Characteristics of Real Time System

Characteristics of Real Time System ABSTRACT Scheduling refers to the set of policies and mechanism to control the order of work to be performed by a computer system. process scheduling in real time system has almost used many more algorithms like FIFO, Round ROBIN ,Uniprocessor Multiprocessor etc. The choices for these algorithms are simplicity and speed in the operating system but the cost to the system in the form of reliability and maintainability have not been assessed. In this paper we describe the distinguish characteristics of real time system which can be expressed as a function of time. This paper is also described in the form of a time driven model for a real time operating system and also provide a tool for measuring the effectiveness of a real time |system . For this model ,we have generated a real time system in which we measure a number of well known scheduling algorithms. To meet the real time constraints for scheduling the task different algorithms were used. Most of the real time system are designed using prio ty based preemptive scheduling and worst case execution time. INTRODUCTION In computer science ,scheduling is the procedure by which threads, process or given the access to system resources. The scheduling is mainly concerned with these things throughout: Total number of processes that complete their execution per unit time. Response time: when a request was submitted what amount of time takes when first response produced. Turnaround time: total time between completion and submission of process. Fairness: equal time to each process. In real time operating systems like embedded system the scheduler also perform that the process can meet deadline that is necessary for stabling the system. Schedular are sent to mobile devices and managed by an administrative back end. A common characteristic of many real-time systems isthat their requirements specification includes timing information in the form of deadlines. An acute deadline is represented in Figure 1. The timetaken to complete an event is mapped against the valuethisevent has to the system. Here value is loosely defined tomean thecontributionthisevent has to the systems objectives. With the computational event represented in Figure 1 this value is zero before the start time and returns to zero once the deadline is passed. The mapping of time to value between start-time and deadline is application dependent. Scheduling In a general purpose computer system a scheduler is considered good if it is fair and gives execution time to all tasks equally. When scheduling a real-time system what is most important is that all tasks meet their deadlines and are executed so that any task depending on them, meet their deadlines as well. Types of scheduling Network scheduling DISK Scheduling job scheduling Manual scheduling Multilevel queue scheduling First in first out Process scheduling Process scheduling is divided into four main types 1 long term scheduling which determines which programs are admitted to the system for execution and when, and which ones should be exited. Concept of scheduling in real time system 2 medium scheduling: Which determines when processes are to be a suspended and remain. 3 short term scheduling ordispatcher which determine which process have cpu resources and for how long. Process scheduling in computer operating system is instance of extensively studied problem from operation research which in form of producing a sequence of jobs which must a common resource. all decisions should be made dynamically for example all jobs have to be scheduled and processing time requirements are available at the start of sequence time =0 the new job will not come during processing. if it happens the priviouly computed job is invalidated and scheduling must be started overif is maintained. Now process scheduling in real time system can categorized into two categories: 1 periodic 2 aperiodic Periodic processes: which arrive at regular intervals are called periodic process and aperiodic are those which arrive at irregular. the main difference between real time systems and other computer system have not understood. the time to complete a process is important in all computer systems but in real time response time play a cruicial part in the correctness of the application software Real-time systems are divided into two classes: Hard real -time systems and soft real -time systems. Hard real-time systems are those whose deadlines must absolutely be met and system will be considered to have failed whereas soft real-time systems allow for some more deadlines, at least occasionally, to be missed with only adegradation performance but not a complete failure of the system. In judge a number of existing real time systems we study the DMA cycling ,interrupt processing blocking ang non-blocking. The deadline scheduler gives no reasonable control over the choice of which deadlines are delayed and which lead to unperictable failures result to the impact on reliability and maintainability of the real time system. real process completion is handled by step function in which there is no any value in completing the process after its deadline the characteristic of a real-time system is that correctness is determined not only by what is done, but when itis done, we propose to use a representation of a process completion value to measure the