A Telephone Based Wireless Remote Controller

Data processing stages of the transmitter and receiver modules have been implemented using digital components, thereby avoiding possible use of conventional devices like monostable multivibrators. Due to the fully digital nature, the proposed design is less complex and hence the implementation is cost effective. I. INTRODUCTION With the advancement in science and technology, human beings have developed a tendency to make their everyday life amply luxurious with the aid of technology. This has led to the development of many sophisticated gadgets and equipments that assist them partially/fully in their daily activities. Operating all such electronic/electrical instruments in a modern house might be difficult for the elderly as well as disabled people. Our primary motivation to build a simple and low cost system which remotely operates all the home appliances stems from this point. We integrate our system with a standard telephone set so that the telephone can be used for the dual purpose of telephony and remote controller for various home appliances. The proposed system mainly consists of 3 modules, viz. , telephone interface circuit, transmitter and receiver. The transmitter module is in turn made up of a digital data processing block and a wireless (infrared) transmitter block and the eceiver module is made up of a wireless (infrared) receiver block, digital data processing block and a decoding block. In the scheme, a telephone receiver acts as a remote terminal to provide input Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signals to the telephone interface circuit which converts them to corresponding 4 bit Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) codes. The transmitter generates an 8 bit frame using this BCD code to facilitate asynchronous communication . The receiver decodes the received signals after checking for any transmission errors (single bit) in the frame. These decoded bits act as control signals for the operation of home appliances. The system employs an asynchronous type of communication [1] in which the transmitter and receiver clocks are independent. The receiver clock does not have any prior information regarding the phase of the transmitter clock [2]. This leads to the problem of choosing the correct sampling instants at the receiver [3]. Hence the data is transmitted in the form of frames instead of individual bits. Each such frame consists of start bits, information bits, and stop bits [1]. This is explained in detail in the subsequent sections. When the system is idle, the data processing block of he transmitter gives constant logical high output. Since the transmitter consumes more power in transmitting logical high than logical low, the output of data processing block is negated before transmission to save power in the idle state. The receiver module also senses this and remains idle whenever the transmitter is transmitting continuous logical low. The reception of a start bit changes the state of the r eceiver from an idle to an active state. It then has to sample the remaining data bits in the frame at proper sampling instants. Most of the standard hardware schemes involve the use of monostable ultivibrators at the receiver to recover the data bits following the start bit. The monostable multivibrators commonly rely on variable components such as resistance and capacitance values, as well as they often account for a major part of the propagation delays associated with the receiver. We have extended this treatment to a fully digital design that presents more challenging tasks including a digital output feedback. Moreover, use of all digital components in the data processing stages reduces the propagation delay considerably. The complete design outline of all the modules of the roposed system is presented in Section II. Results and discussions are given in Section III. Finally, we present our conclusions in Section IV. II. DESIGN OUTLINE The block diagram of the proposed telephone based wireless remote control system is shown in Fig. 1. In the proposed system, the telephone set performs the dual functions of telephony and remotely controlling various devices. The remote control mode of the telephone can be activated by pressing ‘#’ from the keypad of the telephone. After the desired tasks are accomplished, ‘#’ should be pressed again to deactivate the control system. This is one of the functions of the telephone interface circuit, which is discussed next. A. Telephone Interface Circuit The telephone interface circuit integrates the designed system with the standard telephone system. As shown in Fig. 2, it basically performs the job of receiving the signals from the local loop and converting them to the standard digital signals in the BCD format. When any telephone button is pressed, a unique DTMF signal is produced for a short duration [4] which is converted to corresponding BCD code by a standard DTMF to BCD converter (KT-3170) [5]. The dual tone frequencies and the BCD codes associated with each dialed digit are shown in Table 1. The system remains in the idle state until ‘#’ button is pressed which sets the telephone to remote control mode. This mode remains activated until ‘#’ button is pressed again. This is realized in the hardware by using the BCD code corresponding to ‘#’ as the clock to toggle the J-K flip-flop (74112). The flip-flop output toggles whenever the ‘#’ button is pressed and this is directly used to control the mode of operation of the telephone. The DSO output of KT-3170 [5] is used to generate a start it for the system as it is logical high whenever a received tone pair has been registered and the output latch is updated. As the latched 4-bit BCD code is directly available at the output of KT-3170, it is given as such to the data processing block of the transmitter. These data bits are then processed to facilitate asynchronous communicatio n as explained below. B. Transmitter The 4-bit output of KT-3170 can not be directly transmitted as individual bits as the proposed system employs asynchronous mode of communication. The 4-bit BCD code is thus transmitted as frames for proper reception [1]. We have chosen an eight bit frame for our system which consists of a start bit followed by four data bits, a parity bit and two stop bits. Parity bit enables the system to detect any single bit error during transmission. Stop bits mark the ending of the frame. The frame is then transmitted using infrared (IR) transmitter. As shown in Fig. 2, the transmitter mainly consists of two blocks which are explained below. 