Phobias Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Phobias - Research Paper Example Types of Phobias There is no way of knowing or even being able to count how many phobias exist in the world. It is often believed that there is a phobia for everything, including many concepts or situations that others are even unaware of. With this being the case, it is possible that there are millions, if not billions, of phobias in the world. As there are so many, it is also believed that everyone is likely to have at least one phobia, if not two or three. Phobias come in all possible forms, showing that every little thing in this world is someone else’s fear. There are three main types of phobia categories: specific phobias, social phobia, and a fear of open spaces, also known as agoraphobia, all of which will be briefly discussed forthcoming. Despite the endless amount of phobias in the world, some are definitely more common than others. The most common phobia is arachnophobia, which is the fear of spiders. This phobia may be more common in females, but there are plenty o f men that also wish to have nothing to do with spiders. The second most common phobia experienced throughout the world is social phobia, the fear of being judged negatively in social situations. Roughly 5.3 million American adults between the ages of eighteen and fifty-four have social phobia (Craske 87). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the age group is correlated with the approximate ages of people that are working or in the middle of careers - situations where social judgment is not only unavoidable, but often required as part of their job. Other common phobias are aerophobia, which is the fear of flying; claustrophobia, the fear of being trapped in small, confining spaces; acrophobia, the fear of heights; agoraphobia, which is the fear that brings about extreme fear and avoidance of any place where it might be hard to escape or seek help, such as in an elevator or a larger space, such as the Grand Canyon; and necrophobia, which is the fear of dying or of dead things. There are also phob ias that are not as common, and some are simply bizarre. Most of these phobias are fears of concepts or situations. Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive or being anywhere near a cemetery. Anablephobia is the fear of looking up; this is considered strange, as looking up is an action that is done almost unconsciously and can seldom be avoided. Geniophobia is the fear of chins. Possibly the most interesting phobia is phronemophobia, which is the fear of thinking. There are fears for having or seeing certain body parts, certain foods, smells, tastes, or textures. The very paper that this is being written on, or even the ink that typed it, can be the fear of one or more people in this world. This is why phobias are considered to be irrational, since many of these objects, situations, or concepts should not be feared. With a few exceptions, such as a fear of death or even sharks, these phobias are unable to cause harm to a person. As such, by having these phobias, people may risk causing harm to themselves in their attempts to avoid the cause of their phobia. Causes Since each phobia is as different as the person experiencing them, it has become difficult to pinpoint how phobias are caused. Unlike other

Signal Cable Company Essay Example for Free

Signal Cable Company Essay Case 1: Signal cable company 1. Why has the stock price fallen despite the fact that the net income has increased? Ans: The stock price for Signal Cable company could have fallen for a variety of reasons. Stock price is influenced by the performance of the company, investor expectations as well as general market/economic conditions. In the case of Signal, it is clear that the stock price fell despite an increase in the net income. This could be possibly because the company might have made incorrect investment decisions by investing in two manufacturing plants as well tying up more money in inventory. Shareholders may not be happy with this decision and consequently the demand for the stock may have decreased causing a drop in price. In addition, the dividends offered by the firm has increased in 2004 from 0.187$ per share to 0.214$ per share. Once again, this could be indicative to the market of the company being uncertain of what to do with their resources and not having enough attractive investments to pursue. 2. How liquid would you say that this company is? Calculate the absolute liquidity of the firm. How does it compare with the previous year’s liquidity position? Ans: Short term solvency or the liquidity of a firm can be measured using the liquidity ratios. This is a measure of short term liquidity helping assess the sufficiency of current assets to meet current liabilities. The ratios include: i) Current Ratio: 2003= 2.50 2013= 2.06. The current ratio of the firm has decreased between the last 2 years. This is mainly driven by a huge increase in the inventory held by Signal Cable Company as well as an increase in the accounts receivables. This could be because creditors are not paying on or delays on the banking side. ii) Quick Ratio: 2004= 0.608

Beowulf is an Anglo Saxon Hero Essay -- Epic of Beowulf Essays

There has only been one hero in Anglo-Saxon history, only one man can meet every requirement one needs to be classified as hero. Only one man's honor, loyalty, courage, generosity, and wisdom, fits the true definition of a hero. That man is Beowulf. With these leading traits, Beowulf's rise to heroism was not just by chance. He filled each of the five characteristics perfectly, as if it was his destiny to be admired. To gain the respect and glory that a person of power needs, one must earn it. There is only one way to achieve respect in the times of the Anglo-Saxons. Only Beowulf was the most honored man throughout all Anglo-Saxon history. He performed three straightforward tasks to reach his level of admiration. In the time of The Anglo-Saxon?s, men lived by the Comitatus Code. One avenged the death of their king. Men lived a lifestyle of boasting and violence. Beowulf?s first major feat was undoubtedly through violence. An evil bloodthirsty creature named Grendel haunted the mead hall of Heorot. Upon hearing of this ghastly monster, Beowulf found it too ?hard to ignore? (Lines 409-410). Many claimed it was an impossible feat to go toe to toe with Grendel (Line 473). ?No one has ever outlasted an entire night with Grendel? (Lines 527-528). Hrothgar said that he would hate to burden anyone with such a great task. For many have tried, yet none have succeeded in killing Grendel. Ho wever, Beowulf took on Grendel and ripped his arm off as a sign of his sheer strength. Upon accomplishing this act, Beowulf did what was a customary action for this time. He bragged, boasted, and did not downplay the praise he received. He had just ripped the arm off the monster that had been previously tormenting Heorot?s mead ... ... decision throughout all Anglo-Saxon history. Life doesn?t cost Beowulf a thought (Line 1535). Beowulf gave his breath so that life still can go on. He made the choice that was best for his people, but in turn fatal for him. Beowulf, the honorable, loyal, and courageous king of great generosity and wisdom has fallen. The perfectness on every level was amazing. The five traits that Beowulf needed to qualify for to even be considered a hero, he exceeded them. Beowulf was the man whose honor lives on. Beowulf was the man whole loyalty and courageousness never faltered. Beowulf was the man whose generosity touched the heart of others. Beowulf was the man with the greatest wisdom throughout all history. ?Beowulf worked for the people, but as well at that he behaved like a hero?(Lines 3006-3007). Beowulf knew he was destined to be our king, leader, our beast.

A Teacher Affects Eternity :: Teaching, Education, Admissions

A Teacher Affects Eternity As graduation was approaching, the question running through my mind was, "What am I going to do with my life?" I knew this was an important decision, and I wanted to make sure I made the right one. I knew that I wanted to attend college, but I was debating between Physical Therapy, and Education. In making this decision, I reflected back to my Junior year in high school, when I tutored a Kindergarten class. I hadn't realized the impact that these ten kindergartners had made upon my life. With their cute sayings, their many hugs, and the excitement on their faces when learning something new; helped me to decide that Education is what I wanted to do. When I enrolled into college, I realized that becoming a teacher is a very important task. Teachers are forming the mold of future doctors, lawyers, teachers, and much more. When I become a teacher I want to portray positive characteristics that will be beneficial to my students. I want to be the type of teacher that shows compassion toward my students. I feel to portray this characteristic I must know each of my students learning capabilities, and what kind of learning strategy works for each child. I feel it's my job to make sure that my classroom is a safe haven for each child. I never want one student to be excluded. I feel being excluded would make coming to school a very terrifying experience for the child, and I want to make my classroom comfortable for everyone. I want to always go the extra-mile to help my students, and I want them to feel that if they have a problem they can always come to me for help. I want to be the teacher who offers daily encouragement. I feel encouragement is imperative when dealing with children. I feel they need encouragement so that they know they can accomplish anything they set their mind to. I want to be the teacher who makes phone calls home to parents to tell of the accomplishments that their sons/daughters are achieving. I feel that giving encouragement will make my students work harder, and they will be more successful.

An Approach to Detect and Prevent Sql Injection Attacks in Database Using Web Service

IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 197 An Approach to Detect and Prevent SQL Injection Attacks in Database Using Web Service IndraniBalasundaram 1 Dr. E. Ramaraj2 1 Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai 2 Director of Computer Centre Alagappa University, Karaikudi. Abstract SQL injection is an attack methodology that targets the data residing in a database through the firewall that shields it. The attack takes advantage of poor input validation in code and ebsite administration. SQL Injection Attacks occur when an attacker is able to insert a series of SQL statements in to a ‘query’ by manipulating user input data in to a web-based application, attacker can take advantages of web application programming security flaws and pass unexpected malicious SQL statements through a web application for execution by the backend database. This paper proposes a novel specification-ba sed methodology for the prevention of SQL injection Attacks. The two most important advantages of the new approach against xisting analogous mechanisms are that, first, it prevents all forms of SQL injection attacks; second, Current technique does not allow the user to access database directly in database server. The innovative technique â€Å"Web Service Oriented XPATH Authentication Technique† is to detect and prevent SQLInjection Attacks in database the deployment of this technique is by generating functions of two filtration models that are Active Guard and Service Detector of application scripts additionally allowing seamless integration with currently-deployed systems. General TermsLanguages, Security, Verification, Experimentation. Keywords Database security, world-wide web, web application security, SQL injection attacks, Runtime Monitoring changes to data. The fear of SQL injection attacks has become increasingly frequent and serious. . SQL-Injection Attacks are a cl ass of attacks that many of these systems are highly vulnerable to, and there is no known fool-proof defend against such attacks. Compromise of these web applications represents a serious threat to organizations that have deployed them, and also to users who trust these systems to store confidential data. The Web applications hat are vulnerable to SQL-Injection attacks user inputs the attacker’s embeds commands and gets executed [4]. The attackers directly access the database underlying an application and leak or alter confidential information and execute malicious code [1][2]. In some cases, attackers even use an SQL Injection vulnerability to take control and corrupt the system that hosts the Web application. The increasing number of web applications falling prey to these attacks is alarmingly high [3] Prevention of SQLIA’s is a major challenge. It is difficult to implement and enforce a rigorous defensive coding discipline. Many olutions based on defensive coding ad dress only a subset of the possible attacks. Evaluation of â€Å"â€Å"Web Service Oriented XPATH Authentication Technique† has no code modification as well as automation of detection and prevention of SQL Injection Attacks. Recent U. S. industry regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [5] pertaining to information security, try to enforce strict security compliance by application vendors. 1. Introduction 1. 1 SAMPLE – APPLICATION Information is the most important business asset in today’s environment and achieving an appropriate level of Information Security. SQL-Injection Attacks (SQLIA’s) re one of the topmost threats for web application security. For example financial fraud, theft confidential data, deface website, sabotage, espionage and cyber terrorism. The evaluation process of security tools for detection and prevention of SQLIA’s. To implement security guidelines inside or outside the database it is recommended to access the sensitive databases should be monitored. It is a hacking technique in which the attacker adds SQL statements through a web application's input fields or hidden parameters to gain access to resources or make Application that contain SQL Injection vulnerability.The example refers to a fairly simple vulnerability that could be prevented using a straightforward coding fix. This example is simply used for illustrative purposes because it is easy to understand and general enough to illustrate many different types of attacks. The code in the example uses the input parameters LoginID, password to dynamically build an SQL query and submit it to a database. For example, if a user submits loginID and password as â€Å"secret,† and â€Å"123,† the application dynamically builds and submits the query: Manuscript received January 5, 2011 Manuscript revised January 20, 2011 198IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 SELECT * from FROM loginID=’secret’ AND pass1=123 user_info WHERE If the loginID and password match the corresponding entry in the database, it will be redirect to user_main. aspx page other wise it will be redirect to error. aspx page. 1. dim loginId, Password as string 2. loginId = Text1. Text 3. password = Text2. Text 3. cn. open() 4. qry=†select * from user_info where LoginID=’† & loginID & â€Å"’ and pass1=† & password & â€Å"† 5. cmd=new sqlcommand(qry,cn) 6. rd=cmd. executereader() 7. if (rd. Read=True) Then 8. Response. redirect(â€Å"user_main. spx†) 9. else 10. Response. redirect(â€Å"error. aspx†) 11. end if 12. cn. close() 13. cmd. dispose() b. Union Query In union-query attacks, Attackers do this by injecting a statement of the form: UNION SELECT because the attackers completely control the second/injected query they can use that query to retrieve information from a specified table. The result of this attack is that th e database returns a dataset that is the union of the results of the original first query and the results of the injected second query. Example: An attacker could inject the text â€Å"’ UNION SELECT pass1 from user_info where LoginID=’secret – -† nto the login field, which produces the following query: SELECT pass1 FROM user_info WHERE loginID=’’ UNION SELECT pass1 from user_info where LoginID=’secret’ — AND pass1=’’ Assuming that there is no login equal to â€Å"†, the original first query returns the null set, whereas the second query returns data from the â€Å"user_info† table. In this case, the database would return column â€Å"pass1† for account â€Å"secret†. The database takes the results of these two queries, unions them, and returns them to the application. In many applications, the effect of this operation is that the value for â€Å"pass1† is displayed along with the account informationFigure 1: Example of . NET code implementation. 1. 2 Techniques of SQLIA’S Most of the attacks are not in isolated they are used together or sequentially, depending on the specific goals of the attacker. a. Tautologies Tautology-based attack is to inject code in one or more conditional statements so that they always evaluate to true. The most common usages of this technique are to bypass authentication pages and extract data. If the attack is successful when the code either displays all of the returned records or performs some action if at least one record is returned. Example: In this example attack, an attacker submits â€Å" ’ or 1=1 – -†The Query for Login mode is: SELECT * FROM user_info WHERE loginID=’’ or 1=1 – AND pass1=’’ The code injected in the conditional (OR 1=1) transforms the entire WHERE clause into a tautology the query evaluates to true for each row in the table and returns a ll of them. In our example, the returned set evaluates to a not null value, which causes the application to conclude that the user authentication was successful. Therefore, the application would invoke method user_main. aspx and to access the application [6] [7] [8]. c. Stored Procedures SQL Injection Attacks of this type try to execute stored procedures present in the database.Today, most database vendors ship databases with a standard set of stored procedures that extend the functionality of the database and allow for interaction with the operating system. Therefore, once an attacker determines which backend database is in use, SQLIAs can be crafted to execute stored procedures provided by that specific database, including procedures that interact with the operating system. It is a common misconception that using stored procedures to write Web applications renders them invulnerable to SQLIAs. Developers are often surprised to find that their stored procedures can be just as vulner able o attacks as their normal applications [18, 24]. Additionally, because stored procedures are often written in special scripting languages, they can contain other types of vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflows, that allow attackers to run arbitrary code on the server or escalate their privileges. CREATE PROCEDURE DBO. UserValid(@LoginID varchar2, @pass1 varchar2 AS EXEC(â€Å"SELECT * FROM user_info WHERE loginID=’† [email  protected]+ â€Å"’ and pass1=’† [email  protected]+ â€Å"’†);GO Example: This example demonstrates how a parameterized stored procedure can be exploited via an SQLIA. In the example, we assume that the query string constructed at ines 5, 6 and 7 of our example has been replaced by a call IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 to the stored procedure defined in Figure 2. The stored procedure returns a true/false value to indicate whether the u ser’s credentials authenticated correctly. To launch an SQLIA, the attacker simply injects â€Å" ’ ; SHUTDOWN; –† into either the LoginID or pass1 fields. This injection causes the stored procedure to generate the following query: SELECT * FROM user_info WHERE loginID=’secret’ AND pass1=’; SHUTDOWN; -At this point, this attack works like a piggy-back attack.The first query is executed normally, and then the second, malicious query is executed, which results in a database shut down. This example shows that stored procedures can be vulnerable to the same range of attacks as traditional application code [6] [11] [12] [10] [13] [14] [15]. d. Extended stored procedures IIS(Internet Information Services) Reset There are several extended stored procedures that can cause permanent damage to a system[19]. Extended stored procedure can be executed by using login form with an injected command as the LoginId LoginId:';execmaster.. xp_xxx;-Passwo rd:[Anything] LoginId:';execmaster.. p_cmdshell'iisreset';-Password:[Anything] select password from user_info where LoginId=†; exec master.. xp_cmdshell ‘iisreset'; –‘ and Password=† This Attack is used to stop the service of the web server of particular Web application. Stored procedures primarily consist of SQL commands, while XPs can provide entirely new functions via their code. An attacker can take advantage of extended stored procedure by entering a suitable command. This is possible if there is no proper input validation. xp_cmdshell is a built-in extended stored procedure that allows the execution of arbitrary command lines. For example: exec master.. p_cmdshell ‘dir' will obtain a directory listing of the current working directory of the SQL Server process. In this example, the attacker may try entering the following input into a search form can be used for the attack. When the query string is parsed and sent to SQL Server, the server wi ll process the following code: SELECT * FROM user_info WHERE input text =† exec master.. xp_cmdshell LoginId /DELETE'–‘ 199 Here, the first single quote entered by the user closes the string and SQL Server executes the next SQL statements in the batch including a command to delete a LoginId to the user_info table in the database. . Alternate Encodings Alternate encodings do not provide any unique way to attack an application they are simply an enabling technique that allows attackers to evade detection and prevention techniques and exploit vulnerabilities that might not otherwise be exploitable. These evasion techniques are often necessary because a common defensive coding practice is to scan for certain known â€Å"bad characters,† such as single quotes and comment operators. To evade this defense, attackers have employed alternate methods of encoding their attack strings (e. g. , using hexadecimal, ASCII, and Unicode character encoding).Common scanning an d detection techniques do not try to evaluate all specially encoded strings, thus allowing these attacks to go undetected. Contributing to the problem is that different layers in an application have different ways of handling alternate encodings. The application may scan for certain types of escape characters that represent alternate encodings in its language domain. Another layer (e. g. , the database) may use different escape characters or even completely different ways of encoding. For example, a database could use the expression char(120) to represent an alternately-encoded character x†, but char(120) has no special meaning in the application language’s context. An effective code-based defense against alternate encodings is difficult to implement in practice because it requires developers to consider of all of the possible encodings that could affect a given query string as it passes through the different application layers. Therefore, attackers have been very succe ssful in using alternate encodings to conceal their attack strings. Example: Because every type of attack could be represented using an alternate encoding, here we simply provide an example of how esoteric an alternativelyencoded attack could appear.In this attack, the following text is injected into the login field: â€Å"secret’; exec(0x73687574646f776e) – – †. The resulting query generated by the application is: SELECT * FROM user_info WHERE loginID=’secret’; exec(char(0x73687574646f776e)) — AND pass1=’’ This example makes use of the char() function and of ASCII hexadecimal encoding. The char() function takes as a parameter an integer or hexadecimal encoding of a character and returns an instance of that character. The stream of numbers in the second part of the injection is the 200 IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. , January 2011 ASCII hexadecimal encoding of the strin g â€Å"SHUTDOWN. † Therefore, when the query is interpreted by the database, it would result in the execution, by the database, of the SHUTDOWN command. References: [6] f. Deny Database service This attack used in the websites to issue a denial of service by shutting down the SQL Server. A powerful command recognized by SQL Server is SHUTDOWN WITH NOWAIT [19]. This causes the server to shutdown, immediately stopping the Windows service. After this command has been issued, the service must be manually restarted by the administrator. select password from user_info whereLoginId=';shutdown with nowait; –‘ and Password='0' The ‘–‘ character sequence is the ‘single line comment' sequence in Transact – SQL, and the ‘;' character denotes the end of one query and the beginning of another. If he has used the default sa account, or has acquired the required privileges, SQL server will shut down, and will require a restart in order to f unction again. This attack is used to stop the database service of a particular web application. Select * from user_info where LoginId=’1;xp_cmdshell ‘format c:/q /yes ‘; drop database mydb; –AND pass1 = 0 This command is used to format the C: drive used by the ttacker. 2. Related Work There are existing techniques that can be used to detect and prevent input manipulation vulnerabilities. 2. 1 Web Vulnerability Scanning Web vulnerability scanners crawl and scan for web vulnerabilities by using software agents. These tools perform attacks against web applications, usually in a black-box fashion, and detect vulnerabilities by observing the applications’ response to the attacks [18]. However, without exact knowledge about the internal structure of applications, a black-box approach might not have enough test cases to reveal existing vulnerabilities and also have alse positives. 2. 2 Intrusion Detection System (IDS) Valeur and colleagues [17] propose the use of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to detect SQLIA. Their IDS system is based on a machine learning technique that is trained using a set of typical application queries. The technique builds models of the typical queries and then monitors the application at runtime to identify queries that do not match the model in that it builds expected query models and then checks dynamically-generated queries for compliance with the model. Their technique, however, like most techniques based on learning, can generate large umber of false positive in the absence of an optimal training set. Su and Wassermann [8] propose a solution to prevent SQLIAs by analyzing the parse tree of the statement, generating custom validation code, and wrapping the vulnerable statement in the validation code. They conducted a study using five real world web applications and applied their SQLCHECK wrapper to each application. They found that their wrapper stopped all of the SQLIAs in their attack set without g enerating any false positives. While their wrapper was effective in preventing SQLIAs with modern attack structures, we hope to shift the focus rom the structure of the attacks and onto removing the SQLIVs. 2. 