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The entertainment of a Harlem cabaret hypnotizes Helga Crane, the protagonist of Nella Larsen's Quicksand. She loses herself in the "sudden streaming rhythm" and delights in the sexually suggestive moves of the dancers. Helga is "blown out, ripped out, beaten out by the joyous, wild, murky orchestra" in a moment suggestive of a sexual climax. But when the music fades, Helga returns to reality and asserts that "she wasn't, she told herself, a jungle creature." Helga feels this struggle between sexual freedom and restraint throughout the novel. As Larsen shows in the cabaret, black women of the early twentieth century repressed their sexual desires so that white America would perceive them as respectable. In its fight for equality, the black social elite wanted women to emulate the conventions of mainstream society. Maintaining a good image was intended not only to produce change within the race, but also to combat white stereotypes that caused discrimination against black people. Thus, described as primitive and promiscuous since slavery, black women hid their sexuality under socially accepted behavior. But, as Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham refers to it, this "politics of respectability" had profound consequences.

The politics of respectability shifted the blame for racist stereotypes from whites to blacks. Instead of stopping whites from unfairly labeling black women, the ideology of racial uplift forced black women to change their behavior in response to stereotypes. As Kevin K. Gaines argues in his book Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century, racial uplift supported an internalized form of racism. He writes, "Racial uplift ideology's gender politics led African American elites to mistake the effects of oppression for causes..." Larsen's Quicksand shows the psychological consequences of repressing sexuality. Helga moves from place to place and searches for happiness without rationality. Her unhappiness arises because the politics of respectability prevented black women from defining the terms of their sexuality. They were either lascivious "jungle creature[s]" or the ideal Victorian lady. Thus, uplift stopped black women from embracing their sexuality in a healthy way. Although the politics of respectability had good intentions, it severely curtailed individual freedom and prevented black women from forming their own identities.

The black elite intended the politics of respectability to prevent discrimination. They reasoned that if whites saw that blacks had similar morals, they would have no basis for treating them unequally. The politics of respectability aimed at thwarting the dissemination of negative black images that occurred in films like D. W. Griffith's Birth of Nation and other media. Among the most ingrained stereotypes-and therefore most contested- was the promiscuous black woman. Higginbotham argues that "black womanhood and white womanhood were represented with diametrically opposed sexualities." She gives the example of a white woman quoted in a newspaper as saying, "I cannot imagine such a creation as a virtuous black woman." Whereas American society saw white women as chaste, it viewed black women as sex-crazed and loose. Thus, the black elite sought to reinvent the image of the black female. They took on white society's norms and morals and instructed black women on issues from proper conduct on streetcars to appropriate colors for clothing. But, as Larsen illustrates in Quicksand, the politics of respectability promoted strict conformity and erased individuality. The black elite censured people who engaged in inappropriate behavior. The Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., required individuals caught dancing and drinking to come before a church court. The black elite also attacked jazz, perhaps the most significant contribution to American culture at the time. Echoing the thoughts of Helga Crane in the cabaret, they said going to jazz halls amounted to "a voluntary return to the jungle." Black women were no longer free to enjoy themselves without judgment. They became, like Helga, psychologically incomplete, needing sexual fulfillment but denied this by dominant society.

The politics of respectability emphasized that the individual determined the fate of the race. The black elite believed that individual behavior reflected on everyone. Higginbotham writes about the fear that Baptist women had of nonconformity to their morals. "The Baptist women spoke as if ever-cognizant of the gaze of white America, which in panoptic fashion focused on each and every black person and recorded his transgressions in an overall accounting of black inferiority," she argues. To keep everyone in line, the social elite intruded into the family life of black women. They linked poor eating habits with "chewing, smoking, and...drinking." The woman who kept her house dirty became an "enemy of the race." Aside from nutrition and housekeeping, the black elite emphasized that the dignified individual required good parenting and lineage. For people like Helga who came from broken families, this expectation made them outsiders. Helga struggles with the tainted image that she inherits throughout Quicksand. When she wants to marry James Vayle, his parents disapprove of her lack of family. Lamenting the black social structure, Helga claims that "Negro society, she had learned, was as complicated and as rigid in its ramifications as the highest strata of white society. If you couldn't prove your ancestry and connections, you were tolerated, but you didn't 'belong.'" By scrutinizing every aspect of personal life, the politics of respectability eliminated the individual in favor of the collective. It placed so many burdens on black women that Helga tries to escape her race. When she leaves Harlem for Copenhagen, Helga delights in "that blessed sense of belonging to herself and not to a race." But, as she quickly realizes, she could not sever her racial ties by changing location.

Larsen also dealt with the oppression of racial uplift and infused Quicksand with her personal experience. Like Helga, she had parents of different races. Her mother was Danish and her father was West Indian. Like Helga, Her mother later married a white man who looked down on Larsen because of her race. Larsen studied science at Fisk University in Tennessee and also took classes at the University of Copenhagen. In 1915, she went to the South and became the superintendent of nurses at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. She left Tuskegee because she disliked its teaching methods and went to New York City, where she began to write several years later. She published her first novel, Quicksand, in 1928. As an author of the "New Negro" period, Larsen wrote for an audience that expected her to conform. Many leaders of the race believed that black literature should combat white stereotypes. In the "New Negro," Alain Locke argued that African-American literature should promote race pride. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote a review of Quicksand for "The Crisis" in which he compared the novel to Claude McKay's Home to Harlem. He applauds Larsen for a "fine, thoughtful and courageous piece of work," but criticizes McKay for his emphasis on sex. DuBois describes the book as nauseating and says that it made him "feel distinctly like taking a bath." Du Bois enters the debate on sexuality and uplift in his review. He condemns Home to Harlem for playing into "that prurient demand on the part of white folk" and praises Quicksand for portraying "honest, young fighting Negro women." He thus promotes the idea that blacks should suppress their sexuality to combat white stereotypes of their promiscuity. Du Bois shows that the black elite preferred to address sexuality indirectly or not all.

Despite her conservative audience, Larsen criticized the goals of uplift and dealt seriously with female sexuality. Social expectations constrained her, but she asserted that black sexuality could not be ignored. Deborah E. McDowell, in the introduction to Quicksand, writes, "Larsen wanted to tell a story of the black woman with sexual desires, but was constrained by a competing desire to establish black women as respectable in black middle class terms." McDowell adds that because of the second consideration, Larsen could only deal with sex "obliquely." Larsen used Helga to express her thoughts on uplift and sexuality. She based the fictional Naxos on Tuskegee and had the same criticisms as Helga does of its social rules. Helga finds the social environment of Naxos oppressive and rigid. She believes that, although it was founded with good intentions, Naxos has turned into a machine. Helga claims that "it was... now only a big knife with cruel sharp edges ruthlessly cutting all to a pattern, the white man's pattern." Naxos teaches its students to give up their individuality, and associated sexuality, in favor of a respectable image. Larsen shows that even the smallest expressions of sexuality could not exist in this environment. The female faculty wears dull-colored clothing and becomes uncomfortable when Helga puts on "dark purples, royal blues, rich greens, [and] deep reds." Unwilling to accept social convention, Helga leaves Naxos when Dr. Anderson calls her a "lady," a loaded term in her mind. For Helga, it means giving up her individuality and being untrue to herself.

