Exam Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Exam - Assignment Example Dependency theory sees the world in the perspective of making poor nations or countries poorer, and enriching those that are already rich and wealthy. In other words, the inequality of countries across the world results in dominance by wealthy nations over poor nations. For example, developing countries like those in Latin America depend on the developed ones for aid among other things. With this, the developed economies deplete African resources in the name of the aids provided. The integration of weak economies is unfair relative to weak and string economies or countries in the world system. Trade agreement between the United States and Latin America would be seen as a means for United States to exploit Latin America. In the modernization theory, trade agreement between the United States and Latin America would be seen in a whole new perspective. The agreement would be treated as a bid to enhance economic relations between United States and Latin America. The move would be welcome in business and commerce terms relative to international interdependency that is based on the fact that no single nation is self-sufficient. On the other hand, the third way would see this agreement as a trail towards optimizing the welfare of both nations, in the consideration of their differences. Emerging economies like China are threatening the position of other strong nations in the world. Realism and liberalism would treat China’s rise in a global context. That is to say that China’s mode of interaction with the rest of the world would be evaluated in a global context. Given that China is more oriented towards a socialist political system, its position in realism would be characterized by the concept relations that only benefits China, a scenario that is likely to influence close associates of China like Brazil. On the other hand, liberalism would view China as a rather static nation in reforms, due to its high urge

Transport Authority Police Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Transport Authority Police - Research Paper Example In fact, without efficient leadership policies, plans, and practices, any changes in the management and the organization of the agency would not translate into improved service delivery (Burman & Evans, 2008). One of the major challenges faced by the Maryland Transport Authority Police for which a reformed leadership plan is recommended is the demographic differences between the agency and the department. A leadership plan that would incorporate strategies that address these demographic differences thus comes highly welcome for the benefit of the Maryland Transport Authority Police’s customers. The proposed leadership plan for the agency should support a culture that would contribute to the tackling of the major challenges the agency faces in its daily operations. In respect of the challenges it faces, this paper outlines a leadership plan for the Maryland Transport Authority Police with regards to its cultures, management, assessment, change, and crime statistics analysis. This leadership plan would also be quite influential in the manner the agency will investigate and interpret state, county, and city laws and codes violation within the confines and the jurisdiction of the Maryl and Transport Authority Police, including their stations, property, and vehicles. With this new millennium, increased globalization, and ease of transportation, the agency has encountered new types of challenges, which require that new and foolproof leadership plans and strategies are put in place (Burman & Evans, 2008). For instance, the current ease of movement has allowed more people to access ports and other modes of transports, implying the agency has to employ more officers (Burman & Evans, 2008). Hence, the leadership of the agency must ensure that the increased number of customers are well served and are satisfied. Protection must thus be provided to all the agency’s clientele who use the light

Modelling of Meromorphic Retina

Modelling of Meromorphic Retina CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION and literature review 1. INTRODUCTION The world depends on how we sense it; perceive it and how we act is according to our perception of this world. But where from this perception comes? Leaving the psychological part, we perceive by what we sense and act by what we perceive. The senses in humans and other animals are the faculties by which outside information is received for evaluation and response. Thus the actions of humans depend on what they sense. Aristotle divided the senses into five, namely: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste and Touch. These have continued to be regarded as the classical five senses, although scientists have determined the existence of as many as 15 additional senses. Sense organs buried deep in the tissues of muscles, tendons, and joints, for example, give rise to sensations of weight, position of the body, and amount of bending of the various joints; these organs are called proprioceptors. Within the semicircular canal of the ear is the organ of equilibrium, concerned with the sense of balance. General senses, which produce information concerning bodily needs (hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain), are also recognized. But the foundation of all these is still the list of five that was given by Aristotle. Our world is a visual world. Visual perception is by far the most important sensory process by which we gather and extract information from our environment. Vision is the ability to see the features of objects we look at, such as color, shape, size, details, depth, and contrast. Vision is achieved when the eyes and brain work together to form pictures of the world around us. Vision begins with light rays bouncing off the surface of objects. Light reflected from objects in our world forms a very rich source of information and data. The light reflected has a short wavelength and high transmission speed that allow us a spatially accurate and fast localization of reflecting surfaces. The spectral variations in wavelength and intensity in the reflected light resemble the physical properties of object surfaces, and provide means to recognize them. The sources that light our world are usually inhomogeneous. The sun, our natural light source, for example, is in good approximation a point sou rce. Inhomogeneous light sources cause shadows and reflections that are highly correlated with the shape of objects. Thus, knowledge of the spatial position and extent of the light source enables further extraction of information about our environment. Our world is also a world of motion. We and most other animals are moving creatures. We navigate successfully through a dynamic environment, and we use predominantly visual information to do so. A sense of motion is crucial for the perception of our own motion in relation to other moving and static objects in the environment. We must predict accurately the relative dynamics of objects in the environment in order to plan appropriate actions. Take for example the following situation that illustrates the nature of such a perceptual task: the batsman a cricket team is facing a bowler. In order to get the boundary on the ball, he needs an accurate estimate of the real motion trajectory of the ball such that he can precisely plan and orchestrate his body movements to hit the ball. There is little more than just visual information available to him in order to solve the task. And once he is in motion the situation becomes much more complicated because visual motion information now represents the relative motion between him and the ball while the important coordinate frame remains static. Yet, despite its difficulty, with appropriate training some of us become astonishingly good at performing this task. High performance is important because we live in a highly competitive world. The survival of the fittest applies to us as to any other living organism, although the fields of competition might have slightly shifted and diverted during recent evolutionary trends. This competitive pressure not only promotes a visual motion perception system that can determine quickly what is moving where, in which direction, and at what speed; but it also forces this system to be efficient. Efficiency is crucial in biological systems. It encourages solutions that consume the smallest amount of resources of time, substrate, and energy. The requirement for efficiency is advantageous because it drives the system to be quicker, to go further, to last longer, and to have more resources left to solve and perform other tasks at the same time. Thus, being the complex sensory-motor system as the batsman is, he cannot dedicate all of the resources available to solve a single task. Compared to human perceptual abilities, nature provides us with even more astonishing examples of efficient visual motion perception. Consider the various flying insects that navigate by visual perception. They weigh only fractions of grams, yet they are able to navigate successfully at high speeds through complicated environments in which they must resolve visual motions up to 2000 deg/s. 1.1 ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS What applies to biological systems applies also to a large extent to any artificial autonomous system that behaves freely in a real-world environment. When humankind started to build artificial autonomous systems, it was commonly accepted that such systems would become part of our everyday life by the year 2001. Numberless science-fiction stories and movies have encouraged visions of how such agents should behave and interfere with human society. And many of these scenarios seem realistic and desirable. Briefly, we have a rather good sense of what these agents should be capable of. But the construction is still eluding. The semi- autonomous rover of NASAs recent Mars missions or demonstrations of artificial pets are the few examples. Remarkably the progress in this field is slow than the other fields of electronics. Unlike transistor technology in which explosion of density is defined by the Moores law and also in terms of the computational powers the performance of autonomous systems is still not to the par. To find out the reason behind it we have to understand the limitation of traditional approaches. The autonomous system is the one that perceives, takes decision and plans action at a cognitive level, in doing so it must show some degree of intelligence. Returning back to the batsman example, he knows exactly what he has to do to dispatch the ball to the boundary, he has to get into a right position and then hit the ball with a precise timing. In this process, the photons hit the retina and then muscle force is applied. The batsman is not aware that this much is going on into his body. The batsman has a nervous system, and one of its many functions is to instantiate a transformation layerbetween the environme nt and his cognitive mind. The brain reduces and preprocesses the huge amount of noisy sensory data, categorizes and extracts the relevant information, and translates it into a form that is accessible to cognitive reasoning. Thus it is clear here that the there is cluster of process that takes place in a biological cognitive system in a very short time duration. And also that an important part of this whole process is transduction although it is not the one that can solely perform the whole complex task. Thus perception is the interpretationof sensory information with respect to the perceptual goal. The process is shown in the fig-1. 1.2 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS AND COMPUTERS The brain is fundamentally differently organized than a computer and science is still a long way from understanding how the whole thing works. A computer is really easy to understand by comparison. Features (or organization principles) that clearly distinguish a brain from a computer are: Massive parallelism, Distributed storage, Asynchronous processing, and Self organization. The computer is still a basically serially driven machine with a centralized storage and minimal self organization. The table 1.1 enlists these differences. Table 1.1 Differences in the organization principles and operation of computer and brain The digital computation may become so fast that it may solve the present problems and also it may become possible that the autonomous systems are made by digital components that are as powerful as efficient and as intelligent as we may imagine in our wildest dreams. However there are doubts in it and so we have to switch to an implementation framework that can realize all these things. 