Refute an Argument regarding Immigration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Refute an Argument regarding Immigration - Essay Example The scales of justice tip away from the illegal immigrant. It tips away from human and civil rights as well. In the United States, overt discriminatory practices during all phases of the criminal justice system concerning ethnic minorities, especially those of African-American or Hispanic descent have been well-documented throughout the history of the country (Sampson & Lauritsen, 1997). In more recent years, various U.S. criminal agencies have increased their efforts to control a new type of minority group, namely illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The U.S. passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 which contains provisions that specifically target these groups by deterring employment opportunities for illegal immigrants and has provided a great deal of funding to the Immigration and Naturalization Service so it could increase efforts to diminish illegal immigration by stiffening border control tactics (McDonald, 1997). The recent increased implementation of law enforcement measures which are exclusively aimed at minorities and immigrants has occurred not only in the U.S. but in European nations as well. A study that conducted research in both the U.S. and Europe showed that interactions between police agencies and interactions with immigrants are becoming increasingly tense as evidenced by a proliferation of physical and verbal abuse, a growing mutual distrust and an escalating threat of violence. In the U.S., â€Å"Discrimination against minorities occurs indirectly as a result of poor legal representation, language problems, high incidences of specific offenses (such as drug-related and immigration violations) and low level of employment status† (Marshall, 1997) As compared to constituents of the socially dominant faction, illegal immigrants are much more liable to be detained, questioned, and searched by law enforcement officials. Once they have been arrested, minority members are also more

Internal Audit Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Internal Audit - Research Proposal Example The concept of timeliness in internal audit processes means adherence to prescribed deadlines. Internal auditors usually work with a timetable where inception and termination of procedures are definitely stated. Typically, auditing involves interviewing of employees, review of an organization’s operation documents and administration of survey questionnaires to relevant stakeholders. Occasionally, a given procedure like examination of documents in an office may take longer than prescribed (Krishnan, 2013, p. 231). In such cases, employees working inside the office under examination will be restricted from accessing their respective work stations. On the other hand, those restricted employees have duties and responsibilities which need completion before a stipulated deadline. In this context, the hitch of workplace restriction experienced by employees causes substantial inefficiencies that can negatively impact on an organization’s practices. Aside from workplace restriction, undue disruption of work environments manifest in form of safeguarding logistical tools of operation. As acknowledged earlier, the main aim of internal auditors is to examine actual operational practices of an organization. In order to execute this task, auditors must access documents and related files containing information regarding individual workflows. In the case of limited clarity, auditors may be forced to mix up documents from different departments as a means of facilitating reconciliation of ledgers (Kothari & Smith, 2004).

Cryptographic Techniques For Network Security Cryptography Computer Science Essay

Cryptographic Techniques For Network Security Cryptography Computer Science Essay The rapid growth of electronic communication means that issues in information security are of increasing practical importance. Message exchanged over worldwide publicly accessible computer networks must be kept confidential and protected against manipulation. Cryptography provides solutions to all these problems. Cryptography, a word with Greek origins means secret writing. We use the term to refer to the science and art of transforming messages to make them secure and immune to attacks. Cryptography is the practice and study of hiding information. In modern times, cryptography is considered to be a branch of both mathematics and computer science, and is affiliated closely with information theory, computer security, and engineering. Cryptography is used in applications present in technologically advanced societies; examples include the security of ATM cards, computer passwords, electronic commerce, which all depend on cryptography. SECURITY GOALS Availability Integrity Confidentiality Security goals CONFIDENTIALITY Confidentiality is probably the most common aspect of information security. We need to protect our confidential information. An organization need to guard those malicious actions that endanger the confidentiality of its information. In