1) Fully Digital Data Processing Block: This block performs the function of converting individual bits to 8-bit frames in order to carry asynchronous communication. First bit of the frame is the start bit (taken as 0) which is generated when any of the buttons is pressed. The succeeding 4 bits are the data bits (BCD code) generated by the telephone interface circuit as explained before. Next bit is taken as parity check bit generated by XORing the first 5 bits of the frame. Last 2 bits, termed as stop bits, are taken as 1. Following the generation of the start bit, the data bits are loaded in the parallel to serial converter (74165) using a D-type flip-flop (7474) and the frame is transmitted serially. 2) IR Transmitter Block: This module transmits the frames enerated in the previous section using an IR emitting diode. The data to be transmitted is modulated using Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) with a carrier square wave of 38 kHz. The transmission range of the system is thus highly improved over the case when data is transmitted without modulation. As the data processing stage gives logical high output in the idle state, it is negated before tran smission to save power. Thus, a logical low is actually transmitted whenever the system is in idle state. C. Receiver The receiver also has 2 working states, viz. , idle and active. It remains in the idle state until it detects a start bit. It then receives the frame starting from the start bit and checks for a single bit error. If error is detected, no action is taken and the information has to be transmitted again by the user. The received data bits are then decoded which act as control signals for the operation of various appliances. As is evident from Fig. 3, receiver circuit can be subdivided into 3 blocks which are explained below. 1) IR Receiver Block: This block receives the transmitted frames and converts the signal back to Transistor Transistor Logic (TTL) levels. A standard 38 kHz IR receiver (TSOP 1738) [6] is used for this purpose. 2) Sampling Clock Generator: The main function of this block is to generate a sampling instant at approximately the middle of the transmitted bit interval. The start bit activates this block and loads counter 1 (4-bit up-counter) with value ‘0’. The clock frequency of this counter is 16 times the bit rate. When the output of this counter changes from 7 to 8, the most significant bit changes from ‘0’ to ‘1’ and this rising edge is used as the sampling instant for the data. Start bit also loads the counter 2 (4-bit down-counter) with the frame size i. e. , 8. When this reaches the value ‘0’, the whole block is disabled and is reactivated only when next start bit arrives. 3) Data Sampler and Decoder: The serial input data is sampled according to the sampling instant generated in the previous stage and is converted to parallel form using serial to parallel converter (74164). This data is then checked for any 1-bit errors by XORing the bits. If error is found, no action is taken and the data has to be retransmitted. If no errors are found, the data is decoded using 4-16 decoder (74154) and he signal is given to the appliance for the completion of the corresponding task. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The proposed system has been fully implemented and successfully tested in the standard telephone local loop. The transmitter, kept near the telephone set, taps the DTMF signal from the local loop and transmits the corresponding data frame wirelessly . This signal is received by the receiver installed at the switch board. It decodes the data and takes the corresponding action. At least ten control signals, corresponding to each digit from 0 to 9, can be generated using a standard telephone set. The transmitter was previously implemented without a modulator where the IR LED was kept ON for transmitting logical high and OFF for transmitting logical low. This limited the distance between the transmitter and receiver to a maximum of 30 cms for proper reception. The range of the wireless system has increased to several meters after modulating the data using 38 kHz square wave. This range also depends on the current flowing through the infrared diode which has to be properly tuned to maximize the range. A standard TSOP 1738 receiver is used in the proposed ystem, which requires a minimum burst length of 10 cycles for proper detection. This puts an upper limit on the data rate supported by our system which is practically observed to be 2. 