One of the most annoying things about internet is spam emails. Most of them are unsolicited advertisements, and some of them are scams, which pretend to come from your banks, online sellers, or even government. I once received one scam email which claimed coming from Bank of America and let me give my account information. I almost trusted the email and was about to release my person information before I called Bank of America and found it was a fake.
Most of time, I will trash them right away without reading them. However, I may scan through the list of titles to make sure the mail server does not put some "good" emails into the "spam" folder by mistake before I delete them permantly.
In terms of sexually or inappropriate emails for kids, parents should set up the filters properly in order to filter those email before the kids access them. In the meantime, parents should educate them and make sure they are aware of the existence of these kinds of emails and deal with them appropriately in case they have access to them.
Spam emails are difficult to fight against. More intelligent softwares are needed to develop to deal with them. However, it is impossible to remove them completely because the technologies at both sides develop at the same time. Hence, the more viable way is to let people be aware of it and able to handle it in a correct way.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
March 13th, 2008, EAV 7b #1
According to Chernicoff, Fox, and Tanner in What Caused the Extinction of the Dinosaurs, paleontologists are very interested in the factors contributing to the massive extinction 65 millions years ago, including 75% of all live forms on the earth and dinosaurs in particular. Some early hypotheses focuses on single factor, however, other proposed that global environment changes were the reasons. But none of them was able to explain why 75% species were lost and the other 25% species survived. One possible factor, which is agreed among several hypotheses, is the catastrophic collapse of the global food chain preceded the widespread extinction because of the "impact of winter". One group suggested that the massive volcanic eruption sent enormous ashes and gases into the atmosphere. The other group proposed the same phenomenon, yet, trigged by the strike of a meteorite. The third hypothsis combined both as trigger factors for the wordwild food shortage. Although there are numerous evidences demonstrating the correctness of these hypotheses, none of them has attained theory status. Hence, scientists are still searching more evidence to support their hypotheses.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
March 6th, 2008 English Learning Experience
Although I have spent almost 20 years to learn and improve English, I am still not satisfied with it . In terms of the four basic skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, I am able to read well and very weak with three others. First, I was not able to follow the news in the radio or the talking in the movie before I came to US. Most of the time, I heard the words, but I could not find the meaning very quickly. In another words, I had to translate English to Chinese in my mind for understanding the listening English. After five years of continuous listening, my capbility for this skill finally improves. Second, my English writing skill is still horrible. I am still not able to tell the minor differences among synonyms and feel difficult to find accurate word in writing. Very often, there is no natural connection between two contiguous sentences, which makes it suffering to read my writing. Notwithstanding I know that it is necessary to keep on writing to improve it, and I write English everyday, I still feel what I write is very awkward in terms of grammar and word selection. Finally, I have to say my English speaking is not acceptable at all. I keep making mistakes about the timing issue, the pronunciation, and plural form of nouns, which do not exist in Chinese. I am only able to speak in very simple form using simple words; hence, I repeat using same word when I present. Further, my voice always sounds dry and clumsy. The only way to improve my English is to practice and this is what I am going to do.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Assignment on March 4th, 2008
1. Name some types of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources that are used by researchers in your field.
Field: Computer Engineering
Primary source: the original publication of new data, results, and theories; or, own first-hand result, such as simulation result, the output of a program.
Secondary source: interpretation, commentary, analysis and criticism of primary sources; examples include the validation or disapproval of a new theory.
Tertiary source: bibliographies, library catalogs, directories, and survey articles; particularly, a good survey article will give a comprehensive coverage of a particular field and list the most important publications in the field.
2. When you research a topic, how do you keep track of information
In scientific fields, Computer Engineering in particular, the main method to keep track of information is to build a bibliography which consists of all the citations the researcher once used in technical writing. Each item in the bibliography includes the authors, publication name, the original place, published time (year, month), and abstract.
Field: Computer Engineering
Primary source: the original publication of new data, results, and theories; or, own first-hand result, such as simulation result, the output of a program.
Secondary source: interpretation, commentary, analysis and criticism of primary sources; examples include the validation or disapproval of a new theory.
Tertiary source: bibliographies, library catalogs, directories, and survey articles; particularly, a good survey article will give a comprehensive coverage of a particular field and list the most important publications in the field.