algorithms in real time system. Computational model consists a set of processes every process has a request time R ,Time interval c and avalue function R. Its value function become zero or negative. the value function may be negative at R,not rise above zero the request time R may be future time or past time . if request time r is future time then process is not scheduable but attributes in computations asre load in which current scheduling decisions are made classical algorithms are. Deadline:The earlist critical time in process at each decision point FIFO:The longest request set is executed in process at decision point Random:chosen from the request set and executed stack:the process with the smallest stack time is executed in each decision point SPT:The shortest completion time is executed in each decision point. There are many approaches for utilizing a time driven model in real time system. real time operating system support or modify the value for the process or the set of processes during run time. In this way application designr can set and modify scheduling policy for various systems. For describing these processes we assume primtives to creat and kill processes already exist. There are three real time interfaces Time control primitive: The arguments of these operating systems communicate the information needed to implement the model but the issue is the structure of informative that passed to the operating system. In single primitive each parameter would be flexible but in user might set inconsistent parametres. Scheduling policies: In real time operating system it is compulsory to provide a mechanism to express the scheduling model to implentour model. the system should also able to modify these policies to take advantage or flexibility of the system. Periodic policies: There is one way to describe a periodic policies to using optional arguments in a creative process. The creative Process make new instance of process at a specific node 5 ways for scheduling the task in real time systems. Real time system and scheduling techniques Real time scheduling techniques are divided into two main categories. One is called static scheduling techniqueAnd other is called dynamic scheduling technique. Dynamic may be static perioty or dynamic perioty. Static prioty is divided into two types 1 rate monolithic : rate-monotonic scheduling is a scheduling algorithm used in real- time operating systems with a static-priority scheduling class. [2] The static priorities are assigned on the basis of the cycle duration of the job: the shorter the cycle duration is, the higher is the jobs priority. These operating systems are generally preemptive and have deterministic guarantees with regard to response times. Rate monotonic analysis is used in conjunction with those systems to provide scheduling guarantees for a particular application. 2 deadline monolithic : Dynamic prioty is also divided into two types 1)earlist time first 2)least stack time first System and the task model Each type and unit of work that is scheduled and execute the system as a job. ALL the tasks are taken to be periodic. the system knows all the things about arrival time ,periodexecution time. the task are ready to execute if it arrives the system. IN soft real time system each task has a real positive value. The main goal of the task is to obtain a value as much as possible There are the two conditions if the task succeed the system acquire that value if the task is not succeed the ystem gain less value in a special case like soft real systems the task has nothing a vale Basic requirements of schedulars in real time operating system There are five basic requirements of scheduler in real time operating system Multitasking and preemptable In real time operating applications real time operating system should be multitask and preemtable. the scheduler are able to preempt any kind of task in the system and give the resources to task that the system needs it Dynamic deadline identification With the earlist deadline RTOS should be able to identify the task. deadline information may be converted to prioty levels for resource allocation predictable synchronization To communicate multiple threads among themselves in a timely fashionsynchronization mechanism also reqired and also the abiliy to lock or unlock is the resource to achieve dta integrity. Sufficient perioty levels The real time operating systems must also have a sufficient number of priority levels for effective implementation. Namelypurety,inheritance,ceiling protocol need sufficient prioty levels predefined latencies the timing of system call define the following specifications Task awitching latency :time to save the context of a current execution time and switch to another Interrupt latency:the time elaped between first instruction of the handler and execution time of the last instruction of the interrupt task Dynamic scheduling algorithm: Dynamic algorithm at runtime assign perioties based on the execution parametres of tasks the most important dynamic scheduling with puriotysscheduling algorithms are 1 EArlist deadline first algorithm The perioty of each task based on the value of itsdeadlinethe algorithm is simple and preemptive. 