Code of Ethics Paper Essay

As per Cancer Treatment Center of America (2013), since 1988, Cancer Treatment Centers of Americaâ ® (CTCA) has been helping patients win the battle against disease utilizing cutting edge innovation and a customized approach (About Us). Every medical clinic gives cutting edge malignant growth treatment by a committed group of oncologists, specialists and other wellbeing specialists. They offer an inviting situation, where patients and their relatives can discover far reaching malignancy care under one rooftop. The vision of the CTCA is to be perceived and trusted by individuals living with malignant growth as the head place for mending and expectation. The authoritative objectives of the CTCA are to profit the patient by giving amazing and imaginative treatments to recuperate the entire individual, improve personal satisfaction and reestablish trust. Authoritative objectives As per Cancer Treatment Centers of America (2013), â€Å"You and your mending are at the focal point of our souls, brains and activities, consistently. We rally our group around you, conveying sympathetic, integrative disease care for your body, mind and spirit† (Cancer Experts Who Care). Authoritative objectives that are inside the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) are to furnish quiet consideration with, caring, proper and compelling to survey and treatment be straightforward. Settle on educated choices about indicative and helpful mediations dependent on understanding data and inclination, archived logical proof and clinical judgment. To make and continue helpful and morally stable associations with patients and with these objectives and destinations are intended to give propelled preparing in the appraisal and malignancy treatment. A goal of the CTCA is to build the cooperation of foundations serving racial/ethnic and additionally underserved networks with disease wellbeing inconsistencies in the nation’s malignant growth examination and preparing venture. Additionally, to grow progressively viable exploration, effort, and instruction programs that will affect ethnic minority and theâ underserved populaces. Corporation’s Ethical Values The jobs of the organization are ensuring their patients start things out, their primary center isn't tied in with battling malignant growth, and it’s about creation sure their patients are agreeable all through treatment. The malignant growth treatment measurements and aftereffects of CTCA show their consistent endeavors to have any kind of effect with regards to nature of their patients. Every one of their emergency clinic furnishes best in class treatment with a committed group which is oncologists, specialists and other wellbeing specialists. Their central goal is to save look for a fix and to keep on keeping their patients feeling great, they don't offer up until they have responses. CTCA is authorize by The Joint Commission (once in the past Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, or JCAHO) with Full Standards Compliance. This accreditation choice is granted to a medicinal services association that shows good consistence with pertinent Joint Commission gauges in all presentation zones. The Cancer Center of America realizes that malignant growth patients need their treatment to consolidate the necessities of the entire personâ€physically, genuinely and profoundly. We realize they esteem enormously a multidisciplinary care group that will be receptive to their own needs all through treatment. Organization’s Culture and Ethical Decision-Making The Cancer Treatment Center of America association accepts there is more than one approach to beat malignancy. There are such huge numbers of individuals determined to have disease and don't know what direction to turn, befuddled, and furious. The social of the associations is inviting, caring, and they treat every patient that comes into the middle and gives them all the help that they need. The Cancer Treatment Center treats a wide range of malignancy, and causes you to feel welcome from the principal day you show up. Going to the inside, approached with deference and the ethical choices made by you they are behind you a hundred percent. The middle is a spot that never abandons taking a stab at causing an individual to feel better about their self. The Cancer Treatment Center of America has a dream, and that announcement says â€Å"To be perceived and trusted by individuals living with malignancy as the chief place for recuperating and hope† (Cancer Centers of America, 201 3). Not exclusively does the inside treat people that have malignant growth, yet they additionally teach the individuals who don't know about what disease is. It is an inside for learning also. No patient is turned down when they go to the middle. As indicated by Cancer Treatment Center of America (2013), â€Å"You and your mending are at the focal point of our souls, brains and activities consistently. We rally our group around you, conveying caring, integrative malignancy care for your body, brain and soul. We offer clear data, incredible and careful treatment alternatives, all dependent on your necessities. We respect your fortitude, regard your choices, and offer to share your excursion of recuperating and hope† (Our Promise). Organization’s Ethical Values versus Individual’s Ethical Values It is significant that an association, for example, Cancer of America moral help an individual’s moral worth as a result of a few reasons. In the event that an employee’s moral worth doesn't harmonize with the associations moral worth it can cause expanded feelings of anxiety while playing out their day by day obligations. Also, clashes can emerge because of an individual’s individual moral qualities, which can cause pressure and in the long run lead to work place outrage and antagonistic vibe. Moreover, disappointed representatives with respect to hierarchical worth could accidentally or intentionally damage the organization. For instance, an organization’s moral worth gives the patient’s family the position to choose for the patient since the patient is in a coma. The patient’s relative chooses not to end the patient’s life support in light of the fact that the patient’s family relies upon the patient’s government managed savings reserves. Your individual qualities don't concur with this on the grounds that the patient is ventilator subordinate, non-receptive to treatment, needs neurological capacity and is at death's door. With this case your moral qualities are being influenced. Qualities are the rules that everybody uses to characterize what is correct, acceptable, and just to them. Qualities give direction as it decides the best possible activity versus what is off base. They are our measures, which is the motivation behind why the authoritative worth should coordinate an individual’s values. Social Responsibility The organizer of Cancer Centers of America or CTCA Cancer Treatment Center of America, Richard J. Stephenson, unquestionably felt he had a social obligation regarding every one of those needing care. He felt as though there was insufficient sympathy, consideration and sustaining, to those that were experiencing physical and passionate changes. Since his mom died because of malignant growth, he felt that it was expected to present an overall consideration office that gave medical procedure, chemotherapy, sustenance, mind-body medication, and otherworldly help (Cancer Center of America). Through their site, they have a network Question’s and Answer’s online that is replied by specialists and clinical specialists about inquiries that you have identified with malignant growth. They likewise have a 800 number that you can call with your inquiries identified with your malignancy, area data and their administrations. On their site there are disease survivors stories that you can peruse/watch that really expound on their involvement with the offices. I accept that when you share your vision of improving a person or thing, your strategic how you will arrive and making a guarantee to use every one of your assets to attempt, just attempt, on making somebody else’s life somewhat better, that is obligation in itself. CTCA offers clear data, incredible and intensive treatment choices, all dependent on your requirements. They respect your mental fortitude, regard your choices, and offer to share your excursion of mending and expectation. The Mission of Cancer Treatment Centers of Americaâ ® is the home of integrative and sympathetic malignant growth care. We search constantly for and giving incredible and imaginative treatments to recuperate the entire individual improve personal satisfaction and reestablish trust. The vision at the CTCA is to be perceived and trusted by individuals living with disease as the chief place for recuperating and expectation. Finally, they guarantee you and your mending are at the focal point of our souls, brains and activities consistently. We rally our group around you, conveying caring, integrative malignancy care for your body, psyche and soul (Cancer Center of America). End The Cancer Treatment Centers of America is the home of integrative and humane malignancy care. They will likely serve disease patients with the most ideal consideration, the most cutting edge innovation, the latest examinations, and the most supporting staff. At CTCA they accept there isn't one approach to beat malignancy †there are hundreds. As indicated by Garrett, Baillie, and McGeehan (2010), the human services proficient is obliged to shield patients from hurt as much as is conceivable (Chapter 12). The groups of malignancy specialists incorporate oncologists, specialists and different clinicians who meet routinely to examine the advancement of each patient’s treatment. The moral choices that every individual from the clinical staff make are in the most perfect enthusiasm of the malignant growth patients and their treatment. The Cancer Treatment Center treats a wide range of malignancy, and causes you to feel welcome from the main day you show up. They offer clear data, amazing and exhaustive treatment choices, in view of patient’s needs, as they are at the focal point of the hearts, minds, and consistently activities of the devoted staff (Cancer Treatment Center of America, 2013). References Disease Treatment Centers of America. (2013). R

Medical Devices FDA Essays - Food And Drug Administration

Clinical Devices FDA Attractive Resonance division plans, fabricates, and introduces MRI frameworks and related gear for the overall clinical indicative imaging market. In expansion, Marconi MR imports MRI frameworks from Nordstar (situated in Helsinki, Finland) and introduces them in the United States. Related gear incorporates surface loops and doctor seeing stations. Surface curls are particular transducers, which, when utilized with a MRI machine, produce great pictures of explicit bits of the life structures. MR plans, makes, and introduces surface curls also. Marconi Medical Systems all in all, is a transnational partnership. While holding its quality in the United Stated, MR's items have accomplished worldwide acknowledgment. Qualities in business sectors, for example, Europe and South America have opened ways to Asian nations, for example, Japan and China. MR has a assortment of clients, however centers basically around emergency clinics and imaging focuses. MR clients expect top notch frameworks that are anything but difficult to utilize, have low working cost, high throughput, and can bolster new innovation. A MR framework must give predominant picture quality and offer a scope of imaging procedures to help analysis. Given the significant expense of the hardware ($900,000 all things considered), clients expect easily introduced, simple to work, dependable, low upkeep hardware that gives a strong rate of profitability. To make this potential, Marconi must pass the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) rigid arrangements and systems for the protected and successful utilization of a clinical gadget. Favorable circumstances of MRI Dissimilar to x-beam based clinical analytic methods, for example, registered tomography, attractive reverberation imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy are procedures that don't utilize ionizing radiation. All things considered, it is viewed as less unsafe than other x-beam imaging procedures. Moreover, since x-beams can just segregate various tissues by electron thickness, which doesn't change extraordinarily between delicate tissues, the infusion of differentiation media is regularly fundamental. In MRI, in any case, there are various tissue explicit parameters which can influence attractive reverberation (MR) signals. One of the most significant favorable circumstances of MRI is its limit with regards to showing delicate tissue differentiate. A case of this limit is the separation between the dim and white matter of the cerebrum that can be achieved with MRI. Picture differentiation can be custom-made to the particular clinical application so explicit sorts of pathology are accentuated. Likewise, since MRI is unhampered by bone, it is particularly gainful in imaging of the cerebrum and spinal line. X-ray likewise has the exceptional capacity to gain pictures in various planes without repositioning the patient. Three-dimensional entertainments of anatomic structure can be acquired. These attributes render MRI a very powerful and significant instrument for delicate tissue imaging. Guidelines Products meeting the meaning of a gadget under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act or the Act) are directed by the Food and Drug Organization (FDA). Clinical gadgets are liable to general controls and other controls in the FD&C Act. General controls of the FD&C Act are the standard prerequisites that apply to all clinical gadget makers. Except if explicitly absolved, clinical gadgets must be appropriately marked and bundled, be cleared for showcasing by the FDA, meet their naming cases, and be fabricated under Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), which is a commanded quality affirmation framework. FDA manages gadgets to guarantee their security and adequacy. To satisfy arrangements of the FD&C Act, FDA creates rules to control gadgets planned for human use. These principles manage different parts of the structure, clinical assessment, fabricating, bundling, naming, business dispersion, and postmarket observation of gadgets. These guidelines are distributed in the Federal Register. Last guidelines are classified yearly in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). What is a Medical Device? The definition of a gadget shows up in area 201(h) of the FD&C Act. A gadget is: ...an instrument, device, execute, machine, invention, embed, in vitro reagent, or other comparative or related article, including a segment, part, or then again frill, which is: perceived in the official National Formulary, or on the other hand the United States Pharmacopeia, or any enhancement to them, planned for use in the conclusion of infection or different conditions, or in the fix, moderation, treatment, or counteraction of ailment, in man or different creatures, or proposed to influence the structure or any capacity of the assemblage of man or different creatures, and which doesn't accomplish any of its essential planned purposes through synthetic activity inside or on the collection of man or different creatures and which isn't needy after being utilized for the accomplishment of any of its essential expected purposes... Accessories and Components Certain parts for example, blood tubing sets, major analytic x-beam parts, and independent programming