2. When you research a topic, how do you keep track of information
In scientific fields, Computer Engineering in particular, the main method to keep track of information is to build a bibliography which consists of all the citations the researcher once used in technical writing. Each item in the bibliography includes the authors, publication name, the original place, published time (year, month), and abstract.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Feb 28, 2008 Identify the three parts of introduction
Red: Move1
Blue: Move2
Green:Move3
Article 1.
Three recent publications serve to illustrate the growing interest in the teaching and researching of Business English (BE) amongst language teachers and researchers: the 1993 bibliography compiled by Kennedy, Hewings and Dudas, which lists research into various aspects of business communication, Dudley Evans and St. Johns’ review of BE research and teaching materials, and the 1996 special issue of English for Specific Purposes edited by St. John and Johnson, which contains articles relating to BE research and teaching, and the implications of research for teaching.
As these and other publications show, there as been a gradual but steady increase in Business English research during the 1990s in cross-cultural and intercultural studies, investigating the English used in business settings by native and non-native speakers (Yamada, 1990; Maier, 1992; Yli-Jokipii, 1994; Akar and Louhiala-Salminen, 1999). This no doubt reflects the fact that not only in English the language of international business but also that “as an international language, English is used as the means of communication in business transactions between people none of whom is a native user of the language” (Robinson, 1991, p. 98).
Despite the interest in both teaching and researching Business English in general, and in cross-cultural research in particular, little is known about the effectiveness of using hands-on cross-cultural and intercultural research as way of raising student awareness of the problems native and non-native speakers may experience in intercultural business encounters. This paper therefore outlines a course we have developed in research methods for intercultural text analysis for final year masters students in the business communication department at the University of Nijmegen. It begins with brief details of the background to the course, and it presents the literature we discuss and the types of activities we use during classroom sessions together with several examples of past student research projects. The paper concludes with discussion of some of the methodological problems we have encountered whilst developing and teaching the course, and, wherever this has been possible, the solutions that we have found and incorporated into our teaching.
Article 2.
An elaborate system of marking social distance and respect is found in the morphology of Nahuatl as spoken in communities of the Malinche volcano area in the Mexican states of Tlaxcala and Puebla. The complexity of the morphology involved, the semantic range of the elements, and the variation in the system in use raise questions of considerable interest for our understanding of the form and function of such systems, both in Nahuatl itself and in other languages.A system of elements usually referred to as 'honorifics' or 'reverentials' is reported by all the grammarians of Classical Nahuatl (cf. Olmos, 1547; Molina, 1571a; Carochi, 1645; Simeon, 1885; Garibay, 1970; Anderson, 1973; Andrews, 1975). Similar systems are reported for several modern varieties of Nahuatl (cf. Whorf, 1946 for Milpa Alta in the Federal District; Pitman, 1948 for Tetelcingo in Morelos; and Buchler and Freeze, 1966 and Buhler, 1967 for Hueyapan and Atempan in northern Puebla). None of these reports, except for Pittman's, describes the system in much detail. The present account is based on materials collected in 1974-75 and during the summer of 1976 in a linguistic survey of Nahuatl-speaking communities on the western and south-western slopes of the Malinche volcano.
Article 3.
In recent years applied researchers have become increasingly interested in the interpersonal relationships with manager-subordinate dyads. The majority of studies have focused on actual similarity between managers and their subordinates as related to managers’ appraisals of subordinates’ performance, subordinates’ job satisfaction and subordinates’ evaluations of their managers.
A few studies have examined the extent to which subordinates congruently perceive their managers (referred to here as “subordinate’s perceptual congruence”). These studies suggest that subordinates who are more perceptually aware of their superiors’ work-related attitudes receive higher performance evaluations and are more satisfied with their superiors.
Each of these previous studies has researched only a part of this complex dyadic interpersonal relationship. First, none of the studies has examined the effects of a manager’s congruent perception of a subordinate’s work-related attitudes. Second, no studies can be found that directly compare the relative importance of actual similarity with that of perceptual congruence. Third, none of the previous studies has looked at interpersonal perception by the manager and by the subordinates simultaneously within the same dyad.
