The Poetry of Sylvia Plath an Example of the Topic Personal Essays by

The Poetry of Sylvia Plath by Expert Suzzane | 28 Dec 2016 Confessional poetry experiences popularity in mid-twentieth century America. Included in the list of poets is the tragic talent, Sylvia Plath. Plaths brand of confessional poetry is pushing the genre to the extreme as she relates her innermost pain. Though some critics, like Langdon Hammer of the American journal Representations, think that Plaths poems are not autobiographical in the usual way(Hammer, Summer 2001, p. 68), her life itself shows that leading to her suicide, her final poems depict the increased appeal of death, and demonstrate more of her psychic pain(Sylvia Plath Homepage). It can be said that Sylvia Plath may have initially written poetry to become famous but her own poetry is the one that influences her life to the point that it intensifies her grief, ultimately leading to her suicide. Need essay sample on "The Poetry of Sylvia Plath" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Sylvia Plath, born in Massachusetts to a middle class family in 1932, has written her earliest poetry at age eight, near the time when her father dies. Everything in her life has seemed so perfect and she herself is a perfectionist: an achiever and a model daughter. Plath insists on having it all, an idea that makes her ahead of her time(Hammer, Summer 2001, p. 66). This may be what feminists first find attractive about Plath. Nevertheless, her life is plagued by depression which some attribute to her fathers death and her familys financial insecurities. Undergraduates Very Often Tell EssayLab specialists: Who wants to write essay for me? Essay writers recommend: Get Help In Writing An Essay She constantly has had to worry about money and self-image. Her first suicide attempt occurs during her college years after a mental breakdown caused by over-fatigue; sleeping pills have almost finished her life right then and the world may not have known her darker poems and her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar which is published in 1963(Sylvia Plath Homepage). Plaths earlier writings are described as studied and somewhat contrived. When still in school, money she gets for poetry is not considered earned the old fashioned way but won as competitive performance(Hammer, Summer 2001, p. 73). The money buys her opportunity to improve herself, most importantly the opportunity to go to Smith College. In college, Plath goes on to reconstruct her image into her idealized self which is also revealed through her poems. She is also very afraid of failing and jokes about killing herself if she does fail(Hammer, Summer 2001, p. 74), a sign of her continuous quest for perfection. During a time when other adolescents are discovering their place in the world by discovering themselves, Plath is constructing a new self through her poetry. She is not only a perfectionist, but she is also striving to perfect herself as she sees fit: Plath always writes about herself she thought so to, with dissatisfaction but this is a half-truth that misses the aim of Plaths writing, and her relation to it. Her writing was a mode of self-construction that employed, was not reducible to autobiography; she didnt want to record a self, but to bring one into being(Hammer, Summer 2001, p. 67). Sylvia Plath is known for the extremes of personal experience to which she pushed the lyric(Dickie, March 1993, p. 132). If that is the view in which Plath is seen by Margaret Dickie of the journal, American Literature, Hammer still argues that Plath has many lives, although he also believes that her 1965 published work, Ariel shows the real Sylvia Plath. On the other hand, she is capable of inventing several selves, selves that she wants people to see her as. This may have been because of her frustrations as a woman who is trying to be taken seriously. Later on, after having married the English poet, Ted Hughes and having given birth to two children, Sylvia Plath has to balance life as an academic, a poet, a mother and a wife. She gives up academics. There are other women who go through the same sense of wanting to go forward in a self-fulfilling career, but societys expectations on them as wives and mothers leave them frustrated. Anne Sexton, who is inspired by Sylvias poetry writes her own death-preoccupied poem and later on also commits suicide(Sylvia Plath Homepage). Being a frustrated housewife, she must have found a kindred spirit in Plath. The suicides are interpreted by feminists as Plaths response to the oppression of women while her critics denounces her as a shrew(Martin, 1973). Critics, such as Elizabeth Hardwick and Irving Howe, condemn her writings as self-indulgent and fascinated with hurt and damage and fury(Martin, 1973). They picture Plath as a spoiled brat who wants to be noticed and affirmed, consoled and pitied. Even Hammer describes her writing as histrionic like that of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe(Hammer, Summer 2001). Moreover, the critics believe that Plath should have not continued feeding her anger years after her fathers death. Meanwhile, since feminists recognize her work and death as a form of martyrdom, they believe that her death is a wakeup call to all of those who oppress women, whether physically or emotionally. However, continuing the train of thought that Plath is creating several lives for herself and that she has created these images of herself from her poetry, her preoccupation with the subject of death and the importance of self-image have lead to her suicide. Therefore, her suicide cannot be considered martyrdom. Plath is a prolific writer, whose brand of confessional poetry is different from other poets because she begins as a method writer who follows the rules of poetry writing and learns from the writings of other poets(Hammer, Summer 2001, pp. 76-77). She discovers her voice later in life, but tragically the topic of death has led to her own suicide in 1963. The pressures of reinventing herself and the lasting effects of her strained childhood and earlier mental breakdown have taken a toll on Sylvia Plath. Her sense of perfection has been tainted by marital problems, the recurring problem of poverty, limitation of women and not being able to achieve everything she has aimed for. She begins her poetic life with identities she wants to be attributed to her, but ends up revealing a glimpse of who she really is. It is unfortunate that not long after producing works that can be accurately described as confessional poetry, she ends her own life. References: Dickie, Margaret. "Seeing is Re-Seeing: Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop." American Literature (March 1993): 131-146. Hammer, Langdon. "Plath's Lives." Representations, No. 75. (Summer 2001): 61-88. Martin, Wendy. "'God's Lioness'--Sylvia Plath, Her Prose and Poetry." Women's Studies, Vol. 1 (1973): 191-198. Sylvia Plath Homepage. 11 December 2007 http://www.sylviaplath.de/>.

