Internal Analysis

06 Internal Analysis In this part, the report will briefly illustrate the result from analysing the internal environment of CEMEX by supply chain analysis and resources and competences framework and VRIO model. 6. 1 Value Chain Analysis Activities| Resources| Competencies|PrimaryActivities| Supply chain management| | * Good relationships with products suppliers and transportation companies| | Operations| – Internal design| – Import products from Vietnam| | Distribution| – Indirectly: wholesalers, retailers – Stylist packaging| * Knowledgeable salespersons| | Sales and marketing| – Advertising campaigns focus mainly on B2B websites and trade fair| – Effective marketing strategy to differentiate from competitors | | Service| Good relationships with suppliers of different products in Vietnam. Support team for developing new products and help wholesalers to finding new suppliers for other products in Vietnam, India†¦| SupportActivities| Prod uct R&D, Technology and system development| – Market Research and developing new design. | – Rights to copyrights and patents of weaving and designs of carpets/rugs| | Human Resources Management| – 10 employees| * Excellent executive team * Highly skilled employees | | | | |According to threshold/distinctive resources and competencies framework, the defined resources and competencies can be categorized as following: Threshold resources – Distribution system – Opponents’ suppliers – Internal design – Research and development team Threshold resources – Distribution system – Opponents’ suppliers – Internal design – Research and development team Threshold competences * Knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff, especially salespersons – Effective and trusted wholesalers/importers Threshold competences Knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff, especially salespersons – Effective and trusted wh olesalers/importers Distinctive resources – Excellent managing team – Sale and marketing team – Strong cash position Distinctive resources – Excellent managing team – Sale and marketing team – Strong cash position Distinctive competences – Strong brand name – Customer loyalty – Good quality and competitive price products Distinctive competences – Strong brand name – Customer loyalty – Good quality and competitive price products . 2 VRIO Framework Resource/ competency| Valuable? | Rare? | Difficult to imitate? | Exploitable? | Competitive implication| Excellent managing team| Yes| Yes| Yes| Yes| Sustained competitive advantage| Distribution system to wholesalers/retailers| Yes| No| No| Yes| Competitive Parity| Brand/name| Yes| Yes| No| Yes| Temporary competitive advantage| Sales and marketing team| Yes| Yes| No | Yes| Temporary competitive advantage| Customer loyalty| Yes| Yes| Yes| Yes| Sustained com petitive advantage|

Commercial Contracts Under Nigerian Legislation

COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS UNDER NIGERIAN LEGISLATION Introduction A contract is an agreement which is legally binding on the parties to it and which if broken may be enforced by action in court against the party that has broken it. A contract may be void or voidable. A void contract is that which lacks the essential ingredients or elements of valid contract and therefore of no legal effect. A voidable contract is that which is valid in the first place but may be ended at the instance of one of the parties to it.Such contracts include guarantee with a bank of money lender, hire purchase and sale or leasing of land. The legal consequences of non-compliance are that they are not enforceable at law though they are not necessarily void. However, some categories of contracts must of necessity be in writing or else they shall be void absolutely. These include transfer of shares, marine insurance and hire purchase agreements. As a general rule also, all contracts are in the nature of agreement: h owever, not all agreements may constitute a contract properly so called.For instance, an agreement for the sale of a parcel of land is intended to be binding and enforceable at law, whereas, an invitation to a luncheon which after all, did not hold may not be enforceable at the suit of the disappointed party. A contract may also be under-seal or by deed and may be simple or oral. It may be express when it is written or implied when it is inferred from the conduct and acts of the parties. In addition, there can be bilateral contract between two parties or multi-lateral contract among parties depending on the nature of obligations to be performed under the agreement.Condition and warranty are the two basic types of express terms in a contract. Whether a term is a condition or warranty depends on the intention of the parties. A condition is a vital term which goes to the root of the contract. Breach of a condition entitles the innocent party to repudiate the contract and to claim damag es. A warranty is a term which is subsidiary to the main purpose of the contract, breach of which only entitles the innocent party to damages. FORMATION OF A VALID CONTRACT The main requirements of a valid contract are as follows: 1. there must be an offer; . there must be an acceptance; 3. there must be consideration; 4. parties must have full contractual capacity; 5. there must be an intention to create legal relations; 6. object of the contract must not be unlawful nor illegal; 7. prescribed formalities must be followed, for example, it should be in writing or by deed. Forms of Contract Contract supported by consideration are essentially expected to be in writing,. It is however important to note that a contract may also be oral or implied and yet be binding on the parties depending on the peculiar circumstances.The fact remains that a contract may not be taken as being invalid or unenforceable for the mere fact that it is not in a written form. Te court would normally not assist any person who was lured into an oral agreement. Writing merely facilitates the interpretation or proving of the terms of the contract barring which it may not be all that necessary. In considering commercial contracts under Nigerian legislation however, we would evaluate three of such contracts which are: ? hire purchase; ?sale of goods; ?agency. AGENCY CONTRACT IntroductionAgency is a relationship that exists between two persons, one of whom expressly or impliedly agrees that the other should represent him or act on his behalf. The one that is represented is called the principal while the person representing or acting on somebody’s behalf is called Agent. Agency relationship involves the consent of the agent and the principal that one should act for the other. It thus arises from a contract or agreements express or implied. Ofodile v. Chinwuba Generally, the relationship of principal and agent may arise in three main ways: 1.By agreement , whether contractual or not expres s or implied in nature 2. By subsequent ratification by the principal of the agent’s act done on his behalf, and 3. By operation of law under the doctrine of necessity Whether or not an agency relationship exists would largely depend on the true nature of the agreement and the circumstances of the relationship between the principal and the agent. In another vein, the law of agency consists of the law of the employer and the employed, where the employment consists of bringing the employer into contractual relationship with the third party.This relationship is simply referred to as â€Å"The Master and Servant† relationship under the labour law and for which there is a vicarious liability. An agent should be distinguished for an independent contractor. An independent contractor is the person who negotiates with the third party on his own behalf. An independent contactor is a person liable to give contract for service while and agent or servant renders contract of service . An independent contractor is personally liable at law for his actions. An agent is not a trustee of the goods in his care not being the legal owner.The extent or scope of the Agent’s discretion is determined by his principal’s instructions. Legal title always remains in the principal. An agent can therefore not give good title all by himself. CLASSIFICATION OF AGENCY a. Special Agent: This is someone who has authority to do some particular act on behalf of his principal though not a continuous basis; for instance, a special order to purchase a house or a vehicle. b. General Agent: this is someone who has power to act for his principal in all matters involving business or trade, for example a solicitor or legal practitioner. . A Factor Agent: He is an agent who sells or disposes of goods that are entrusted to him. His activities are governed by the Factors Act 1889 (UK d. Broker Agent: He negotiates ad makes contract for the sale and purchase of goods. However unlike a factor he is not left in possession of the goods. Typical example is insurance Brokers and Stock Brokers. e. Universal Agent: This is someone who represents various principals in many aspects of trade. He is appointed by a Deed under Power of Attorney and has wide powers. f.Mercantile Agent: He represents someone in commercial and certain aspects of trade. Their duties are more or less similar to those of the factor agent g. Auctioneer: He represents a principal in the disposal of real properties. They are usually licensed to sell properties of Mortgagors who have defaulted in payment. Auctioneer acts between the Vendor and the purchaser. He receives commission and invariably sells to the highest bidder. h. Estate Agent: These deal in the acquisition of, valuation of an disposal of properties i.Del-Credere Agent: This is a mercantile agent who, in consideration of extra pay, that is del-credere commission guarantees to his principal that the 3rd party with whom he enters into cont ract on behalf of the principal shall duly pay the sum becoming due under the contract. In effect a del credere agent is a surety of the person with whom he deals. This is just a form of guarantee which may not necessarily be in writing in order to be enforceable at law. CREATION OF AGENCY It may be created in two broad ways namely: (a)Expressly and (b) impliedly a. Express Creation: . By deed – this involves issuing an authority in writing with the necessary instruction and attestation clauses. That is signed, sealed and delivered. This process is known as the granting a Power of Attorney. 2. Oral instruction – This is agency by appointment, it deals with express authorisation of the principal to the agent to act for him b. Implied Creation 1. Agency of necessity – This is created by act of person who normally had no authority but was compelled to reasonable act to protect the interest of the 3rd party especially during an emergency situation. 2.Agency by Estop pel: – This is a type of agency that can be inferred form the conduct of the parties. If the situation that exists suggests that parties want to create an agency relationship, either of the parties is stopped form denying the existence of such a relationship. 3. Apparent Agency – This occurs where a principal has not taken due precaution to prevent a situation where somebody portrays himself as having power to act as his agent. 4. Agency by ratification – This occurs where the principal having full knowledge of the fact, accepts the benefits of the contract entered into by his apparent agent.Any act whether lawful or unlawful may be ratified provided it is not void. If it is voidable it is still capable of being ratified as long as it is valid. In Brook v. Nook where an agent forged his principal’s signature on a promissory note; it was held that the attempt at ratification was void. The principal must have capacity as at the date of the contract. In Keln er v. Baxter where a promoter tried to ratify some pre-incorporation contracts it was held that he could not succeed as the contracts predated the company.