2 ACO Based scheduling algorithms. The ACO algorithms are computational models for the collective foraging behavior of ants . Ant is an agent that generate a path. ANT do not need synchronization. ant moves to the good looking neighbor for the crrent node probabaisatically Time Triggered When scheduling a distributed system using offline scheduling the whole system including the communication is scheduled before the start of the system giving a very rbust system but the cost of adding a new node is high, complete rescheduling of the whole system. To schedule a time-triggered distributed real-time system we use the same techniques as we did with the single processor system, but understandably with more complex graphs. For example we might have a precedence graph, where one task is preceded by several tasks on different nodes. Making a schedule that have a task precede by tasks on several nodes requires more of the system then of the schedule, even the best schedule will fail if the nodes time references is not synchronized and tasks are not executed in time. This requires all nodes to synchronize time with each other. This can be done at an application level like in normal distributed systems, with a common time reference with a communication protocol that handles tim e synchronization TTCAN, TTP and FlexRay to namea few. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS We have looked at the most commonly used scheduling techniques and communication protocols used in distributed realtimesystems. When we started this paper we where looking at doing a survey of everything related to distributed real-time systems,but found that to be a to vast and growing field so we narrowed our field to communication protocols and scheduling algorithms used in distributed real-time systems. During our research for this paper we have been looking atschedulers that are created to work better with the FlexRaycommunications bus or in a similar fashion. We have taken a real interest in distributed real-time systems and are looking forward to seeing the advances in scheduling and communication for distributed real-time systems and maybe one day join the research field our selves. With this paper we hoped to introduce the reader to the problem of scheduling real-time tasks in distributed systems. We presented the different interpretations of the problem and the various opti ons available to the solution designers. Our analysis of some of the existing scheduling algorithms tried to focus on the affect of the specific problem on the choices made in the solution. We hope that what we presented provides the reader with a broad understanding of the problem and a range available solutions. This paper was also aimed at providing the reader with a solid foundation for further research on the subject. Finally, we suggested possible future research directions. References 1 ^ Liu, C. L. ; Layland, J. (1973), Scheduling algorithms for multiprogramming in a hard real-time environment, Journal of the ACM 20 (1): 46–61, doi:10. 1145/321738. 321743. 1. N. Audsley, Survey: Scheduling Hard Real-Time Systems, Department of Computer Science, University of York (1990). 2. O. Babaoglu, K. Marzullo and F. B. Schneider, „„Priority Inversion and its Prevention in Real-Time Systems, PDCS Report No. 17, Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita di Bologna (1990). 3. J A. Bannister and K. S. Trivedi, „„Task Allocation in FaultTolerant Distributed Systems, ActaInformatica 20, pp. 261-281 (1983). 4. S. H. Bokhari and H. Shahid, „„A Shortest Tree Algorithm for Optimal Assignment Across Space and Time in a Distributed Processor System, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering SE-7(6), pp. 583-589 (1981). 5. A. Burns, Concurrent Programming in Ada, Ada Companion Series, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge (1985). 6. A. Burns, Programming in occam 2, Addison Wesley, Wokingham (1988). with time triggered communication. In Proceedings of ICC 2000, Amsterdam, 2000. [1] M. Behnam. Hierarchical real-time scheduling and synchronization. School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, M †alardalen University, 2008. [2] M. Dertouzos. Control robotics: The procedural control of physical processes. Information Processing, 74:807–813, 1974. [3] R. Dobrin and G. Fohler. Implementing off-line message scheduling on controller area network (can). In Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, 2001. [4] D. Dolev and M. Warmuth. Scheduling precedence graphs of bounded height. J. Algorithms, 5(1):48–59, 1984. [5] W. Elmenreich and R. Ipp. Introduction to ttp/c and ttp/a. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Time-Triggered and Real-Time Communication, Manno, Switzerland, Dec. 2003. [6] F. Hartwich and et al. Can network [Ati98] Y. Atif and B. Hamidzadeh, â€Å"A Scalable Scheduling Algorithm for Real-Time Distributed Systems,† Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, May 26-29 1998, pp. 352-359. [Dar94] S. Darbha and D. P. Agrawal, â€Å"SDBS: A Task Duplication Based Optimal Scheduling Algorithm,† Proceedings of the Scalable High Performance Computing Conference, May 23-25 1994, pp. 756-763. [Dar96] S. Darbha and D. P. Agrawal, â€Å"Scalable Scheduling Algorithm for Distributed Memory Machines,† Proceedings of the 8th IEEE Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing, October 23-26 1996, pp. 84-91. [Khe97] A. Khemka and R. K. Shyamasundar, â€Å"An Optimal Multiprocessor Real-Time Scheduling Algorithm,† Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, vol. 43, 1997, pp. 37-45.   