Although Helga defies social convention by leaving Naxos, she retains a preoccupation with "ladylike" behavior. In a situation reminiscent of the Harlem cabaret, Helga watches a Copenhagen vaudeville show in which two American blacks perform. Their "loose" movements embarrass and repulse Helga, who attends the show with her white friends. "She felt ashamed, betrayed, as if these pale pink and white people among whom she lived had suddenly been invited to look upon something in her which she had hidden away and wanted to forget," Larsen writes. The thing that "she had hidden away" is her sexuality. Helga wants to challenge the white stereotype of primitive, lascivious blacks, but she also wants to express her own sexuality. She shows that the politics of respectability prevented black women from releasing their sexual tensions. Instead, it bottled up their physical desires and allowed them to reach a near-boiling point. Higginbotham demonstrates that African-American women in the early twentieth century felt social obligations similar to Helga's. "Respectability, too, offered the black Baptist women a perceived defense of their sexual identities," she claims. Just as the white audience put Helga in a defensive position, black women fought a society that placed them in a negative role. The Woman's Convention, Auxiliary to the National Baptist Convention, argued that the black woman "must become a tower of moral strength and by her reserve and dignified bearing, defy and cower her aggressors."

Although the black elite wanted to fight stereotypes, they often accepted them unwittingly. The politics of respectability assumed that blacks gave white people reasons to treat them unequally. Higginbotham argues that "the politics of respectability equated nonconformity with the cause of racial inequality and injustice." In this way, uplift made discrimination about supposedly improving black morals rather than combating white bias. Gaines claims that the emphasis on family life also shifted the blame for sexual misconceptions to black women. "Such emphasis on family life as a racial panacea often treated the problem as a failure of blacks to conform to Victorian sexual mores, instead of an outgrowth of ongoing, systematic repression," Gaines writes. Inspired by the black elite, this self-reproach contributed to a confused racial identity. Helga fluctuates between looking down on blacks and feeling connected to them. "She didn't, in spite of her racial markings, belong to these dark segregated people," Helga claims. "She was different. She felt it. It wasn't merely a matter of color." Helga goes to Copenhagen to escape her race, but finds that color is important there, too. Her Danish relatives support the stereotype of the exotic black female and make Helga into a sex object. Her aunt and uncle put her in bright revealing clothes and exhibit her to their friends. Unwilling to accept this new role, Helga returns to Harlem and yearns to be apart of her race again. "How absurd she had been to think that another country, other people could liberate her from the ties which bound her forever to...these lovable, dark hordes," Helga muses when she returns to Harlem. The inability to define her own sexuality causes Helga's vacillation between the races. In Harlem, she must repress her physical desires to be respectable. In Copenhagen, her relatives transform her into an object of lust.

When Helga returns to Harlem, she begins to express her sexuality, but in bizarre and misguided ways. Soaked and looking for shelter, Helga finds refuge in a church and has an experience that is both religious conversion and sexual liberation. Larsen blurs the lines between religious fervor and passion in this intense scene. She writes, "as Helga watched and listened gradually a curious influence penetrated her; she felt an echo of the weird orgy resound in her own heart." After releasing her sexual frustration at the church, Helga seduces a preacher who helps her home. But her decision has far-reaching consequences. She enters a loveless marriage and becomes pregnant five times. Larsen equates motherhood with a slow death as each child increases Helga's suffering. All hopes for her happiness end when she has her first child. "She had ruined her life. Made it impossible to do the things that she wanted, have the things that she loved, mingle with the people she liked," Larsen claims. Thus, Larsen argues that black women had to sacrifice their dreams to satisfy their physical desires. She criticizes the politics of respectability for offering either a non-sexual existence or domestic servitude. McDowell argues that "Larsen castigates the dual price- marriage and pregnancy/childbearing- that women must pay for sexual expression." By ending Quicksand with Helga pregnant once again, Larsen attacks social convention for the burdens that it placed on black women.

Helga's mixed background further complicates her search for sexual satisfaction and happiness. She is unsure of where she belongs and how the politics of respectability affect her. When she leaves Copenhagen, Helga laments not feeling a part of either race. "Why couldn't she have two lives, or why couldn't she be satisfied in one place?" she thinks. At times, she wants to escape other black people and to forget the ties to her race. But when she travels to Copenhagen, she realizes that her white relatives treat her as only an exotic curiosity. Helga's confusion is similar to what Du Bois refers to as double-consciousness. Du Bois argues that white perceptions of black people influenced how blacks saw themselves. Du Bois writes, "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself in the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity." Because Helga is a person of mixed background, the feeling of double-consciousness becomes pronounced. When Helga describes the Harlem nightclub as a jungle, she looks at the scene through white eyes. She accepts the stereotype of the savage black and stops herself from enjoying the dancing. Larsen writes, "She cloaked herself in a faint disgust as she watched the entertainers throw themselves about to the bursts of syncopated jungle." Larsen shows the power of white stereotypes in black life. Helga lives with the fear of being watched and analyzed. Even when she is free to enjoy herself, white ideas still influence her behavior.

Larsen not only deals with double-consciousness, but also grapples with what it means to be black. She examines whether being black can be a choice in Quicksand and her other novel Passing. Helga moves between black and white communities to find where she belongs. She attempts to move in with her uncle in Chicago, but the thought of having a black person in the family terrifies his wife. Rejected and desperate for work, she goes to Harlem, where she stays with Anne. But she grows tired of talking with Anne about the "Negro problem." Helga believes that discussion of the Negro problem only emphasizes black oppression. "She wanted to be free from this constant prattling of the incongruities, the injustices, the stupidities, the viciousness of white people. It stirred memories, probed hidden wounds, whose poignant ache bred in her a surprising oppression," Larsen claims. Unable to accept her inferior position in America, Helga leaves for Copenhagen to embrace her white relatives. Although her Danish relatives treat her nicely, they do not regard her as equal. "True she was attractive, unusual, in an exotic, almost savage way, but she wasn't one of them. She didn't at all count," Helga thinks at her relatives' dinner party. Helga wants to return to Harlem when she realizes that she is different from her white friends. Because Helga needs to associate with black people, Larsen suggests that blackness is innate even for people of mixed backgrounds. Helga's separation from her race is impossible.