3 Combined Static and Dynamic Analysis. AMNESIA is a model-based technique that combines static analysis and runtime monitoring [1][7]. In its static phase, AMNESIA uses static analysis to build models of the different types of queries an application can legally generate at each point of access to the database. In its dynamic phase, AMNESIA intercepts all queries before they are sent to the database and checks each query against the statically built models. Queries that violate the model are identified as SQLIA’s and prevented from executing on the database.In their evaluation, the authors have shown that this technique performs well against SQLIA’s. The primary limitation of this technique is that its success is dependent on the accuracy of its static analysis f or building query models. Certain types of code obfuscation or query development techniques could make this step less precise and result in both false positives and false negatives Livshits and Lam [16] use static analysis techniques to detect vulnerabilities in software. The basic approach is to use information flow techniques to detect when tainted input has been used to construct an SQL query. These ueries are then flagged as SQLIA vulnerabilities. The authors demonstrate the viability of their technique by using this approach to find security vulnerabilities in a benchmark suite. The primary limitation of this approach is that it can detect only known patterns of SQLIA’s and, IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 because it uses a conservative analysis and has limited support for untainting operations, can generate a relatively high amount of false positives. Wassermann and Su propose an approach that uses stati c analysis combined with automated reasoning to verify that he SQL queries generated in the application layer cannot contain a tautology [9]. The primary drawback of this technique is that its scope is limited to detecting and preventing tautologies and cannot detect other types of attacks. 3. Proposed Technique This Technique is used to detect and prevent SQLIA’s with runtime monitoring. The solution insights behind the technique are that for each application, when the login page is redirected to our checking page, it was to detect and prevent SQL Injection attacks without stopping legitimate accesses. Moreover, this technique proved to be efficient, imposing only a low overhead on the Web pplications. The contribution of this work is as follows: A new automated technique for preventing SQLIA’s where no code modification required, Webservice which has the functions of db_2_XMLGenrerator and XPATH_ Validator such that it is an XML query language to select specific part s of an XML document. XPATH is simply the ability to traverse nodes from XML and obtain information. It is used for the temporary storage of sensitive data’s from the database, Active Guard model is used to detect and prevent SQL Injection attacks. Service Detector model allow the Authenticated or legitimate user to access the web applications.The SQLIA’s are captured by altered logical flow of the application. Innovative technique (figure:1) monitors dynamically generated queries with Active Guard model and Service Detector model at runtime and check them for compliance. If the Data Comparison violates the model then it represents potential SQLIA’s and prevented from executing on the database. This proposed technique consists of two filtration models to prevent SQLIA’S. 1) Active Guard filtration model 2) Service Detector filtration model. The steps are summarized and then describe them in more detail in following sections. a. Active Guard Filtration Mod elActive Guard Filtration Model in application layer build a Susceptibility detector to detect and prevent the Susceptibility characters or Meta characters to prevent the malicious attacks from accessing the data’s from database. b. Service Detector Filtration Model Service Detector Filtration Model in application layer validates user input from XPATH_Validator where the Sensitive data’s are stored from the Database at second 201 level filtration model. The user input fields compare with the data existed in XPATH_Validator if it is identical then the Authenticated /legitimate user is allowed to proceed. c. Web Service LayerWeb service builds two types of execution process that are DB_2_Xml generator and XPATH_ Validator. DB_2_Xml generator is used to create a separate temporary storage of Xml document from database where the Sensitive data’s are stored in XPATH_ Validator, The user input field from the Service Detector compare with the data existed in XPATH_ Val idator, if the data’s are similar XPATH_ Validator send a flag with the count iterator value = 1 to the Service Detector by signifying the user data is valid. Procedures Executed in Active Guard Function stripQuotes(ByVal strWords) stripQuotes = Replace(strWords, â€Å"‘†, â€Å"†Ã¢â‚¬ ) Return stripQuotesEnd Function Function killChars(ByVal strWords) Dim arr1 As New ArrayList arr1. Add(â€Å"select†) arr1. Add(â€Å"–â€Å") arr1. Add(â€Å"drop†) arr1. Add(â€Å";†) arr1. Add(â€Å"insert†) arr1. Add(â€Å"delete†) arr1. Add(â€Å"xp_†) arr1. Add(â€Å"‘†) Dim i As Integer For i = 0 To arr1. Count – 1 strWords = Replace(strWords, arr1. Item(i), â€Å"†, , , CompareMethod. Text) Next Return strWords End Function IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 202 Figure 2: proposed Architecture Procedures Executed in Service D etector navi. Compile(â€Å"/Main_Tag/Details[LoginId='† & userName & â€Å"‘ and Password=† & Password & â€Å"]†) _Public Sub Db_2_XML() adapt=New SqlDataAdapter(â€Å"select LoginId,Password from user_info†, cn) Dim nodes As XPathNodeIterator = navi. Select(expr) Dim count2 As Integer = nodes. Count. ToString() Return count2 dst = New DataSet(â€Å"Main_Tag†) End Function adapt. Fill(dst, â€Å"Details†) dst. WriteXml(Server. MapPath(â€Å"XML_DATAXML_D ATA. xml†)) End Sub Procedures Executed in Web Service _ Public Function XPath_XML_Validation(ByVal userName As String, ByVal Password As Integer) As Integer Dim xpathdoc As New XPathDocument(Server. MapPath(â€Å"XML_DATAX ML_DATA. xml†)) Dim navi As XPathNavigator = xpathdoc. CreateNavigator() Dim expr As XPathExpression = . Identify hotspot This step performs a simple scanning of the application code to identify hotspots. Each hotspot will be verified with the Active Server to remove the susceptibility character the sample code (figure: 2) states two hotspots with a single query execution. (In . NET based applications, interactions with the database occur through calls to specific methods in the System. Data. Sqlclient namespace, 1 such as Sqlcommand- . ExecuteReader (String)) the hotspot is instrumented with monitor code, which matches dynamically generated queries against query models. If a generated query is matched with Active Guard, then it is onsidered an attack. 3. 1 Comparison of Data at Runtime Monitoring When a Web application fails to properly sanitize the parameters, which are passed to, dynamically created SQL statements (even when using parameterization techniques) it is possible for an attacker to alter the construction of back-end SQL statements. IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 When an attacker is able to modify an SQL statement, the statement will execute with t he same rights as the application user; when using the SQL server to execute commands that interact with the operating system, the rocess will run with the same permissions as the component that executed the command (e. g. , database server, application server, or Web server), which is often highly privileged. Current technique (Figure: 1) append with Active Guard, to validate the user input fields to detect the Meta character and prevent the malicious attacker. Transact-SQL statements will be prohibited directly from user input. For each hotspot, statically build a Susceptibility detector in Active Guard to check any malicious strings or characters append SQL tokens (SQL keywords and operators), delimiters, or string tokens to the legitimate command.Concurrently in Web service the DB_2_Xml Generator generates a XML document from database and stored in X_PATH Validator. Service Detector receive the validated user input from Active Guard and send through the protocol SOAP (Simple Obj ect Access Protocol) to the web service from the web service the user input data compare with XML_Validator if it is identical the XML_Validator send a flag as a iterator count value = 1 to Service Detector through the SOAP protocol then the legitimate/valid user is Authenticated to access the web application, If the data mismatches the XML_Validator send a flag as a count alue = 0 to Service Detector through the SOAP protocol then the illegitimate/invalid user is not Authenticated to access the web application. In figure 3: In the existing technique query validation occur to validate a Authenticated user and the user directly access the database but in the current technique, there is no query validation . From the Active Guard the validated user input fields compare with the Service Detector where the Sensitive data is stored, db_2_XML Generator is used to generate a XML file and initialize to the class XPATH document the instance Navigator is used to search by using cursor in the selected XML document.With in the XPATH validator, Compile is a method which is used to match the element with the existing document. The navigator will be created in the xpathdocument using select method result will be redirected to the XPATH node iterator. The node iterator count value may be 1 or 0, If the flag value result in Service Detector as 1 then the user consider as Legitimate user and allowed to access the web application as the same the flag value result in Service Detector as 0 then the user consider as Malicious user and reject/discard from accessing the web application If the script builds an SQL query by concatenating hard-coded trings together with a string entered by the user, As long as injected SQL code is syntactically correct, tampering cannot be detected programmatically. String concatenation is the primary point of entry for script injection Therefore, 203 we Compare all user input carefully with Service Detector (Second filtration model). If the user input and Sensitive data’s are identical then executes constructed SQL commands in the Application server. Existing techniques directly allows accessing the database in database server after the Query validation. Web Service Oriented XPATH Authentication Technique does not allow directly to ccess database in database server. 4. EVALUATIONS The proposed technique is deployed and tried few trial runs on the web server. Table 1: SQLIA’S Prevention Accuracy SQL Injection Types Unprotected Protected 1. TAUTOLOGIES Not Prevented Prevented 2. PIGGY BACKED QUERIES Not Prevented Prevented 3. STORED PROCEDURE Not Prevented Prevented 4. ALTERNATIVE ENCODING Not Prevented Prevented 5. UNION Not Prevented Prevented Table 2: Execution Time comparison for proposed technique Total Number of Entries in Database Execution Time in Millisecond Existing Proposed Technique Technique 1000 1640000 46000 2000 1420000 93000 3000 1040000 6000 4000 1210000 62000 5000 1670000 78000 6000 1390000 107000 T he above given table 2 illustrate the execution time taken for the proposed technique with the existing technique. 4. 1 SQLIA Prevention Accuracy Both the protected and unprotected web Applications are tested using different types of SQLIA’s; namely use of Tautologies, Union, Piggy-Backed Queries, Inserting additional SQL statements, Second-order SQL injection and various other SQLIA s. Table 1 shows that the proposed technique prevented all types of SQLIA s in all cases. The proposed technique is thus a secure and robust solution to defend against SQLIA’sIJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 204 4. 2 Execution Time at Runtime Validation The runtime validation incurs some overhead in terms of execution time at both the Web Service Oriented XPATH Authentication Technique and SQL-Query based Validation Technique. Taken a sample website ETransaction measured the extra computation time at the query validation, th is delay has been amplified in the graph (figure: 4 and figure:5) to distinguish between the Time delays using bar chart shows that the data validation in XML_Validator performs better than query validation.In Query validation(figure:5) the user input is generated as a query in script engine then it gets parsed in to separate tokens then the user input is compared with the statistical generated data if it is malicious generates error reporting. Web Service Oriented XPATH Authentication Technique (figure: 4) states that user input is generated as a query in script engine then it gets parsed in to separate tokens, and send through the protocol SOAP to Susceptibility Detector, then the validated user data is sequentially send to Service Detector through the protocol SOAP then the user input is ompared with the sensitive data, which is temporarily stored in dataset. If it is malicious data, it will be prevented otherwise the legitimate data is allowed to access the Web application. 5. C ONCLUSION SQL Injection Attacks attempts to modify the parameters of a Web-based application in order to alter the SQL statements that are parsed to retrieve data from the database. Any procedure that constructs SQL statements could potentially be vulnerable, as the diverse nature of SQL and the methods available for constructing it provide a wealth of coding options. 1800000 Execution time in Milli Sec 1600000 1400000 1200000 000000 Proposed Technique Existing Technique 800000 600000 400000 200000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 Total Number of Entries in Database Figure4: Execution Time comparison for proposed technique (data validation in X-path) with existing technique The primary form of SQL injection consists of direct insertion of code into parameters that are concatenated with SQL commands and executed. This technique is used to detect and prevent the SQLI flaw (Susceptibility characters & exploiting SQL commands) in Susceptibility Detector and prevent the Susceptibility att acker Web Service Oriented XPATH Authentication Technique hecks the user input with valid database which is stored separately in XPATH and do not affect database directly then the validated user input field is allowed to access the web application as well as used to improve the performance of the server side validation This proposed technique was able to suitably classify the attacks that performed on the applications without blocking legitimate accesses to the database (i. e. , the technique produced neither false positives nor false negatives). These results show that our technique represents a promising approach to countering SQLIA’s and motivate further work in this irection References [1] William G. J. Halfond and Alessandro Orso , â€Å"AMNESIA: Analysis and Monitoring for Neutralizing SQLInjection Attacks†, ASE’05, November 7–11, 2005 [2] William G. J. Hal fond and Alessandro Orso, â€Å"A Classification of SQL injection attacks and countermeasure s†,proc IEEE int’l Symp. Secure Software Engg. , Mar. 2006. IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL. 11 No. 1, January 2011 [3] Muthuprasanna, Ke Wei, Suraj Kothari, â€Å"Eliminating SQL Injection Attacks – A TransparentDefenceMechanism†, SQL Injection Attacks Prof. Jim Whitehead CMPS 183. Spring 2006, May 17, 2006 4] William G. J. Hal fond, Alessandro Orso, â€Å"WASP: Protecting Web Applications Using Positive Tainting and Syntax-Aware Evaluation IEEE Software Engineering, VOL. 34, NO. 1January/February 2008 [5] K. Beaver, â€Å"Achieving Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for Web applications†, http://www. spidynamics. com/support/whitepapers/, 2003 [6] C. Anley, â€Å"Advanced SQL Injection In SQL Server Applications,† White paper, Next Generation Security Software Ltd. , 2002. [7] W. G. J. Halfond and A. Orso, â€Å"Combining Static Analysis and Runtime Monitoring to Counter SQL Injection Attacks,† 3rd International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis, 2005, pp. – 7 [8] Z. Su and G. Wassermann, â€Å"The Essence of Command Injection Attacks in Web Applications,† 33rd ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, 2006, pp. 372-382. [9] G. Wassermann and Z. Su. An Analysis Framework for Security in Web Applications. In Proceedings of the FSE Workshop on Specification and Verification of componentBased Systems (SAVCBS 2004), pages 70–78, 2004. [10] P. Finnigan, â€Å"SQL Injection and Oracle – Parts 1 & 2,† Technical Report, Security Focus, November 2002. http://securityfocus. com/infocus/1644 [11] F. Bouma, â€Å"Stored Procedures are Bad, O’kay,† Technical report,Asp. Net Weblogs, November 2003. http://weblogs. asp. net/fbouma/archive/2003/11/18/38178. as px. [12] E. M. Fayo, â€Å"Advanced SQL Injection in Oracle Databases,† Technical report, Argeniss Information Security, Black Hat Briefings, Black Hat USA, 2 005. [13] C. A. Mackay, â€Å"SQL Injection Attacks and Some Tips on How to Prevent them,† Technical report, The Code Project, January 2005. http://www. codeproject. com/cs/database/ qlInjectionAttacks. asp. [14] S. McDonald. SQL Injection: Modes of attack, defense, and why it matters. White paper, GovernmentSecurity. org, April 2002. http://www. governmentsecurity. rg/articles/SQLInjectionM odesofAttackDefenceandWhyItMatters. php [15] S. Labs. SQL Injection. White paper, SPI Dynamics, Inc. ,2002. http://www. spidynamics. com/assets/documents/Whitepaper SQLInjection. pdf. [16] V. B. Livshits and M. S. Lam. Finding Security Errors in Java Programs with Static Analysis. In Proceedings of the 14th Usenix Security Symposium, pages 271–286, Aug. 2005. [17] F. Valeur and D. Mutz and G. Vigna â€Å"A Learning-Based Approach to the Detection of SQL Attacks,† In Proceedings of the Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), July 20 05. [18] Kals, S. Kirda, E. , Kruegel, C. , and Jovanovic, N. 2006. SecuBat: a web vulnerability scanner. In Proceedings of the 205 15th International Conference on World Wide Web. WWW '06. ACM Press, pp. 247-256. [19] Sql injection – HSC Guides – Web App Security Written by Ethical Hacker sunday, 17 February 2008. http://sqlinjections. blogspot. com/2009/04/sql-injection-hscguides-web-app. html. Prof. E. Ramaraj is presently working as a Technology Advisor, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India on lien from Director, computer centre at Alagappa university, Karaikudi. He has 22 years teaching experience and 8 years esearch experience. He has presented research papers in more than 50 national and international conferences and published more than 55 papers in national and international journals. His research areas include Data mining, software engineering, database and network security. B. Indrani received the B. Sc. degree in Computer Science, in 2002; t he M. Sc. degree in Computer Science and Information Technology, in 2004. She had completed M. Phil. in Computer Science. She worked as a Research Assistant in Smart and Secure Environment Lab under IIT, Madras. Her current research interests include Database Security.