Rights of Afghan Women Since the US Invasion Essay -- Afghan Womens R

As a result of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the issue of Afghan women’s rights came to the world stage. Through the media, populations of first-world countries saw firsthand the terrible oppression of Afghan women. One such instance was the famous picture of the â€Å"Afghan Girl† published in the National Geographic magazine, which became an international symbol for the plight of Afghan women. The United States and Afghan governments have repeatedly obstructed the progression of Afghan women’s rights, causing women’s quality of life to decline, women’s education to suffer, and women’s representation in government to be limited. Women’s rights in Afghanistan have not always been suppressed. Throughout the early 1900s to the mid-1900s, women were free to travel unaccompanied. King Amanullah constructed schools for girls and passed laws eliminating arranged marriages (Kolhatkar, 2013). In the early 1950s, the government outlawed the Islamic principle of purdah, or gender separation. Moreover, the government granted Afghan women the right to vote in 1965, a year earlier than American women, and by the early 1960s, held half of all legislative posts (â€Å"Women,† 2013). King Amanullah even made the burqa, the symbol of oppression, optional and encouraged a Western style of dress (Kolhatkar, 2013). When the Taliban came to power in 1996, all of that changed. The Taliban believed it was their duty to protect women and their family’s honor. Enforcing a version of â€Å"Sharia†, or Islamic law and drawing principles from the â€Å"Pashtunwali†, or traditional social code, the Tali ban effectively banned women from going to school, studying, working, leaving the house without a male relative to accompany them, showing any skin while in public settings, ... ...bglj Levi, S. (2009, September). The long, long struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan. Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, 2(12). Retrieved from http://origins.osu.edu/article/long-long-struggle-women-s-rights-afghanistan Mahr, K. (2014, April 14). Waiting for the Taliban. Time, 183(14), 24-38. McCurry, S. (1984, December). Afghan girl [Photograph]. National Geographic. Retrieved from http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/ photographers/afghan-girl-cover.html Peace unveiled [Television episode]. (2011, October 25). In P. Hogan, G. Reticker, A. E. Disney, & C. Rizzi (Producer), Women, war and peace. New York, NY: PBS. Women in Afghanistan: The back story. (2013, October 25). Retrieved April 6, 2014, from Amnesty International UK website: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history#.U0If0FzxWP8

The Challenge of Good Advice :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay

The Challenge of Good Advice Good advice is in the eye of the beholder. Advice needs to be relative to the situation. If something is missing from advice the whole topic may be dismissed. If there is too much some info may be missed because some is forgotten or attention diverted. For advice to be good options should present themselves. I won't want to be told there is only one way to do something. No straight forward answer should ultimately clinch it for me. I'd want insight from a variety of sources. Such as verbal and non-verbal, sentences and actions. Cautioning against something too much may have the reverse effect, every once in a while I've been known to see what will happen, even if guided to do otherwise. The same advice given to two different people may trigger different actions. My mother has said this to me "Save your money for something you really want" when I was young, like age 9, I ignored this advice because I wasn't ready for it and I "wanted" candy. My age, 18, allows me to listen better save it for college or to buy a car. The older I got the more willing I was to accept advice. It all depended on what I was thinking and feeling at a particular time or age. Or 18 year olds, like some of my friends could disregard the advice as well and just "want" to party. To me good advice comes from someone I respect or even want to be like. However, if that person is on the wrong track with advice then they could lead me astray. Their so-called good advice may be the worst advice I could ever receive. Taking advice has to be a judgment call as well as a learning process. If I were to choose the wrong path it would be no one's fault but my own. I usually want drawn out examples of situations in order to choose what advice is good for me and what is not. Yet my brother wants advice straight to the point and easy to refer back to. Then sometimes I want a little of both. To me the somewhat drawn out examples help me to choose the path to go. With more examples I'm bound to remember at least one if not more. The short, but not always sweet, explanations may leave room for interpretation which occasionally have led me to the eve of destruction.

Developmental Psychology and Young Children

Tawny Lace Please answer all the questions below using your preferred method from voice recording, written assignments or via oral questions with Kerry Banitas. Please reflect on own experience to support your knowledge. . For your information – all guidance notes are at the end of the questions. 1. 1. Explain the pattern of development in the first three years of life and the skills typically acquired at each stage.. | 1. 2. Explain: ? how development and learning are interconnected, ? how and why variations occur in rate and sequence of development and learning ; ? hat learning may take place in different ways; ? the importance of play. | 1. 3. Explain the potential effects on development, of preconceptual, pre-birth and birth experiences. | 1. 4. Explain the impact of current research into the development and learning of babies and young children.. | 3. 