Free Essays on Violence In Schools

Escalating Violence in the Nations’ School’s The act of violence has set a vivid picture in people’s minds that our nation’s schools are not safe. Local school yards have changed for the worst and many students often find themselves watching each others backs. With this in mind, many families, school faculty, and students must focus their attention on what needs to be done to fix this rapidly growing problem. This problem of violence is no longer a fear but has become reality, due to gangs, drugs, and guns, students and faculty are at risk everyday. Every day, our society continues to grow at a rate us as humans can not keep up with. Some students choose to stick with the books, while many who are weak, fall into the hands of schoolyard predators. At first, these predators watch for the weak, and in a moment of feeling alone or unstable, they are comforted and given a place where they can feel welcome. Theses places, often being gangs or groups that focus primarily on violence and drugs are not yet recognized by the victim. Though this student may only want friends or a social status, they are too blinded by the pain to see the truth. And once introduced to this new way of living, there may be no way out. The group of students who are lonely, hurt or unpopular resort to drugs and violence as an escape. In the drugs aspect, students may find themselves having even more emotional problems. Drugs may cause them to address problems more dramatically and violently. With both gangs and drugs in schools, guns are brought to the atten tion of these confused students. With the money from drugs and a gang-type environment, vulnerable students may eventually come across a weapon at some point. With weapon in hand, one may feel the strength he or she did not have before. He or she may now feel the need to settle a long rival between a person who was not accepting in the past, and once again, more violence in the schools. As you can ... Free Essays on Violence In Schools Free Essays on Violence In Schools Escalating Violence in the Nations’ School’s The act of violence has set a vivid picture in people’s minds that our nation’s schools are not safe. Local school yards have changed for the worst and many students often find themselves watching each others backs. With this in mind, many families, school faculty, and students must focus their attention on what needs to be done to fix this rapidly growing problem. This problem of violence is no longer a fear but has become reality, due to gangs, drugs, and guns, students and faculty are at risk everyday. Every day, our society continues to grow at a rate us as humans can not keep up with. Some students choose to stick with the books, while many who are weak, fall into the hands of schoolyard predators. At first, these predators watch for the weak, and in a moment of feeling alone or unstable, they are comforted and given a place where they can feel welcome. Theses places, often being gangs or groups that focus primarily on violence and drugs are not yet recognized by the victim. Though this student may only want friends or a social status, they are too blinded by the pain to see the truth. And once introduced to this new way of living, there may be no way out. The group of students who are lonely, hurt or unpopular resort to drugs and violence as an escape. In the drugs aspect, students may find themselves having even more emotional problems. Drugs may cause them to address problems more dramatically and violently. With both gangs and drugs in schools, guns are brought to the atten tion of these confused students. With the money from drugs and a gang-type environment, vulnerable students may eventually come across a weapon at some point. With weapon in hand, one may feel the strength he or she did not have before. He or she may now feel the need to settle a long rival between a person who was not accepting in the past, and once again, more violence in the schools. As you can ...

International business finance Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International business finance - Case Study Example The report comprehensively analyses the strategies at hand for the XP PLC multinational company and consequently recommends the best strategy/option to be adopted on the basis of financial facts. The XP plc Company’s strengths include diversified business operations in a number of countries. The company has a holding company situated in France. However, it has a number of subsidiaries operating in foreign countries such as in Germany, Australia, Monaco, and Poland. Additionally, the firm has stable sales revenue of over 60 million Euros. This is a clear indication that the company made superior products that are tailored for its customers, hence gaining customer loyalty. The customer loyalty comes about due to the satisfaction of the customers’ preferences and choices. For a company to continue operating in a business environment, it must be in a position to yield profits to cater for company expenses, financing activities, investment purposes and maximizing the company’s value. Since the firm is trading at a net profit of 8%, it has a stable future operation in the economy. A business organisation that is incapable of financing its business activities u sing internal funds such as equity is compelled to borrow from external sources available. Among the external sources of funds is the debt that increases the firm’s financial leverage. Since the proportion of the debt is smaller as compared to the equity, the financial risk is reduced hence a strength to the company that could otherwise be a threat had the debt outweighed the equity capital. The multinational company suffers from a stiff competition in the service industry. This has caused the company to at least diversify its operation worldwide to increase its products and services delivery. The company uses bureaucratic kind of management making it difficulty in making decisions faster. XP plc being a multinational company, it has a chance for diversity. The firm has