8 kbps [5]. The IR transmitter is highly directional and requires the receiver to be in line of sight of the transmitter. The reception angle of the receiver is observed to decrease with increasing distance between the transmitter and receiver. T his is because of the fact that the power is not uniformly distributed and is concentrated in narrow transmission angle. Moreover, the signal power reduces when the distance between the transmitter and the receiver is increased. So, the receiver has to be highly aligned with transmitter when operating at some substantial distance from it. This problem is of not much concern for our system because the transmitter and receiver, being static in nature, can be properly aligned at the time of installation. The data processing blocks of both the transmitter and the receiver are fully digital in nature. This comprehensively reduces the propagation delays involved and increases the rate at which data can be processed in these blocks. Though, data rate is not very important in the present application but this feature makes the design of our data processing blocks suitable for high data rate applications which are commonly seen in wired communication. IV. CONCLUSIONS A wireless system has been proposed to operate the home appliances remotely using a standard telephone set. This has been successfully tested and is found to be working satisfactorily within a distance of 10 meters. The telephone receiver performs a dual-function of telephony and remotely controlling various devices with the help of its ‘#’ button on the keypad. The telephone interface circuit is easily integrated with the standard local loop thus avoiding any changes in the telephone set. Hence, the proposed system is compatible with any type of telephone working on standard local loop. The system employs asynchronous mode of communication which avoids the need to synchronize the transmitter and receiver clocks, thus making our system less complex and hence cost effective. The proposed fully digital innovative design of the data processing blocks reduces the propagation delay and makes them useful for even high data rate applications. Moreover, the system is capable of detecting the single bit errors occuring during transmission. The proposed system can be used in a wide range of practical applications such as speed control of motors, switching of appliances, control of robots, etc. The above discussed characteristics like simple design, high practical utility and easy installation makes our system highly marketable. REFERENCES [1] Gorry Fairhurst. Asynchronous Communication [Online]. Available: http://www. erg. abdn. ac. uk/users/gorry/course/phy-pages/async. html. [2] D. Comer, Computer Networks and Internets with Internet Applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2004. [3] A. Subramanian, V. P. S. Makh and A. Mitra, â€Å"A New Digital Transceiver Circuit for Asynchronous Communication†, Enformatika Trans. , vol. 8, pp. 237-241, Oct. 2005. [4] DTMF Background [Online]. Available: http:// www. ece. utexas. edu/mason/codesign/dtmf. html. [5] Samsung Electronics Datasheet. KT3170 Low Power DTMF Receiver [Online]. Available: http://www. ortodoxism. ro/datasheets/SamsungElectronic/mXuusvq. pdf. [6] Vishay Semiconductors Datasheet. Photo Modules for PCM Remote Control Systems [Online]. Available: http://www. vishay. com/docs/82030/82030. pdf A Telephone Based Wireless Remote Controller Data processing stages of the transmitter and receiver modules have been implemented using digital components, thereby avoiding possible use of conventional devices like monostable multivibrators. Due to the fully digital nature, the proposed design is less complex and hence the implementation is cost effective. I. INTRODUCTION With the advancement in science and technology, human beings have developed a tendency to make their everyday life amply luxurious with the aid of technology. This has led to the development of many sophisticated gadgets and equipments that assist them partially/fully in their daily activities. Operating all such electronic/electrical instruments in a modern house might be difficult for the elderly as well as disabled people. Our primary motivation to build a simple and low cost system which remotely operates all the home appliances stems from this point. We integrate our system with a standard telephone set so that the telephone can be used for the dual purpose of telephony and remote controller for various home appliances. The proposed system mainly consists of 3 modules, viz. , telephone interface circuit, transmitter and receiver. The transmitter module is in turn made up of a digital data processing block and a wireless (infrared) transmitter block and the eceiver module is made up of a wireless (infrared) receiver block, digital data processing block and a decoding block. In the scheme, a telephone receiver acts as a remote terminal to provide input Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signals to the telephone interface circuit which converts them to corresponding 4 bit Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) codes. The transmitter generates an 8 bit frame using this BCD code to facilitate asynchronous communication . The receiver decodes the received signals after checking for any transmission errors (single bit) in the frame. These decoded bits act as control signals for the operation of home appliances. The system employs an asynchronous type of communication [1] in which the transmitter and receiver clocks are independent. The receiver clock does not have any prior information regarding the phase of the transmitter clock [2]. This leads to the problem of choosing the correct sampling instants at the receiver [3]. Hence the data is transmitted in the form of frames instead of individual bits. Each such frame consists of start bits, information bits, and stop bits [1]. This is explained in detail in the subsequent sections. When the system is idle, the data processing block of he transmitter gives constant logical high output. Since the transmitter consumes more power in transmitting logical high than logical low, the output of data processing block is negated before transmission to save power in the idle state. The receiver module also senses this and remains idle whenever the transmitter is transmitting continuous logical low. The reception of a start bit changes the state of the r eceiver from an idle to an active state. It then has to sample the remaining data bits in the frame at proper sampling instants. Most of the standard hardware schemes involve the use of monostable