1.3 NEURAL COMPUTATIONS WITH THE HELP OF ANALOG INTEGRATED CIRCUITS It was Carver Mead who, inspired by the course â€Å"The Physics of Computation† he jointly taught with John Hopfield and Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1982, first proposed the idea of embodying neural computation in silicon analog very large-scale integrated (aVLSI) circuits. Biological neural networks are examples of wonderfully engineered and efficient computational systems. When researchers first began to develop mathematical models for how nervous systems actually compute and process information, they very soon realized that one of the main reasons for the impressive computational power and efficiency of neural networks is the collective computation that takes place among their highly connected neurons. And in researches, it is also well established that these computations are not undertaken digitally although the digital way is much simpler. Real neurons have a cell membrane with a capacitance that acts as a low-pass filter to the incoming signal through its dendrites; they have dendritic trees that non-linearly add signals from other neurons, and so forth. Network structure and analog processing seem to be two key properties of nervous systems providing them with efficiency and computational power, but nonetheless two properties that digital compute rs typically do not share or exploit. 1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Biological information-processing systems operate on completely different principles from those with which most engineers are familiar. For many problems, particularly those in which the input data are ill-conditioned and the computation can be specified in a relative manner, biological solutions are many orders of magnitude more effective than those we have been able to implement using digital methods. This advantage can be attributed principally to the use of elementary physical phenomena as computational primitives, and to the representation of information by the relative values of analog signals, rather than by the absolute values of digital signals. This approach requires adaptive techniques to mitigate the effects of component differences. This kind of adaptation leads naturally to systems that learn about their environment. Large-scale adaptive analog systems are more robust to component degradation and failure than are more conventional systems, and they use far less power . For this reason, adaptive analog technology can be expected to utilize the full potential of wafer scale silicon fabrication 2. The architecture and realization of microelectronic components for a retina-implant system that will provide visual sensations to patients suffering from photoreceptor degeneration. Special circuitry has been developed for a fast single-chip CMOS image sensor system, which provides high dynamic range of more than seven decades (without any electronic or mechanical shutter) corresponding to the performance of the human eye. This image sensor system is directly coupled to a digital filter and a signal processor that compute the so-called receptive-field function for generation of the stimulation data. These external components are wireless, linked to an implanted flexible silicon multielectrode stimulator, which generates electrical signals for electro stimulation of the intact ganglion cells. All components, including additional hardware for digital signal processing and wireless data and power transmission, have been fabricated using in-house standard CMOS technology 3. The circuits inspired by the nervous system that either help verifying neuron physiological models, or that are useful components in artificial perception/action systems. Research also aims at using them in implants. These circuits are computational devices and intelligent sensors that are very differently organized than digital processors. Their storage and processing capacity is distributed. They are asynchronous and use no clock signal. They are often purely analog and operate time continuous. They are adaptive or can even learn on a basic level instead of being programmed. A short introduction into the area of brain research is also included in the course. The students will learn to exploit mechanisms employed by the nervous system for compact energy efficient analog integrated circuits. They will get insight into a multidisciplinary research area. The students will learn to analyze analog CMOS circuits and acquire basic knowledge in brain research methods. 4. Smart vision systems will be an inevitable component of future intelligent systems. Conventional vision systems, based on the system level integration (or even chip level integration) of an image (usually a CCD) camera and a digital processor, do not have the potential for application in general purpose consumer electronic products. This is simply due to the cost, size, and complexity of these systems. Because of these factors conventional vision systems have mainly been limited to specific industrial and military applications. Vision chips, which include both the photo sensors and parallel processing elements (analog or digital), have been under research for more than a decade and illustrate promising capabilities. 5. Dr. Carver Mead, professor emeritus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena pioneered this field. He reasoned that biological evolutionary trends over millions of years have produced organisms that engineers can study to develop better artificial systems. By giving senses and sensory-based behavior to machines, these systems can possibly compete with human senses and brings an intersection between biology, computer science and electrical engineering. Analog circuits, electrical circuits operated with continuous varying signals, are used to implement these algorithmic processes with transistors operated in the sub-threshold or weak inversion region (a region of operation in which transistors are designed to conduct current though the gate voltage is slightly lower than the minimum voltage, called threshold voltage, required for normal conduction to take place) where they exhibit exponential current voltage characteristics and low currents. This circuit paradigm pr oduces high density and low power implementations of some functions that are computationally intensive when compared with other paradigms (triode and saturation operational regions). {A triode region is operating transistor with gate voltage above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage lower than the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. For saturation region, the gate voltage is still above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage above the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. Transistor has four terminals: drain, gate, source and bulk. Current flows between the drain and the source when enough voltage is applied through the gate that enables conduction. The bulk is the body of the transistor.}. As the systems mature, human parts replacements would become a major application area of the Neuromorphic electronics. The fundamental principle is by observing how biological systems perform these func tions robust artificial systems are designed. 6. In This proposed work a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, this is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other circuit components such as averaging circuits, circuits representing ganglion cells, neuronal firing circuits etc that junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although image-processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. With added hardware resources, processing at the front end can reduce a lot of engineering resources for making electronic devices with sense of vision. 1.5 OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT WORK This project work describes a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, which is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other neural firing circuits etc at junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although, image processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas, machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. In this paper it has been shown that with added hardware resources, processing at the front end it can reduce a lot of engineering resources as well as time for making electronic devic es with sense of vision. . The objectives of present work are: Modelling of Neuromorphic Retina The photoreceptor block The horrizontal cell block The transistor mesh implemented with cmos technology The integerated block The integrated block of prs, horizontal cells and bipolar cells The spike generation circuit 1.6 Concluding Remarks In this chapter, the function of the artificial system, difference between brain and computer work is described. The present work is focused on designing of neuromorphic retina layer circuits. Many successful studies have been carried out by the researchers to study the behavior and failure of neuromorphic retina. Some investigators have performed the experimental work to study the phenomenon of the neuromorphic retina. Chapter 2 conations the biological neurons and the electronics of neuromorphic retina in this the descriptions of silicon neurons, electrical nodes as neurons, perceptrons, integrate fire neurons, biological significance of neuromorphic systems, neuromorphic electronics engineering methods, process of developing a neuromorphic chip. Chapter 3 describes the artificial silicon retina, physiology of vision, the retina, photon to electrons, why we require the neuromorphic retina?, the equivalent electronic structure, visual path to brain. In chapter 4 designing and implementation of neuromorphic retina in this the description of the photoreceptor block, the horrizontal cell block, the integerated block, the integrated block of photoreceptors, horizontal cells and bipolar cells, the spike generation circuit. In chapter 5 the design analyses and test results of neuromorphic retina layers. The results are summarized in the form of conclusion in Chapter 6 CHAPTER-2 BIOLOGICAL neurons AND neuromorphic electronics 2.1 INTRODUCTION Neuromorphic systems are inspired by the structure, function and plasticity of biological nervous systems. They are artificial neural systems that mimic algorithmic behavior of the biological animal systems through efficient adaptive and intelligent control techniques. They are designed to adapt, learn from their environments, and make decisions like biological systems and not to perform better than them. There are no efforts to eliminate deficiencies inherent in biological systems. This field, called Neuromorphic engineering, is evolving a new era in computing with a great promise for future medicine, healthcare delivery and industry. It relies on plenty of experiences which nature offers to develop functional, reliable and effective artificial systems. Neuromorphic computational circuits, designed to mimic biological neurons, are primitives based on the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials 2.1 BIOLOGICAL NEURONS Biological neurons have a fairly simple large-scale structure, although their operation and small-scale structure is immensely complex. Neurons have three main parts: a central cell body, called the soma, and two different types of branched, treelike structures that extend from the soma, called dendrites and axons. Information from other neurons, in the form of electrical impulses, enters the dendrites at connection points called synapses. The information flows from the dendrites to the soma, where it is processed. The output signal, a train of impulses, is then sent down the axon to the synapses of other neurons. The dendrites send impulses to the soma while the axon sends impulses away from the soma. Functionally, there are three different types of neurons: Sensory neurons They carry information from sense receptors (nerves that help us see, smell, hear taste and feel) to the central nervous system which includes the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons They carry information from the CNS to effectors (muscles or glands that release all kind of stuff, from water to hormones to ear wax) Interneuron They connect sensory neurons and motor neurons. It has a cell body (or soma) and root-like extensions called mygdale. Amongst