Compare and contrast mongol rule Essay

During the 12th and 13th centuries the Mongols swept across Eurasia and conquered various peoples, including the Persians and Chinese. There are many slmllarltles and differences In the political and economic effects of Mongol rule on the Abbasid Empire In Persia and on the Yuan Dynasty In china. In both regions, the Mongols were relatively tolerant of all religions. However, they differed in that the Mongol’s allowed Persia to have native administrators but did not allow China to. When the Mongols ruled in Persia and China, they respected all the religions they encountered. In Persia, the Mongols were attracted to Islam and overtime they ssimilated to it. The Mongols were intrigued by Muslim society and by the year 1295, the Persian khanate had converted to Islam. They built mosques throughout the region and returned Islam toa privileged position of Persian society. The Mongols were also tolerant of the other religions in Persia including. Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism. In China as well, the Mongols respected all cultural and religious traditions. They began to adopt some of Chinese culture, like ancestor worship. Khubilai Khan even built temples for his predecessors, so he could practice ancestor worship. The Mongols tolerated religions and belief systems such as, Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism and Christianity. They allowed churches, temples and shrines to be built, because they wanted to maintain a good relationship with the people ot the region. Although the Mongols tolerated Confucianism, they did not allow It to have official support. The Mongols effects on rellglon In Persia and china were quite similar. The Mongol’s ways of governing In Persia differed from how they governed In China. In Persia, the Mongols ruled using ideas from Persian bureaucracy. They set up many district and appointed provincial governors. The highest government positions were held by Mongols, but Persians were allowed to be government offcers at lower levels. Persians served as state officials, ministers and provincial governors. The Mongols allowed the Persians to govern the ilkhanate because they knew the Persians had a successful government and would be able to maintain order. However, the Mongols required the Persians to deliver tax receipts as a way of limiting Persian power. The Mongols set up government in China very differently than they had in Persia. The Mongol’s pushed native Chinese people to the bottom of the hierarchy. The Mongols got rid of Civil Service Exams because they thought there was no need for them. They did not make use of Chinese administrative talent; instead they had foreign administrators govern China. The governing staff included Persians, Arabs and some Europeans. The Mongols didnt want Chinese people to rule because all they wanted from China was to generate revenue and have the people be cultivators. The Mongols governed and treated the Chinese and Persian people very differently. The Mongols political and economic control on Persia and China were alike In some ways and unalike in others. The treatment and tolerance of religions in China ere very similar to that In Persia. Yet, the administrative control in Persia differed than the administrative control In China. The Mongols had multiple methods of ruling conquered regions, none 0T wnlcn were very successTul. However, tnrougnout the Mongols rule, they facilitated trade and encouraged long distance communication throughout Eurasia, which led to cultural diffusion that can still be seen today. Additionally, the Mongols support of Islam helped establish its popularity and encouraged its spread, which has contributed to Islam being the fastest growing and second largest religion.

Outline Paper Title: the Common Law Tradition and Sources of Law Essay

I. THESIS STATEMENT: A. Common law is a legal system that is largely formed by the decisions previously made by courts and not imposed by legislatures or other government officials. The reasoning used to interpret this type of law is known as casuistry, or case-based reasoning. It is a strict, principle-based reasoning that uses the circumstances of a case to evaluate the laws that are applicable. Decisions that were made about similar cases are valuable, and the case in question is evaluated on the basis of past cases. The strength of the similarity among the cases, in turn, strengthens the reasoning based on them. B. The term â€Å"common law† also underlines the fact that this type of law did not originate from equity, maritime and other special branches of law. Statutes serve as brief explanations of law and therefore are not very explanatory. Codification is the process by which a statue is passed, expressed within a single document, so that it is understood within existing law rather than creating the need for new laws. C. The common-law system prevails in England, the United States, and other countries colonized by England. The common-law system is used in all the states of the United States except Louisiana, where French Civil Law combined with English Criminal Law to form a hybrid system. Anglo-American common law traces its roots to the medieval idea that the law as handed down from the king’s courts represented the common custom of the people. II. WHAT IS COMMON LAW? A. Common Law is the body of law developed from custom or judicial decisions in English and U.S. courts, not attributable to a legislature. III. WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF AMERICAN LAW? A. The United States Constitution and the constitutions of the various states B. Statutory Law – including laws passed by Congress, state legislatures, and local governing bodies. C. Regulations created by administrative agencies (such as the United States Food and Drug Administration). D. Case law and common law doctrines. E. Secondary sources of law are books and articles that summarize and clarify the primary sources of law (i.e., legal encyclopedias, treatises, and articles in law reviews). Several SourcesConstitutional, statutory, and case law—these are your tools. The United StatesConstitution is the overriding document. It is the Supreme Law of the Land. Eachstate has its own constitution. State and federal statutes are interpreted by judgesthrough case law. These sources play in each practice area. For example,constitutional law governs searches and seizures in a criminal matter. Statutesprovide the framework for real estate transactions, and case law interprets andapplies both constitutional and statutory law. There is much to learn.| IV.CONSITUTIONAL LAW A. The Federal Constitution i. The United States Constitution, as amended, is the supreme law of the land. ii. A law in violation of the United States Constitution will be declared unconstitutional and will not be enforced. iii. The United States Constitution sets forth the powers of the three branches of the federal government and the relationship between the three branches. iv. Constitutional Rights 1. The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are commonly known as the Bill of Rights. v. The Courts and Constitutional Law 1. The broad principles enunciated in the Constitution are given form and substance by the courts. 2. Courts Balance the Right to Free Speech a. Even though the First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, the Supreme Court has made it clear that certain types of speech will not be  protected. 3. Free Speech and the Internet a. The Internet has raised new problems for the courts in determining how to define and apply the protections of free speech. B. State Constitutions i. Each state also has a constitution that sets forth the general organization, powers, and limits of the state government. ii. A state constitution is supreme within the state’s respective borders, so long as it does not conflict with the United States Constitution. C. Constitutional Law and the Paralegal i. Paralegals often assist attorneys in handling cases that involve constitutional rights or provisions. ii. Knowledge of constitutional law is beneficial because the authority and underlying rationale for the substantive and procedural laws governing many areas of law are found in the Constitution. V. STATUTORY LAW A. Statutes are the laws enacted by legislative bodies at any level of government. B. Federal Statutes. i. Federal statutes are enacted by the United States Congress and apply to every state. ii. Any federal statute that violates the United States Constitution will be held unconstitutional. C. State and Local Statutes and Ordinances i. State statutes are laws enacted by state legislatures. ii. Any state law that is found to conflict with the United State Constitution, or with that state’s constitution, will be deemed unconstitutional. D. Uniform Laws i. Uniform (â€Å"model†) statutes are drafted for adoption by the states. ii. A state can adopt or reject all or part of a uniform law, as the state legislature wishes. iii. An example of a uniform law is the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). E. The Expanding Scope of Statutory Law i. Legislative bodies and administrative agencies assume an ever-increasing share of lawmaking. F. Statutory Law and the Paralegal i. A paralegal may often assist in cases involving violations of statutory law. ii. A paralegal working on cases governed by statutory law needs to know how to both locate and interpret the relevant state or federal statutes. VI. ADMINISTRATIVE LAW A. Agency Creation and Function i. Administrative agencies are created by legislatures to administer and enforce legislation and to issue rules to implement the goals of specific legislation. ii. Examples of federal administrative agencies are: 1. Environmental Protection Agency 2. Occupational Safety and Health Administration 3. Food and Drug Administration. A. Administrative Law and the Paralegal i. Paralegals frequently deal with administrative agencies. 1. Paralegals may also work for administrative agencies, drafting new rules, mediating disputes, and numerous other tasks. Consulting CasesCase law represents judicial opinions. Judicial opinions represent opinions written by judgeson a particular case. Understanding case law can be difficult. It requires analytical skills. Suchskills are acquired over time and after reading many cases. But do not despair. When you findthat perfect case, it will be worth it.| VII. CASE LAW AND THE COMMON LAW TRADITION A. The Origins and Nature of the Common Law i. Common law originated in medieval England with the creation of the king’s court. ii. Courts developed the common law rules from the principles underlying judges’ decisions in actual legal controversies. iii. Judges attempted to be consistent. When possible, they based their decisions on the principles suggested by earlier cases. iv. The practice of deciding new cases with reference to former decisions, or precedents, is a cornerstone of the American judicial system. v. Stare decisis means â€Å"to stand on decided cases.† vi. Under this doctrine, judges are expected to abide by the law as established by previous court decisions. vii. Sometimes a court will depart from precedent if it decides the precedent should no longer be followed. VIII. WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF PRECEDENT TO THE JUDICIAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESS? A. The judicial process is informative, thought-provoking and often insightful, albeit verbose. It is also timely given the intense political nature of current federal judicial confirmation proceedings. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, once a court has set forth a principle of law as being applicable to a certain set of facts, that court and courts of lower rank must adhere to that principle and apply it in future cases involving similar fact patterns. Stare decisis have two aspects: first, decisions made by a higher court are binding on lower courts; and second, a court should not overturn its own precedents unless there is a strong reason to do so. IX. WHAT ARE EQUITABLE AND LEGAL REMEDIES? A. Equitable remedies are judicial remedies developed by courts of equity from about the time of Henry VII to provide more flexible responses to changing social conditions than was possible in precedent-based common law.

One area that I have difficulty with is in making and writing compositions

I am writing this letter to share with you my learning experiences in your class and how much I have enjoyed being in your class. I have had difficulty with my previous language subjects and somehow, I was skeptical about having to take another English class. However, I was terribly wrong; I did learn so much from all the coursework, all the activities and all the interaction in class.One area that I have difficulty with is in making and writing compositions, I do not know how to express my ideas and opinions convincingly before this class. I also was ignorant of the rules and standards of using sources and how cite materials that I researched. I would say that the greatest skill I have gained from this class in terms of writing is how to correctly paraphrase and summarize my ideas as well as to give credit to works that I have used in my essay.All throughout this semester and from the activities that we had, I found that I am good at analyzing statements and ideas of other people. I probably would say that my greatest strength as a writer is to be able to critically analyze arguments to support my opinions and assumptions.As such, the skill that I have used to my advantage is integrating the words of famous personalities into my essay which also gives my essay a distinct quality. Despite the immense number of skills and knowledge I have gained in this class, I also know that I still need to improve on my writing ability and to specifically be able to decide and write the necessary components of my research portfolio. I know that I really have to work on it and I am more confident now that I can attain my goals in this aspect.When I evaluate my performance in your class, I know that I have done well and that I deserve to have an A. I know you might think that I am too brazen to say that but I know that I have done all of my homework, I never missed a quiz; I even did the extra credit tasks. I also participated actively in the writing lab; I interacted with my c lassmates and during discussions. Moreover, I listened attentively to the lectures and discussions, I asked questions when I did not understand something and I always came to class early.I know that you would be evaluating our performance and behavior in your class, but I would like to tell you that even if you feel that I don’t deserve the A I am aspiring for, then I would gladly respect your judgment. I know that the amount of learning I have gained in your class will be something that will stay with me and will be very helpful in my future courses, of which I am already very thankful to you.Sincerely yours,Your name

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Dissertation

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Dissertation Example She says, Do not you want to know who has taken it' cried his wife impatiently, and Mr. Bennet replies 'You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.'(Austen, Ch.1). Austen undoubtedly does this to incite some form of comic relief from the reader but the interactions between the Bennets serves as very valuable benchmark against which the potential courtiers are compared. Mrs. Bennet's anxious paranoia over the futures of her daughters stands in complete opposition to her husband's irresponsible carefree nature. It is obvious Austen also considers their relationship to be valuable, otherwise she wouldn't have made them the first characters we meet in the novel. These two are not a courting couple, those days have come and gone for them; but they do represent two aspects of society that essentially signify what is at stake for their daughters. While Mr. Bennet is an unsuccessful dreamer barely able to support his own family, Mrs. Bennet is a realist who never allows her family or the reader to forget that their only hope for happiness lies is in an equitable marriage. Her take on life is very affective on her other daughters, but doesn't seem to phase Elizabeth, who appears to take more after her father. Jean Ferguson Carr argues that Mrs. Bennet is identified by her exclusion from the realms of sense and power, and is contained within her comic role. As such, she stands in uneasy relationship to her daughter, Elizabeth (Carr, 68). She goes on to further point out that Elizabeth strives to disassociate herself from her mother who is foolish. Instead Elizabeth aspires to be knowing and witty, and treated like such; this is most likely the personality trait that incites her fiery... The present dissertation has attempted to offer the potential reader a new viewpoint of the novel through the analysis of the main characters. This has been done in terms of some cognitive constructs such as image-schemas or conceptual metaphors. They have shed new light on the relationships among the characters in the novel. Furthermore, we could go as far as to state that the whole novel is summarized in terms of the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor. The title of the novel itself: Pride and Prejudice, points to some impediments in this journey towards love. Apart from reducing the novel to a single metaphorical system, an analysis in cognitive terms provides the grounds for the construction of the main characters and for the overall interpretation of the work. Furthermore, this kind of analysis is visual to such an extent that the work is wholly understood without the aid of abstractions. There is evidence that within this framework the changes undergone by the characters and the relationships which hold between them are explained on the basis of what we readers see and experience every day. This is one of the main reasons why the present paper is devoid of abstract explanations. For instance, the conceptualization of people as containers is tremendously visual. Finally, we have seen that Jane Austen has made use of a series of universal constructs as the grounds for the construction of her novel. She has done this unconsciously because they are engraved on our mind in such a way that we use them automatically.