ultivibrators at the receiver to recover the data bits following the start bit. The monostable multivibrators commonly rely on variable components such as resistance and capacitance values, as well as they often account for a major part of the propagation delays associated with the receiver. We have extended this treatment to a fully digital design that presents more challenging tasks including a digital output feedback. Moreover, use of all digital components in the data processing stages reduces the propagation delay considerably. The complete design outline of all the modules of the roposed system is presented in Section II. Results and discussions are given in Section III. Finally, we present our conclusions in Section IV. II. DESIGN OUTLINE The block diagram of the proposed telephone based wireless remote control system is shown in Fig. 1. In the proposed system, the telephone set performs the dual functions of telephony and remotely controlling various devices. The remote control mode of the telephone can be activated by pressing ‘#’ from the keypad of the telephone. After the desired tasks are accomplished, ‘#’ should be pressed again to deactivate the control system. This is one of the functions of the telephone interface circuit, which is discussed next. A. Telephone Interface Circuit The telephone interface circuit integrates the designed system with the standard telephone system. As shown in Fig. 2, it basically performs the job of receiving the signals from the local loop and converting them to the standard digital signals in the BCD format. When any telephone button is pressed, a unique DTMF signal is produced for a short duration [4] which is converted to corresponding BCD code by a standard DTMF to BCD converter (KT-3170) [5]. The dual tone frequencies and the BCD codes associated with each dialed digit are shown in Table 1. The system remains in the idle state until ‘#’ button is pressed which sets the telephone to remote control mode. This mode remains activated until ‘#’ button is pressed again. This is realized in the hardware by using the BCD code corresponding to ‘#’ as the clock to toggle the J-K flip-flop (74112). The flip-flop output toggles whenever the ‘#’ button is pressed and this is directly used to control the mode of operation of the telephone. The DSO output of KT-3170 [5] is used to generate a start it for the system as it is logical high whenever a received tone pair has been registered and the output latch is updated. As the latched 4-bit BCD code is directly available at the output of KT-3170, it is given as such to the data processing block of the transmitter. These data bits are then processed to facilitate asynchronous communicatio n as explained below. B. Transmitter The 4-bit output of KT-3170 can not be directly transmitted as individual bits as the proposed system employs asynchronous mode of communication. The 4-bit BCD code is thus transmitted as frames for proper reception [1]. We have chosen an eight bit frame for our system which consists of a start bit followed by four data bits, a parity bit and two stop bits. Parity bit enables the system to detect any single bit error during transmission. Stop bits mark the ending of the frame. The frame is then transmitted using infrared (IR) transmitter. As shown in Fig. 2, the transmitter mainly consists of two blocks which are explained below. 1) Fully Digital Data Processing Block: This block performs the function of converting individual bits to 8-bit frames in order to carry asynchronous communication. First bit of the frame is the start bit (taken as 0) which is generated when any of the buttons is pressed. The succeeding 4 bits are the data bits (BCD code) generated by the telephone interface circuit as explained before. Next bit is taken as parity check bit generated by XORing the first 5 bits of the frame. Last 2 bits, termed as stop bits, are taken as 1. Following the generation of the start bit, the data bits are loaded in the parallel to serial converter (74165) using a D-type flip-flop (7474) and the frame is transmitted serially. 2) IR Transmitter Block: This module transmits the frames enerated in the previous section using an IR emitting diode. The data to be transmitted is modulated using Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) with a carrier square wave of 38 kHz. The transmission range of the system is thus highly improved over the case when data is transmitted without modulation. As the data processing stage gives logical high output in the idle state, it is negated before tran smission to save power. Thus, a logical low is actually transmitted whenever the system is in idle state. C. Receiver The receiver also has 2 working states, viz. , idle and active. It remains in the idle state until it detects a start bit. It then receives the frame starting from the start bit and checks for a single bit error. If error is detected, no action is taken and the information has to be transmitted again by the user. The received data bits are then decoded which act as control signals for the operation of various appliances. As is evident from Fig. 3, receiver circuit can be subdivided into 3 blocks which are explained below. 1) IR Receiver Block: This block receives the transmitted frames and converts the signal back to Transistor Transistor Logic (TTL) levels. A standard 38 kHz IR receiver (TSOP 1738) [6] is used for this purpose. 2) Sampling Clock Generator: The main function of this block is to generate a sampling instant at approximately the middle of the transmitted bit interval. The start bit activates this block and loads counter 1 (4-bit up-counter) with value ‘0’. The clock frequency of this counter is 16 times the bit rate. When the output of this counter changes from 7 to 8, the most significant bit changes from ‘0’ to ‘1’ and this rising edge is used as the sampling instant for the data. Start bit also loads the counter 2 (4-bit down-counter) with the frame size i. e. , 8. When this reaches the value ‘0’, the whole block is disabled and is reactivated only when next start bit arrives. 