Compare and contrast two explanations of late-nineteenth century Essay

Compare and contrast two explanations of late-nineteenth century European imperialism with regards to two European empires in at - Essay Example The British conquest of India began in the middle of the eighteenth century and played a major part in this country’s rise to world dominance in the nineteenth century. Because Britain had an excellent Navy and a spirit of exploration and conquest, the first settlers there quickly set up businesses to supply the factories at home with raw materials. Britain had just begun a period of great economic expansion at home, which has come to be called â€Å"the industrial revolution.† The East India Company was created to build up trade in goods like spices and cotton, and Britain soon relied upon this country for the supply of many goods. The East India Company was a private organization but it received a lot of support from the British government. It grew into a major cultural influence as well, aiming to educate the Indian population in English ways. Britain’s colonial influence extended far across the huge territories of India. Some of the profits from trade were us ed to introduce new technologies into India like roads and telegraphs, and even a vast railway network. The purpose was to support the colonial trade system, but an important side-effect was a shift in the culture of India for the native people there. Some historians see the colonisation of India in terms of bringing progress to the whole world, especially economic progress: â€Å"no organization in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital and labour than the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries† (Ferguson: 2004, p. xxi) From this perspective, the brutal oppression of Indians who did not accept British rule is seen as an unfortunate price that had to be paid for this great progress. It is astonishing that so few British people managed to control such a huge land, for example in the period 1860-1905, â€Å"there were seldom more than 100,00 of them (European people) scattered among a population of over 250 million, and mos t were British soldiers who lived in cantonments concentrated in the northern half of the country.† (Ferguson, 2004, p. 341) The British government supplied troops to keep control over areas where uprisings occurred, for example in Bengal, which quickly became a centre for British influence. (Marshall: 2005, p. 241) A key factor in the success of the â€Å"Jewel in the Crown† of Queen Victoria’s empire was this partnership between business and government for purposes which benefited them both. This economic analysis is a convincing explanation of Britain’s great success in colonising the whole subcontinent of India. The colonisation of Tunisia by France is seen also by some historians as an incoming advanced nation bringing civilisation and progress to a backward country. The colonial attitudes are the same, and Africa was seen as a great prize which could be easily taken. There was a great rush by many European countries to take what they could: â€Å"Th e partition of Africa took little more than 20 years. It began with the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Wesseling: 2004, p, 148) France began to impose a political structure that fitted in with its centralist approach to government. Tunisia, along with Algeria and Morocco, became an extension of the French department system. At this late stage, more than a

Genetics and breast cancer Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Genetics and breast cancer - Research Paper Example Treatment plans have modified from time to time with the aim to conserve as much as normal breast tissue and reduce the recurrence rates. Different strategies have evolved ranging from modified radical mastectomy to radiation to hormonal and chemotherapy. Having a varied prognosis depending on the histo pathological appearance as well as the grading, staging and receptor status of the breast carcinoma. Early diagnosis and treatment yields better results, while late diagnosis and treatment results in widespread disease. Breast cancer one of the most common and ancient carcinoma in female occurring most commonly in postmenopausal woman and in individuals with BRCA mutation. The screening, diagnosis and treatment are rapidly changing areas with more and more advances in the diagnostic tests and resulting specific therapies depending on the histo-pathological and bio-markers. From diagnosis to treatment it needs a multidisciplinary approach with physicians, radiologists, oncologists, histo-pathologists on board. This article focuses on the etiological factors, genetic mutation, diagnosis, treatment plans and prognostic factors. . Breast cancers being more common in women but can also occur in men and have a poor prognosis as in men there is always delay in diagnosis as opposed to women. Unlike other carcinomas it can be picked up early as it presents with a lump in the breast, for the same reason it has also been documented as an ancient disease as unlike other carcinomas it could become visible and c ould be picked up as a lump in breast. If we look at the above risk factors, most of them can be explained by the fact that excessive exposure to sex hormones can lead to breast cancers. Early onset of menses and late menopause, both of these cases leads to over exposure to sex hormones (same can be explained with obesity). One of the studies being carried out concluded that