The purpose of the present field investigation was to study both actual similarity and perceptual congruence and to examine them from the perspective of both the manager and the subordinate. The study investigated the relationships of these perceptual processes in two important organizational outcomes: subordinates’ satisfaction with work and supervision, and managers’ evaluations of subordinates’ job performance. Specifically, the study examined: (a) the relative magnitude of perceptual congruence and actual similarity with these two organizational outcomes; (b) whether the more congruently a subordinate perceives the manager (subordinate’s perceptual congruence), the more satisfied the subordinate will be; and (c) whether the more congruently a manager perceives the subordinate (manager’s perceptual congruence), the higher the subordinate’s performance will be evaluated.
Article 4.
Over the past twenty years there have been a number of significant changes to the health care system in Australia. These changes have occurred at the local, state, and federal levels. This paper will examine reforms at the state level for Victoria. This focus has been chosen because it is at this level that changes have had the most impact. Rather than superficially describing a large number of reforms, a detailed description and analysis will be presented of three revisions: the Workcare system, the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients, and the introduction of case-mix funding.
Article 5.
The thermal properties of glassy materials at low temperatures are still not completely understood. The thermal conductivity has a plateau which is usually in the range 5 to 10K and below this temperature it has a temperature dependence which varies approximately as T. The specific heat below 4K is much larger than that which would be expected from the Debye theory and it often has an additional term which is proportional to T. Some progress has been made towards understanding the thermal behaviour by assuming that there is a cut-off in the photon spectrum at high frequencies (Zaitlin and Anderson, 1975a, b) and that there is an additional system of low-lying two-level states (Anderson et al., 1972; Phillips, 1972). Nevertheless more experimental data are required and in particular it would seem desirable to make experiments on glassy samples whose properties can be varied slightly from one to the other. The present investigation reports attempts to do this by using various samples of the same epoxy resin which have been subjected to different curing cycles. Measurements of the specific heat (or the diffusing) and the thermal conductivity have been taken in the temperature range 0.1 to 80K for a set of specimens which covered up to nine different curing cycles.
Blue: Move2
Green:Move3
Article 1.
Three recent publications serve to illustrate the growing interest in the teaching and researching of Business English (BE) amongst language teachers and researchers: the 1993 bibliography compiled by Kennedy, Hewings and Dudas, which lists research into various aspects of business communication, Dudley Evans and St. Johns’ review of BE research and teaching materials, and the 1996 special issue of English for Specific Purposes edited by St. John and Johnson, which contains articles relating to BE research and teaching, and the implications of research for teaching.
As these and other publications show, there as been a gradual but steady increase in Business English research during the 1990s in cross-cultural and intercultural studies, investigating the English used in business settings by native and non-native speakers (Yamada, 1990; Maier, 1992; Yli-Jokipii, 1994; Akar and Louhiala-Salminen, 1999). This no doubt reflects the fact that not only in English the language of international business but also that “as an international language, English is used as the means of communication in business transactions between people none of whom is a native user of the language” (Robinson, 1991, p. 98).
Despite the interest in both teaching and researching Business English in general, and in cross-cultural research in particular, little is known about the effectiveness of using hands-on cross-cultural and intercultural research as way of raising student awareness of the problems native and non-native speakers may experience in intercultural business encounters. This paper therefore outlines a course we have developed in research methods for intercultural text analysis for final year masters students in the business communication department at the University of Nijmegen. It begins with brief details of the background to the course, and it presents the literature we discuss and the types of activities we use during classroom sessions together with several examples of past student research projects. The paper concludes with discussion of some of the methodological problems we have encountered whilst developing and teaching the course, and, wherever this has been possible, the solutions that we have found and incorporated into our teaching.
Article 2.
An elaborate system of marking social distance and respect is found in the morphology of Nahuatl as spoken in communities of the Malinche volcano area in the Mexican states of Tlaxcala and Puebla. The complexity of the morphology involved, the semantic range of the elements, and the variation in the system in use raise questions of considerable interest for our understanding of the form and function of such systems, both in Nahuatl itself and in other languages.A system of elements usually referred to as 'honorifics' or 'reverentials' is reported by all the grammarians of Classical Nahuatl (cf. Olmos, 1547; Molina, 1571a; Carochi, 1645; Simeon, 1885; Garibay, 1970; Anderson, 1973; Andrews, 1975). Similar systems are reported for several modern varieties of Nahuatl (cf. Whorf, 1946 for Milpa Alta in the Federal District; Pitman, 1948 for Tetelcingo in Morelos; and Buchler and Freeze, 1966 and Buhler, 1967 for Hueyapan and Atempan in northern Puebla). None of these reports, except for Pittman's, describes the system in much detail. The present account is based on materials collected in 1974-75 and during the summer of 1976 in a linguistic survey of Nahuatl-speaking communities on the western and south-western slopes of the Malinche volcano.