3) Data Sampler and Decoder: The serial input data is sampled according to the sampling instant generated in the previous stage and is converted to parallel form using serial to parallel converter (74164). This data is then checked for any 1-bit errors by XORing the bits. If error is found, no action is taken and the data has to be retransmitted. If no errors are found, the data is decoded using 4-16 decoder (74154) and he signal is given to the appliance for the completion of the corresponding task. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The proposed system has been fully implemented and successfully tested in the standard telephone local loop. The transmitter, kept near the telephone set, taps the DTMF signal from the local loop and transmits the corresponding data frame wirelessly . This signal is received by the receiver installed at the switch board. It decodes the data and takes the corresponding action. At least ten control signals, corresponding to each digit from 0 to 9, can be generated using a standard telephone set. The transmitter was previously implemented without a modulator where the IR LED was kept ON for transmitting logical high and OFF for transmitting logical low. This limited the distance between the transmitter and receiver to a maximum of 30 cms for proper reception. The range of the wireless system has increased to several meters after modulating the data using 38 kHz square wave. This range also depends on the current flowing through the infrared diode which has to be properly tuned to maximize the range. A standard TSOP 1738 receiver is used in the proposed ystem, which requires a minimum burst length of 10 cycles for proper detection. This puts an upper limit on the data rate supported by our system which is practically observed to be 2. 8 kbps [5]. The IR transmitter is highly directional and requires the receiver to be in line of sight of the transmitter. The reception angle of the receiver is observed to decrease with increasing distance between the transmitter and receiver. T his is because of the fact that the power is not uniformly distributed and is concentrated in narrow transmission angle. Moreover, the signal power reduces when the distance between the transmitter and the receiver is increased. So, the receiver has to be highly aligned with transmitter when operating at some substantial distance from it. This problem is of not much concern for our system because the transmitter and receiver, being static in nature, can be properly aligned at the time of installation. The data processing blocks of both the transmitter and the receiver are fully digital in nature. This comprehensively reduces the propagation delays involved and increases the rate at which data can be processed in these blocks. Though, data rate is not very important in the present application but this feature makes the design of our data processing blocks suitable for high data rate applications which are commonly seen in wired communication. IV. CONCLUSIONS A wireless system has been proposed to operate the home appliances remotely using a standard telephone set. This has been successfully tested and is found to be working satisfactorily within a distance of 10 meters. The telephone receiver performs a dual-function of telephony and remotely controlling various devices with the help of its ‘#’ button on the keypad. The telephone interface circuit is easily integrated with the standard local loop thus avoiding any changes in the telephone set. Hence, the proposed system is compatible with any type of telephone working on standard local loop. The system employs asynchronous mode of communication which avoids the need to synchronize the transmitter and receiver clocks, thus making our system less complex and hence cost effective. The proposed fully digital innovative design of the data processing blocks reduces the propagation delay and makes them useful for even high data rate applications. Moreover, the system is capable of detecting the single bit errors occuring during transmission. The proposed system can be used in a wide range of practical applications such as speed control of motors, switching of appliances, control of robots, etc. The above discussed characteristics like simple design, high practical utility and easy installation makes our system highly marketable. REFERENCES [1] Gorry Fairhurst. Asynchronous Communication [Online]. Available: http://www. erg. abdn. ac. uk/users/gorry/course/phy-pages/async. html. [2] D. Comer, Computer Networks and Internets with Internet Applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2004. [3] A. Subramanian, V. P. S. Makh and A. Mitra, â€Å"A New Digital Transceiver Circuit for Asynchronous Communication†, Enformatika Trans. , vol. 8, pp. 237-241, Oct. 2005. [4] DTMF Background [Online]. Available: http:// www. ece. utexas. edu/mason/codesign/dtmf. html. [5] Samsung Electronics Datasheet. KT3170 Low Power DTMF Receiver [Online]. Available: http://www. ortodoxism. ro/datasheets/SamsungElectronic/mXuusvq. pdf. [6] Vishay Semiconductors Datasheet. Photo Modules for PCM Remote Control Systems [Online]. Available: http://www. vishay. com/docs/82030/82030. pdf

E-World Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