Companys Rights To Prohibit Employees From Smoking Off The Job Essay

Companys Rights To Prohibit Employees From Smoking Off The Job - Essay Example Employees are often charged high insurance premiums that might also act as a motivator for refraining from smoking (Hill, 2006, pp.1-3). Ban in smoking through laws has been found to reduce the passive smoking to a great extent. Improvement in health conditions of such employees has been obtained. The support for such bans has shown to increase (Callinan, Clarke, Doherty & Kelleher, 2010, p.2). A change in the smoking behavior is likely when workplaces bring in limitations on smoking. Employees tend to smoke less and many employees may even quit smoking. Smokers who truly try to quit smoking have actually been found to be more successful than others (Burns, Shanks, Major, Gower & Shopland, n.d., p.104). Prohibiting smoking within organizations is necessary and hence supportive to my views. It can be understood that people who do not smoke would suffer from passive smoking if others smoke within an office. Particularly since an organization is a closed area, it would be more suffering for the non-smokers. Hence smoking needs to be prohibited within the working areas. Moreover, if employees are not allowed to smoke in their workplaces, this might gradually help them to lessen their habits of smoking which is undeniably better for their health. Thus, considering both the issues of the smokers’ health as well as the sufferings of non-smokers from passive smoking, it seems to me that prohibition of smoking in workplaces should be highly supported and followed in all organizations. The Cons: If the case of Ford Meter Box can be considered there are two issues that arise- one being the issue of freedom, and the other being the issue of privacy. The ban in smoking creates personal issue by impeding the freedom of an employee. The private issue arises when the employee needs to give a nicotine test. Whether a company can intrude into the privacy of an employee raises matters of serious concern. Arguments in support of Ford may find the cost factors significant enough to conduct such tests (Hooker, 2003, pp.11-12). The greater problems arise when companies try to regulate the smoking of their employees even at their residences. For example, â€Å"in Indiana, an employee was fired because she smoked cigarettes in her own home† (ACLU Briefing Paper Number 12, n.d.). Several federal and state laws exist that protect the rights of the employees

The White Tiger by aravind adiga Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The White Tiger by aravind adiga - Essay Example The metaphor of â€Å"light and darkness† appears quite often in the Balram Halwai story. For example, Balram believes that river Ganga symbolizes darkness and that is why he refers to its as â€Å"Ganga of black† (Adiga, 57). Balram warns Wen Jiabao to avoid washing himself in Ganga and he mentions the acids, garbage and diseases that are in the river. He describes the river as one that brings death. Initially, it is described as â€Å"holy† and is meant for cleaning the soul and the body. This makes it a big tourist attraction centre. However Balram opposes this idea and argues that it is only the Indians who know that the river is full of dirt. People who live far away from the river are also not aware of this dirt. Therefore, this means that people who live far from the Ganga River are in darkness of this reality and those who live near the Ganga River are in lightness of this reality. The novel also represents the concept of lightness and darkness among poor and rich people. While the richer people own pets like dogs, poor people may only afford a water buffalo that they require for survival. The class of the divine creature is recognized with the dogs of the wealthy as well. Another disparity in possessions is the type of alcohol people afford. Wealthy people only buy most luxurious alcohol that is referred to as â€Å"English liquor†. ... These themes encounter each other all through the novel. Even while Balram has managed to establish himself in the town of Bangalore, he carries on looking for methods of distinguishing himself from â€Å"darkness.† As one of his white tiger drivers knocks a boy by the road, he pays a visit to the boy’s family and gives their surviving son a job (Aravind, 10). He recognizes that this verdict may make him seem weak, but he says that he was left with no other choice. He says, â€Å"I cannot live in the same way as the Buffalo, the River and wild Boar lived, and perhaps still live, back in Laxmangarh. Now I have seen the light.† Rooster Coop Rooster Coop is a metaphor that Balram uses to define the system of the master/servant system of India. The rooster coop symbolizes the cage that Balram lives. He depends on his master who makes all the decisions about what he ought to do. Apart from these conditions, the servants are also accommodated symbolize a rooster coop. The author states that the majority of the servants are caught in the Rooster coop, just like the poor people in the poultry market. He argues that ninety nine percent of the servants are caught in the rooster coop and Balram is one of them. On a certain day at the marketplace, Balram gets to see caged roosters being butchered next to one another. All the Roosters are aware that they are next in the list to be slaughtered, but they are reluctant to rebel. Balram sees the Indian servants entrapped in servitude, but they are all reluctant to break out of the â€Å"Rooster Coop† because they honor their families. Aravind Adiga often cites the rooster coop when he is talking of a feature or situation of the Indian servant class and he also supports himself for killing his master with it. The

American Marriage in Transition Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

American Marriage in Transition - Essay Example Cherlin points out child bearing outside family, changes in household labour division, cohabitation and gay marriage as factors which redefined the structure of marriage as a social intitution (403). Other materialistic trends included â€Å"decline of agriculture labour and the corresponding increase in wage labour; the decline in child and adult mortality; rising standards of living;and in the last half of the 20th century, the movement of married women into the paid workforce†(403). These factors along with global events including depression and World War II brought in changes in the sociological understanding of the term marriage to a large extend. One of the first meaning assigned to marriage was that of a process which legitimises sexual relationship and to have children. Cherlin here provides a comparitive global picture on the understanding of marriage at this context. He notes that this trend resulted in an increase in the percieved importance of marriage among young Americans during the 1950s (403). This trend began to diminish in the 1960s. The median age of marriage in US began to be as it used to be in early 1900s (403). Cherlin also notes that during this perion living together before marriage became more common. Another notable trend during this period was that divorses increased and â€Å"same sex unions found greater acceptance†. The article further talks about the transition from companionate marriage to individualistic marriages. The three vital characterestics of these marriages were; self development; flexible and negoitibale roles within marriages and communication and openness in confronting problems(404). The article provides extensive literature support which suggests similar trends. Cherlin identifies that a complete deintitutionalisation of marriage occurred in the 20th century. Here the bonding of marriage was not based on the traditional roles as that of raising children. These

HSBC as a Financial Service Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

HSBC as a Financial Service - Assignment Example They also are a provider of a large number of financial services to a large number of customers. These services include Commercial banking, Personal Financial Services, Private Banking and Global Banking and Markets (HSBC, 2010). Lloyd’s is one of the well known and trusted financial institutions. It has grown over the years to become one of the globally recognized and prominent figures in Dow Jones index and FTSE 100. It has been one of the greatest British institutions that have developed itself into the global business. The rating agencies have recognized the organization by providing the securities high rates that shows that the firm has been performing well (Lloyd’s, 2010). Marketing of the financial services has been one of the recent phenomena even in the developed nations of the world. The financial service sector has not been subjected to the market pressure in an attempt to survive and prosper. This sector has operated in the benign market environment in most of the countries and has been managed and controlled by the state itself. The government has helped in the development of the new products as well as in the promotional activities. The strategic marketing planning helps to set the direction for the medium to long-term. In order to complement the strategic marketing plan, it would be best for the companies to have an annual marketing plan in order to achieve the short term marketing objectives (Ennew & Waite, 2007). The main strategy of the HSBC Bank has been to build its position as the leader in the international as well as the emerging markets. It tries to pay the employees according to their performances that include market-based pay. The bank has a transparent structure that is based on the separately capitalized subsidiaries. It also takes a conservative approach to the liquidity management and has developed its business in such a way that helps to provide diversified and broad global services.

Phase 4 Individual Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Phase 4 Individual Project - Essay Example Such ethical standard promotes high standards of integrity and ethical behavior for the benefit of the company instead of an individual. The ethical standards in any business create a fundamental foundation in maintaining public trust, for every ECG member. In the first situation the executive member of ECG violated professional integrity, honesty, objectivity and genuineness while serving in the company. The financial interest disclosure of any member serving as an executive in the company in Government Allies increases the integrity standards in the company’s leadership to all investors. Any person serving in the leadership roles is entitled to show uppermost level of transparency and trust. The shareholders have a lot of expectation in the leadership of the company and if that confidence is not maintained may lead to the migration of the investors. In this case there may be no confidence in the management of the ECG stock after the completion of the initial public offer (IP O) successfully and the acquisition if all executive members and their families does not disclose their financial interest. ... Several lawsuits may also be witnessed due to company employees acting in contrary to ethics that are significant to the organization’s productivity. Professional integrity brings implicit trust of the shareholders interest and more confidence in the management of the company. In the second scenario a team of members of ECG is formed to develop a proposal and give a presentation to X in order to win the contract in Information technology consultancy. One of the members who had worked with the two current executive at X Telco may influence the results of the bids review either negatively or positively depending on the past relationship when working with them. In this situation the composition of the team to participate in the review exercise may have violated the professional relationship code of conduct. This is because the past working relationships may increase the chances to harm the reviewing results or impair the team’s professional judgment. However, in some situa tions it may not be completely feasible to avoid nonprofessional or social contacts between the members in the two companies. Implicit trust is perceived as being an ethical practice in the management of dual relationship in the operations of the organizations. It is supposed to be communicated very clearly down the administrative line before taking the executive roles. The policy that relates to the company’s code of ethics finds its application in this regard (Hoffman &Dawn-Marie, 2002). The code of ethics in any organization should be clearly understood by all employees irrespective of their position in the work place. To enhance this understanding, the management of the ECG has the obligation of training and writing standardized ethical policies down and

What is the value of computerized medical records for patient care Essay

What is the value of computerized medical records for patient care - Essay Example In this regard, it is claimed that computerized medical health records reduce the costs as well as the time associated with maintaining paper records (Rozenbluma et al., 2013). In addition, it is claimed that computerized medical records streamline workflow process, promotes the quality of patients’ care as well as patients’ safety (GE Healthcare, 2011; Rosen, 2010). Caffrey & Park-Lee, (2013) propagated that computerized medical records provide a significant advantage in the overall â€Å"implementation and evaluation processes† of patient health, which is the major pitfall in the traditional system (Caffrey & Park-Lee, 2013). In addition, computerized medical records are advocated to ensure more reliable and complete medical records, which in turn increases the reliability of health care delivered to the patients. Besides, data that are stored in the form of computerized medical records can be retrieved quickly, which further supports the clinical decision maki ng. Precisely stating, the benefits associated with computerized medical records are argued to be substantial to patients, clinic practices, physicians and health care service providers in the current health care industry (Healthcare IT News, 2005; Wang et al., 2003). Rozenbluma, R., Donzà ©, J., Hockey, P. M., Guzdar, E., Labuzettaa, M. A., Zimlichmana, E., & Batesa, D. W. (2013). The impact of medical informatics on patient satisfaction: A USA-based literature review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 82(3), 141-158. Wang, S. J., Middleton, B., Prosser, L. A., Bardon, C. G., Spurr, C. D., Carchidi, P. J., Kittler, A. F., Goldszer, R. C., Fairchild, D. J., Sussman, A. J., Kuperman, G. J., & Bates, D. W. (2003). A cost-benefit analysis of electronic medical records in primary care. The American Journal of Medicine, 114,

Women With and Without Gestational Diabetes Dissertation

Women With and Without Gestational Diabetes - Dissertation Example From the discussion it is clear that  women with GDM can increase the unborn child’s risk of experiencing more complications after birth. Often times, these complications include: above the normal child’s birth weight, macrosomia resulting to shoulder dystocia, premature birth, and passing the high blood glucose to the fetus via placental pathways and increased risk of becoming obese.This essay highlights that  lack of exercise when combined with poor diet such as eating foods with high sugar content, foods rich in carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes, and rice or eating foods that contain calories more than what the mother and the fetus needs can lead to the development of GDM. Over the basal metabolic needs or calorie intake of the mother, mothers who are nurturing only one fetus should limit their added calorie intake to only 300 kcal. Pregnant women should take just enough energy requirement from foods. To avoid developing GDM, pregnant women should limit their intake of carbohydrates. Aside from maintaining weight, pregnant women should avoid ketoacidosis or starvation ketosis. Since the intake of foods and nutrients is one of the main factors that can trigger the development of GDM, this study will discussed the proposed research method on how the researcher will use of cases complete food diary for 7 days and the net wisp program to effectively compare the nutrient intakes of women with and without gestational diabetes.