BloomReach

BloomReach INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi. Today we are in  Mountain View  with BloomReach. Ashu, who are you and what do you do?Ashutosh: Im the CTO and co-founder of BloomReach.Martin: When did you start this company and what was the reason for starting it?Ashutosh: So we started BloomReach in late 2008 early 2009. The vision of the company was to actually make the web a lot more relevant and personalized to the people. So like, over the last 10 to 15 years, the amount content of the web has grown by leaps and bounds. The amount of content that is available is huge.And while Google and Facebook after all are trying to make it easy for people to navigate some of that web, what happens is once you leave these portals and land on an international website, whether its Walmart.com or eBay, or Amazon, or even New York Times, finding the content on these websites are huge challenge. The amount of content that exist in any of these websites is more than the entire web, what the entire web was in 1998. So na vigating to that piece of content is really-really hard. What we want to do is to make it very easy for people to find and discover what they are looking for. So we started the company with that vision in mind.Martin: So, Google would be the entry point, and then once people are on the websites automaticallyAshutosh: It could be anything. Today if you look at any,  to build a website, right. very small portion of the people, like 5 10% come directly, and the rest of the people will come either through a social network, through an email, through an affiliate campaign, through Google, through page search campaign, or any other channel.So, people are going to land from where ever, whatever channel they picked. So its not that much about, like what channel they are picking, right. But they are coming from outside, they may land on any individual page of the website and not necessarily the homepage. So, what can you do, what can you do, all you know about that person, from where theyre coming, how they are coming, why theyre coming, and from their past behavior, and you use all that information to see what on your website is the most relevant piece of content for that user at that time and the name of that whole thing.Martin: Understood. So what enabled yourself to start this company based on your professional background?Ashutosh: So what does it take to make this thing happen?One is, like, being at Google, like, they found out how people are navigating the web, what are the challenges that they are running into, what are the struggles they have, right. So that was one big area of pain thing for me.The second is, working at a company like Google, I had access to lots of data, allowed to their systems, so became an expert in that system.And third is, my PhD was in Machine Learning and Data Mining.So, at some level all these things came together, where I could process a large amount of data, to make sense of that data and then present it to the people.Martin: Okay. Great!BUSINESS MODEL OF BLOOMREACHMartin: Lets talk about the business model of BloomReach. As you said, the users come through different channels to the website and then what happens next?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, right, what you want to do is you want to bring people in, you want to keep the people in over there and you want them to come again. So, bring the people in, that is marketing, right.So one focus is, how can you make your marketing a lot more effective bringing more people in.The second, so what have done is, we work at the website to understand how they organize their content. Is their content getting crawled easily or not, is this content in the same language as how people are looking for that content. So for example, the way people will describe a product in Europe is different from the way the will describe it in the  US.But, now if youre reading the content for European audience but launching it in the  US, that wont work or vice versa, right. So you nee d to make sure that language is the same with how people are describing it. So we do a number of things to analyze content to make sure that it is really accessible by various, like either to social networks or search engines or anyone. So that is one focus on the marketing side.And the second thing is, that once you are on the website, the way you navigate the website, you use the navigation search for the website, you go look at it, you go to search pages over there. So we provide a SNAP solution which is Search Navigation and Personalization.And actually, our third product now which is on analytics. What it does is, it helps analyze all the content of a website and the user behavior and it will see whats working and whats not working and what you can do to improve it.So the business model for different products is different. It is the combination of the usage and the performance, like how much customers are using it and what theyre getting out of it.Martin: I totally understood t hat you have this kind of recommendation engine that youre trying to sell and then the analytical part.  Regarding the recommendation, is it that you have some kind of snippets that you just enter or you totally rearrange the whole website and categories, etc.?Ashutosh: It can be both. So depending upon the authentification and what our customers want and will they see the maximum value, it could be a small widget on their website or could be an entire landing page or a combination of both.Martin: And how did you find the first customer?Ashutosh: The initial first few customers are always these early adapters, and either through family and friends. So working with our investors, their relationships, through our personal relationships we found some customers. One of the questions that their value proposition has to be strong enough that even though they understand that a startup is a risky value proposition, but by working with a startup their value is going to be so large if it work s, then Im willing to give it a try.Martin: Can you tell us a little bit more on how the technology behind this works, especially  in terms of the recommendation? So what type of data sets are you taking into account?Ashutosh: Yes, absolutely. As I said, right. Theres a lot of data. So for the data, we look at 3 key sources of a data.One is, any customers that youre working with, we Google and crawl and mine all the data that exist on their website.Second, that is crucial about the data is that broader web. Just to give you a context of why that matters is, if you look at any product as an example, you call a product a certain thing because everyone else calls it that. But any name is meaningless. It is the context of the rest of the web that name become meaningful.  So by crawling the web, were able to understand and associate what each word means or each entity means. And then were able to relate the content of the website.And the third thing that we look at is the users behavior. That ultimately if you’re trying to satisfy the users, you really need to see whether they like certain things or they’re not liking it.And by bringing these 3 things together, the content of a website, understanding of that, understanding of the users behavior, understanding of the product, and then picking the right machine learning algorythms to learn on top of it and collaborative conditions, search and that allows the data processing.Martin: Regarding the analytics product that you are selling, what type of actionable advice can you give your customers based on these insights?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, I mean you guys have one for yourselves.One thing you decide is what to write.The second, once youve written it, have you written it correctly or not. Are you missing things or not, right.Once youve done that, then how you are organizing the content on the website? Are you getting the right users behavior from that or not, right. Are there gaps in the content that youve written?So, we actually give advice on all these things. What to write, how to write it, who to go after, how to lay out everything, so it really fits.What is the purpose of a website or any of these things is connecting the right user to the right piece of content. Its not about, shall I go with email or shall I go with SEO, shall I go with SEM, shall I do page search, shall I build the website, do I do that traffic, no. Our business, in your case, it is a set of articles, for a retailer a set of products, any of those things, right. First is you need to sort out your entry, so we can tell you what is performing, what is not performing, how you should go  sorting  it.Second is, we see youre writing an article. First I tell you, you should write on security, then within security what people are concerned about, how you should be describing that, then how should you be laying it out, to what audience you should be reaching out to, should you be reaching out to the people in a certain age group, certain demographics, or certain psychographics,  what will work, what works? And once youve done all that, what work, what tends to, and help you to predict whats going to happen tomorrow. So we do all of it.Martin: Can you tell us how the revenue model works?Ashutosh: For this product?Martin: For analytics and for the recommendation.Ashutosh: On analytics, it is a function of the amount of the content that people are searching and the amount of the users that we are processing. So, if a website has a large amount of content and a large amount of user base which are a lot more than, because the amount of processing that we have to do and analyze and storage and everything, is a function of that system.Around the recommendation and personalization, on that its a function of the usage, like how much are users getting, are they putting a lot of, are they putting on a few pages. Based on that I mean, it costs us percent to work there. And theres an element of how muc h value they are taking out of it as well.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Lets talk about corporate strategies. What competitive advantage do you perceive of BloomReach over other companies?Ashutosh: So, I think I will expand that slightly more and I say that, as a startup, what is a competitive advantage and how do you build that over them. And theres number of things that you can do. One is when youre starting on day one, it is clearly technology and product. Your product that no one else has, so that is your competitive advantage. All your piece of technology that no one else has.So BloomReach, what we have done is a kind of tools with algorithms that are very-very unique. There are very-very few companies with a handful of people in the world who can do this kind of things. So that is one advantage that we have, that no one else has.The second thing is that, over time the amount of data that we have collected is unique to us. So the customer that we are working with, we have collected their data for the last one year or last 2 years, right. So we know a lot about whats going on. Our starting point is much better than anyone else. The network effect now that we are working with so many retailers as an example, our performance with the next retailer is so much better than it was with the first retailer, the first time. So big data advantage, network effect advantage.And third is, we have a large customer base that gives us the responsibility so that becomes a huge advantage. So you just have a huge footprint and now you can upsell more profitable thing to your customer base.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: In terms of market development, one part of your business is related to SEO and SEM. Can you tell us a little bit more, what implications that your business model have on the total market of SEO and SEM because there are so many SEO agencies out there consulting websites how they should optimize the website and youre doing this somehow automized?Ashutosh: So what peopl e are doing is manually looking at small pieces of content and seeing what can be done over there. Now in that case, most of the time, because like how we can get around and get more traffic. As against as looking at like, why something needs to be done for SEO as an example. So if you have a website, but if you build it in a way that it can not be crawled, I mean that is a fundamental limitation of the way the content is consumed by different web search. So it is not really about SEO, its more around like the basic structure of the website. A simple way, say you have 5 pages, say you have 10 pages on your website. I can come with a link structure, and it will take 9  jumps  to get to the last page. Or if you have a website of a million pages, I can build a link structure with just empty links on our page so that we can get from any page to any page within like 5  jumps.Now, in a crawler based world, you need to make sure that the content is organized properly. Actually fundamental thing that has happened over the last 15 years is, if you go with any standard text book on marketing, it would be about how do you differentiate yourself, how do you stand out in the crowd. Make sense. But in a search based world, you need to me more part of the crowd than the stand out of the crowd. You can define everything that youre doing in a way that is different from how everyone else is calling. But guess what, people are searching based on how everyone else is calling and not how you are calling it. So you want to show up over there. So you need to be as similar to the crowd as possible as against as different from the crowd.So thats the opposite how marketing was in the past. So we are trying to solve those basic problems, which require a lot more data analysis and everything. So its neither competing with the agencies, so I mean, they have their place and they are doing a lot and they are helping. So if you are like, Okay this is the 5 categories that Im worried about, s hare it with the agencies, but if its more around like I want a website and make sure that is working well right over a million pages, no one can do it manually. That is where you need tools. And we have, thats where BloomReach come into place.Martin: Understood. So in terms of market development, you work at Google, what happens if Google enters a similar market like you do, because in addition to your data set, they have all the SEO or search engine data?  Is this some kind of viable threat that you are feeling or not?Ashutosh: I mean, Google has like 20 thousand engineers, sure they can do everything. And so, it is the case with any other company. But the customers that we involved are with, one is we know a lot more about them than anyone else would ever.So, this is a simple thing about, you don’t know what you don’t know. If theres a page that is not getting crawled, you just dont know that, theres nothing you can do about it. I mean, in our case, because we work very close ly with these enterprises, we know about that and we can work surfacing it.  So the amount of data and understanding that there is so much more the than anyone else.But then, if someone wants to get in this space, sure they can and then. But I think the competitive advantage that we have built over them, now we know, for example my customer. We know what has been going on on their website for the last 1.5 years, no one else does. So we will have that big advantage. So the starting point for anyone else would be much lower than ours.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ASHUTOSH GARG In Mountain View, we meet CTO Cofounder of BloomReach, Ashutosh Garg. He shares his story of how he cofounded this startup and how the current business model works, as well as what the current plans are for near future, and some advice for young entrepreneurs.The transcription of the interview is uploaded below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi. Today we are in  Mountain View  with BloomReach. Ashu, who are you and what do you do?Ashutosh: Im the CTO and co-founder of BloomReach.Martin: When did you start this company and what was the reason for starting it?Ashutosh: So we started BloomReach in late 2008 early 2009. The vision of the company was to actually make the web a lot more relevant and personalized to the people. So like, over the last 10 to 15 years, the amount content of the web has grown by leaps and bounds. The amount of content that is available is huge.And while Google and Facebook after all are trying to make it easy for people to navigate some of that web, what happens is once you leave these portals and land on an international website, whether its Walmart.com or eBay, or Amazon, or even New York Times, finding the content on these websites are huge challenge. The amount of content that exist in any of these websites is more than the entire web, what the entire web was in 1998. So navigating to that piece of content is really-really hard. What we want to do is to make it very easy for people to find and discover what they are looking for. So we started the company with that vision in mind.Martin: So, Google would be the entry point, and then once people are on the websites automaticallyAshutosh: It could be anything. Today if you look at any,  to build a website, right. very small portion of the people, like 5 10% come directly, and the rest of the people will come either through a social network, through an email, through an affiliate campaign, through Google, through page search campaign, or any other channel.So, people are going to land from where e ver, whatever channel they picked. So its not that much about, like what channel they are picking, right. But they are coming from outside, they may land on any individual page of the website and not necessarily the homepage. So, what can you do, what can you do, all you know about that person, from where theyre coming, how they are coming, why theyre coming, and from their past behavior, and you use all that information to see what on your website is the most relevant piece of content for that user at that time and the name of that whole thing.Martin: Understood. So what enabled yourself to start this company based on your professional background?Ashutosh: So what does it take to make this thing happen?One is, like, being at Google, like, they found out how people are navigating the web, what are the challenges that they are running into, what are the struggles they have, right. So that was one big area of pain thing for me.The second is, working at a company like Google, I had acc ess to lots of data, allowed to their systems, so became an expert in that system.And third is, my PhD was in Machine Learning and Data Mining.So, at some level all these things came together, where I could process a large amount of data, to make sense of that data and then present it to the people.Martin: Okay. Great!BUSINESS MODEL OF BLOOMREACHMartin: Lets talk about the business model of BloomReach. As you said, the users come through different channels to the website and then what happens next?