E-World Communication - Essay Example They will develop an impression of others from the interpersonal information that they receive and if they like what has been formed in their minds, based on what has been written, then they will get to know each other more. who communicate others face to face" is addressed in the book titled, A First Look at Communication Theory. The book corresponds with Walther's social information theory, which suggests that people can still draw closer with the same quality and quantity of interpersonal knowledge but at an extended amount of time. Using the film You've Got Mail as a case study the book's author Griff (date) states that "(the characters') words illustrate the verbal cues and extended time features of SIP theory, as well as Walther's subsequent thinking." If people form good impressions of each other via CMC, then the self-fulfilling prophecy of a person's expectations causing another to respond accordingly will occur. Believe in it and it will happen is basically what this prophecy suggests. Simon (2005) reports that the SIP theory suggests, "The person's behavioral response to the cues occurs as a function of a sequence of mental p

Political Contributions by Corporations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Political Contributions by Corporations - Essay Example Second, the evidence suggests that in many cases the desired political favors have been and are granted. More specifically, the data demonstrates a correlation between political contributions and benefits allocated among corporations. Finally, with respect to the effect of this link between political contributions and favors granted, the literature suggests some positive characteristics as well as some negative characteristics. Some corporations, for instance, have been granted special access to international markets that generates profits and some employment benefits for Americans whereas some corporations have abused the benefits conferred upon them to the detriment of Americans more generally. This paper will examine the case of Enron because this case is illustrative of the many issues surrounding political contributions by corporations; to be sure, the Enron case is one of extremes, not experienced in all cases, but these extremes demonstrate the dangers inherent in unregulated or poorly regulated systems for dealing with political contributions by corporations. ... From a conceptual framework, scholars have approached connections between corporations and politicians in a variety of ways. Some, for example, have examined how connections to politicians affect a corporation's underlying valuation or stock prices (Faccio and Parsley, 2006). The research has found a correlation between certain connections, whether in the form of lobbying or direct political contributions, and this data is well-known by corporations and corporate decisions makers. Because the value of stock prices can be sustained or increased, to some degree, by pursuing political connections, corporate executives are keen to align themselves with some or many politicians. In addition, scholars have also approached the connections between corporations and politicians by noting which corporations have been bailed out with government funds during periods of economic distress, and the extant of the political contributions made by these bailed-out corporations; interestingly enough, the data demonstrates that corporations with stronger political connections, whether in the form of lobbying or political contributions, are more likely to receive governmental bailouts than corporations with less substantial political connections (Faccio, Masulis, and McConnell, 2006). Two other areas of inquiry, of particular relevance in the Enron case, are how connections between political contributions by corporations to politicians affect its export business and its corporate sales through government contracts (Agrawal and Knoeber, 2001) as well as the ability of such corporations to secure certain tax benefits at the state or federal level (Gupta and Swenson, 2003). A review of the literature, therefore demonstrates that there are many important reasons for corporations to

The Poweful Writing of Henry David Thoreau :: Biography

Why was Henry David Thoreau such a wonderful writer? He had many great qualities, but the most important were his devotion to nature and writing, his desire for independence, and his experiences he encountered throughout his life. Henry David Thoreau looked to nature as the basis of life and writing. He believed that nature is the reflection of inner spiritual reality. He spent his life in search of the essentials of reality and of experiences that would bring him close to these essentials. He lived in a hut for two years at Walden Pond to rid his body of inessential things. During Thoreau's stay, he completed his first book titled, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers(1849). Here, he also filled his journals with materials for his most famous piece, Walden. After he left the hut, and after college, he became a literary apprentice by writing essays and poems and by helping edit the transcendentalist journal, The Dial. When success did not come, Thoreau remained dedicated to his program of "education" through intimacy with nature, and also through writing that would express this experience. It was his life in nature that was his great theme. In order for Thoreau to write so much on nature he had to be familiar with it. His knowledge of the woods and fields, of the rivers, the ponds, and swamps, of every plant and animal was outstanding. Emerson even stated, "His power of observation seemed to indicate additional senses." Thoureau wrote a book titled Walden(1854) in which the theme of it was the relationship to the order and beauty of nature in the human mind. This book consists of records of Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond. Thoreau's love and devotion to nature and his writing was a key to his excellence in writing. Henry David Thoreau also felt that individualism was a great necessity to his writing style. In his piece of literature titled "Civil Disobedience", he expressed his belief in the power and the obligation of the individual to determine right from wrong, independent of the dictates of society. Thoreau's friends agreed with his views, but few practiced