1. Explain the benefits of the key worker/person system in early years settings. | 3. 2. Explain how babies and young chil dren learn and develop best from a basis of loving, secure relationships with carers and with key persons in work settings. | 3. 3.Analyse the possible effects of poor quality attachments on the development of babies and children. | 4. 3. Explain how babies express their emotions, preferences and needs and demonstrate responsive care in own practice. | 4. 4. Explain why it is important to manage transitions for babies and young children. | 4. 5. Explain when and why babies and young children require periods of quiet to rest and sleep. | 5. 1. Explain the primary importance of carers in the lives of babies and young children. | 5. 3. Evaluate ways of working in partnership with carers. Guidance notes – Pre-conceptual, pre-birth and birth experiences ondevelopment e. g. 😕 smoking ? alcohol ? maternal ill health ? poor maternal diet ? substance abuse? assisted birth ? birth trauma. Environment e. g. : ? well equipped, clean and safe with age appropriate equipment and mat erials ? provides appropriate challenge ? offer appropriate levels of sensory stimulation? provide quiet calming spaces for babies and young children ? planned and organised around individual needs of babies and young children.Possible effects of poor quality attachments: ? effects on social and emotional development and emotional security ? effects on ability to settle, take risks and makethe most of learning opportunities ? possible effects on short and long term mentalhealth ? effects on relationships with parents and professional carers. Responsive care: ? where carer responding sensitively, consistently and promptly? responses sensitive to individual needs and preferences ? consistency of response? responding promptly| Similar article: How Different Types of Transitions Can Affect Children

Dubai: Globalization on Steroids Essay

Promotions for Dubai on CNN, BBC World, and other satellite channels show a shimmering skyline of glass and steel office towers with their graceful curves and aquiline shapes, suggesting a distant galaxy where all the unpleasantness of urban life has been airbrushed away. But advertising almost always offers more promise than reality, whether the product is potato chips or a city or a country. Seen through the lens of the everyday, nothing in this city is so clear. It’s hard to come to terms with Dubai, be ­cause there is confusion even in the way it is described by the media. It is often referred to as a Persian Gulf country (which it definitely isn’t), or a city-state (wrong again), or a Gulf emirate (also not accurate, because Dubai, the city, is only part of Dubai, the emirate, which is an integral part of the United Arab Emirates). But one thing is clear: during the three years I’ve lived here, it has undergone the kind of transformation that a city might experience once in a lifetime. Each time I leave my apartment block, I drive past shells of unfinished buildings with piles of sand and rubble spilling onto the sidewalks, and I’m struck by another irony of Dubai— that the more the city aspires to be the premier megalopolis of the 21st century, the more it resembles 1945 Dresden. The pace of growth has left many residents wondering what the hurry is. Yet everyone seems to be in a rush. On Sheikh Zayed Road, the 12 lanes linking Dubai with Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital 100 miles to the south, drivers barrel down the fast lanes at 90 miles an hour. Late on a Friday night, drivers weave in and out of the speeding traffic, which results in an appalling accident rate that leaves crushed fenders and tangles of gnarled metal piled along the roadsides. Has any place on earth grown as quickly or been transformed so completely? Aerial photos from the early 1960s show a dusty, ramshackle trading post tucked be-tween the Persian Gulf and the Creek, Dubai’s inland waterway and outlet to the sea. Ten years later it was beginning to take on the look of a prosperous city; a decade after that it had changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. The one-runway airstrip had been replaced by an international airport, a forest of office towers had grown up along the Creek, and residential tracts had spread across barren expanses of desert that stretched to the horizon. Dubai today is often described as a Wild West town, and the widespread economic opportunism lends some truth to the description. Driving the expansion is neither natural resources nor old-world industrialization but rather the gears of a 21st-century economy—banking, technology, trade and tourism, real estate, and media outlets. The tycoons cutting business deals in hotel restaurants and on beach-club patios are representatives of this new global economy—Taiwanese bankers and Lebanese import/exporters, Russian oligarchs and Iranian property investors. But even Dubai is not immune from the vicissitudes of global economics—the September worldwide financial crisis drained almost $6 billion from its financial markets. In spite of its rapid growth and the influence of globalization on Dubai, a bit of the old city can still be found. Walk through the covered market on the Deira side of the Creek, past spice vendors displaying their wares in 100-pound sacks; then go up winding, narrow lanes past the gold, silver, and textile dealers from Pakistan and Iran and the Indian merchants who speak fluent Arabic, their roots in Dubai reaching back generations. From there it is only a short walk up to the Al-Hamadiya School, now a museum, the first place to offer formal education in Dubai. Exhaust-spewing water taxis still shuttle commuters across the Creek between the twisting streets of Deira and the traditional Bastakia quarter, home to the pre-oil ruler’s palace, a covered market, and the site of a former fort. On the Deira side, ships unload pallets of cargo, just as they have ever since Dubai served as a