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, right, what you want to do is you want to bring people in, you want to keep the people in over there and you want them to come again. So, bring the people in, that is marketing, right.So one focus is, how can you make your marketing a lot more effective bringing more people in.The second, so what have done is, we work at the website to understand how they organize their content. Is their content getting crawled easily or not, is this content in the sam e language as how people are looking for that content. So for example, the way people will describe a product in Europe is different from the way the will describe it in the  US.But, now if youre reading the content for European audience but launching it in the  US, that wont work or vice versa, right. So you need to make sure that language is the same with how people are describing it. So we do a number of things to analyze content to make sure that it is really accessible by various, like either to social networks or search engines or anyone. So that is one focus on the marketing side.And the second thing is, that once you are on the website, the way you navigate the website, you use the navigation search for the website, you go look at it, you go to search pages over there. So we provide a SNAP solution which is Search Navigation and Personalization.And actually, our third product now which is on analytics. What it does is, it helps analyze all the content of a website and the us er behavior and it will see whats working and whats not working and what you can do to improve it.So the business model for different products is different. It is the combination of the usage and the performance, like how much customers are using it and what theyre getting out of it.Martin: I totally understood that you have this kind of recommendation engine that youre trying to sell and then the analytical part.  Regarding the recommendation, is it that you have some kind of snippets that you just enter or you totally rearrange the whole website and categories, etc.?Ashutosh: It can be both. So depending upon the authentification and what our customers want and will they see the maximum value, it could be a small widget on their website or could be an entire landing page or a combination of both.Martin: And how did you find the first customer?Ashutosh: The initial first few customers are always these early adapters, and either through family and friends. So working with our invest ors, their relationships, through our personal relationships we found some customers. One of the questions that their value proposition has to be strong enough that even though they understand that a startup is a risky value proposition, but by working with a startup their value is going to be so large if it works, then Im willing to give it a try.Martin: Can you tell us a little bit more on how the technology behind this works, especially  in terms of the recommendation? So what type of data sets are you taking into account?Ashutosh: Yes, absolutely. As I said, right. Theres a lot of data. So for the data, we look at 3 key sources of a data.One is, any customers that youre working with, we Google and crawl and mine all the data that exist on their website.Second, that is crucial about the data is that broader web. Just to give you a context of why that matters is, if you look at any product as an example, you call a product a certain thing because everyone else calls it that. But a ny name is meaningless. It is the context of the rest of the web that name become meaningful.  So by crawling the web, were able to understand and associate what each word means or each entity means. And then were able to relate the content of the website.And the third thing that we look at is the users behavior. That ultimately if you’re trying to satisfy the users, you really need to see whether they like certain things or they’re not liking it.And by bringing these 3 things together, the content of a website, understanding of that, understanding of the users behavior, understanding of the product, and then picking the right machine learning algorythms to learn on top of it and collaborative conditions, search and that allows the data processing.Martin: Regarding the analytics product that you are selling, what type of actionable advice can you give your customers based on these insights?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, I mean you guys have one for yourselves.One thing yo u decide is what to write.The second, once youve written it, have you written it correctly or not. Are you missing things or not, right.Once youve done that, then how you are organizing the content on the website? Are you getting the right users behavior from that or not, right. Are there gaps in the content that youve written?So, we actually give advice on all these things. What to write, how to write it, who to go after, how to lay out everything, so it really fits.What is the purpose of a website or any of these things is connecting the right user to the right piece of content. Its not about, shall I go with email or shall I go with SEO, shall I go with SEM, shall I do page search, shall I build the website, do I do that traffic, no. Our business, in your case, it is a set of articles, for a retailer a set of products, any of those things, right. First is you need to sort out your entry, so we can tell you what is performing, what is not performing, how you should go  sorting  it .Second is, we see youre writing an article. First I tell you, you should write on security, then within security what people are concerned about, how you should be describing that, then how should you be laying it out, to what audience you should be reaching out to, should you be reaching out to the people in a certain age group, certain demographics, or certain psychographics,  what will work, what works? And once youve done all that, what work, what tends to, and help you to predict whats going to happen tomorrow. So we do all of it.Martin: Can you tell us how the revenue model works?Ashutosh: For this product?Martin: For analytics and for the recommendation.Ashutosh: On analytics, it is a function of the amount of the content that people are searching and the amount of the users that we are processing. So, if a website has a large amount of content and a large amount of user base which are a lot more than, because the amount of processing that we have to do and analyze and stora ge and everything, is a function of that system.Around the recommendation and personalization, on that its a function of the usage, like how much are users getting, are they putting a lot of, are they putting on a few pages. Based on that I mean, it costs us percent to work there. And theres an element of how much value they are taking out of it as well.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Lets talk about corporate strategies. What competitive advantage do you perceive of BloomReach over other companies?Ashutosh: So, I think I will expand that slightly more and I say that, as a startup, what is a competitive advantage and how do you build that over them. And theres number of things that you can do. One is when youre starting on day one, it is clearly technology and product. Your product that no one else has, so that is your competitive advantage. All your piece of technology that no one else has.So BloomReach, what we have done is a kind of tools with algorithms that are very-very unique. Ther e are very-very few companies with a handful of people in the world who can do this kind of things. So that is one advantage that we have, that no one else has.The second thing is that, over time the amount of data that we have collected is unique to us. So the customer that we are working with, we have collected their data for the last one year or last 2 years, right. So we know a lot about whats going on. Our starting point is much better than anyone else. The network effect now that we are working with so many retailers as an example, our performance with the next retailer is so much better than it was with the first retailer, the first time. So big data advantage, network effect advantage.And third is, we have a large customer base that gives us the responsibility so that becomes a huge advantage. So you just have a huge footprint and now you can upsell more profitable thing to your customer base.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: In terms of market development, one part of your business is related to SEO and SEM. Can you tell us a little bit more, what implications that your business model have on the total market of SEO and SEM because there are so many SEO agencies out there consulting websites how they should optimize the website and youre doing this somehow automized?Ashutosh: So what people are doing is manually looking at small pieces of content and seeing what can be done over there. Now in that case, most of the time, because like how we can get around and get more traffic. As against as looking at like, why something needs to be done for SEO as an example. So if you have a website, but if you build it in a way that it can not be crawled, I mean that is a fundamental limitation of the way the content is consumed by different web search. So it is not really about SEO, its more around like the basic structure of the website. A simple way, say you have 5 pages, say you have 10 pages on your website. I can come with a link structure, and it will take 9  jumps  to get to the last page. Or if you have a website of a million pages, I can build a link structure with just empty links on our page so that we can get from any page to any page within like 5  jumps.Now, in a crawler based world, you need to make sure that the content is organized properly. Actually fundamental thing that has happened over the last 15 years is, if you go with any standard text book on marketing, it would be about how do you differentiate yourself, how do you stand out in the crowd. Make sense. But in a search based world, you need to me more part of the crowd than the stand out of the crowd. You can define everything that youre doing in a way that is different from how everyone else is calling. But guess what, people are searching based on how everyone else is calling and not how you are calling it. So you want to show up over there. So you need to be as similar to the crowd as possible as against as different from the crowd.So thats the opposite how marketing was in the past. So we are trying to solve those basic problems, which require a lot more data analysis and everything. So its neither competing with the agencies, so I mean, they have their place and they are doing a lot and they are helping. So if you are like, Okay this is the 5 categories that Im worried about, share it with the agencies, but if its more around like I want a website and make sure that is working well right over a million pages, no one can do it manually. That is where you need tools. And we have, thats where BloomReach come into place.Martin: Understood. So in terms of market development, you work at Google, what happens if Google enters a similar market like you do, because in addition to your data set, they have all the SEO or search engine data?  Is this some kind of viable threat that you are feeling or not?Ashutosh: I mean, Google has like 20 thousand engineers, sure they can do everything. And so, it is the case with any other company. But the customers that w e involved are with, one is we know a lot more about them than anyone else would ever.So, this is a simple thing about, you don’t know what you don’t know. If theres a page that is not getting crawled, you just dont know that, theres nothing you can do about it. I mean, in our case, because we work very closely with these enterprises, we know about that and we can work surfacing it.  So the amount of data and understanding that there is so much more the than anyone else.But then, if someone wants to get in this space, sure they can and then. But I think the competitive advantage that we have built over them, now we know, for example my customer. We know what has been going on on their website for the last 1.5 years, no one else does. So we will have that big advantage. So the starting point for anyone else would be much lower than ours.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ASHUTOSH GARGMartin: Imagine your little brother comes to you and says, Ashu I want to start a company. Maybe he liv es in  India. What would you recommend him? What should he do and what he shouldnt do?Ashutosh: Do it because youre passionate about something, don’t do it for money or dont do it for a quick outcome. I mean you are an entrepreneur yourself right? Im sure you guys have heard of a startup is a roller coaster ride.Martin: We also have written a post about that.Ashutosh: A startup being a roller coaster ride? And actually a startup is anything but a roller coaster ride. Its not a roller coaster ride. Working in a big company is a roller coaster ride. And let me explain what I mean by that.When you are in a roller coaster, you might be going at 50 miles an hour, 70 miles an hour in that roller coaster for 5 minutes. You know that at the end of 5 minutes the roller caster will stop. Youll be exactly where you sat, you have a harness around you, nothing is going to happen to you, you will get all the jerks, but youll be where you are. Nothing will change. The world will still be the sam e for you, right. Become me, you’ll be thrown around from one project to another, by the end of the month you will get a fat paycheck, thats it. Your check won’t go by more than 10 20 % next year. Thats it.A startup is like driving, you’re in the Bay area, like driving on a 101 and 150 miles an hour. Either youll be the first to reach your destination or you will die, nothing in between. Theres no harness, you dont control anything else on the road. If you succeed, you are the fastest one, youre just not there yet. That is what a startup is. So if you are ready for it.The other thing is that most people, I mean, I meet so many entrepreneurs, they are like, So what are you trying to do? Heres a good idea so Im working on it. Why? Because I want to build WhatsApp for this thing, I want to build Uber for this thing. Are you passionate about it? No, no, but this will have a huge market and customers want this. What are you passionate about? No, but I can make money through this t hing and the VCs are saying that this is a good idea. But have you give it a thought to what you want to do in life?And I think people missed out on that aspect. So you should have a reason why you want to do it, you should have passion behind it. Thats the key thing.Martin: When did you know that your passion is big data, machine learning and maybe search?Ashutosh: I have been doing this for the last 15 18 years. My PhD was in that, my undergrad thesis was in that, my master was in that. So it has been just over time. But the key passion is, how you make life easier for people. Thats starting way to go. And all these are different ways and baby steps you can take.Martin: What other advice would you give your little brother?Ashutosh: I mean this is tough work. You have to be ready to do everything. Like we were discussing earlier right, its not only about like, I like this piece of work or I don’t like this piece of work.You will have to do whatever is needed for you. You are the master in the office but you are also the janitor of the office. You just do everything. So thats one thing.Its a long journey.  You may have an exit in a year, you maybe successful right. You will die with that. And for the next 25 years right. So make sure that youre ready to make that commitment.Other thing is you need to make sure that you have enough support from your family, because in this race, for doing things and achieving our vision sometimes our family has to pay the price. And are they ready for it or not? Because once you are in, theres no looking back. You will have good days, you will have bad days. Are you ready for that?Martin: How did your family support you?Ashutosh: I was on vacation actually last weekend, which was probably the first vacation I took in 2 years. So that is one part of how they have to suffer from this.Martin: Not seeing you.Ashutosh: Not seeing you and youre not being there. But more importantly even when you are there, my wife kept asking me, so what are you thinking right now on the beach and not enjoying it. Do you mind if I quickly go and respond to that email or answer this thing. I mean, its a huge sacrifice. You are just not there for them.Martin: Ashu, thank you very much for your time! And next time you are thinking about starting a company, pick some idea that you are very passionate about. Thank you very much. Great! Thank you very much, Ashu.