it in their own lives as consistently as he. Thoreau demonstrated his idea of independence in many ways. He worked for pay intermittently, he made relationships with many of the towns outcasts, he never married, he signed off from the First Parish Church rather than be taxed automatically to support it every year, and he lived alone in the woods for two years, in seclusion. His nearest neighbor was at least a mile away. While he was living independently in the woods, he thought of many new The Poweful Writing of Henry David Thoreau :: Biography Why was Henry David Thoreau such a wonderful writer? He had many great qualities, but the most important were his devotion to nature and writing, his desire for independence, and his experiences he encountered throughout his life. Henry David Thoreau looked to nature as the basis of life and writing. He believed that nature is the reflection of inner spiritual reality. He spent his life in search of the essentials of reality and of experiences that would bring him close to these essentials. He lived in a hut for two years at Walden Pond to rid his body of inessential things. During Thoreau's stay, he completed his first book titled, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers(1849). Here, he also filled his journals with materials for his most famous piece, Walden. After he left the hut, and after college, he became a literary apprentice by writing essays and poems and by helping edit the transcendentalist journal, The Dial. When success did not come, Thoreau remained dedicated to his program of "education" through intimacy with nature, and also through writing that would express this experience. It was his life in nature that was his great theme. In order for Thoreau to write so much on nature he had to be familiar with it. His knowledge of the woods and fields, of the rivers, the ponds, and swamps, of every plant and animal was outstanding. Emerson even stated, "His power of observation seemed to indicate additional senses." Thoureau wrote a book titled Walden(1854) in which the theme of it was the relationship to the order and beauty of nature in the human mind. This book consists of records of Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond. Thoreau's love and devotion to nature and his writing was a key to his excellence in writing. Henry David Thoreau also felt that individualism was a great necessity to his writing style. In his piece of literature titled "Civil Disobedience", he expressed his belief in the power and the obligation of the individual to determine right from wrong, independent of the dictates of society. Thoreau's friends agreed with his views, but few practiced it in their own lives as consistently as he. Thoreau demonstrated his idea of independence in many ways. He worked for pay intermittently, he made relationships with many of the towns outcasts, he never married, he signed off from the First Parish Church rather than be taxed automatically to support it every year, and he lived alone in the woods for two years, in seclusion. His nearest neighbor was at least a mile away. While he was living independently in the woods, he thought of many new

Aping Western Culture Essay

This topic might make most of us go back to the good old days of childhood when we used to run around and play in the hot and burning sun without the pressure of the world upon us.Now the entire world(at least the majority) is mesmerized by the non real world of computer games. Part of the reason for this shift is the lack of good grounds and the lack of togetherness that is persisting in today s world. We might play the popular football or cricket game on PC but its no where near to the joy that we get while playing outdoor football or even cricket. I can still remember the days when I used to play cricket in the burning hot sun in my village, sometimes even bare foot. Nothing can match the joy that we get when we flex some muscles while playin these outdoor games. I also remember my school days during which I used to wait for holidays so that i can play cricket, hide and seek,laggoree(A local game in which we throw the ball at stones and regroup all the stones while avoiding getting hit by the ball), lock and key,badminton and many more innovative games. Most of these games used to be played in the streets and they do not require a play ground. At least I used to play them on the streets. I used to leave my house in the morning and come back for lunch and then again go out and return home at night.Playing with many people is surely fun to the core. Just the assembly of so many people was a joy to be in. Only in villages can we get to see groups of children playing outdoor games.Its becoming more and more of a rare scene in the cities.I can see school kids already carrying the burden of t he world on their tender shoulders. There might come a time when games will be restricted to indoor games or even worse only the computer games. There s nothing wrong in playing on the computer as I myself do get hooked on to the computer games but from time to time playing outdoor games relaxes the mind and also its a very good exercise to our body.Even the PET classes in the schools are taken by other subject teachers in most of the schools.Also many of the schools do not even have a playground in their school premises. All this is sad and the future is going to be even more worse.At this point I remember the popular animated series that comes on disney channel â€Å"Recess†. Its focus is mainly on the outdoor games. There is a popular saying that â€Å"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy†, its time we changed it to something like this â€Å"All work and only playing a on computer makes Jack a dull boy†. There are still a lot more things that I could have written but it might get boring so I leave it to the people reading this blog to comment and share their experiences.