the military, concealment of sensitive information is the major concern. In industry, hiding some information from competitors is crucial to the operation of the organization. In banking, customers account need to be kept secret. Confidentiality not only applies to the storage of the information, it also applies to the transmission of information. When we send a piece of information to be stored in a remote computer or when we retrieve a piece of information from a computer, we need to conceal it during transmission. INTEGRITY Information needs to be changed constantly. In a blank, when a customer deposits or with draws money, the balance of her account needs to be changed. Integrity means that changes need to be done only by authorized entities and through authorised mechanisms. Integrity violation is not necessary the result of a malicious act; an interruption in the system, such as a power surge, may also create unwanted changes in some information. AVAILABILITY The third component of information security is availability. The information created and stored by an organization needs to be available to authorized entities. Information is useless if it is not available. Information needs to be constantly changed. Which means it must be accessible to authorised entities. The unavailability of information is just as harmful for an organization as the lack of confidentiality or integrity. Imagine what would happen to a bank if the customers could not access their accounts for transactions. SECURITY SERVICES It is easy to relate one or more of these services to one or more of the security goals. It is easy to see that these services have been designed to prevent the security attacks that we have mentioned. Data confidentiality It is designed to protect data from disclosure attack. The service as defined by X.800 is very broad and encompasses confidentiality of the whole message or part of a message and also protection against traffic analysis. That is, it is designed to prevent snooping and traffic analysis attack. Data integrity It is designed to protect data from the modification, insertion, deletion, and replaying by an adversary. It may protect the whole message or part of the message. Authentication This service provides the authentication of the party at the other end of the line. In connection oriented communication, it provides authentication of the sender or receiver during the connection establishment. In connectionless communication, it authenticates the source of the data. Non repudiation Non repudiation services protects against repudiation by either the sender or the receiver of the data. In non repudiation with proof of the origin, the receiver of the data can later prove the identity of the sender if denied. In non repudiation with proof of delivery, the sender of data can later prove that data were delivered to the intended to the intended recipient. Access control It provides protection against unauthorised access to data. The term access in this definition is very broad and can involve reading, writing, modifying, executing programs, and so on. CRYPTOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES SYMMETRIC KEY ENCRYPTION It is also called as secret key cryptography is a cryptographic technique where the two parties share a secret key. Data are encrypted and decrypted using the same key. The sender encrypts data using the key. Once transmitted, the receiver should use the same key to interpret the message. C:UsersmadhuDesktopsyymm.PNG Figure 1. Symmetric encryption algorithm Symmetric encryption is computationally fast, meaning that it can occur in real time on content that is unknown previously. All securely transmitted live traffic today is encrypted using symmetric encryption algorithms for example such as live telephone conversation, streaming video transmission, high speed data link. Asymmetric Key Encryption In asymmetric key encryption, different keys are used for encrypting and decrypting a message. The asymmetric key algorithms that are most useful are those in which neither key can be made public while the other is kept secure. There are some distinct advantages to this public-key-private-key arrangement, often referred to as public key cryptography; the necessity of distributing secret keys to a large numbers of users is eliminated. And the algorithm can be used for authentications as well as for cryptography. Asymmetric cipher algorithms are based on heavy mathematical operations, thus they are not efficient at processing large blocks of data. They are often used to safely exchange small session keys. C:UsersmadhuDesktopasymm.PNG Figure 2: Asymmetric Encryption Algorithm Cryptanalysis As cryptography is the science and art of creating secret codes, cryptanalysis is the science and art of breaking those codes. In addition to studying cryptography techniques, we also need to study cryptanalysis techniques. This is needed, not to break other peoples codes, but to learn how vulnerable our cryptosystem is. The study of cryptanalysis helps us create better secret codes. There are four common types of cryptanalysis attacks Cryptanalysis attack Chosen