Thomas Mill, English Philosopher And Social Reformer

John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and social reformer, one of the most influential figures of the nineteenth century, produced such large philosophical and literary output that we are able to apply many of his ideas and theories into everyday issues and topics. His writing includes a wide range of subjects in ethics, logic, religion, economics, current affairs, and social and political philosophy. His most significant writings include Principles of Political Economy, Utilitarianism, and The Subjection of Women. With strong influences from his father and his father s mentor, Jeremy Bentham, he adopted their ideologies and became a leading figure in utilitarianism. There’s no doubt that utilitarianism can shape public policy, but how affectively it can define moral principles in a universal scale remains a topic of debate. In a series of articles published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861 John Mill introduced one of his key concepts: Utilitarianism. The theory of utility holds that â€Å"actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure .† Actions are judged and condemned good or evil by their outcome. When an action brings the most happiness to the most people, with overall pleasure and little to no pain, said action becomes justified. Utilitarianism can easily be applied to certain issues such asShow MoreRelated Communism Essay2765 Words   |  12 Pageson Communism: A theory and system of social and political organization that was a major force in world politics for much of the 20th century. As a political movement, communism sought to overthrow capitalism through a workers’ revolution and establish a system in which property is owned by the community as a whole rather than by individuals. 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How to Split Strings in Ruby

Unless user input is a single word or number, that input will need to be split  or turned into a list of strings or numbers. For instance, if a program asks for your full name, including middle initial, it will first need to split that input into three separate strings before it can work with your individual first, middle and last name. This is achieved using the String#split method. How String#split Works In its most basic form, String#split takes a single argument: the field delimiter as a string. This delimiter will be removed from the output and an array of strings split on the delimiter will be returned. So, in the following example, assuming the user input their name correctly, you should receive a three-element Array from the split. #!/usr/bin/env rubyprint What is your full name? full_name gets.chompname full_name.split( )puts Your first name is #{name.first}puts Your last name is #{name.last} If we run this program and enter a name, well get some expected results. Also, note that name.first and name.last are coincidences. The name variable will be an Array, and those two method calls will be equivalent to name[0] and name[-1] respectively. $ ruby split.rbWhat is your full name? Michael C. MorinYour first name is MichaelYour last name is Morin However,  String#split is a bit smarter than youd think. If the argument to String#split is a string, it does indeed use that as the delimiter, but if the argument is a string with a single space (as we used), then it infers that you want to split on any amount of whitespace  and that you also want to remove any leading whitespace. So, if we were to give it some slightly malformed input such as Michael C. Morin (with extra spaces), then String#split would still do what is expected. However, thats the only special case when you pass a String as the first argument. Regular Expression Delimiters You can also pass a regular expression as the first argument. Here, String#split becomes a bit more flexible. We can also make our little name splitting code a bit smarter. We dont want the period at the end of the middle initial. We know its a middle initial, and the database wont want a period there, so we can remove it while we split. When String#split matches a regular expression, it does the same exact thing as if it had just matched a string delimiter: it takes it out of the output and splits it at that point. So, we can evolve our example a little bit: $ cat split.rb#!/usr/bin/env rubyprint What is your full name? full_name gets.chompname full_name.split(/\.?\s/)puts Your first name is #{name.first}puts Your middle initial is #{name[1]}puts Your last name is #{name.last} Default Record Separator Ruby is not really big on special variables that you might find in languages like Perl, but String#split does use one you need to be aware of. This is the default record separator variable, also known as $;. Its a global, something you dont often see in Ruby, so if you change it, it might affect other parts of the code—just be sure to change it back when finished. However, all this variable does is act as the default value for the first argument to String#split. By default, this variable seems to be set to nil. However, if String#splits first argument is nil, it will replace it with a single space string. Zero-Length Delimiters If the delimiter passed to String#split is a zero-length string or regular expression, then String#split will act a bit differently. It will remove nothing at all from the original string and split on every character. This essentially turns the string into an array of equal length containing only one-character strings, one for each character in the string. This can be useful for iterating over the string and was used in pre-1.9.x and pre-1.8.7 (which backported a number of features from 1.9.x) to iterate over characters in a string without worrying about breaking up multi-byte Unicode characters. However, if what you really want to do is iterate over a string, and youre using 1.8.7 or 1.9.x, you should probably use String#each_char instead. #!/usr/bin/env rubystr She turned me into a newt!str.split().each do|c| puts cend Limiting The Length of the Returned Array So back to our name parsing example, what if someone has a space in their last name? For instance, Dutch surnames can often begin with van (meaning of or from). We only really want a 3-element array, so we can use the second argument to String#split that we have so far ignored. The second argument is expected to be a Fixnum. If this argument is positive, at most, that many elements will be filled in the array. So in our case, we would want to pass 3 for this argument. #!/usr/bin/env rubyprint What is your full name? full_name gets.chompname full_name.split(/\.?\s/, 3)puts Your first name is #{name.first}puts Your middle initial is #{name[1]}puts Your last name is #{name.last} If we run this again and give it a Dutch name, it will act as expected. $ ruby split.rbWhat is your full name? Vincent Willem van GoghYour first name is VincentYour middle initial is WillemYour last name is van Gogh However, if this argument is negative (any negative number), then there will be no limit on the number of elements in the output array and any trailing delimiters will appear as zero-length strings at the end of the array. This is demonstrated in this IRB snippet: :001 this,is,a,test,,,,.split(,, -1) [this, is, a, test, , , , ]

Online Dating Free Essays

Online Dating â€Å"Are you ready to find the love of your lifer, â€Å"Experience the difference†, â€Å"Someone special is already waiting for you† are all different things you might hear on an online dating commercial, but is it really as good as they say? According to a study conducted by the Washington Post and PC World not even 20% of the connections made on these websites turn into committed relationships. Conventional dating is much safer and efficient than online dating in finding someone one actually wants to be with. Online dating may seem easier than conventional dating, but is that actually true? When diving into the world of online dating one cannot be completely sure that they are actually talking to that person. We will write a custom essay sample on Online Dating or any similar topic only for you Order Now It could be someone acting as another person, or even a sex offender. Over 10% of all online dating users are considered to be sex offenders according to Reuters. Anyone can set up an online dating account whenever they please, and that can turn out to be dangerous because one never truly knows who they are connecting with. Conventional dating on the ther hand is usually much safer and there are multiple benefits to it that online dating doesn’t have. The obvious benefit to conventional dating is that one is with that person face to face. It is very difficult to lie about height, weight, and age if the conversation is face to face, unlike online dating. According to a study most men lie about their height, weight, and income while women usually lie about their weight, physical build, and age. The odds are that your date will not be lying about their physical appearance on a face to face date. How to cite Online Dating, Papers