Similarly, Larsen's connection to the black middle class affected her work. Because Larsen was a part of this class, she could not criticize the politics of respectability freely. McDowell argues that "however much Larsen criticizes the repressive standards of sexual morality upheld by the black middle class, finally she cannot escape those values." Although Larsen attacks the morals of racial uplift, she deals with sexuality within its framework. Larsen makes marriage and pregnancy the inevitable consequences of expressing physical desire. She writes after Helga sleeps with Reverend Green, "And so in the confusion of seductive repentance Helga Crane was married to the grandiloquent Reverend Mr. Pleasant Green." Helga's "repentance" suggests that she must atone for fornicating with Reverend Green. She never accepts Christianity in her heart, but uses it to cloak her guilt. The marriage also has inappropriate motives. Helga feels that she must marry Green because Christianity demands it. She neglects her husband and despises both motherhood and marriage. "For the preacher, her husband, she had a feeling of gratitude, almost amounting to sin. Beyond that, she thought of him not at all," Larsen writes. By ending with Helga unhappy and pregnant again, Quicksand suggests that no appropriate place for black sexuality exists. Larsen implies that escaping society's morals was impossible. Helga challenges them but succumbs to their consequences in the end.

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The repression of black sexuality still occurs today. Cornel West argues that it is still a taboo in his book Race Matters. He regrets that black families, churches, and schools have ignored black sexuality. West believes that these organizations have neglected black sexuality to gain the acceptance of white America. West writes, "struggling black institutions made a Faustian pact with white America: avoid any substantive engagement with black sexuality and your survival on the margins of American society is, at least, possible." This "Faustian pact" has caused many black women to treat their physical desires with apprehension and disgust. Helga feels the psychological damage that the politics of respectability inflict. She searches for sexual fulfillment throughout the novel, and when she finds it, social expectations suffocate her. The title "Quicksand" alludes to the hopelessness of Helga's search for happiness. The more she struggles, the faster she sinks. Ironically, the politics of respectability could neither inhibit white stereotypes of black sexuality nor improve race relations. More than seventy years after Larsen published Quicksand, West discusses the same assumptions that whites have of black sexuality. Because stereotypes are not always based on truth, the public-image campaign, promoted by black elites, could only achieve so much. Uplift also increased racial misunderstanding. The politics of respectability put black sexuality under the rug, but, by leaving it unaddressed, fostered contradictory images of black women. They were either sex-crazed or sexless. In this way, the politics of respectability obscured the fact that sexual desire is natural and failed to engage in a realistic dialogue.

All children grow and develop their language in similar patterns, but each child develops at his or her own pace. There's no "one-size-fits-all" doctrine for the right age on when a child should be able to utter his/her first words. In fact, according to US National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), the first 3 years of life, when the brain is developing and maturing, is the most intensive period for acquiring speech and language skills. These skills develop best in a world that is rich with sounds, sights, and consistent exposure to the speech and language of others (cite). However, this case does not happen all the time hence, the emergence of language disorder.

Children suffering from language disorder have trouble understanding what others say (receptive language) and has a hard time sharing their thoughts (expressive language). Rowe (2013) stated that language impairment affects both oral and written language. The problem becomes more identifiable when the child is expected to make the shift from contextualized language to the greater demands of decontextualized language. Contextualized language is children learning about items in a kitchen by helping mom dry the dishes. The child is asked by the mother to name the items that he/she puts away in the cupboards. Language learning takes place in a contextual environment. In contrast that with decontextualized language, which is the language of the classroom. For example, a teacher may ask, 'What is the capital city of France?' A child may not know the answer to the question because it could be new information so may need to look up the answer in a book or on the internet. Children with language disorder struggle mightily with decontextualized language.

They are at a big disadvantage as soon as they step into the classroom, from prep onwards. The problem increases as the child moves through the grades as, from early years to the later primary school years. Decontextualized language becomes more common and established, and children are expected to cope with its demands. As an educator, I have handled children with different disabilities and one of which is language disorder. These kids appear to be normal. They actively engage in physical activities and joyously participate in classroom discussion however; you’ll only know that these kids aren’t normal, as they appear to be, after a personal interaction has been established. That is why this paper aims to improve the current system of managing language disorder among pre-school learners for me to be able to help my students as well.

A defining characteristic of language disorder is that it exists in the absence of intellectual disability. The child has normal intelligence, but difficulty with language. From prep (year 1) onwards the whole academic learning event becomes a series of negative experiences for children with language difficulty. Increasingly, they consider themselves 'dumb' and even lose the motivation to do well at school. Kaderavek, J.N. (2011) Some statistics shows that 3.3% of U.S. children ages 3-17 have a language disorder that lasted for a week or longer during the past 12 months. (Hyattsville 2015) Research suggests that the first 6 months of life are the most crucial to a child’s development of language skills. For a person to become fully competent in any language, exposure must begin as early as possible, preferably before school age. Cognition (2009).

A variety of congenital and acquired conditions may result in abnormal speech and/or language development. These conditions include primary disorders of hearing, as well as specific genetic diseases, brain malformation syndromes, inborn errors of metabolism, toxic exposures, nutritional deficiencies, injuries, and epilepsy. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing provide an especially clear example of the interrelationships among the many causes and consequences of speech and language disorders in childhood Fitzpatrick (2015). Because adequate hearing is critically important for developing and using receptive language, expressive language, and speech, being deaf or hard of hearing can lead to speech and language disorders, which in turn contribute to socio emotional and academic disabilities. This is particularly the case when the onset of hearing problems is either congenital or acquired during the first several years of life. Brumbach and Goffman (2014) stated that Speech and language disorders can accompany or result from any of the conditions that interfere with the development of perceptual, motor, cognitive, or socio emotional function.

Accordingly, conditions as varied as Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injury, and being deaf or hard of hearing are known to increase the potential for childhood speech and/or language disorders, and many children with such conditions will also have speech and language disorders. In addition, studies of children with primary speech and language disorders often reveal that they have abnormalities in other areas of development. Glynn et al., (2011) claims that apart from being deaf or hard of hearing, there are a diverse set of conditions that should be considered as other potential causes of speech and language disorders. As is the case with hearing, abnormal development of anatomic structures critical to the proper generation of speech may lead to speech sound disorders or voice disorders. For example, articulation and phonological disorders may result from cleft palate. Studies of speech and language disorders in children, such as speech sound disorders Lewis et al., (2007) and specific language impairment Barry et al., (2007) Bishop (2006); Bishop and Hayiou-Thomas, 2008; Rice, (2012) show that these conditions are familial (i.e., risk for these disorders is elevated for family members of affected individuals) and that this familiality is partially heritable (i.e., genetic factors shared among biological family members contribute to family aggregation). However, heritability estimates (i.e., the proportion of phenotypic variance that can be attributed to genetic variance) for some speech and language disorders, such as specific language impairment, have been inconsistent Bishop and Hayiou-Thomas, (2008).

