world and whose memory may be better than that of students. Similarly, a younger, uneducated individual may not have a reasonable good memory so their results will differ from the student’s results. A more appropriate type of sample may be a volunteer sample, where the experiment will recruit all types of individuals from the society. This way the findings of the experiment may be general izable to a total population. References Friedenberg, J. Silverman, G. (2006). Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Goldstein, E. (2010). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. (3rd ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. McNamara, T. (1992). Learning. Memory, and Cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 18 (6) 1173-1190. Meyer, D. Schvaneveldt, R. (1971). Facilitation in Recognizing Pairs of Words. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 90 (2) 227-234. Proctor, R. Healy, A. (Eds.) (2003). Experimental Psychology, Volume 4 (2nd ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Appendix Appendix A Stimuli used in the experiment. The words in the brackets indicate where the pseudo word originated from. Appendix B Number of trials per condition. Appendix C A diagram of how knowledge in semantic memory may be organised.

Linguistic Performance and Competence Essay

Linguistic Knowledge Speakers’ linguistic knowledge permits them to form longer and longer sentences by joining sentences and phases together or adding modifiers to a noun. whether you stop at three, five or eighteen adjectives, it is impossible to limit the number you could add if desired. Very long sentences are theoretically possible, but they are highly improbable. Evidently, there is a difference between having the knowledge necessary to produce sentences of a language, and applying this knowledge. It is a difference between what you know, which your linguistic competence  is, and how you use this knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension, which is your linguistic performance. Linguistic Performance Linguistic Performance – a speaker’s actual use of language in real situations; what the speaker actually says, including grammatical errors and other non-linguistic features such as hesitations and other disfluencies. When we speak, we usually wish to convey some message. At some stage in the act of producing speech, we must organize our thoughts into strings of words. Sometimes the message is garbled. We may stammer, or  pause, or produce slips of the tongue. We may even sound like the baby, who illustrates the difference between linguistic knowledge and the way we use that knowledge in performance. Linguistic Competence Linguistic competence is a term used by speech experts and anthropologists to describe how language is defined within a community of speakers. This term applies to mastering the combination of sounds, syntax and semantics known as the grammar of a language. †¢ACCORDING TO CHOMSKY, COMPETENCE IS THE ‘IDEAL’ LANGUAGE SYSTEM THAT makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite  number of sentences in their language, and to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences. oThis means a person’s ability to create and understand sentences, including sentences they have never heard before. Competence versus Performance â€Å"Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-communication, who know it’s (the speech community’s) language perfectly and that it is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in  applying his knowledge of this language in actual performance. â€Å" Chomsky differentiates competence, which is an idealized capacity, from performance being the production of actual utterances. According to him, competence is the ideal speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his or her language and it is the ‘mental reality’ which is responsible for all those aspects of language use which can be characterized as ‘linguistic’. Chomsky argues that only under an idealized situation whereby the speaker-hearer is unaffected by grammatically irrelevant conditions such as memory limitations and distractions  will performance be a direct reflection of competence. A sample of natural speech consisting of numerous false starts and other deviations will not provide such data. Therefore, he claims that a fundamental distinction has to be made between the competence and performance. Chomsky dismissed criticisms of delimiting the study of performance in favor of the study of underlying competence, as unwarranted and completely misdirected. He claims that the descriptivist limitation-in-principle to classification and organization of data, the  Ã¢â‚¬Å"extracting patterns† from a corpus of observed speech and the describing â€Å"speech habits† etc. are the core factors that precludes the development of a theory of actual performance. Chomsky thinks that what linguists should study is the ideal speaker’s competence, not his performance, which is too haphazard to be studied. Although a speaker possesses an internalized set of rules and applies them in actual use, he cannot tell exactly what these rules are. So the task of a linguist is to determine from the data of performance the underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the language user.