With diagrams compare Essay Example for Free

With diagrams compare Essay This type of communication is between the sender and the receiver is known as connectionless (rather than dedicated) Contrasted with packet-switched is circuit-switched, a type of network such as the regular voice telephone network in which the communication circuit (path) for the call is set up and dedicated to the participants in that call. For the duration of the connection, all the resources on that circuit are unavailable for other users. Voice calls using the Internets packet-switched system are possible. Each end of the conversation is broken down into packets that are reassembled at the other end. The principles of packet switching are as follow. Messages are divided into data packets, which are then directed through the network to their destination under computer control. Besides a message portion, each packet contains data concerning. The principles of packet switching are as follow. Messages are divided into data packets, which are then directed through the network to their destination under computer control. Besides a message portion, each packet contains data concerning: Â  The destination of the address; Â  The source identification; The sequence of the packet in the complete message; Â  The detection and control of transmission errors. Â  Pre-determined routing. With this method, the routing details are included in the packet itself, each switching exchange forwarding the packet according to the embedded instructions; Â  Directory routing. Each switching exchange has a copy of a routing table to which it refers before forwarding each packet. The appropriate output queue is determined from the table and the packet destination Diagram shown below: Identify three types of cabling used in data communication. State which one you would recommend in an implement requiring high security consideration and why? The three types of cables used in data communication are: Optical Fiber Coaxial Coaxial cable is a copper that is used by TV companies between the community antenna, and also the user homes and businesses. At times these cable are also used by telephone companies from their central office to the telephones near users. This is also widely installed for use in business and corporation Ethernet and other types of local area network. Coaxial cable is called coaxial this is because this includes one physical channel that carries the signal surrounded (after a layer of insulation) by another concentric physical channel, both running along the same axis. The outer channel serves as a ground. Many of these cables or pairs of coaxial tubes can be placed in a single outer sheathing and, with repeaters, they can carry information for a great distance. This is a diagram shown below: UPT UPT stands for Unshielded twisted pair. This cable is the most common kind of copper telephone wiring. Twisted pair is the ordinary copper wire that connects home and many business computers to the telephone company. To reduce crosstalk or electromagnetic induction between pairs of wires, two insulated copper wires are twisted around each other. Each signal on twisted pair requires both wires. Since some telephone sets or desktop locations require multiple connections, twisted pair is sometimes installed in two or more pairs, all within a single cable. For some business locations, twisted pair is enclosed into a shield that functions as a ground. This is known as shielded twisted pair (STP). The twisted pair is now frequently installed with the two pairs to the home, with the extra pair making it possible for you to add another line (perhaps for use of a modem) when you will need it. These twisted pair comes with each pair uniquely colour coded when it is packaged in multiple pairs. Different uses such as analogue, digital, and Ethernet require different pair multiples. Although twisted pair is often associated with home use, with a higher grade of twisted pair is often used for horizontal wiring in LAN installations because it is less expensive than coaxial cable. The wire that you buy at a local hardware store for extensions from your phone or computer modem to a wall jack is not twisted pair. It is a side-by-side wire known as silver satin. The wall jack can have as many five kinds of hole arrangements or pin outs, depending on what kinds of wire the installation you expects that will be plugged in (for example, digital, analogue, or LAN) . (Thats why you may sometimes find when you carry your notebook computer to another location that the wall jack connections wont match your plug. ) This is a diagram shown below: Optical Fiber. Optical fiber (or fiber optic) refers to the medium and the technology associated with the transmission of information as light pulses along a glass or plastic wire or fiber. Optical fiber carries much more information than the conventional copper wire and is in general not subject to electromagnetic interference and the need to retransmit signals. Most telephone company long-distance lines are now of optical fiber. Transmission on optical fiber wire requires repeaters at distance intervals. The glass fiber requires more protection within an outer cable than copper. For these reasons and because the installation of any of the new wiring is labour-intensive, few communities yet have optical fiber wires or cables from the phone companys branch office to local customers (known as local loops). A type of fiber known as single mode fiber is used for longer distances; multimode fiber is used for shorter distances. This is the diagram shown below: By analyzing and researching the three above cable I would recommend the Fiber Optic cable this is because I believe it has a high security and also has the following. Fiber optic cables have a much greater bandwidth than metal cables. This means that they can carry more data. Â  Fiber optic cables are less susceptible than metal cables to interference. Fiber optic cables are much thinner and lighter than metal wires. Data can be transmitted digitally (the natural form for computer data) rather than analogically. Identify the alternative forms of communication media and provide examples of their use in different forms of network. Microwave Microwave frequencies require a direct line of sight between sending and receiving station to operate. Microwave systems were the preferred method of communications transmission before the introduction of fiber optic. Radio The lowest-frequency domain that needed to name. This extends from wavelengths of a kilometre or so, the longest that will propagate through the interstellar medium, down to about a millimetre. The detection of radio radiation is often done using wave techniques rather than photon-counting, this is because of the low photon energies, and this offers distinct advantages for such applications as interferometer which astronomers working in the infrared and optical regimes view with some envy. From active nuclei, we often detect the synchrotron radiation in this range radiation produced energetic charged particles (mostly electrons) produce when they are deflected by the magnetic fields. a) Define the basic signal theory with the aid of diagrams? 1) In electronics, a signal is an electric current or electromagnetic field that is used to convey data from one place to another. The simplest form of signal is a direct current (DC) that is switched on and off; this is the principle by which the early telegraph worked. More complex signals consist of an alternating-current (AC) or electromagnetic carrier that contains one or more data streams. Data is superimposed on a carrier current or a wave this is by means of a process called a modulation. Signal modulation can be done by two main ways: analogue and digital. In recent years, digital modulation has been getting more common, while analogue modulation methods have been used less and less. There are still plenty of analogue signals around, however, and they will probably never become totally extinct. Except for DC signals such as telegraph and base band, all signal carriers have a definable frequency or frequencies. Signals also have a property called wavelength, which is inversely proportional to the frequency. 2) In some information technology contexts, a signal are simply that which is sent or received, thus including both the carrier and the data together. 3) In telephony, a signal has a special data that is used to set up or control communication. Almost everything in the world can be described or represented in one of two forms: analogue or digital. The principal feature of analogue representations is that they are continuous. In contrast, digital representations consist of values measured at discrete intervals. Digital watches are called digital because they go from one value to the next without displaying all intermediate values. Consequently, they can display only a finite number of times of the day. In contrast, watches with hands are analogue, this is mainly because the hands move continuously around the clock face. As the minute hand goes around, it not only touches the numbers 1 through 12, but also the infinite number of points in between. Early attempts at building computers used analogue techniques, but the accuracy and reliability were not good enough. Today, almost all computers are digital. Analogue and Digital Technology Analogue and Digital are the words we hear when people talk about Communication and Information Technology. What do the words Analogue and Digital mean? Analogy means a likeness between two things that are really quite different. For example the analogy between the brain and the computer or the heart and a pump. Digit means either a finger or toe, or one of the numbers 1 to 9. Some examples might help to explain what analogue and digital mean in technology. A simple example of analogue and digital technology Clocks are examples of analogue and digital technology. An analogue clock face can display the time without numbers. The hands keep moving all the time and they continue to rotate, just like the earth around the sun. This is the analogy between the movement of the sun and earth, and the hands of the clock. The digital clock displays the time in numbers, and the time displayed only changes at each minute. In the analogue clock the hands keep moving all the time, while the digital clock is more like an on and off movement. Each minutes the time moves and then stops for another 60 seconds, when it changes again. Some other examples of displaying information using analogue and digital forms. b) How the signal theory affects the choice of transmission methods and media? Analogue and Digital Signals Sound can be converted into analogue and digital electrical signals. Analogue Signal A microphone or handset of a telephone will convert sound into an analogue signal. The shape of the wave seen on an oscilloscope represents the volume and pitch. The diagram is shown below: This is called an analogue signal because, when the volume and pitch change, so does the shape of the wave. The signal is an analogue of the sound. Digital signal Today we see many sound systems described as digital. This means the sound is converted into digital signals so it can be transmitted or recorded. In the microphone example shown on the diagram above, the analogue signal is converted into a digital signal by electronic circuits. In a digital signal the electricity, this can be either on or off, is combined with a binary code. The voltage of the analogue signal is measured electronically, many thousands of times per second, by an analogue-digital converter. The analogue signal is converted into a 16 bit binary number, which gives 65,536 levels of voltage. In electronics 1 = ON and 0 = OFF. This means the binary number can be converted into an electrical signal. A diagram below shows the process of converting analogue signals into a binary numbers and digital signals. To keep the explanation simple the analogue signal has been converted into a 3 bit binary number, which means there are seven voltage levels. A digital-analogue converter reverses the conversion this is because the speakers (output device) need an analogue signal. Light and sound can be converted into binary numbers and digital signals that are used to record and transmit information. This diagram is shown below: Why are digital systems better than the analogue ones? An analogue signal is affected by changes in the voltage as it travels along a wire. If the voltage changes, so does the signal at the output. The digital signal is not affected by changes in the voltage this is because all that matters is whether it is ON or OFF. How signal affects transmission methods? Noise is any sound on the CD or record that wasnt there at the performance during the recording session. More generally, it is any unwanted signal that adds on to the information that is being transmitted. When a vinyl record is being made, noise is introduced at every step of the recording process, although of course the company makes an every effort to reduce such noise to as low a level as possible. The sound that reaches the microphones is converted into an electrical signal that is then recorded on a wide magnetic tape moving at high speed. This tape is then used to control the cutting of a master disc, from which moulds are then made. These in turn are used to mass-produce the records that are eventually sold in shops. Noise is produced at every step, not forgetting that introduced by your own stereo equipment. It can never be entirely eliminated. The same problems of noise are shared by any method of transmitting information, and are certainly by telecommunications, including telephone calls. In the production of vinyl records, the companies have used purely analogue this means to transfer the information representing the sound of the music from one point to another. That means they use an electrical signal that changes smoothly in strength, exactly modelling the smooth but complex changes in the sound. When a noise is created in the recording process because of tape hiss, dust on the master disc, electrical interference or any other cause this is added on as a random signal on top of the complex electrical signal representing the sound. There is no way that electronic equipment can tell such random noise from the original electrical signal, so there is no way it can be removed again without removing some of the original signal. We can see more clearly if we draw a graph of the level of the analogue audio signal over a period of time (diagram 1a). The shape of this graph represents both the changes in the electrical sound and the changes in the electrical signal that model it. Now if we add to this audio signal some random noise, this affects the shape of the signal, and this degrades the sound that your stereo reproduces (diagram 1b). The trouble with an analogue audio signal is that its exact shape has to be preserved if you are to hear the music exactly as it was when it was played. If there were a means of transmitting the signal so that only the overall shape of the signal mattered, then noise would not be so important. The port authorities used to find the shape of the bottom of the harbour, so that ships could navigate more safely. It certainly wasnt possible to drain the harbour and take a photograph of it, so what they did instead was send out a boat which travelled slowly across the harbour. Every few meters a person at the back of the boat dropped down a plumb-line (a weight at the end of a rope), until it reached the bottom of the harbour. The line had knots tied in it at regular spaces and the person called out the number of knots under water, so indicating the depth of the harbour at that point. A clerk wrote these down, and eventually it was possible for him to draw a graph of the shape of the harbour by using these numbers. The person in the boat had been taking samples of the depth of the harbour at frequent intervals, so that the graph would accurately describe the ups and downs of the harbour bottom.