The Problems and Solutions of Overcrowding in Modern Cities Essay Example

The Problems and Solutions of Overcrowding in Modern Cities Paper The aim of his essay is to discuss the potential problems and solutions in overcrowded cities. Housing problem is the first important issue Which needs to be solved as soon as possible. Modern cities have attracted huge newcomers to seek career opportunity and to fulfill their idealistic or dreams. The capacity Of city accommodation is crucial and thus the government has to develop more lands to build more houses to accommodate the rapidly increasing population. Obviously, it is a huge investment. Developed countries have ample funding to deal With it easily whereas, by contrast, developing countries Will eke out o reach the goal. Even the governments of poor countries are always short of money in house projects so that people have to pave their own way. That is why many cities have slums which are seriously overcrowded, causing other potential health and security problems. Traffic congestion is the second crucial problem in cosmopolitan cities, Beijing, as an evident example, traffic jams occur there nearly every day. The reason is that there are too many private cars in use. According to the report of Institution of China Industrial Research (2010), as to December 2010, there are 4. 7 million automobiles in use in Beijing every day, estimating the number will exceed S million in 2012. Traffic jams add the average commuting time, affect the economic development and cause resource wasting. Thirdly, overcrowded cities need more energy than Nan-crowding cities. As huge number of people flock to big cities to work and live, average density of power and resource need per capita is dramatically increasing, far more than the small cities. We will write a custom essay sample on The Problems and Solutions of Overcrowding in Modern Cities specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Problems and Solutions of Overcrowding in Modern Cities specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Problems and Solutions of Overcrowding in Modern Cities specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Furthermore, the fact that the labor force from small town floods into gig cities will decrease the average density per person in small town and thus it produces unbalanced society structure. Besides, in many modern overcrowded cities there are a lot of skyscrapers Which need more energy to feed central air- conditioner in order to keep a comfortable status. However, the chiller system Of air-conditioner produces huge heating during the working and the heating will be released directly to the air so that causes the city temperature to increase again, and then, accordingly, the city needs more proverb capacity again to feed the air-conditioner. It sis vicious spiral! Virtually other issues such as unemployment, hospital, sewage rubbish, security and air quality, are also urgent. Even so, air quality among these issues must be the most critical one, Take Chile as an example. During the rapid development from sass to sass Chile experienced misery in air quality. As Edward John (2002) point out, the Chilean standard for IMO is an annual arithmetic mean of 50 GU,mm(micrograms per meter the data exceed the national standard every year between 1989-1992, which is more than double the national standard. Edward, John, If people live in low-quality air for long-term, some potential diseases might be incurred. The problems in overcrowded cities can be solved respectively and Step by Step. Firstly, government must make an investment shift to infrastructures such as house buildings, rubbish disposing sites, broad roads, hospitals and schools. It is widely believed that there should be a precondition the government takes long-term planning and scientific city structure design to relieve the overcrowding. Satellite city is widely believed s a positive way because in these areas there has abundant lands to develop more houses to help evacuate downtown citizens to suburban places where on the assumption that relevant infrastructures should be in shape, for instance, houses, schools, hospitals, business buildings and supermarkets. Thus people in new satellite cities work, shop, receive education and see a doctor there. Secondly, government has to make great efforts to create more jobs for peo ple. Unemployment issue can cause potential dangers, for example, psychological problem of individual, to the society. Particularly crimes are often caused by long-term unemployment or underemployment, Since everyone living in cities needs services such as banking, rental, health care, training, food and drink, so government can proactively create the potential job market to help individual find a job which can feed him at least. Virtually Service industrial is a very huge market and in developed countries usually covers more than two-thirds of its GAP. Developing countries could learn the experience from developed countries. Furthermore, developed countries also can absorb part Of labor force in developing ones. Traditionally, rich Meds could experience skilled labor shortages and welcome capital and talent coming from rich Olds (Bruin et al, 1983, IPPP). Thirdly, governments should invest more money into the public transport to relieve the current traffic jams, and encourage people to take bus by decreasing the ticket price. Subway is another more efficient for commuting and city authority should invest more to add the network of subway. Then people driving private cars will reduce car usage and choose subways to save time. Besides, there are many solutions to solve all sorts of overcrowding robbers. Each overcrowded city has its own history and reasons, so it may need different ideas and ways to resolve them. For example, as for environment, according to Cellular (2011), Plantation showed an example of its urban industrial park, exactly like vertical farm, which produces crops backed by smart systems. This is a positive example for overcrowded city to reduce the green-house emission. Until now, people always blame the overcrowded cities, referring all problems to the cities themselves, and it seems there would be no any advantage to cities. However, Embalming cities misses the point that they can be potential solutions as places where high living standards are achieved with much lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions per person. (Sweatshirts, 2010). Actually modern cities have good financing and talent resources to solve problems mentioned above to reduce the influences caused by overcrowding. As scientific technologies are introduced, city ecosystem may go back to normal. To conclude, overcrowding is a critical issue for the world which causes many serious problems such as housing, transport, jobs and air quality, etc.

Theoretical Grammar Definition and Examples

Theoretical Grammar Definition and Examples Theoretical grammar is concerned with language in general rather than with an individual language, as is the study of essential components of any human language.  Transformational grammar  is one variety of theoretical grammar.   According to Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe: Theoretical grammar or syntax is concerned with making completely explicit the formalisms of grammar, and in providing scientific arguments or explanations in favour of one account of grammar rather than another, in terms of a general theory of human language. (Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe, The Changing Face of Corpus Linguistics.  Rodopi, 2003) Traditional Grammar vs. Theoretical Grammar What generative linguists mean by grammar should not be confused, in the first instance, with what ordinary persons or nonlinguists might refer to by that term: namely, a traditional or pedagogical grammar such as the kind used to teach language to children in grammar school. A pedagogical grammar typically provides paradigms of regular constructions, lists of prominent exceptions to these constructions (irregular verbs, etc.), and descriptive commentary at various levels of detail and generality about the form and meaning of expressions in a language (Chomsky 1986a: 6). By contrast, a theoretical grammar, in Chomskys framework, is a scientific theory: it seeks to provide a complete theoretical characterization of the speaker-hearers knowledge of her language, where this knowledge is interpreted to refer to a particular set of mental states and structures. The difference between a theoretical grammar and a pedagogical grammar is one important distinction to bear in mind in order to avoid confusion about how the term grammar operates in theoretical linguistics. A second, more fundamental distinction is between a theoretical grammar and a mental grammar. (John Mikhail, Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment.  Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011)​ Descriptive Grammar vs. Theoretical Grammar A descriptive grammar (or reference grammar) catalogues the facts of a language, whereas a theoretical grammar uses some theory about the nature of language to explain why the language contains certain forms and not others. (Paul Baker, Andrew Hardie, and Tony McEnery, A Glossary of Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2006)​ Descriptive and Theoretical Linguistics The purpose of descriptive and theoretical linguistics is to further our understanding of language. This is done through a continual process of testing theoretical assumptions against data, and analyzing data in the light of those assumptions which previous analyses have confirmed to such a degree that they form a more or less integral whole that is accepted as the currently preferred theory. Between them, the mutually dependent fields of descriptive and theoretical linguistics provide accounts and explanations of how things seem to be in language, and a terminology for use in discussions. (O. Classe, Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English. Taylor Francis, 2000) It seems that in modern theoretical grammar the differences between morphological and syntactic constructions are beginning to show up, for example in the fact that, in the European languages at least, syntactic constructions tend to be right-branching while morphological constructions tend to be left-branching. (Pieter A. M. Seuren, Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction. Blackwell, 1998) Also Known As: theoretical linguistics, speculative grammar