ciphertext Chosen plaintext Known plaintext Ciphertext only Figure 4: cryptanalysis attacks Ciphertext Only Attack In ciphertext only attack, Eve has access to only some cipher text. She tries to find out the corresponding key and the plain text. The assumption is that Eve knows the algorithm and can intercept the cipher text. The cipher text only attack is the most probable one because Eve needs only the cipher text for this attack. To thwart the decryption of a message by an adversary, a cipher must be very resisting to this type of attack. Various methods can be used in ciphertext only attack. Brute force attack In the brute force method or exhaustive key search method, Eve tries to use all possible keys. We assume that Eve knows the algorithm and knows the key domain. Using the intercepted cipher, Eve decrypts the cipher text with every possible key until the plain text makes sense. Using brute force attack was a difficult task in the past; it is easier today using a computer. To prevent this type of attack, the number of possible keys must be very large. Statistical attack The cryptanalyst can benefit from some inherent characteristics of the plain text language to launch a statistical attack. For example we know that the letter E is the most frequently used letter in English text. The cryptanalyst finds the mostly used character in the cipher text and assumes that the corresponding plain text character is E. After finding a few pairs, the analyst can find the key and use it to decrypt the message. To prevent this type of attack, the cipher should hide the characteristics of the language. Pattern attack Some ciphers may hide the characteristics of the language, but may create some patterns in the ciphertext. A cryptanalyst may use a pattern attack to break the cipher. Therefore, it is important to use the ciphers that make the ciphertext look as random as possible. Known Plaintext Attack In a known plaintext attack, Eve has access to some plain or ciphertext pairs in addition to the intercepted ciphertext that Eve wants to break. The plain or ciphertext pairs have been collected earlier. Alice has sent a secret message to bob, but Alice later made the contents of the message public. Eve has kept both the cipher and the plaintext to use them to break the next secret message from Alice to Bob, assuming that Alice has not changed her key. Eve uses the relationship between the previous pair to analyze the current ciphertext. The same methods used in the ciphertext-only attack can be applied here. This attack is easier to implement because Eve has more information to us for analysis. However, it is less likely to happen because Alice may have changed her key or may have not disclosed the contents of any previous messages. Chosen Plaintext Attack The chosen plaintext attack is similar to the known plaintext attack, but the plaintext or ciphertext pairs have been chosen by the attacker. This can happen, for example, if Eve has access to Alice computer. She can choose some plaintext and intercept the created ciphertext. Of course, she does not have the key because the key is normally embedded in the software used by the sender. This type of attack is much easier to implement, but it is much less likely to happen. Chosen Ciphertext Attack The chosen ciphertext attack is similar to the chosen plaintext attack, except that the Eve chooses some ciphertext and decrypts it to form a ciphertext or plaintext pair. This can happen if Eve has access to Bobs computer. TRADITIONAL CIPHERS We can divide traditional symmetric key ciphers into two broad categories substitution ciphers and transposition ciphers. In a substitution cipher, we replace one symbol in the cipher text with another symbol; in a transposition cipher, we reorder the position of symbols in the plaintext. Substitution ciphers A substitution cipher replaces one symbol with another. If the symbols in the plaintext are alphabetic characters, we replace one character with another. For example, we can replace letter A with letter D, and letter T with letter Z. If the symbols are digits (0 to 9), we can replace 3 with 7, and 2 with 6. Substitution ciphers can be categorized as either monoalphabetic ciphers or polyalphabetic ciphers. Monoalphabetic ciphers We first discuss a group of substitution ciphers called the monoalphabetic ciphers. In monoalphabetic substitution, a character in the plaintext is always changed to the same character in the ciphertext regardless of its position in the text. For example, if the algorithm says that letter A in the plaintext is changed to letter D. In other words, the relationship between letters in the plaintext and the ciphertext is one to one. Example: we use lowercase character to show the plaintext; we use the uppercase characters to show the ciphertext. The cipher is probably the monoalphabetic because both 1s are encrypted as 0s. Plaintext: hello ciphertext: khoor Caesar cipher Caesar cipher is a special case of substitution techniques wherein each alphabet in a message is replaced by an alphabet three places down the line. Caesar cipher is susceptible to a statistical ciphertext only attack. Julius Caesar