MBA-International Accounting and Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

MBA-International Accounting and Finance - Essay Example This means that they try to achieve quick realization of credit sales and delay the payment of the payables. By way of this they try to maximize â€Å"net float† (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2008, pp.958). In a business it is important that the financial resources are channelized effectively. This is facilitated by the financial managers who allocate the resources to the various departments as per their requirement. Besides the need based allocation of the resources it is important that the business does not lose out a possibility of earning an additional income on the surplus cash balances. To ensure that the cash balances do not remain idle the financial managers invest these cash balances temporarily to earn positive returns. The multinational companies like their domestic counterparts employ the same procedures for the achievement of the above mentioned goals. This indicates that the basic objectives of the multinational and domestic companies are the same but the task of multinat ional companies is far complex. When it comes to investment of funds the domestic companies generally think with respect to domestic securities whereas the financial managers of the multinational companies are expected to be aware of the investment opportunities across the world. The multinational companies generally work in association with the international bankers and their staff and are thus in a position to make gains out of best available rates anywhere in the world. Policies relating to credit are more crucial for the multinational companies as compared to the purely domestic firms. For instance trade in US involves poorer or developing nations. In this kind of a situation ‘granting credit’ is the necessary norm for business. Moreover the developed nations impart credit facilities to their foreign customers for making their manufacturing firms globally competent. When it comes to granting credit the risk of the multinational companies is higher than

Prison vs. Mental Institutions PowerPoint Presentation

Prison vs. Mental Institutions - PowerPoint Presentation Example ed however that these individuals, due to partial and uncooperative neighborhood, could barely find proper settlements so the authorities saw it fit to incarcerate them with the law offenders instead of placing them back in mental hospitals. The inappropriate coexistence of prison inmates, both state and federal, with the psychologically sick ones to add to their number hence aggravates the latter’s condition as revealed by case findings bearing statistical evidence. Joanne Mariner, the article’s author, is basically a lawyer and a human rights advocate whose main point of argument in this entry concentrates on expressing contempt against deliberate imprisonment of the mentally ill as well as her proposition of humane solutions which she necessitates for the legislators or justice officials to have reforms (Mariner) sought after. Inevitably, this presentation has meant to empathize with the situation of its subject all throughout and reflects on the author’s uplifting aim to grant it the highest, most favorable value possible it deserves. Since the mentally ill have long suffered from not only having inadequate treatment, resources and poor facilities but also at getting worse due to unethical approach by prison staff whose custody fails to respectfully and dutifully address the major issue with their irrational dependents, J. Mariner signifies the need to divert solutions to a more resourceful and less expensive non-rigid community-based mental health treatment programs. Knowing that it is essential to give due recognition to every human being’s rights and welfare, such programs would be inclined to seek genuine attention from voluntary individuals in the general public who’d be sold out to look after their unreasoning counterparts and so impart diligent involvement that is far from negligence, discrimination and abuse. The overall tone and methodology used by the author may be said to have withstood exaggerating demands or unnecessary elaborations.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Rhetorical Analysis - Essay Example Discussion In a rhetorical analysis, one attempts to analyse how the artist (speakers/authors/filmmakers) attempt to persuade, motivate, and/or acquaint their audiences by viewing the different components that combine to make up the persuasive art (Black, 1965). Thus, we can say that rhetorical analysis is: Rhetoric Persuasive art Analysis Disintegrating something into its component parts, in order to interpret and understand how the broken down parts fit together and combine to form the final thing. Components of rhetoric: Rhetoric is generally divided into certain basic key areas: 1. Purpose: This comprises of trying to comprehend the intended objective of a speech or a text matter. 2. Audience: here one must try to locate the targeted audience, since a speaker/author's intended audience plays a significant role in the manner in which the speaker/writer addresses the targeted audience. 3. ... Logos: The appeal of logos refers to the application of reasoning by the speaker/author to address his audience. This is evident in the use of the statistical representations, legal analysis, definitions, and comparative analysis. There are various aspects within a rhetorical analysis: 1. Verbal Rhetoric (written and/or spoken) V/O narration; monologue, dialogue, captions, mode of address (formal/informal, eg ‘George’, ‘Mr Bush’, or ‘President’) 2. Presentational Rhetoric Tone of voice (as for example the differences in the tone of voice between the radio jockeys of two different stations) Style of dress Nature of setting Non-verbal communication Features in setting (as for example, authority of speaker enhanced by quiet location, bookshelves, pot plants, etc.; diminished by bustle, competing voices, etc) 3. Photographic (Framing) Rhetoric Type of shot (for enabling viewers to identify with a character’s emotions) Camera movements (moveme nt of the frame) Movement of objects in relation to camera (movement within the frame) 4. Editing Rhetoric Editing creates responses by juxtaposing images Editing rhetoric is conventional but dynamic Conventions themselves change over time (as for example, the passing of time) Speed of cutting – increased over time. Why might this be? Case study 1: Rhetorical analysis of the end scenario in Shawshank redemption The Shawshank Redemption is a movie where the chief protagonist Andy Dufreine maintained his hope even in face of daily tribulations and ordeals, he faced during his prison, this rhetoric was communicated to the audience through the perfect use of verbal, photographic, presentation and editing rhetoric throughout the entire movie.

Customer Satisfaction Measurement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Customer Satisfaction Measurement - Essay Example Net Promoter measures the loyalty of the customer while the J.D power and Associates measure the customer service. Net promoter is useful because it is a practical method. It has several advantages such as its simplicity (The Net Promoter). It applies the use of questioning through taking up a survey. It uses the Net Promoter Score to determine the business line and even the customer service. It is easy to use unlike other complicated indexes. The company may choose to use a phone, email, or web to conduct its surveys. The Net Promoter has a quick follow-up. This index gives the feedback of customers on time whenever it is assigned to investigate on them. Its work is to contact the company manager and give updates concerning his customers. The Net Promoter is a growing body with a lot of experiences; this implies that it has a lot of experiences. It has worked for several companies (The Net Promoter). It has the ability adaptability hence flexible to any change that can occur at any given time. J.D Associates is popular for its consumer surveys. It is best for conducting automotive surveys in most industries. This index ensures that the customers’ satisfaction is under achievement level (J. D. Power). Its main emphasis is on the effective handling service to customers. It takes into account five measures to determine the overall satisfaction of the customer. It ensures that customers have the required repair and maintenance for their vehicles hence keeping them satisfied with their service. The results shown by the two indexes help the company to identify the customer satisfaction, point the unhappy customers, and get the advocates with full potential. Customer satisfaction survey provides the ratings of customers that can have a powerful effect to the company development. These effects aid the employees to gain focus in their work as a result, they push towards satisfying the customers’ expectations (The Net Promoter). They give warnings about

Individual business report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Individual business report - Essay Example Arnott’s seeks to expand its market by sourcing and manufacturing the entire product in Greece since biscuits and snacks are too peripheral to any country’s economic needs to feature saliently in import-export trade. Other alternatives to this mode of expansion is bound to expose Arnott’s to the government-imposed rigours of import-export trade, since the Greece government like any other, will seek to maintain a favourable balance of trade. The report will discuss the feasibility of Arnott’s desire to go to Greece, in respect to Arnott’s current status and Greece’s socioeconomic, political, legal and environmental conditions. Parts 2.0- 6.0 of this report discuss Arnott’s prospects in light of the political, legal, economic, socio-cultural and technological conditions in Greece. Part 7.0 discusses Arnott’s prospects by using SWOT analysis. Part 8.0 is the recommendation section. Greece’s political stability is underscored by it being a parliamentary republic, having the President as the head of the state and the Prime Minister as the head of the government. The constitution of Greece with its 120 articles allows for the separation of powers among the legislature, judiciary and the executive. This political stability will help Arnott’s to thrive. Likewise, taxation and regulation of trade will be carried adroitly, since separation of powers readily co-occurs with bureaucracy (Kizos and Iosifides, 2007, 66). Bà ¢rgà £oanu, Negrea and Dascà £lu (2010, 35) explain that Greece joined the European Union (EU) in 1981 and represents 41.5% of the EU’s deadweight tonnage. Greco-Australian relations are very close. This closeness dates back to World War I and II and the Korean War where Australia fought alongside Greece. Therefore, the Grecian government is naturally predisposed to encourage Greco-Australian trade (Vogiatzoglou, 2007, 53). Arnott’s must sign articles of

How the Russian Economy Can Regain Its International Presence Essay

How the Russian Economy Can Regain Its International Presence - Essay Example This research will begin with the definition of a Market Economy. Janos Kornai's book The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism is a useful point of departure for defining a market economy. Five distinctive features of a socialist economy versus a market economy follow naturally from his classification. First, the foremost criterion of the communist economy was the supremacy of the Communist Party, with its ideology and politics, over the economy. This is so evident that it is often neglected. Now it has ceased. The economy has become depoliticized. Second, centralized state allocation, with centralized commands to enterprises on physical output targets and deliveries, has ended. State orders lingered on for some time in 1992 and 1993, but now they have been whittled down to nothing. Vertical, administrative allocation has been replaced by free, horizontal bargaining between independent enterprises. The economy has been liberalized both internally and externally. For i mports, all quotas are gone, and the protectionism the researcher discusses amounts to the level of the customs tariffs. For exports, some quotas, licenses, and taxes remain, but export deregulation is proceeding and an important additional step was taken in a presidential edict of May 23, 1994. In spite of periodic setbacks in the internal liberalization, market saturation is increasing steadily. The allocation has become depoliticized.... Consequently, the remaining state enterprises are independent, as in a market economy. Ownership has been depoliticized. Fourth, the economy has been monetized and the ruble has become a real, reasonably convertible, currency, with a unified exchange rate that is market-deter-mined and floating. Admittedly, the volume of U.S. dollars in circulation and in Russian bank accounts exceeds the volume of Russian rubles in Russia, but the dollar is also a currency. The problem here is not lack of monetization but the stabilization of the ruble. Fifth, the last major hurdle to making Russia a market economy was to introduce hard budget constraints in enterprises. This was essentially done on September 25, 1993, when President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree abolishing subsidized credits. The refinance rate was already high and rose to 17.5 percent a month--that is, 593 percent a year--on October 15, 1993, and it has stayed high in real terms since then. The budget deficit has been kept fixed at about 9-10 percent of GDP. Thus, since October 1992, Russia and Russian enterprises have faced a severe monetary squeeze, and Russia has reacted exactly as market economies do: the inflation rate has fallen, from over 20 percent a month last year to about 9 percent a month from February through April 1994. As a result, during those months Russia had a positive real interest rate of 9 percent a month, or 180 percent a year. A Russian enterprise in trouble can no longer count on the state to bail it out. Credit has become relatively, thou gh not completely, depoliticized (Aslund p. 5-6). The current attempt at financial stabilization may fail, and the social costs of the Russian transition might rise higher because of gradualism and

Employee relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 4

Employee relations - Essay Example In order to evaluate the procedures an organization should adopt for the purpose of dealing such organizational conflict, it is important to identify the reasons behind it. Organizational conflict is a critical phenomenon in the study of organizational behaviour and hence it is essential for every management to recognize the root cause behind conflicts among employees or between employer and employees and apply appropriate strategies in order to minimize the occurrences and effect of such conflict For the purpose of understanding the source of such organizational conflict the management must identify the key attributes of employee relation which will help them to mitigate the effect of conflict and ensure organizational effectiveness by establishing a healthy relationship among employer and employees (Armstrong, 2011). Collective bargaining is a major source of organizational conflict and negotiation strategies have the power to accelerate or decelerate the business operations of an organization. The incidents of industrial democracy in United Kingdom has marked development in employer employee relationship and the management initiative of employee participation in decision making has successfully accelerated the scope for organizational development (Pattanayak, 2014). The paper will concentrate on the employee relations, the cause and effect of conflict as well as the role of negotiation in collective bargaining in order to evaluate the relevant strategies of human resource management and organizational behaviour and how the application of these strategies can help to establish stability in an organizational framework. Organizational structure as well as culture is the most significant source of conflicts. For instance, an organization using matrix structure obligates the employees for dual reporting that leads to create ambiguity regarding their routine responsibilities. Global companies that integrate geographically dispersed provinces across

