Ampalaya Coffee Essay Example for Free

Ampalaya Coffee Essay This investigatory project aims to prepare and also to make a coffee from the â€Å" Ampalaya Seeds†. We know that Ampalaya or also known as Bitter melon is known for as its bitterness and astringent taste , the bitter melon can see everywhere. This investigatory project encourage us students to make a coffee, as an alternative product . This study was conducted to determine the feasibility of the ampalaya seeds as coffee. The researchers used powdered Ampalaya seeds in this study. After researching and collecting the raw materials, the researchers were able to begin the experimentation. The coffee was obtained by drying, grinding, and roasting the seeds of ampalaya, and boiled. After boiling, the coffee was manually extracted with the use of a clean cloth. The study focuses on producing coffee out of ampalaya seeds. It does not aimed to determine which coffee (ampalaya seeds vs. commercial coffee) has more nutritional value or which is more nutritious. II. Acknowledgement. We would like to thank to the following person that are help us to start and to continuing this our Investigatory Project ,including the following to our ALMIGHTY GOD that help us and give us strength and knowledge to explain the main idea of this investigatory project . To our parents and also our friend who give us supports to finish our Investigatory Project. For our parents that supplies our needs , including the financial needs . THANK YOU !!!!!! Chapter 1: Introduction In our modern generation , many people in our country used coffee especially our grandparents and also our parents. Coffee is known as beverage to the majority of the people. It is known for its stimulating effect on the functions of the brain , thus making the drinker active . Variants of coffee flavors were already produced all throughout the world aiming for the discovery of alternative sources of coffee production . The coffee from ampalaya seeds help us to earn and save money . A. Background of the study Coffee alternatives have been famous since the last two decades due to economic crisis and experimentations for health and medical benefits. Any seeds that are edible when powdered can be used as an alternative source for coffee. The difference of the generic coffee from the seeds of the coffee plant from those of the alternatives is that it has a good amount of caffeine content. The similarity you can find in the alternatives and those of the original is that seeds contain carbohydrates which cause the aroma in roasted coffee. Ampalaya, on the other hand, is a crawling vine that grows mostly on tropical countries like the Philippines. It is said to be rich in iron, potassium, beta-carotene and other nutrients. It is also famous in treating diabetes because of its properties like polypeptide-P; a plant insulin that can lower blood sugar levels. Many researches on agricultural food chemistry convey that it provides nutritionally significant amounts of nutrients, minerals and amino acids that are needed for life. B. Objectives of the study B1. General Objectives 1. To determine if the ampalaya seeds have considerable characteristics of the products in terms of color, aroma, taste, and acidity. B2. Specific Objectives 1. To produce coffee using ampalaya seeds as the main ingredient. 2. To determine and compare the levels of acceptability of the coffee samples. C. Hypotheses NULL 1. There is no significant difference among the different ampalaya coffee samples developed in terms of their color, aroma, and taste. ALTERNATIVE 1. There is no significant difference among the different ampalaya coffee samples developed in terms of their acceptability. D. Significance of the study Momordica Charantia or ampalaya seeds contain iron and folic acid which are essential for the production of the red blood cells and the formulation of hemoglobin and myoglobin. Coffee is usually drunk hot, black or with cream and sugar and also drunk cold as iced coffee, specially summer. People are used of drinking coffee every morning to warmth their body and at night to avoid being sleepy. But coffee contains a stimulant called caffeine. The result of this will determine if the coffee made from ampalaya seeds can be use as a substitute for the commercial coffee. This study aimed to produce coffee using ampalaya seeds as substitute. The study was important because ampalaya is abundant in the Philippines. The product may be an anti-diabetes coffee but it is not the main concern of the study. Everybody can benefit of the result of the study unless a coffee drinker. It would recycle the ampalaya seeds instead of being thrown away which a lot of people consider it as waste. E. Scope and limitation The proposed study was limited to producing coffee out of ampalaya (Momordica charantia Linn. ) seeds. Three samples were prepared with different ampalaya seed concentration and same amount of water for comparison purposes in which one of the samples was pure commercial coffee. The samples were processed by the basic methods of making coffee: roasting, grinding, and brewing.