used this additive cipher to communicate with his officers. For this reason additive ciphers are referred as Caesar cipher. Caesar cipher used a key of 3 for his communications. P a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u C A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 v w x y z V W X Y Z 21 22 23 24 25 For example: let the message hello is encrypted with the key of 15. Then all the characters in the ciphertext will be shifted from 15. Then the answer is hello= WTAAD Mathematically C (ciphertext) = (P+K) mod 26 (K= key) P (plaintext) = (C-K) mod 26 To encrypt message hello Plaintext h= 7 encryption (7+15)mod 26 C= 22=> W Plaintext e= 4 encryption (4+15)mod 26 C= 19=> T To decrypt WTAAD Ciphertext W=22 decryption (22-15)mod 26 P= 7=>h Ciphertext T=19 decryption (19-15)mod 26 p= 4=>e Cryptanalysis Caesar ciphers are vulnerable to ciphertext only attacks using exhaustive key searches (brute force attack). The key domain of the Caesar cipher is very small; there are only 26 keys. However, one of the keys, zero, is useless (the ciphertext is same as the plaintext). This leaves only 25 possible keys. Eve can easily launch a brute force attack on the ciphertext. Caesar cipher using cryptool Working the same example using cryptool, first of all, to acquaint ourselves with the Caesar encryption algorithm we will open a document, encrypt it and then decrypt it again. We will then try to get the computer to work out the key with which a plaintext is encrypted. This plaintext document is encrypted using the Caesar encryption algorithm by selecting the menu crypt/decrypt. C:UsersmadhuDesktopcaseaer 5.PNG Then the following dialog box appears. The key we enter is the number 15. Additionally, we change the options how to interpret the alphabet characters. The first alphabet character is set to 1 (if we set the character to 0 and use A as key, then the resulting ciphertext is the same as the plaintext). C:UsersmadhuDesktopcaesar 3.PNG Clicking on the Encrypt button opens a new window that contains the encrypted text. It becomes apparent that the letters have been shifted by 15 positions. So the word hello, is now wtaad C:UsersmadhuDesktopcaeser 6.PNG The plaintext version of this encrypted document can now be obtained by selecting crypt/decrypt again. In this dialog box which appears we now enter the key with which the document was encrypted (15). This time it has to be decrypted so decrypt button must be selected. Now the next step is to find the key using cryptanalysis. The plaintext window is made active by clicking on it. Now the entropy is selected via the menu selection Analysis/General/Entropy) C:UsersmadhuDesktopentropy.PNG Now the frequency distribution of the letters is calculated. The histogram of the encrypted document letter frequencies have been shifted by 15 positions. That means the encryption algorithm is not secure. Moreover Z shifts the text by 26 positions so that the encrypted text is actually identical with the unencrypted text. Hence there are really only 25 keys. The Caesar encryption algorithm can be broken easily by a ciphertext only attack. To perform such an attack, restore the window containing the encrypted text to the window and select Analysis/ciphertext only/ Caesar. The text will automatically be analyzed. By analyzing the superposition it is possible to discover the key which was used to encrypt this document. In this case it was the letter P. When the decrypt button is clicked the plaintext appears, i.e. the text that has been decrypted with the key p that was discovered. So the cryptool successfully found the key with which the document has been encrypted. C:UsersmadhuDesktopcaesar 8.PNG Analysis of Caesar Cipher Advantages Very easy to use The encryption and decryption can be done very quickly Disadvantages The encryption and decryption algorithms are known There are only 25 keys to try The language of the plaintext is known and easily recognizable. Applications It was used biblical times can be found on the back of Mezuzah where it encrypts the name of the god. During the First World War the Russian army used this method to relay messages to troops. It is used as an application in the Android version 1.4.0 Polyalphabetic Cipher In polyalphabetic substitution, each occurrence of a character may have a different substitute. The relationship between characters in the plaintext to a character in the ciphertext is one-to-many. For example, a could be enciphered as D in the beginning of the text, but as N at the middle. Polyalphabetic ciphers have the advantage of hiding the letter frequency of the underlying language. Eve cannot use single letter frequency statistic to break the ciphertext. To create a polyalphabetic cipher, we need to make each ciphertext character dependent on both the corresponding plaintext character and the position of the plaintext character in the message. This implies that our key should be stream of subkeys, in which each subkey depends somehow on the position of the plaintext character that uses that subkey for encipherment. In other words, we need to have a key stream k= (k1,k2,k3.) in which ki is used to encipher