Public Schools Sex Ed Teach Abstinence Only Research Paper

Public Schools Sex Ed Teach Abstinence Only - Research Paper Example Sex education got introduced into the American public school curriculum in the late 19th century, and continues to be a prime policy issue for the federal and state governments. The aim of this move by the government is to combat Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and inculcate sexual morality by promoting abstinence. Over time, there has been further formalization of the abstinence agenda in public schools. In fact, only sex education programs that accentuated abstinence used to receive funding from the government, while the comprehensive programs that allowed safe sex with pregnancy prevention methods such as contraception were not funded by the government (Chisara, 2011, p. 23). In the present time, the government funds comprehensive sex education programs that promote safe sex and contraception among school-going children. This essay discusses the reasons why abstinence needs to be taught in public schools. One of the reasons why public schools should teach abstinence to their children is that it the surest way of protecting this future generation from acquiring diseases that would make them unproductive in the future. Avoidance of all forms of sex is the appropriate and effective method of reducing the rates new HIV/AIDS infections among the school going children. In this regard, Knox & Schacht (2010, p. 146) observe that abstinence sex education policies need to be strengthened to reduce the prevalence of STIs in the school-going age population because while the children make up only about 25 per cent of the sexually active people, they acquire approximately half of all new STIs every year (Knox & Schacht, 2010, p. 161). As a consequence, the school goers become less productive as some of them miss classes to seek treatment for STIs in the short-term, while a considerable number of them become unproductive members of

Professional Development Plan Essay Example for Free

Professional Development Plan Essay Professional development is the skill and knowledge that we gain to optimize our personal development. Planning is the tool to enhance our ability to achieve a particular goal in a set amount of time. College degrees and coursework, attending conferences, training sessions are all different types of learning opportunities for our professional development. First we have to have a desire for career endurance and personal growth. In this process we have goals which we want to achieve some are short term goals and some are long term. As a teacher I am dedicated to learning and have made a lifelong commitment to education and want to bring a positive social change which will enhance the beauty of educational system on the early childhood level. As a teacher we create an individualized professional development plan based on the age of students in our classroom. As a Montessori teacher I have a belief that I can plan a better curriculum for early ages by merging Montessori philosophy and traditional styles of teaching according to the state content standards. This is my long-term goal to be a academic director on state level for early childhood. But to achieve this long-term goal I have to focus my own professional development which I can gain by updating my skills, and get to know the new material and to get the knowledge which reflects changes in educational theory. My short term goal is to gain more and more knowledge not only about education but about the environment, social changes, cultural differences which affect the educational system. I can achieve all this by doing my PH.D in educational psychology. Because it is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing on subgroups such as gifted children and those subject to specific disabilities. This will also help me to enhance the healthy development of learning or mental health of children, adolescents and adults. This degree will also help in my long term goal to prepare myself as a facilitating learner, faces emotional, and  behavioral difficulties in more professional manner. Furthermore, degree emphasis on theory, research and evidence-based practices subscribes to the scientist-practitioner model in the practice of psychology, which is reflected in the academic requirements. It includes the study of human development from diverse lenses such as biological, cognitive behavioral, socio-cultural, ecological, and educational perspectives. Another emphasis of this degree is an in depth knowledge of the scientific literature and its applications in the areas of psychology, especially different aspects of human development, motivation, learning processes, therapeutic approaches, and human diversity. With all this knowledge and information I will be a better writer and a r esearcher because my main focus of my research is early childhood and its issues. References: http://topics.wisegeek.com/topics.htm?education-professional-development# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_psychology http://coe.wayne.edu/tbf/edp/phd-school/index.php

Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique

Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique ABSTRACT Steganography is a technique used to hide the message in vessel data by embedding it. The Vessel Data which is visible is known as external information and the data which is embedded is called as internal information.The extrenal information is not much useful to the data owner. The techniques used in Steganography makes hard to detect hidden message within an image file. By this technique we are not only sending a message but also we are hiding the message. Steganography system is designed to encode and decode a secret file embedded in image file with a random Least Significant Bit(LSB) insertion technique. By using this technique the secret data are spread out among the image data in a random manner with the help of a secret key. The key generates pseudorandom numbers and identifies where and in which order hidden message is laid out. The advantage of using this method is that it includes cryptography. In cryptography, diffusion is applied to secret message. INTRODUCTION: The information communicated comes in number of forms and is used in various number of applications. In large number of these applications, it is desired that the communication has to be done in secrete. Such secret communication ranges from the obvious cases of bank transfers, corporate communications, and credit card purchases,and large percentage of everyday e-mail. Steganography is an ancient art of embedding a message in such a way that no one,except the sender and the recipient,suspects the existence of the message. Most of the newer applications use Steganography as a watermark, to protect a copy right on information. The forms of Steganography vary, but unsurprisingly, innocuous spam messages are turning up more often containing embedded text. A new transform domain technique for embedding the secret information in the integer wavelet which is transformed on a cover image is implemented here. A technique which is used to scramble a secrete or a confidential message in order to make it unreadable for a third party is known as the Cryptography.Now-a-days its commonly used in the internet communications.cryptography can hide the content of the message but it cant hide the location of the secrete message.This is how the attackers can target even an encrypted message.Water marking is the another information of hiding the digital data or a picture or musical sound.The main purpose of this watermarking information is to protect the copyright or the ownership of the data.In this technique the robustness of the embedded evidence,that can be very small, is the most important.The external information which is visible is the valuable information in the watermarking technique. steganography is a technique which is used to make the confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding the message in some dummy data such as the digital image or a speech sound.There is a research topic about the steganography known as the steganalysis.The main objective of this steganalysis is to find out the stego file among the given files.It is a technique which is used to detect the suspicious image or sound file which is embedded with the crime related information.So,we need to make a sniffer-dog-program to break the steganography.However,it is too difficult to make a program that really works. All the traditional steganography techniques have very limited information-hiding capacity.They can hide only 10% (or less) of the data amounts of the vessel.This is because the principle of those techniques which were either to replace a special part of the frequency components of the vessel image, or to replace all the least significant bits which are present in a multivalued image with the secrete information.In the new steganography which we are using uses an image as the vesel data, and we need to embed the secrete information in to the bit planes of the vessel.The percentage of information hiding capacity of a true color image is around 50.All the noise-like regions in the bit planes of the vessel image can be replaced with the secret data without deteriorating the quality of the image,which is known as BPCS-Steganography, which stands for Bit-Plane Complexity Segmentation Steganography. BACKGROUND HISTORY: The word Steganography is of Greek origin and means â€Å"covered, or hidden writing†. Its ancient origins can be traced back to 440BC. THEORY: Steganography is a technique which is used now a days to make confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding it in to some innocent looking vessel data or a dummy data such as a digital image or a speech sound.In a multi bit data structure a typical vessel is defined as a color image having Red,Green and blue components in it.By using a special extracting program and a key the embedded information can be extracted,the technique of steganography is totally different from file deception or file camouflage techniques. A technique to hide the secrete data in a computer file which almost looks like a steganography is known as a file deception or file camouflage.But actually, it is defined as a trick which is used to disguise a secret-data-added file as a normal file.This can be done as most of the computer file formats have some dont-care portion in one file.For instance if we take some file formats as jpeg,mpeg3 or some word file these looks like the original image,sound or document respectively on the computer.Some of them could have misunderstood that such a trick is a type of Steganography.However,such files can have an extra lengthy file sizes, and they can be easily detected by most of the computer engineers.So, by this we can understand that the file deception is totally different from that of the steganographic techinque which we are discussing here. Many of the Steganography software which is in the market today is based on the file decepetion.If we find a steganography program that increases the output file size just by the amount we have embedded, then the program is obviously a file deception.If there is some secrete data then we should encrypt in such a way that it is not readable for the third party.A solution to Keep secrete information very safe is known as Data Encryption.It is totally based on scrambling the data by using some type of the secrete key. However,encrypting the data will draw more attention of the people who have not encrypted the data.So, it is very to the owner to know whether the data is encrypted or not.By, this we can know that the encrypting is not enough. There is another solution which is known steganography. There are two types of data in steganography, one is the secret data that is very valuable and the other is a type of media data vessel or carrier or dummy data.Vessel data is essential, but it is not so valuable.It is defined as the data in which the valuable data is embedded. The data which is already embedded in the vessel data is called stego data.By using the stego data we can extract the secret or the valuable data. For embedding and extracting the data we need a special program and a key. A typical vessel is an image data with Red, Green, and Blue color components present in it in a 24 bits pixel structure. The illustration below shows a general scheme of Steganography. Steganography is a technique which is used to hide secret data by embedding it in some innocent looking media data like Mona lisa in the above picture.The data which is embedded is very safe because Steganography hides both the content and the location of the secret information.In the media data there are many different methods to embed the data.It is highly impossible to detect which method is used for embedding the data.Steganography can co-operate with cryptography in the sense that it can embed the encrypted secret data and make it much safer. The most important point in the steganography technique is that the stego data does not have any evidence that some extra data is embedded there.In other way, the vessel data and the stego data must be very similar.The user of the steganography should discard the original vessel data after embedding,so that no one can compare the stego and the original data. It is also important that the capacity for embedding the data is large.As it is larger it is better.Of all the currently available steganography methods the BPCS method is the best. LEAST SIGNIFICANT BIT INSERTION One of the most common techniques used in Steganographytoday is called least significant bit (LSB) insertion. This method is exactly what it sounds like; the least significant bits of the cover-image are altered so that they form the embeddedinformation. The following example shows how the letter A can be hidden in the first eight bytes of three pixels in a 24-bit image. Pixels: (00100111 11101001 11001000) (00100111 11001000 11101001) (11001000 00100111 11101001) A: 01000001 Result: (00100110 11101001 11001000) (00100110 11001000 11101000) (11001000 00100111 11101001) The three underlined bits are the only three bits that were actually altered. LSB insertion requires on average that only half the bits in an image be changed. Since the 8-bit letter A only requires eight bytes to hide it in, the ninth byte of the three pixels can be used to begin hiding the next character of the hidden message. A slight variation of this technique allows for embedding the message in two or more of the least significant bits per byte. This increases the hidden information capacity of the cover-object, but the cover-object is degraded more, and therefore it is more detectable. Other variations on this technique include ensuring that statistical changes in the image do not occur. Some intelligent software also checks for areas that are made up of one solid color. Changes in these pixels are then avoided because slight changes would cause noticeable variations in the area .While LSB insertion is easy to implement, it is also easily attacked. Slight modifications in the color palette and simple image manipulations will destroy the entire hidden message. Some examples of these simple image manipulations include image resizing and cropping. Applications of Steganography : Steganography is applicable to, but not limited to, the following areas. Confidential communication and secret data storing. Protection of data alteration Access control system for digital content distribution. Media Database systems. The area differs in what feature of the Steganography is utilized in each system. 1. Confidential communication and secret data storing: The â€Å"secrecy† of the embedded data is essential in this area. Historically, Steganography have been approached in this area.Steganography provides us with: (A).Potential capacity to hide the existence of confidential data. (B).Hardness of detecting the hidden (i.e., embedded ) data. (C).Strengthening of the secrecy of the encrypted data. In practice , when you use some Steganography, you must first select a vessel data according to the size of the embedding data.The vessel should be innocuous.Then,you embed the confidential data by using an embedding program (which is one component of the Steganography software ) together with some key .When extracting , you (or your party ) use an extracting program (another component) to recover the embedded data by the same key (â€Å"common key â€Å" in terms of cryptography ).In this case you need a â€Å"key negotiation â€Å" before you start communication. 2. Protection of data alteration: We take advantage of the fragility of the embedded data in this application area. The embedded data can rather be fragile than be very robust. Actually, embedded data are fragile in most steganography programs. However, this fragility opens a new direction toward an information-alteration protective system such as a Digital Certificate Document System. The most novel point among others is that no authentication bureau is needed. If it is implemented, people can send their digital certificate data to any place in the world through Internet. No one can forge, alter, nor tamper such certificate data. If forged, altered, or tampered, it is easily detected by the extraction program. 3. Access control system for digital content distribution: In this area embedded data is hidden, but is explained to publicize the content. Today, digital contents are getting more and more commonly distributed by Internet than ever before. For example, music companies release new albums on their Webpage in a free or charged manner. However, in this case, all the contents are equally distributed to the people who accessed the page. So, an ordinary Web distribution scheme is not suited for a case-by-case and selective distribution. Of course it is always possible to attach digital content to e-mail messages and send to the customers. But it will takes a lot of cost in time and labor. If you have some valuable content, which you think it is okay to provide others if they really need it, and if it is possible to upload such content on the Web in some covert manner. And if you can issue a special access key to extract the content selectively, you will be very happy about it. A steganographic scheme can help realize a this type of system. We have developed a prototype of an Access Control System for digital content distribution through Internet. The following steps explain the scheme. (1) A content owner classify his/her digital contents in a folder-by-folder manner, and embed the whole folders in some large vessel according to a steganographic method using folder access keys, and upload the embedded vessel (stego data) on his/her own Webpage. (2) On that Webpage the owner explains the contents in depth and publicize worldwide. The contact information to the owner (post mail address, e-mail address, phone number, etc.) will be posted there. (3) The owner may receive an access-request from a customer who watched that Webpage. In that case, the owner may (or may not) creates an access key and provide it to the customer (free or charged). In this mechanism the most important point is, a selective extraction is possible or not. 4. Media Database systems: In this application area of steganography secrecy is not important, but unifying two types of data into one is the most important. Media data (photo picture, movie, music, etc.) have some association with other information. A photo picture, for instance, may have the following. The title of the picture and some physical object information. The date and the time when the picture was taken. The camera and the photographers information. DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING BACKGROUND: Digital image processing is an area that is characterized by the need for extensive experimental work to establish the viability of the proposed solutions to a given problem. An important characteristic which is underlying in the design of image processing systems is the significant level of testing the experimentation that normally required before arriving at an acceptable solution. This characteristic implies that the ability to formulate approaches quickly prototype candidate solutions generally plays a major role in reducing the cost time required to arrive at a viable system implementation. What is DIP? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. When both the coordinates x and y the amplitude values of function â€Å"f† all have finite discrete quantities, then we call that image as a digital image. The field DIP refers to processing a digital image by the means of a digital computer. A image which is composed of finite number of elements,each element has particular location and value is named as a digital image.These elements are called as pixels. As we know that vision is the most advanced of our sensor,so image play the single most important role in human perception.However, humans are limited to the visual band of the EM spectrum but the imaging machines cover almost the entire EM specturm,ranging from the gamma waves to radio waves.These can operate also on the images generated by the sources that humans are not accustomed to associating with the image. There is no agreement among the authors regarding where the image processing stops and other related areas such as the image analysis and computer vision start.Sometimes a difference is made by defining image processing as a discipline in which both the input output at a process are the images. This is limiting somewhat artificial boundary.The area which is present in between the image processing and computer vision is image analysis(Understanding image). There are no clear-cut boundaries in the continuum from the image processing at one end to complete vision at the other end . However, one useful paradigm is to consider the three types of computerized processes in this continuum: low-level, mid-level, the high-level processes.The Low-level process involves the primitive operations such as image processing which is used to reduce noise, contrast enhancement image sharpening. A low- level process is characterized by the fact that both the inputs outputs are images. Tasks such as segmentation, description of an object to reduce them to a form suitable for computer processing classification of individual objects is the Mid level process on images. A mid-level process is characterized by the fact that the inputs given to the image are generally images but the outputs are attributes extracted from those images. Finally the higher- level processing involves â€Å"Making sense† of an ensemble of recognized objects, as in image an alysis at the far end of the continuum performing the cognitive functions normally associated with human vision. As already defined Digital image processing, is used successfully in broad range of areas of exceptional social economic value. What is an image? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. Gray scale image: A grayscale image can be defined as a function I (xylem) of the two spatial coordinates of the image plane. Assume I(x, y)as the intensity of the image at the point (x, y) on the image plane. I (xylem) takes all non-negative values assume that the image is bounded by a rectangle [0, a]  ´[0, b]I: [0, a]  ´ [0, b]  ® [0, info) Color image: It can be represented by the three functions, as R (xylem) for red, G (xylem) for green andB (xylem) for blue. An image may be continuous with respect to x and y coordinates of the plane and also in the amplitude.Converting such an image into a digital form requires the coordinates and the amplitude to be digitized.Digitizing the values of the coordinates is called sampling. Digitizing the values of the amplitude is called quantization. Coordinate convention: The result which is generated by using sampling and quantization is a matrix of real numbers.There are two principal ways to represent the digital images.Assume that an image with function f(x,y) is sampled in such a way that the resulting image has M rows and N columns.then the size of the image is MXN.The values of coordinates (xylem) are the discrete quantites.For the notational clarity and convenience, we can use the integer values for these discrete coordinates. In many of the image processing books, the image origin is defined at (xylem)=(0,0).The values of the next coordinate along with the first row of the image are (xylem)=(0,1).It is very important to keep in our mind that the notation (0,1) is used to signify the second sample along with the first row. It does not mean that these are the actual values of the physical coordinates,when the image was sampled.The figure below shows the coordinates convention. Note that the x ranges from 0 to M-1 and y ranges from 0 to N-1 in i nteger increments. The coordinate convention which is used in the toolbox to denote arrays is different from that of the preceding paragraph in two minor ways. Firstly, instead of using (xylem) in the toolbox it uses the notation (race) to indicate the rows and the columns. Note:However,the order of coordinates are the same as in the previous paragraph, in the sense the first element of the coordinate topples, (alb), refers to a row and the second one to a column. The other difference is that the origin of the coordinate system is at (r, c) = (1, 1); r ranges from 1 to M and c from 1 to N in the integer increments.The documentation of the IPT refers to the coordinates. Less frequently toolbox also employs another coordinate convention called spatial coordinates, which uses x to refer to column and y to refer to row. This is the quite opposite of our use of variables x and y. Image as Matrices: The discussion which we have done leads to the following representation for a digitized image function: f (0,0) f(0,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(0,N-1) f(1,0) f(1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(1,N-1) f(xylem)= . . . . . . f(M-1,0) f(M-1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(M-1,N-1) The right side of this equation represents a digital image by the definition. Each element which is in this array is called an image element, picture element, pixel or a pel. The terms image or pixel are used throughout the our discussions from now to denote a digital image and its elements. A digital image can be represented by a MATLAB matrix naturally as : f(1,1) f(1,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. f(1,N) f(2,1) f(2,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(2,N) . . . f = . . . f(M,1) f(M,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.f(M,N) Where f(1,1) = f(0,0) (note use of a monoscope font to denote the MATLAB quantities). We can see clearly that the two representations are identical, except for the shift in the origin. The notation f(p ,q) denotes that the element is located in row p and the column q. For example f(6,2) denotes that the element is in the sixth row and second column of the matrix f. Typically here we use the letters M and N to denote the number of rows and columns respectively in a matrix. A 1xN matrix is known as a row vector whereas an Mx1 matrix is known as a column vector. A 11 matrix is a scalar matrix. Matrices in the MATLAB are stored in variables with different names such as A, a, RGB, real array etc All variables in Matlab must begin with a letter and can contain only letters, numerals and underscores. As noted previously,all the MATLAB quantities are written using the mono-scope characters. We use the conventional Roman or italic notation such as f(x ,y), for the mathematical expressions Reading Images: Using the function imread the images are read into the MATLAB environment. The syntax for this is: imread(‘filename) Format name Description recognized extension TIFF Tagged Image File Format .tif, .tiff JPEG Joint Photograph Experts Group .jpg, .jpeg GIF Graphics Interchange Format .gif BMP Windows Bitmap .bmp PNG Portable Network Graphics .png XWD X Window Dump .xwd Here filename is a string containing the complete image file(including applicable extensions if any).For example the command line >> f = imread (‘8. jpg); reads the JPEG (in the above table) image chestxray into image array f. Note that the use of the single quotes (‘) is to delimit the string filename. The semicolon at the end of a command line is used for suppressing output in the MATLAB. If the semicolon is not includedthen the MATLAB displays the results of the operation(s) specified only in that line. The prompt symbol(>>) says that it is the beginning of the command line, as it appears in the MATLAB command window. When in the preceding command line there is no path included in the filename, imread reads the file from current directory and if that fails then it tries to find the file in MATLAB search path. An easy way to read an image from a specified directory is to include a full or relative path to that directory in filename. For example, >> f = imread ( ‘E:myimageschestxray.jpg); This reads an image from a folder called myimages on the E: drive, whereas >> f = imread(‘ . myimageschestxray .jpg); It reads an image from myimages subdirectory of the current of the current working directory. Current directory window on the MATLAB desktop toolbar displays the MATLABs current working directory and provides a simple and a manual way to change it. The table above lists some of the most popular image/graphics formats supported by imread and imwrite. Function size gives the row and the column dimensions of an image: >> size (f) ans = 1024 * 1024 The above function is particularly useful in programming when used in the following form to automatically determine the size of an image: >>[M,N]=size(f); The syntax above returns the number of rows(M) and columns(N) present in the image. On whole the function displays the additional information about an array. For instance ,the statement >> whos f gives Name size Bytes Class F 1024*1024 1048576 unit8 array Grand total is 1048576 elements using 1048576 bytes The unit8 entry shown refers to one of the several MATLAB data classes. A semicolon at the end of a line has no effect ,so normally one is not used. Displaying Images: To diplay images on the MATLAB desktop we can use a function called imshow, which has the basic syntax: imshow(f,g) Where f is referred as an image array, and g as the number of intensity levels which are used to display it. If g is omitted here ,then by default it takes 256 levels .using the syntax imshow(f,{low high}) By using the above syntax it displays an image as black all values less than or equal to low and as white all values greater than or equal to high. The values which are in between are displayed as intermediate intensity values using the default number of levels .The final syntax is Imshow(f,[ ]) Sets the variable low to the minimum value of array f and high to its maximum value. This form of imshow is useful in displaying the images that have a low dynamic range or that have positive and negative values. Function named â€Å"pixval† is used frequently in order to display the intensity values of the individual pixels interactively. This function displays a cursor which is overlaid on an image. As and when the cursor is moved over the particular image with the mouse the coordinates of the cursor position and the corresponding intensity values are shown on the display that appears below the figure window .When working with the color images, the coordinates as well as the red, green and blue components are also displayed. If the left button of the mouse is clicked and then held pressed, pixval displays the Euclidean distance between the initial and the current cursor locations. The syntax form of interest here is Pixval which shows a cursor on the last image displayed. Clicking the button X on the cursor window turns it off. The following statements read from a disk an image called rose_512.tif extract basic information about that image and display it using imshow : >>f=imread(‘rose_512.tif); >>whos f Name Size Bytes Class F 512*512 262144 unit8 array Grand total is 262144 elements using 262144 bytes >>imshow(f) A semicolon at the end of an imshow line has no effect, so normally it is not used. If another image named g, is displayed using imshow, MATLAB replaces the image which is in the screen with the new image. To keep the first image and output the second image, we use a function figure as follows: >>figure ,imshow(g) Using the statement >>imshow(f),figure ,imshow(g) displays both the images. Keep in mind that more than one command can be written on a line ,as long as different commands are properly delimited by commas or semicolons. As mentioned, a semicolon is normally used whenever it is desired to suppress screen outputs from a command line. Suppose that we have just read an image h and find that using imshow produces an image. It is clearly understood that this image has a low dynamic range, which can be remedied for display purposes by using the statement. >>imshow(h,[ ]) WRITING IMAGES: By using the function imwrite images are written to disk ,which has the following basic syntax: Imwrite (f,filename) With the above syntax, the string which is contained in the filename must include a recognized file format extension.Alternatively, a desired format can be specified explicitly with a third input argument. >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1,tif) Or >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1.tif) In the above example the command writes f to a TIFF file named patient10_run1: If filename contains no information on the path of the file, then imwrite saves the file in the current working directory. The imwrite function can have some other parameters depending up on the e file format selected. Most of the work in the following chapter deals either with JPEG or TIFF images ,so we focus attention here on these formats. More general imwrite syntax which is applicable only to JPEG images is imwrite(f,filename.jpg,,quality,q) where q is an integer which is in between 0 and 100(the lower the number higher the degradation due to JPEG compression). For example, for q=25 the applicable syntax is >> imwrite(f,bubbles25.jpg,quality,25) The image for q=15 has false contouring which is barely visible, but this effect becomes quite applicable for q=5 and q=0.Thus, an expectable solution with some margin for error is to compress all the images with q=25.In order to get an idea of compression achieved and to obtain other image file details, we can use the function imfinfo which has syntax. Imfinfo filename Here filename implies the complete file name of the image stored in the disk. For example, >> imfinfo bubbles25.jpg outputs the following information(note that some fields contain no information in this case): Filename: ‘bubbles25.jpg FileModDate: 04-jan-2003 12:31:26 FileSize: 13849 Format: ‘jpg Format Version: ‘ ‘ Width: 714 Height: 682 Bit Depth: 8 Color Depth: ‘grayscale Format Signature: ‘ ‘ Comment: { } Where size of the file is in bytes. The number of bytes in the original image is simply corrupted by multiplying width by height by bit depth and then dividing the result by 8. The result is 486948.Dividing file size gives the compression ratio:(486948/13849)=35.16.This compression ratio was achieved. While maintaining the image quality consistent with the requirements of the appearance. In addition to obvious advantages in storage space, this reduction allows the transmission of approximately 35 times the amount of uncompressed data per unit time. The information fields which are displayed by imfinfo can be captured to a so called structure variable that can be for the subsequent computations. Using the receding