Folk Dance History in the Philippines Essay

It is impossible to know when exactly dancing became a part of life in the Philippines. Many traditional dances were designed to thank the gods for natural and agricultural events, such as rain and harvests. The dances were performed during festivals and remembrances of past military victories, and still are performed at celebrations of births and weddings in modern times. Many modern folk dance festivals still feature ancient dances performed in costume of the tribal period of the Philippines. Some dances such as the Palok and the Lumagen are performed with traditional percussion instruments such as the gangsa (a small copper gong), a tobtob (brass gong) or a hibat (a gong played with a soft wooden stick). For many tribal dances there are no external musicians; the dancers generate their own accompaniment with stomping and hand clapping. Later Dances in Philippine History More recent dances done in the Philippines derive from historical events such as the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century and the conflicts with the Moors. While certain words and movements from those cultures have been integrated into the dances, the Filipino dance genre remains true to its ancient tradition and roots. * Touch: Bring your free foot to your lead foot, then touch the floor without taking a step or putting weight on the free foot. * Toe: Touch the toe of the free foot to the floor without shifting weight to the free foot. * Heel: Extend the free foot forward, then touch the back of your heel to the floor without putting weight on your heel. * Tap: Touch the floor with a sharp motion with your free foot, but do not take a step or put weight on the free foot. * Stamp: Stomp the flat of your free foot on the floor, but do not put weight on the free foot. Noise can vary based on the type of shoe you’re wearing and the type of floor. * Point: Extend the free foot forward or backward and touch your toe to the floor. The ankle should be stretched and the instep arched. Do not step or put weight on the free foot. * Press: Step forward with your free foot, putting partial weight on the ball of your foot. Your supporting leg should be straight and your pressed leg (free foot) is bent with some pressure (partial weight) on the floor. Your body should be leaned forward just a bit. * Brush: Touch the toe of your free foot to the floor, then move it a short distance toward the supporting foot or move it against the supporting foot, but do not put weight on it. * Draw: Touch the toe of your free foot to the floor far from your supporting foot, then move it toward your supporting foot without putting weight on it. * Drag: Stretch your body up, then touch your toe to the floor far from your supporting foot and move it toward your supporting foot without putting weight on it. * Flare: Sweep your free foot in an arc, making sure to keep your toe in contact with the floor without putting weight on it. First position- raises arms to a circle in front of the chest. Second position – open up arms sideward, raised below shoulder level with a graceful curve. Third position – raise one arm overhead while other arm remains in 2nd position. Fourth position – raise one arm in front of chest in a half circle, while one arm remains overhead. Fifth position – raise both arms overhead in a graceful curve. Feet Positions: First position – bring heels close to touch; toes apart. Second position – bring feet apart sideward. Third position – bring the heel of one foot to touch the instep of the other foot. Fourth position – bring one foot in front of the other foot to walk strike. Fifth position – bring the heel of one foot to touch the toe of the other. 3/4 plain polka waltz sway balance with raise mincing redoba three steps and point mazurka cross waltz plain waltz 2/4 Touch Step Step Point Close Step Slide Step Step Swing Step Hop SUBLI Subli is the dance portion of a devotion performed in honor of the Mahal na Poong Santa Cruz, a large crucifix of anubing wood with the face of the sun in silver at the center. The icon was discovered in the early decades of Spanish rule in what is now the town of Alitagtag, Batangas. It is the patron of many towns in the area, notably the ancient town of Bauan, Batangas. The subli consists of a long sequence of prayers in verse, songs, and dances, performed in a fixed sequence. The verse recounts the first journey of the early manunubli ( subli performer)through the fields, hills, and rivers of Batangas in search of the miraculous cross. Sections of verse are sung to a fixed punto or skeletal melody, which may be elaborated on in a different way by a different subli troupe. About five of these punto are used in a complete subli performance. These sections may be divided further into various fixed dance patterns involving one, two or eight pairs of men and women. These numbers seem to be the norm in Bauan, although other towns may have formations involving three pairs at a time. The stances, gestures, and movements of the male dancers are freewheeling and dramatic, consisting of leaping, striking the ground with kalaste (wooden bamboo clappers held in both hands), and other movements suggesting the martial arts. The women circle on half-toe, performing the talik (small refined gestures with wrists and fingers), their fingers grazing the small-brimmed hats and alampay (triangular scarf worn loosely over the shoulder)that are the essential parts of their costume. They dance and sing, to the rhythm beaten out by a stick on the tugtugan, a goblet-shaped, footed drum of langka wood with a head made of iguana skin. -E.R. Mirano

The Political Legacy Of The Cold War - 1447 Words

Every once in a while a new International world order is set. The first two events that had the biggest effect on international structure were World War I and World War II, the third was the Cold War. Though the Cold War did not end in a direct war, it caused the fall of the Soviet Union which shifted the world to a unipolar front – The United States of America. With the fall of the USSR, came the cementing of the United States geopolitical influence, new additions to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the continuation of military development and spending. The Cold War changed the course of many lives, and affected international relations to this day. This essay will address the political legacy of the Cold War. To do so, the†¦show more content†¦The advantage that the Soviet Union held was greater flexibility in its capacity to invest in the military due to it being a non-democratic country where no citizens could question expenditure, unlike Western democratic countries. While the USSR led people to believe that their armament program was defensive, the intelligence community found evidence that it was in fact purely offensive tactic. On the other hand, the USSR viewed the Western world and forces, as an ideological enemy of the Union that feel threatened by the success of communism. They felt that the West was liable to attack for purely ideological reasons (Mccgwire, 1987). Stalin, a political realist, prior to the cold war beginning would not comply with unrealistic American demands. As a socialist country that could not comply with capitalist demands from earlier in 1947, the USSR believed that the cold war was a w ar between capitalism and the success of Socialism. Both sides – the Western Allies and the USSR, had valid threat perceptions as they felt that the other side was liable to attack first. This was exacerbated by the deployment of Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (SS20) in the 1980s in Western Europe. This reduced the warning time for a strike to a miniscule 5 minutes, and significantly elevated the risk of war breaking out by accident, or without thought, as there was no time for a proper decision making