Battle of Shiloh essays

Battle of Shiloh essays During the night of the April 5, 1862, Confederate commander, Albert S. Johnston, was sound asleep. Throughout his life he had reoccurring dreams in which a unicorn, with the name Shiloh, would appear and foretell what was to transpire within the next twenty-four hours. The unicorn stood tall and majestic with hair snow white and a horn of golden color that shimmered when light touched it. Its eyes were that of one which had seen much and obtained knowledge others couldnt even claim to possess. That night the unicorn appeared in his dreams and enlightened him with such information. It told of what was to take place when he arrived at the Union encampment at Pittsburg Landing, of the Battle that would go on to be called Shiloh, named after a meetinghouse 3 miles from the Landing. Then the unicorn spoke of his death. This was to be the last battle fought by Johnston, and his death was described to him in vivid detail. He woke up in a cold sweat, knowing that what the unicorn had said should be taken seriously because all it speaks of is truth. By that time, the first signs of morning were beginning to take place. The world was starting to wake up. Johnston and his troops headed towards the Union encampment, and upon their arrival they achieved complete surprise which was what the Confederates had anticipated. Due to the fact that neither side had ever fought in a battle in their lives, there was mass confusion. The Rebels were defeating the Federals position one after another, but the Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant , ordered for his troops to block the sunken road, in which the Confederates were traveling on, no matter what. Shots were fired at the Federals, but it did not faze them, at least not until the Confederate army obtained sixty-two cannons and started firing them at point black range down the sunken road. Soon after that monstrosity, the Union troops were forced to surrender. ...

Free Essays on Tuesdays With Morrie

â€Å"Tuesday’s With Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson† by Mitch Albom has a title which outlines the direction of the book. An older man, Morrie, a young man, Mitch, and about life’s greatest lesson. Morrie was a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts when Mitch attended college. Morrie was his favorite professor. A few years after Morrie was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ASL) he was unable to teach anymore. This was about 20 years after Mitch graduated from the University. After graduation, Mitch didn’t stay in contact with his college friends or his favorite teacher Morrie. When Mitch heard â€Å"Who is Morrie Schwartz† on ABC’s â€Å"Nightline† he couldn’t believe what he had heard. Mitch was both horrified and ashamed. It was then he heard about Morrie’s illness. Finally Mitch went to see him. From then on Mitch visited Morrie every Tuesday. Whenever they met, they would talk about the meaning of life. Mitch wrote a list of topics he wanted to talk about. The list consisted of death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, society, forgiveness, and a meaningful life. Morrie went through all of these topics, plus more. Morrie helped Mitch understand that there is more to life than money and materialistic things. From the first Tuesday until the last Tuesday, Mitch listened to Morrie, his coach, talk about the real meaning of life. How much life means to you when you are about to die. How much people take for granted. Mitch sometimes looks back at the person he was. He wishes he could change the way he was back then but he can’t. The one thing he really learned was that there is no such thing as â€Å"too late† in life. This book was Mitch’s final project from Morrie. While in college, Mitch wrote a thesis for Morrie, now he wrote another one, but this time it has become a very popular book. As of the summer of 19... Free Essays on Tuesdays With Morrie Free Essays on Tuesdays With Morrie â€Å"Tuesday’s With Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson† by Mitch Albom has a title which outlines the direction of the book. An older man, Morrie, a young man, Mitch, and about life’s greatest lesson. Morrie was a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts when Mitch attended college. Morrie was his favorite professor. A few years after Morrie was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ASL) he was unable to teach anymore. This was about 20 years after Mitch graduated from the University. After graduation, Mitch didn’t stay in contact with his college friends or his favorite teacher Morrie. When Mitch heard â€Å"Who is Morrie Schwartz† on ABC’s â€Å"Nightline† he couldn’t believe what he had heard. Mitch was both horrified and ashamed. It was then he heard about Morrie’s illness. Finally Mitch went to see him. From then on Mitch visited Morrie every Tuesday. Whenever they met, they would talk about the meaning of life. Mitch wrote a list of topics he wanted to talk about. The list consisted of death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, society, forgiveness, and a meaningful life. Morrie went through all of these topics, plus more. Morrie helped Mitch understand that there is more to life than money and materialistic things. From the first Tuesday until the last Tuesday, Mitch listened to Morrie, his coach, talk about the real meaning of life. How much life means to you when you are about to die. How much people take for granted. Mitch sometimes looks back at the person he was. He wishes he could change the way he was back then but he can’t. The one thing he really learned was that there is no such thing as â€Å"too late† in life. This book was Mitch’s final project from Morrie. While in college, Mitch wrote a thesis for Morrie, now he wrote another one, but this time it has become a very popular book. As of the summer of 19...

Course Review Essay †English 1 page Essay

Course Review Essay – English 1 page Essay Free Online Research Papers Course Review Essay English 1 page Essay As a general rule, I do not like to write. The research that goes along with writing is interesting, but I am not a fan of putting research together to make it flow. I have come to realize, however, that writing and college go hand in hand, especially in ENC 1102. During the course of this class, I was required to write 4 papers and blog numerous times, both of which are impossible to complete without writing. Through this class, I have learned that the best method for me to write papers, that I can write a paper about a controversial issue, that the technology was helpful, and that perhaps an online class would have been more appropriate. From this English class, I learned that my papers turn out better when someone else reads what I have written to find grammatical errors and places where it doesn’t flow. For each paper I wrote this semester, I had someone proof read, however, it was not in during the class. I found that when my peers in the class read and edited my papers, I did not receive adequate feedback, and I was not completely comfortable accepting their advice not knowing what kind of a writer they are. In high school, my mom proof read all my papers, but this year, usually I had one of my roommates help me. For me, peer editing in class did nothing more than allow me to find out how my peers felt about the topic in which I was writing. I found that the most useful editor was someone I knew from outside of class. Also, I learned that when I write a paper, usually it turns out better if I write it a couple of days before it is due. The best method for me is to research the topic, then the next day write what comes to my head, and finally in a day or so I will sit down and perfect and revise it. This seems to give my brain a chance to organize the thoughts and information that I have learned, so that when I revise it, I doesn’t take very long. The assignment that I found the most interesting in ENC 1102 was project 2, the ethical perspectives paper. The topic I chose was sex education in America. Normally I don’t like to write about controversial issues because that means that I have to take a strong stand for one side of an argument. However, I found it interesting to see the ongoing arguments about whether public education should be required to teach sex education, and/or what method they should go about doing it. I learned that I actually enjoy doing the research on topics that I am interested in, and in turn, the paper is then relatively easy to write. I did however run into a few problems while trying to cite my sources. In a few places, in my essay, I cited when it was unnecessary or had too many facts in one paragraph. Other than that, it turned out relatively well. I do wish that I had received more feedback, however, so I would be able to grow and change the way I write. For each assignment that was required, I used CQ researcher and the blackboard website to find out what to write about. The technology made it very easy to access my grades and the syllabus. It did make it hard when sometimes when the information would change from day to day, but for the most part, I found it a useful tool. My favorite part about the blackboard site was that, at any given time, I was able to determine my grades, which was very helpful in aiding my learning process. CQ researcher was the other tool that I utilized for all of my papers. It allowed me to have access to many different topics that I would never have thought to write about. It allowed me to view information and resources from both sides of an issue. Technology played a key role in my education. If I had a chance to take ENC 1102 over again, I would take it as an online class. I found the classroom experience not to be very helpful in improving my writing, even though sometimes I was engaged in interesting debates. When I went to class, the students in class didn’t seem very interested in learning though, so for me, most of what I learned what from the research I completed. I feel that most of the time spent in class would have been better spent actually writing the papers and researching. For my learning style, an online class would better suit my needs. As a freshman, I feel that I learned some key things about who I am as a writer and the methods in which I write the best. I learned that I actually can write a paper about a controversial issue and am able to take a stand for one side or the other. For me, I write the best when I do it over a period of time rather than the night before, that way I have time to let others read and proof read it. Writing is not as bad as had previously I thought, especially now since my knowledge has grown. Since writing will haunt me for the rest of my life, I am very grateful that I understand the process better and can express my thoughts on paper with the help of the ENC 1102 class. Research Papers on Course Review Essay - English 1 page EssayStandardized TestingBook Review on The Autobiography of Malcolm XHip-Hop is ArtResearch Process Part OneAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseBringing Democracy to AfricaHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Essay

Sociology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 20

Sociology - Essay Example I did use instances from the movie to elaborate the effects on individual and society. Whereas, the effects on the multinational companies I gathered from general knowledge. Ethnocentrism is used to define the cultural biased approach when viewing or judging other cultures and ethical systems. The world is wide and constitutes of a number of cultures and belief systems that vary from one another to a smaller or greater extent. Some actions considered normal in one culture may be viewed as offensive or unacceptable by the other one. For example, in Arab countries it is mandatory for all females to cover their head otherwise they face punishment. Now, such custom may be viewed as offensive to women belonging to other cultures and countries. Different ethnic groups can be defined on the basis of caste, religion, language, customs and value system or geopolitical boundaries. So, an ethnocentric person would consider one particular culture most important and superior than others and would measure all other cultures using his preferred culture as benchmark. More often than not the individuals consider their own culture as the most important. Hence, ethnocentr ism can be viewed as an attitude that shows lack of acceptance of other cultures, and a feeling of contempt for people belonging to other cultures. All individuals who grow up in certain society with its own unique belief system tend to view their values as the right one and the highest one. They tend to identify with those set of values and customs and may fiercely resist any attempt to devise any changes in such ideals. As, it amounts to altering their identity of which every human tends to be