The Tiananmen Square Massacre - Background and Causes

The Tiananmen Square Massacre - Background and Causes Most people in the western world remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre this way: 1) Students protest for democracy in Beijing, China, in June of 1989. 2) Chinese government sends troops and tanks to Tiananmen Square. 3) Student protesters are brutally massacred. In essence, this is a fairly accurate depiction of what happened around Tiananmen Square, but the situation was much longer-lasting and more chaotic than this outline suggests. The protests actually started in April of 1989, as public demonstrations of mourning for former Communist Party Secretary General Hu Yaobang. A high government officials funeral seems like an unlikely spark for pro-democracy demonstrations and chaos. Nonetheless, by the time the Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre were over less than two months later, 250 to 7,000 people lay dead. What really happened that spring in Beijing? Background to Tiananmen By the 1980s, the leaders of Chinas Communist Party knew that classical Maoism had failed. Mao Zedongs policy of rapid industrialization and collectivization of land, the Great Leap Forward, had killed tens of millions of people by starvation. The country then descended into the terror and anarchy of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), an orgy of violence and destruction that saw teenaged Red Guards humiliate, torture, murder and sometimes even cannibalize hundreds of thousands or millions of their compatriots. Irreplaceable cultural heirlooms were destroyed; traditional Chinese arts and religion were all but extinguished. Chinas leadership knew that they had to make changes in order to remain in power, but what reforms should they make? The Communist Party leaders split between those who advocated drastic reforms, including a move toward capitalist economic policies and greater personal freedoms for Chinese citizens, versus those who favored careful tinkering with the command economy and continued strict control of the population. Meanwhile, with the leadership unsure of which direction to take, the Chinese people hovered in a no-mans land between fear of the authoritarian state, and the desire to speak out for reform. The government-instigated tragedies of the previous two decades left them hungry for change, but aware that the iron fist of Beijings leadership was always ready to smash down opposition. Chinas people waited to see which way the wind would blow. The Spark - Memorial for Hu Yaobang Hu Yaobang was a reformist, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1980 to 1987. He advocated rehabilitation of people persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, greater autonomy for Tibet, rapprochement with Japan, and social and economic reform. As a result, he was forced out of office by the hardliners in January of 1987 and made to offer humiliating public self-criticisms for his allegedly bourgeois ideas. One of the charges leveled against Hu was that he had encouraged (or at least allowed) widespread student protests in late 1986. As General Secretary, he refused to crack down on such protests, believing that dissent by the intelligentsia should be tolerated by the Communist government. Hu Yaobang died of a heart attack not long after his ouster and disgrace, on April 15, 1989. Official media made just brief mention of Hus death, and the government at first did not plan to give him a state funeral. In reaction, university students from across Beijing marched on Tiananmen Square, shouting acceptable, government-approved slogans, and calling for the rehabilitation of Hus reputation. Bowing to this pressure, the government decided to accord Hu a state funeral after all. However, government officials on April 19 refused to receive a delegation of student petitioners, who patiently waited to speak with someone for three days at the Great Hall of the People. This would prove to be the governments first big mistake. Hus subdued memorial service took place on April 22 and was greeted by huge student demonstrations involving about 100,000 people. Hardliners within the government were extremely uneasy about the protests, but General Secretary Zhao Ziyang believed that the students would disperse once the funeral ceremonies were over. Zhao was so confident that he took a week-long trip to North Korea for a summit meeting. The students, however, were enraged that the government had refused to receive their petition, and emboldened by the meek reaction to their protests. After all, the Party had refrained from cracking down on them thus far, and had even caved in to their demands for a proper funeral for Hu Yaobang. They continued to protest, and their slogans strayed further and further from the approved texts. Events Begin to Spin Out of Control With Zhao Ziyang out of the country, hardliners in the government such as Li Peng took the opportunity to bend the ear of the powerful leader of the Party Elders, Deng Xiaoping. Deng was known as a reformer himself, supportive of market reforms and greater openness, but the hardliners exaggerated the threat posed by the students. Li Peng even told Deng that the protesters were hostile to him personally, and were calling for his ouster and the downfall of the Communist government. (This accusation was a fabrication.) Clearly worried, Deng Xiaoping decided to denounce the demonstrations in an editorial published in the April 26th Peoples Daily. He called the protests dongluan (meaning turmoil or rioting) by a tiny minority. These highly emotive terms were associated with the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. Rather than tamping down the students fervor, Dengs editorial further inflamed it. The government had just made its second grave mistake. Not unreasonably, the students felt that they could not end the protest if it was labeled dongluan, for fear that they would be prosecuted. Some 50,000 of them continued to press the case that patriotism motivated them, not hooliganism. Until the government stepped back from that characterization, the students could not leave Tiananmen Square. But the government too was trapped by the editorial. Deng Xiaoping had staked his reputation, and that of the government, on getting the students to back down. Who would blink first? Showdown, Zhao Ziyang vs. Li Peng General Secretary Zhao returned from North Korea to find China transfixed by the crisis. He still felt that the students were no real threat to the government, though, and sought to defuse the situation, urging Deng Xiaoping to recant the inflammatory editorial. Li Peng, however, argued that to step back now would be a fatal show of weakness by the Party leadership. Meanwhile, students from other cities poured into Beijing to join the protests. More ominously for the government, other groups also joined in: housewives, workers, doctors, and even sailors from the Chinese Navy! The protests also spread to other cities - Shanghai, Urumqi, Xian, Tianjin... almost 250 in all. By May 4, the number of protesters in Beijing had topped 100,000 again. On May 13, the students took their next fateful step. They announced a hunger strike, with the goal of getting the government to retract the April 26 editorial. Over a thousand students took part in the hunger strike, which engendered wide-spread sympathy for them among the general populace. The government met in an emergency Standing Committee session the following day. Zhao urged his fellow leaders to accede to the students demand and withdraw the editorial. Li Peng urged a  crackdown. The Standing Committee was deadlocked, so the decision was passed to Deng Xiaoping. The next morning, he announced that he was placing Beijing under martial law. Zhao was fired and placed under house arrest; hard-liner Jiang Zemin succeeded him as General  Secretary; and  fire-brand Li Peng was placed in control of the military forces in Beijing. In the midst of the turmoil, Soviet Premier and fellow reformer  Mikhail Gorbachev  arrived in China for talks with Zhao on May 16. Due to Gorbachevs presence, a large contingent of foreign journalists and photographers also descended on the tense Chinese capital. Their reports fueled international concern and calls for restraint, as well as sympathetic protests in Hong Kong,  Taiwan, and ex-patriot Chinese communities in Western nations. This international outcry  placed even more  pressure on the Chinese Communist Party leadership. Early in the morning on May 19, the deposed Zhao made an extraordinary appearance in Tiananmen Square. Speaking through a bullhorn, he told the protesters: Students, we came too late. We are sorry. You talk about us, criticize us, it is all necessary. The reason that I came here is not to ask you to forgive us. All I want to say is that students are getting very weak, it is the 7th day since you went on hunger strike, you cant continue like this... You are still young, there are still many days yet to come, you must live  healthily, and see the day when China accomplishes the four modernizations. You are not like us, we are already old, it doesnt matter to us  anymore. It was the last time he was ever seen in public. Perhaps in response to Zhaos appeal, during the last week of May tensions eased a bit, and many of the student protesters from Beijing grew weary of the protest and left the square. However, reinforcements from the provinces continued to pour into the city. Hard-line student leaders called for the protest to continue until June 20, when a meeting of the National Peoples Congress was scheduled to take place. On May 30, the students set up a large sculpture called the Goddess of Democracy in Tiananmen Square. Modeled after the Statue of Liberty, it became one of the enduring symbols of the protest. Hearing the calls for a prolonged protest, on June 2 the Communist Party Elders met with the remaining members of the Politburo Standing Committee. They agreed to bring in the  Peoples Liberation Army  (PLA) to clear the protesters out of Tiananmen Square by force. The Tiananmen Square Massacre The morning of June 3, 1989, the 27th and 28th divisions of the Peoples Liberation Army moved into Tiananmen Square on foot and in tanks, firing tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. They had been ordered not to shoot the protesters; indeed, most of them did not carry firearms. The leadership selected these divisions because they were from distant provinces; local PLA troops were considered untrustworthy as potential supporters of the protests. Not only the student  protesters but also tens of thousands of workers and ordinary citizens of Beijing joined together to repel the Army. They used burned-out buses to create barricades, threw rocks and bricks at the soldiers, and even burned some tank crews alive inside their tanks. Thus, the first casualties of the Tiananmen Square Incident were actually soldiers. The student protest leadership now faced a difficult decision. Should they evacuate the Square before further blood could be shed, or hold their ground? In the end, many of them decided to remain. That night, around 10:30 pm, the PLA returned to the area around Tiananmen with rifles, bayonets fixed. The tanks rumbled down the street, firing indiscriminately. Students shouted Why are you killing us? to the soldiers, many of whom were about the same age as the protesters. Rickshaw drivers and bicyclists darted through the melee, rescuing the wounded and taking them to hospitals. In the chaos, a number of non-protesters were killed as well. Contrary to popular belief, the bulk of the violence took place in the neighborhoods all around Tiananmen Square, rather than in the Square itself. Throughout the night of June 3 and early hours of June 4, the troops beat, bayoneted, and shot protesters. Tanks drove straight into crowds, crushing people and bicycles under their treads. By 6 a.m. on June 4th, 1989, the streets around Tiananmen Square had been cleared. Tank Man or the Unknown Rebel The city lapsed into shock during June 4, with just the occasional volley of gunfire breaking the stillness. Parents of missing students pushed their way to the protest area, seeking their sons and daughters, only to be warned off and then shot in the back as they fled from the soldiers. Doctors and ambulance drivers who tried to enter the area to help the wounded were also shot down in cold blood by the PLA. Beijing seemed utterly subdued the morning of June 5. However, as foreign journalists and photographers, including  Jeff Widener  of the AP, watched from their hotel balconies as a column of tanks trundled up Changan Avenue (the Avenue of Eternal Peace), an amazing thing happened. A young man in a white shirt and black pants, with shopping bags in each hand, stepped out into the street and stopped the tanks. The lead tank tried to swerve around him, but he jumped in front of it again. Everyone watched in horrified fascination, afraid that the tank driver would lose patience and drive over the man. At one point, the man even climbed up onto the tank and spoke to the soldiers inside, reportedly asking them, Why are you here? You have caused nothing but misery. After several minutes of this defiant dance, two more men rushed up to the  Tank Man  and hustled him away. His fate is unknown. However,  still  images and video of his brave act were captured by the  Western  press members  nearby and smuggled out for the world to see. Widener and several other photographers hid the film in the tanks of their hotel toilets, to save it from searches by the Chinese security forces. Ironically, the story and the image of the Tank Mans act of defiance had the greatest immediate effect thousands of miles away, in Eastern Europe. Inspired in part by his courageous example, people across the Soviet bloc poured into the streets. In 1990, beginning with the Baltic states, the republics of the Soviet Empire began to break away. The USSR collapsed. Nobody knows how many people died in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The official Chinese government figure is 241, but this is almost certainly a drastic undercount. Between soldiers, protesters and civilians, it seems likely that anywhere from 800 to 4,000 people were killed. The Chinese Red Cross initially put the toll at 2,600, based on counts from local hospitals, but then quickly retracted that statement under intense government pressure. Some witnesses also stated that the PLA carted away many bodies; they would not have been included in a hospital count. The Aftermath of Tiananmen 1989 The protesters who survived the Tiananmen Square Incident met a variety of fates. Some, particularly the student leaders, were given relatively light jail terms (less than 10 years). Many of the professors and other professionals who joined in were simply  blacklisted, unable to find jobs. A large number of the workers and provincial people were executed; exact figures, as usual, are unknown. Chinese journalists who had published reports sympathetic to the protesters also found themselves purged and unemployed. Some of the most famous were sentenced to multi-year prison terms. As for the Chinese government, June 4,  1989  was a watershed moment. Reformists within the Communist Party of China were stripped of power and reassigned to ceremonial roles. Former Premier Zhao Ziyang was never  rehabilitated and spent his final 15 years under house arrest. Shanghais mayor, Jiang Zemin, who had moved quickly to quell protests in that city, replaced Zhao as the Partys General Secretary. Since that time, political agitation has been extremely muted in China. The government and the majority of citizens alike have focused on economic reform and prosperity, rather than political reform. Because the Tiananmen Square Massacre is a taboo subject, most Chinese under the age of 25 have never even heard about it.  Websites  that mention the June 4 Incident are blocked in China. Even decades later, the people and the government of China have not dealt with this momentous and tragic incident. The memory of the Tiananmen Square Massacre festers under the surface of everyday life for those old enough to recall it. Someday, the Chinese government will have to face this piece of its history. For a very powerful and disturbing take on the Tiananmen Square Massacre, see the PBS Frontline special The Tank Man, available to view online. Sources Roger V. Des Forges, Ning Luo, Yen-bo Wu.  Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections, (New York: SUNY Press, 1993) PBS, Frontline: The Tank Man, April 11, 2006. U.S. National Security Briefing Book. Tiananmen Square, 1989: The Declassified History, posted by George Washington University. Zhang Liang.  The Tiananmen Papers: The Chinese Leaderships Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People - In Their Own Words, ed. Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, (New York: Public Affairs, 2001)

Marketing Mix Analysis of Valentino Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Marketing Mix Analysis of Valentino - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that the current condition of the global economy is highly unstable and is being driven by uncertainty. Studies suggest that a large number of firms in every sector are struggling hard for survival and holding market positions. In such a time, it is gathered that demand and interest in luxury products and services among consumers have increased exponentially. The trend is not limited to a particular sector but can be witnessed across various sectors including the fashion industry. Valentino Garavani, also known as Valentino, launched his first product line in 1959 and since then, the company has made relentless efforts to become a prominent name in the fashion industry. Presently, Valentino is considered as one of Italy’s finest exporters of luxury fashion, and it has created an elegant range of fashion wear for various personalities over the past four decades. Besides apparel, the company offerings consist of shoes, bags, and access ories. Valentino opened the first store of the company in 1960 in Paris and introduced the signature ‘Red Valentino’ along with the ‘V’ label. Though the company started in Italy, presently it has stores all over the world. In 2013, the company earned revenue as high as 110 billion Swedish Kroner and its operating margin was around 16%. The assessment suggests that the company is enjoying steady growth even in an uncertain economic condition.