the mygdale, one major outgoing trunk is the axon, and the others are dendrites. The signal processing capabilities of a neuron is its ability to vary its intrinsic electrical potential (membrane potential) through special electro-physical and chemical processes. The portion of axon immediately adjacent to the cell body is called axon hillock. This is the point at which action potentials are usually generated. The branches that leave the main axon are often called collaterals. Certain types of neurons have axons or dendrites coated with a fatty insulating substance called myelin. The coating is called the myelin sheath and the fiber is said to be myelinated. In some cases, the myelin sheath is surrounded by another insulating layer, sometimes called neurilemma. This layer, thinner than the myelin sheath and continuous over the nodes of Ranvier, is made up o thin cells called Schwann cells. Now, how do these things work? Inside and just outside of the neurons are sodium ions (Na+) and potassium ions (K+). Normally, when the neuron is just sitting not sending any messages, K+ accumulate inside the neuron while Na+ is kicked out to the area just outside the neuron. Thus, there is a lot of K+ in the neuron and a lot of Na+ just outside of it. This is called the resting potential. Keeping the K+ in and the Na+ is not easy; it requires energy from the body to work. An impulse coming in from the dendrites, reverses this balance, causing K+ to leave the neuron and Na+ to come in. This is known as depolarization. As K+ leave Na+ enter the neuron, energy is released, as the neuron no longer is doing any work to keep K+ in and Na+ out. This energycreates an electrical impulse or action potential that is transmitted from the soma to axon. As the impulse leaves the axon, the neuron repolarizes, that is it takes K+ back in and kicks Na+ out and restores itself to resting potential, ready to send another impulse. This process occurs extremely quickly. A neuron theoretically can send roughly 266 messages in one second. The electrical impulse may stimulate other neurons from its synaptic knobs to propagate the message. Experiments have shown that the membrane voltage variation during the generation of an action potential is generally in a form of a spike (a short pulse figure 2.2), and the shape of this pulse in neurons is rather stereotype and mathematically predictable. 2.2 SILICON NEURONS Neuromorphic engineers are more interested in the physiological rather than the anatomical model of a neuron though, which is concerned with the functionality rather than only classifying its parts. And their preference lies with models that can be realized in aVLSI circuits. Luckily many of the models of neurons have always been formulated as electronic circuits since many of the varying observables in biological neurons are voltages and currents. So it was relatively straight forward to implement them in VLSI electronic circuits. There exist now many aVLSI models of neurons which can be classified by their level of detail that is represented in them. A summary can be found in table 3.1. The most detailed ones are known as ‘silicon neurons. A bit cruder on the level of detail are ‘integrate and fire neurons and even more simplifying are ‘Perceptrons also known as ‘Mc Culloch Pitts neurons. The simplest way however of representing a neuron in electronics is to represent neurons as electrical nodes. Table 2.1 VLSI models of neurons 2.2.1 Electrical Nodesasneurons The most simple of all neuronal models is to just represent a neurons activity by a voltage or a current in an electrical circuit, and input and output are identical, with no transfer function in-between. If a voltage node represents a neuron, excitatory bidirectional connections can be realized simply by resistive elements between the neurons. If you want to add the possibility for inhibitory and mono directional connections, followers can be used instead of resistors. Or if a current represents neuronal activity then a simple current mirror can implement a synapse. Many useful processing networks can be implemented in this manner or in similar ways. For example a resistive network can compute local averages of current inputs. 2.2.2 Perceptrons A perceptron is a simple mathematical model of a neuron. As real neurons it is an entity that is connected to others of its kind by one output and several inputs. Simple signals pass through these connections. In the case of the perceptron these signals are not action potentials but real numbers. To draw the analogy to real neurons these numbers may represent average frequencies of action potentials. The output of a perceptron is a monotonic function (referred to as activation function) of the weighted sum of its inputs (see figure 3.3). Perceptrons are not so much implemented in analog hardware. They have originally been formulated as a mathematical rather than an electronic model and traditional computers are good at those whereas it is not so straight forward to implement simple mathematics into aVLSI. Still there exist aVLSI implementations of perceptrons since they still promise the advantage of a real fully parallel, energy and space conservative implementation. A simple aVLSI implementation of a perceptron is given in the schematics in figure 3.4. This particular implementation works well enough in theory, in practice however it is on one hand not flexible enough (particularly the activation function), on the other already difficult to tune by its bias voltages and prone to noise on the a chip. Circuits that have really been used are based on this one but were more extensive to deal with the problems. 2.2.3 Integrate Fire Neurons This model of a neuron sticks closer to the original in terms of its signals. Its output and its inputs are pulse signals. In terms of frequencies it actually can be modeled by a perceptron and vice versa. It is however much better suited to be implemented in aVLSI. And the spike communication also has distinct advantages in noise robustness. That is also thought to be a reason, why the nervous system uses that kind of communication. An integrate and fire neuron integrates weighted charge inputs triggered by presynaptic action potentials. If the integrated voltage reaches a threshold, the neuron fires a short output pulse and the integrator is reset. These basic properties are depicted in figure 2.5. 2.3 BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF NEUROMORPHIC SYSTEMS The fundamental philosophy of neuromorphic engineering is to utilize algorithmic inspiration of biological systems to engineer artificial systems. It is a kind of technology transfer from biology to engineering that involves the understanding of the functions and forms of the biological systems and consequent morphinginto silicon chips. The fundamental biological unit mimicked in the design of neuromorphic systems is the neurons. Animal brain is composed of these individual units of computation, called neurons and the neurons are the elementary signaling parts of the nervous systems. By examining the retina for instance, artificial neurons that mimic the retinal neurons and chemistry are fabricated on silicon (most common material), gallium arsenide (GaAs) or possibly prospective organic semiconductor materials. 2.4 NEUROMORPHIC ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING METHODS Neuromorphic systems design methods involves the mapping of models of perfection and sensory processing in biological systems onto analog VLSI systems which emulate the biological functions at the same time resembling their structural architecture. These systems are mainly designed with complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) transistors that enable low power consumption, higher chip density and integration, lower cost. These transistors are biased to operate in the sub-threshold region to enable the realizations of high dynamic range of currents which are very important for neural systems design. Elements of adaptation and learning (a sort of higher level of adaptation in which past experience is used to effectively readjust the response of a system to previously unseen input stimuli) are incorporated into neuromorphic systems since they are expected to emulate the behavior of the biological systems and compensate for imperfections in t Modelling of Meromorphic Retina Modelling of Meromorphic Retina CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION and literature review 1. INTRODUCTION The world depends on how we sense it; perceive it and how we act is according to our perception of this world. But where from this perception comes? Leaving the psychological part, we perceive by what we sense and act by what we perceive. The senses in humans and other animals are the faculties by which outside information is received for evaluation and response. Thus the actions of humans depend on what they sense. Aristotle divided the senses into five, namely: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste and Touch. These have continued to be regarded as the classical five senses, although scientists have determined the existence of as many as 15 additional senses. Sense organs buried deep in the tissues of muscles, tendons, and joints, for example, give rise to sensations of weight, position of the body, and amount of bending of the various joints; these organs are called proprioceptors. Within the semicircular canal of the ear is the organ of equilibrium, concerned with the sense of balance. General senses, which produce information concerning bodily needs (hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain), are also recognized. But the foundation of all these is still the list of five that was given by Aristotle. Our world is a visual world. Visual perception is by far the most important sensory process by which we gather and extract information from our environment. Vision is the ability to see the features of objects we look at, such as color, shape, size, details, depth, and contrast. Vision is achieved when the eyes and brain work together to form pictures of the world around us. Vision begins with light rays bouncing off the surface of objects. Light reflected from objects in our world forms a very rich source of information and data. The light reflected has a short wavelength and high transmission speed that allow us a spatially accurate and fast localization of reflecting surfaces. The spectral variations in wavelength and intensity in the reflected light resemble the physical properties of object surfaces, and provide means to recognize them. The sources that light our world are usually inhomogeneous. The sun, our natural light source, for example, is in good approximation a point sou rce. Inhomogeneous light sources cause shadows and reflections that are highly correlated with the shape of objects. Thus, knowledge of the spatial position and extent of the light source enables further extraction of information about our environment. Our world is also a world of motion. We and most other animals are moving creatures. We navigate successfully through a dynamic environment, and we use predominantly visual information to do so. A sense of motion is crucial for the perception of our own motion in relation to other moving and static objects in the environment. We must predict accurately the relative dynamics of objects in the environment in order to plan appropriate actions. Take for example the following situation that illustrates the nature of such a perceptual task: the batsman a cricket team is facing a bowler. In order to get the boundary on the ball, he needs an accurate estimate of the real motion trajectory of the ball such that he can precisely plan and orchestrate his body movements to hit the ball. There is little more than just visual information available to him in order to solve the task. And once he is in motion the situation becomes much more complicated because visual motion information now represents the relative motion between him and the ball while the important coordinate frame remains static. Yet, despite its difficulty, with appropriate training some of us become astonishingly good at performing this task. High performance is important because we live in a highly competitive world. The survival of the fittest applies to us as to any other living organism, although the fields of competition might have slightly shifted and diverted during recent evolutionary trends. This competitive pressure not only promotes a visual motion perception system that can determine quickly what is moving where, in