Managing capability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Managing capability - Essay Example "I learn to be a manager from experience". (Mumford, 177) Then, why is it so complicated to manage people all times whether it is 1990 or 2010? The reason is there is not only one way to manage people but a multitude of ways. Everybody is different; he/she acts and reacts differently to the same situation. There are a lot of variables which intervene like character, knowledge, past experience, etc. Management capabilities area, in business management, is quite complex. People, who take part to this process, have their own strengths and weaknesses. They have their own point of view about what management is their own capability to transfer their knowledge. In addition to it, the working context gets changes. It appears some changes in the employment patterns, in the structure of the organization and in the economical and managerial context. Prospective and Modern Trends in Capabilities Management The environment of the work very much influences the form and the efficiency of the manage ment which is applied. Indeed, there were a lot of changes in the way of managing people, because the structure of the company has changed (restructuring, re-engineering, downsizing...), the market has changed as well (globalization, decentralization, and deregulation), the culture has changed (feminization; psychological contract). The manager has to internalize all these variables to be able to produce a greater managerial work, adapted to his/her audience. The achievement of the objectives depends, to a great extent, on the way the management is applied. Thus, we can propose a definition of management in Naylor’s words that management is the course of gaining organizational targets, within a varying environment, by harmonizing efficiency, effectiveness and equity, acquiring the most from restricted resources, and working with and through other people" (Naylor, 6). Managing Capabilities and its Impact of Organizational Development Management is the practice of attaining org anizational objectives, within a shifting atmosphere, by balancing competence, efficiency and fairness, achieving the most from limited resources, and functioning with and through a successful team comprising other people (Naylor, 6). The enhanced intricacy of the working atmosphere and the improved requirement for better productivity transpire the significance of the individual development and learning phases. In addition, Pickett (1998) affirms that in today set ups, managers, must recognize the core competencies of their organization. This act will guarantee the ample and suitable corresponding between the organizational and the personal or managerial competencies. (Pickett, 111) Khandwalla (2004) research results summarize management capability which has been extremely oriented in successful managers in various organizations throughout the world. The core competencies appear to be goodwill promoting" (p.12). Trustworthiness has a great effect on the capability to earn esteem whi ch eventually helps to activate insufficient resources in tough situations. Planning aptitude and time management capabilities have revealed appositive impact for taking individual responsibilities. In managing capability in corporate sector, team building traits are an essential source for helpful, effectual and relaxed environment. Some schools have different approaches to

September 11 Attack on America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

September 11 Attack on America - Research Paper Example A Description of the historical event Analysis of the historical and contemporary causes of the event Analysis of the different historical interpretations of the event Evaluation of the positive and negative outcomes of the event Conclusion September 11 attack on America Introduction September 11 attacks on America remain to be the main memorable event of the twenty first century all over the world. The recent decades have seen scientists, academicians and the theorists conduct comprehensive research in a bid to establish the causes of such a thrilling event as well as the impacts, which some remain unfolded. However, the historical descriptions in regard to this event are quite amazing to the extent of instilling fear on the contemporary society. The issue has long raised a variety of truths as well as controversies since its occurrence as many as try to swallow the event’s bitterness. There are countless historical and contemporary causes of the challenging 9/11, which are i nclusive of the bitterness of the Al-Qaeda towards America for supporting Israel. The demonstration of this bitterness is viewed in the recent incident where America portrayed its deed of killing the then Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. The event sets the stage of understanding the extent to which great psychological, social, political, and economic impacts overtook the contemporary America. The discussion in this paper seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of September 11 attacks. A discussion of the historical context in regard to the even will be provided. ... The terrorists are said to have hijacked four passenger Jet airliners that were meant for commercial services and crashed them at various destinations, which included the north and south towers of the world trade center, pentagon house and forth targeted the white house, the location of the American capital. The 9/11 morning dawned in a devastating state when the Al-Qaeda’s hijacked jet airliners. Two airliners were intentionally crashed at the World Trade Center Twin Towers that collapsed within two hours of attack. The third airliner was as well crashed at the Arlington, Virginia pentagon house, while the fourth was directed onto the rural Pennsylvania’s Shanksville. Three thousand people were killed on the sport, and no one survived from the crashing flights, including 60 military officials (Griffin, 2009). The report of the investigations conducted by the Newborn research personnel indicated that there had been prior plans by the terrorist group on the procedure of attacking the entire United States, including the capital city. The attack is always remembered since it resulted in massive deaths of people, who included 60 military officials, a case that has never occurred in any other war or attack in the world. Therefore, the 9/11 attacks left a legacy that all Americans have in mind up to date. The chief suspect at the time was Al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin laden, who denied responsibility of the act. In 2004, he agreed to take responsibility and disclose the act where it became identified worldwide. The history commences with a heavy burst where in May 2011, the then AL-Qaeda leader Osama was found and put to

Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 72

Case Study Example Surveys were disseminated among the stakeholders with multiple questions and a Likert Scale to help in rating the operations within the institution. In order to obtain in-depth information, the stakeholders were interviewed and clarifications made on any aspect pertinent to the current situation. During the interview, the questions asked aimed at accessing the possibility of management problem as the main influence on the quality thereof. Further, the process also involved use of focus groups whereby a lot of information was gathered from a group of 9 workers. The data gathering tools were able to give proper answers which aided in completion of the case. The workers agreed that the management problem triggered related problems within the operation such as absence of purchasing, inspections design and testing process. Further, the respondents also agreed unanimously that the top management may have caused lack of tractability and quality management records required for improvement of the process. This led to poor quality and stagnation witnessed in improvement. The root cause determined from the case study was poor management. The top management is responsible for the harmonization and control of duties within any institution; hence it goes without saying that it had been involved in creating a network of problems: The inability of the management to adapt quality maintenance and product tractability is also witnessed within the case study. There was no established preventive or timed maintenance to the point of the management assigning wrong tasks to machines. This led to frequent wear and tear as evident by the twelve work orders aimed at fixing the machines. The case also states that the plastic was a rush order, leading increased pressure application to ensure fitness (Robert and Richard, 2011). This shows that the

The Painting Reclining Woman on the Beach Essay

The Painting Reclining Woman on the Beach - Essay Example The essay "The Painting Reclining Woman on the Beach" explores Pablo Picasso's painting. This painting Reclining Woman on the Beach has two distinct and strongly contrasting elements, the first being the woman and the beach she is lying on, and the second being the mountains and sky that serve as a background to the image. The woman and the beach she is lying on both use thick lines and broad, sweeping curves to define their shapes, while the mountain tops in the background are jagged geometric affairs like triangular teeth cutting into the sky, which creates offset parallel strucutures between the sky and the mountains – that is, if you mirrored the sky over a horizontal plane of the painting, it would make the shape of the mountains, and the mountains would make the shape of the sky. The coloration in the two main elements are also vastly different – the woman is predominantly pale or pearly, but has many dashes of different colors throughout her body, that fade in an d out gradually – green in some places, purple in others and so on. The mountains and sky, on the other hand, are broad swaths of a single color, with the mountains having distinct blotches of white on them. The jagged mountain tops serve as a geometrical counterpoint to the curve of the woman, emphasizing her curviness and underscoring the fundamental importance of curves to a woman’s beauty or form. Furthermore, the softy changing colors on the woman’s body could indicate aging, and imply mutability, which combined with her soft curves. contrast with the broad expanses of unchanging colors on the mountains and the sky, reminding the viewer about the corruptibility of beauty and the frailty of life, especially when compared with the age old mountains that go on essentially unchanged. With all this contrast, Picasso ties together the two elements by treating them with broadly the same light and texture to create a unified work out of all of these disparate parts . There are many elements of design present that touch on similar topics to the elements of form. The scale of the woman, who takes up the vast majority of the space on the canvas, both implies the woman is in the foreground (obviously) but also puts her in a relative position of power over the mountains, which are made subordinate by their less imposing size. She even casts a shadow on the mountains, making it appear that they are in fact close behind her and she is simply massive, further reinforcing her importance. The mountains are essentially the same shape, repeated again and again, which serves to emphasize their regularity and eternal nature, which calls the viewer’s attention to how unique the woman reclining on the beach is, that she is one-of-a kind, and that every person, while sharing forma similarities to other people, is completely unique. This composition is notably lacking in white space, with the closest things being the sky in the background and the orange shape that takes up a portion of the right side of the screen. This both makes the woman seem to be the negative space, but also gives a crowded compositional element to contrast to the woman’s apparent ease. The content of this work appears to be an analysis of the woman’s form, a kind of toying with it that over-emphasizes some shapes while under-emphasizing others. The ratio of the woman’s head to the rest of her body may be a telling indication of the focus of the piece, which could be set to objectify the woman who is at its heart. It also touches on themes of beauty, of the unique visual nature of each individual human, and of the soft, changing mutability of human nature in contrast to the

Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 72

Case Study Example Surveys were disseminated among the stakeholders with multiple questions and a Likert Scale to help in rating the operations within the institution. In order to obtain in-depth information, the stakeholders were interviewed and clarifications made on any aspect pertinent to the current situation. During the interview, the questions asked aimed at accessing the possibility of management problem as the main influence on the quality thereof. Further, the process also involved use of focus groups whereby a lot of information was gathered from a group of 9 workers. The data gathering tools were able to give proper answers which aided in completion of the case. The workers agreed that the management problem triggered related problems within the operation such as absence of purchasing, inspections design and testing process. Further, the respondents also agreed unanimously that the top management may have caused lack of tractability and quality management records required for improvement of the process. This led to poor quality and stagnation witnessed in improvement. The root cause determined from the case study was poor management. The top management is responsible for the harmonization and control of duties within any institution; hence it goes without saying that it had been involved in creating a network of problems: The inability of the management to adapt quality maintenance and product tractability is also witnessed within the case study. There was no established preventive or timed maintenance to the point of the management assigning wrong tasks to machines. This led to frequent wear and tear as evident by the twelve work orders aimed at fixing the machines. The case also states that the plastic was a rush order, leading increased pressure application to ensure fitness (Robert and Richard, 2011). This shows that the

Relationship Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Relationship - Essay Example It puts us in a category of our own where we see things from the same eyes, even though we are two separate individuals who have their own respective worldviews (Holt 2005). Even though Austin likes to communicate with me on a consistent level, I have always asked him to meet me more than calling me on the phone because I believe our friendship is on such a level that phone calls could just demean us in someway. Hence it is best that we enjoy each other’s company and this can only happen when we meet regularly. Some important things that govern and essentially define our relationship include the respect that we have for our elders and the love and support to our mutual friends and colleagues. Both of us like to interact with kids, which automatically make us people who like to hang around children quite a lot. Austin and I are known to be extroverts which implies for our comprehension that we like to go out more and more, and thus enjoy the festivities of eating out, partying by the beach as well as a range of other fun-filled activities (Azzarone 2003). We sincerely love the feeling of being close to one another because this is how we view life in its own meticulous way. It also makes us enjoy the world around us together. These important aspects developed with the passage of time as we started knowing each other more and thus we found out that our common traits were very uncommon amongst the people around us. The exceptional two that we were actually made us feel good about our own selves, which strengthened our friendship all the same. Our relationship is more supportive than being defensive at any point in time. This is because we understand each other quite well and it makes our lives easier in contrast to how other best friends live their lives. Our relationship has blossomed with the passage of time and I cannot recall a single instance where we ended up arguing between our selves. I believe this is because both of us respect one another and look up to our unity for the help and assistance that we so may require. Our relationship has thus become a potent force because our trust levels have been tied to who we are and how we view our friendship (White 2002). Some of the specific factors that contribute to the situations which take place on a day to day level comprise of our interaction with the people around us. We both believe in giving our best when it comes to our elders, since we respect them a lot. We always make an effort to help the underprivileged and needy around us, which is something that I and Austin gain satisfaction from. If ever there was a conflict between me and Austin, we would resolve it amicably. This is because both of us believe in keeping away from conflicts and rifts. Fortunately, we have never had a fight as yet which gives us the edge to understand each other better. This is one way to know how much respect I hold for Austin and likewise (Costley 2007). We may have difference of opinions but this has never transpired into conflicts and hence the duration is of no use as far as its mention is concerned. The strategies that we use to resolve conflict would essentially take into perspective listening to one another and giving the other individual the much needed space so that he can think through things and get back. It is an important consideration and both I and Austin are well aware of that. I believe these methods have been quite satisfactory as conflicts are something that can literally mar the basis of any