The role of violence in prostitution

The role of violence in prostitution This essay will discuss the theories that exist behind this statement and will look beyond the notion that prostitution involves violence to the prostitute herself (which often it does). There are differing views on this statement which usually depend on which philosophical theory is being put forward. Radical feminists as a whole support the view that prostitution is sexual violence for the reasons discussed below. Radical feminists view prostitution as a form of male dominance and exploitation over women and which reinforces the existing patriarchal order of society. They think that prostitution has a very negative and detrimental effect both on the prostitutes themselves and on the whole of society because stereotypical views of women are reinforced when they are viewed as sexual objects which exist for the amusement and delectation of men. The main objection to prostitution by feminists is the male dominance angle, whereby the man who buys the woman has sex with her, but it is not an enjoyable experience and she is forced to try and dissociate herself from the man. In this way she is a mere object of pleasure for the man and the sex act is not given on an equal or mutual basis. The woman is thus reduced to a conduit for the mans gratification. These feminists believe that many clients use the services of a prostitute because they derive satisfaction from the power trip and the control they exercise over the woman during the sex encounter. Catharine MacKinnon thinks that prostitution isnt sex only, its you do what I say, sex.  [1]   Prostitution is seen as a product of the patriarchal societal order in which men are superior to women and where the gender inequality is present in all walks of life. Such views consider that prostitution perpetuates the notion that women can be bought and sold like a commodity, providing sexual services for the sole purpose of satisfying men. Feminists are very critical of the patriarchal ideology which has justified prostitution throughout time. This ideology sees prostitution as a necessary evil with men unable to control their desires and so it is necessary for a small number of women to sacrifice their life and be used and abused by men in order that the majority can be protected from rape and abuse. Here prostitution is seen as form of slavery. These feminists argue that in fact prostitution does not reduce the incidents of rape but in fact it leads to a noticeable increase in sexual violence against women by letting men think it is perfectly acceptable to treat a woman as a s exual repository over which they have ultimate control. In Nevada, the only American state which permits legal brothels, Melissa Farley argues that the states high rape rate is directly connected to legal prostitution.  [2]  Nevada ranks fourth out of the fifty states for sexual assault crimes and its rape rate is higher than the American average. Given that brothels are legal in Nevada one would expect that it would be at the bottom end of the scale in the number of such crimes. Farley argues that legal prostitution creates an environment where women are not humans equal to men and are thus disrespected by men which in turn leads to increased violence against women. Feminists argue that prostitution is detrimental to society and that when society accepts it, the message is sent that it is irrelevant how the woman feels during sex. Some countries are addressing the undesirability of prostitution and in 1999 Sweden became the first country to make paying for sex a crime although being a prostitute was not criminalised. Other countries including Norway and Iceland followed Swedens lead in 1999. These laws reinforce the views of feminists who in their opposition to prostitution also conclude that it is not a practice which can be made safe by reformation and thus they criticise any harm reduction approach. One former Canadian prostitute, Trisha Baptie now campaigns to outlaw the buying of sexual favours and she has said that Harm reduction? You cant make prostitution safer; prostitution is violence in itself. It is rape, the money only appeases mens guilt.  [3]  In this view although the prostitute is seen to be consenting to sex, her acquiescen ce is not freely given and the payment just makes the man think that he has not committed rape because the woman has received a financial benefit. These so called radical feminists see prostitution as a form of violence against women and are adamant that it should be made illegal as in Sweden. These feminists are particularly scathing of another feminist point of view which argues that prostitution should be legalised because it is here to stay. The radical feminists argue that rape and murder have also existed for numerous years and will continue to do so, but no one argues that rape and murder should be made legal. The radical feminists who campaign against the notion of legalising prostitution in order to control and regulate it thereby reducing its harmful effects compare this to the abhorrent notion of legalising domestic violence in order to control and reduce its harmful effects. Just as you cannot legislate to make domestic violence a little bit better the same applies to prostitution. This attitude evolves from their belief that prostitution is sexual violence and should be treated as such whereby it should be eradicat ed not controlled in their eyes. Another major objection to prostitution voiced by feminists is that in most cases a woman who enters into prostitution does not do so on the basis of a cold calculated decision because they are forced by a pimp or human trafficking, the latter being an example of enforced prostitution. Even where the decision is seemingly made voluntarily and rationally it often stems from chronic problems earlier in life. Such problems usually revolve around drug addiction, childhood sexual abuse and similar unsavoury circumstances. In other words, the feminist argument views the decision to become a prostitute as spawning and emanating directly from such earlier experiences and circumstances. If the consent is lacking then you end up with compliance at best. Capacity is vital in making an informed decision and according to one study the average age of children when they become prostitutes is twelve at which age they are not of sufficient age to consent to sex.  [4]  They see such women being dr iven into prostitution which means that sexual violence they may have experienced in childhood or adolescence is extended through their adult lives through prostitution. Feminists argue that most women enter prostitution against their own volition. Prostitutes are generally made up of women from the lower socio economic classes including poor and uneducated women from the most disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities MacKinnon 1993. MacKinnon also argues that In prostitution, women have sex with men thay would never otherwise have sex with. The money thus acts as a form of force, not a measure of consent, It acts like physical force does in rape.  [5]   Some scholars of prostitution maintain that genuine consent in prostitution is not plausible. One has to search at great lengths through academic literature to find many authors who agree that authentic consent is possible or at least likely.  [6]   Trauma research has been criticized for its failure to attend to social attitudes and behaviors which cause trauma. One of Vanwesenbeecks (1994) respondents described prostitution as volunteer slavery, clearly articulating both the appearance of choice and the overwhelming coercion behind that choice. The extreme violence suffered by these respondents suggests that we can not view prostitution as a neutral activity or simply as a vocational choice. Instead, prostitution must be understood as sexual violence against women (Kemp, Rawlings, Green, 1991). The focus of attention is on changing a social system, which makes prostitution possible. An alternative view of prostitution emanates from the libertarian pro sex work perspective who oppose the radical feminists view that prostitution amounts to sexual violence whereby the sexual act occurs because of coercion exploitation and domination by men. Pro sex feminists argue that prostitution can be an affirmation by women that they have autonomy over their bodies. As such prostitution is an informed and genuinely free choice. Some prostitutes are high class call girls who are well educated and sophisticated women. They realise that at the upper end of the market there are huge sums of money to be made for seemingly very little effort. Pro-sex feminists argue that the selling of sexual favours need not be inherently exploitative and that and accordingly deny that it is sexual violence. Pro sex workers such as Carol Queen argue that the radical feminists who oppose prostitution and view it as sexual violence have failed to take into account the views and opinions of prostitutes themselves, preferring to rely in theory and obsolete experiences.  [7]   Pro sex feminists view the prostitute as being in control and that they in fact control the man as they set the price. Prostitution is seen by some as sexual violence which brings massive economic rewards for some involved. The sex industry, like any other worldwide enterprise, has numerous sectors based in various locations which are controlled by various managers and is expanding as the law and public opinion allow.  [8]   Whether or not one decides if prostitution is sexual violence depends on your view as to the reasons why women participate in prostitution. If prostitution is viewed as a legal form of rape then undoubtedly you will agree with the proposition. It can also be viewed as a form of emotional violence with prostitutes becoming emotionally battered. The radical feminists gender based view that prostitution is a form of male sexual violence against women does not address the fact that male prostitutes exist

Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression

Curvelet-based Bayesian Estimator for Speckle Suppression Curvelet-based  Bayesian  Estimator  for  Speckle  Suppression  in  Ultrasound  Imaging Abstract.  Ultrasound images are inherently affected by speckle noise, and thus the reduction of this noise is a crucial pre-processing step for their successful interpretation. Bayesian estimation is a powerful signal estimation technique used for speckle noise removal in images. In the Bayesian-based despeckling schemes, the choice of suitable statistical models and the development of a shrinkage function for estimation of the noise-free signal are the major concerns. In this paper, a novel curvelet-based Bayesian estimation scheme for despeckling of ultrasound images is developed. The curvelet coefficients of the multiplicative degradation model of the noisy ultrasound image are additively decomposed into noise-free and signal-dependent noise components. The Cauchy and two-sided exponential distributions are assumed to be statistical models for the noise-free and signal-dependent noise components of the observed curvelet coefficients, respectively, and an efficient low-complexit y realization of the Bayesian estimator is proposed. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed despeckling scheme in providing a signifi cant suppression of the speckle noise and simultaneously preserving the image details. Keywords:Ultrasound imaging, curvelet transform, speckle noise, Bayesian estimation, statistical modeling. Introduction Ultrasound imaging is important for medical diagnosis and has the advantages of cost effectiveness, port-ability, acceptability and safety [1]. However, ultrasound images are of relatively poor quality due to its contamination by the speckle noise, which considerably degrades the image quality and leads to a negative impact on the diagnostic task. Thus, reducing speckle noise while preserving anatomic information is necessary to better delineate the regions of interest in the ultrasound images. In the work of speckle suppression in ultrasound images, many spatial-based techniques that employ either single-scale or multi-scale filtering have been developed in the literature [2-4]. Earlydeveloped single-scale spatial filtering [2] are limited in their capability for significantly reducing the speckle noise. More promising spatial single-scale techniques such as those using bilateral filtering [4] and nonlocal filtering [3] have been recently proposed. This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and in part by the Regroupement Strategique en Microelectronique du Quebec (ReSMiQ). These techniques depend on the size of the fi lter window, and hence, for a satisfactory speckle suppression, they require large computational time. Alternatively, multi-scale spatial techniques [5], based on partial differential equations, have been investigated in the literature. These techniques are iterative and can produce smooth images with preserved edges. However, important structural details are unfortunately degraded during the iteration process. As an appropriate alternative to spatial-based speckle suppression in ultrasound images, many other despeckling techniques based on different transform domains, such as the ones of wavelet, contourlet, and curvelet, have been recently proposed in the literature [6-8]. Wavelet transform has a good reputation as a tool for noise reduction but has the drawback of poor directionality, which makes its usage limited in many applications. Using contourlet transform provides an improved noise reduction performance due to its property of fi‚exible directional decomposability. However, curvelet transform offers a higher directional sensitivity than that of contourlet transform and is more efficient in representing the curve-like details in images. For the development of despeckling techniques based on transform domains, thresholding [7] has been presented as a technique to build linear estimators of the noise-free signal coefficients. However, the main drawback of this thresholding technique is in the difficulty of determining a suitable threshold value. To circumvent this problem, non-linear estimators [6] have been statistically developed based on Bayesian estimation formalism. For the development of an efficient Bayesian-based despeckling scheme, the choice of a suitable probability distribution to model the transform domain coefficients is a major concern. Also, while investigating a suitable statistical model, the complexity of the Bayesian estimation process should be taken into consideration. Consequently, special attention should be paid to the realization complexity of the Bayesian estimator that results from employing the selected probabilistic model in one of the Bayesian frameworks. In this paper, to achieve a satisfactory performance for despeckling of ultrasound images at a lower computational effort, a new curvelet-based Bayesian scheme is proposed. The multiplicative degradation model representing an observed ultrasound image is decomposed into an additive model consisting of noise-free and signal-dependent noise components. Two-sided exponential distribution is used as a prior statistical model for the curvelet coefficients of the signal-dependant noise. This model, along with the Cauchy distribution is used to develop a low-complexity Bayesian estimator. The performance of the proposed Bayesian despeckling scheme is evaluated on both syntheticallyspeckled and real ultrasound images, and the results are compared to that of some other existing despeckling schemes. Modeling of Curvelet Coefficients The multiplicative degradation model of a speckle-corrupted ultrasound image g(i,j) in the spatial domain is given by g(i,j) = v(i,j)s(i,j)(1) where v(i,j) and s(i,j) denote the noise-free image and the speckle noise, respectively. This model of the noisy observation of v(i,j) can be additively decomposed as a noise-free signal component and a signal-dependant noise: g(i,j) = v(i,j) + (s(i,j) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1)v(i,j) = v(i,j) + u(i,j)(2) where (s(i,j) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1)v(i,j) represents the signal-dependant noise. Taking the curvelet transform of (2) at level l, we have y[l,d](i,j) = x[l,d](i,j) + n[l,d](i,j)(3) where y[l,d](i,j), x[l,d](i,j) and n[l,d](i,j) denote, respectively, the (i,j)th curvelet coefficient of the observed image, the corresponding noise free image and the corresponding additive signal-dependant noise at direction d= 1,2,3, ·Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ·Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ·,D. In order to simplify the notation, we will henceforth drop both the superscripts land dand the index (i,j). In this work, in order to reduce the noise inherited in ultrasound images, we propose exploiting the statistical characteristics of the curvelet coefficients in (3) to derive an efficient Bayesian estimator. Thus, one needs to provide a prior probabilistic model for the curvelet coefficients of xand n. It has been shown that the distribution of the curvelet coefficients of noise-free images can be suitably modeled by the Cauchy distribution [9]. The zero-mean Cauchy distribution is given by px(x) = (ÃŽÂ ³/à Ã¢â€š ¬)(x2 + ÃŽÂ ³2)(4) where ÃŽÂ ³is the dispersion parameter. The noisy observation is used to estimate the Cauchy distribution parameter ÃŽÂ ³by minimizing the function 2   Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  yyt (t) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬  (t) eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ dt(5) where à Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  y(t) is the empirical characteristic function corresponding to the curvelet coefficients yof 22 the noisy observation, à Ã¢â‚¬  y(t) = à Ã¢â‚¬  x(t)à Ã¢â‚¬  E(t), à Ã¢â‚¬  x(t) = eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ³|t|, and à Ã¢â‚¬  E(t) = eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢(à Ã†â€™Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½/2)|t| deviation à Ã†â€™Eobtained as with the standard à Ã†â€™E= MAD(y(i,j)) 0.6745 (6) In (6), MAD denotes the median absolute deviation operation. Now, in order to formulate the  Bayesian estimator, a prior statistical assumption for the curvelet coefficients of nof the signal dependant noise should also be assumed. From experimental observation, it is noticed that the tail  part of the empirical distribution of ndecays at a low rate. Hence, in this paper, we propose to use  a two-sided exponential (TSE) distribution given by 1 pn(n) =eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢|n|/ÃŽÂ ² 2ÃŽÂ ² (7) where ÃŽÂ ²is a positive real constant referred to as the scale parameter. The method of log-cummulants  (MoLC) is adopted to estimate the parameter ÃŽÂ ², and thus the estimated ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“ is obtained by using the  following expression: ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“ = exp 1N1  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   N2 log(y(i,j))+ ÃŽÂ ¾ (8) N1N2 i=1j=1 where ÃŽÂ ¾is the Euler-Mascheroni constant and N1 and N2 defi ne the size N1 ÃÆ'-N2 of the curvelet  subband considered. Bayesian Estimator Due to the fact that each of the Cauchy and TSE distributions has only one parameter, one could expect the process of Bayesian estimation to be of lower complexity. The values of the Bayes estimates xˆ  of the noise-free curvelet coefficients xof a subband under the quadratic loss function, which minimizes the mean square error (MSE), are given by the shrinkage function: xˆ (y) =px|y(x|y)xdx P pn(yà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢x)px(x)xdx =P p(yà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢x)p(x) (9) It is noted that a closed-form expression for xˆ (y) given by the above equation does not exist. Thus, in order to obtain the Bayesian estimates for the noise-free curvelet coefficients, the two integrations associated with (9) are numerically performed for each curvelet coefficient. Since this procedure requires an excessive computational effort, the bayseian estimates are obtained by replacing the associated integrals in (9) with infi nite series as suggested in [10]. Accordingly, the Bayesian shrinkage function can be expressed as eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y/ÃŽÂ ²[f (y)ÃŽÂ ¶] + ey/ÃŽÂ ²[ f(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶] xˆ (y) =(10) eà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y/ÃŽÂ ²[f21(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶2] + ey/ÃŽÂ ²[à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢f22(y) + ÃŽÂ ¶2] where f11(y) = f12 (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y) = sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) Im E( à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+ jÃŽÂ ³)à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + à Ã¢â€š ¬ 1ÃŽÂ ²2 à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+jÃŽÂ ³ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)   Re   E1(ÃŽÂ ² + Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) ,(11) f(y) = à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢f 1à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+ jÃŽÂ ³ (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y) = à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) Re E()+ Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) 2122ÃŽÂ ³1ÃŽÂ ² 1à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢y+jÃŽÂ ³Ãƒ Ã¢â€š ¬ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ³cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)   Im   E1(ÃŽÂ ² à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + 2 ,(12) ÃŽÂ ¶1 = lim f12 yà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¾ (y) = sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + à Ã¢â€š ¬ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²), and(13) ÃŽÂ ¶= lim f 11 (y) =sin(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²)Ci(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) +cos(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) à Ã¢â€š ¬ Si(ÃŽÂ ³/ÃŽÂ ²) + (14) 222 yà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¾ In the equations above, j= à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡Ãƒ ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢1, Im{ ·}and Re{ ·}are the imaginary and real parts, respectively, of a complex argument, and E1( ·), Si( ·) and Ci( ·) are, respectively, the exponential, sine and cosine  integral functions obtained as in [10]. Experimental Results Extensive experimentations are carried out in order to study the performance of the proposed despeckling scheme. The results are compared with those of other existing despeckling schemes that use improved-Lee fi ltering [2], adaptive-wavelet shrinkage [6], and contourlet thresholding [7]. Performance evaluation of the various despeckling schemes is conducted on synthetically-speckled and real ultrasound images. In the implementation of the proposed speckling scheme, the 5-level decomposition of the curvelet transform is applied. From the experimental observation, applying a higher level of decomposition of the curvelet transform does not lead to any improvement in the despeckling performance. Since the curvelet transform is a shift-variant transform, the cycle spinning [11] is performed on the observed noisy image to avoid any possible pseudo-Gibbs artifacts in the neighborhood of discontinuities. In the proposed despeckling scheme, only the detail curvelet coefficients are despec kled using the Bayesian shrinkage function in (10). The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is used as a quantitative measure to assess the despeckling performance of the various schemes when applied on synthetically-speckled images. Table I gives the PSNR values obtained when applying the various schemes on two synthetically-speckled images of size 512ÃÆ'-512, namely, Lenaand Boat. It is obviously seen from this table that, in all cases, the proposed despeckling scheme provides higher values of PSNR compared to that provided by the other schemes. To have a better insight on the despeckling performance of the various schemes, the results in Table 1 are visualized in Figure 1. It is obvious from this fi gure that the superiority of the proposed scheme over the other schemes is more evident when a higher level of speckle noise is introduced to the test images. In order to study the performances of the various despeckling schemes on real ultrasound images, two images obtained from [12] and shown in Figure 2 are used. Since the noise-fr ee images cannot be made available, one can only give a subjective evaluation of the performance of the various despeckling schemes. From Figure 2, it is clearly seen that the schemes in [2] and [6] provide despeckled images that suffer from the presence of visually noticeable speckle noise. On the other hand, the scheme in [7] severely over-smooth the noisy images thus providing despeckled images in which some of the texture details are lost. However, the proposed despeckling scheme results in images with not only a signifi cant reduction in the speckle noise but also a good preservation of the textures of the original images. Table 1: The PSNR values obtained when applying the various despeckling schemes on Lenaand Boatimages contaminated by speckle noise at different levels. 34 [2] 32[6] 30[7] Proposed 28 26 24 22 20 18 0.10.20.30.40.50.71 Standard deviation of noise (a) 32 [2] 30[6] 28[7] Proposed 26 24 22 20 18 16 0.10.20.30.40.50.71 Standard deviation of noise (b) Fig. 1: Quantitative comparison between the various despeckling schemes in terms of PSNR values: (a) Lenaimage; (b) Boatimage. Conclusion In this paper, a new curvelet-based scheme for suppressing the speckle noise in ultrasound images has been developed in the framework of Bayesian estimation. The observed ultrasound image is fi rst additively decomposed into noise-free and signal-dependant noise components. The Cauchy and twosided exponential distributions have been used as probabilistic models for the curvelet coefficients of the noise-free and signal-dependant noise components, respectively, of the ultrasound image. The proposed probabilistic models of the curvelet coefficients of an observed ultrasound image has been employed to formulate a Bayesian shrinkage function in order to obtain the estimates of the noise-free curvelet coefficients. A low-complexity realization of this shrinkage function has been employed. Experiments have been carried out on both synthetically-speckled and real ultrasound images in order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed despeckling scheme. In comparison with some other ex isting despeckling schemes, the results have shown that the proposed scheme provides higher PSNR values and gives well-despeckled images with better diagnostic details. (b) (c)(d)(e)(f) (g)(h)(i)(j) Fig. 2: Qualitative comparison between the various despeckling schemes. (a)(b) Noisy ultrasound images. Despeckled images obtained by applying the schemes in (c)(g) [2] ,(d)(h) [6] ,(e)(i) [7] and (f)(j) the proposed scheme. References Dhawan, A.P.: Medical image analysis. Volume 31. John Wiley Sons (2011) Loupas, T., McDicken, W., Allan, P.:   An adaptive weighted median fi lter for speckle suppression in medical ultrasonic images. IEEE transactions on Circuits and Systems 36(1) (1989) 129-135 Coup ´e, P., Hellier, P., Kervrann, C., Barillot, C.: Nonlocal means-based speckle fi ltering for ultrasound images. IEEE transactions on image processing 18(10) (2009) 2221-2229 Sridhar, B., Reddy, K., Prasad, A.: An unsupervisory qualitative image enhancement using adaptive morphological bilateral fi lter for medical images. International Journal of Computer Applications 10(2i) (2014) 1 Abd-Elmoniem, K.Z., Youssef, A.B., Kadah, Y.M.: Real-time speckle reduction and coherence enhancement in ultrasound imaging via nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 49(9) (2002) 997-1014 Swamy, M., Bhuiyan, M., Ahmad, M.: Spatially adaptive thresholding in wavelet domain for despeckling of ultrasound images. IET Image Process 3(3) (2009) 147-162 Hiremath, P., Akkasaligar, P.T., Badiger, S.: Speckle reducing contourlet transform for medical ultrasound images. Int J Compt Inf Engg 4(4) (2010) 284-291 Jian, Z., Yu, Z., Yu, L., Rao, B., Chen, Z., Tromberg, B.J.: Speckle attenuation in optical coherence tomography by curvelet shrinkage. Optics letters 34(10) (2009) 1516-1518 Deng, C., Wang, S., Sun, H., Cao, H.: Multiplicative spread spectrum watermarks detection performance analysis in curvelet domain. In: 2009 International Conference on E-Business and Information System Security. (2009) Damseh, R.R., Ahmad, M.O.: A low-complexity mmse bayesian estimator for suppression of speckle in sar images. In: Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2016 IEEE International Symposium on, IEEE (2016) 1002-1005 Temizel, A., Vlachos, T., Visioprime, W.: Wavelet domain image resolution enhancement using cycle-spinning. Electronics Letters 41(3) (2005) 119-121 Siemens   Healthineers:   https://www.healthcare.siemens.com/ultrasound. Accessed:   2017-01-06.