It is important to determine the type and severity of the language disorder before a decision about type and intensity of treatment is made. The most targeted treatment for children with language disorders is speech and language therapy. This is usually carried out by a licensed speech/language pathologist (SLP) with special training in the treatment of children. The access of special education services through the public school may be considered. Additionally, occupational therapy – if there are problems with feeding or excessive drooling or poor coordination of the muscles of the mouth and tongue – may be helpful. In certain types of DLDs, particularly severe verbal dyspraxia, training in alternative forms of communication, such as sign language or the use of an electronic communication device, is useful in allowing the child to communicate effectively. If a problem with auditory processing is identified, computer programs designed to improve auditory processing may be considered. The child with DLD may benefit from classroom accommodations to facilitate learning. Accommodations to consider include extra attention in the classroom to ensure they have understood the lessons and the homework assignments, repeated instructions, availability of assignments online or in written form. Tomblin, J. B , Bean, A., & McGregor, K., (2011)

As observed in this research, preschool learners with any sort of speech or language disorder have a risk of being in a disadvantage in school and in life in general. For example, people with dyslexia have a terrible problem in their life because their brains process letters differently than we do. For them it is easy to confuse letters like “m” with the letter “w,” so they may have a problem with spelling. Scientifically studied and proven, children can inherit speech and or language disorders from their genetics and or several factors during prenatal days. As believed language disorders can be treated through educational practices. However, if the educators do not change their ways and strategies of teaching how children with disorders will learn and excel?

There is a need to study these issues regarding on preschool learners with language disorders because they are technically the new generation. They may be the generation to change it all and start something great and brand new. High, P. (2008) claims that language delay during the preschool years is likely to have long-term consequences for the education, health and wellbeing of individuals and potentially the prosperity and cohesion of our society. On the other hand more study is needed, especially to help the educators to guide and teach the preschoolers properly on how they can develop or improve their expressive and receptive language. I believe there are more strategies and different ways in a classroom to be discovered on how to help them.

The Hanen Centre (2016) stated that an enormous amount of learning can take place when children are involved in daily routines such as bathing, feeding, diaper changing and riding in a car – things that parents do with their children every day. These daily events are so important because they provide opportunities for repetitive learning in a natural, enjoyable yet structured way. According to Piasta & Wagner, 2010). A meta-analysis of 161 studies of early education interventions categorized programs by their “primary instructional grouping” (whole group, small group, individual instruction, or mixed) and their “primary pedagogical approach” (direct [teacher-led] instruction, inquiry based [hands-on, student directed] instruction, or mixed). When programs utilizing a variety of curricula were categorized in these ways, the analysis revealed that use of a direct instruction approach was associated with more impacts on children’s cognitive development, as was the use of smaller or individualized instruction However, Camilli, Vargas, Ryan, & Barnett, (2010) claims that the importance of specific formats for instruction and activities to promote learning in the early education setting, do not indicate what might be appropriate amounts of time for children to spend in small groups or in teacher-directed versus child-initiated activity settings. In another study, Powell, Burchinal, File, and Kontos (2008) found that, within the context of academic activities, children were more likely to be actively engaged during involvement with a peer group and when teachers provided monitoring and verbal affirmations. In contrast, active engagement during academic activities was least likely when children were involved in a whole group setting and when teachers gave direct verbal instructions. Early et al. (2010) and Chien et al. (2010) suggest that more time in free play and less time in whole group activity settings is associated with higher scores on measures of process quality. However, complicating the picture is the finding by Chien and colleagues (2010) that children who spend the most time in free-choice activities exhibit smaller gains on a wide range of school readiness skills. Other recent studies examining time use in early learning settings by incorporating a more diverse set of early learning program types, and by considering patterns of time in activity settings separately from other observed classroom experiences (Chien et al., 2010; Howes et al., 2008). However, Mashburn et al.(2008) found in a large study of public pre-kindergarten programs that general structural measures of quality and global environmental quality did not predict children’s school readiness outcomes, but that the important features of pre-kindergarten classrooms for children’s learning were Class as Emotional and Instructional Support scores. The data shows that daily routine profiles identified are associated with a small number of program characteristics; it shows also the measure something different from general measures of program quality.

Research tends to focus on the outcome of classroom program routines for preschool children with language disorder rather than measuring the effectiveness of classroom setting for the development of preschoolers with language disorder. The information gathered perhaps applicable for informing critical or intentional teaching practice. Results of this study might push early childhood educators to reflect on the extent to which the daily routines that they implement in their classrooms support children’s opportunity for education, and to be more intentional to their allocation of preschoolers’ time to various activity settings and activities. It also helps the educators to improve their way of teaching in preschool learners with language disorder using classroom routines.

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In spite of these early observations, the use of classroom routines in developing preschoolers with language disorder can be modified according to the daily activities most likely using patterns such as reading and writing, playing, using computers that say words loud, using simple gestures and naming the object. The speech and language pathologist (SPL) suggested that the mentioned earlier are the interventions use to help preschoolers with their disabilities. In addition, SPL and preschool teachers should work together to monitor the progress of a children. Many recent studies focus on improving the language of children using classroom routines However, it is not clear whether the use of classroom activities can be amend to improve the expressive and receptive language disorder of a preschoolers. AFASIC claims that it can be hard for educators to identify the language disorder of young children when a child may present with elements of both delay and disorder. There should be more research on how to develop the receptive and expressive language of preschool learners not just to help them but also to make them feel better about their selves.

Table of contents

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
Ii. Fcm (Fuzzy C Mean) Segmentation
3. Iii. Dwt (Discrete Wavelet Transform)
Iv. Median Filter
4. V. Svm (Support Vector Machine) Classifier
VI. Proposed AlgorithmVii. Simulation Results
5. Viii. Conclusion

Abstract

brain tumor can be detected by using computer based image processing algorithm. MRI scan has been done to find the brain tumor. MRI images are not enough to thoroughly diagnose the tumor. Fuzzy c mean algorithm is very popular image segmentation. Fuzzy c mean algorithm output also contains some unwanted part. In our proposed work, these unwanted parts can be removed by using median filter. In the proposed work, DWT with SVM are used to identify the types of tumor, whether it is Benign and Malignant type. Filtered image by median filter also helps in better detection by SVM classifier.

Keywords

FCM (Fuzzy C Mean), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform), SVM (Support Vector Machines), image segmentation, Grayscale image, MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging), computerized tomography (CT) scan, image pre-processing, image filtering.