Draft Letter Going to War in Vietnam Essay Example for Free

Draft Letter Going to War in Vietnam Essay It was a very hot and humid day. I will never forget that awful day. I just had gotten home from work; the traffic that day was horrible. The mail was in top of my dining room table, and there it was on top of all the mail, the only thing o saw on the envelope was draft and I was the addressee. My reaction was â€Å"Oh My God†, my heart was pounding very heart it felt like it was about to jump out of my chest, my ears were burning. All I could think was that we are told that we are helping people and fighting for our freedom. Instead innocent people are being killed; I have lost most of my freedom. What options do I have, leave the country, or hide for the rest of your life. Or go to war not only means serving your country, but helping people along the way. What were my advantages or disadvantages? None of those options were good, at that point I was in shock, and I just could not believe that this was happening to me, till this day I do not remember ever opening that letter. The advantage I saw was, if I went to war the money I will be getting. With that money I could help my family, have a better future, and it can help me open a lot of doors. The disadvantage is that I can get killed, injured, my family would be devastated, but at the same time they would feel proud. To some, including me the Vietnam War was a crime, an attempt by the United States to suppress a heroic Vietnamese national liberation movement that had driven French colonialism out of its country. To others, the Vietnam War was a forfeit, a just war needlessly lost by timid policymakers and a biased media. For many including myself, the Vietnam War was a tragic mistake brought about by U.S. leaders who exaggerated the influence of communism and underestimated the power of nationalism. Another advantage would be that I would come back as a hero, either alive or in a box. I will still be considered a hero, that is, if I live in a community that is very patriotic. But in my case I do not live in a community like that. The disadvantage would be that my community would not even know that I have gone to war. All I could think was that the draft discriminated against the poor, the less educated and ethnic minorities. Many of us were drafted into the Army against our will nearly all of us are kept in its grasp against our will all in order to carry out this illegal, immoral, and unjust war. We are forced to fight and die in a war we did not create and in which we don’t believe. There are advantages and disadvantages in every war that can either be minute details or change the whole course of war. I would go to war even knowing that I may get killed, injured. Morally is the right thing to do. As a citizen we have a duty to this country whether or not we believe in the cause of war. Initially, people going to Vietnam bought the domino theory. They willingly went because they were defending freedom and democracy and the American way, those who were sent to Vietnam knew that they did not have the support of the American people, knew that they were there in support of a failed policy, and knew that they were not defending freedom or democracy, but were pawns in an ongoing political struggle. My conclusion after writing this is that never think for a moment that you are the only one side that is suffering you might be physically safe from the effects of war. But war is an insidious enemy and all the more damaging when it is implications reach you, others through a dead and suffering.

What Are the Reflective Practices of Teachers?