Educators Struggle with Philosophy - 1075 Words

As an educator we all struggle with philosophy and where to go from there once we decide what our set of beliefs are. Once we put our philosophy in place, we then struggle with changing our philosophy. I believe that philosophies can be always changing any given situation and in order for growth as an educator we have to be aware to the situations that can change our philosophy, as well as being true to our core beliefs. However, in order for this to happen we must understand what philosophy is, and what it is not and how it fall in line with ideology and theories. For this assignment, I will compare and contrast philosophy, ideology, and theory. Philosophy is the most beliefs about what is true or real according to individual values (Gutek, 2009). Philosophy is our beliefs that will determine what we do professionally and personally. Not having a philosophy set in place, it will be difficult to make decisions within the classroom, creating curriculums and evaluate progress. Although a person can set goals without having a philosophy implemented, not having the foundation of a set philosophy (core set of beliefs) achieving the goals can be a very difficult challenge. Educators need a starting point to understand why we think and act the way we do in our classrooms. Having a philosophy allows an educator to reflect on how to make classroom actions consistent with our beliefs related to learning. However, before we list our â€Å"beliefs† we need to delve deeper into what makesShow MoreRelatedEssay on My Philosophy of Education1206 Words   |  5 PagesAs an educator we all struggle with philosophy and where to go from there once we decide what our set of beliefs are. Once we put our philosophy in place, we then struggle with changing our philosophy. 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In class there was never enough time for teachers to show their passion, or explain why they really loved the subject they were teaching. So in the following paper I will be discussing the banking concept of education. I will discuss who I believe my audience is. Also, I will be arguing why I think educators struggle with inspiringRead MoreTeaching And Learning Theoretical Framework Essay1694 Words   |  7 Pagesunderstand and possibly a view from a different perspective. My philosophy of teaching is written from the perspective of a graduate school student. I have not yet begun my career in academia. I expect my philosophy to develop over the years and change with exp erience. I pray it does because if it does not, something is terribly wrong. Teaching/Learning Theoretical Framework The Theoretical framework that guide my educational philosophy is Kolcalba Comfort Theory (CT). 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It is also absolutely essential that the education system and learning objectives put forward are relevant because they make significant contributions to worldview. This paper aims to discuss Christian philosophy versus Christian worldview and explain how they are directly related. It will also describe

Intercultural Counseling Case Study - 1281 Words

Introduction Counseling has had a multi-cultural component for many years, but not until recently have counselors been made aware of their clients’ cultural diversity. Counseling is a method used to assist individuals by helping them cope in difficult life situations. In regard to careers, the environment that people are a part of greatly influences their career development. People are given many opportunities to develop their careers using available resources and their ability to network within their community both contribute to raising a self-awareness of career options. With the growing population becoming more and more diverse, career counselors will need to be more responsive in the communities that they serve. When addressing issues†¦show more content†¦Tu is a very successful IT manager at a major University in Downtown Atlanta. He has adapted well to American culture and believes in the woman working outside of the home. He realizes however, that it will be difficult to help Diem find a job because she does not speak the language, she lacks a formal education, she does not drive and she is female. All of these factors will play a significant role in her ability to becoming employed. Client’s Career Development Culture influences many aspects of social features for a person. It can be viewed as a learning factor that transforms basic natural capacities into behaviors that infiltrate our communities and develop the values that we all live by. Diem, like most people is very unique. She has come to the United States to embark on a new life; however, there are several cultural differences that play a vital role in determining her opportunities. For the purpose of this paper, three diverse factors have been identified as having a direct influence on her life. The three diverse factors are race and ethnicity, gender and culture. Race and Ethnicity Race and Ethnicity can influence the type occupations deemed as acceptable for Diem to assume. Her ethnicity identity will define the types of opportunities that she would be considered for. This is basically influenced by the types of training that people in her minority group has been exposed to combinedShow MoreRelatedMotivation, Stress, and Communication1713 Words   |  7 Pagesinformation on job duties, policies, working conditions, employee wages and benefits, and opportunities for promotion. In most cases, these individuals are also engaged in helping to resolve issues, concerns, and problems related to their job duties. The career for human services manager incorporates working across various sectors including social work, drug and alcohol counseling, and life-skills instruction. 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The couple, Richard Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred, a black woman, were married in Washington D.C. Almost immediately after, they went back to their home state of Virginia. However, their happiness was short lived after they were arrested for being in an interracial marriage. According to the state of Virginia, this was not allowed. Nearly 50 years after this case, society’sRead MoreEthical Practice Involves Working Positively: Diversity in Counseling2539 Words   |  10 PagesDiversity Difference Name Institutional Affiliation Date: Ethical Practice Involves Working Positively Diversity Difference Introduction Counseling is a profession that involves associations based on principles and values ethically. Patients are able to benefit by understanding themselves better and through creating relationships with others. Through counseling, the clients are able to make positive alteration in life and enhance their living standards. 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Ethical Dilemmas in Multicultural Counselling Silvia Galea 2 For the purpose of this paper I have chosen two case studies to illustrate the ethical dilemmas encountered in working within the area of multi-cultural/cross cultural/trans-cultural counselling. These case studies have been slightly altered to protect confidentiality. I will be Read MoreA Brief History Of Multicultural Education2246 Words   |  9 Pageslends to various debates between scholars on how to define and explain the history of MCE. However, Payne and Welsh, like many other respected leaders in the field of MCE tend to generally agree that in the US, what might have been considered as intercultural education in the 1940s, developed into our modern view of MCE starting in the 1960s. 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