Anti-C1q Antibodies in Patients with Hepatitis B Virus

Anti-C1q Antibodies in Patients with Hepatitis B Virus Anti-C1q Antibodies in Patients with Hepatitis B Virus Infection Ahmed Elsadek Fakhr1, Emad Abdelhamid Morad1, Marc van Ranst2, and Mahmoud Reza Pourkarim3 Abstract Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is associated with extrahepatic manifestations the mechanism of which is thought to be immune mediated. One of the autoantibodies accused to be associated with tissue injury in immune complex disorders is anti-C1q. This might be attributed to the ability of these autoantibodies to amplify complement activation in situ. To date, there are no data describing the prevalence of anti-C1q in patients with HBV infection. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of anti-C1q antibodies and analyze possible associations in a population with HBV infection. Materials and Methods: Serum samples were collected from a group of 145 patients with HBV infection and 33 apparently healthy controls. Anti-C1q antibodies were quantified by ELISA. Results: The levels of anti-C1q antibodies showed a highly statistically significant difference between HBV cases and controls as the mean ÂÂ ± SD were 21.28 ÂÂ ± 38.72 and 6.56 ÂÂ ± 5.73, respectively (p Conclusions: Patients with HBV infection exhibit increased production of anti-C1q antibodies. This observation may partially explain the tissue damage associated with the extrahepatic involvements of HBV. Keywords: Anti-C1q antibodies; autoantibodies; Hepatitis; Infection Background: Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of anti-C1q antibodies and analyze possible associations in a population with HBV infection. Patients, Materials, and Methods: Ethical statement: All procedures were conducted in accordance with the ethical principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consents were obtained from all subjects enrolled in the study. Study design and population: The study was performed as a case control study on 2 groups. A total of 145 patients with HBV infection were enrolled in the first group. Of the 145 patients, 65, 64, and 16 were living in Iran, Belgium, and Egypt, respectively. Patients were classified into: patients with acute hepatitis B diagnosed by seropositivity for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs-Ag) and hepatitis B core IgM (HBc-IgM), and patients with chronic hepatitis B characterized by presence of HBs-Ag and HBc-IgG. The second group included 33 apparently healthy volunteers. Patients were excluded if they had systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) or co-infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). One mL serum was collected from all enrolled subjects and stored at -20ÂÂ °C till testing. Laboratory assessment: Anti-C1q determination in the collected serum samples was performed using commercial enzyme linked immunosorbent assay kit (QUANTA LiteTM Anti-C1q ELISA, INOVA Diagnostics, Inc., United States of America), as per the manufacturers instructions. The samples were classified as negative, low positive, moderate positive or strong positive if the anti-C1q values were 80 units, respectively. Statistical analysis: Continuous variables were expressed as the mean ÂÂ ± SD median (range), and the categorical variables were expressed as a number. Continuous variables were checked for normality by using Shapiro-Wilk test. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare between two groups of non-normally distributed variables. Kruskal Wallis h test was used to compare between more than two groups of non-normally distributed variables. A p-value

Abortion: How Does He Really Feel? :: Essays Papers

Abortion: How Does He Really Feel? In the article, â€Å"End of the Road† by Rebecca Paley, she raises an interesting point of why Dr. William Rashbaum does what he does as an abortion doctor. This article was published in Mother Jones in the Sep/Oct 2003 issue. The setting of this article is placed around modern times. Even though abortion was made legal about 30 years ago, the thought of whether or not it is right is still an issue. This article takes an in depth look inside the life of an abortionist named Dr. William Rashbaum. The audience Paley is targeting are probably people that are for and have had abortions. Paley describes Dr.Rashbum as being an unruly, mad, sometimes compassionate, and doing it because it’s his job type of doctor. She says these things because he doesn’t care about what anyone says. Paley interviewed people that know him personally to give credibility of how he really is. She asked a second-trimester abortion provider who trained under Rashbaum what she thought of him. She stated â€Å"A person who is more concerned with what people think of him than doing the fight thing wouldn’t last. He cares more about doing the right thing than what people think of his personality.† The main argument that Paley is stating is that Dr.Rashbum feels convicted for what he does but, he is only doing it because it’s his job. He even admits that it is hard to do sometime. She makes sure she incorporated plenty of that in her article. Paley also makes this article a little confusing because she jumps back and forth between sides . She tries to justify him by putting little pieces of information that make him not seem so bad. In the next paragraph or two, she makes it seem that he is so wrong for what he is doing. She doesn’t do this directly, but indirectly. The tone Paley uses is a tone that is upset about abortions, but also making excuses for him. She should pick one side so it wouldn’t be too hard to find her argument.