convenient transit point for much of the trade that passed between India and Africa and the rest of the Arabian peninsula. In the neighbourhoods of Jumeirah and Umm Suqeim, quiet side streets lined with white houses topped with red tile roofs glisten in the afternoon sun, suggesting the placid tranquillity of southern California when southern California was tranquil and placid. Early in the morning, Indonesian housemaids sweep driveways with dried palm branches, and South Asian labourers still use these primitive implements to clear the paths in the local parks. It is hard to reconcile such images with those more popularly associated with Dubai. There is the Royal Mirage Hotel, whose silent, soaring hallways and courtyards have been designed in palatial Arabian splendour. Not far away is the Madinat Jumeirah, another hotel complex and an adjoining shopping arcade, where the tinkling music of the oud is pumped into the elevators and down the narrow, serpentine corridors in an effort to re-create the sensual mysticism of the Arabian covered market. But here, too, like almost everywhere in Dubai, the traditional clashes with the modern, and the uneasy blend is meant to serve consumerism: at the Madinat Jumeirah, res-taurants and cafà ©s surround artificial lakes, gift boutiques cater to upscale travellers, and live music echoes from the JamBase, one of Dubai’s hot spots. All of the glitz has made Dubai trendy among the globetrotting business set and holidaymakers interested in a taste of the Middle East—as long as it is tempered with a hefty dose of Club Med— but the changing character of the city is not e ndorsed by everyone. Among so-called locals, or Emirati nationals, there is increasing fear that their culture will eventually succumb to Westernization and foreign influence. Such apprehension is justified, for the demographics are not on their side. Emiratis now account for only 20 percent of the population (an official estimate, probably inflated); within 20 years, as more foreigners pour in from South Asia, the Far East, Russia, and Africa, the percentage is likely to fall to the sin-gle digits. But it is hard for locals to grumble too loudly when they have also been seduced by the global consumer ethos. After midday pray-ers on a blazing Friday afternoon, they head for the blissfully cool shopping malls, as do Indian and Filipino families and British expatriates, to scoop up the latest in mobile phones and other electronic gadgets. Women display designer handbags over their flowing black abayas but wear blue jeans under them, and many young men complement their crinkly clean kandouras with a baseball cap instead of the traditional white headdress. Out in the parking lot, families cram the backs of their Range Rovers and Ford Explorers with plastic shopping bags and a month’s groceries. The good life has created a sedentary life, and with it a sharp rise in obesity and diabetes. As though suddenly seeing the need to change direction, Dubai has begun making desperate attempts to preserve its past. In April 2007 the Dubai Municipality issued a ruling ordering the preservation of more than 2,000 buildings it considered â€Å"having historical significance in the United Arab Emirates.† But the breakneck development all over the city makes this a fool’s errand. Glossy advertisements for unbuilt real estate tracts cover the arrivals hall at the airport, fill billboards beside the highway entrance ramps, and push the news off the front pages of the local news-papers. The inside pages promise more: one full-page ad shows a Venetian gondolier, against a backdrop of faux Mediterranean chic, paddling along an artificial canal, past cafà © tables with Western and Asian patrons relaxing beneath palm trees. The most widely advertised development is now the Lagoons, a name that, like the Greens, Springs, Lakes, and Meadows, belies the arid land it occupies. Indeed, image more than oil (little of which ever existed in Dubai anyway) is now the city’s most valuable export. But what reality might that image exploit? The city was never one of the great centres of Islamic learning or Arab culture, like Cairo or Damascus. It has always been a centre for trade, a way station for commerce. Even today it boasts no impressive mosques; shopping malls are the grandest edifices, and the best-known universities are imported satellite campuses from the United States, England, and Australia. So with no great cultural legacy to celebrate, Dubai has embraced the culture of celebrity. Last February, Tiger Woods was once again victorious in the Dubai Desert Classic, and Roger Federer tried (unsuccessfully) to defend his title in the Dubai Tennis Championships. A year ago George Clooney promoted his movie Michael Clayton at the Dubai International Film Festival, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been spotted frolicking with their children on the b each of the Burj Al Arab, the sail-shaped hotel that is the city’s current signature landmark. Dubai is often described as an Arabian Disneyland, and the characterization is not wide of the mark. Tourists, residents, and celebrities (including Michael Jackson and Rafael Nadal) have slid down the foaming cascades at the Wild Wadi water park. Across Sheikh Zayed Road, the enclosure for the indoor ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates angles into the sky like a giant airplane hangar tipped on end, glowing with a streak of lurid colour at nightfall. To accommodate the 15 million tourists a year that the city is planning to host by 2010, another resort complex of 30 hotels and 100 cinemas was sketched out on the city planner’s boards, but as a sign that even Dubai’s aspirations have been tempered, the project has been put on hold. Not, however, the Mall of Arabia, which promises to surpass the West Edmonton Mall as the world’s largest shopping and entertainment complex. The most impressive feature of Dubai isn’t the George