What Are the Reflective Practices of Teachers? Teachers play a significant role in shaping the quality and effectiveness of the teaching and learning practices. Research on effective teaching has shown that effective practice is linked to inquiry, reflection, and continuous professional growth (Harris, 1998). The professional development of teachers takes many forms ranging from activities set by school administration to personal reflective practices about classroom experiences. Schon (1996) defined reflective practice as thoughtfully considering ones own experiences in applying knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline. For teaching, reflective practice refers to the process of the teacher studying his or her own teaching methods and determining what works best for the students. Thus, teachers reflective practices are necessary to teach effectively and they address an important issue in providing meaningful lessons to students. Elementary teachers as well as the teachers of other grades can be supported to be involved in reflective practices on their own experiences. 1.1 Rationale The classroom realization of curriculum reform comes about through the actions of individual teachers (Christou et all, 2004). Teachers beliefs, practices, and working environment shape and direct their implementation. Teachers should be able to understand and appreciate the changes that the curriculum is attempting to implement and not otherwise. (Zanzali, 2003) There is a literature which presents the processes and barriers involved in the implementation of curricular change (e.g. Fullan, 1991; Macnab, 2003). Romberg (1997) showed that the use of a new curriculum in the classroom could create disjunctions between the teachers former knowledge and practice, which require resolution. The development and implementation of any curriculum will affect teachers in significant ways and if teachers are not helped in coping with demands brought about by changes in the content, pedagogical and psychological considerations, the implementation process will not be effective. Experience around the world in developing, industrialized, and information-based countries has shown that professional development is the key determining factor for improved classroom performance. Effective professional development experiences are designed to help teachers build new understanding of teaching and learning (Hea-Jin Lee, 2001). According to Baird and Rowsy (1989), high quality in-service program should be designed if teachers were to benefit from it. Regardless of particular circumstances, an effective curriculum development process usually entails a structured professional development program in order to guide the curriculum development process. The aim of this study is to investigate elementary teachers reflective practices on their mathematics teaching as they are involved in a continuing mathematics teaching professional development program as a consequence of a two mathematics education program integration process at a private elementary school in Ankara. In this study, two elementary teachers will participate in the study and they will be interviewed in order to get information about their reflective practices on their teaching. In addition to this, those teachers lessons will be observed in their classes through the professional development program in order to see their implementation. The participants will also keep reflective journal on their mathematics teaching practices. The findings will contribute to the future in-service training programs in Turkey. 1.2 My motivation for the study As a mathematics teacher teaching grades from 6 to 8, I realized that students have some problems related to mathematics learning and some of these problems are related to their previous learning experiences in early grades. These problems are brought to the upper grades if they were not solved in the earlier grades. It can be said that, students do not learn well and as we desire and I believe that some of these problems are related to the teaching, in other words, it is directly related to the way we teach the mathematics topics. In our country, elementary school teachers are responsible for teaching mathematics as well as teaching other subjects. As far as I am concerned, teaching mathematics especially to 4th and 5th grades is difficult for many elementary school teachers. In this respect, teachers, who are teaching in these levels should be supported by means of continuous program that involves several different components such as seminars, lesson observations, interviews, and reflective practices. By seeing the potential sources of the problem and having some solution ideas, as a mathematics teacher I can provide support for elementary school teachers in my school. Thats why, from my point of view, this study will serve a valuable information in order to understand elementary school teachers way of thinking in teaching mathematics by means of their reflective practices. 1.3 Research Question The research question related to this study is as follows: What are the elementary teachers reflective practices on their mathematics teaching as they are involved in a continuing mathematics teaching professional development program which is developed as a consequence of a two mathematics education program integration process at a private school in Ankara? CHAPTER II:  REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The goal of this study is to investigate elementary teachers reflective practices on their mathematics teaching as they are involved in a continuing mathematics teaching professional development program as a consequence of a two mathematics education program integration process. This chapter is devoted to the review of literature related to this study. The issues that will be covered in this chapter are the term reflection, reflective practices, and studies on reflection and reflective practice. What you need is a theory which underlines the reflection. Not for this assignment, but for your TIK and dissertation. 2.1 The term reflection: Although the term reflection became popular after the studies of Schon, the roots of the term extend to John Dewey. Dewey (1933) claimed the importance of active and deliberate engagement with problematic situations in providing development. He defined reflection as an Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends constitutes reflective thought (p. 9). According to Dewey (1933), reflection does not consist of a series of steps or procedures to be used by teachers. Rather, it is a holistic way of meeting and responding to problems, a way of being as a teacher. As he stated, reflection involves intuition, emotion, and passion and is not something that can be neatly packaged as a set of techniques for teachers to use (p.9 you give the page number what where is the quote?). Dewey (1933) believed that an individual should to have three profiles in order to r eflect; being open-minded, responsible and whole-hearted. These imply openness to new ideas and thoughts, being aware of the meaning and consequences of ones actions and the capacity to fully engage with new ideas and actively seek them out respectively. He further stated the four-part experiential-reflective cycle showing the relationship between experience, description, interpretation, and action. Rodgers (2002, p. 845 as cited in Lee, 2005) characterized Deweys four criteria for reflection as follows: Did you take this directly from your second reference? Or did you paraphrase them? Is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences and ideas. Is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry. Needs to happen in community, in interaction with others. Requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others. Deweys ideas and the idea of professional reflection were developed in the 1980s with the Schons (1983) new concepts of reflection-in-action and reflection on action. Schon stressed the relationship between reflection and experience and distinguished between `reflection-on- action and `reflection-in-action. While reflection in action can be described as the reflection done during the action, reflection on action is done after the action. Griffiths (2000) stated that, reflection both in and after action is important in order to evaluate and moderate intuitive practice. Another distinction about the types of reflection is done by Van Manen (1995). He stated that the simplest forms of reflection that regularly occur in teacher education take place before, during, and after teaching, and Van Manen defines them as anticipatory, contemporaneous, and retrospective types of reflection. 2.2 Reflective Practice Jaworski (1998) defined reflective practice as a rather thoughtful way of teaching, evaluating what occurs and feeding into future planning without a demand for overt, critical, knowledgeable action (p.7). Similarly, Schon (1983) defined reflective practice as thoughtfully considering ones own experiences in applying knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline. According to Pollard (2005), reflective teaching implies an active concern with aims and consequences as well as means and technical competence (p15). He stated the seven main characteristics of reflective practices as follows: I think instead of listing them in this way, you should combine these in a paragraph. You may use most of your expressions below, but put them through a flow in the paragraph. Reflective teaching implies an active concern with aims and consequences, as well as means and technical efficiency. Reflective teaching is applied in a cyclical or spiraling process, in which teachers monitor, evaluate and revise their own practice continuously. Reflective teaching requires competence in methods of evidence-based classroom enquiry, to support the progressive development of higher standards of teaching. Reflective teaching requires attitudes of open-mindedness, responsibility and wholeheartedness. Reflective teaching is based on teacher judgment, informed by evidence- based enquiry and insights from other research. Reflective teaching, professional learning and personal fulfillment are enhanced by dialogue with colleagues. Reflective teaching enables teachers to creatively mediate externally developed frameworks for teaching and learning. McKenna (1999 as cited in Jay and Johnson, 2002) listed the characteristics of practitioner who is reflective by saying he; focuses on some dimension of their pedagogy; sees that dimension from a variety of perspectives using techniques of reframing and reflective listening; and engages in dialogue with their peers in order to illuminate the boundaries and frames of thought which limited their current perspective, with the goal being to take action based on a thorough and reflective understanding of events, alternatives, and ethics (p. 13). Again, you have page number but where the quote begins and ends (quotation marks) is missing. Instead, you should write these in your own words in a paragraph. 2.3 Studies on reflection and reflective practice Try to avoid talking about the article. Instead, talk about the study or the ideas presented. Griffiths (2000), discussed the term reflection as it relates to teachers and teacher education. She drew particularly on Schons (YEAR) definitions of two types of reflection, which are reflection-in-action and refection-on-action. In the article, differing definitions of reflection and their inter-relationship are explored, and how these relate to courses of initial teacher education in a variety of countries and cultural contexts is discussed. In addition to this, questions about the value and purpose of reflection were also raised, especially in the context of its practical relevance to teacher education. Another study is done by Jay and Johnson (2002) who explored the facets of reflection. They provided a typology designed to guide teacher educators in teaching reflection to pre-service teachers. After a short review on reflection, they defined the term reflection, reflection process and its content, and the typology of reflection is presented. The profile of typology consisted of three dimensions of reflective thought which are descriptive, comparative, and critical. In her article Frid (2000) discussed that although it has framed many mathematics teacher education practices in the last decade, it has ultimately not had substantial impact on classroom practices yet. Therefore she examined some reasons for this lack of impact. In the article, the stages and foci of teacher development are underlined from the stage of beginning student teacher to an autonomous teacher. In this paper the importance of broadening and embracing constructivist pedagogy more fully were mentioned in order to provide ways for the development of student teachers as professionals who have technical knowledge and skills as well as capacities for life long learning, flexibility and autonomy. Jaworski (2006) defined teaching as learning practice and she addressed the challenge of developing theory in relation to the practices of mathematics teaching and its development. She specially dealt with inquiry in mathematics learning, mathematics teaching and the development of practices of teaching in communities involving teachers and educators. Jaworski handle the inquiry as a tool which can lead to developing inquiry as a way of being when practiced as part of a community, in which members collaborate, as learners to develop their practice. The paper offered some ways for mathematics teaching development. In his writing, Farell (2008) described the foundations and components of reflective practice to facilitate the use of this approach among educators who work with adult English language learners. He firstly defined the reflective practice by giving briefly the related research and then he mentioned about practice, by discussing some techniques and tools such as action research, teaching journals, teaching development groups. He further discussed the continuum of reflection and how can teachers engage in the reflective practices in order to make continuous development in their career. As Frid (2000) and Jaworski (2006) mentioned, it is easy to set relationship between constructivism, inquiry method and reflective practices. The importance of reflective teaching is a central component for designing teaching and learning experiences for teachers. (Lowery, 2003, p.23). According to Van Manen (1995) in everyday life, the practice of pedagogy can only be reflective in a qualified and circumscribed sense (p.35). Reflective practice occurs when teachers consciously take on the role of reflective practitioner, subject their own beliefs about teaching and learning to critical analysis, take full responsibility for their actions in the classroom, and continue to improve their teaching practice (Farrell, 2008; Jay Johnson, 2002). Teachers can engage in these reflective practices in a constructivist manner in any time they need to develop themselves. 2.4. Developing a reflective practice-empirical research studies It is evident that there is an emphasis on the literature that reflection is strongly related with experience, in other words practice. Van Manen (1995) raised some questions about the meaning and place of practical reflection in teaching and about the relation between knowledge and action in teaching. He underlined the importance of reflective thinking which has a complex array of cognitively and philosophically distinct methods and attitudes. He defined different reflection profiles namely retrospective reflection on (past) experiences, anticipatory reflection on (future) experiences, and contemporaneous reflection. He raised the questions considering different cases, such as for novice teachers, experienced teachers, and explains the different findings in different occasions. In her article Lowery (2003) mentioned the importance of reflective teaching in providing development in teacher knowledge and research results that defines the reflective thinking as distinguishing strategy between experienced and novice teachers. She discussed the importance of teacher reflection; she describes the three-level plan to promote reflective teaching, which are understanding the importance of reflective thinking, implementing reflective strategies the reflective cycle and developing a reflective venue. Another study was performed by Loughran. Loughran (2002) examined the nature of reflection and to suggest how it might become effective reflective practice that can be developed and enhanced through teacher preparation programs, He underlined the inefficiency of experience alone is mentioned and importance of reflection for learning. The main message he gave in the article that, if learning through practice matters, then reflection on practice is crucial, and teacher preparation is the obvious place for it to be initiated and nurtured (p.42). 2.4.1. Reflective Practice among Preservice Teachers In their article, Harford and MacRuairc (2008) reported on the study they performed among twenty preservice teachers with the aim of examining the use of peer-videoing in the classroom as a tool to promote reflective practice among student teachers. The pre-service teachers who were participated in the study were from a variety of subject disciplines participating in a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education program in an Irish university. They defined the purpose of this paper as to contribute to the international debate over best practice in supporting, encouraging and scaffolding reflective practice. The findings of the study indicated that the use of peer videoing in the classroom has a powerful function as a catalyst for reflection and critical dialogue among teachers. In another study, Kullman (1998) focused on what transpired during a mentor training course in Hungary. This mentor training course involved prospective mentors and student English Language teachers. In the course, role plays proved to be the stimulus for an exploration of how far the model of mentoring commonly promoted takes sufficient account of contextual factors. He discussed the mentors roles, the ways in helping student teachers reflect on their classroom experience and how to promote reflection in relation with the contextual factors. The study of Lee (2005) has the purpose of investigating how the process of reflective thinking develops in preservice teachers and reviewing the criteria for assessing reflective thinking. Lee performed the study with the participants who enrolled as juniors in a secondary mathematics program in Korea. The data were collected by interviews, observations and written documents such as survey questionnaires and journal entries. Reflections of preservice teachers are assessed from two perspectives, one of them is content and the other one is depth. In the study, it is found that reflective thinking depends on personal background, field experience contexts, and the mode of communication. The criteria for depth of reflection are defined as recall, rationalization and reflective levels. In her article McDuffie (2004) reported on the study which has the aim of investigating the pre-service teachers thinking with regard to reflective processes and how they use their pedagogical content knowledge in their practices. The case study was done with two elementary preservice teachers during their student teaching internship program. She found that the pre-service teachers use their pedagogical content knowledge in anticipating problematic events and in reflecting on problematic events in instruction. She further founded that the limited amount of pedagogical content knowledge and lack of confidence had effect on the pre-service teachers reflection while in the act of teaching; therefore they were more likely to reflect on their practices outside of the act of teaching. 2.4.2. Reflective Practice among Novice Teachers In the literature, the amount of studies done with expert teachers and preservice teachers is greater than that of novice teachers. In one of these studies Roehrig et. al. (2008) conducted a grounded theory analysis in order to explore the potential for mentoring to support novice teachers use of effective teaching practices. The study was conducted with six beginning primary teachers in the US, and with their mentors. The data were collected by means of survey, interview, and observation. The results of data analysis revealed that some factors, other than type of mentoring program were related to beginning teachers success in improving classroom practices. It was found that more effective beginning teachers mentors had more experience as mentors and were more effective teachers than other mentors. In addition to this, more effective beginning teachers communicated more with mentors, more accurately self-reported use of effective teaching practices, and were more open to mentoring. Another study with novice teachers was performed by Cavanagh and Prescott (2010). They reported on their study that was conducted with three beginning secondary mathematics teachers. The aim of the study was to interpret how beginning teachers reflective practices developed during a one-year university teacher education program and concurrent professional fieldwork experience or practicum. The data were collected through the interviews during the practicum and once more in their first year. A three-stage, hierarchical model of reflective practice of Lee was used to interpret the interview responses. Results of the study revealed that the participants showed improvement in their ability to reflect on their teaching during the practicum. 