Computer Crime Essay Essay

Computer crime is an ongoing issue that we continuously see, and a major problem with this is that most people do not realize the harm that computer crime can cause. Computer crime is also a niche that continues to grow. This is based on the fact that there are many different perceptions about what computer crime is, and the harmful effects it can have. Because there is a gap between traditional views of what cyber crime is and the actual realities of these crimes, it is a criminal offense that will continue to happen. A major issue within this industry is the fact that citizens, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and the government don’t put cyber crime at the top of their list of dangerous crimes is because the actual act of computer crime is not in itself viewed as being dangerous. This is a traditional view of computer crime, and the book goes on to explain that, â€Å"many [stereotypical] computer criminals are non-threatening, socially challenged individuals, and 36.3% of officers believe that investigation of computer crime interferes with their ability to concentrate on ‘traditional’ crimes† (Britz, 7). Because police tend to not look too seriously at these crimes, the general public will form their own, similar opinions on the matter. This gives people an inaccurate belief about the effects of cyber crime. In fact, computer crime can and many times is violent today. One area of computer crime that has become particularly dangerous, especially for younger generations is cyber bullying. In recent years, we have seen more and more suicides related to cyber bullying then ever before. An example of this can be seen in the case of the United States v. Lori Drew. Lori was an older woman who pretended to be a teenaged boy and began to talk and soon after started an online relationship with a 14-year-old girl. The girl eventually began to fall for the fake 16-year-old boy that Lori Drew created. After a series of conversations, their â€Å"relationship† ended with a message from Drew telling the girl that nobody actually liked her and she should instead kill herself. Unfortunately, the 14-year-old girl, being highly impressionable and because of her feelings for this fake teenage boy, took the advice and ended up killing herself. A big issue we have seen with lawmakers imposing laws to prevent cyber crime is that, it is  such an advanced form of crime that many times it is unclear if there was an actual crime committed and if so where/when it happened. In past situations, â€Å"legislative bodies and judicial authorities have been slow to respond† (Britz, 5). This slow response allows for those committing crimes in cyber space to avoid punishment and lets these criminals continue their illegal operations. Another problem within this criminal sector is the gray area between, â€Å"someone who accesses information without authorization and someone who is actually committing an act in cyberspace meant to harm someone or destroy property† (Webster). Another traditional view when it comes to cyber crime that is probably the most commonly thought, is that â€Å"it would never happen to me†. The average American does not think that they could be a computer criminal’s targets. These people believe that because they aren’t millionaires and instead an average income American, cyber criminals won’t go after them. This unfortunately is not the case, and because these people aren’t taking the proper steps to protect themselves, they are becoming easier to target. In 2004, 54 million Americans were subject to email attacks by â€Å"phishers† looking to steal financial information from people. Roughly 4% of these 54 million people gave away their financials including credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers, etc—that is almost 1.7 million people! In the year 2003, 1.2 billion dollars were generated in cyber attacks on average Americans. But computer criminals are not just using this phishing approach to steal information and money. They are practicing using key logging and spyware to steal passwords and other private information that can allow these people to go unnoticed while spending your money. Despite the fact that we see more and more security be put in place to avoid these issues, it continues to happen because so many people in our society believe it will not happen to them. But what is instead happening, is more of these average people are being targeted because they are essentially making it easier for these criminals to steal their personal information. While these criminals certainly could steal more money from millionaires, going after these more average Americans is easier and safer (Wilson). With how technology dependent our society has become, we see more and more  hacking crimes today. There even exist groups out there that have members from all over the world that collectively hack different websites. For example, Anonymous is probably the most well known hacking collective in the world. Parmy Olson’s book We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World, she discusses the history of the group and the attacks that they have done. This group would like us to believe that they are an activist group that seeks freedom for all people, but has hacked financial institutions such as PayPal, MasterCard and Visa. They want us to believe that they are freedom fighters and simply believe in an unregulated Internet, but they tend to go after websites and companies that simply disagree with their message. It is kind of a double-edged sword, because while they are preaching about freedom of speech, they then in turn go after people who disagree with their message. Olson even discusses the fact that the group went after her because of the books she was writing about this organization. People are definitely becoming more aware of the dangers of computer crime, many Americans still do not see the detrimental effects that cyber crime can have on society. These people that are blinded by traditional views of computer crime, have become the target of attacks. Their lack of preparations have allowed cyber criminals to go after them and gain money through their computer skills. Works Cited Britz, M. T. (2013). Computer Forensics and Cyber Crime and Introduction (3rd ed., Vol. 3). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Olson, Parmy. We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency. New York: Little, Brown and Company, . â€Å"United States v. Lori Drew.† (Feb. 2008): California . 2 Jul. 2012. news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/cyberlaw/usdrew51508ind.pdf. Webster, S. C. (2013, June 20). Lawmakers Propose Cyber Crime Reforms. Retrieved from Raw Story website: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/20/lawmakers-propose-cyber-crime-reforms-inspired-by-aaron-swartz/ Wilson, T. (n.d.). How Phishing Works. Retrieved June 30, 2013, from How Stuff Works website: http://www.howstuffworks.com/phishing.htm

Progressive education essays

Progressive education essays To meet the needs of an increasing industrialized Canadian society in the late 1930s, the elementary curriculum was revised. This essay will explore the changes BC curriculum endured as a result of the progressive movement within the Greater Victoria area by way of the Greater Victoria Survey of Schools of 1937-38 and the Curriculum Guide: The New Programme of Studies 1936-7. The new system is commonly known as progressive education or the new education. Jean Barman describes new education as ... embodying a commitment to a child-centered, relatively unstructured curriculum allowing considerable freedom of choice to pupil and teacher alike, the expression of humane, egalitarian, democratic philosophy of education. The modern curriculum was an attempt to move away from the emphasis of memorization, facts, formalism and unrelated or irrelevant material within the classroom. John Dewey, an educational philosopher, can be held accountable for the radical outlook on education in the ea rly 1900s. Dewey believed there was a theoretical gap between child-centered and subject centered curriculum. This gap was a failure to recognize interaction between child and curriculum. Individual difference, child reaction and interest were vital aspect of education that had been overlooked by traditional curricula. The refreshed program was intended to meet the childs physical, moral, emotional and intellectual needs through a variety of revisions within the curriculum. Before browsing through the heart of the new curriculum, it is important to familiarize oneself in the parturition of progressive education before an appreciation for the impact the revisions had within the education system. Pressure from British Columbia Teachers Federation initiated a formal inquiry by the government to investigate the devastating situation of rural schools. Lack of facilities, supplies, financial instability, r...