Jetson architecture, or even the Burj Dubai, destined to be the tallest building in the world when completed, but the fact that people who would normally be at each other’s throats in their home countries—Indians and Pakistanis, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Serbs and Bosnians, Ethiopians and Eritreans—manage to live and work together in remarkable harmony. This is also part of the legacy of Dubai, that for generations it has served as a crossroads of cultures and a transit point for people as well as goods, and so it evolved into a tolerant neutral space where the petty feuds of other parts of the world have no place. The downside of this polyglot society is a paucity of the shared concerns that can form a social consciousness and hold a society together. â€Å"I don’t want Hezbollah running my country,† the Lebanese receptionist at a medical clinic says when I ask her thoughts on the fallout of the Israel-Lebanon war. That issue is a nonstarter for the Asian staff who share her office. â€Å"She was a beautiful, beautiful woman!† the Pakistani security guard outside my apartment building croons, two days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who spent part of her political exile in Dubai. Being so far from the cafà © tables of Lahore or Karachi, it is probably the first chance he’s had to pour out praise for the populist leader. Dubai is just a short airplane hop from the crises in Sudan, Iraq, and Palestine, but in an odd irony, this global city remains blissfully alienated from the pressing global issues that surround it. Car bombings in Baghdad and street battles in Gaza seem to exist in some parallel universe far from Dubai’s beach clubs and poolside barbecues. If talk radio is a barometer of popular sentiment, Dubai lacks social angst, or even concern about the world’s troubles. On Property Week, callers swap tips on the latest real estate investments. On another show, listeners offer advice on ways to kill time in traffic and compare the brunch buffets and weekend getaway packages offered by five-star hotel chains. One program is devoted to nuanced analysis of rugby, soccer, and cricket matches for United Kingdom and subcontinent expatriates. When the local English daily celebrated its 35th anniversary, readers praised the paper for its coverage of business, sports, and entertainment, but there was no han-k-ering for more articles on inter-national current events, some fright-ening-ly close to home. Life in Dubai is not all whimsical indulgence, however, for vice has arrived as an inseparable part of the global village. Dubai’s crime rate, still modest by Western standards, has risen to a level that would have been unknown a generation ago. Street crimes are still rare but drug seizures are not, and black markets in consumer goods have sprung up. (In a caper that Butch Cassidy would have envied, a gang of thieves drove two stolen cars through an entrance of the upscale Wafi City Mall, smashed a jewellery store display window, and made off with the goods.) Where economic adventurism thrives, so does the world’s oldest profession. Prostitutes from China, the Philippines, Russia, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet republics hover near hotel entrances, hoping to snag returning guests. To its credit, Dubai can be called a true microcosm, but it’s hard to believe that a coherent society can be composed of guest workers who have migrated solely for lucrative jobs and have no longterm stake in the city’s future. Beneath the veneer of harmony is the disturbing sense that everyone knows his or her place. Class asserts itself in an unsavoury caste system where national and ethnic identity determines whether one is offered employment or a lease for an apartment. The city’s reputation as a haven of safety and security in a troublesome part of the world is upheld by affirming an â€Å"old world order† left by the colonial power Dubai would like to believe it has moved beyond. Social equality is a noble ideal promoted by the government but flouted in practice, proving once again that the democratic society is still a modern notion, at war with the more widespread tendency of human beings to create a hierarchy. A landlord may refuse to rent apartments to â€Å"bachelors,† the code word for men from the Asian subcontinent working in Dubai who may be supporting wives and children back home. The term would never apply to an unmarried German electrical engineer or a Canadian English teacher. â€Å"Eight years,† a taxi driver replies when I ask how long he has been plying the roads of Dubai, and I know this means 12 hours a day, six days a week. On Friday afternoons he probably goes to the closest Western Union office, like hundreds of others, to wire money back to his family in Mumbai or Peshawar. Class asserts itself also in the division between servers and the served. I still feel a little awkward when supermarket clerks address me formally and the deliveryman from Pizza Hut (â€Å"Ahmad,† according to his name tag) is overly grateful for a modest tip. But I remind myself that since Dubai is not a democracy and few of its residents come from democratic countries, there is no way its society could resemble one. If someone had to pinpoint one spot on earth that epitomizes the most unsavoury aspects of globalization, Dubai could be Exhibit A. It is a place where the whims of a consumerist society overwhelm a simple native Bedouin culture, the predilections of the affluent obliterate local climate and ecology, and the divide between rich and poor is unapologetically laid bare. Discussion points Read the above account of Dubai and discuss the following questions in groups: 1. To what extent can the Dubai story be regarded as the epitome of Globalisation? Explain your answer. 2. In what ways can Dubai be regarded as vulnerable? 3. What negative aspects of the Dubai story can you identify? 4. How might these negative aspects be mitigated?