which direction, and at what speed; but it also forces this system to be efficient. Efficiency is crucial in biological systems. It encourages solutions that consume the smallest amount of resources of time, substrate, and energy. The requirement for efficiency is advantageous because it drives the system to be quicker, to go further, to last longer, and to have more resources left to solve and perform other tasks at the same time. Thus, being the complex sensory-motor system as the batsman is, he cannot dedicate all of the resources available to solve a single task. Compared to human perceptual abilities, nature provides us with even more astonishing examples of efficient visual motion perception. Consider the various flying insects that navigate by visual perception. They weigh only fractions of grams, yet they are able to navigate successfully at high speeds through complicated environments in which they must resolve visual motions up to 2000 deg/s. 1.1 ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS What applies to biological systems applies also to a large extent to any artificial autonomous system that behaves freely in a real-world environment. When humankind started to build artificial autonomous systems, it was commonly accepted that such systems would become part of our everyday life by the year 2001. Numberless science-fiction stories and movies have encouraged visions of how such agents should behave and interfere with human society. And many of these scenarios seem realistic and desirable. Briefly, we have a rather good sense of what these agents should be capable of. But the construction is still eluding. The semi- autonomous rover of NASAs recent Mars missions or demonstrations of artificial pets are the few examples. Remarkably the progress in this field is slow than the other fields of electronics. Unlike transistor technology in which explosion of density is defined by the Moores law and also in terms of the computational powers the performance of autonomous systems is still not to the par. To find out the reason behind it we have to understand the limitation of traditional approaches. The autonomous system is the one that perceives, takes decision and plans action at a cognitive level, in doing so it must show some degree of intelligence. Returning back to the batsman example, he knows exactly what he has to do to dispatch the ball to the boundary, he has to get into a right position and then hit the ball with a precise timing. In this process, the photons hit the retina and then muscle force is applied. The batsman is not aware that this much is going on into his body. The batsman has a nervous system, and one of its many functions is to instantiate a transformation layerbetween the environme nt and his cognitive mind. The brain reduces and preprocesses the huge amount of noisy sensory data, categorizes and extracts the relevant information, and translates it into a form that is accessible to cognitive reasoning. Thus it is clear here that the there is cluster of process that takes place in a biological cognitive system in a very short time duration. And also that an important part of this whole process is transduction although it is not the one that can solely perform the whole complex task. Thus perception is the interpretationof sensory information with respect to the perceptual goal. The process is shown in the fig-1. 1.2 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS AND COMPUTERS The brain is fundamentally differently organized than a computer and science is still a long way from understanding how the whole thing works. A computer is really easy to understand by comparison. Features (or organization principles) that clearly distinguish a brain from a computer are: Massive parallelism, Distributed storage, Asynchronous processing, and Self organization. The computer is still a basically serially driven machine with a centralized storage and minimal self organization. The table 1.1 enlists these differences. Table 1.1 Differences in the organization principles and operation of computer and brain The digital computation may become so fast that it may solve the present problems and also it may become possible that the autonomous systems are made by digital components that are as powerful as efficient and as intelligent as we may imagine in our wildest dreams. However there are doubts in it and so we have to switch to an implementation framework that can realize all these things. 1.3 NEURAL COMPUTATIONS WITH THE HELP OF ANALOG INTEGRATED CIRCUITS It was Carver Mead who, inspired by the course â€Å"The Physics of Computation† he jointly taught with John Hopfield and Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1982, first proposed the idea of embodying neural computation in silicon analog very large-scale integrated (aVLSI) circuits. Biological neural networks are examples of wonderfully engineered and efficient computational systems. When researchers first began to develop mathematical models for how nervous systems actually compute and process information, they very soon realized that one of the main reasons for the impressive computational power and efficiency of neural networks is the collective computation that takes place among their highly connected neurons. And in researches, it is also well established that these computations are not undertaken digitally although the digital way is much simpler. Real neurons have a cell membrane with a capacitance that acts as a low-pass filter to the incoming signal through its dendrites; they have dendritic trees that non-linearly add signals from other neurons, and so forth. Network structure and analog processing seem to be two key properties of nervous systems providing them with efficiency and computational power, but nonetheless two properties that digital compute rs typically do not share or exploit. 1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Biological information-processing systems operate on completely different principles from those with which most engineers are familiar. For many problems, particularly those in which the input data are ill-conditioned and the computation can be specified in a relative manner, biological solutions are many orders of magnitude more effective than those we have been able to implement using digital methods. This advantage can be attributed principally to the use of elementary physical phenomena as computational primitives, and to the representation of information by the relative values of analog signals, rather than by the absolute values of digital signals. This approach requires adaptive techniques to mitigate the effects of component differences. This kind of adaptation leads naturally to systems that learn about their environment. Large-scale adaptive analog systems are more robust to component degradation and failure than are more conventional systems, and they use far less power . For this reason, adaptive analog technology can be expected to utilize the full potential of wafer scale silicon fabrication 2. The architecture and realization of microelectronic components for a retina-implant system that will provide visual sensations to patients suffering from photoreceptor degeneration. Special circuitry has been developed for a fast single-chip CMOS image sensor system, which provides high dynamic range of more than seven decades (without any electronic or mechanical shutter) corresponding to the performance of the human eye. This image sensor system is directly coupled to a digital filter and a signal processor that compute the so-called receptive-field function for generation of the stimulation data. These external components are wireless, linked to an implanted flexible silicon multielectrode stimulator, which generates electrical signals for electro stimulation of the intact ganglion cells. All components, including additional hardware for digital signal processing and wireless data and power transmission, have been fabricated using in-house standard CMOS technology 3. The circuits inspired by the nervous system that either help verifying neuron physiological models, or that are useful components in artificial perception/action systems. Research also aims at using them in implants. These circuits are computational devices and intelligent sensors that are very differently organized than digital processors. Their storage and processing capacity is distributed. They are asynchronous and use no clock signal. They are often purely analog and operate time continuous. They are adaptive or can even learn on a basic level instead of being programmed. A short introduction into the area of brain research is also included in the course. The students will learn to exploit mechanisms employed by the nervous system for compact energy efficient analog integrated circuits. They will get insight into a multidisciplinary research area. The students will learn to analyze analog CMOS circuits and acquire basic knowledge in brain research methods. 4. Smart vision systems will be an inevitable component of future intelligent systems. Conventional vision systems, based on the system level integration (or even chip level integration) of an image (usually a CCD) camera and a digital processor, do not have the potential for application in general purpose consumer electronic products. This is simply due to the cost, size, and complexity of these systems. Because of these factors conventional vision systems have mainly been limited to specific industrial and military applications. Vision chips, which include both the photo sensors and parallel processing elements (analog or digital), have been under research for more than a decade and illustrate promising capabilities. 5. Dr. Carver Mead, professor emeritus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena pioneered this field. He reasoned that biological evolutionary trends over millions of years have produced organisms that engineers can study to develop better artificial systems. By giving senses and sensory-based behavior to machines, these systems can possibly compete with human senses and brings an intersection between biology, computer science and electrical engineering. Analog circuits, electrical circuits operated with continuous varying signals, are used to implement these algorithmic processes with transistors operated in the sub-threshold or weak inversion region (a region of operation in which transistors are designed to conduct current though the gate voltage is slightly lower than the minimum voltage, called threshold voltage, required for normal conduction to take place) where they exhibit exponential current voltage characteristics and low currents. This circuit paradigm pr oduces high density and low power implementations of some functions that are computationally intensive when compared with other paradigms (triode and saturation operational regions). {A triode region is operating transistor with gate voltage above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage lower than the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. For saturation region, the gate voltage is still above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage above the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. Transistor has four terminals: drain, gate, source and bulk. Current flows between the drain and the source when enough voltage is applied through the gate that enables conduction. The bulk is the body of the transistor.}. As the systems mature, human parts replacements would become a major application area of the Neuromorphic electronics. The fundamental principle is by observing how biological systems perform these func tions robust artificial systems are designed. 6. In This proposed work a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, this is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other circuit components such as averaging circuits, circuits representing ganglion cells, neuronal firing circuits etc that junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although image-processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. With added hardware resources, processing at the front end can reduce a lot of engineering resources for making electronic devices with sense of vision. 