buy custom Supervised Machine Learning essay

buy custom Supervised Machine Learning essay The recent technological developments in areas such as the internet, DNA microarray, hyperspectral imagery, database among other notable areas have resulted to the emergency of large amounts of data in wide spectrums of applications. These include areas such as search engines, proteomics, genomic, text categorization, and information retrieval. According to Tan (2007, p. 17), it is estimated that, the total amount of information stored doubles each twenty months. Machine learning thus offers tools to alleviate this problem by analyzing large quantity of data automatically. However, it is notable that, the many applications of features or attributes makes it hard for machine learning to extract all the useful information from a gigantic data streams. Guyon (2003, p. 42) candidly indicates that machine learning provides the necessary tools, through which, large quantities of data may be automatically analyzed. Future selection, which selects a subset of all the most salient features as well as removes redundant, noisy and irrelevant features is the process that usually employed in machine learning in solving highly dimensionally problems. Feature selection focuses the learning algorithms to most useful and crucial aspects of data, thus making learning task more accurate as well as fast. It is notable that in the last five years, feature and variable selection have become one of the main areas of focus in research. This is especially in area of applications for which datasets with hundreds of thousands of variables are present. The objective of feature selections is mainly three fold; offering more coat-effective and faster predictors, developing the prediction performances of all the available predictors, and offering an improved understanding of all the underlying processes, which generated the data. The contributions of the feature and variable selection cover wide range of aspects of the associated problems, such as feature ranking, feature construction, multivariate feature selection, feature validity assessment, as well as offering improved definition of the available objective functions. As indicated above, the rapid developments of applications and novel technologies having large as well as more complex accumulation of data, mainly at unprecedented speeds, there has been collection of large and unknown quantities of candidate features, usually collected to represent data. Tan (2007, p. 18), indicate that although the features, which are irrelevant may fail to add anything to the target concept learning through the learning machine as well as the redundant features, they raise the computation costs of the overall learning process. There are four main advantages of using feature selection in supervised machine learning. First, feature selection reduces computational complexity of prediction and learning algorithms. Most of the well-known learning algorithms have become computational intractable, especially in the presence of huge numbers of features. This applies in the prediction step and training step. Therefore, preceding step of feature selections can enormously solve this problem. Feature selection greatly saves on the costs of measuring non-selected figures. Once a smaller set of the features, which allow good predictions of all the labels are established, one does not have to measure the other features. The other advantage of feature selection, e specially in supervised machine learning, is higher levels of improved accuracy. In most circumstances, feature selection can enhance the accuracy of predictions by improving signals to noise ratio. Generally, in most of the real word tasks, the dimensionality of the data is very high such that it is practically prohibitive or computationally costly for machine learning. Most of the traditional learning algorithms have failed to scale o the large size problems as a result of the curse of the dimensionality. In addition to this, the existence of the noisy features highly degrades the performance of learning algorithms. Feature selection techniques are thus crucial in solving this problem in machine learning. There are two types of machine learning, supervised and unsupervised machine learning as indicated on the diagram below. In the supervised learning, all the class labels of training data are well known. The training example is well represented as pairs of input objectives as well as its desired output, such as class label. The main task of supervised learners is to establish functions to approximate the mapping between the training data to their classes, in order to predict the classes of the new data. Some of the algorithms and approaches that have been proposed for the supervised learning include k-nearest neighbor, decision trees, nave Bayers classifiers, SUVs (Support Vector Machines) and random forests. Guyon (2003, p. 40) supervised learning can be termed as the machine learning duty of inferring a function a labeled (supervised) training data. The training data mainly consists of sets of training examples. In a supervised learning, every example is a pair consisting of an input object, typically a vector, and an output value, also known as the supervisory signal. Supervised learning algorithm an alyzes procedures and training data an inferred function, which is known as a classifier, if the output data is discrete, or a regression function, if the output data is continuous. On the other hand, unsupervised machine learning can clearly be distinguished from the supervised machine learning due to the fact that the class labels used for training data are not usually available. The unsurprised learning method mostly decides which objects can be grouped together in one class. Put in other words, they mostly learn class by themselves. The K-nearest neighbors, self-organizing as well as data clustering algorithms, such as fuzzy c-means clustering and K-means clustering are mostly used for the unsupervised learning tasks. It is crucial to note that good representation of the input objects is crucial due to the fact that the accuracy of the entire learned model enormously depends strongly on the way input objects are indicated typically, the entire input object is changed into a vector of attributes or features, thus being used to describe the object. 1.1 Objectives There are different feature selection algorithms having various objectives to be attained. Some of these objectives include: Finding the minimally sized feature subset sufficient and necessary to the target concept. Selecting a subset N features from a set of M features such that M , such that all the values of the criterion function is fully optimized, over all the subset size N Selecting a subset of features aimed at improving the accuracy of prediction or reducing the size of the structure, without substantially reducing on the accuracy of prediction of all the classifiers, built by using only the features selected. Selecting small subset such that, the resulting class distribution, is very close to the original class distribution if all feature values are given. 