the ith character in the plaintext to create the ith character in the ciphertext. Playfair Cipher Playfair cipher is the example of polyalphabetic cipher. The secret key in this cipher is made of 25 alphabet letters arranged in a 55 matrix (letters I and J are considered the same when encrypting). Different arrangements of the letters in the matrix can create many different secret keys. One of the possible arrangements is shown below L G D B A Q M H E C U R N I/J F X V S O K Z Y W T P Before encryption, if the two letters in a pair are the same, a bogus letter is inserted to separate them. After inserting bogus letters, if the number of characters in the plaintext is odd, one extra bogus character is added at the end to make the number of characters even. The cipher uses three rules for encryption If the two letters in a pair are located in the same row of the secret key, the corresponding encrypted character for each letter is the next letter to the right in the same row (with wrapping to the beginning of the row if the plaintext letter is the last character in the row). If the two letters in a pair are located in the same row of the secret key, the corresponding encrypted character for each letter is the letter beneath it in the same column (with wrapping to the beginning of the column if the plaintext letter is the last character in the column). If the two letters in a pair are not in the same row or column of the secret, the corresponding encrypted for each letter is a letter that is in its own row but in the same column as the other letter. The playfair cipher meets the criteria for a polyalphabetic cipher. The key is a stream of subkeys in which the subkeys are created two at a time. In playfair cipher, the key stream and the cipher stream are the same. This means that the above mentioned rules can be thought of as the rules for creating the key stream. The encryption algorithm takes a pair of characters from plaintext and creates a pair of subkeys by following the above mentioned rules. We can say that the key stream depends on the position of the character in the plaintext. Position dependency has a different interpretation here the subkey for each plaintext character depends on the next previously neighbour. If P= P1, P2, P3 C= C1, C2, C3. K= [(k1, k2), (k3, k4) ] Encryption: Ci = ki Decryption: Pi = ki Example: keyword is PLAYFAIR P L A Y F I R E X M B C D G H J K N O S T U V W Z ENCRYPT: hide the gold underground plaintext HI DE TH EG OL DU ND ER GR OU ND ciphertext BM ND ZB XD KY CV VN XE CX KW VN DECRYPT: DMYRYKEVGHWGNGPXM ciphertext DM YR YK EV GH WG NG GP XM plaintext HE LX LO AN DG OX OD BY EX Message: Hello and Goodbye. Cryptanalysis of a Playfair Cipher Brute force attack on a playfair cipher is very difficult. The size of the key domain is 25! (Factorial 25). In addition, the encipherment hides the single letter frequency of the characters. However, the frequencies of diagrams are preserved. So a cryptanalyst can use a ciphertext-only attack based on the diagram frequency test to find a key. Analysis of playfair Advantages The main advantage of the system is it robs a cryptanalyst as they are no longer looking for recurring encoding as in an letter e can be encrypted as different letter each time. Playfair was long time considerably unbreakable. There are 26 letters so it is 26*26=676 diagrams which are quiet difficult to break. Disadvantages Still leaves much of the language structure Frequency distribution of letters Few 100s of ciphertext letters are enough for cryptanalysis. Applications Playfair cipher was used by British army during World War 1. When John F. Kennedys PT-109 was sunk by a Japanese controlled plum pudding island and was able to send an emergency message in playfair from an allied coast watchers hut to arrange the rescue of the survivors from his crew. Playfair crossword by Beetlejuice is an example puzzle using playfair as a gimmick. Vigenere Cipher Vigenere cipher made an immediate success as a field cipher. This type of polyalphabetic cipher was designed by Blaise de Vigenere, a sixteenth century French mathematician. A vigenere cipher uses a different strategy to create the key stream. The key stream is a repetition of an initial secret key stream of length m, where we have 1 P= p1p2p3.. C= c1c2c3 K= [(k1,k2,k3km),(k1,k2,k3km),] Encryption: Ci= Pi+Ki Decryption: Pi= Ci-Ki One important difference between the vigenere cipher and the other polyalphabetic ciphers is that the vigenere cipher key stream does not depend on the plaintext characters; it depends only on the position of the character in the plaintext. In other words the key stream can be created without knowing what the plaintext is. Example mathematically She is listening this message should be encrypted using the keyword PASCAL. plaintext s h e i s l i s t e n i n g P values 18 7 4 8 18 11 8 18 19 4 13 8 13 6 key 15 0 18 2 0 11 15 0 18 2 0 11 15 0 C values 7 7 22 10 18 22 23 18 11 6 13 19 2 6 Ciphertext H H W K S W X S L G N T C G Another way to look at viginere ciphers is through what is called a Vigenere Tableau. The first row shows the plaintext character to be encrypted. The first