example and assigning the n Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique ABSTRACT Steganography is a technique used to hide the message in vessel data by embedding it. The Vessel Data which is visible is known as external information and the data which is embedded is called as internal information.The extrenal information is not much useful to the data owner. The techniques used in Steganography makes hard to detect hidden message within an image file. By this technique we are not only sending a message but also we are hiding the message. Steganography system is designed to encode and decode a secret file embedded in image file with a random Least Significant Bit(LSB) insertion technique. By using this technique the secret data are spread out among the image data in a random manner with the help of a secret key. The key generates pseudorandom numbers and identifies where and in which order hidden message is laid out. The advantage of using this method is that it includes cryptography. In cryptography, diffusion is applied to secret message. INTRODUCTION: The information communicated comes in number of forms and is used in various number of applications. In large number of these applications, it is desired that the communication has to be done in secrete. Such secret communication ranges from the obvious cases of bank transfers, corporate communications, and credit card purchases,and large percentage of everyday e-mail. Steganography is an ancient art of embedding a message in such a way that no one,except the sender and the recipient,suspects the existence of the message. Most of the newer applications use Steganography as a watermark, to protect a copy right on information. The forms of Steganography vary, but unsurprisingly, innocuous spam messages are turning up more often containing embedded text. A new transform domain technique for embedding the secret information in the integer wavelet which is transformed on a cover image is implemented here. A technique which is used to scramble a secrete or a confidential message in order to make it unreadable for a third party is known as the Cryptography.Now-a-days its commonly used in the internet communications.cryptography can hide the content of the message but it cant hide the location of the secrete message.This is how the attackers can target even an encrypted message.Water marking is the another information of hiding the digital data or a picture or musical sound.The main purpose of this watermarking information is to protect the copyright or the ownership of the data.In this technique the robustness of the embedded evidence,that can be very small, is the most important.The external information which is visible is the valuable information in the watermarking technique. steganography is a technique which is used to make the confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding the message in some dummy data such as the digital image or a speech sound.There is a research topic about the steganography known as the steganalysis.The main objective of this steganalysis is to find out the stego file among the given files.It is a technique which is used to detect the suspicious image or sound file which is embedded with the crime related information.So,we need to make a sniffer-dog-program to break the steganography.However,it is too difficult to make a program that really works. All the traditional steganography techniques have very limited information-hiding capacity.They can hide only 10% (or less) of the data amounts of the vessel.This is because the principle of those techniques which were either to replace a special part of the frequency components of the vessel image, or to replace all the least significant bits which are present in a multivalued image with the secrete information.In the new steganography which we are using uses an image as the vesel data, and we need to embed the secrete information in to the bit planes of the vessel.The percentage of information hiding capacity of a true color image is around 50.All the noise-like regions in the bit planes of the vessel image can be replaced with the secret data without deteriorating the quality of the image,which is known as BPCS-Steganography, which stands for Bit-Plane Complexity Segmentation Steganography. BACKGROUND HISTORY: The word Steganography is of Greek origin and means â€Å"covered, or hidden writing†. Its ancient origins can be traced back to 440BC. THEORY: Steganography is a technique which is used now a days to make confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding it in to some innocent looking vessel data or a dummy data such as a digital image or a speech sound.In a multi bit data structure a typical vessel is defined as a color image having Red,Green and blue components in it.By using a special extracting program and a key the embedded information can be extracted,the technique of steganography is totally different from file deception or file camouflage techniques. A technique to hide the secrete data in a computer file which almost looks like a steganography is known as a file deception or file camouflage.But actually, it is defined as a trick which is used to disguise a secret-data-added file as a normal file.This can be done as most of the computer file formats have some dont-care portion in one file.For instance if we take some file formats as jpeg,mpeg3 or some word file these looks like the original image,sound or document respectively on the computer.Some of them could have misunderstood that such a trick is a type of Steganography.However,such files can have an extra lengthy file sizes, and they can be easily detected by most of the computer engineers.So, by this we can understand that the file deception is totally different from that of the steganographic techinque which we are discussing here. Many of the Steganography software which is in the market today is based on the file decepetion.If we find a steganography program that increases the output file size just by the amount we have embedded, then the program is obviously a file deception.If there is some secrete data then we should encrypt in such a way that it is not readable for the third party.A solution to Keep secrete information very safe is known as Data Encryption.It is totally based on scrambling the data by using some type of the secrete key. However,encrypting the data will draw more attention of the people who have not encrypted the data.So, it is very to the owner to know whether the data is encrypted or not.By, this we can know that the encrypting is not enough. There is another solution which is known steganography. There are two types of data in steganography, one is the secret data that is very valuable and the other is a type of media data vessel or carrier or dummy data.Vessel data is essential, but it is not so valuable.It is defined as the data in which the valuable data is embedded. The data which is already embedded in the vessel data is called stego data.By using the stego data we can extract the secret or the valuable data. For embedding and extracting the data we need a special program and a key. A typical vessel is an image data with Red, Green, and Blue color components present in it in a 24 bits pixel structure. The illustration below shows a general scheme of Steganography. Steganography is a technique which is used to hide secret data by embedding it in some innocent looking media data like Mona lisa in the above picture.The data which is embedded is very safe because Steganography hides both the content and the location of the secret information.In the media data there are many different methods to embed the data.It is highly impossible to detect which method is used for embedding the data.Steganography can co-operate with cryptography in the sense that it can embed the encrypted secret data and make it much safer. The most important point in the steganography technique is that the stego data does not have any evidence that some extra data is embedded there.In other way, the vessel data and the stego data must be very similar.The user of the steganography should discard the original vessel data after embedding,so that no one can compare the stego and the original data. It is also important that the capacity for embedding the data is large.As it is larger it is better.Of all the currently available steganography methods the BPCS method is the best. LEAST SIGNIFICANT BIT INSERTION One of the most common techniques used in Steganographytoday is called least significant bit (LSB) insertion. This method is exactly what it sounds like; the least significant bits of the cover-image are altered so that they form the embeddedinformation. The following example shows how the letter A can be hidden in the first eight bytes of three pixels in a 24-bit image. Pixels: (00100111 11101001 11001000) (00100111 11001000 11101001) (11001000 00100111 11101001) A: 01000001 Result: (00100110 11101001 11001000) (00100110 11001000 11101000) (11001000 00100111 11101001) The three underlined bits are the only three bits that were actually altered. LSB insertion requires on average that only half the bits in an image be changed. Since the 8-bit letter A only requires eight bytes to hide it in, the ninth byte of the three pixels can be used to begin hiding the next character of the hidden message. A slight variation of this technique allows for embedding the message in two or more of the least significant bits per byte. This increases the hidden information capacity of the cover-object, but the cover-object is degraded more, and therefore it is more detectable. Other variations on this technique include ensuring that statistical changes in the image do not occur. Some intelligent software also checks for areas that are made up of one solid color. Changes in these pixels are then avoided because slight changes would cause noticeable variations in the area .While LSB insertion is easy to implement, it is also easily attacked. Slight modifications in the color palette and simple image manipulations will destroy the entire hidden message. Some examples of these simple image manipulations include image resizing and cropping. Applications of Steganography : Steganography is applicable to, but not limited to, the following areas. Confidential communication and secret data storing. Protection of data alteration Access control system for digital content distribution. Media Database systems. The area differs in what feature of the Steganography is utilized in each system. 1. Confidential communication and secret data storing: The â€Å"secrecy† of the embedded data is essential in this area. Historically, Steganography have been approached in this area.Steganography provides us with: (A).Potential capacity to hide the existence of confidential data. (B).Hardness of detecting the hidden (i.e., embedded ) data. (C).Strengthening of the secrecy of the encrypted data. In practice , when you use some Steganography, you must first select a vessel data according to the size of the embedding data.The vessel should be innocuous.Then,you embed the confidential data by using an embedding program (which is one component of the Steganography software ) together with some key .When extracting , you (or your party ) use an extracting program (another component) to recover the embedded data by the same key (â€Å"common key â€Å" in terms of cryptography ).In this case you need a â€Å"key negotiation â€Å" before you start communication. 2. Protection of data alteration: We take advantage of the fragility of the embedded data in this application area. The embedded data can rather be fragile than be very robust. Actually, embedded data are fragile in most steganography programs. However, this fragility opens a new direction toward an information-alteration protective system such as a Digital Certificate Document System. The most novel point among others is that no authentication bureau is needed. If it is implemented, people can send their digital certificate data to any place in the world through Internet. No one can forge, alter, nor tamper such certificate data. If forged, altered, or tampered, it is easily detected by the extraction program. 3. Access control system for digital content distribution: In this area embedded data is hidden, but is explained to publicize the content. Today, digital contents are getting more and more commonly distributed by Internet than ever before. For example, music companies release new albums on their Webpage in a free or charged manner. However, in this case, all the contents are equally distributed to the people who accessed the page. So, an ordinary Web distribution scheme is not suited for a case-by-case and selective distribution. Of course it is always possible to attach digital content to e-mail messages and send to the customers. But it will takes a lot of cost in time and labor. If you have some valuable content, which you think it is okay to provide others if they really need it, and if it is possible to upload such content on the Web in some covert manner. And if you can issue a special access key to extract the content selectively, you will be very happy about it. A steganographic scheme can help realize a this type of system. We have developed a prototype of an Access Control System for digital content distribution through Internet. The following steps explain the scheme. (1) A content owner classify his/her digital contents in a folder-by-folder manner, and embed the whole folders in some large vessel according to a steganographic method using folder access keys, and upload the embedded vessel (stego data) on his/her own Webpage. (2) On that Webpage the owner explains the contents in depth and publicize worldwide. The contact information to the owner (post mail address, e-mail address, phone number, etc.) will be posted there. (3) The owner may receive an access-request from a customer who watched that Webpage. In that case, the owner may (or may not) creates an access key and provide it to the customer (free or charged). In this mechanism the most important point is, a selective extraction is possible or not. 4. Media Database systems: In this application area of steganography secrecy is not important, but unifying two types of data into one is the most important. Media data (photo picture, movie, music, etc.) have some association with other information. A photo picture, for instance, may have the following. The title of the picture and some physical object information. The date and the time when the picture was taken. The camera and the photographers information. DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING BACKGROUND: Digital image processing is an area that is characterized by the need for extensive experimental work to establish the viability of the proposed solutions to a given problem. An important characteristic which is underlying in the design of image processing systems is the significant level of testing the experimentation that normally required before arriving at an acceptable solution. This characteristic implies that the ability to formulate approaches quickly prototype candidate solutions generally plays a major role in reducing the cost time required to arrive at a viable system implementation. What is DIP? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. When both the coordinates x and y the amplitude values of function â€Å"f† all have finite discrete quantities, then we call that image as a digital image. The field DIP refers to processing a digital image by the means of a digital computer. A image which is composed of finite number of elements,each element has particular location and value is named as a digital image.These elements are called as pixels. As we know that vision is the most advanced of our sensor,so image play the single most important role in human perception.However, humans are limited to the visual band of the EM spectrum but the imaging machines cover almost the entire EM specturm,ranging from the gamma waves to radio waves.These can operate also on the images generated by the sources that humans are not accustomed to associating with the image. There is no agreement among the authors regarding where the image processing stops and other related areas such as the image analysis and computer vision start.Sometimes a difference is made by defining image processing as a discipline in which both the input output at a process are the images. This is limiting somewhat artificial boundary.The area which is present in between the image processing and computer vision is image analysis(Understanding image). There are no clear-cut boundaries in the continuum from the image processing at one end to complete vision at the other end . However, one useful paradigm is to consider the three types of computerized processes in this continuum: low-level, mid-level, the high-level processes.The Low-level process involves the primitive operations such as image processing which is used to reduce noise, contrast enhancement image sharpening. A low- level process is characterized by the fact that both the inputs outputs are images. Tasks such as segmentation, description of an object to reduce them to a form suitable for computer processing classification of individual objects is the Mid level process on images. A mid-level process is characterized by the fact that the inputs given to the image are generally images but the outputs are attributes extracted from those images. Finally the higher- level processing involves â€Å"Making sense† of an ensemble of recognized objects, as in image an alysis at the far end of the continuum performing the cognitive functions normally associated with human vision. As already defined Digital image processing, is used successfully in broad range of areas of exceptional social economic value. What is an image? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. Gray scale image: A grayscale image can be defined as a function I (xylem) of the two spatial coordinates of the image plane. Assume I(x, y)as the intensity of the image at the point (x, y) on the image plane. I (xylem) takes all non-negative values assume that the image is bounded by a rectangle [0, a]  ´[0, b]I: [0, a]  ´ [0, b]  ® [0, info) Color image: It can be represented by the three functions, as R (xylem) for red, G (xylem) for green andB (xylem) for blue. An image may be continuous with respect to x and y coordinates of the plane and also in the amplitude.Converting such an image into a digital form requires the coordinates and the amplitude to be digitized.Digitizing the values of the coordinates is called sampling. Digitizing the values of the amplitude is called quantization. Coordinate convention: The result which is generated by using sampling and quantization is a matrix of real numbers.There are two principal ways to represent the digital images.Assume that an image with function f(x,y) is sampled in such a way that the resulting image has M rows and N columns.then the size of the image is MXN.The values of coordinates (xylem) are the discrete quantites.For the notational clarity and convenience, we can use the integer values for these discrete coordinates. In many of the image processing books, the image origin is defined at (xylem)=(0,0).The values of the next coordinate along with the first row of the image are (xylem)=(0,1).It is very important to keep in our mind that the notation (0,1) is used to signify the second sample along with the first row. It does not mean that these are the actual values of the physical coordinates,when the image was sampled.The figure below shows the coordinates convention. Note that the x ranges from 0 to M-1 and y ranges from 0 to N-1 in i nteger increments. The coordinate convention which is used in the toolbox to denote arrays is different from that of the preceding paragraph in two minor ways. Firstly, instead of using (xylem) in the toolbox it uses the notation (race) to indicate the rows and the columns. Note:However,the order of coordinates are the same as in the previous paragraph, in the sense the first element of the coordinate topples, (alb), refers to a row and the second one to a column. The other difference is that the origin of the coordinate system is at (r, c) = (1, 1); r ranges from 1 to M and c from 1 to N in the integer increments.The documentation of the IPT refers to the coordinates. Less frequently toolbox also employs another coordinate convention called spatial coordinates, which uses x to refer to column and y to refer to row. This is the quite opposite of our use of variables x and y. Image as Matrices: The discussion which we have done leads to the following representation for a digitized image function: f (0,0) f(0,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(0,N-1) f(1,0) f(1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(1,N-1) f(xylem)= . . . . . . f(M-1,0) f(M-1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(M-1,N-1) The right side of this equation represents a digital image by the definition. Each element which is in this array is called an image element, picture element, pixel or a pel. The terms image or pixel are used throughout the our discussions from now to denote a digital image and its elements. A digital image can be represented by a MATLAB matrix naturally as : f(1,1) f(1,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. f(1,N) f(2,1) f(2,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(2,N) . . . f = . . . f(M,1) f(M,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.f(M,N) Where f(1,1) = f(0,0) (note use of a monoscope font to denote the MATLAB quantities). We can see clearly that the two representations are identical, except for the shift in the origin. The notation f(p ,q) denotes that the element is located in row p and the column q. For example f(6,2) denotes that the element is in the sixth row and second column of the matrix f. Typically here we use the letters M and N to denote the number of rows and columns respectively in a matrix. A 1xN matrix is known as a row vector whereas an Mx1 matrix is known as a column vector. A 11 matrix is a scalar matrix. Matrices in the MATLAB are stored in variables with different names such as A, a, RGB, real array etc All variables in Matlab must begin with a letter and can contain only letters, numerals and underscores. As noted previously,all the MATLAB quantities are written using the mono-scope characters. We use the conventional Roman or italic notation such as f(x ,y), for the mathematical expressions Reading Images: Using the function imread the images are read into the MATLAB environment. The syntax for this is: imread(‘filename) Format name Description recognized extension TIFF Tagged Image File Format .tif, .tiff JPEG Joint Photograph Experts Group .jpg, .jpeg GIF Graphics Interchange Format .gif BMP Windows Bitmap .bmp PNG Portable Network Graphics .png XWD X Window Dump .xwd Here filename is a string containing the complete image file(including applicable extensions if any).For example the command line >> f = imread (‘8. jpg); reads the JPEG (in the above table) image chestxray into image array f. Note that the use of the single quotes (‘) is to delimit the string filename. The semicolon at the end of a command line is used for suppressing output in the MATLAB. If the semicolon is not includedthen the MATLAB displays the results of the operation(s) specified only in that line. The prompt symbol(>>) says that it is the beginning of the command line, as it appears in the MATLAB command window. When in the preceding command line there is no path included in the filename, imread reads the file from current directory and if that fails then it tries to find the file in MATLAB search path. An easy way to read an image from a specified directory is to include a full or relative path to that directory in filename. For example, >> f = imread ( ‘E:myimageschestxray.jpg); This reads an image from a folder called myimages on the E: drive, whereas >> f = imread(‘ . myimageschestxray .jpg); It reads an image from myimages subdirectory of the current of the current working directory. Current directory window on the MATLAB desktop toolbar displays the MATLABs current working directory and provides a simple and a manual way to change it. The table above lists some of the most popular image/graphics formats supported by imread and imwrite. Function size gives the row and the column dimensions of an image: >> size (f) ans = 1024 * 1024 The above function is particularly useful in programming when used in the following form to automatically determine the size of an image: >>[M,N]=size(f); The syntax above returns the number of rows(M) and columns(N) present in the image. On whole the function displays the additional information about an array. For instance ,the statement >> whos f gives Name size Bytes Class F 1024*1024 1048576 unit8 array Grand total is 1048576 elements using 1048576 bytes The unit8 entry shown refers to one of the several MATLAB data classes. A semicolon at the end of a line has no effect ,so normally one is not used. Displaying Images: To diplay images on the MATLAB desktop we can use a function called imshow, which has the basic syntax: imshow(f,g) Where f is referred as an image array, and g as the number of intensity levels which are used to display it. If g is omitted here ,then by default it takes 256 levels .using the syntax imshow(f,{low high}) By using the above syntax it displays an image as black all values less than or equal to low and as white all values greater than or equal to high. The values which are in between are displayed as intermediate intensity values using the default number of levels .The final syntax is Imshow(f,[ ]) Sets the variable low to the minimum value of array f and high to its maximum value. This form of imshow is useful in displaying the images that have a low dynamic range or that have positive and negative values. Function named â€Å"pixval† is used frequently in order to display the intensity values of the individual pixels interactively. This function displays a cursor which is overlaid on an image. As and when the cursor is moved over the particular image with the mouse the coordinates of the cursor position and the corresponding intensity values are shown on the display that appears below the figure window .When working with the color images, the coordinates as well as the red, green and blue components are also displayed. If the left button of the mouse is clicked and then held pressed, pixval displays the Euclidean distance between the initial and the current cursor locations. The syntax form of interest here is Pixval which shows a cursor on the last image displayed. Clicking the button X on the cursor window turns it off. The following statements read from a disk an image called rose_512.tif extract basic information about that image and display it using imshow : >>f=imread(‘rose_512.tif); >>whos f Name Size Bytes Class F 512*512 262144 unit8 array Grand total is 262144 elements using 262144 bytes >>imshow(f) A semicolon at the end of an imshow line has no effect, so normally it is not used. If another image named g, is displayed using imshow, MATLAB replaces the image which is in the screen with the new image. To keep the first image and output the second image, we use a function figure as follows: >>figure ,imshow(g) Using the statement >>imshow(f),figure ,imshow(g) displays both the images. Keep in mind that more than one command can be written on a line ,as long as different commands are properly delimited by commas or semicolons. As mentioned, a semicolon is normally used whenever it is desired to suppress screen outputs from a command line. Suppose that we have just read an image h and find that using imshow produces an image. It is clearly understood that this image has a low dynamic range, which can be remedied for display purposes by using the statement. >>imshow(h,[ ]) WRITING IMAGES: By using the function imwrite images are written to disk ,which has the following basic syntax: Imwrite (f,filename) With the above syntax, the string which is contained in the filename must include a recognized file format extension.Alternatively, a desired format can be specified explicitly with a third input argument. >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1,tif) Or >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1.tif) In the above example the command writes f to a TIFF file named patient10_run1: If filename contains no information on the path of the file, then imwrite saves the file in the current working directory. The imwrite function can have some other parameters depending up on the e file format selected. Most of the work in the following chapter deals either with JPEG or TIFF images ,so we focus attention here on these formats. More general imwrite syntax which is applicable only to JPEG images is imwrite(f,filename.jpg,,quality,q) where q is an integer which is in between 0 and 100(the lower the number higher the degradation due to JPEG compression). For example, for q=25 the applicable syntax is >> imwrite(f,bubbles25.jpg,quality,25) The image for q=15 has false contouring which is barely visible, but this effect becomes quite applicable for q=5 and q=0.Thus, an expectable solution with some margin for error is to compress all the images with q=25.In order to get an idea of compression achieved and to obtain other image file details, we can use the function imfinfo which has syntax. Imfinfo filename Here filename implies the complete file name of the image stored in the disk. For example, >> imfinfo bubbles25.jpg outputs the following information(note that some fields contain no information in this case): Filename: ‘bubbles25.jpg FileModDate: 04-jan-2003 12:31:26 FileSize: 13849 Format: ‘jpg Format Version: ‘ ‘ Width: 714 Height: 682 Bit Depth: 8 Color Depth: ‘grayscale Format Signature: ‘ ‘ Comment: { } Where size of the file is in bytes. The number of bytes in the original image is simply corrupted by multiplying width by height by bit depth and then dividing the result by 8. The result is 486948.Dividing file size gives the compression ratio:(486948/13849)=35.16.This compression ratio was achieved. While maintaining the image quality consistent with the requirements of the appearance. In addition to obvious advantages in storage space, this reduction allows the transmission of approximately 35 times the amount of uncompressed data per unit time. The information fields which are displayed by imfinfo can be captured to a so called structure variable that can be for the subsequent computations. Using the receding example and assigning the n