1.2. Feature Selection Procedure As indicated above feature selection, also known as feature reduction, variable selection, variable subset selection or attribute selection is a method of selecting a subset of the relevant features, useful for building a robust learning model. Guyon (2003, p. 40) argues that feature selection is critical in problem understanding. This is due to the fact that the selected features can offer great insights on the nature of the problem being tackled. This is enormously crucial, since in most circumstances, the ability to point out the important informative features is necessary as compared to the ability f making good predictions in itself. The main goal of the feature selection is to select small sublets of feature, such that recognition rate of all classifiers do not decrease substantially. Liu and Yu (2005, p. 32) argues that the feature selection method depends on the way in which subsets are generated as well as the evaluation function employed in evaluating all the subsets under examination. There are numerous types of feature selection procedure based on generation procedures of all the subsets as well as the evaluation functions employed to evaluate them. However, a typical feature selection procedure consists of four basic steps, namely: Subset generation Subset evaluation Stopping criterion, and Results validation The flow chart below briefly indicates the four notable processes The process starts with the generation of subset that employs a particular search strategy in order to give rise to a candidate feature subsets. This is followed by evaluation of each candidate subset according to a particular evaluation criterion and then compared with the best subset. If it is better, the previous best one is replaced. It is notable that the process of generation and evaluation of the subset is then repeated until a certain stopping criterion is attained. Finally, the selected best feature subset is carefully validated by the test data or prior knowledge. Liu and Yu, (2005, p. 20) argues that search strategy as well as evaluation are the key points when studying feature selection. 1.2.1 Subset Generation As indicated by Ng (1998, p. 14), subset generation is first a process involving a heuristic search, with every state in the search space having a certain candidate subset for the purpose of evaluation. It is notable that the nature of this process is enormously determined by two basic issues. To start with, one must make a decision on the search point or points that will in turn going to influence the direction. The search process may start with a set that is empty and successively add features (forward) or begin with a full set of and then successively remove features (backward). The search can also begin with both points and then successively add and remove features (bi-directional). Further, search can also begin with a subset that is randomly selected. This is crucial as it avoids the subset being trapped in local optima (Liu and Yu, 2005, p. 16). Secondly, one must decide on a search strategy to be used. For a data set having N features, then there exists candidate subsets. For an exhaustive search the search space is exhaustive, even where N is moderate. There are other search strategies, which have been explored. This include complete, random and sequential search. 1.2.1.1 An exhaustive Search This method guarantees to establish all the optimal results as dedicated by the evaluation criterion adopted. In other words, exhaustive search is complete as no any optimal subset is missed. For instance, for a data set having five parameters, X1 X4, X5 there can be a number of combinations of the independent variables as indicated on the table below. (Rogati and Yang, 2002, p. 44) Note: For a given dataset having Y independent parameters, exhaustive search method will have 2^Y-1 regression models to selected from. This type of search is said to be exhaustive due to the fact that the search is guarantee to generate all the reachable states, prior to it terminate with failure. Liu and Yu (2005, p. 12) candidly indicates that an exhaustive search always build a regression model, with each possible combination of the parameters. However, it is crucial noting that, if a search is complete this does not mean that it must have been fully exhaustive. This is based on the fact that various heuristic functions may be used, in order to reduce the selected search space without necessarily jeopardizing any chances of establishing the optimal results. Though the order of the selected search space is O, smaller number of subsets can be evaluated. An exhaustive search may be performed, on the condition that the numbers of variables are not too large. A wide variety of search strategies, such as branch-and-bound, best-first, genetic algorithms, simulated annealing among others, may be used. Some of the notable examples include branch, bound and beam search. The branch and bound procedure performs an exhaustive search that is done in an orderly fashion, such as search tree, but it halt the search a long a given branch, if bound or limit is exceeded. This can be done if sub-solution fails to look promising. In spite of the time complexity, this search method is usually fast for some given problems. 1.2.1.2 Sequential Search This method gives up completeness, therefore risks loosing the optimal subsets. There are various variations to the greedy hill-climbing method. Some of them include sequential backward elimination, sequential forward selection, as well as bi-directional selection. Sequential forward selection begins with a feature subset that is empty. For all iteration, exactly one of the features is added to the subset. In order to determine the feature to be added, the algorithm exactly adds to the existing candidate feature subset one of the feature, which is already selected as well as tests the accuracy of the classifier build on the tentative subset. Sequential backward deletion is almost similar to the forward selection, but this one begins with all the features as well as tries to remove the feature, resulting in the highest levels of accuracy gain. In some instances, a greedier version of the sequential search method can be implemented where there is the possibility of deleting or adding m ore feature o very iteration. In supervised machine learning, the greedier version is faster, due to the fact that, it examines reduced number of candidate feature subset. It is notable that these methods add or remove some features each at a time. The other method is to add or remove p features in a single step and adding or removing q features in the proceeding step (p q) (Liu and Yu, 2005, p. 15) It is simple to implement algorithms having sequential search. It is also fast to produce results. This is due to the fact that, the order of the sequential search space is mostly O, or even less. 1.2.1.3 Random Search Random search usually start with a subset that is randomly selected and then proceeds into two distinct ways. One ways is to follow sequential search, thus injecting randomness into the sequential approach. Examples include simulated annealing and random-start hill-climbing. The other way is to generate the subsequent subsets in completely random manner, a method that is known as Las Vegas algorithm. According to Tan (2007, p. 21), random search evaluates large sets of random feature subsets and the returns the best feature. Based on this, it is crucial to implement more complex strategies of selection, such as the genetic feature selections or as initialization of the greedy search. For instance, bad choices that are done on the early stages of greedy search usually become hard to be undone, while forward search mostly suffers if all the features, which are judged individually, are poor. Generally for all the approaches, the use of randomness significantly helps in escaping local op tima in the given search space. Further, the optimality of the selected subsets largely depends on all the available resources. 