Health Promotion: Post Natal Depression

Health Promotion: Post Natal Depression The issues of health and health promotion initiatives have gained much significance in the recent past. Stephens (2008:5) comments that from a social perspective health are understood as much more than a matter for individual experience and responsibility; health behaviour is seen in terms of relationship with others and health is structured by society. World HealthOrganisation(WHO) constitution of 1948, defines health as a state of complete, physical, social and mental well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. It also adds that health has been considered less as an abstract state and more as a means to an end which can be expressed in functional terms as a resource which permits people to lead an individually, socially and economically productive life, with respect to health promotion. (WHO, Geneva, 1986). WHO recognizes the spiritual dimension of health and regards health as a fundamental human right and states that the basic resources for health should be acc essible for all people. According to WHO, health promotion represents a comprehensive social and political process, which not only embraces actions aimed at strengthening the skills and capabilities of individuals, but also acts toward changing social, environmental and economic conditions so as to alleviate their impact on public and individual health. Its also the process of enabling people to increase control over the determinants of health and thereby improve their health (WHO official website) The concept of social determinants of health needs to be considered while discussing health and health promotion initiatives. According to a study conducted by Bambra et.al(2008), the wider social determinants of health were listed out as water and sanitation, agriculture and food, health and social care services, unemployment and welfare, working conditions, housing and community, education and transport. The term health promotion has variously been used to refer to a social movement, an ideology, a discipline, a strategy, a profession, and a strategy or field of practice delineated by commitment to key values(Keith and Tones, 2010).According to ODonnell (2009), health promotion is the art and science of discovering the synergies between their core passions and optimal health enhancing their motivation to strive for optimal health and supporting them in changing their life style to move toward a state of optimal health, which is a dynamic balance of emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual health. Tones and Tilford (2009) is of the opinion that health promotion as a quasi-political movement and professional activity can be described as militant wing of public health. At a general level health promotion has come to represent a unifying concept for those who recognize the need for change in the ways and conditions of living to promote health (Fleming and Parker, 2006). Post natal depression Postnatal depression is one of the most discussed topics in health today. This assignment discusses postnatal depression in detail, considering the significance it has and the risks associated with Postnatal depression, among the women in the United Kingdom. There has been a growing international recognition of postnatal depression as a major public health concern (Oates et.al, 2004). The government policy (Department of Health, 2004) recognises that the mental disorders during pregnancy and the post natal period can have serious consequences for individual women, their partners, babies and other children. Perinatal psychiatric disorder is one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the UK (Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths, 2001).NICE (2007) observes that the mental disorders which occur during pregnancy and the postnatal period can seriously affect the health and wellbeing of a mother and her baby, as well as for her p artner and other family members. This condition is a form of maternal morbidity that affects about one in eight women from diverse cultures and is a leading cause of maternal mortality(Dennis, 2009).Dennis(2009) also comments that postnatal depression can also have serious consequences for the health and well being of the family as the infants and children are particularly vulnerable to it impaired maternal-infant interactions can have an impact on the cognitive, social ,emotional and behavioural development of the children. According to the latest reports it is estimated that approximately 75000 women within the United Kingdom are affected by postnatal depression (Hanley and Hanley, 2009).Craig (2008) comments that postnatal depression has been various defined as non-psychotic depression occurring during the first six months, the first four weeks and the first three months post partum; but recently three months postpartum was suggested in the United Kingdom. There have been many views by various authors about postnatal depression. Wheatley (2006) comments that postnatal depression affects between 10 and 20 percent of women who have had babies, and it causes distress at a time when there is every reason for happiness. Wheatley (2006) adds that the symptoms vary from person to person as for some symptoms can be mild and for other women, it can lead to serious consequences including bouts of depression. However, the case of postnatal depression which is serious enough to warrant treatment percentage is bet ween 7% and 35%. Dalton and Holton (2001) defines that postnatal depression is one of the symptoms of a serious mental condition known as postnatal illness. They opine that postnatal illness covers a range of afflictions which range from sadness to infanticide which start after child birth. The disorders associated with postnatal illness are blues, postnatal depression, puerperal psychosis and infanticide or homicide. Dalton and Holton (2001, p.3) defines postnatal depression as the first occurrence of psychiatric symptoms severe enough to require medical help occurring after childbirth and before the return of menstruation. They add that it does not include the blues, and excludes the condition of those who have previously sought psychiatric help because of other psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, manic depression, depression or drug abuse. Feeney (2001) is of the view that although the symptom of postnatal depression is dysphoric (depressed) mood, this state is also acco mpanied by other symptoms like extreme fatigue, strong feelings of guilt, disturbance of sleep and loss of appetite. Hanzak (2005) attributes the occurrence of postnatal depression to three factors; biological, psychological and social causes. She lists out some of the possible reasons for postnatal depression as history of disturbed early life, loss of own mother, current marital or family conflicts, infertility and investigations for four or more years , loss of a previous pregnancy, adoption or fostering, high medical anxieties over the pregnancy, admission to hospital for longer than one week over the last three months of pregnancy ,major upheavals or stress over the last three months, emergency Caesarean section, neonatal illnesses, hormonal changes and personal or family history of depression Walsh (2009) comments that the occurrence of postnatal depression is linked with birth experience. Parker (2009) had earlier opined that if the birth was traumatic, there are high chances for postnatal depression. Epidemiological factors of poverty, social class and low income influence the chances of postnatal depression (Gale and Harlow, 2003). Walsh (2009) puts forward a view that postnatal depression can affect fathers and children and hence its important to maintain communication and interaction between family members. Cox and Holden (2001) are of the opinion that the consequences of maternal depression are costly not only on a personal level, but also in terms of money and personnel level as well. They put forward an interesting point that when there is contact between professionals and mothers is high detection of postnatal depression is very low and that the failure to diagnose depression may be attributed to short appointments, a physical orientation of care and an emphasis on the babys rather than the mothers well being. Most cases of postnatal depression can be dealt with at primary care level with monitoring by the family doctor and interventions by primary care staff (Cox and Holden, 2001). Health promotion models and approaches Dahlgren and Whitehead (1991) had proposed that the factors which influence health are multidimensional and suggests a model which illustrates the wider determinants of health. The main factors according to them are general socioeconomic, cultural and environmental conditions, living and working conditions, social and community influences, individual lifestyle factors, age, sex and hereditary factors. The model depicts individuals as central characters, who are influenced by various other determinants, which play a major role in influencing their health factors. Source: Dahlgren and Whitehead (1991) Another model which is widely discussed with relation to health promotion is the stages of change model. Bunton et.al(2000) proposes that the transtheoretical or stages of change model has greatly influenced health promotion practices in the United States of America, Australia and the United Kingdom since the late 1980s.The stages of change model was focused on encouraging change for people with addictive behaviour. People go through several stages when trying to change behaviour (Naidoo and Wills, 2000). Fertman (2010) asserts that behaviour change occurs in stages and that a person moving through these stages in a very specific sequence constitutes the change. According to this model, there are five stages of change, which are listed as pre contemplation, contemplation, preparing for change, making the change and maintenance. The health belief important model is a well known theoretical model, which emphasises the role of beliefs in decision making. This model which was proposed by Rosenstock(1966) and modified by Brecker(1974) proposes that whether or not people change their behaviour will be influenced by an evaluation of its feasibilities and the comparisons of its benefits weighted against the costs. Evans et.al (2005) comments that the major three health promotion approaches are the behaviour change approach, the self-empowerment approach and the collective action or community development approach. They add that these approaches have different goals and adopt different ways to achieve their goals and propose different criteria for their evaluation, though they have a common aim to promote good health and to prevent the effects of ill health. Each of these approaches has a unique understanding of the origins of health and health behaviour and subsequently of their objectives in health promotion and these three approaches are mutually complimentary. (Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, 2004). NICE (2007) defines behaviour change as the product of individual or collective human actions, seen within and influenced by their structural, social and economic context. Resnicow and Waughan (2006) comment that the study of health behaviour change has historically been rooted in a cognitive-rational paradigm. The models such as social cognitive theory, the health belief model, the transtheoretical model have viewed behavioral change as an interaction of factors such as knowledge, attitude, belief etc (Rimer and Lewis, 2002; Baranowski et.al, 2003).It has been suggested by the evidences that behavior change occurs in stages or steps and that movement through these stages is cyclical involving a pattern of adoption, maintenance, relapse and readoption over time. It has been suggested by the evidences that behavior change occurs in stages or steps and that movement through these stages is cyclical involving a pattern of adoption, maintenance, relapse and re adoption over time(Di paitro and Hughes, 2003).. According to NICE (2007) the attempts to promote or support behaviour change take a number of forms, which are activities which can be delivered at a number of levels, ranging from local, one to one interactions with individuals to national campaigns. NICE(2007) divides interventions into four main categories as policy-such as legislation ,education or communication-such as one to one advice, group teaching or media campaigns, technologies-such as the use of seat belts, breathalyses , resources-such as leisure centre entry, free condoms or free nicotine replacement therapy. According to the Victorian Health foundation (2004) the behavioural approach focuses on implementing interventions to change or remove behavioural health risk factors. Interventions from this perspective are targeted at a particular behavioural risk factor associated with a particular negative health outcome, and they target a population performing the behavioural risk factor and endeavour to promote health through various strategies. However, Craig et.al (2008) adds that behaviour change interventions are generally complex to design, deliver and evaluate.Michie (2008) states that more investment in developing the scientific methods for behavioural change studies is essential. Behavioural science is relevant to all phases of the process of implementing evidence-based health care; development of evidence through the primary studies, synthesizing the findings in systematic reviews, translation of evidence into guidelines and practice recommendations and implementing these recommendatio ns in practice(Michie,2008). Dunn et.al (2006) proposes that Item Response modeling (IRM) can be used to improve the psychometric methods in health education and health behaviour research and practice. They add that IRM is already being adopted to improve and revise quality of life questionnaires. However Masse et.al (2006) comments that a number of issues seem to stunt the application of IRM methods, as they list out the following issues (i) Lack of IRM applications in the context of health education and health behavior research; (ii) lack of awareness as to what IRM can do beyond assessing the psychometric properties of a scale; (iii) lack of trained psychometricians trained in our field. It is to be noted that the behaviour change approach came under criticism from various quarters. The major criticisms pointed out by Marks et.al(2005) were the inabilities to target the major socio-economic causes of ill health, possible incompatibilities of the top-down recommendations with community norms, values and practices, the assumption of a direct link between knowledge attitudes and behaviour and the assumption of homogeneity among the receivers of health promotion messages. Post natal depression-Current significance and ethical considerations Post natal depression is a matter of serious concern in the current age, as many women are being affected by it. Almond (2010) comment that post natal depression can be deemed a public health problem as the effects of it are known to go beyond the mother and it also affects the partner and the child. He adds that it can lead to infanticide as well as maternal death by suicide and according to evidences, all countries are faced with the challenge of postnatal depression, and the most affected countries are the low and middle income countries. The NICE guidelines for the clinical management of antenatal and postnatal mental health (2007) have observed the risks associated with postnatal depression. Ramchandani (2005) concurs to it and observes that the postnatal depression in fathers can have long-term consequences for the development of their child, on behavioural and emotional aspects. A study entitled The children of the 90s by Bristol University in 2008, had found that post natal d epression in fathers can have long lasting psychological effects on their children. A notable observation in this study was that the boys born to depressed fathers are twice as likely as other boys to have chances of developing behavioural problems by the age of three and a half. It is essential to look into the long term consequences posed by the problem. Ramchandani (2008) points out that the conduct problems at the age of three to four years are strongly predictive of serious conduct problems in the future, increased criminality and significantly increased societal costs. The quotes by Ramchandani points out the threats posed by the depression among the fathers of new born babies. The impact of postnatal depression can be highly detrimental to a society, as proved by the recent unfortunate happening of a depressed teacher killing her baby in Exeter, as a result of the depression. Policy drivers There have been lots of developments over the last few years in policy on the mental health and womens services (NICE, 2007). NSF for Child Health and Maternity was published in 2004 and is a 10 year programme that is aimed at the long term and sustained improvement in childrens health. Setting standards for health and social services for children, young people and pregnant women, the NSF aims to ensure fair, high quality and integrated health and social care from pregnancy to adulthood (NHS, 2007). NICE(2007) lists out the four main strands of policy relevant to antenatal and postnatal mental health as National service frameworks(NSFs), (particularly the mental health NSF,NSF for children young people and maternity services),policy to ensure equal access to responsive mental health services( especially services that meet needs of women, people from minority ethnic groups), public health policy and policy on commissioning and delivering health care and social care services in the com munity and the policy concerned with strategies for improving mental health services. The screening for postnatal depression is highly talked about in the field of psychology and medicine today. Currie and Radematcher (2004) argues that pediatric providers are aware of the prevalence of postnatal depression and its effect on new born babies. However, there have been arguments for and against screening for postnatal depression and hence the practitioners should consider them carefully (Coyne et.al, 2000). The view proposed by Chauldron et.al (2007) is that from the legal and ethical standpoints and the perspective of feasibility, the benefits of screening outweigh the risks. However, they add that, the implementation must be seen as an iterative process, and implementing the screening for post natal depression in a systematic and comprehensive approach is critical to the ultimate well-being of children and families.Basten (2009) proposes that more studies in the field of psychotherapeutic research and psychological areas are required. This is in conformance with the ob servation by De Tychey ,Briancon et.al, 2008) that the diagnostic techniques need to be improved for both caregivers and sufferers through education and the communication should be promoted, focusing on the fostering of parenting skills as a preventive measure against Post Natal Depression.(de Tychey, Brianà §on et al. 2008). One of the recent studies by Norman et.al (2010) has found out that exercise can help women in combating postnatal depression and that the specialised routines could help new mothers decrease the chances of depression by upto 50 percent. Partnership working Partnership working is a very important term in the current health and social care system in the United Kingdom. Partnership working can be defined as a system where two or more disciples work collaboratively to deliver optimal care to an individual (NHS, 2007). In the context of post natal depression partnership working refers to working in partnership with the team involved in the mother and the newborn baby, which includes pediatricians and obstetricians(Byrom et.al,2009) .Douglas(2008) points out that partnership working is recognised as the most effective way of improving social care services. Department of Health (2006) had stressed that the action to improve health and care services will be underpinned through working in partnerships between individuals, communities, business, voluntary organizations, public services and government.Butt(2008) argues that partnerships have international appeal as a means to integrate health and social services in response to the realisation tha t both sectors serve populations whose complex needs cannot be met adequately through segmented approaches. Partnership working with women having mental health problems can be a challenging task (Department of health, 2008). According to NICE (2007) the impact of partnership working is a function of a number of features of joint working and it is possible to categorise partnerships along a number of descriptive variables such as membership, structures, leadership, agendas and organisational cultures. Previous studies have shown that the working of people involved in the care of women with post natal depression, a trusting partnership can be developed between carers, patients and professionals, which will be beneficial to all. Feeney et.al (2001) had proposed that working in partnerships with families is an essential component of effective programming in the early developmental stages of children. Hence partnership working holds a very important role in the post natal period as, it would be able to relieve the emotional stress which many women go through. It was observed by NICE (2007) that developing trust and accommodating relationships within facilitating partnerships is imperative to the attainment of partnership goals, and issues of process are highly important building blocks to success.Sorin (2002) comments that there are many reasons to establish partnerships and asserts that the family is the most significant influence on the mothers post natal health as well as the childs development and well being. Sorin( 2002) adds that partnerships that develop to address fear and other emotions can work towards understanding appropriate expression of these emotions, which include learning words to describe the emotion using forms like music ,talking to others . A report on safety in maternity services published by Kings fund (2008) emphasises the significance of team work and collaboration in ensuring the safety of mothers and babies and points out that effective team work can increase safety, whereas poor teamwork can be detrimental to the safety. The report proposes several solutions to resolve the difficulties in team work. The main suggestions include ensuring clarity about the objectives of the team and roles and that there is effective leadership among the group and clarity in procedures for communication is present (Byrom et.al, 2009). It is important to look into the barriers which affect the concept of partnership working. Lester et.al(2008) comments that there are barriers to closer working in partnerships, which include cultural differences, the time factor which is required to create and maintain relationships and recognition of the advantages of remaining a small and autonomous organisation. Conclusion This essay has critically analysed the effect of the behavioural change approach intervention of postnatal depression to address the needs of women who are more at risk in the United Kingdom. Various factors which lead to postnatal depression have been explained in the essay. It can be concluded that postnatal depression is to be seriously taken care of, and that the impact of postnatal depression can have serious consequences for society. The various health promotion models have portrayed the linkages between beliefs and behavioral changes. The essay has pointed out the importance of partnership working in improving the conditions of mothers and newborn babies. Effective working in partnerships can go a long way in alleviating the concerns of the mothers and improving the mental health of the new born babies, as they play a very important role in framing the future characteristics of the new born babies. A recent study by the University of Leicester has found out that women are less likely to become depressed in the year after childbirth if they have an NHS health visitor who has undergone additional mental health training. These findings point out the fact that postnatal depression can be effectively tackled with external help. The studies about postnatal depression and the concept of partnership working have been very effective in improving the health care system in the United Kingdom and hence serve as an interesting topic for future researches in the field.