Introduction

Brain tumor can be detected by various brain scanning techniques. CT scan provides the detailed picture of brain and MRI test where the computer is linked with a strong magnetic field which provides the clear 2D picture of brain. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) discards radiation unlike CT scan [2,4]. The MRI image gives the complete view of the brain and a proper inspection has to be done by an expert to find the tumor which makes the process slower and costlier. To solve this, computer based segmentation algorithms has been created. These algorithms provide the tumor as the output image. The most popularly used segmentation is FCM (Fuzzy C Mean) segmentation algorithm. FCM algorithm provides accurate results for data set which is overlapped and it is much efficient than k-means algorithm [1].

Brain tumors can be classified as Benign and Malignant. A benign tumor is one that does not grow abruptly. It never affects its neighboring tissues and not at all expands to other parts. Malignant tumor is one which worsens with the passing time and ultimately proves to be fatal. We can say malignancy is a tumor in descriptive or advance stage from where it is quite impossible to return back [4]. To extract features out of MRI brain image, Wavelet transform is effective since it allows image analysis at different levels of motion suitable to its multi-resolution diagnostic property [1]. In order to differentiate type of brain tumor, an SVM (Support Vector Machines) classifier is popularly used. SVM model represents points in space which are mapped so that the examples of separate categories are divided by clear gap that is as broad as possible.

In our proposed work, FCM algorithm is used for segmentation of the brain MRI image. The segmented image is further enhanced by using median filter. Here median filter removes the unwanted segmented part by considering them as a noise. The segmentation output is then fed to DWT and SVM classifier to correctly identify the type of tumor.

Ii. Fcm (Fuzzy C Mean) Segmentation

Fuzzy c-mean can be called as a sub optimum segmentation method that surrenders global optimality for enhanced statistical performance and adaptability from the segmentation process. Computational valuation on FCM is determined by the amount of image points that need to be highly processed every iteration [5].

FCM is a technique of clustering which allow one piece of information which belongs to two or more clusters [6]. The main aspect of this algorithm works by assigning membership values to each data point consequent to each cluster center on the basis of distances between the cluster and the data point, Higher the membership value then more the data near to the cluster center. Clearly, summation of membership of each data point should be equal to one [10].

FCM algorithm is a method of iterative clustering that produces an optimal c partition by minimizing weight within group sum of the squared error objective function (JFCM) [8].

(1)

Where,

X = {x1, x2 , ..., xn} ? R,

n = number of data items,

c = number of clusters with 2 ? c < n,

uik = degree of membership of xk in the ith cluster,

q = weighting exponent on each fuzzy membership,

vi = prototype of the centre of cluster i,

d2(xk,vi) is a distance measure between object xk and cluster centre vi.

A solution of object function (JFCM) can be calculated by a iterative process, which is as follows:

• • First set the values for q, c, & e,
  • Second, fuzzy partition matrix need to be initialized,
  • Third, need to set the loop counter such that b = 0,
  • Calculate c cluster centers {vi(b)} with U(b)

(2)

• Calculate the membership U(b+1), For k = 1 to n, calculate the following:

Ik={i|1<=i<=c

dik=||xk-vi||=0},

~Ik={1,2,……c}-Ik, for the kth column of the matrix, compute new membership values, and if Ik=Ø , then

(3)

else uik(b+1) = 0 for all i?~Ik and ?i?Ik uik(b+1) =1, next k [9],

if ||Ub-U(b+1)|| < ? , stop; otherwise set b=b+1 and go to step 4.

For the medical images segmentation, suitable clustering type is fuzzy based clustering. Fuzzy c-means (FCM) can be considered as the fuzzified version of the k-means algorithm. It is a kind of clustering algorithm which enables data item to have a degree of belonging to each and every cluster by degree of membership [6].

Iii. Dwt (Discrete Wavelet Transform)

The wavelet gives idea of different frequencies of an image using different scales. DWT provides wavelet coefficient out of brain MR images. Two dimensional DWT gives four sub-bands, that are LL(low–low), HL(high–low),LH(low– high), HH(high–high) with the two-level wavelet decomposition of Region of Interest (ROI). The wavelets approximations at ?rst and second level are represented by LL1, LL2, respectively; which is representing the low-frequency part. The high-frequency part of the images are represented by LH1, HL1, HH1, LH2, HL2 and HH2 which gives the details of horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions at ?rst and second level, respectively as shown in the fig. 1 below [2].

Iv. Median Filter

Median filter is very popular in image filtering. It behaves like low pass filter which blocks all high frequency component of the images like noise and edges, thus blurs the image [11]. For the filtering of high density corrupted image need large window size so that the sufficient number of noise free pixels will present in the window. So the size of the sliding window in the median filter is varying according to the noise density. The window size 3×3, 5×5, 7×7, and 9×9 median filter are mainly applicable. Output of the median filter is given by

y(i,j)=median{x(i-s,j-t),x(i,j)/(s,t)?W,(s,t)?(0,0)} (4)

where {x} is the noisy image and y(i,j) is the recovered image with preserve edges.

V. Svm (Support Vector Machine) Classifier

SVM classifier is applied in our work to determine the type of tumor, whether it is benign and malign tumors. It is very effective learning method used in classification problems. SVM uses kernel functions in separating classes with large data. SVM provides better results in applications with less data with bigger dimensionality [7]. SVM is a popular discriminative classifier which is formally defined by a separating hyperplane. It can also be defined as a given labeled training data that is supervised learning, this algorithm outputs an optimal hyperplane which discriminate new examples. In the 2D space, this hyperplane is a line which is dividing a plane in two different parts where each class has taken space in either side.

VI. Proposed Algorithm

The flowchart of proposed algorithm is shown in fig.3. the process starts with reading the image into MATLAB. After that FCM algorithm is applied for segmentation of the image. The segmentation output still contains some unwanted part as a noise therefore median filter is applied to remove them. Then DWT followed by SVM classifier is applied to identify the type of brain tumor.

Vii. Simulation Results

Table 1: Simulation results of previous work and proposed work with classifier output

S.No. Original image Previous work Proposed work Classifier output

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Viii. Conclusion

Brain tumor can be detected and classified by using image processing algorithms. FCM is very effective algorithm for segmentation of image. But still the output of FCM contains unwanted parts therefore median filter is introduced in our work to filter out unwanted part. Then in our proposed DWT and SVM is used to identify the type of brain tumor. The segmentation output of proposed work is better than previous work as shown in results. Proposed algorithm is better in terms of both quality as well helps in providing better segmented image to classifier for better classification.

What are the methods of teaching?

What are the Teachers’ perceptions on poor academic performance?

What are the Students’ perceptions on their environment and poor academic performance?

Methods that could be used to carry out this research:

Sampling method : Teachers and students will be taken from different primary school for interviews.

By data collection: A review of existing literature and analysis of available information of students’ environment, and attitudes towards classrooms activities, methods of teaching.

Analysis: by identifying the key themes in the data collection and using it to address the questions and develop the hypothesis to be tested by further thematic analysis.

Identifying Potential Policy Responses: The review of relevant policy approaches, and identifying how these issues can be identified.