1.5 OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT WORK This project work describes a circuit level model of Neuromorphic Retina, which is a crude electronic model of biologically inspired smart visual sensors. These visual sensors have integrated image acquisition and parallel processing. Having these features neuromorphic retina mimics the neural circuitry of bionic eye. The proposed electronic model contains adaptive photoreceptors as light sensors and other neural firing circuits etc at junction to sense brightness, size, orientation and shape to distinguish objects in closer proximity. Although, image processing features are available with modern robots but most of the issues related to image processing are taken care by software resources. Whereas, machine vision with the help of neuromorphic retina is empowered with image processing at the front end. In this paper it has been shown that with added hardware resources, processing at the front end it can reduce a lot of engineering resources as well as time for making electronic devic es with sense of vision. . The objectives of present work are: Modelling of Neuromorphic Retina The photoreceptor block The horrizontal cell block The transistor mesh implemented with cmos technology The integerated block The integrated block of prs, horizontal cells and bipolar cells The spike generation circuit 1.6 Concluding Remarks In this chapter, the function of the artificial system, difference between brain and computer work is described. The present work is focused on designing of neuromorphic retina layer circuits. Many successful studies have been carried out by the researchers to study the behavior and failure of neuromorphic retina. Some investigators have performed the experimental work to study the phenomenon of the neuromorphic retina. Chapter 2 conations the biological neurons and the electronics of neuromorphic retina in this the descriptions of silicon neurons, electrical nodes as neurons, perceptrons, integrate fire neurons, biological significance of neuromorphic systems, neuromorphic electronics engineering methods, process of developing a neuromorphic chip. Chapter 3 describes the artificial silicon retina, physiology of vision, the retina, photon to electrons, why we require the neuromorphic retina?, the equivalent electronic structure, visual path to brain. In chapter 4 designing and implementation of neuromorphic retina in this the description of the photoreceptor block, the horrizontal cell block, the integerated block, the integrated block of photoreceptors, horizontal cells and bipolar cells, the spike generation circuit. In chapter 5 the design analyses and test results of neuromorphic retina layers. The results are summarized in the form of conclusion in Chapter 6 CHAPTER-2 BIOLOGICAL neurons AND neuromorphic electronics 2.1 INTRODUCTION Neuromorphic systems are inspired by the structure, function and plasticity of biological nervous systems. They are artificial neural systems that mimic algorithmic behavior of the biological animal systems through efficient adaptive and intelligent control techniques. They are designed to adapt, learn from their environments, and make decisions like biological systems and not to perform better than them. There are no efforts to eliminate deficiencies inherent in biological systems. This field, called Neuromorphic engineering, is evolving a new era in computing with a great promise for future medicine, healthcare delivery and industry. It relies on plenty of experiences which nature offers to develop functional, reliable and effective artificial systems. Neuromorphic computational circuits, designed to mimic biological neurons, are primitives based on the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials 2.1 BIOLOGICAL NEURONS Biological neurons have a fairly simple large-scale structure, although their operation and small-scale structure is immensely complex. Neurons have three main parts: a central cell body, called the soma, and two different types of branched, treelike structures that extend from the soma, called dendrites and axons. Information from other neurons, in the form of electrical impulses, enters the dendrites at connection points called synapses. The information flows from the dendrites to the soma, where it is processed. The output signal, a train of impulses, is then sent down the axon to the synapses of other neurons. The dendrites send impulses to the soma while the axon sends impulses away from the soma. Functionally, there are three different types of neurons: Sensory neurons They carry information from sense receptors (nerves that help us see, smell, hear taste and feel) to the central nervous system which includes the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons They carry information from the CNS to effectors (muscles or glands that release all kind of stuff, from water to hormones to ear wax) Interneuron They connect sensory neurons and motor neurons. It has a cell body (or soma) and root-like extensions called mygdale. Amongst the mygdale, one major outgoing trunk is the axon, and the others are dendrites. The signal processing capabilities of a neuron is its ability to vary its intrinsic electrical potential (membrane potential) through special electro-physical and chemical processes. The portion of axon immediately adjacent to the cell body is called axon hillock. This is the point at which action potentials are usually generated. The branches that leave the main axon are often called collaterals. Certain types of neurons have axons or dendrites coated with a fatty insulating substance called myelin. The coating is called the myelin sheath and the fiber is said to be myelinated. In some cases, the myelin sheath is surrounded by another insulating layer, sometimes called neurilemma. This layer, thinner than the myelin sheath and continuous over the nodes of Ranvier, is made up o thin cells called Schwann cells. Now, how do these things work? Inside and just outside of the neurons are sodium ions (Na+) and potassium ions (K+). Normally, when the neuron is just sitting not sending any messages, K+ accumulate inside the neuron while Na+ is kicked out to the area just outside the neuron. Thus, there is a lot of K+ in the neuron and a lot of Na+ just outside of it. This is called the resting potential. Keeping the K+ in and the Na+ is not easy; it requires energy from the body to work. An impulse coming in from the dendrites, reverses this balance, causing K+ to leave the neuron and Na+ to come in. This is known as depolarization. As K+ leave Na+ enter the neuron, energy is released, as the neuron no longer is doing any work to keep K+ in and Na+ out. This energycreates an electrical impulse or action potential that is transmitted from the soma to axon. As the impulse leaves the axon, the neuron repolarizes, that is it takes K+ back in and kicks Na+ out and restores itself to resting potential, ready to send another impulse. This process occurs extremely quickly. A neuron theoretically can send roughly 266 messages in one second. The electrical impulse may stimulate other neurons from its synaptic knobs to propagate the message. Experiments have shown that the membrane voltage variation during the generation of an action potential is generally in a form of a spike (a short pulse figure 2.2), and the shape of this pulse in neurons is rather stereotype and mathematically predictable. 2.2 SILICON NEURONS Neuromorphic engineers are more interested in the physiological rather than the anatomical model of a neuron though, which is concerned with the functionality rather than only classifying its parts. And their preference lies with models that can be realized in aVLSI circuits. Luckily many of the models of neurons have always been formulated as electronic circuits since many of the varying observables in biological neurons are voltages and currents. So it was relatively straight forward to implement them in VLSI electronic circuits. There exist now many aVLSI models of neurons which can be classified by their level of detail that is represented in them. A summary can be found in table 3.1. The most detailed ones are known as ‘silicon neurons. A bit cruder on the level of detail are ‘integrate and fire neurons and even more simplifying are ‘Perceptrons also known as ‘Mc Culloch Pitts neurons. The simplest way however of representing a neuron in electronics is to represent neurons as electrical nodes. Table 2.1 VLSI models of neurons 2.2.1 Electrical Nodesasneurons The most simple of all neuronal models is to just represent a neurons activity by a voltage or a current in an electrical circuit, and input and output are identical, with no transfer function in-between. If a voltage node represents a neuron, excitatory bidirectional connections can be realized simply by resistive elements between the neurons. If you want to add the possibility for inhibitory and mono directional connections, followers can be used instead of resistors. Or if a current represents neuronal activity then a simple current mirror can implement a synapse. Many useful processing networks can be implemented in this manner or in similar ways. For example a resistive network can compute local averages of current inputs. 2.2.2 Perceptrons A perceptron is a simple mathematical model of a neuron. As real neurons it is an entity that is connected to others of its kind by one output and several inputs. Simple signals pass through these connections. In the case of the perceptron these signals are not action potentials but real numbers. To draw the analogy to real neurons these numbers may represent average frequencies of action potentials. The output of a perceptron is a monotonic function (referred to as activation function) of the weighted sum of its inputs (see figure 3.3). Perceptrons are not so much implemented in analog hardware. They have originally been formulated as a mathematical rather than an electronic model and traditional computers are good at those whereas it is not so straight forward to implement simple mathematics into aVLSI. Still there exist aVLSI implementations of perceptrons since they still promise the advantage of a real fully parallel, energy and space conservative implementation. A simple aVLSI implementation of a perceptron is given in the schematics in figure 3.4. This particular implementation works well enough in theory, in practice however it is on one hand not flexible enough (particularly the activation function), on the other already difficult to tune by its bias voltages and prone to noise on the a chip. Circuits that have really been used are based on this one but were more extensive to deal with the problems. 2.2.3 Integrate Fire Neurons This model of a neuron sticks closer to the original in terms of its signals. Its output and its inputs are pulse signals. In terms of frequencies it actually can be modeled by a perceptron and vice versa. It is however much better suited to be implemented in aVLSI. And the spike communication also has distinct advantages in noise robustness. That is also thought to be a reason, why the nervous system uses that kind of communication. An integrate and fire neuron integrates weighted charge inputs triggered by presynaptic action potentials. If the integrated voltage reaches a threshold, the neuron fires a short output pulse and the integrator is reset. These basic properties are depicted in figure 2.5. 2.3 BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF NEUROMORPHIC SYSTEMS The fundamental philosophy of neuromorphic engineering is to utilize algorithmic inspiration of biological systems to engineer artificial systems. It is a kind of technology transfer from biology to engineering that involves the understanding of the functions and forms of the biological systems and consequent morphinginto silicon chips. The fundamental biological unit mimicked in the design of neuromorphic systems is the neurons. Animal brain is composed of these individual units of computation, called neurons and the neurons are the elementary signaling parts of the nervous systems. By examining the retina for instance, artificial neurons that mimic the retinal neurons and chemistry are fabricated on silicon (most common material), gallium arsenide (GaAs) or possibly prospective organic semiconductor materials. 2.4 NEUROMORPHIC ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING METHODS Neuromorphic systems design methods involves the mapping of models of perfection and sensory processing in biological systems onto analog VLSI systems which emulate the biological functions at the same time resembling their structural architecture. These systems are mainly designed with complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) transistors that enable low power consumption, higher chip density and integration, lower cost. These transistors are biased to operate in the sub-threshold region to enable the realizations of high dynamic range of currents which are very important for neural systems design. Elements of adaptation and learning (a sort of higher level of adaptation in which past experience is used to effectively readjust the response of a system to previously unseen input stimuli) are incorporated into neuromorphic systems since they are expected to emulate the behavior of the biological systems and compensate for imperfections in t