Development Using XNA Game Studio

Development Using XNA Game Studio Chapter 1: Preface Over the past few years where two dimensional and three dimensional graphic has been utilized consecutively for developing computer games and console games. Two dimensional graphic games have been very popular since the beginning of 1940s and thats where it all started at the first place. It started with 2D games at first which is developed for the use of arcade mainframes and console machines, followed by the development of computer games for mainframe computers. Through the innovation development of dimensional graphic games, 3 dimensional games were to emerge as the most popular game genre which started in the late 80s. But despise all the development of 3D games in the games software industries, 2D games are still being developed in the new market. This is because 2D games are still being preferred by many people in the world, and due to this point, games software vendors are still taking account of 2D games development. In the past few years, starting from the year 2000, 2D games starts to become widely know and played by many users with the development of mobile games and internet web based games. There have been rapid development of 2D technology to create new application games for the growing internet network, more and more website incorporate web based 2D mini games, online games and puzzle games. Its been proven that 2D games are getting more and more popular compared to the years before year 2000, and with more websites trying to incorporate 2D games towards their web as the 3rd party application. Such website is like the ever popular facebook.com incorporating hundreds and even thousands of 2D games as the 3rd party game application to attract more and more people towards joining the social web network. Few years back, Microsoft introduced the XNA Game Studio software distributed across the internet to enable software programmers to develop new games for windows platform and also the new XBOX 360. The XNA game studio is licensed software, but with the MSDN help, the author as a student get to have the chance to obtain a tryout of this Microsoft XNA game studio. According to Microsoft, XNA game studio will need to be incorporated with Microsoft Visual Studio to enable references to be added in the system coding. If we were to look back few years before, developing a game even for a two dimensional game would took probably months and even years, a simple personal computer would not even be sufficient to run the system codes, execute the game, and debug the system. And even with the availability of the development tools, it would surely require serious experts to come out with a game system coding, due to the complicated level of programming language available during the urban times. In other words there are almost none development tools available to reach in the hands of the student, or internet users to develop their own games by themselves. And by looking at the games development now, and comparing them, it is a breakthrough for the games development. As I foresees the development potential for two dimensional games, I am sure that two dimensional game will have plenty of development potential in the future, as its been proven development of two dimensional games did not stop although three dimensional games been around for quite a long time, it didnt manage to replace the two dimensional games market its technology. There are quite a few reasons why two dimensional games are still around developing, which mainly are because of its cheap development cost, simple development process, easy for users to understand and well played. Its one of the reasons why Microsoft, the top player in IT industry is still in for two dimensional games development and searching for the breakthrough for it by creating development tools to support the development of two dimensional games. Chapter 2: Development Tools Introduction This chapter was designed to elaborate the use of each development tools which is related towards developing the XNA BubbleBall Attack 2D game. In order to produce this game system a set of software development tools need to be installed on the developers machine to enable full support to the game system. All identified developing tools which is related in the development process includes DirectX SDK (DirectX Software Development Kit) a set of application programming interfaces designed to handle tasks. It is a development tool containing all DirectX software required to build and produce cutting-edge, rich media interactive applications. Microsoft .NET Framework is required for its library reference of coding solutions to common problems and local machine to manage execution of code written programs specifically for the Microsoft framework. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is the development tool used to write for the game system coding. This application is used to build up the game system code, code debugging process, system appearance design, execution of game system, it is mainly the key development tool used in this project. Microsoft XNA Game Studio is utilized by me the system programmer to design the animation, sound, and the entire multimedia enhancement required for the game system. This tool is required to be included in this process to enable the coding languages to add references in its library files and to execute the library files in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Without this tool, the coding language will never be executed because failure in retrieving the coding files from the library files. Adobe Photoshop C3 is used by the developer to create image file as the two dimensional graphic to be presented in the system. All animation that present in the system is created by this tool and included in the system as the two dimensional graphic. DirectX SDK DirectX SDK is developed by Microsoft with the objective of allowing the creation of application for a certain software package, software framework, hardware plat form, computer system, video game console, operating system or any other similar platform which supports DirectX. DirectX SDK comes in a set of development tools which contains of all the DirectX software needed for a game developer to create DirectX based application using the Visual Basic.Net, C or C++, and C+ coding language which was developed by Microsoft. The reason why DirectX SDK is so powerful was mainly because it was made up from many different system tools which some of the main components includes: DirectX headers and libraries DirectX system runtime components DirectX Application Programming Interfaces Documentations Additional application and source code developed using DirectX compliant Various powerful tools and utilities integrated to the DirectX SDK This development tool allows me to take a complete advantage of DirectX technologies for creating excellent games and graphic applications. DirectX SDK allows developers to utilize its latest technology in hardware innovation for developing powerful games. DirectX SDK will receive update in its version releases to keep up with the latest technology enhanced within the DirectX software this is necessary to boost the codes, tools, library files and the documentation for every Microsoft Platform SDK. Microsoft DirectX SDK comes with an important feature which is the D3DX library acts like a toolkit which provides developers with high level functionality to help create DirectX applications. This feature helps to optimize low level routines so as to obtain the best performance out of Microsoft platform. Incorporated with basic features such as math calculation and texture loading routines, updated technology in art manipulating content including tangent frame generation, mesh optimization and Precomputed Radiance Transfer. DirectX SDK come with many other features such as D3DX effects framework, High Level Shading Languages, Shader Debugger, PIX for Window Platform. These technologies will help developer in all way developing their game system accordingly. DirectX SDK will be able to integrate with Microsoft Visual Studio .Net to enable developers to code their system using it. Pipelining feature will be enabled with the integration of DirectX SDK towards Microsoft Visual Studio .Net, these enable developers to code for pipelining structure for their game application. Certain samples will be included within DirectX SDK to help developers to understand the technologies used in DirectX. In other words DirectX SDK will help developers by providing technical solution, best suitable graphic rendering outcome, graphic localization, code implementation, library files, better and simple developing experience, and also how to render and produce most from interactive audio. Microsoft DirectX SDK comes with all the features and tools needed for the graphic rendering, audio rendering, and visualization for game developers to make use of in order to create powerful DirectX based applications either for a simple game or a complicated game development. Microsoft .NET Framework Microsoft .Net Framework is a platform or so what people called a development environment to seamlessly create applications that accessible through developers computer from all across the world. It is an application adopted to comply with open standards such as eXtensible Markup Languages, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and Simple Object Access Protocol in order to interact with applications that are available in other platform. .Net Framework is platform independent and language independent system which allows the developer to use different programming languages such as VB.Net, C#, Jscript, VBscript, C and C++ to run applications on different platform such as Unix, Mac, Linux, and Window. .Net Framework enables developer to use various libraries to help in developing and application faster, easier and cheaper. As for now, .Net Framework is identified to be able to support over 20 different programming languages. There is a reason for why .Net Framework is built to support multiple different types of programming languages is explained by the concept of Common Language Runtime engine. CLR engine compiles the code into Microsoft Intermediate Language. The MSIL is a set of instructions used to translate the codes into native codes making .Net Framework capable of language and platform independent. CLR is also responsible for run time services such as language integration, security enforcement, memory process and thread management. In addition, .Net Framework provides wide infrastructure to create web applications and non web applications. As for the time being, Microsoft has claimed .Net Framework comes in two different categories which is CLR and .Net Framework class library. Common Language Runtime is responsible to provide common runtime services to all .Net based applications. As for more CLR reduces the developers time to code for an application by utilizing its feature like life cycle management, strong type naming, cross language exception handling, and dynamic binding designed to turn application development software into reusable components. As for .Net Framework class library, it appears that this system consists of predefined sets of functionality that developer can freely utilize to enhance their application. The class library consists of three major components which are: ASP.NET Windows Form ADO.NET Well for this game application project, I will be using CLR and also .Net Framework class library as VB.NET and Window Form will be use for my game application as the two key component. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 was released in 19 November 2007 replacing the older version of Visual Studio with the newer enhanced version of Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2008 is focused based on the development for Window Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 system and web applications. Visual Studio 2008 requires .NET Framework 3.5 to run properly and to process compiles assemblies. Visual Studio 2008 will possess the ability to chooses and utilize different .NET framework version depending to the developers choice. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 delivers on Microsofts vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create new applications without ignoring the quality of the application with accounted rich user experiences. Visual Studio 2008 comes with the ability for the developer to capture and analyze information to help make effective decisions. Packed with the ability for developer to rapidly create secured, manageable, and reliable applications is the strongest advantage of using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Visual Studio 2008 promised to be able to deliver key advances for developers in three primary pillars which are: Rapid Application Development Effective team collaboration Breakthrough user experiences Visual Studio 2008 has received a many users feedback and most of them are identified to be positive. Based on the three pillars, users feedbacks are mostly related to those of the three with different technology area. They are categorized into seven technology areas Focused on Smart Client Application Development Microsoft Office Applications Integrated Window Platform Applications Integrated Enhanced Productivity in Data Handling Enabling New Web Experiences Improved Overall Developer Experience Enhanced Application Lifecycle Management It is the most effective smart client development to begin with good application design. Able to integrate UI designers into development process by supporting most of the popular languages such as VB.NET, C++, C#, Jscript, and many of others. The first reason that I find to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 in my system development are mainly because it has a very good system development tools which is capable of rapid application development and the easy to understand .NET code languages, which is the language I preferred the most among all other programming language. Microsoft XNA Game Studio Microsoft XNA Game Studio is a set of game development tools designed based on supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio tools that allows developers to build up games supported by Window platform, Microsoft XBOX 360 game console, and Microsoft Zune. XNA Game Studio will require both Microsoft DirectX SDK and Microsoft .Net Framework to run correctly when integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. This tool comes including the XNA Framework which acts as same as Microsoft .Net Framework. The XNA Framework will integrate XNA library files onto Visual Studio 2008 to enable XNA graphic and audio coding to get executed. XNA Game Studio is seamlessly integrated with supported version of Microsoft Visual Studio tools, this integration will enable developers to use new coding structure to develop two and three dimensional games easily due to new library files added to the Visual Studio base library, developers will have a new experience in learning new codes which only works with the XNA Game Studio integration. XNA Game Studio provides three main features which are: Game component models New framework library designed to support Microsoft Windows, XBOX 360, and Zune game development Integration with XNA Framework Content Pipeline. Microsoft XNA Game Studio has become popular since it has been launched years ago, the reason why more and more people are utilizing it is because if new technology in game development breakthrough, the rapid application development, and the game quality produced. Adobe Photoshop C3 Adobe Photoshop is simply an advanced graphic editing program designed and published by Adobe Systems. Adobe Photoshop managed to rise up as the graphic development software after years of competing in the market. Now, Adobe Photoshop is considered to be the top in its market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software. Furthermore, Adobe Photoshop is known to be the flagship product in its company and the main development focus of the company. Adobe Photoshop is developed to be a software targeting the graphic professional industry, its name has been around the graphic development tool industry for years. For so it gained the fame and popularity through time. Adobe Photoshop is consider to be the best, rated as a killer application for both MAC and Window OS. Adobe Photoshop were born out from its first generation program named ImagePro in 1987. Developed by the Knoll Brothers, Thomas Knoll and John Knoll. The first published Photoshop program managed to sold at 200 copies which is considered a good outcome. And soon, in the following year, after the Adobe is established, the Knoll brothers purchases Adobe Photoshop distribution license to begin distributing Adobe Photoshop worldwide. The reason Adobe Photoshop is used in the project development were mainly to develop image files which serves the purpose as two dimensional graphic rendered to the system. Image files are designed and edited in the Photoshop so that it could be added later to the system as the active two dimensional graphic. Chapter 3: Research on the technology related to 2D games and game systems programming Two Dimensional Graphic Two Dimensional games know as 2D computer graphic games are a computer based graphic images. These images are made up from 2D digital images, 2D texts, and 2D geometric models. Images can vary from image compositions, pixel arts, digital arts, photographs, and texts. 