By addressing the potentials for policy in supporting the issues for the childrens’ poor academic performance.

Criticisms

It is generally accepted that a child’s achievement in school will be determined by the factors both inside and outside the school environment. The big question is what can be done to improve the academic performance of children. So many issues are raised, instances are

Environment: it is an important issue to address when it involves poor academic performance. The majority schools in the urban areas of Lagos state suffer from poor environments for the reason that the Government do not look into issues like this. Technology has a great impact in enriching the environment. Provided classrooms are equipped with projectors and computer systems, the children would be able to have individual ways of learning and finding out facts for themselves just like the constructivists classroom. John Dewey advocated constructivism, Maria Montessori based her educational model on constructivism so as Joseph Bruner. Constructivism proposes that learning environments should support multiple perspectives or interpretations of reality, knowledge construction. Matuserich (1995).With all this listed children would be active learners, with also an active peer support group through interaction.

Classroom Management: The population of students in classroom is another factor that affects the performance of children. When there are so many children in class, the educator finds it difficult to reach out to all of them. Classrooms are effective with few children for there to be interaction among children and even with the teacher.

Marzano et al (2003) Effective teaching cannot take place in a poorly managed classroom if the students are uncontrollable and ill-mannered. Research tells us that the teacher is the most important factor that affects the students’ performance.

Emotional and social challenges: Some children are faced with social and emotional problems .Teachers need to get close to each student and make sure they are well taken care. Teachers are also meant to give the students that are slow learners more time in their work. Since not all children learn the same way. Educators can help to make students succeed if they are faced with the problems of health and safety, stress and discomfort. Jensen (2010).

Teachers Interaction with Students: Improving student relationships with teachers has important, positive and long lasting implications for students and academic social development. Instances when students and teachers interact often boost the performance of the student for the reason that the student would be able to talk about areas they find difficult in their studies. The teacher and student is also able to achieve higher level of achievement with more interaction. Kaufman (2012).

Government should look into schools with bad environment and ensure that classrooms are well equipped with facilities to boost the academic performance of the students. To ensure that there are well equipped computers in the classrooms for the children to have effective learning. They should also make sure that the teachers have got enough materials for teaching. Akiri and Uborugbo (2009).Providing books for the children and also encouraging the children to read often even with the assistance of their parents at home. Nevertheless Government should help those from poor homes by having a school clinic whereby children are provided with vitamins daily which boosts their immune system. However Howard (2012) states the importance of giving vitamins to children in school.

As business grows, it is certainly important to consider the quality and efficiency of a product. Project Management plays key role to improve the quality deliverables. Many organizations consider project Management as risky and scary and end up in using different tools. But, Project Management provides various principles to make each and every step of a project goes smooth and clear. Thus it helps to increase in sales and overall progress of a company. Some of the factors need to be considered to improve overall efficiency of product outputs are

Even though many factors affect the final outcomes and quality of the product. Project Estimation plays key role. As, it is required to know the details of budget, resource, capability and time line ahead. Project estimation gives a consistent process of estimating project expenses and resource levels. Project Manager needs to initiate in process of Project Estimation as he is the one who conducts meeting with all stakeholders and provides detailed objective of Project and estimation. It helps to the customer to have better view and outline of project. A very simple Project Estimation provides the overall view of resource capability and its impact on budget. It also helps in standardizing the sales. Thus it results in overall productivity, client satisfaction and capable of delivering agreed projects on time.

Resource number and capability is key to project success which eventually increase the sales and improve the business efficiency. Gaining the knowledge on resource capability helps in analyzing the impact of delivering projects in real time. It also increase the overall productivity, meets the Service Level Agreement with the customers and reduce the costs. It is important to know and list down the each resource skills and strong areas to assign the modules of work. This is definitely helps in the delivering the quality products on time. And importantly this idea of knowing resource capability helps in estimation of next upcoming projects.

It is essential to prioritize the right projects for every organization irrespective of size, shape and focus of company. It helps in optimization of work and assessing the importance of deliveries, Analyze the deadline, cost of resource and budget. It is required process for any organization to grow their business and keep up in the market. It is best to use scarcest resource to deliver the efficient products. Project Prioritization and selection also gives detailed assessment of Return of Investment with expenditure of project demands and potential risks.

It is proven truth that working in team and deliver the products are more efficient and also meets all the customer requirements within time. However many organizations don’t follow this and ignore the team work which leads to lot of effort to individual who are exclusively works to deliver the project. It is always good idea to collaborate with the team and share the knowledge and deliver the work effectively. In order to follow best practices and get the best output, it is always important to discuss with the team and work. There are also project collaboration software available with which we can use as ideal platform to project members to share the views and practices throughout the Project Management process. With these each individual in team contributes their work as a common goal to deliver the work effectively which will quickly benefit from Collaborative problem solving, greater innovation and efficiency. It also helps avoiding the cost due to absence of resources.

In order to guarantee the deliver the project successfully, it is essential to plan the project ahead. A period of planning is mandatory before commencing the project. It provides easy and simple process to help the business run effectively. It is required to plan and define the tasks, roles and responsibilities and deliverables used for the project. And the important point to be considered in planning is that the plan should be clear and consistent. Clear understandable plan helps in transitions of each stage when project moves. It helps avoiding the interruptions in the middle of the project which leads to failure. It also helps in avoiding the potential risks, over the budget and overdue projects. Maintaining the clear and consistent plan also helps in risk reducing and provides exact timelines and decision making points which will lead to deliver the work effectively on time.

Prosthetics is the branch of surgery that “involves the use of artificial limbs to enhance the function and lifestyle ofpersons with limb loss” (“What Is Prosthetics”). These artificial limbs are called prostheses (singular: prosthesis). Many people include devices that replace parts of the body that are not limbs, such as glass eyes or pacemakers, in the definition of a prosthesis. This paper, however, will focus only on the replacement of limbs.

A prosthetic can be controlled in one of two ways: body-powered or electric. A body-powered limb is one that is totally manual, usually “[relying] on a system of cables or harnesses (along with manual controls, in many cases) to control the limb itself” (“Electric vs. Body-Powered”). Body-powered prosthesis are generally more affordable and reliable than electric ones. An electric limb, sometimes called myoelectric (myo meaning muscle), “[works] by using your existing muscles in [the] residual limb to control the functions of the prosthetic device itself” (“Electric vs. Body-Powered”). This results in more natural movements and finer motor control in the limb.