A Current National Health Policy Social Work Essay

A Current National Health Policy Social Work Essay Policies are relevant and essential as they allow health professionals whether employer or employee, to work within their remit and understand their responsibilities to their clients, patients and their colleagues (Baggott, 2007). Walt and Gibson (1994) identified that health policies are made through complex association of actors, processes and content. The health policy triangle was introduced by Walt and Gibson (1994) as an approach of methodically discerning the various factors that can affect or generate a health policy. Policy actors pertain to governments or individuals who can affect the policy, such as pressure groups and politicians (Walt and Gibson, 1994, cited in Buse et al, 2005). Policy process relates to the formulation or implementation of the policy and how it is communicated to the public or society (Walt and Gibson, 1994, cited in Buse et al, 2005). Policy content refers to material or substance within a policy which describes the issue or topic covered, such as so cial or political which may refer to national or local areas (Walt and Gibson, 1994. cited in Buse et al, 2005). This essay will scrutinise and critique a health policy. It will demonstrate the development of a policy and critique the beneficial worth, stating whether the health policy is achieving the objectives for its initial implementation. It will similarly evaluate and assess the policy content and determine the benefit of this particular health policy within my nursing practice. Furthermore argue whether the health policy has strengths to enhance my practice or weaknesses which may hinder application to my role as a school nurse. The Department of Health were the policy actors who published the National Service Framework for Children, Young people and Maternity services in 2004. This policy was instrumental in enabling health professionals to look at childrens services in a different manner and address the whole child rather than the childs illness or problem they may have; and instead look at techniques to prevent the problem from initially occurring (DH, 2004). The national service framework for children, young people and maternity services (2004) brought to the attention of policy makers the necessity of action focusing on childrens services, which lead to more policies and strategies being formulated (Baggott, 2007). One of them being Healthy lives, brighter futures. The strategy for children and young peoples health (2009), which states that all children and young people should grow up healthy with specific attention directed to the vulnerable; which includes looked after children and children in low inc ome families. Healthy lives, brighter futures. The strategy for children and young peoples health was published in 2009, jointly by the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. This strategy was the Labour Governments plan to improve children and young peoples health and wellbeing (Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2009). (DH and DCSF, 2009). The Labour governments aim through this Strategy was for children and young people to have more opportunities by using more easily accessible services, which would benefit them and diminish health inequalities leading to less strain on the countrys financial resources (DH and DCSF, 2009). Healthy lives, brighter futures. The strategy for children and young peoples health (the Strategy) (2009) was the primary approach targeting all health professionals and childrens services, which preceded the Healthy Child Programme: From 5-19 years old policy; in addition was introduced later the same year together by the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. To achieve the goals set out in the Strategy which targeted health professionals in the community, hospitals and commissioners highlighting the importance of their part in reducing health inequalities (DH and DCSF, 2009). Child poverty is on a decline but in the United Kingdom (UK) one in four children are growing up in poverty (Department for Work and Pensions, 2009). Young people and children living in poverty additionally use and rely on more frequently, emergency services which can add unnecessary strain to health services (Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People s Services, 2010). Health inequalities are still present, and policy actors such as the British Youth Council were there to add their voice to the areas, and problems which they felt still needs addressing for the young people of the UK (British Youth Council, 2012). The section of the Strategy (DH and DCSF, 2009), which will be discussed/critiqued in great depth will be section five, titled Young People. I work with young people and can look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Strategy; and this area was also chosen as young people sometimes feel that their concerns are dismissed and their opinions are undervalued (British Youth Council, 2012). Adolescence is seen as a vital stage where young people are leaving behind their childhood and stepping forward into adulthood; where they are gaining more independence and in some cases looking after their own health for the first time, rather than depending on their parents or carers (DH and DCSF, 2009). The Strategies established are directed to providing health services for young people which targets their health as well as their psychological wellbeing (DH and DCSF, 2009). Through this transitional period adolescents are developing neurologically, physically, emotionally in addition to psychologically (Moshman, 1999). While young people are testing the boundaries though they are gaining more independence, young people are more likely to listen and seek advice from their peers rather than adults (Moshman, 1999). In our locality to make school nursing services more accessible to teenagers we provide a drop in clinic, where teenagers can come and discuss health issues or concerns t hey may have on their own or with a friend. The Strategy has recommended that health services adopt a more young people friendly service (DH and DCSF, 2009). Youre Welcome Quality criteria for young people friendly health service published by the Department of Health, Children and Young People (DH and CYP, 2011). This policy was one of the follow on programmes to the Strategy which gave more in depth recommendations, for providing additional user friendly health services for young people and training for staff to have a more user friendly approach. A project directed by Randall and Hill (2012), noted that young patients wanted their nurses to be friendly; but still give them their privacy and dignity without drawing unnecessary attention (Randall and Hill, 2012). Youth workers based in the community can break through barriers as they are mainly adult workers that can relate to young people as they may work with them daily, when young people attend youth groups or centres (Hilton and Jepson, 2012). Young people attending hospital appointments or in hospital can feel isolated, have low self-confidence or lose their individuality (Hilton and Jepson, 2012). Presently school nurses only work with young people mainly if they have health conditions, to promote health or have Child protection plans. If there were more resources available, in this case time, school nurses could work with youth workers to help distil fears in young people, in regards to being admitted onto a hospital ward or learning to live with a long-term health conditions. This would empower young people to have additional confidence in health workers, and enable them to feel undaunted about their transition into the adult world (Young, 2006). Policy makers understand and recognise the importance of young peoples psychological wellbeing and mental health which is addressed (DH and DCSF, 2009). The issue to provide a service to tackle and deliver support for young peoples mental health is challenging, as insufficient funds is available to deal with this one particular area on its own (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, 2012). This is evident by my employment Council that provides an integrated child support service, which entails education psychology and education welfare, early intervention and behaviour (Southwark Council, 2012). If the child has a more serious emotional or mental health problem that cannot be dealt with by the integrated child support service, the child would be referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, generally referred to as CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, 2012). My employment Trust has CAMHS which provides mental health care for four Trusts and also a national and specialist team (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, 2012). Usually a referral to CAMHS can take from four to eight weeks before the child or young person would be given an appointment (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, 2012). This reveals how necessary and important the service which is provided by CAMHS is needed and required, but demonstrates the challenge to respond to the high demand of referrals in a sufficiently and effectively appropriate amount of time (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, 2012). CAMHS has a policy of if the child or young person misses their appointment due to any other reason than ill health, they will be put back onto the waiting list. The Strategy recommends that young people should have more access to information regarding sexual health (DH and DCSF, 2009). Teenagers are known for trying unsafe behaviours whether it is sexually or experimenting with drugs or alcohol (DH and DCSF, 2009). Teenagers can access health services if they are still in school or may want to discuss things away from their usual environment by attending sexual health clinics (DH and DCSF, 2009). In my school nursing locality young people are offered a drop in service where they can discuss personal issues; presently the service is only offered once a month due to lack of school nurses to run the drop in clinic. Southwark has the eighth highest rate of long term unemployment in England and Wales (Office for National Statistics, 2010). Southwark has 10% more deprived districts than the rest of England, in terms of income deprivation which affects children living in the borough (Southwark PCT, 2011). Priority is made to safeguarding children which is paramount, and as there are quite a few cases of children in Southwark who have child protection plans (Southwark Council, 2012). Health of children in Southwark is generally worse than the average in England (Association of Public Health Authorities, 2010). Promoting healthy eating can be challenging, when low income families are trying to provide a healthy meal for their family at a time when they are on a fixed income (Livingstone, 2007). The Strategy recognises that young people are adept at using the internet, and other forms of modern technology to gain access to information (DH and DCSF, 2009). Young people 16 years and above can open a Health Space account, where they can keep their current health records and have more control over their health information (DH and DCSF, 2009). Health space also gives young people guidance on healthy eating and information on different types of illnesses; and where teenagers can go to get necessary support if required (Health Space, 2012). As part of the recommendations our school nursing service uses mobile phones to text young people to remind them of upcoming appointments. The policy Youre Welcome Quality criteria for young people friendly health services, identified that young people preferred to receive a text message rather than an appointment letter and to be given the option of attending their appointment with or without their parents (DH and CYP, 2011). An effective approach mentioned by the Strategy is for health to be promoted through advertising. This can be through television or radio commercials and also through posters in prominent areas and campaigns (DH and DCSF, 2009). A campaign which referred to excess drinking was called Know your limits encouraging young people not to get drunk as they are not in control of their faculties and emphasised the dangers of being drunk; such as getting alcohol poisoning to having unprotected sex (DH and DCSF, 2009). The Know your limits campaign ran from June to September 2009, which included advertising on television, radio and on the internet (Community Justice Portal, 2009). A survey conducted after the campaign revealed that young people did take notice of the anti-binge drinking campaign (Community Justice Portal, 2009). While 67% of young people said they would think more when out drinking with their friends, but none of the young people said that they would reduce the amount of alcohol they would consume (Community Justice Portal, 2009). This brings into question whether the campaign was effective, and whether another form of advertising would have been beneficial, productive and less costly. Teenage pregnancy rates are decreasing and currently are at the lowest they have been for the last forty years (Office for National Statistics, 2010). In Western Europe England still has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy, with the majority of the pregnancies unplanned and half of them legally aborted (Swann et al, 2003). The Teenage Pregnancy Strategy launched in 1999, set out guidelines to reduce the amount of teen pregnancies in the UK (DCYPF and PH, 1999). The Strategy made clear and productive follow on guidelines to the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, which involved methods and approaches on how to reduce teenage pregnancies and campaigns to promote effectual contraceptive techniques (DH and DCSF, 2009). Young people aged between 16 years to 24 years old still has the highest amount of reported sexually transmitted infections (DH and DCSF, 2009). The Strategy has made clear procedures and techniques on how to decrease teenage pregnancy by gleaning evidence based information from countries such as America; where they have had an 86% reduction in their teenage pregnancy rate which they say was due to better quality use of contraceptives (DH and DCSF, 2009). Sex and relationship education is taught in schools by school nurses or by school teachers, but we are limited in some independent and religious schools by what we can teach the children. This would hinder and impede upon school nurses following the guidelines which the Strategy would like us to follow, as in some schools we have to negotiate with the head teachers what they will allow us to teach the pupils. For instance, in Catholic secondary schools if the pupils are taught sex and relationship education, it is limited to purity, abstinence and waiting till the students are married before having a sexual relationship (Catholic Education, 2012). Childhood obesity is defined as weight gained to a significant amount which can affect the childs health (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, 2003). The Strategy tried to put in place guidelines to help combat obesity in young people, but the government admitted that they were struggling to find effective ways to tackle the obesity in young people (DH and DCSF, 2009). The Strategy was not precise or adequate with beneficial and practical guidelines to encourage healthy eating in young people (DH and DCSF, 2009). Campaigns such as Change 4 Life were introduced in the same year as the Strategy, with the goal of targeting the whole family into eating healthier and exercising, and nothing directed just for young people (DH, 2009). The Change 4 Life was effective to a certain extent, as it gave school nurses a worthwhile tool to go into schools and work with young children. Posters and leaflets were given to schools to promote the Change 4 life campaign; but as for teenagers they found it unrelatable. In addition to the Olympics being held in London, the follow on campaign is Games 4 life (DH, 2011). This was designed at encouraging families to take an active part in the games instead of just watching it all on the television set in their homes (DH, 2011). Games 4 life misses out on the opportunity of targeting young people to get them involved with the Olympics where they could have schools competing against each other. Our experts are examining the Governments NHS reforms in detail and highlighting aspects of the legislation that merit greater scrutiny Right Hon Stephen Dorrell MP, Health Select Committee (2011). IMPACT The announcement of the NHS reforms by the current Government will have a thought-provoking impact on patients care and the roles which health professionals presently hold. For instance, additional audits will be put in place and this can be questioned about the effectiveness of these audits, as it may perhaps mean more time being spent on completing these audits which would mean less time focusing on service users (Ham et al, 2011). An adverse effect from the NHS reforms was the abolishment of the student education maintenance allowance scheme. (EMA) Young people in low income families relied on the EMA for funds for their books, and in some cases their travel expenses to college (British Youth Council, 2012). The distribution of the EMA bursary is now controlled by schools, training providers and colleges; young people feel that it is biased as they see it as another way for the Government to control their education when the young people should be making more decisions for themselves (British Youth Council, 2012). The NHS reforms will give 80% of the health budget to general practitioners to control and decide where they think health financial resources should be spent (DH, 2011). CONCLUSION The Strategy has a positive and negative influence on my practice as a school nurse. There are a number of areas for improvement which has been highlighted, such as promoting healthy eating in schools. This could happen by working more closely with school teachers but there would also need to have more resources put in place. These resources requires having a bigger budget to hire more school nurses, and also more funds to target young people to demonstrate to them, that they are not an age group which society undervalues and fails to appreciate as noted by the British Youth Council (British Youth Council, 2012). By means of additional resources, an increase in the amount school nurses could be hired and we would be able to offer a more effective service to young people and their families. The Strategy recommended various ways of promoting sex and relationship education which is working, as records demonstrate the decreasing levels of teenage pregnancies and abortions for forty years (Office for National Statistics, 2010). This is advantageous as with the reduction of teen pregnancies the Government as one of the main policy makers, can implement more policies which should continue to highlight the needs of young people to help reduce health inequalities and promote their health and wellbeing (DH and DCSF, 2009). Young people attend and are admitted to hospitals all the time. The Strategy did not give enough information on how young people would be supported if they had to attend or be admitted to hospital; this could hinder my practice as not enough research has been conducted in this area. The study conducted by Hilton and Jepson (2012), noted the importance of youth workers who could relieve some of the fears of young people and support them when and if they are admitted to hospital. More money spent towards the youth service signifies youth workers liaising and coordinating with school nurses working together to arrange schemes, work on leaflets or have an advice line for young people to contact school nurses. Presently we have a drop in clinic once a month but with more easily accessible contact services, young people would surely use the service if it was user friendly intended especially for their age group (British Youth Council, 2012). The Strategy has recommended some valid points which can be implemented into my nursing practice as a school nurse; however there are some areas which have been demonstrated that are quite difficult to apply and facilitate without further resources and manpower to improve on the service which is presently in place for young people. Improvements have been noted and I am sure they will continue to improve while we have policy makers from different parts of the society such as the British Youth Council, who will continue to make society listen to the voice of young people.