2D graphics are frequently used most in the graphic industry because of its conveniences and simple rendering. Nowadays almost all of the websites incorporates 2D graphic content into its webpage, those graphic content may vary from a tiny graphic image file to a fully functional 2D games. Therefore 2D graphic plays an important part in the information technology field. Two dimensional graphic have certain advantages which makes it to be superior when compared with three dimensional graphic. The three main differences which makes 2D graphic to be superior are: Able to render faster than 3D graphic This point makes developers to choose 2D graphic for low bandwidth consumption. And also why means rendering it also means that 2D graphic is produced faster when compared with 3D development. Thus 2D graphic can be developed with rapid application development tools. Creating simple games such as puzzle, card, and board games where high degree of realism is not required. 2D games are categorized as a simple graphic structure which can be easily developed, thus it does not require the graphics to be truly realistic. Games that is developed using 2D technology will be simple looking, not too complex, and depends a lot on the graphic coloring. Supported by all of the operating system 2D graphic technology is used heavily on the appearance of an operating system to increase system load efficiency. Thus OS such as Window, Mac and Linux implements lots of 2D graphic objects which increases the loading speed and reduces CPU workload in rendering OS graphical interface. Two dimensional graphic started back during 1950s using vector graphic devices. Soon enough raster based graphic technology was introduced and manage to take over the usage of vector graphic. Vector Graphics Vector graphics uses mathematical relationships between points and the paths connecting them to shape the image. Vector graphic emphasizes much more on the quality of the image compared with the raster graphic. Thus raster graphic are usually used to represent photographic images because of the quality it possess. Vector graphic are made from smooth quality images which do not suffers from loss of image quality even after resized. This is the main key point why people prefers vector over raster graphics. The Figure 3.1.1.1 above shows the differences of the vector and raster graphic when the image is displayed in magnified condition. The left side of the picture is represented with vector graphic, the magnified image is displayed which total quality of the source image, produced with full quality of smoothness. Where else raster graphic, is represented at the right side with a bitmap image, which suffers great loss of picture quality due to the source image is produced with arrays of pixels. In other word when judging an image quality, vector based graphic image wins fair. Vector graphics possess four main key advantages that makes it superior graphic which is: Complete Scalability A vector graphic image allows picture resizing without suffering any quality loss. This applies to any size of picture whether it is at a size of a poster or business card. This is the key advantage of vector graphic. Compatibility for both web and print Due to the image quality is always high, for this reason vector images are always compatible with printing specification and also web images. Unlike raster bitmaps which has a limited graphic resolution minimum of 300 dpi to be able to display the image in the paper and also in webpage. Completely editable using imaging tools Vector graphics is completely editable using both vector and raster graphic editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Images can be resized, skewed, rotated, reshaped, combines with other vector model, and other functions that is supported by both vector graphic and the imaging tools. Supporting Background Transparency Vector graphics will support all types of background, with any color or pattern, either it is with another raster graphic or vector. Vector graphics when displayed in computer display will produce results of grids of small rectangular cells called pixels, vector graphics are composed of tiny pixel dots far smaller than raster graphics. Raster Graphics Raster Graphics is a type of graphic in which the image of it is separated into matrix of picture elements which is known as pixels. An image with the present of pixels in the image file is made up by rows and columns of pixels lines up forming an image in the picture. Each of the pixels will be assigned with different or same color which serves the purpose of creating color depth of an image, this is often referred as number of bits needed to encode all the colors. Raster graphics are usually coded in typical bits depth with are used nowadays in: Black and white ( Two Colors ) : 1 Bit Color shades of gray ( Four Colors ) : 2 Bit 16 Colors : 4 Bit 256 Colors : 8 Bit 65, 536 Colors ( 65K High Colors ) : 16 Bit True Color : 24 Bit True Color ( Improved ) : 32 Bit In a raster graphic image, the numbers of row and column determines the image resolution, in other words the more pixels presented in an image the higher the resolution. Image resolutions are calculated using total pixels present in the first row multiplied by total pixel present in the first column. If the image is presented in certain physical size, then the size will combine with the number of pixels resulting with number of Dot Per Inch (DPI) in the image. DPI is a measurement of an images resolution. A high resolution image will present in higher DPI with smaller dot, this makes it harder to be spotted as individual spot in the image. Raster Graphic is much more convenient when compared to vector graphic. They are resolution independent, thus it happens that raster graphic can be used to represent a photo realistic images in a short amount of time. But because of certain limitation in raster graphic, it makes the quality of the image to be vary from different source of quality. Pixels tend to get arranged in a regular pattern, resulting weird shaping pattern displayed in the screen of a computer monitor. Rather if the pixels are assigned with wrong color, the whole image might get displayed weirdly with all the color mixed. If a resolution is too low and the contrast is too high, certain pixels will stand out leaving the image with jaggies. Figure 3.1.2.1 is a raster graphic image which shows clearly the pixel resolutions of the image. As the image shows the rectangular array of dots which is large enough to be identified using the eye of a human, these rectangular are call pixels. The image is displayed by drawing the pixels sequentially in a fixed order either from the left to right or top to bottom. The image of a fish is made up using plain white and blue color which is assigned to each of the pixel dots. Usually a raster image is made up from high resolution in which pixel dots are not visible from humans eye sight. But the above image is a low resolution raster image, thus pixels are visible. Raster graphic are presented in digital file format usually in JPEG images, Bitmap images, GIF images, TIFF images and PNG images. The usage of raster graphic has been popular since the rise of World Wide Web in the internet. This is because raster graphic presents huge advantages when it is utilized within the web network. Advantages of raster graphic are: Widely used in personal computer in displaying images. Most of computer operating system nowadays supports raster image display as the basic image file distribution. Digital images are used widely in operating system as the main graphic image display. This is the strongest advantage of raster graphic. Web standard for image uploading, display, image file distribution and file download due to the small file size. Its one of the main reason raster image is widely distributed across web. Resolution image independent, able to display all resolution types of image file. Can be edited using image developing tools. Throughout all the advantages may be excellent in a point of view, but raster graphic image easily suffers from quality loss due to its pixel dot independent resolution. Most of the image file used to display raster graphic image have a limited color support which disadvantages in image color displayed in the monitor. Raster graphic images that are distributed across the network may be compressed to reduce its file size, this is a drawback as compressing the image file usually will reduce its image quality. Benefits from Two Dimensional Games Programming Over Three Dimensional Games Development Cost This point is obviously correct and without doubt, 2D games development is really cheaper when it is compared to 3D games development due to the difference of content creation. The move towards hi-definition graphic content has brought 3D games a breakthrough in the games technology, but at the same time the cost of development has also double up because of using new developed engines which is expensive. Most 3D games development faces high development cost and they are still in researching of new game engines to cut down the development costs. Unlike 2D games engines, they are sold cheaper than most of the 3D game engines in the market. This point is based on the logical assumption that 3D is a newer technology which need more resources for development and 2D is a traditional game technology which is developed even before existence of 3D, thus making it to be considered not as complex as 3D games development Graphical Processing Performance 2D games development uses lower processing speed and power compared with 3D development. In the old days where personal computers are still not as advance as nowadays, it is impossible to commence development in either 3D or 2D games development. But considering the advance of technologies nowadays which makes most of those not too complex games development of 2D and 3D graphic possible. In the old days personal computer lacks of the processing speed and memory capacity to run the system process. The reason why 2D games requires less graphical processing performance is because 2D games uses less graphical animation which would requires heavy framerate processing with fast processing speed. Shaders capabilities in 2D graphics All thanks to the shaders technology used in the 3D technology, 2D graphics can now implement of shaders. 2D graphics can be enriched with a soft look to the entire scene, bloom effect, glowing effects and graphic effects. Shaders enable 2D graphic animation to improve its quality and technology. Although shaders brings lots of new effects to the 2D graphic, but its still in experimental stage where its relatively unexplored concept that has a lot of potential. Real time audio synthesis 2D games once uses midi and redbook audio for its audio sound effects, its the only available audio technology that is supported by the 2D graphic games. But that was during the old days. With the help of VST instruments, real time synthesis of audio can be implemented towards 2D game development. Music in games can expand beyond playback into performing dynamic arrangements and dynamic synthesis. The game can be implemented with audio music that is suitable with the nature of the game type accordingly. With the advanced processing power, a complete real time audio track can be implemented using VST effects in the form of compressors, equalizers and mixing tables. With this technology, 2D game nowadays could experience rich enhancement to bring new breakthrough. 