Article 3.
In recent years applied researchers have become increasingly interested in the interpersonal relationships with manager-subordinate dyads. The majority of studies have focused on actual similarity between managers and their subordinates as related to managers’ appraisals of subordinates’ performance, subordinates’ job satisfaction and subordinates’ evaluations of their managers.
A few studies have examined the extent to which subordinates congruently perceive their managers (referred to here as “subordinate’s perceptual congruence”). These studies suggest that subordinates who are more perceptually aware of their superiors’ work-related attitudes receive higher performance evaluations and are more satisfied with their superiors.
Each of these previous studies has researched only a part of this complex dyadic interpersonal relationship. First, none of the studies has examined the effects of a manager’s congruent perception of a subordinate’s work-related attitudes. Second, no studies can be found that directly compare the relative importance of actual similarity with that of perceptual congruence. Third, none of the previous studies has looked at interpersonal perception by the manager and by the subordinates simultaneously within the same dyad.
The purpose of the present field investigation was to study both actual similarity and perceptual congruence and to examine them from the perspective of both the manager and the subordinate. The study investigated the relationships of these perceptual processes in two important organizational outcomes: subordinates’ satisfaction with work and supervision, and managers’ evaluations of subordinates’ job performance. Specifically, the study examined: (a) the relative magnitude of perceptual congruence and actual similarity with these two organizational outcomes; (b) whether the more congruently a subordinate perceives the manager (subordinate’s perceptual congruence), the more satisfied the subordinate will be; and (c) whether the more congruently a manager perceives the subordinate (manager’s perceptual congruence), the higher the subordinate’s performance will be evaluated.
Article 4.
Over the past twenty years there have been a number of significant changes to the health care system in Australia. These changes have occurred at the local, state, and federal levels. This paper will examine reforms at the state level for Victoria. This focus has been chosen because it is at this level that changes have had the most impact. Rather than superficially describing a large number of reforms, a detailed description and analysis will be presented of three revisions: the Workcare system, the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients, and the introduction of case-mix funding.
Article 5.
The thermal properties of glassy materials at low temperatures are still not completely understood. The thermal conductivity has a plateau which is usually in the range 5 to 10K and below this temperature it has a temperature dependence which varies approximately as T. The specific heat below 4K is much larger than that which would be expected from the Debye theory and it often has an additional term which is proportional to T. Some progress has been made towards understanding the thermal behaviour by assuming that there is a cut-off in the photon spectrum at high frequencies (Zaitlin and Anderson, 1975a, b) and that there is an additional system of low-lying two-level states (Anderson et al., 1972; Phillips, 1972). Nevertheless more experimental data are required and in particular it would seem desirable to make experiments on glassy samples whose properties can be varied slightly from one to the other. The present investigation reports attempts to do this by using various samples of the same epoxy resin which have been subjected to different curing cycles. Measurements of the specific heat (or the diffusing) and the thermal conductivity have been taken in the temperature range 0.1 to 80K for a set of specimens which covered up to nine different curing cycles.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Feb 26, 2008 EAV Chap12, 7b(#2)
Dear Mom and Dad,
It has been for a while without hearing from you. How are you doing at the countryside?
I am still working on the coal mine that I have been working for in the past ten years. The owner of the mine is a very mean person. He always provides us the worst food, which is stale and cold. I and another 9 young colleagues have to share a small room, which has not bathroom. There is no running water here; hence, I generally take a bath once a month. The winter is very cold in northern England; however, the owner even doesn’t give us the coal for heating in the room.
Everyday I work sixteen hours underground and I don’t have weekend. Even I am very sick sometimes, I am forced to work. I and other miners do the work manually. We dig the coal using pickaxe and shovel underground, put them into carts, and then pull them up. It is very dusty and wet at the scene, and I even can’t breathe sometimes. In addition, it is very dangerous for working underground. Two of my colleagues have been killed in the past year because of cave-in. However, the owner doesn’t care our lives and spends almost nothing to improve the working conditions and safety. Furthermore, I am paid very low.