The Odyssey Essay examples -- essays research papers

Throughout vast journeys of many heroes, no other hero had a more complex journey than Odysseus. This journey is called The Odyssey, written by Homer. It is an epic poem or story told of a hero name Odysseus on a 20-year voyage trying to get back home from the Trojan War. The great epic poem known as The Odyssey and attributed to Homer was probably first written down around the eighth century BC, but the origins of the ancient story in myth, legend, and folklore and art appear to be much older. Greek Epic Hero When you think about Greek Epic heroes, Odysseus will most likely come to mind. Odysseus is the main character in Homer's poem "The Odyssey." "The Odyssey" is a narrative poem that describes Odysseus' adventures and obstacles in his quest to return home to Ithaca, where he is king, from the Trojan War. Odysseus has been gone for two decades. All the other chieftains have returned home. However, Odysseus' whereabouts are unknown. One of the things that make Odysseus a Greek hero is that the gods favor him. In the Odyssey the gods help Odysseus many times. When Poseidon struck Odysseus' ship with lightning, Odysseus was able to survive because a goddess named Ino gave him a magical cloak. The cloak prevents Odysseus from drowning. When Circe turns Odysseus’ men into swine, Hermes the messenger god gives Odysseus a magical herb that prevents Circe from using her spells on him. Due to this Odysseus was able to gain favor in Circe's eyes and he convinced her to turn his men back to normal. Towards the end of the book, when Odysseus returns to Ithaca, Athena disguises him as a beggar. The disguise was to fool the suitors, who are eating Odysseus out of his home and are harassing his wife Penelope, and to get Odysseus access to the palace. The ancient Greeks used to say that a true hero must show respect to the gods by giving them sacrifices and praying to them. Odysseus gives sacrifices to the gods in many instances in â€Å"The Ody ssey." When Odysseus goes to Hades, the underworld, he sacrifices a ram and an ewe to the gods. When Odysseus defeats Polyphemus the Cyclops who is the son of Poseidon the god of the sea, Odysseus gives sacrifices to the gods. Lastly when Odysseus defeats those horrible suitors that outnumbered him by so much Odysseus realizes that it was the gods who helped him do this. A mere mortal could not perform the fea... ...d wars are true. Let’s take Ithaca for instances, is a real landmass in the Ionians Islands of the western part of Greece. Through the Trojan War, there is some truth to that because researches have found some parts and signs that deal with a war that took place a great time ago. They found that Troy is in what we call present-day Turkey. It is very hard to understand the book because of the depth it goes into. The translator E. V. Rieu said that â€Å"The Odyssey† was one the hardest books to translate mainly because Homer writes with emphasis on his works. But in the movie, the director Andrei Kanchalovsky said â€Å"the movie was hard to make because it was to many books that translated The Odyssey in many different ways.† In actuality, the article was the best summary of the book and half as good as the movie. Fayetteville State University By: Adrian Williams History 110 11-16-00 Book: Homer. The Odyssey. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA. Penguin Books Inc, 1946. Movie: â€Å"The Odyssey†. Directed by Andrei Kanchalovsky. Starring Armand Assante, Vanessa L. Williams, and Eric Roberts. 1997. Article: http://members.nbci.com/blademaster/myths/odyssey.html

Whitefield/Wesley & Predestination

John Wesley’s sermon, entitled â€Å"Free Grace† was published in August, 1739. In it he attempted to show how God’s grace is â€Å"free in all and free for all. † His message was strongly directed toward the doctrine of predestination and election, which was held to by many believers in Wesley’s day. He believed that this doctrine was a dangerous one and that it blasphemed the very person and nature of God. In response to Wesley, George Whitefield wrote â€Å"A Letter from George Whitefield to the Rev. John Wesley. Whitefield saw Wesley’s doctrine of â€Å"free grace† as being the one that was blasphemous and dangerous to the faith.He argued that the Bible clearly presents the doctrine of predestination, and that any doctrine that stated otherwise led to the heresy of universalism. The two men had worked together in the ministry for quite some time when these two documents were published. Wesley adopted many evangelical views of Chri stianity when he was converted, but he retained some of his pre-conversion beliefs concerning predestination. When Whitefield left England on a trip, Wesley quickly published his sermon on â€Å"free grace. When Whitefield returned, he was determined to respond and set the record straight. Both of these men presented strong arguments supporting both of their views. It is difficult to compare the two equally, because Whitefield only addresses certain issues in Wesley’s sermon and not it’s entirety. That being said, I believe that George Whitefield’s arguments concerning predestination and soteriology are superior to John Wesley’s due to how he handles Scripture and logical thought. Wesley’s sermon on â€Å"free grace† had six major points.For the purpose of this paper, I have selected for discussion only the points that Whitefield directly addressed in his letter of response. In doing so, I hope to make apparent that Whitefield had a much st ronger argument and a much more biblical understanding of predestination in soteriology. Wesley begins his sermon with a fair and accurate assessment of the possible views a person might hold, concerning predestination. He clearly shows that while many people may say that they only hold to certain parts of the doctrine, they ultimately believe in the whole.He defines the doctrine as, â€Å"As virtue of an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved. † This is a very good and biblical definition of predestination, but the implications Wesley draws from it are not. The first error that Wesley concludes is that predestination eliminates the need for evangelism. He says, â€Å"[Preaching] is needless to them that are elected; for they, whether with preaching or without, will infallibly be saved. In other words, if God will unconditionally elect some people, then it is unnecessary for those people to be evangelized. The same goes for the non-elect. If they are to be unconditionally damned to hell, then evangelism will have no effect in saving them. In Predestination Calmly Considered, he says: â€Å"His ministers indeed, as they know not the event of things, may be sincere in offering salvation to all persons, according to their general commission, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. But how can God or Christ be sincere in sending them with this commission, to offer his grace to all men, if God has not provided such grace for all men, no, not so much as conditionally? † I believe that Whitefield has a much clearer understanding of Scripture when he responds to Wesley’s statement concerning evangelism. He asks, â€Å"Hath not God, who hath appointed salvation for a certain number, appointed also the preaching of the Word as a means to bring them to it? † Whitefield understood that evangelism is the means that God uses to bring His elect to salvation.Whitefield goes on saying, â€Å"Since we do not know who are elect and who are reprobate, we are to preach promiscuously to all. For the Word may be useful, even to the non-elect, in restraining them from much wickedness and sin. † Whitefield could see how beneficial the Word is for both the elect and reprobate. Scripture supports Whitefield on this matter, especially in Romans 10. Paul explains that â€Å"faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,† and earlier he asks, â€Å"How are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? The Bible clearly states that the only way that the elect will come to faith in Christ is through evangelism. John Calvin also viewed evangelism and predestination in the same light as Whitefield. He concluded: â€Å"Since we do not know who belo ngs to the number of the predestined and who does not, it befits us so to feel as to wish that all be saved. So it will come about that, whoever we come across, we shall study to make him a sharer of peace†¦ even severe rebuke will be administered like medicine, lest they should perish or cause others to perish. But it will be for God to make it effective in those whom He foreknew and predestined. Calvin would have supported Whitefield’s view of evangelism over Wesley’s for certain. The second point of argument concerns predestination and holiness. Wesley says, â€Å"[Predestination] has a manifest tendency to destroy holiness in general; for it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after it, so frequently proposed in Scripture, the hope of future reward and fear of punishment, the hope of heaven and fear of hell. † According to Wesley, those who hold to the doctrine of predestination do not have the same desire to seek holiness as those who do no t hold to it.He even makes the assertion that followers of predestination are more temperamental, especially when confronted with opposition to their doctrine. I believe that Whitefield has the stronger argument when h simply asks how this can be so? Wesley ultimately presents no proof of his assertions, but instead makes accusations from what Whitefield suspects is an experience of debating men who hold to predestination. Those men must have had a strong religious zeal that Wesley misunderstood as narrow-mindedness and hostility that flowed from their doctrinal beliefs.Wesley explains that it is expected that those who â€Å"contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints† will bring strong opposition to error. Thirdly, Wesley says predestination â€Å"tends to destroy the comfort of religion, the happiness of Christianity. This is evident as to all those who believe themselves to be reprobated, or who only suspect or fear it. † He claims that those who h old to the doctrine of predestination do not have the comfort of the assurance of salvation since they can never be sure if they are one of the elect or not.They will at some point and time become doubtful of their salvation, even when they have the witness of the Holy Spirit. Wesley also claims that many people throughout the world who do not hold to predestination â€Å"enjoy the uninterrupted witness of his Spirit, the continual light of his countenance, from the moment wherein they first believed, for many month or years, to this day. † Once again, I believe that Whitefield tears down Wesley’s argument when he asks, â€Å"How does Mr. Wesley know this, who never believed election? In other words, how could Wesley have understood the heart of a person who believes in predestination if he never believed in the doctrine himself? He presents a selection from the reformers that show how they were holders of predestination and yet still described the Christian life as b eing â€Å"full of sweet, pleasant, unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Evidently the heart of the elect is not full of turmoil and despair after all.In response to Wesley’s belief that some people in the world experience uninterrupted assurance, Whitefield asks how he could ever have known such a thing. There is no way that Wesley could have made contact with people all over the world that had these experiences. Whitefield understood that everyone goes through doubts and never as a life-long period of assurance of salvation. Even Jesus Christ experienced times of doubt in the garden, and what greater moment of darkness has ever been experienced than that of His time on the cross, crying, â€Å"My God! My God!Why hast thou forsaken me? † Wesley then asks, â€Å"How uncomfortable a thought is this, that thousands and millions of men, without any preceding offense or fault of theirs, wer e unchangeably doomed to everlasting burnings! † To Wesley, the doctrine of