column contains the characters to be used by the key. The rest of the tableau shows the ciphertext characters. To find the ciphertext for the plaintext she is listening using the word pascal as the key, we can find s in the first row, p in the first column, the cross section is the ciphertext character H. We can find h in the first row and A in the second column, the cross section is the ciphertext character H. The same method should be followed until all the ciphertext characters are found. C:UsersmadhuDesktoptable.PNG Vigenere Tableau Cryptanalysis of Vigenere Cipher Vigenere ciphers do not preserve the frequency of characters. The cryptanalysis here consists of two parts for finding out the length of the key and finding the key itself. Several methods has been devised to find the length of the key but one method called kaisiski test, the cryptanalysis searches for repeated text segments, of atleast three characters, in the ciphertext. Suppose that two of the segments are found and the distance between them is d. The cryptanalyst assumes that d/m where m is the key length. If more repeated segments with distances d1,d2,d3.dn then gcd (d1,d2,d3,..dn)/m. This assumption is logical because if two characters are the same are k*m (k= 1,2,) characters part in the ciphertext. Cryptanalyst uses segment of at least three characters to avoid the cases where the character in the key are not distinct. After the length of the key is found, the cryptanalyst uses the idea of dividing the ciphertext into m different pieces and applies the method used to crypt analyze the additive cipher, including the frequency attack. Each ciphertext piece can be decrypted and put together to create the whole plaintext. Vigenere Cipher Using Cryptool To perform vigenere cipher encryption a new document is opened and then the encryption and decryption is performed. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin1.PNG This plaintext document is encrypted using the vigenere encryption algorithm by selecting the keys crypt/decrypt/vigenere following which another dialog box appears. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin3.PNG By clicking on the Encrypt button opens a new window that contains the encrypted text. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin2.PNG The plaintext of this document can now be obtained by selecting crypt/decrypt/vigenere. In the dialog box which appears then where the key with which the document was encrypted. This time the document is to be decrypted. Therefore the decrypt button must be selected. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin3.PNG By clicking on the decrypt button the plaintext document appears immediately. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin4.PNG To find the key with which the document was encrypted. Restore the encrypted document window and then select analysis/ciphertext only/vigenere, following with which the text will automatically be analyzed. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin5.PNG It is possible to work out the key length from the regular peaks in the autocorrelation. It is correctly calculated at 6 characters. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin6.PNG When the continue button is clicked, another dialog box opens to display the key that has been computed. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin7.PNG By clicking on the decrypt button the dialog box disappears and another window opens which contains the plaintext. C:UsersmadhuDesktopvin8.PNG Hill Cipher Hill cipher is invented by Lester S. Hill. This polyalphabetic cipher divides the plaintext into equal size blocks. The encrypted one at a time in such a way that each character in the block contributes to the encryption of other characters in the block. Hill cipher belongs to the category of ciphers called block ciphers. C1= (+ + ) mod 26 C2= (+ + ) mod 26 C3= (+ + ) mod 26 The encryption algorithm takes m successive plaintext letters and substitute for them m ciphertext letter. The substitution is determined by m linear equations in which each character is assigned a numerical value (a=0, b=1,c=2, ..z=25). This can be expressed in terms of column vectors and matrices = mod 26 C = KP mod 26 where C and P are column vectors representing the plaintext and ciphertext. K is the encrypting key. Example for Hill Cipher: Plaintext: pay more money Key (K) = C = KP mod 26 = mod 26 = = LNS For plaintext pay, ciphertext is LNS. The entire ciphertext is LNSHDLEWMTRW. For the decryption of the hill cipher is done using the inverse of the matrix K. Cryptanalysis of Hill Cipher Ciphertext-only attack on hill cipher is difficult. Even brute force attack on a hill cipher is extremely difficult because the key is an m*m matrix. Each entry in the matrix can have one of the 26 values. At first glance, this means that the size of the key domain is. Secondly the hill ciphers do not preserve the statistics of the plaintext. Frequency analysis cannot be run on single letters, diagrams and trigrams. A frequency analysis of words of size m might work, but this is very rare that a plaintext has many strings of size m that are the same.