2D Multiplayer Online Games Despite 2D multiplayer games are being made in application program, there are publishers that release 2D online games which has gained quite the fame among online users. Despite the simple concept of 2D programming, new technologies enable the developers to actually implement 2D online games into website. Incorporating both the 2D engine and game program directly into web browsers nowadays. This is a very convenient and brilliant way into marketing 2D games online as no setups and download are required. This new technology has helps 2D games to be once again gain popularity in the world. Programming Language Programming language is the all time famous programming instructions which are created by developers since late 40s until today which is to serve the purpose to create applications. The so call programming language is actually a set of languages which composed of words, symbols, and numbers which is made up to be algorithms that each type of language differs. In other words Programming Language is actually a set of instructions that constructs the logic of the system, instructs every action of the system and performs of functions. As human language are too difficult for a computer to understand, thus commands of programming language are used to replace human language so computers will understand the way it was designed for the same purpose. In game development, programming process is inevitable, the functional process in the system is fully dependent to the programming code which is written in its way. The way game system reacts will turn out running according to the programming code structure in which the programmer designed it to be. So far in the game development coding technology, only certain programming languages are capable in developing 2D and 3D game system. And most of the p Development Using XNA Game Studio Development Using XNA Game Studio Chapter 1: Preface Over the past few years where two dimensional and three dimensional graphic has been utilized consecutively for developing computer games and console games. Two dimensional graphic games have been very popular since the beginning of 1940s and thats where it all started at the first place. It started with 2D games at first which is developed for the use of arcade mainframes and console machines, followed by the development of computer games for mainframe computers. Through the innovation development of dimensional graphic games, 3 dimensional games were to emerge as the most popular game genre which started in the late 80s. But despise all the development of 3D games in the games software industries, 2D games are still being developed in the new market. This is because 2D games are still being preferred by many people in the world, and due to this point, games software vendors are still taking account of 2D games development. In the past few years, starting from the year 2000, 2D games starts to become widely know and played by many users with the development of mobile games and internet web based games. There have been rapid development of 2D technology to create new application games for the growing internet network, more and more website incorporate web based 2D mini games, online games and puzzle games. Its been proven that 2D games are getting more and more popular compared to the years before year 2000, and with more websites trying to incorporate 2D games towards their web as the 3rd party application. Such website is like the ever popular facebook.com incorporating hundreds and even thousands of 2D games as the 3rd party game application to attract more and more people towards joining the social web network. Few years back, Microsoft introduced the XNA Game Studio software distributed across the internet to enable software programmers to develop new games for windows platform and also the new XBOX 360. The XNA game studio is licensed software, but with the MSDN help, the author as a student get to have the chance to obtain a tryout of this Microsoft XNA game studio. According to Microsoft, XNA game studio will need to be incorporated with Microsoft Visual Studio to enable references to be added in the system coding. If we were to look back few years before, developing a game even for a two dimensional game would took probably months and even years, a simple personal computer would not even be sufficient to run the system codes, execute the game, and debug the system. And even with the availability of the development tools, it would surely require serious experts to come out with a game system coding, due to the complicated level of programming language available during the urban times. In other words there are almost none development tools available to reach in the hands of the student, or internet users to develop their own games by themselves. And by looking at the games development now, and comparing them, it is a breakthrough for the games development. As I foresees the development potential for two dimensional games, I am sure that two dimensional game will have plenty of development potential in the future, as its been proven development of two dimensional games did not stop although three dimensional games been around for quite a long time, it didnt manage to replace the two dimensional games market its technology. There are quite a few reasons why two dimensional games are still around developing, which mainly are because of its cheap development cost, simple development process, easy for users to understand and well played. Its one of the reasons why Microsoft, the top player in IT industry is still in for two dimensional games development and searching for the breakthrough for it by creating development tools to support the development of two dimensional games. Chapter 2: Development Tools Introduction This chapter was designed to elaborate the use of each development tools which is related towards developing the XNA BubbleBall Attack 2D game. In order to produce this game system a set of software development tools need to be installed on the developers machine to enable full support to the game system. All identified developing tools which is related in the development process includes DirectX SDK (DirectX Software Development Kit) a set of application programming interfaces designed to handle tasks. It is a development tool containing all DirectX software required to build and produce cutting-edge, rich media interactive applications. Microsoft .NET Framework is required for its library reference of coding solutions to common problems and local machine to manage execution of code written programs specifically for the Microsoft framework. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is the development tool used to write for the game system coding. This application is used to build up the game system code, code debugging process, system appearance design, execution of game system, it is mainly the key development tool used in this project. Microsoft XNA Game Studio is utilized by me the system programmer to design the animation, sound, and the entire multimedia enhancement required for the game system. This tool is required to be included in this process to enable the coding languages to add references in its library files and to execute the library files in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Without this tool, the coding language will never be executed because failure in retrieving the coding files from the library files. Adobe Photoshop C3 is used by the developer to create image file as the two dimensional graphic to be presented in the system. All animation that present in the system is created by this tool and included in the system as the two dimensional graphic. DirectX SDK DirectX SDK is developed by Microsoft with the objective of allowing the creation of application for a certain software package, software framework, hardware plat form, computer system, video game console, operating system or any other similar platform which supports DirectX. DirectX SDK comes in a set of development tools which contains of all the DirectX software needed for a game developer to create DirectX based application using the Visual Basic.Net, C or C++, and C+ coding language which was developed by Microsoft. The reason why DirectX SDK is so powerful was mainly because it was made up from many different system tools which some of the main components includes: DirectX headers and libraries DirectX system runtime components DirectX Application Programming Interfaces Documentations Additional application and source code developed using DirectX compliant Various powerful tools and utilities integrated to the DirectX SDK This development tool allows me to take a complete advantage of DirectX technologies for creating excellent games and graphic applications. DirectX SDK allows developers to utilize its latest technology in hardware innovation for developing powerful games. DirectX SDK will receive update in its version releases to keep up with the latest technology enhanced within the DirectX software this is necessary to boost the codes, tools, library files and the documentation for every Microsoft Platform SDK. Microsoft DirectX SDK comes with an important feature which is the D3DX library acts like a toolkit which provides developers with high level functionality to help create DirectX applications. This feature helps to optimize low level routines so as to obtain the best performance out of Microsoft platform. Incorporated with basic features such as math calculation and texture loading routines, updated technology in art manipulating content including tangent frame generation, mesh optimization and Precomputed Radiance Transfer. DirectX SDK come with many other features such as D3DX effects framework, High Level Shading Languages, Shader Debugger, PIX for Window Platform. These technologies will help developer in all way developing their game system accordingly. DirectX SDK will be able to integrate with Microsoft Visual Studio .Net to enable developers to code their system using it. Pipelining feature will be enabled with the integration of DirectX SDK towards Microsoft Visual Studio .Net, these enable developers to code for pipelining structure for their game application. Certain samples will be included within DirectX SDK to help developers to understand the technologies used in DirectX. In other words DirectX SDK will help developers by providing technical solution, best suitable graphic rendering outcome, graphic localization, code implementation, library files, better and simple developing experience, and also how to render and produce most from interactive audio. Microsoft DirectX SDK comes with all the features and tools needed for the graphic rendering, audio rendering, and visualization for game developers to make use of in order to create powerful DirectX based applications either for a simple game or a complicated game development. Microsoft .NET Framework Microsoft .Net Framework is a platform or so what people called a development environment to seamlessly create applications that accessible through developers computer from all across the world. It is an application adopted to comply with open standards such as eXtensible Markup Languages, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and Simple Object Access Protocol in order to interact with applications that are available in other platform. .Net Framework is platform independent and language independent system which allows the developer to use different programming languages such as VB.Net, C#, Jscript, VBscript, C and C++ to run applications on different platform such as Unix, Mac, Linux, and Window. .Net Framework enables developer to use various libraries to help in developing and application faster, easier and cheaper. As for now, .Net Framework is identified to be able to support over 20 different programming languages. There is a reason for why .Net Framework is built to support multiple different types of programming languages is explained by the concept of Common Language Runtime engine. CLR engine compiles the code into Microsoft Intermediate Language. The MSIL is a set of instructions used to translate the codes into native codes making .Net Framework capable of language and platform independent. CLR is also responsible for run time services such as language integration, security enforcement, memory process and thread management. In addition, .Net Framework provides wide infrastructure to create web applications and non web applications. As for the time being, Microsoft has claimed .Net Framework comes in two different categories which is CLR and .Net Framework class library. Common Language Runtime is responsible to provide common runtime services to all .Net based applications. As for more CLR reduces the developers time to code for an application by utilizing its feature like life cycle management, strong type naming, cross language exception handling, and dynamic binding designed to turn application development software into reusable components. As for .Net Framework class library, it appears that this system consists of predefined sets of functionality that developer can freely utilize to enhance their application. The class library consists of three major components which are: ASP.NET Windows Form ADO.NET Well for this game application project, I will be using CLR and also .Net Framework class library as VB.NET and Window Form will be use for my game application as the two key component. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 was released in 19 November 2007 replacing the older version of Visual Studio with the newer enhanced version of Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2008 is focused based on the development for Window Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 system and web applications. Visual Studio 2008 requires .NET Framework 3.5 to run properly and to process compiles assemblies. Visual Studio 2008 will possess the ability to chooses and utilize different .NET framework version depending to the developers choice. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 delivers on Microsofts vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create new applications without ignoring the quality of the application with accounted rich user experiences. Visual Studio 2008 comes with the ability for the developer to capture and analyze information to help make effective decisions. Packed with the ability for developer to rapidly create secured, manageable, and reliable applications is the strongest advantage of using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Visual Studio 2008 promised to be able to deliver key advances for developers in three primary pillars which are: Rapid Application Development Effective team collaboration Breakthrough user experiences Visual Studio 2008 has received a many users feedback and most of them are identified to be positive. Based on the three pillars, users feedbacks are mostly related to those of the three with different technology area. They are categorized into seven technology areas Focused on Smart Client Application Development Microsoft Office Applications Integrated Window Platform Applications Integrated Enhanced Productivity in Data Handling Enabling New Web Experiences Improved Overall Developer Experience Enhanced Application Lifecycle Management It is the most effective smart client development to begin with good application design. Able to integrate UI designers into development process by supporting most of the popular languages such as VB.NET, C++, C#, Jscript, and many of others. The first reason that I find to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 in my system development are mainly because it has a very good system development tools which is capable of rapid application development and the easy to understand .NET code languages, which is the language I preferred the most among all other programming language. Microsoft XNA Game Studio Microsoft XNA Game Studio is a set of game development tools designed based on supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio tools that allows developers to build up games supported by Window platform, Microsoft XBOX 360 game console, and Microsoft Zune. XNA Game Studio will require both Microsoft DirectX SDK and Microsoft .Net Framework to run correctly when integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. This tool comes including the XNA Framework which acts as same as Microsoft .Net Framework. The XNA Framework will integrate XNA library files onto Visual Studio 2008 to enable XNA graphic and audio coding to get executed. XNA Game Studio is seamlessly integrated with supported version of Microsoft Visual Studio tools, this integration will enable developers to use new coding structure to develop two and three dimensional games easily due to new library files added to the Visual Studio base library, developers will have a new experience in learning new codes which only works with the XNA Game Studio integration. XNA Game Studio provides three main features which are: Game component models New framework library designed to support Microsoft Windows, XBOX 360, and Zune game development Integration with XNA Framework Content Pipeline. Microsoft XNA Game Studio has become popular since it has been launched years ago, the reason why more and more people are utilizing it is because if new technology in game development breakthrough, the rapid application development, and the game quality produced. Adobe Photoshop C3 Adobe Photoshop is simply an advanced graphic editing program designed and published by Adobe Systems. Adobe Photoshop managed to rise up as the graphic development software after years of competing in the market. Now, Adobe Photoshop is considered to be the top in its market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software. Furthermore, Adobe Photoshop is known to be the flagship product in its company and the main development focus of the company. Adobe Photoshop is developed to be a software targeting the graphic professional industry, its name has been around the graphic development tool industry for years. For so it gained the fame and popularity through time. Adobe Photoshop is consider to be the best, rated as a killer application for both MAC and Window OS. Adobe Photoshop were born out from its first generation program named ImagePro in 1987. Developed by the Knoll Brothers, Thomas Knoll and John Knoll. The first published Photoshop program managed to sold at 200 copies which is considered a good outcome. And soon, in the following year, after the Adobe is established, the Knoll brothers purchases Adobe Photoshop distribution license to begin distributing Adobe Photoshop worldwide. The reason Adobe Photoshop is used in the project development were mainly to develop image files which serves the purpose as two dimensional graphic rendered to the system. Image files are designed and edited in the Photoshop so that it could be added later to the system as the active two dimensional graphic. Chapter 3: Research on the technology related to 2D games and game systems programming Two Dimensional Graphic Two Dimensional games know as 2D computer graphic games are a computer based graphic images. These images are made up from 2D digital images, 2D texts, and 2D geometric models. Images can vary from image compositions, pixel arts, digital arts, photographs, and texts. 