Higher education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Higher education - Essay Example Unfortunately, within the confines of a probationary period at colleges or universities, the institutions can choose not to renew faculty contracts and terminate faculty without any reason or cause because they are classed as at will employees. Throughout the probationary period, senior professors and administrators evaluate the work of new faculty-teaching, research and service before deciding whether or not to recommend tenure. This would be managed by having the students fill out a questionnaire at the end of the year to let the administrators and senior professors know how a particular instructor taught that year what are the strengths and weaknesses in a particular area. The administrators do not only focus on what the students say about the instructor they base how to become tenure not only on the questionnaire that the students fill out but how the instructor does as a whole. The instructors have a portfolio that they assemble in mid year probably around April and they turn it in to the Department Head of that particular department. The most recent survey of American faculty shows that, in a typical year, about one in five probationary faculty members was denied tenure and lost his or her job. According to the NEA and a paper titled The Truth About Tenure in Higher Education the faculty members of any institution are accountable even after the achievement of tenure. Evaluations of tenured faculty occur periodically for promotion, salary increases and even for merit increases. There is routine review of articles for publication and for grant applications based on merit by faculty peers. "If basic academic tenets and due process rights are observed, this kind of accountability is wholly appropriate. A finding of incompetence or unprofessional conduct can still result in firing". (1.http://www2.nea.org/he/truth.html) Universities manage to force diversity into a much broader societal discovery process. The meaning derived from this would be that faculty tenure would be based on the principles of intellectual autonomy and free inquiry. Together, these very principles would also manage describing a much less favorable track considered as accountability lacking. A tenured faculty member simply is not very accountable to deans and department chairs.Lack of accountability comes under heavy criticism, and yet tenure itself remains part of the virtue of the university.It is the mission of a university to work utilizing novel and independent principles whereby generating and evaluating ideas accordingly relative to the remainder of society. There would be direct commercial considerations which would drive most idea sources including research and development in corporate circles, commercial culture, celebrity culture and advertising. The university functions as both an alternative and complementary mechan ism for the production and evaluation of social ideas.Direct commercial pressures insulate professors in the university environment; at least this is true in theory.For the most part, academic rewards would be determined by a peer evaluation. In a process that depends on intellectual or creative superstars, tenure and non-accountability work especially well within