1.2.1.4 Individual Search Liu and Yu (2005, p. 13) argues that the individual search method evaluates every feature separately. The main advantage of this is the fact that it is a high speed search method s compared to others such as exhaustive, random, sequential search among others. As a result of this, individual search is used in for pre-selection of candidate feature subsets from large sets of feature. However, it is crucial to note that, individually, poor features can yield to a high class of separability when they are used together. In individual search, it is possible for one to provide additional test sets using test options. 1.2.2 Subset Evaluation As indicated above, every newly generated subset requires to be evaluated carefully by a given evaluation criterion. It is crucial to note that the goodness of the selected subset is usually determined by a particular criterion. That is, an optimal subset selected using a certain criterion may fail to be an optimal according to the other give criterion. One of the paradigms, which have been dubbed as filter, operates independently of any of the learning algorithm. This is due to the fact that all the undesired features are filtered out of the data prior to the commencement of learning. These algorithms mostly use heuristics based on the general characteristics of data to evaluate merits of the feature subsets. The other school of thought indicates that, the bias of the given induction algorithm ought to be taken into account before selecting a feature. This method is known as wrapper method. It uses an induction algorithm along side a statistical re-sampling technique, such as the cr oss-validation in estimating the final accuracy to all feature subsets. Generally, feature selection algorithms can be divided in three broad categories namely wrapper, hybrid and filter. 1.2.2.1 Filter Method Independent of all the other induction algorithms, the filter method filters out all redundant, noisy, or irrelevant features in the processing steps before induction takes place. Liu, Liu, and Yu (2005, p. 10) argues that filter method select a feature set for any of the learning algorthms to be used when leraning concepst from the training set. The bisaness of all the future selection alogrithms as well as the learning alogrithm do not intearct. The search usually proceeds until pre-specified number of the feature is obtained or some thresholding criteria is met. The key advantage of the filter method as comapred to other methods, such as wrapper method among others, is the fact that this method is fast as well as the ability to scale to the large database.Unlike other methods, such as wrappers, filters usually utilizes the intrinsic properties of the data in evaluating feature subset. In general, the featurse are mostly assesed using their discriminatory or releavnces powers in re gard to the target classes. 1.2.2.2 Wrapper Method In wrapper methods, the performances, such as prediction or classification accuracy, of an induction algorithm is used for the feature subset evaluation as indicated o the figure below. In most of its general formulation, the wrapper method consists in the usage of prediction performance of a certain learning machine, in order to assess the overall usefulness of all the usefulness of the subsets of variables. When applying the wrapper method one should define, the How to search all the usefulness of the subset of variables How to assess the prediction performances of learning machine, in order to guide the search as well as halt it Which predictors will be employed Wrappers are usually criticized due to the fact that they are seen as a brute force method, which require massive amount of computational, though this is not necessarily the case. Greedy search strategies are usually seen as computational advantageous as well as robust against over fitting. In forward selection, wrappers are useful in estimating the accuracy of adding every unselected feature to all the feature subset as well as choosing the best feature to be added according to this kind of criterion. The method usually terminates when the estimated accuracy of adding any of the feature is less as compared to the estimated accuracy of the feature set already selected. Generally, for every generated feature subset S, the wrappers usually evaluates its applicability by using induction algorithms to dataset using the features present in the subset S. Wrappers may easily find features subsets within the high level of accuracy. This is due to the fact that the features match well with al l the learning algorithms (Liu, and Yu, 2005, p. 12). 1.2.2.3 Hybrid Method In order to improve the classification performances as well as fasten feature selection, it is advisable to build a hybrid model. This is due to the fact that it takes the advantage of wrappers and filters by employing both independent criteria and the learning algorithms in measuring feature subsets. Filters offers an intelligence guide for the wrappers, like reducing search space, offering a good start point or shortening the search path, all of which are crucial in scaling wrappers to the larger size problems. Hybrid method employs the independent measures in deciding the subset that is best for any given cardinality (Liu, and Yu, 2005, p. 13). 1.2.2.4 Feature Ranking Among the entire proposed feature selection algorithm, the aspect of feature ranking methods, which rank or score features by a particular criterion. The use rankings of the features as base of selection mechanism are mostly attractive due to their scalability, simplicity as well as the good empirical success. Computationally, the feature ranking is efficient due to the fact that it needs only the computation of M scores as well as sorting all the scores. With regard to ranks of the features, the subsets of important features may be selected in order to build classifiers or predictors. 1.2.3 Stopping Criterion It is important to note that a feature selector should be able to decide when to stop searching through the space of the feature subsets. Depending on evaluation strategies which are available, a feature selection may remove or adding features, when none of the alternative improves on the merits of the current feature subsets. Alternatively, algorithm may continue to revise feature subset as long as the merit has not degraded. Based on this argument, a further option may be to continue with generation of subsets until reaching the other end of search. The best subset is then selected. In most cases, the test is not able to measure the distance existing between the last iterate and the true solution. Generally, a feature selection process may terminate if: The search is complete A predefined size of the feature subset has been selected A predefined number of iterations have been executed A sufficiently good or an optimal feature subset has been obtained, or When the change of feature subset does not result to a better subset (Tan, 2007, p. 23). 1.2.4 Result validation In some of the applications, all the relevant features are usually known beforehand, thus allowing one to validate the results of feature selection. However, in many real-world applications it is hard to understand the features that are relevant. Hence, one has to rely on some of the indirect methods through monitoring the change of the mining performance with all the changes of features (Liu and Dash, 1997, p. 23). Buy custom Supervised Machine Learning essay

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