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND :: essays papers

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND Tears rolled down my face as I tried to smile. Prolonging the dreaded good-bye, I kept busy organizing the small stuff in her new home. Her home with out me. It was one of those moments I anticipated but would not accept the reality until the time finally came. I had never been good with good-byes. An hour later, my dad looked at me and I knew this time we were leaving. I had given her a hug without looking at her and we whispered I love you’s to each other. She was having a hard enough time leaving everything behind so I wanted to stay strong for her. I wanted to stay. Walking from that dorm room felt like I was saying good-bye to my very best friend. As I reached the car and we drove off I began to cry, trying hard not to let my dad see. I did not want to talk about it. Through life, many people turn away but family is always there. When you are away from the ones that mean the most to you, it is then when you realize how much they mean to you. Just like the old saying goes, â€Å"absence makes the heart grow fonder†. I found this saying to be true when my oldest and only sister moved away for the first time to go to college. Losing one mom was hard enough but when I had to say goodbye to my second I thought I was going to die. On March 12, 1992 my mother passed away of acute leukemia and my older sister moved up in the family tree. She became my mother, my sister, and my best friend. When she left, it was hard to imagine life without her around. We seem to be the perfect age apart to completely understand each other. She is the person who keeps me going. She is my conscience and role model. She teaches me everyday to live and learn and always try my best. My friends and father all mean so much to me but whenever anything goes wrong my very first reaction is â€Å"What will Allison think? What would she say?† In 1936, many say that 14 year-old Mary Stevenson wrote the poem

My opinion about Four Generations By Joyce Maynard Essay

Joyce Maynard in The Four Generations has skillfully described her grandmother as a frail individual who used to be so dynamic once. Her style of writing makes her script colorful and does not let the reader get bored. She uses simple words yet implies deep meanings. In addition, not only does she bring examples to show the characters but she also uses the exact quotations to express the very same idea of them. Joyce Maynard’s strong ability to portray moments is another admirable skill of her in writing. Her use of words in simple sentences clearly shows the characteristics of her grandmother. We can realize that her grandmother was a naughty energetic woman who â€Å"cracks† nuts and was able to lift a car off the ground. She was also emotional, since she used to â€Å"weep† every time she had to say goodbye to her children, and nurse her relatives of her generation and even though she was old enough to forget everything, she wrote down notes to remind herself of her granddaughter and her child whom she had not seen yet. Instead of imposing an idea, Joyce Maynard brings examples to let the reader know her grandmother better. We can get from the text that she was determined. Though she never had much money she did not hesitate to let her daughter take piano lessons and elocution lessons; moreover, she sent her to college. We can see how caring she was, by paying attention to even a one-year-old child to see whether anybody takes care of her. And her physical power is stated when Joyce refers to a car accident where her grandmother lifted the car. The use of quotations is a good element to make her script more colorful. Many times Joyce brings exact words of her grandmother. To let the readers know her grandmother by her own tone of speaking. To show that she believed to be different -and in fact she was- Joyce repeats her own words at the illness bed when she was suffering from pancreatic cancer:† Now I am different. I’m yellow. † And to show her firm character she states † I’m not always like this. † Even though her grandmother had said she was ready to die, what she said in her last words to Joyce was † I wish I had your hair†Ã‚  and † I wish I was well. â€Å" When Joyce wants to depict her grandmother’s powerlessness in her last days, she mentions her body movements in a way that the reader can imagine it in all ways. Just like a puny baby, her grandmother waved to Joyce’s child in a kind of slow, finger-flexing movement and got the same reply from the little kid. Her way of speaking also shows that she wished to be better and enjoy the little child’s presence. Finally Joyce illustrates the loss of her grandmother in a way that her own mother has lost a source of kindness and love. Her use of language and simple words and vivid examples and quotations made her essay more effective and powerful. She leaves the readers concentrating on the idea that once a mother passes away her beloved child is not a daughter anymore but just a mother who unquestioningly loves her own daughter.

Do Girls in Elementary Schools get better grades. Than boys when the achievement levels are the same?

Marion T. Academy Charter schools are one of the independent public schools in the US. A charter school that establishes each school in a performance contract detailing the scholastic mission, program, goals, and measures of success. They are accountable to their authorizers, parents, and to the public. It’s freed from bureaucracy that often found in traditional schools, charters design and deliver programs tailored to educational excellence for the student and community needs.The creation of the charter school legislation is intended to improve student learning; encourage the use of different and innovative or proven school environments in teaching and learning methods; and provide parents and students with improved measures of school performance and greater opportunities in choosing public schools within and outside their school districts; in order to provide a well-educated community. This research will discuss about the following concern namely:†¢ The Problem: Do girl s in elementary schools get better grades than boys even when the achievement level is the same? †¢ Interpretation of data school profile †¢ Measures applied for the problem †¢ Recommendations findings for the problem Page 3 Do girls in elementary schools get better grades than boys even when the achievement level is the same? Studies believe that both genetics and environment are a factor that can make girls more intelligent than the