Viable But Non Culturable Bacteria Biology Essay

Viable But Non Culturable Bacteria Biology Essay Viable but Non-Culturable state is a unique survival strategy of many bacteria in environment in response to adverse environmental conditions. VBNC bacteria cant be cultured on routine microbiological media but they remain viable and retain their virulent capacity too. VBNC bacteria can be resuscitated when provided with appropriate conditions. A good number of bacteria including many human pathogens have been reported to enter VBNC state. Though, there was disputes on the existence of VBNC in past, extensive molecular studies have resolved most of them and VBNC has been accepted as distinct survival state by all. VBNC bacteria are considered as threats to public health and food safety due to their non-detectability and virulence as food and water have been reported to be contaminated with pathogens at VBNC state though conventional methods declared them as safe and clean. A number of outbreaks have also been reported where VBNC bacteria has been implicated as causative agent. Furthe r molecular and combinatorial research in conjunction with predictive modeling are needed to elucidate the mechanisms and to identify the critical points to tackle the threat posed by VBNC bacteria with regard to public health and food safety. Key words: VBNC, Pathogen, public health, Food safety, Detection Introduction The cells that form colony in specific media are the culturable cells. Viable means metabolically or physiologically active. So the cells those are metabolically or physiologically active but cant be cultured on specific media are the viable but non-culturable cells (VBNC) (Bogosian Bourneuf, 2001). Most microorganisms growing in nature have yet to be cultured in the laboratory. In fact less than 1% of the microorganisms in natural water and soil samples are cultured in viable count procedures (Barcian Arana, 2009). In 1982, Prof. Rita Colwell and co-workers introduced the term Viable But Non-Culturable Bacterial Cells (VBNC) to distinguish particular cells that could not form colonies on solid media but obtained metabolic activity and the ability to elongate after the administration of nutrients (Xu et al., 1982). According to Oliver (1995), VBNC can be defined as a metabolically active bacterial cell that crossed a threshold in this way, for known or unknown reasons and become unable to multiply in or on a medium normally supporting its growth. Most of the bacteria that enter VBNC state are gram negative species belonging to the gamma subclass of the Proteobacteria branch, except for Rhizobium, Agrobacterium and Helicobacter-Campylobacter species (Oliver, 2000). History Debra Bashford and colleagues announced that they had recovered Vibrio cholerae from streams and drainage ditches, including sites with negligible chance of sewage contamination. Around the same lime, Rita Colwell was also finding Vibrio cholerae in Maryland. She and her coworkers showed that both this bacterium and E. coli, incubated in artificial sea water remained viable but lost the capacity to form colonies on culture media (Colwell Grimes, 2000). Soon Salmonella enteritidis, Shigella sonnie and Legionella pneumophila joined the list of organisms known to be capable of entering a state in which they failed to show up on nutrient agar yet took up substrates and signaled in other ways that they were certainly not dead. The use of laboratory media to recover and enumerate bacteria and lo link them with or absolve them from pathological and other activities became obsolete by the new discoveries and a term VBNC (viable but non-culturable) came (McDougald et al., 1998). VBNC Microorganisms that do not grow in culture methods, but which are still metabolically active and capable of causing infections in animals and plants are said to be in VBNC state. The conditions for these organisms to resume growth are not being met using the normal laboratory culture conditions (Yamamoto, 2000). Bacteria that have been semi-starved will immediately resume growth when provided with the appropriate nutrients and conditions. Viable but non-culturable cells will not resume growth even when nutrients are provided (NystrÃÆ'-m, 2001). VBNC cells exhibit active metabolism in the form of respiration or fermentation, incorporate radioactive substrates, and have active protein synthesis but cannot be cultured or grown on conventional laboratory media. They have been detected by observing discrepancies between plate count enumeration of bacterial population and direct staining and microscopic counts (Sachidanandham Gin, 2009). These cells may be of particular problems in the e nvironment if they are pathogens, for example, viable but non-culturable cells of Vibrio cholerae, Enteropathogenic E. coli, Legionella pneumophila and various other bacteria have been shown to regain culturability after they have entered the intestinal tracts of animals (Colwell et al., 1996). The VBNC state is defined as a state of dormancy triggered by environmental harsh conditions, such as nutrient starvation (Cook Bolster, 2007), temperature (Besnard et al., 2002), osmotic stress (Asakura et al., 2008), oxygen availability (Kana et al., 2008), several food preservatives (Quirà ³s et al., 2009), heavy metals (Ghezzi Steck, 1999), exposure to white light (Gourmelon et al., 1994) and decontaminating processes, as pasteurization of milk (Gunasekera et al., 2002) and chlorination of wastewater (Oliver, 2005). VBNC state is believed to be a unique survival strategy of bacteria in response to environmental stresses (Oliver, 2010). It is also considered as an important reservoir of many human pathogens in the environment (Lleo et al., 2007). VBNC state has been a matter of dispute for ling since its inception, due to the difficulty of differentiation of VBNC cells dormant cells through resuscitation phenotypic studies, recent molecular studies, data of which supported the existence of VBNC state, the dispute has mostly been put to rest (Barer and Harwood, 1999). VBNC Pathogens Following list includes but not limited to pathogenic bacteria that can enter VBNC state (Oliver, 2010)- Aeromonas hydrophila, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Burkholderia cepacia, Campylobacter jejuni, Enterobacter aerogenes, Enterobacter cloacae, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli (including EHEC), Helicobacter pylori, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, Listeria monocytogenes, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Salmonella typhimurium, Shigella dysenteriae, Shigella flexneri, Shigella sonnei, Streptococcus faecalis, Vibrio alginolyticus, Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio harveyi, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus (types 1 and 2) Characteristics of Bacteria in VBNC state 1. Maintain apparent cell integrity; 2. possession of some form of measurable cellular activity (Lai et al., 2009); 3. possess apparent capacity to regain culturability (Anuchin et al., 2009); 4. respond to external stimulus by specific gene expression (kell et al., 1998); 5. low metabolic activity (oliver, 2005); 6. Exhibit dwarfing (Costa et al., 1999); 7. reduced nutrient transport; 8. High ATP level and high membrane potential (Signoretto et al., 2000); 9. extensive modifications in cytoplasmic membrane fatty acid compositions (Day Oliver, 2004); 10. Changes in cell wall peptidoglycan such as increasing cross linking, increasing muropeptides bearing covalently bound lipoprotein shortening of average length of glycan strands (signoretto et al., 2002); 11. Higher autolytic capability than exponentially growing cells; 12. Plasmids are retained; 13. changed antibiotic sensitivity as metabolic activity is lower, most bacteria at VBNC state demonstrate high antibiotic resistance (Ol iver, 2010); 14. Changes in outer-membrane protein profile (Muela et al., 2008); 15. Continuous gene expression (Maalej et al., 2004) etc. Conditions stimulating VBNC state In the environment, bacterial cells can enter VBNC state may be due to- 1. Lack of nutrients; 2. Lack of temperatures; 3. High pressure; 4. Sharp changes in pH or salinity (Cunningham et al., 2009); 5.damage to or lack of an essential cellular component; 6. DNA damage; 7. activation of lysogenic phages or suicide genes such as sok/hak or autolysins (Aizenman et al., 1996); 8. Nutrient starvation; 9. incubation outside the normal temperature range of growth; 10. elevated or lower osmotic concentrations; 11. oxygen concentrations (Mascher et al., 2000); 12. food preservatives; 13. Heavy metals (Del Campo et al., 2009); 14. exposure to white light; 15. pasteurization of milk (Gunasekara et al., 2002); 16. chlorination of wastewater (Oliver, 2005) etc. Public health significance of VBNC Though virulence of bacteria in VBNC state is still not very clear, many believed that pathogens in VBNC state are unable to induce infection/disease but still retain their virulent properties has potential to cause disease infection following resuscitation and resume of active metabolic state, which occurs when they pass through host animal (Baffone et al., 2003). The VBNC state appears to be the common to many bacteria especially those which have aquatic habitats, and may represent a mechanism to survive adverse environmental factors as temperature, salinity etc. or have a means of inducing cross protection against other adverse factors (Du et al., 2007). Among these bacteria entering this state are many significant human pathogens and indicator bacteria of these pathogens; such cells may represent a public health hazard and may be a factor in human health and/or disease (Rivers Steck, 2001). Even today, it is still not possible to cultivate most bacterial species directly from the environmental samples or after exposure of previously culturable cells to environmental conditions unfavorable for growth and multiplication in vitro. The passage of VBNC through an appropriate animal host will induce return of culturability. Even these VBNC bacteria retain their pathogenicity and may trigger life in vivo and thus cause severe disease (Sardessai, 2005). Under normal condition it is not possible to culture or detect VBNC. Many diagnostic laboratory set up does not have sufficient molecular facilities to detect VBNC. In case of food and water quality control test, such VBNC may not be detected. Even some indicator of some pathogenic bacteria undergoes VBNC state and may remain undetected (Signoretto et al., 2004). Upon consuming such food or after drinking such water, one may be infected by those VBNC that can trigger life as well as pathogenicity (Adams et al., 2003). Thus, environmental and clinical samples no longer can be considered free from pathogens if culturing yields negative results. For the general public, the presence of VBNC in water and food may be related to low-grade infections or so called aseptic infection. For example, Vibrio cholerae O1 in the surface water remain as non-culturable state. These water sources are used for domestic purpose regularly and posed a risk of infection (Edwards, 2000). When conditions are not favorable for growth then it transforms to the non-culturable state in association with crustacean copepods. Persistence of Vibrio cholerae in water in the VBNC state is an important public health factor, since detection will not be successful if only conventional cultural methods are used (Barer et al., 1993). Similarly, Shigella can undergo VBNC state in water but become a threat when enter in human body. Thus it is important to recognize that non-culturable bacteria are capable of producing diseases. The first evidence of pathogenicity of non-culturable cells was the demonstration of fluid accumulation in rabbit ileal loop assay (RICA) by VBNC Vibrio cholerae O1, followed by human volunteer experiments (Amel et al., 2008). VBNC E. coli non-culturable cells were re-isolated after passage through rabbit ileal loops 4 days post inoculation and chick embryos died when injected with non-culturable cells of Legionella pneumophila, led to the conclusion that VBNC pathogens remain potentially pathogenic. So, VBNC has a huge significance in public health care (Cappelier et al., 2007). Reports indicate that many potentially harmful bacteria survive treatment and persist in processed food, pasteurized milk, potable water and in the environment (Colwell et al., 2000). Many evidences suggested that recurrent urinary tract infections in many individuals are caused by uropathogenic E. coli cells which remain in VBNC state (Anderson et al., 2004) thus resistant to antibiotic treatment cause reinfection when resuscitate back to active metabolic state (Steck, 2001; Mulvey et al., 2001). Studies also showed that uropathogenic E. coli retain enteropathogenicity at VBNC state through continued production of enterotoxin (Pommepuy et al., 1996). Nilsson et al. (2002) showed that VBNC Helicobacter pylori cells can express virulence factors such as cagA, vacA and vreA. All these above evidence proved that many deathly pathogenic strains not only enter but also persist survive in VBNC state in environment most of them remain infectious as well. VBNC state of foodborne bacteria- a challenge in food safety Many evidences suggested presence of VBNC bacteria in food (Ordax et al., 2009). For example, in stored wine, acetic acid and lactic acid bacteria entered VBNC state as consequence of lack of oxygen and presence of sulphites, respectfully (Millet and Lonvaud-Funel, 2000). Food and its surrounding environment is a complex system, in which physic-chemical characterisitcs (pH, aw, chemical composition) and environmental factors (storage temperature and time, decontamination treatments, packaging under modified atmosphere) act simultaneously on contaminating bacteria (Sun et al., 2008). For example, it has been demonstrated that refrigerated pasteurized grapefruit juice induced VBNC state in E. coli O157:H7 and S. typhimurium within 24 hours of incubation (Nicolo et al., 2011). Again, Gunasekera et al. (2002) reported that in pasteurized milk which have undergone thermal treatment, contaminating bacteria such as E. coli and Pseudomonas putida enter into VBNC state but retained transcription and translation machineries. Several foodborne outbreaks has been reported in Japan, where pathogen such as Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica (Asakura et al., 2002) and E. coli O157 (Makino et al., 2000) in food in VBNC state were responsible for the outbreak. Therefore, the role of food and treatment for food preservation in induction of VBNC state has to be elucidated. Predicitve models offered by biomathematics and bioinformatics would be very helpful tools, in order to evaluate the possibility that, under certain conditions, pathogen bacteria contaminating a tipology of food may enter the VBNC state (Fakruddin et al., 2012). Methods of detection of VBNC bacteria 1. Bright Field Microscopy with Nalidixic acid For detection of Bright-field or light microscopic is usually used. Cell division inhibitor such as nalidixic acid (20-40 mg/L) is used to stop cell division. After such treatment the viable cells, which actively growing, will be appeared as lengthen and the non-viable/ metabolically inactive cell will remain as it is. The cells are then observed under microscope. Viable cells will be seen as elongated whereas VBNC/ dormant cells will be seen as oval and large. 2. Fluorescent Microscopy Various fluorescent staining procedures are used in combination with other procedure to determine VBNC organisms. Frequently used stains are Acridine orange, 4,6- Diamino-2-phenyl indole (DAPI), Fluorescein isothiocyanante (FITC), Indophenyl-nitrophenyl-phenyl tetrazolium chloride (INT), 5-cyano-2,3-ditolyl tetrazolium chloride (CTC) etc (Villarino et al., 2000). Table: Fluorescent dyes used for detection of VBNC bacteria Dye Mechanism Reaction Acridine orange Acridine orange stain cells depending on the ratio of DNA to protein in the cells Actively reproducing cells appear green but slow-grower or non-reproducing cells at time of staining appear orange Di-amino-phenyl-indole (DAPI) Living cells look green under fluorescent microscope Indophenyl-nitrophenyl-phenyl tetrazolium chloride (INT) INT deposit red dye in cells that have active dehydrogenase and thus determine which of the observed cells are metabolically active INT react with dehydrogenase enzyme to produce formazone and red color, thus living cells appear red. Nalidixic acid (NA) Lengthen metabolically active cells, VBNC cells remain as it is Cells that are dividing appear to be longer in size than VBNC Fluorescein isothiocyanante (FITC) Enzyme activity in living cell FITC stain living cells violet or blue In recent years, a new differential staining assay, the BacLight ® Live/Dead assay, has been developed. The assay allows to simultaneously count total and viable (metabolically active) cells, by using two nucleic acid stains, that is green-fluorescent SYTO ® 9 stain and red-fluorescent propidium iodide stain. These stains differ in their ability to penetrate intact cell membranes. When used alone, SYTO ® 9 stain labels both live and dead bacteria. In contrast, propidium iodide penetrates only bacteria with damaged membranes, reducing SYTO ® 9 fluorescence when both dyes are present. Thus, live bacteria with intact membranes fluoresce green, while dead bacteria with damaged membranes fluoresce red (Rowan, 2011). 3. Gene probe / oligonucleotide probe / hybridization: Molecular analysis can also be used to study non-culturable microorganisms in nature. Oligonucleotide probes of l8-20 nucleotides are proving most useful because they hybridize rapidly to specific DNA sequences of target organisms. These gene probes can reveal closely related organisms or organisms with similar functional capabilities. Especially useful for the analyses of rRNA that demonstrate the presence of diverse microbial populations whose phylogenetic relationships can be ascertained by comparison with rRNA sequences from previously described microorganisms (Josephson et al., 1993). Blotting: There are different types of blotting such as colony blot, slot blot, dot blot and southern blot. The principle of blotting is the use of radio- or non-radioactive or fluorescence labeled probe (DNA/RNA/Antibody) to detect VBNC cells directly from the environmental samples. Fluorescent in situ Hybridization (FISH): In situ hybridization is an alternative format for hybridization probes in which fluorescence labeled DNA or RNA probes are hybridized with target nucleic acids in whole, permeabilized cells. The application of this method to the detection of single microbial cells by using rRNA-targeted probes in combination with epifluorescent microscopy has been developed. This is done through selective targeting of regions of rRNA, which consist of conserved and variable nucleotide regions. By choosing the appropriate rRNA probe sequence, FISH can be used to detect all bacterial cells (a universal probe) or a single population of cells (a strain specific probe) of VBNC. It has lower sensitivity and cannot distinguish live and dead cells. 4. Molecular techniques: Hybridization probes and DNA/RNA amplification: Hybridization probes are nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) which have been (a) chemically or radioactively labeled and are used to detect complementary target DNA/RNA. Hybridization assay DNA/ RNA probes form a stable double stranded structure with target nucleic acid via H-bonding between complementary bases. Amplification of targets: DNA Based methods: Specific amplification of DNA targets in bulk DNA extracts from environmental and clinical samples permits detection of specific organisms or groups of related organisms without the need to cultivate them. DNA recovery procedures do not discriminate between culturable and non-culturable forms of the target organisms- all cells with intact amplification targets will be detected. Confocal laser microscopy in combination with fluorescence-based hybridization assays, also provide a more sensitive method for detecting and identifying VBNC organisms. RNA based methods: Due to the failure of distinguishing between dead or live cells by DNA-based methods, the mRNA level may be a valuable estimate of gene expression and/or cell viability under different conditions (Lleo et al., 2000). RT-PCR: RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase PCR) can distinguish between Live and dead cell. This is possible because this is an mRNA based method and mRNA is short lived (half-life less than 1 minute), mRNA is only present in metabolically active cells, not found in nature after the cell death. By this method we can study community relationship and can also detect non-culturable but active or live cells. DNase enzyme is used during the isolation of RNA from environmental samples. Reverse transcriptase and random primers are added to the reaction mixture and the RNA in the sample (both RNA and rRNA) is transcribed into DNA. PCR is then use to amplify the specific sequence of interest (Pai et al., 2000). Is the concept of VBNC is a misnomer? By extending the concept of bacterial self-suicide scientists tried to explain what happens when cells are exposed to chemical and physical injury (Forsman et al., 2000). Thus VBNC organisms came alongside with those, which do not grow in ordinary media but which do grow when offered selective or enrichment media. They said, Such cells are not un-culturable they wrote We are simply failing to provide appropriate conditions to support culture (Sinton, 2006). The reasons, which made the term, VBNC a misnomer are as follow: 1. Bacteria that have been semi-starved will immediately resume growth when provided with the appropriate nutrients and conditions. But viable but non-culturable bacteria do not resume growth when nutrients are provided. Evidence suggests that these cells have become too starved to be able to grow on rich medium initially; this phenomenon was observed over three decades ago and was known then as substrate accelerated death (Heim et al., 2002). It was found that substrate that normally supported growth of certain Gram-negative bacteria hastened their death when introduced into starved populations of these bacteria. These substrates were considered lethal substrates. These starved cells require an adjustment period to allow phenotypic adaptation back to the normal growth state (Epstein, 2009). A sudden shift to nutrient rich agar creates a metabolic imbalance that results in the formation of super-oxide and free radicals, causing DNA damage that can result in cell death (Barer Harwood , 1997). 2. There is yet no complete and perfect media to isolate arid culture all the organisms from environment. 3. Cells are usually-injured or stressed or starved condition in natural environment. So complete system has been devised to enrich or resuscitated the VBNC cells. Culture condition that can be applied in laboratory is not sufficient to recover all microorganisms i.e. yet it is not possible to provide or stimulate exact environmental conditions in the laboratory. Conclusion Regardless of the role that the VBNC state plays, it is clear that a large number of non-spore-forming bacteria, most notably a large number of human pathogens, are capable of entering this state, maintaining cellular structure and biology and continuing significant gene expression while otherwise non-culturable by standard laboratory methods. That they can exit from this state, and become culturable again, is also undeniable. Finally, it can no longer be questioned that the VBNC state plays a critical role in the survival of important human (and other) pathogens, and possibly in their ability to produce disease.