2.4.3 Reflective Practice among Expert teachers One of the studies performed with expert teachers is done by Curtis and Szestay (2005). They reported on the learning outcomes of experienced teachers who attended a program designed to enable them to come together and engage in professional development through structured and systematic reflective practice. They used both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods. As a quantitative data collection method, they used questionnaire and as qualitative methods, they used one-to- one, face-to-face audio recorded interviews. They interviewed with seven past seminar participants, three primary school teachers, three high school teachers and one middle school teacher. Six themes emerged from the teacher responses. These are, renewed enthusiasm for teaching, looking at teaching with fresh eyes, shifts in understanding teaching, becoming more reflective and aware as teachers, enhancing the quality of student learning and building professional communities. As another study, Jaworski (1998) discussed the study of teacher researchers undertaking research into their own mathematics teaching at the secondary level. The study used qualitative methods to explore the processes and practices of Mathematics Teacher Enquiry (MTE) project research. Two important considerations were the special nature of mathematics in this research, and the role of external researchers in the MTE project. In this study, the teachers were seen as reflective practitioners, who develop knowledge and awareness through enhanced metacognitive activity. Their research was characterized as evolutionary, in contrast with established patterns of action research. This study reveals the fact that, teachers researches have commonalities and some differences, and these results provide potential for the development of mathematics teaching. In her article, Walshaw (2010) dealt with the ways of understanding what structures a teachers narrative about his practice. This study was a part of the larger project that represented the New Zealand component of the international Learners Perspective Study (LPS) and on one teachers reflections on a sequence of algebra lessons at the secondary school level, in a larger project. The data were collected through classroom video records, interviews with and classroom researcher observations. As a result of the project, Walshaw pointed out that reflections are more than instruments of change; they are also instruments of social reproduction. Zaslavsky and Leikin (2004) performed a study with junior and senior high school mathematics teachers with the aim of analyzing the processes encountered by the teacher educators, as members of a community of practice, which contributed to their growth as teacher educators. In addition to this, thy aimed at testing their theoretical three-layer model of growth through practice in special context, which is professional development of mathematics teacher educators. The study was conducted as grounded theory approach within in-service professional development program. In another study, Farell (2001) reported on the study that he performed with one non-native speaker, a teacher of English as a foreign language in Korea, during a 16-week period with the aim of understanding what the teacher talked about in the three modes of reflection: group meetings, individual meetings and what she wrote about in her journal; and what was the level of her reflection in each activity: descriptive or critical. The results of the study revealed that the teacher shows a clear preference for group discussions as her method of reflection over the other two activities: journal writing and classroom observations. 2.4.4 Summary of literature review on teachers reflection and reflective practice From the literature review, we can summarize the following statements. To begin with, the theory and practice division is dominant in the literature related to the reflection and reflective practice. Secondly, it is learned from literature that, reflective practice is a valuable and important component in teacher development. It is promoted to be included in preservice teachers education program as well as in-service teacher development programs. Thirdly, when we look at the literature from the aspects of tools and methods in order to promote reflective practices, we see that reflective journal writing, use of videos, observations, peer observations, reflective dialogue are the most common preferred ways. Another thing that attracts our attention in the literature review is that it relates constructivism and inquiry with reflective practices of teachers. As a last statement, we can mention on the literature which emphasize on the social aspect of reflections. The literature review on reflective practices of teachers revealed some further research needs. First of all, studies are needed regarding how the incorporation of effective ways in a continuous development program be achieved so that teachers benefits from these practices. In addition to this, some research would be beneficial on collaborative reflective practices of teachers on their teaching area as well as on teaching in general. Further, the role of scaffolding in developing teachers reflective practices can also be a study area. Some research on assessing the effectiveness of reflective practices would be beneficial. From the literature review it is seen that that reflection is a hallmark for development of teachers and for providing quality in teaching; it should be given importance to provide development of teachers both in undergraduate programs and continuous education programs. CHAPTER III:  METHODOLOGY 3.1 The research site The present research is a qualitative study using elementary teachers reflective practices. The study will be conducted with two elementary teachers in one private elementary school in Ankara. Two mathematics programs, namely Primary Years Math Program (PYP-math) and mathematics program designed by Ministry of National Education (MoNE) have been integrated in this school in 2010. There are approximately 100 staff including coordinator, principle and vice principals, teachers, counselors, program development expert, and measurement and evaluation expert in this school. The school has approximately 700 students from kindergarten to 8th grade. There are four sections at each grade level. The school starts at 8.30 in the morning and finishes at 15.35 and teachers are to be at school during whole week between these hours except for one half day in a week. In addition to these, for Tuesdays and Thursdays the working time extends to 17.00 and all the meetings and workshops are planned in this period. The school is implementing a new program for two years for K5 grades. This program is called Primary Years Program (PYP), which is a part of International Baccalaureate Program (IB) developed by International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) was established in 1968 and is a non-profit, international educational foundation registered in Switzerland. The PYP is based on the inquiry and thematic in nature. Teachers teaching the same grade level come together and develop six transdisciplinary thematic units to be covered during whole year. 3.2 The Overall Research Design of the Study The data will be collected by means of reflective journals, in-depth interviews and lesson observations. When we look at the literature from the aspects of methods in order to be used for data collection for teachers reflective practices, we see that observations and interviews are very commonly preferred (Cavanagh and Prescott, 2010; Curtis and Szestay, 2005; Lee, 2005, Roehrig et. al., 2008). In addition to this, journal writing is found a valuable tool in the literature to promote teachers reflective practices. (Farell, 2001, 2008; Lee, 2005) 3.3 The Participants Two elementary teachers will participate in the study. In the school, one group of elementary teachers teaches to the grades 1-3 and the other group teaches to the grades 4 and 5. The participants of the study will be selected from those who generally teach to 4th and 5th grades since in these grade levels, mathematics content is more intensive when compared to lower grade levels. The participants will be selected according to number of years in teaching in school and teaching experience overall. Teachers having five to fifteen years of experience will be preferred as participants. Classroom teachers are all female in this school; therefore the participants will be female. 3.4 Data Collection Procedure The participants will be interviewed in the beginning of the process in order to gather general information about them as teachers. After that, their lessons will be observed within at least five whole observation cycles, including five pre-interview sessions, five lesson observations and five post-interview sessions. The lessons will be video-taped and participants will be provided a copy of each observed lesson video in order to make reflection on it before coming to the post-interview session. Each of the observation cycles will be completed in two weeks, therefore the observation cycle process will last about ten weeks. In addition to this, the participants will keep reflective journal during these ten weeks and the journal entries will be checked at the end of each observation period. The general design of the data collection procedure is in the Table 3.1. Table 3.1 Data collection procedure Week 1 Initial General Interview Week 2 3 Observation Cycle 1 Reflective Journal Entries Literature Review: Medical Research on Schizophrenia Literature Review: Medical Research on Schizophrenia Research is a way of developing a better understanding of a specific chosen area which can help improve further studies within the chosen subject. An interesting subject to research is a mental health condition known as schizophrenia and how it affects people within modern society. This specific mental health topic was chosen due to personal reasons and also as a professional interest. This research paper will help gather more information and knowledge toward the understanding of the illness to help progress further within the mental health care industry. In an article published by Medical News Today (2014) Nordqvist (2014) it describes schizophrenia as a mental health disorder which affects the brain and causes delusions, confusions, social withdrawal, psychosis, loss of personality and can also cause the patient to portray some unusually bizarre behaviour. MNT (2014) also states that this disease of the brain will normally hit a person during their late adolescent years or early adulthood years, but goes on to stress that it can affect anyone at any given time of their life. According to research gathered by the National Institute of Mental Health (2014) a person suffering with schizophrenia will have to cope with the symptoms for life but, treatment can relieve many of these symptoms. The research information that was published by NIMH (2014) was secondary data founded and collected by medical professionals that study and research schizophrenia as a profession. The study that was conducted is known as an epidemiology study (a study of patterns of disease within the community or population) and was used to collect the primary data through participant observation and surveys (patient 2014). In recent research studies it is suggested that one in three people to every 100 in the UK suffer with schizophrenia according to statistics provided by Mind (2014). This works out around 220,000 people living in Wales and England and around 24,000,000 worldwide suffer with this illness (RC Psych 2012). These figures founded for this particular research paper are qualitative (open questionnaires) and quantitative (numerical information collected through closed questions) based as they were done through doing surveys and questionnaires on the population of the UK society having home treatment and therapies to help deal with their mental health condition. They are also only based on people living at home with the condition so it excludes people who are confined to prison or within a mental health hospital so as one could imagine the statistics will be much larger in numbers than this. All these statistics come from reliable sources as the figures come from the amount of patients that a re being treated by medical professionals, and they are then reported back to the government so that they are able to collect this information and record the figures accurately through the quantitative data gathered by the researches. In 2009 Gattaz (2009) did a study examining the link between schizophrenia and the sufferer’s urbanicity. This study was carried out during 20 different studies (known as a systematic review, where more than one case is studied, Saha et al 2005) in Western Europe and at the end of it Gattaz (2009) came to the conclusion that the longer a person living in that kind of environment is exposed to urban residence the higher their risk of developing schizophrenia was. This study was ethical in its research as the subjects were all demographically similar with their age, gender, sex and migrant status being within the same range. However during this investigation one of the major methodological (which is the way the researcher would go about discovering the knowledge in a systematic way) (Killam, 2013) implications of conducting the study into the relationship between the neighbourhood and schizophrenia was the timing of the individuals exposure. This was discovered when March et al (2008) assessed and reviewed the study and looked into the validity and the reliability of the study (the quality and the accuracy of the results). This study then becomes unreliable and inconclusive due to the unethical approach which means the hypothesis to this research can be researched again through a more in-depth approach. Kelly et al (2009) conducted research in order to find if there is a link between schizophrenia and urbanity. This was a longitude study spanning over several years. The subjects were identified by attending psychiatric services within an urban catchment of Dublin during the period of 1995 – 1998 where subjects from North East Ireland were also identified. The population used was 171 during the period of 1995 – 1998 and 153 subjects during the period of 1995 – 2001. All cases bar one were ethically Irish and all were male. The researchers collected qualitative data by means of face to face interviews. The research found that males were almost twice as likely to suffer from schizophrenia in urban areas, in comparison to males in rural areas. However, incidences of psychosis were lower in urban areas in comparison to the rural counterparts. This research found that the results suggested that males were 48% more like to suffer from schizophrenia This research did highlight the risks of schizophrenia when living in urban areas. However, this study gives a biased conclusion as all subjects were male and Irish. This research could not be used to generalise the risk cross culturally. Research involving an even ratio of male and female, also an even ratio of ethnicity would probably give a less biased result. One website named as Schizophrenia (2010) Dr Ira Glick breaks down the etiologic pathway to explain the way that schizophrenia sets in. Etiologic is a medical research term, it is important as the collected information gathers evidence for the investigation into the causes of such illnesses and diseases (Miettinen 2011). The research described on the website schizophrenia (2010) goes on to suggest that schizophrenia starts with the early environmental insults which is the genetic predisposition where, this will then lead onto the neurodevelopmental abnormalities and target features. The later environmental insults start with the further brain dysfunction and schizophrenia which will then lead to the onset of psychosis which is the neurodegeneration and schizophrenia. The study shows that ever growing research suggests that schizophrenia could possibly be prevented whilst the mother is pregnant with their child or, in the early stages of childhood. This could be a good thing because a s many other research studies suggest, schizophrenia runs in the family and that deformed genes are passed down hereditary through the family (NHS 2012). RC Psych (2014) online research website has recently been looking into research suggesting that schizophrenia is linked with the misuse of the illegal drug known as cannabis. These studies suggested that there is a clear strong link between the two with the early use of cannabis and the later mental health issues in those with a genetic vulnerability. Not only was it found that schizophrenia is linked with cannabis misuse but also another mental health issue known as bipolar disorder. According to RC Psych (2014) there is now sufficient evidence that the younger the person is misusing cannabis the higher the chances are of developing the condition later on in life. So in other words they are stating that the more cannabis smoked by an individual the more susceptible the individual is in developing the illness. Another research that has been studied between people who suffer with schizophrenia and healthy individuals asks the question ‘Is there a difference between the perception of emotional and non-emotional facial expression affected the same within healthy individuals and those who suffer with the mental health illness?’ The results from this study showed that patients suffering with schizophrenia showed impairments in the recognition of identity compared to the groups of young and old healthy individuals. Similarly though it found that old healthy individuals have the impairment of learning new faces the same as experienced in the ability of patients with schizophrenia recognising the learning of new faces (Silver 2014). The method used in this research was through direct observation where the participant’s behaviour was observed by the person conducting the research. In one of the largest studies to ever be undertaken, scientists believe they are closer than ever before in understanding the complex interplay between a person’s upbringing and their genes that can result in schizophrenia (independent 2014). Within this study the group of Psychiatrists analysed the DNA of 37,000 schizophrenic patients with completely different backgrounds and found that 128 independent genes located at 108 different locations in the human chromosomes significantly contribute the susceptibility of developing schizophrenia, whereas before 83 of these have never been previously linked to the condition. This research study will hopefully prove to be a breakthrough in understanding and hopefully finding a cure one day for the illness. Larsson et al (2012) conducted research into the use of counselling for individuals suffering from schizophrenia. The research methodology was analysing how eight psychologists talk about and around the topic of schizophrenia to patients by using semi structured interviews. This allowed the researchers to gather qualitative data. Each participant signed a consent form to and were fully briefed in regards to what date was being collected for research. This ensured that all research methods were completed ethically. Larsson et al (2012) concluded that the use of psychology in diagnosing schizophrenia is heavily underrated, The diagnosis of schizophrenia is almost unheard of in counselling psychology literature. Researchers stated that â€Å"conflicting, theories about the cause and nature of schizophrenia have arisen as outlined by Geekie and Read (2009). These include evolutionary theories, psychodynamic and psychoanalytical, life event theories, sociological and anthropological and philosophical and existential theories.† The research concluded that counselling along with medication brought something different to the treatment of schizophrenia. However, there was a danger of counselling pathologising the individual further. Counselling has been identified as being underepresented in the treatment of schizophrenia. Counselling was identified as being underrepresented within the NHS in general. Further research using counselling and medication for individuals with schizophrenia could prove to be very informative in treating an individual. However, with NHS budgets getting cut, this could prove to be a barrier in effectively treating individuals with schizophrenia. In the conclusion to the researches named above the most important thing is finding the key main factor that causes the illness to help in finding a treatment to try and prevent it, keep it at bay or possibly cure it. As research is put into place to help improve a better quality of life for persons suffering with conditions such as schizophrenia all the individuals taking part need to be treated equally therefore these studies need to be ethical in their research to help get a better understanding. Correct training of staff in hospitals, institutes, and self help groups would be of a beneficial factor but these are not cost effective and will cause the government to be paying out expenses for all aspects of the path that needs to be taken in getting there. On the other hand if a better understanding and knowledge of the condition was available to the sufferers then this could keep the cost down as the patients may not be afraid to seek help which can result in them leading a normal and healthy life the same as the next person, being able to get an education behind them, work, get a social life without feeling out casted due to the ignorance of mental health within society (Kings College London 2009). There are so many different theories in the causes and implications on schizophrenia there will be researches going on for a very long time in trying to establish the true cause of the condition. From the research gathered above if society and medical professionals were more educated on mental health illnesses such as schizophrenia then there wouldn’t be as many problems and research into the condition would become easier as sufferers won’t feel as though they are being judged because of the condition but will feel more that there is help out there for them. References: Cannabis and Mental health (2014) Available online at: http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/mentalhealthproblems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabisandmentalhealth.aspx Accessed on 24/11/2014 Causes of schizophrenia (2012) Available online at: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Causes.aspx Accessed on 25/11/2014 Crawford et al (2012) Report of the National Audit of Schizophrenia (NAS), RCP: London DNA hope on schizophrenia: Research breakthrough points at over 100 genes (20143) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/dna-hope-on-schizophrenia-research-breakthrough-points-at-over-100-genes-9619638.html Accessed on 27/11/2014 Epidemiology (2014) Available online at: http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/schizophrenia-pro Accessed on 27/11/2014 Kelly, B. OCallaghan, E. Waddington, J. Feeney, L. Browne, S. Scully, P. and Clarke, M. et al (2010) Schizophrenia and the City: A Review of Literature and Prospective Study of Psychosis and Urbanicity in Ireland: Schizophrenia Research 116(1), pp. 75-89. Killam, L (2013) Research Terminology simplified: Paradigms, Axiology, Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology, Sudbury: Author Kings College London (2009) Excellence in Mental Health Care: Putting Evidence into Practice, Achievement of Excellence, London: Kings Health Partners, pp. 1 Larsson, P. Loewenthal, D and Brooks, O. (2012) Counselling psychology and schizophrenia: A critical discursive account. Counselling Psychology Quarterly 25(1), pp. 31-47. Meittinen, O.S (2011) Epidemiological Research: Terms and Concepts, London: Springer Mental Health Problems (2014) Available online at: http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems Accessed on 26/11/2014 Nordqvist, C (2014) What is schizophrenia. Available online at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/36942.php Accessed on 27/11/2014 Saha, S (2005) Systematic Review of the Prevalence of Schizophrenia. Available online at: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020141 Accessed on 25/11/2014 Silver, H. Bilker, W (2014) Social Cognition in Schizophrenia and Healthy Aging: Differences and Similarities The path to Schizophrenia (2010) Available online at: http://schizophrenia.com/hypo.php Accessed on 25/11/2014 What is schizophrenia (2014) Available online at: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml Accessed on 27/11/2014