Graduation Speech: Be Proud of Your Accomplishments :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

So many of us have come to ZAHS as a last resort, not fitting in at other schools or we were feeling that regular school wasn't working for us. We have found MAHS is somewhere we wished we had found in the first place. It is a place where you do fit in because people who originally didn't have anything in common share this one place. It is our home away from home. It brings all of us together with all of our diversities to be welcomed and accepted. Our love and belief in our school continues to show time after time whether it is a fund raiser, our test scores, or even when students return who once gave up on finishing school. When I first came to MAHS I was pretty nervous and overwhelmed with my life. I was a new mother at a new school around new people with so many new responsibilities. At that time I didn't realize how overwhelmed I was until I burst into tears on my first day. From that day on I found great friends and teachers who have loved me and supported me every day. This school has made me realize my potential in life. Graduating for me is a great but unsure feeling; but I know everyone here has a great future ahead of them. If we lose our way, we'll just come back - TEACHERS, COUNT ON IT. I have some mainly good memories of our school. Like, I will always remember all of our daycare madness, all of Larry's announcements that never seemed to come out quite right. All of Mr. Lewis' large-group math trivia assignments that I could never quite figure out. I can't imagine why NOT. I'll remember all of the guys who, no matter what time of the day, always found time to be outside playing basketball. I will remember our FCCLA trip to Wenatchee where we stayed in an under-construction hotel with a dirt swimming pool! It was alternative, but so were we. We learned to be proud of our uniqueness and our achievements.

Key Elements of Style :: Compare Contrast Strunk White Grace Essays

Key Elements of Style William Strunk and E.B. White's handbook The Elements of Style, and Joseph Williams's book Style Toward Clarity and Grace, are both full of good tips on how to improve writing style. The Elements of Style has some good information on how to make writing more vigorous and forceful, but it also contains a lot of opinions on word choice that seem frivolous. Although the advice may not be helpful, Strunk and White's strongly worded opinions are part of what makes their book enjoyable to read. Of the two, Williams's book is better at describing how to actually form better sentences and paragraphs. Before reading these books, I was of the opinion that everyone had their own writing style. Strunk, White, and Williams make it apparent however, that there are rules every writer can incorporate into their style to help make their writing more clear and direct. Both books contain helpful guidelines for improving writing style, but as Strunk and White say, "the first piece of advice is this: to achieve style, begin by affecting none (70)." Two lines that sum up what Strunk and White want to get across to their readers are, "Brevity is a by product of vigor (19)," and "omit needless words (23)." These authors are all about writing short, concise sentences. When this is done, they believe the product will be clear, forceful writing. They have some good tips on how to achieve this goal. The first is to omit the phrase "the fact that." They feel it "is an especially debilitating expression. It should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs (24)." They then proceed to demonstrate how "the fact that" can be revised into shorter, clearer phrases. The above quote demonstrates the tone for much of The Elements of Style. Strunk and White remind me of a stuffy high school English teacher I once had, who used to embarrass students by making similar comments. At first I resented this, but after realizing the authors were no chastising me in front of any class, I grew to find comments like this amusing. Another good tip that is included in both books is to "put statements in positive form. Make definite assertions (Strunk 19)." Said another way, write without using the word "not." Again, Strunk and White provide many good examples on how to look for, and achieve this goal.