predestination is a terrible one because it condemns men to hell that are undeserving of such punishment. He does not see original sin as being the cause for people’s damnation. In his work, Predestination Calmly Considered, he says, â€Å"Perhaps you will say they are not condemned for actual but for original sin.What do you mean by this term? The sin which that Adam committed in paradise? That this is imputed to all men, I allow†¦But that any will be damned for this alone, I allow not. † Whitefield had a better understanding of this matter. He viewed all men as being deserving of hell due to the imparted sin of Adam’s rebellion in the garden. He charges that if Wesley denies the doctrine of original sin, then he must take on the doctrine of reprobation for whether Wesley believed it or not â€Å"the Word of God abides faithful: ‘The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. † The final issue of debate is over the doctrine of predestination and the Bible. Wesley says, â€Å"[Predestination] hath also a direct and manifest tendency to overthrow the whole Christian Revelation. The point which the wisest of the modern unbelievers most industriously labour to prove, is, that the Christian Revelation is not necessary. † According to Wesley, the Bible is not necessary because the elect would find faith without it since their salvation is decreed by God.This is very similar to his argument concerning predestination and evangelism. Whitefield again has a great answer saying, â€Å"It is only by the Christian revelation that we are acquainted with God’s design of saving his church by the death of his Son. Yea, it is settles in the everlasting covenant that this salvation shall be applied to the elect through the knowledge and faith of him. † He goes on saying that the Bible is a necessity because it is only through S cripture that God’s eternal decrees of salvation take effect.We cannot separate God’s means from His ends or His ends from His means. Wesley then goes on to say that Scripture in light of predestination contradicts itself. He uses the case of â€Å"Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have hated,† as implying that God â€Å"in a literal sense hated Esau, and all the reprobated, from all eternity. † He sees this as a contradiction due to Scripture saying that â€Å"God is love. † He did not view this passage as being a literal hating of the persons of Jacob and Esau, but instead of the temperament within them.In Predestination Calmly Considered, he states, â€Å"According to Scripture [God’s] unchangeableness of affection properly and primarily regards tempers and not persons; and persons only as those tempers found in them. † I believe Whitefield has a better argument since he holds to a more literal interpretation of the Bible without cont radiction. He argues that it is not changing God’s character to love Jacob and hate Esau. He says, â€Å"Might not God, of his own good pleasure, love or show mercy to Jacob and the elect—and yet at the same time do the reprobate no wrong?But you say, â€Å"God is love. † And cannot God be love, unless he shows the same mercy to all? † In the same way, Wesley argues that, in the eyes of the person who holds to predestination, the passage â€Å"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy† means that God is love only to the elect and not to the non-elect. He says that this is in direct contradiction to Psalm 114:9, saying, â€Å"The Lord is loving unto every man; and his mercy is over all his works. † If God is loving to everyone, then how can He show mercy to only some?Whitefield says that this mercy mentioned is not saving mercy. He is loving to all in that he sends his rain upon the evil and upon the good, but He only sends his saving grace to the elect. He has the right to do this because, as Whitefield puts it, â€Å"[He] is a debtor to none, and has a right to do what he will with his own, and to dispense his favours to what objects he sees fit, merely at his pleasure. † He uses Romans 9:15 and Exodus 33:19 to back up this statement: â€Å"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. †Overall, Wesley tries to tear down the doctrine of predestination in light of his doctrine of â€Å"free grace. † To Wesley grace is free to every individual person in the world, and it is on the basis of acceptance or rejection of that grace that a person is sent to hell or heaven. He explains the unchangeable decrees of God in light of free grace in Predestination Calmly Considered: â€Å"He has unchangeably decreed to save holy believers, and to condemn obstinate, impenitent unbelievers. † According to Wesley, a person’s eternal destiny li es solely in whether or not he accepts God’s â€Å"free grace. †I believe Whitefield sums Wesley’s argument up well when he states, â€Å"You plainly make salvation depend not on God’s free grace, but on man’s free-will. † If this is the case then like Whitefield said, â€Å"It is more probable Jesus Christ would not have had the satisfaction of seeing the fruit of his death in the eternal salvation of one soul. Our preaching would then be in vain, and all the invitations for people to believe in him would also be in vain. † Both Wesley and Whitefield knew the Scriptures well, but I believe it is Whitefield that truly understood how important election is in the believer’s theology.Wesley tried to use Scripture to back up his points, but his interpretation of passages led him into the territory of universalism. I believe that due to this dangerous direction it is Whitefield who had the correct understanding of predestination and soteriology. On my honor, I have neither given nor taken improper assistance in completing this assignment. Word Count: 2455 ——————————————– [ 1 ]. Ibid. [ 2 ]. Wesley, Predestination Calmly Considered, 268. [ 3 ]. Whitefield, George. â€Å"A Letter from? George Whitefield? to the? Rev. Mr. John Wesley,† 59. [ 4 ]. Ibid. [ 5 ].Calvin, John, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J. K. S. Reid (London: James Clarke and Co. , Limited, 1961), 138. [ 6 ]. Wesley. â€Å"Free Grace,† 117. [ 7 ]. Whitefield. 61. [ 8 ]. Wesley. â€Å"Free Grace,† 119. [ 9 ]. Ibid. [ 10 ]. Whitefield. 62. [ 11 ]. Ibid. [ 12 ]. Wesley. â€Å"Free Grace,† 119. [ 13 ]. Wesley. Predestination†¦, 263. [ 14 ]. Whitefield. 68. [ 15 ]. Wesley. â€Å"Free Grace,† 120. [ 16 ]. Whitefield. 68. [ 17 ]. Wesley. â€Å"Free Grace,† 120. [ 18 ]. Wesley. Predes tination†¦, 279. [ 19 ]. Whitefield. 69. [ 20 ]. Ibid. [ 21 ]. Wesley. Predestination†¦, 279. [ 22 ]. Whitefield. 71. [ 23 ]. Ibid.

Failing business Essay

Many are quick to remember one’s failure and slow to remember the redeeming moments. My life is no different. I am only human and I too have made my own mistakes in life. Though I sometimes have the tendency to move on from failure and perhaps forget, there are many who are only too quick to remind me of my past. Learning from this, I have vowed to treat each failure as a learning experience; One that makes me stronger and makes me better. This is the lesson that I learned from what some people would consider as one of the most challenging days of my life. I recently discovered that the pursuit of one’s goals is not as easy as it seems. When one looks at all the successful businessmen in the world, it does not seem apparent that they had to undergo many challenges to become successful. Yet as I have learned, there is so much work and effort that is needed to succeed in life. This is how my first business, a commercial cleaning service, became a failure but ultimately a success because I learned a very valuable lesson from it. The plan of the commercial cleaning service was simple. I had intended to take advantage of the lack of cleaning services in my area. I noticed that there were very few cleaning services and if there were any they were either inefficient, too expensive or both. Being a novice entrepreneur, I figured that this was an opportunity that was a guaranteed success; after all, all I had to do was simply offer better service and better prices. This was my first mistake. In making this assumption, I did not consider the fact that the ones who had established themselves before me had probably thought of these same advantages. I was naive to think that only I had the monopoly of great ideas and that others were not able to think as well. This presented the first challenge because I was unprepared for what happened. The initial costing for supplies and capital equipment was way higher than anticipated due to the fact that I was trying to provide quality service. Since I had already made those investments, I had to readjust my computations on Return on Investment and saw that the only way that I would be able to cover the daily expenses was to increase the price. So, instead of providing cheap and good quality service, I was constrained to offer only quality service. This unfortunately paved the way for the next problem which was the fact that I did not have prior experience in this field. While I did consider myself a neat freak, I was certainly out of my league when it came to running a commercial cleaning service. I failed to consider the fact that there are so many variables to consider and that when one has employees one has to ensure that they do their duties satisfactorily. This was no longer just a simple matter of telling people to clean something and making sure it was done properly. It involved going over the shifts and ensuring that every detail was not overlooked. Aside from this, I had to also consider the welfare of the people who were working under me. No matter how motivated I was, I could not seem to convince my employees to have the same passion and conviction. This was lesson number three for me; I learned that employees are never really motivated to perform unless they have a personal stake in the matter. I needed to get them involved on a personal level and believe in offering quality service at a good price. Unfortunately, the only thing they were interested in was clearing their pay and spending their money. Suffice it to say that the business soon failed. I was disheartened by the harsh reality check that happened but I am proud to say that I have learned from this experience. I could have lost much more to learn that valuable lesson. As I look back at that memory, I greet it with a smile knowing that even though it resulted in failure, I would not be the person I am today were it not for that experience. The thing about life is that there is always hope and there are several chances to fail and even more chances to succeed; as long as one has the drive and the passion.

The Schlieffen Plan essays

The Schlieffen Plan essays Germany was faced with a problem; they were threatened by Russia and France, hence making a plan was mandatory. In 1905 the Germany army Chief of Staff Alfred Von Schlieffen came up with the plan to prevent war on two fronts (Russia and France). Schlieffen called it the Schlieffen Plan, what was supposed to happen was Germanys military force was supposed to take out neutral countries containing: Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, and then attack Paris with full force of the country forcing France to surrender before Russia could prepare its forces. This plan was supposed to be executed, and done in about six weeks. The plan was flawless, but the way it was executed was not, so the execution did not work out too well. In 1905 Von Molkte replaced Schlieffens position in the military, because he died in his early fifties. He made a grave mistake in changing the original plan. He wanted to change the fact of taking over Holland, and concentrating the force he had on Belgium, he also changed the statistics. Originally Schlieffen wanted 90% of the force to go around the countries and sneak behind the country, and invade Paris while they were busy trying to get through the Lorraine Alsace because the other 10% was defending the border. What Molkte changed was the percentages, he took the 90% doing the hook through the countries, and changed it to 60% weakening the force, and strengthening the defense. It was a poor decision on his part, because now Belgium could actually fight back. On August 2, 1914 they proceeded to take out Luxembourg and Belgium all according to the plan, but by the time they got to Belgium their army withstood a good fight, and were backed up by Britains expeditionary forces, which had arrived faster than expected. A little while after this Germany had to withdraw forces in order to defend the eastern border of their country. Germany then moved the remaining ...