boys; nutrition is also a huge factor, for example, especially during the developmental years of the child.Some individuals are born with more innate math ability than others. Just as some people are born with radically different physical attributes, and capabilities, the same holds true for their mental attributes. Then, environment kicks in, which is also extremely powerful. In regards to whether males have more innate math ability and if females have more innate ability in verbal/language, most of the studies That have supported the h ypotheses that males have a genetic advantage in spatial-visual stuff, and that females have an advantage in language .Early in the 20th century-old study of researchers discovered that all tests of mental ability ranked individuals in about the same way. Although mental tests are often designed to measure specific domains of cognition–verbal fluency, say, or mathematical skill, spatial visualization or memory–people who do well on one kind of test tend to do well on the others, and people who do poorly intelligence generally do so across the board. This overlap, or Interco relation, suggests that all such tests measure some global element of intellectual ability as well as specific cognitive skills.In recent decades, psychologists have devoted much effort to test intelligent isolating that general factor, which is abbreviated, from the other aspects of cognitive ability gauged in mental tests. The statistical extraction of intelligent quotient is performed by a techni que called factor analysis. Introduced at the turn of the century by British Page 4 Psychologist Charles Spearman, factor analysis determines the minimum number of underlying dimensions necessary to explain a pattern of intelligence.The Interesting thing about the study was that sex hormones may play a part, which would explain why this could be accounted for partly through genetics, since the hormones kick in at puberty. I think this is obviously just the A general factor suffusing all tests is not, as is sometimes argued, a necessary outcome of factor analysis. No general factor has been found in the analysis of personality tests, for example; instead the method usually yields at least five dimensions (neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to ideas), each relating to different subsets of tests.But, as Spearman observed, a general factor does emerge from analysis of mental ability tests, and leading psychologists, such as Arthur R. Jensen of the U niversity of California at Berkeley and John B. Carroll of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have at this point, and goes against much of gender feminism, although not â€Å"classic† feminism. According to recent studies, girls outperform boys in primary and secondary school and have higher high school graduation rates and higher rates of college admission.In Arizona, the disparity is startling: Statistics published online by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne show that girls score more than five percent higher on the AIMS reading and writing sections at all four tested grade levels. Schools across America report having high female-to-male ratios on honor rolls and in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, according to The New York Times. For the Class of 2004 in Arizona, graduation rates among white students were 88.7 percent for females and 83. 7 percent for males. The percentage gaps were nearly identical for Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American students. Interpretation of data School profile Page 5 Marion T. Academy Charter School opened in September 2000. The Department of Education and State Board of Education approved this school. The plan for the school was to open with grades K-5 and then add a grade each year until the school was K-7.In September 2000, it opened at a temporary site in modular buildings at 97 Vandever Avenue on the east side of Wilmington, while a permanent facility was under construction. The first year, the school served approximately 400 students in grades K-5. During 2003-04 and the school enrolled approximately 600 students in grades K-8. In summer 2001, the school moved into a permanent facility at 1121 Thatcher Street on the east side of Wilmington, a few blocks away from the original temporary site.To accommodate additional students due to expansion, the school leased additional space at the Police Athletic League Building in Wilmington beginning in school year 2003-04. The school’s charter has been renewed by the Delaware Department of Education and State Board of Education for operation through school year 2007-08. The Secretary of Education and State Board of Education required that the school’s Marion T. Academy Charter School, offers classes for students in kindergarten through sixth grade.It's classified as being in or near a mid-sized city having a population less than 250,000 With 34 full-time classroom teachers, and the school has an approximate student population of 521 with a student/teacher ratio of 15. 6:1. This school allocates approximately $2,977 per pupil for instructional expenses. It is committed in providing a safe, nurturing and challenging learning environment, with the aim of producing responsible and productive citizens in the future. Marion T. Academy Problems encountered Page 6 Marion T. Academy encountered problems during the operations stated as follows:†¢ Marion T. Academy were not offer ed the school choice option and it failed to attempt to enter into a cooperative agreement with another LEA that would have allowed for parents of students with a home â€Å"feeder† school identified for the improvement to select choice options and transfer to a school not identified for improvement. †¢ Marion T. Academy did not budget funds for school choice of transportation to meet the federal spending requirement for school choice transportation costs This school does not have adequate funding to accommodate the transportation costs†¢ Associated with the school choice option of students had been offered and had exercised the school choice option. †¢ Two LEAS’ did not comply with supplemental educational service requirements. The SES parental notification letters sent by CSD and IRSD failed to include all of the information required by the ESEA. And the school had procedural failures contributing to the insufficient implementation of SES at one school . †¢ SES Notification Letters Deficiencies, are the delayed sending of important letters to the parents and other important persons for all the activities and all the achievement and problems of the students.