In the past, prostheses were bare-minimum substitutes for a missing limb, such as a metal rod that is connected to the remaining leg by a harness. Slowly, sticks and harnesses turned into elaborate designs that imitate the real limb. Functionality was added so that the amputee can grab objects or bend their knee with the help of manual controls and cables. Later, we developed artificial limbs that connect to the muscles in the remaining limb that control the limb electronically. Today, we have prostheses that can be roughly controlled using signals from the brain. These vast improvements are promising when you imagine the ultimate goal of prosthetics: to create artificial limbs that function exactly as well and as easily as a real limb. Current Efforts and the MediaÖssur, an Icelandic company that develops prostheses, seems to be at the forefront of research on AI-controlled prostheses. Their most notable design, the Rheo Knee 3, is claimed to learn a user’s gait in under 15 seconds. After minimal training and practice, it can climb stairs naturally and reliably.

The Rheo Knee 3 is said to learn continuously, which means it can adapt to new situations and environments without needing to be explicitly trained for it (Viejo). The idea of a continuously learning prosthesis is discussed thoroughly in a TED Talk by Dr. Patrick Pilarski, who is the Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence for Rehabilitation at the University of Alberta and is the lead of the Amii Adaptive Prosthetics Program, which is centered around creating intelligent prostheses. In his talk, he stresses the significance of continuously learning prostheses, giving the example of somebody taking up cooking as a hobby. He explains that a continuously learning prosthetic arm will learn the new motions of chopping and stirring, making it easier for the user to cook. If the prosthesis was only given things to learn during its initial training, it would not be able to remember the chopping and stirring motions, leaving the control completely to the user (Pilarski).

In the media, there is confusion surrounding prostheses and the science behind the progress of artificially intelligent prostheses. Many of the errors are attributed to using buzzwords like “bionic”, “AI”, and “smart”. In general, many articles will use the word bionic to describe any prosthesis that is both electric and controlled by the brain, and they use it interchangeably with words like “cybernetic” and “smart”. While those terms and concept overlap with bionics, the articles do not use the word accurately.

To clarify, bionics is the study and practice of creating artificial systems that closely mimic the functions and abilities of the living things they are designed to replace. The field of bionics emcompasses much more than just prosthetics, since the goal is to observe and imitate the most efficient natural processes and functions (“Bionics”). In prosthetics, bionics can be used to simulate natural hand movement in bionic hands. Cybernetics, while similar, deals with the control systems in place in living creatures. In prosthetics, cybernetics can increase the functionality of a hand that is connected to nerves and muscles (“Cybernetics”). By using the communication and control systems already in place in humans, we can begin to create limbs with infinitely many motions, rather than simple pre-programmed motions, such as grabbing. Another common misunderstanding was surrounding the actual implementation of AI.

Even in scholarly articles, it can be difficult to find information on AI in prostheses since it is often not explicitly stated that machine learning is being used to train the prosthesis. In several cases, popular tech news sites would describe the prosthesis as “smart”, which ended up not being a good indicator for the use of AI. Some news sites even seemed to think that AI was being used even if the prosthesis was controlled only by brain impulses or muscle movement, without the prosthesis learning or adapting in any way. Natural Motion, Reliable Action Predictions, and MoreIn an ideal world, prosthetic limbs would function just as well, if not better than, healthy limbs. The goal of creating artificial limbs that rival real limbs is, while not impossible, very difficult to achieve. There are several important areas that would benefit from improvement, including natural motion, more accurate predictions, and cost.

Natural Motion. Natural motion is difficult to master. To give some perspective, an able-bodied person has the benefit of their body and brain working in harmony to produce smooth and natural movements; however, this still takes years of practice and fine-tuning. Even after “perfecting” natural motion, the human body is continually improving and adapting to new situations. On the other hand, a person with a prosthetic arm, for example, does not have all of the benefits of having their limb controlled by their brain. While some prostheses respond to electrical impulses from the brain, the variety of motion is often limited to a set of predetermined actions, such as grabbing or pinching. In addition to this, the user has not had their entire life up to that point to practice with that particular prosthesis.

Machine learning algorithms are greatly reducing the time it takes to learn how to properly use a new prosthesis by having the user train it to know their individual gait, walking speed, environment, and so on. A prosthesis that uses AI to learn the behavior of its user can greatly improve the quality of life of an amputee by making it easier to perform day-to-day tasks, such as turning door knobs or climbing stairs. Predicting Movements. Learning about how the user moves is essential to predicting their next movements. Proper predictions are important because if the prediction is wrong, it could cause the user harm. For example, if a prosthetic leg wrongly predicts that it is about to walk up stairs and begins lifting the leg higher, this can cause the user to lose balance and fall unexpectedly. Since the user relies on the prosthesis to perform the correct action, the risk of a wrong prediction needs to be low.

A lot of effort is going into the research (Zhang) on which types of faulty predictions are safer and more convenient to make versus which can cause serious injury or a major inconvenience. In general, the research shows that for a prosthetic leg, any mistake made while the foot is in the air is usually safe and minorly inconvenient at most, while a mistake made while the leg is bearing a load (the weight of the body) is often dangerous or majorly inconvenient. Less Effort. With AI predictions and electric limbs, amputees will use less effort while performing simple or repetitive tasks. Rather than having to swing a body-powered prosthetic to walk, the leg will “walk itself” by applying force to the ground and bend at the knee. This greatly reduces the strain on the amputated limb and allows the user to focus on things other than balancing while they walk. Better Balance. Balancing on a prosthetic leg can be challenging, especially for elderly amputees.

A prosthesis that uses AI to help detect changes in weight distribution can balance more easily and reliably with no special input from the user. This helps people walk properly and safely on uneven ground as well as stand without a balancing aid. While automatic balancing benefits everyone, it especially benefits people who are at a higher risk of falling, such as those with weakened muscles at the end of the limb, elderly people, those who travel on subways, and hikers. Cost and Accessibility. The cost of an electric prosthesis can be anywhere from $3,000 to $50,000. As a reference, the Ossur Rheo Knee 3 costs an estimated $45,000 without insurance. In the US, medical insurance will cover most of the cost of a prosthesis if it is deemed medically necessary. However, there are many ways of making more inexpensive prostheses that use AI. Many people and companies have begun 3D printing body-powered prosthetic arms at a minimal cost.

Very recently, Joseph Sirosh at Microsoft has developed a prosthetic arm that connects to the cloud and uses computer vision to recognize objects and grab them in the correct way (O’Reilly). Sirosh states that this prosthesis only costs a few hundred dollars without insurance. Many of these goals are being attempted by teaching machine learning algorithms with reinforcement learning in a simulated environment. ?ukasz Kidzi?ski at Stanford University has created a physiologically-based human model with a prosthetic leg in a simulator called OpenSim. This human model is a musculoskeletal model, meaning that it has contracting muscles and rigid bones that simulate the different stresses on a human leg while it moves. This is a huge improvement on the typical “stick man” model that is commonly used when teaching an AI to walk or run, which lacks muscle and results in an abnormal walk or run.