2D graphics are frequently used most in the graphic industry because of its conveniences and simple rendering. Nowadays almost all of the websites incorporates 2D graphic content into its webpage, those graphic content may vary from a tiny graphic image file to a fully functional 2D games. Therefore 2D graphic plays an important part in the information technology field. Two dimensional graphic have certain advantages which makes it to be superior when compared with three dimensional graphic. The three main differences which makes 2D graphic to be superior are: Able to render faster than 3D graphic This point makes developers to choose 2D graphic for low bandwidth consumption. And also why means rendering it also means that 2D graphic is produced faster when compared with 3D development. Thus 2D graphic can be developed with rapid application development tools. Creating simple games such as puzzle, card, and board games where high degree of realism is not required. 2D games are categorized as a simple graphic structure which can be easily developed, thus it does not require the graphics to be truly realistic. Games that is developed using 2D technology will be simple looking, not too complex, and depends a lot on the graphic coloring. Supported by all of the operating system 2D graphic technology is used heavily on the appearance of an operating system to increase system load efficiency. Thus OS such as Window, Mac and Linux implements lots of 2D graphic objects which increases the loading speed and reduces CPU workload in rendering OS graphical interface. Two dimensional graphic started back during 1950s using vector graphic devices. Soon enough raster based graphic technology was introduced and manage to take over the usage of vector graphic. Vector Graphics Vector graphics uses mathematical relationships between points and the paths connecting them to shape the image. Vector graphic emphasizes much more on the quality of the image compared with the raster graphic. Thus raster graphic are usually used to represent photographic images because of the quality it possess. Vector graphic are made from smooth quality images which do not suffers from loss of image quality even after resized. This is the main key point why people prefers vector over raster graphics. The Figure 3.1.1.1 above shows the differences of the vector and raster graphic when the image is displayed in magnified condition. The left side of the picture is represented with vector graphic, the magnified image is displayed which total quality of the source image, produced with full quality of smoothness. Where else raster graphic, is represented at the right side with a bitmap image, which suffers great loss of picture quality due to the source image is produced with arrays of pixels. In other word when judging an image quality, vector based graphic image wins fair. Vector graphics possess four main key advantages that makes it superior graphic which is: Complete Scalability A vector graphic image allows picture resizing without suffering any quality loss. This applies to any size of picture whether it is at a size of a poster or business card. This is the key advantage of vector graphic. Compatibility for both web and print Due to the image quality is always high, for this reason vector images are always compatible with printing specification and also web images. Unlike raster bitmaps which has a limited graphic resolution minimum of 300 dpi to be able to display the image in the paper and also in webpage. Completely editable using imaging tools Vector graphics is completely editable using both vector and raster graphic editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Images can be resized, skewed, rotated, reshaped, combines with other vector model, and other functions that is supported by both vector graphic and the imaging tools. Supporting Background Transparency Vector graphics will support all types of background, with any color or pattern, either it is with another raster graphic or vector. Vector graphics when displayed in computer display will produce results of grids of small rectangular cells called pixels, vector graphics are composed of tiny pixel dots far smaller than raster graphics. Raster Graphics Raster Graphics is a type of graphic in which the image of it is separated into matrix of picture elements which is known as pixels. An image with the present of pixels in the image file is made up by rows and columns of pixels lines up forming an image in the picture. Each of the pixels will be assigned with different or same color which serves the purpose of creating color depth of an image, this is often referred as number of bits needed to encode all the colors. Raster graphics are usually coded in typical bits depth with are used nowadays in: Black and white ( Two Colors ) : 1 Bit Color shades of gray ( Four Colors ) : 2 Bit 16 Colors : 4 Bit 256 Colors : 8 Bit 65, 536 Colors ( 65K High Colors ) : 16 Bit True Color : 24 Bit True Color ( Improved ) : 32 Bit In a raster graphic image, the numbers of row and column determines the image resolution, in other words the more pixels presented in an image the higher the resolution. Image resolutions are calculated using total pixels present in the first row multiplied by total pixel present in the first column. If the image is presented in certain physical size, then the size will combine with the number of pixels resulting with number of Dot Per Inch (DPI) in the image. DPI is a measurement of an images resolution. A high resolution image will present in higher DPI with smaller dot, this makes it harder to be spotted as individual spot in the image. Raster Graphic is much more convenient when compared to vector graphic. They are resolution independent, thus it happens that raster graphic can be used to represent a photo realistic images in a short amount of time. But because of certain limitation in raster graphic, it makes the quality of the image to be vary from different source of quality. Pixels tend to get arranged in a regular pattern, resulting weird shaping pattern displayed in the screen of a computer monitor. Rather if the pixels are assigned with wrong color, the whole image might get displayed weirdly with all the color mixed. If a resolution is too low and the contrast is too high, certain pixels will stand out leaving the image with jaggies. Figure 3.1.2.1 is a raster graphic image which shows clearly the pixel resolutions of the image. As the image shows the rectangular array of dots which is large enough to be identified using the eye of a human, these rectangular are call pixels. The image is displayed by drawing the pixels sequentially in a fixed order either from the left to right or top to bottom. The image of a fish is made up using plain white and blue color which is assigned to each of the pixel dots. Usually a raster image is made up from high resolution in which pixel dots are not visible from humans eye sight. But the above image is a low resolution raster image, thus pixels are visible. Raster graphic are presented in digital file format usually in JPEG images, Bitmap images, GIF images, TIFF images and PNG images. The usage of raster graphic has been popular since the rise of World Wide Web in the internet. This is because raster graphic presents huge advantages when it is utilized within the web network. Advantages of raster graphic are: Widely used in personal computer in displaying images. Most of computer operating system nowadays supports raster image display as the basic image file distribution. Digital images are used widely in operating system as the main graphic image display. This is the strongest advantage of raster graphic. Web standard for image uploading, display, image file distribution and file download due to the small file size. Its one of the main reason raster image is widely distributed across web. Resolution image independent, able to display all resolution types of image file. Can be edited using image developing tools. Throughout all the advantages may be excellent in a point of view, but raster graphic image easily suffers from quality loss due to its pixel dot independent resolution. Most of the image file used to display raster graphic image have a limited color support which disadvantages in image color displayed in the monitor. Raster graphic images that are distributed across the network may be compressed to reduce its file size, this is a drawback as compressing the image file usually will reduce its image quality. Benefits from Two Dimensional Games Programming Over Three Dimensional Games Development Cost This point is obviously correct and without doubt, 2D games development is really cheaper when it is compared to 3D games development due to the difference of content creation. The move towards hi-definition graphic content has brought 3D games a breakthrough in the games technology, but at the same time the cost of development has also double up because of using new developed engines which is expensive. Most 3D games development faces high development cost and they are still in researching of new game engines to cut down the development costs. Unlike 2D games engines, they are sold cheaper than most of the 3D game engines in the market. This point is based on the logical assumption that 3D is a newer technology which need more resources for development and 2D is a traditional game technology which is developed even before existence of 3D, thus making it to be considered not as complex as 3D games development Graphical Processing Performance 2D games development uses lower processing speed and power compared with 3D development. In the old days where personal computers are still not as advance as nowadays, it is impossible to commence development in either 3D or 2D games development. But considering the advance of technologies nowadays which makes most of those not too complex games development of 2D and 3D graphic possible. In the old days personal computer lacks of the processing speed and memory capacity to run the system process. The reason why 2D games requires less graphical processing performance is because 2D games uses less graphical animation which would requires heavy framerate processing with fast processing speed. Shaders capabilities in 2D graphics All thanks to the shaders technology used in the 3D technology, 2D graphics can now implement of shaders. 2D graphics can be enriched with a soft look to the entire scene, bloom effect, glowing effects and graphic effects. Shaders enable 2D graphic animation to improve its quality and technology. Although shaders brings lots of new effects to the 2D graphic, but its still in experimental stage where its relatively unexplored concept that has a lot of potential. Real time audio synthesis 2D games once uses midi and redbook audio for its audio sound effects, its the only available audio technology that is supported by the 2D graphic games. But that was during the old days. With the help of VST instruments, real time synthesis of audio can be implemented towards 2D game development. Music in games can expand beyond playback into performing dynamic arrangements and dynamic synthesis. The game can be implemented with audio music that is suitable with the nature of the game type accordingly. With the advanced processing power, a complete real time audio track can be implemented using VST effects in the form of compressors, equalizers and mixing tables. With this technology, 2D game nowadays could experience rich enhancement to bring new breakthrough. 2D Multiplayer Online Games Despite 2D multiplayer games are being made in application program, there are publishers that release 2D online games which has gained quite the fame among online users. Despite the simple concept of 2D programming, new technologies enable the developers to actually implement 2D online games into website. Incorporating both the 2D engine and game program directly into web browsers nowadays. This is a very convenient and brilliant way into marketing 2D games online as no setups and download are required. This new technology has helps 2D games to be once again gain popularity in the world. Programming Language Programming language is the all time famous programming instructions which are created by developers since late 40s until today which is to serve the purpose to create applications. The so call programming language is actually a set of languages which composed of words, symbols, and numbers which is made up to be algorithms that each type of language differs. In other words Programming Language is actually a set of instructions that constructs the logic of the system, instructs every action of the system and performs of functions. As human language are too difficult for a computer to understand, thus commands of programming language are used to replace human language so computers will understand the way it was designed for the same purpose. In game development, programming process is inevitable, the functional process in the system is fully dependent to the programming code which is written in its way. The way game system reacts will turn out running according to the programming code structure in which the programmer designed it to be. So far in the game development coding technology, only certain programming languages are capable in developing 2D and 3D game system. And most of the p