Noél - French Essay :: French Essay

Noà ©l - French Essay NoÃÆ' «l est une fÃÆ' ªte grande pour les chrÃÆ' ©tiens mais beaucoup des personnes tout la monde aussi cÃÆ' ©lÃÆ' ¨bre NoÃÆ' «l. Je suis Hindu mais j'ai cÃÆ' ©lÃÆ' ¨bre NoÃÆ' «l parce que c'est une fÃÆ' ªte qui est agrÃÆ' ©able. J'ai cÃÆ' ©lÃÆ' ¨bre NoÃÆ' «l avec ma mÃÆ' ¨re, mon pÃÆ' ¨re et mon petit sÃ…â€Å"ur cette annÃÆ' ©e. NoÃÆ' «l est une fÃÆ' ªte grande pour les chrÃÆ' ©tiens parce que c'est l'anniversaire du JÃÆ' ©sus Christ. Cette annÃÆ' ©e, pendent la saison de NoÃÆ' «l, j'ai achetÃÆ' © un calendrier d'advient. Je compte les jours le NoÃÆ' «l avec le calendrier d'advient. J'achÃÆ' ¨te beaucoup de cardes de NoÃÆ' «l et cadeaux pour mes amis et ma famille. Nous mettons le sapin de NoÃÆ' «l dans le dÃÆ' ©cembre cette annÃÆ' ©e. On a un sapin qui est sept pieds longs et je dÃÆ' ©core le sapin de NoÃÆ' «l avec des lumiÃÆ' ¨res. Je dÃÆ' ©core ma maison aussi avec les multicolores lumiÃÆ' ¨res. Sous le sapin je mets les cadeaux que je reÃÆ' §ois de mes amis et les cadeaux que je donnerai pour ma famille. Je prends les cartes que je reÃÆ' §ois dans ma maison. Moi, je suis hindu et je ne vais pas ÃÆ'   l'ÃÆ' ©glise. Normalement le jour de NoÃÆ' «l, je me rÃÆ' ©veille trÃÆ' ¨s tÃÆ' ´t vers sept heures et demie. J'ai descendu pour la cuisine aller au salon et j'ai ouvre mes cadeaux que j'ai reÃÆ' §u devant le sapin de NoÃÆ' «l. Plus tard, aprÃÆ' ¨s mon petit dÃÆ' ©jeuner, je prÃÆ' ©pare la nourriture dans la cuisine avec ma mÃÆ' ¨re. D'habitude, je suis restÃÆ' © ÃÆ'   la maison et fait la cuisine avec ma mÃÆ' ¨re. Pour les grands repas, ma mÃÆ' ¨re prÃÆ' ©pare boulet rÃÆ' ´tir avec des choux les Brussel et pomme de terre. Normalement je prÃÆ' ©pare les carottes et un grand chocolat gÃÆ' ¢teau. J'achÃÆ' ¨te une hacher tartes pour ma famille et j'invite mes amis et mes cousines pour des grands repas et nous faisons un boom. A mon avis j'adore NoÃÆ' «l parce que c'est chouette et amusant. J'aime mette le sapin de NoÃÆ' «l et allumer des bougies. J'ai adore faire du shopping pour les cadeaux pour mes amis. Aussi j'aime les que j'ai

Thinking Like a Nurse

As in every profession, in nursing too, there are a number of details that every each of nurses should have and be aware of, because of the high expectancy by patients and colleagues in both within and outside of professional domains. Professionalism refers to the key points that everyone should follow and behaves the best in order to protect its dignity and respective in a competent manner. Then it becomes even more important when it comes to public health care matter. There are many reasons for that; first of all, Nursing. In this profession, it is expected from nurses to maintain the public trust and confidence. Nurses have the full trust from patient and their family. Every patient should be treated the same way as if they are in the need of best care and it is expected from nurses to maintain the practise area in a safe and in an environment that a nurse can practise safely at all times. Secondly, a nurse should create and protect a relationship between themselves and the patient. Nurses should give extra attention to protect them from any kind of harm if they are more vulnerable than the others or if they are with handicaps. Another point to be aware of is â€Å"Nurses recognise their professional position and do not accept gifts or benefits that could be viewed as a means of securing the nurses’ influence or favour. † (Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council: 2008) Nurses should keep the relationship professional and should not keep it if it gets out of ethics and standards. Furthermore, if there is an unethical or unlawful conduct noticed within the clinic or outside of the clinic, a nurse should not overlook it or should not leave it unnoticed. The action should be reported to an authorized person or corporation to put the behaviour in a fair process. Also, nurses are responsible of treatment for people in need and to motivate the patients processing in recovery. Nurses help to prevent the illness or injuries by educating patients and help to raise the quality of health in the country. They treat the patient, help them to benefit in the best way from service provided and approach them and their families with a good sense. To sum up, the best way for any public health service to work constantly, sufficient, reachable and at the best quality is, doctors, nurses, and the other health workers should work together as a team. Nurses are indispensable and the most important ring of the chain.