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â€Å"Where are you from? † My stomach tightens and my mouth goes dry as I rack my brain for an answer that doesn't Involve explaining my entire life story. My anxiety over such a simple question may seem unnecessary, but I have spent the past seventeen years trying to come up with a suitable answer to that same question. I have grown up a proud daughter of a united States Army soldier, and in my father's line of work, never knowing where we'll be sent next is part of the job description. I was born in New York and from there moved to Georgia. Then we moved to Rhode Island, back to New York, Kansas,Virginia, and finally Washington. That's seven states. Not to mention, I have attended six different public schools and lived in seven different houses. You could say I've always been the new girl. My life is not Just in brown cardboard boxes though; it's picking up and moving at any given time. What can I say In response to this question? Should I say the snow drifts in New York be cause that's where I was born? Or should I say the rolling hills of Kansas because three years Is the longest Vive spent In one place? Some may feel sorry for me, but I couldn't Imagine Miming any other way.We are not defined by a geographic location, but rather the challenges we face and how we learn from them. Unexpected deployments and goodbyes have shown me that some lessons are harder than others, but I know that I am heading towards a bright future. Through my travels I have experienced a wide range of cultures and lifestyles that some can only dream of. Being an Army brat has made me adaptable, flexible, and empathic. So, a simple answer to this question Just wouldn't do my story Justice. I take a deep breath, smile, and say â€Å"I'm from everywhere. †

Free Essays on Advantages of Online Learning

Advantages of online learning Small class size means one-on-one instructor guidance and personalized communication. The big difference is that there's no classroom to go to. There's no commute. You'll never have conflicts with family obligations, business travel or vacations. There's no chance of arriving late or missing a class because of illness. You don't even have to comb your hair if you don't want to! Ignore the clock. Come whenever it's convenient for you. Your course is conducted according to a schedule, but there are no "live" classes to attend. Instead, lectures, coursework, assignments, questions, discussion, all take place at your convenience - online. Plus, you'll receive personalized instructor feedback, and share insights and information with fellow online students. You choose the hour of day (or night) to attend class. You choose the place - at home, at work - wherever you have access to a computer, modem and an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Except for turning in assignments when they're due, your schedule is totally up to you. It is basically quality education without giving up quality time. Online courses are an exceptionally accessible, flexible resource whether your goal is professional advancement, personal enrichment or earning transferable degree credits. You'll get the same high-quality instruction and course content that you demand, but without the day-to-day obstacles that prevent so many of us from pursuing our opportunities. Universities should start offering most of their classes online. Teachers could have more free time and in turn become better teachers.... Free Essays on Advantages of Online Learning Free Essays on Advantages of Online Learning Advantages of online learning Small class size means one-on-one instructor guidance and personalized communication. The big difference is that there's no classroom to go to. There's no commute. You'll never have conflicts with family obligations, business travel or vacations. There's no chance of arriving late or missing a class because of illness. You don't even have to comb your hair if you don't want to! Ignore the clock. Come whenever it's convenient for you. Your course is conducted according to a schedule, but there are no "live" classes to attend. Instead, lectures, coursework, assignments, questions, discussion, all take place at your convenience - online. Plus, you'll receive personalized instructor feedback, and share insights and information with fellow online students. You choose the hour of day (or night) to attend class. You choose the place - at home, at work - wherever you have access to a computer, modem and an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Except for turning in assignments when they're due, your schedule is totally up to you. It is basically quality education without giving up quality time. Online courses are an exceptionally accessible, flexible resource whether your goal is professional advancement, personal enrichment or earning transferable degree credits. You'll get the same high-quality instruction and course content that you demand, but without the day-to-day obstacles that prevent so many of us from pursuing our opportunities. Universities should start offering most of their classes online. Teachers could have more free time and in turn become better teachers....