In order to change this kind of bad situation, we form a worker union and are on strike now. Unfortunately, I don’t expect these mine owners are going to accept our requirements. The government is on their side. Moreover, it is very easy for them to find new workers to replace us since young fellows are flooding into this area from countryside to look for jobs.
In the meantime, I heard a lot of stories from the new continent, the United States. It is very easy to find a job there because the country is expanding fast and the labor is scarce. Even for the same job, it is paid much better than here. Maybe I will find my own fortune in the new continent. At the same time, I will be far far away from you then.
Yours son,
Tom
It has been for a while without hearing from you. How are you doing at the countryside?
I am still working on the coal mine that I have been working for in the past ten years. The owner of the mine is a very mean person. He always provides us the worst food, which is stale and cold. I and another 9 young colleagues have to share a small room, which has not bathroom. There is no running water here; hence, I generally take a bath once a month. The winter is very cold in northern England; however, the owner even doesn’t give us the coal for heating in the room.
Everyday I work sixteen hours underground and I don’t have weekend. Even I am very sick sometimes, I am forced to work. I and other miners do the work manually. We dig the coal using pickaxe and shovel underground, put them into carts, and then pull them up. It is very dusty and wet at the scene, and I even can’t breathe sometimes. In addition, it is very dangerous for working underground. Two of my colleagues have been killed in the past year because of cave-in. However, the owner doesn’t care our lives and spends almost nothing to improve the working conditions and safety. Furthermore, I am paid very low.
In order to change this kind of bad situation, we form a worker union and are on strike now. Unfortunately, I don’t expect these mine owners are going to accept our requirements. The government is on their side. Moreover, it is very easy for them to find new workers to replace us since young fellows are flooding into this area from countryside to look for jobs.
In the meantime, I heard a lot of stories from the new continent, the United States. It is very easy to find a job there because the country is expanding fast and the labor is scarce. Even for the same job, it is paid much better than here. Maybe I will find my own fortune in the new continent. At the same time, I will be far far away from you then.
Yours son,
Tom
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Homework on Feb 19, 2008 Positive and negative effects of monopoly
Most of the time, monopoly brings negative effects. First, monopolies tend to become less efficient and innovative over time because they do not have to be efficient or innovative to compete in the marketplace. Hence, the technology advancement is comparatively slow when one company controls a particular market. Second, monopolies generally overcharge the end consumers because there is no alternative on the market and companies are always greedy. Third, consumers have no place to complain if they are not satisfied with the products or services since those monopolies most often ignore these voices and do nothing. Most of monopolies become complacent giants eventually. Sometimes this very loss of efficiency can raise a potential competitor's value enough to overcome market entry barriers, or provide incentive for research and investment into new alternatives.
Hence, if one monopoly wants to keep its status for a long term, it behaves as if there were competition because of the risk of losing their monopoly to new entrants. Sometimes, consumers feel more comfortable if the market is controlled by one responsible monopoly because the product value will stay steadily, therefore, their investment is safe for a long term, particularly, in terms of these luxury, however, without any intrinsic value, jewelry such as gem-diamond.
From my point of view, the best business model is that the market is dominated by several (less than 5) major players. Hence, these companies are able to collect enough revenue to invest on research and development. In the meantime, they have to compete against each other to improve their product and service in order to stay in the market. These kinds of case can be found in the soft beverage market (Coca-cola and Pepsi), the computer microprocessor market (Intel and AMD), and the civil aviation market (Boeing and Air Bus).
Hence, if one monopoly wants to keep its status for a long term, it behaves as if there were competition because of the risk of losing their monopoly to new entrants. Sometimes, consumers feel more comfortable if the market is controlled by one responsible monopoly because the product value will stay steadily, therefore, their investment is safe for a long term, particularly, in terms of these luxury, however, without any intrinsic value, jewelry such as gem-diamond.
From my point of view, the best business model is that the market is dominated by several (less than 5) major players. Hence, these companies are able to collect enough revenue to invest on research and development. In the meantime, they have to compete against each other to improve their product and service in order to stay in the market. These kinds of case can be found in the soft beverage market (Coca-cola and Pepsi), the computer microprocessor market (Intel and AMD), and the civil aviation market (Boeing and Air Bus).
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