Competitive advantage and relationship marketing

Competitive advantage and relationship marketing Introduction The ability of an organization to generate and maintain a competitive advantage forms one of the most critical elements in supporting its internal and external mechanisms for further growth and expansion. Benderly posits that high market competitiveness acts as an indicator of an organization’s progress and assessment in comparison to others dealing with same products (30). Besides, as this paper analyzes using Cirque du Soleil, relationship marketing is an effective means of maintaining, developing and establishing market relationship with consumers. It has been hailed as one of the most effective ways through which businesses can achieve and sustain competitive advantage. Competitive advantage The concept of competitive advantage has its roots well entrenched in the historical era of industrial revolution when demand for markets and increasing focus on quality became critical.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Competitive advan tage and relationship marketing-Cirque du Soleil specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More However, Suliyanto and Rahab indicate that the concept became more profound with the development of globalization and intensification of international trade which further diversified its overall scope in view of production and consumption of different products and services (136). The concept of market competitiveness has further been intensified by the onset of information technology which strongly links market with the management and production units in the society. In his article Anatomy of competitive advantage: a select framework, Ma points out that â€Å"competitive advantage arises from the differential among firms along any dimension of firm attributes and characteristics that allows one firm to better create customer value than do others† (709). His argument hinges on the view that consistent provision of superior value and high quality products to consumers is an attribute determined by a firm’s ability to establish strategic business decisions as well as strategic capabilities. Due to intensive competition and increasing uncertainty, companies that have sustainable advantage make tremendous gains because they have competencies and resources that are non-substitutable and unique that their competitors lack. Agha, Alrubaiee and Jamhour concur with Ma’s argument and posits that through these, successful organizations have maintained customer satisfaction, achieved overall strategic goals and increased their production processes (200).Advertising Looking for critical writing on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Additionally, capabilities have these companies have been witnessed in the manner in which they have combined organizational knowledge, integrated technology and coordinated production skills in provision of value. Aremu and Bamiduro point out that the affect of relationship marketing in developing and sustaining competitive edge has from ancient times grown to become hyper-competitive through established relationships between suppliers, buyers and sellers (211). Different businesses have for along period of time developed unique and different customer relationship capabilities that have aided them in gaining a competitive edge over their competitors. This relates with Ma’s argument in the sense that the uniqueness of a firm in carrying out relationship marketing is an attribute which adds customer value. However, it is imperative to note that an inception of great directional change has been witnessed in the past decade in both marketing practice and theory. David and Motamedi point out that this genuine paradigm shift has been termed by marketing analysts as a move towards relationship marketing which as a concept encompasses relational marketing, working partnerships, relational contracti ng, co-marketing alliances, strategic alliances, symbiotic marketing and internal marketing (369). Their argument, which adds another angle to Ma’s position, indicates that competitive edge can also be attained through partnerships. In fact, currently in global business, the practice of predatory and flat out competition is over and has been replaced by collaboration between companies both at local and multinational level as gaining a favorable competitive edge requires that businesses cooperate. Lyndall Urwick, an influential thinker and consultant in business management argued from the business reengineering theory’s perspective that relationship marketing is a shift adopted by businesses intending to establish long-term relationships that are mutually satisfying with key-parties such as distributors, suppliers and customers for mutual gain and to retain them in their businesses.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Competitive advanta ge and relationship marketing-Cirque du Soleil specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More His argument echoes Ma’s argument on competitive advantage in the sense that relationship marketing creates a mutual bond that connects a company with suppliers, distributors and customers while ensuring that they all benefit. However, the uniqueness of attributes and characteristics must not be different for a company to gain a competitive edge because relationship marketing also extends to partnerships with other business to gain resources and boost performance. Gilaninia, Shahi and Mousavian point out that effective relationship marketing companies have arisen within functionally specialized organizations, and have networks whose interrelationships are not only driven by norms, but are coordinated and held together by organizations whose marketing methods are based on trust, commitment and sharing. Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil is one of the fastest growing entertainment companies in Canada based in Quebec (David Motamedi 369). Its unique attribute in relationship marketing has been one of the most notable core competencies that have made it successful since its inception in 1984. As an entertainment company, it has been able to achieve some stable competitive edge via building of its customer loyalty through provision of quality shows, products and services. It is worth noting that building customer loyalty and retention has been identified by many scholars and practitioners in relationship marketing as a major requirement in successful selling and building of brand or image of a business. David and Motamedi points out that Cirque du Soleil has invested in developing strategies for creating customer loyalty and retention through its effective leadership properly so that it does not miss out on significant marketing share against other market competitors (370). The latter explains why it is putting more emphasis in building e ffective communication strategies for the purpose of developing customer confidence, retention as well as loyalty.Advertising Looking for critical writing on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More It has been able to retain its customers by developing an effective and efficient visionary planning as well as strategic customer relationship management in order to eliminate weak customer relations which often lead to dysfunctional organizational behavior and low profitability. In their publication, Patsioura, Malama and Vlachopoulou point out that recognizing factors that motivates customers to buy products or services is an important step in understanding the brand switching behavior of customers as well as their loyalty (80). Most customers of Cirque du Soleil have shown their loyalty to this company through repeat purchase of their entertainment services, preference and commitment to their shows. Kaj Storbacka, Tore Strandvik, and Christian Grà ¶nroos point out in their loyalty business model that when there is lack of relationship marketing, customers may fail to be satisfied by products and services and hence be unsuccessful in showing important components such as an inten tion to re-buy, a liking towards a brand preference due to superior qualities of a brand (Croteau, Rivard Talbot 1). However, customer loyalty and retention can be realized in a business environment where strategic relationship marketing is unique and differentiated and where it is being done with the help of effective communication to obtain feedback. Cirque du Soleil has been very effective in applying various unique relationship marketing methods which include the use of technology and social media marketing as a viable relationship marketing tool largely due to its flexibility and viability in reaching out targeted market (Croteau, Rivard Talbot 1). Relationship marketing through improved quality of goods and services Attainment of a competitive edge has been considered to have massive implications on products and services being released to consumers in the market. As Dickinson indicates, the notion of market competitiveness is laden with a sense of high quality products in the society (10). With the notion of increased products value being progressive, consumers enjoy high quality products and services at all times and at the correct prices. Due to the need to maintain high quality services in the nation, Cirque du Soleil has sought to expand to other regions in the world as part and parcel of seeking new markets and expanding its level of operations and therefore improve the degree with which the various needs of its customers can be met. It has also done this with an intention of maintaining its status amidst the fast growing industry (Croteau, Rivard Talbot 1). Relationship marketing assists in building greater customer loyalty In their view, Aghoubi, Doaee and Ardalan observe that the relationship marketing practice of a business in the global market acts as a critical tool for maintaining loyalty of the customers on products and services an organization offer (903). The ability of an organization to initiate, effect, and maintain market competitivene ss in its different areas of operation act as one of the most critical elements in supporting growth of loyalty by consumers through continuous services improvement. As indicated earlier, gaining competitive advantage is a notion that goes hand-in-hand with provision of high quality that consumers seek association with. Most management teams in organizations often seek to generate high customer loyalty in their products (Roy 80). Following its long time competitive advantage in Canada, Cirque du Soleil has assimilated sound customer loyalty from its entertainment customers. Its management team emphasizes that its ability to remain at the top has been anchored on high customer loyalty in all of its global operations (Croteau, Rivard Talbot 1). To recap it all, it is imperative to reiterate that the discussion in this paper has been based on the thesis statement that â€Å"the ability of an organization to generate and maintain a competitive advantage forms one of the most critical e lements in supporting its internal and external mechanisms for further growth and expansion†. From the discussion, it is evident that developing unique and differentiated competitive advantages such as effective relationship marketing, customer responsiveness, influence and communication are generic and vital for an organization that wants to succeed in the global competitive market. It is also clear from the discussion that other capabilities which companies should develop to lead in the market include innovative capacity, strategic flexibility, organizational learning and effective technology among others. It is worth noting that different authors have stated that a business needs to have a unique and differentiated capability to gain competitive advantage over others. However, as indicated by authors with different views, market trends have massively changed and businesses are going into partnerships and networks to augment their competitive advantages over others. The pape r has also examined Cirque du Soleil relationship marketing practice and noted that successful adoption of relationship marketing in the organization has enhanced its ability to establish long term relationships with its customers. Agha Sabah, Alrubaiee Laith Jamhour Manar. Effect of core competence on competitive advantage and organizational performance. International Journal of Business and Management, 7.1 (2012): 192-204. Aghoubi Nour-Mohammed, Doaee Habibollah Ardalan Argavan. The effect of emotional intelligence on relationship marketing. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business 3.5 (2011): 901-905. Aremu, Mukalia Bamiduro, Joseph. Marketing mix practice as a determinant of entrepreneurial business performance. International Journal of Business and Management 7.1 (2012): 205-213 Benderly, Beryl. Staying number 1. ASEE Prism, 21.5 (2012): 30-33. Croteau Anne-Marie, Rivard Suzanne and Talbot jean. Visioning information technology at Cirque du Soleil. Int ernational Journal of Case Studies in Management 1.3(2006): 1. David, Robert Motamedi, Amir. Cirque Du Soleil: Can It Burn Brighter? Journal of Strategic Management Education, 1.2 (2004): 369-382. Dickinson, Barry. The role of authenticity in relationship marketing. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 8 (2011): 1-12. Gilaninia Shahram, Shahi Hasanali Mousavian Seyyed. The effect of relationship marketing dimensions by customer satisfaction to customer loyalty. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business, 3.4 (2011): 74-84. Hao, Ma. Anatomy of competitive advantage: a select framework, Management Decision, 37.9(1999): 709 – 718. Patsioura Fotini, Malama Eleonara-Ioulia Vlachopoulou, Maro. A relationship marketing model for brand advertising websites: an analysis of consumers perceptions. International Journal of Management, 28.4 (2011): 72-92. Roy, Martin. Sustainable design for circus big top. ASHRAE Journal, 48.9 (2006): 78- 81. Suliyanto, Sul iyanto Rahab, Rahab. The role of market orientation and learning orientation in improving innovativeness and performance of small and medium enterprises, Asian Social Science 8.1 (2012): 134-145.