By including a prosthesis on the model, the AI can find a more applicable solution to walking and running. Kidzi?ski’s model is available on crowdAI as open source, attached to a challenge called the AI for Prosthetics Challenge in which the goal is to create an AI that adapts to changes in speed, direction, and environmental conditions the fastest (Kidzi?ski). While training AI in a simulation will not perfectly match an amputee’s needs, it creates a good start for learning to walk, run, and climb without the need to physically train it, and the AI should be allowed to continue learning about its user to perfect the functionality over time. Prosthetic Hands that See and “Feel”

In robotics, it is common to use computer vision to help control a robotic arm’s movements. Research has already been done in “object recognition, arm positioning, grasping estimation, and vision feedback control” (Martin). This concept, however, is new to prosthetics. Adapting this research to a prostheses is not challenging, considering the prosthesis is similar enough to a robotic arm. A team of students spread throughout universities in Florida and Louisiana have created a working prototype of an arm that detects and grabs objects with the help of “eye gaze” data. In essence, the user will look at an object, the arm will recognize that the object is within reach, and then the arm will move and grab the object, avoiding any obstacles. Their prototype was successful, although it is not ready for widespread use since the user needs to wear a helmet for eye-tracking and connect the arm to an external computer (Martin).

A team of students at Newcastle University have improved on this concept with a prosthetic hand that recognizes different objects and adjusts the grab strength accordingly and can accurately predict the strength needed to grab and hold an object it has never seen before (“Hand That Sees”).

Artificial “feeling” hands need to be surgically implanted. This is because electrodes need to be placed at as many nerve endings as possible to be able to stimulate nerves and provide feedback to the brain. Using these haptic feedback prostheses, one man, named Igor Spetic, can pull cherries off of their stems with a 93% success rate, compared to a 43% success rate using the same prosthesis with haptic feedback turned off. The significance of sensations of touch in prosthetic limbs is tremendous, since being able to restore “one of the most basic forms of human contact” is incredibly important to amputees. When amputees are asked by researchers at the DARPA HAPTIX program, “universally they say they want to hold a loved one’s hand and really feel it” (Tyler).

Problems for AthletesSpecial athletic prostheses, such as running blades, are popular among many athletic amputees. The use of these prostheses in competitions are controversial, since some see the artificial limb as an enhancement, while others see it as a handicap. This puts athletic amputees in the strange situation of having an advantage in a sport while also having a disability. After Oscar Pistorius from South Africa competed in the Olympics with a blade prosthesis on each leg, another Olympian, named Markus Rehm, was denied permission to compete after failing to prove that his prosthesis did not give him an advantage. This led to studies on the topic, which resulted in the conclusion that a runner using bladed prostheses would use 17% less energy to run than an able-bodied competitor, while also taking 21% less time to swing the leg forward while running. These results led to bans on Olympic athletes with these types of prostheses (Greenemeier).

As AI-powered electric prostheses become more mainstream, more efficient, and lighter, many athletes may switch to a prosthesis that uses AI to reduce strain and improve balance. This could lead to these athletes having an incredible advantage over able-bodied athletes, specifically due to the further decreased amount of energy used by the body to support and control the limb. This will likely affect less competitive sports and result in bans on amputees from competitions such as marathons or high school and college sports. Future Consequences of Intelligent Prostheses“The human enhancement market will reveal the truth about our biological conditions — we are all disabled. ”

In the future, the features of all of these prostheses will likely be combined. An artificial hand that feels, sees, and predicts just like the real thing will be possible to implement within the space and weight capacity a prosthesis offers. Once the value of having these prostheses is close to the value of having a real limb, progress can become more focused on lowering the cost of these devices. But what happens when these devices become better than limbs while remaining relatively affordable? In the present, this is a controversial topic for many doctors. Some patients diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder are seeking unnecessary amputations of limbs that they feel like are not theirs. This condition is typically met with little sympathy from surgeons, since it is a medical doctor’s duty to do no harm, and an unnecessary amputation will result in inconvenience at the least, with infection and regret being real risks of the surgery.

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With advancements in AI technology in prostheses, it will become less of a regrettable choice and more of an opportunity for improvement. It is unknown how medical professionals will respond to this shift in demand for prostheses, but over time, it is likely that more and more people will be looking toward amputation as a solution to inconveniences like knee problems. It is also likely that the idea will gain traction in the body modification community for aesthetic reasons, as well as in certain industries where durability, strength, or precise motor control are valued in an employee. With the increasing capabilities of prostheses, it will become hard for people to ignore the appeal of them. Andy Miah, director of the Creative Futures Institute at the University of the West of Scotland, believes that in a few decades, people will be replacing healthy limbs with artificial ones (“The Future of Artificial Limbs”).

Abstract

Cars are a very important and efficient machine we use in our day to day lives. Cars do however have room for improvements. Various ideas have been presented on how to improve car’s economic and environmental impact on society. Things such as carpooling, electric cars, public transportation, and biking can go along way to prevent pollution caused by cars.

Improving the Machinery of Today

Our society is built around technology and machinery. Although we do things more efficiently than they did it in the 1800s, there is still room for improvement. One machine we have that affects our economy tremendously is cars. Because of the impact cars have, we need to make sure we are driving efficiently as possible. Because of the demand for cars, this created many job opportunities. By creating many jobs for Americans to get, this affects the economy in a tremendous way. More job opportunities is a positive impact cars have had on our society. Jobs like designing, building, and selling cars are now very popular in our society.

According to the article “How Does Hiring Additional Employees Affect the Economy? ,” jobs affect the economy because it gives more opportunities for people to “meet their financial obligations. ” Having little to no employees can lead to a slow and low economic growth. Cars have also affected our economy by affecting the environment. Many cars create a lot of pollution. Because of the added pollution, a lot of environmental clean up efforts are being made. There are many things people can do to prevent pollution being caused by cars. One thing we can do to prevent this is carpooling. If you and your friend are going to the same place, such as school, take turns taking each other. Another thing we can do to prevent cars from polluting our environment is buy electric cars.

According to a study the NRDC conducted, “by 2050, the electricity sector could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1030 million metric tons relative to 2015 levels, a 45% reduction. ” This can positively affect our environment in a tremendous way. Economically, electric cars a better choice too. Although they are more expensive to buy initially, in the long run it is significantly worth it. Cars that run on fuel need a lot more pieces than electric cars. Therefore, when those parts need to be replaced the price will add up over time. Another major save with electric cars is you do not need gas. While having a charging unit for the car can be expensive it is less than getting fuel. According to Huffing post, “the average American spends $2,000 on gas per year. ”

Therefore, economically and environmentally, I think electric cars are a much better option than fuel powered. In bigger cities, public transportation is often available. Instead of driving your car everyday to work, try to take the bus. Another efficient way of preventing pollution is by biking. By biking you save yourself from using expensive gas and you get physical exercise. We can also reduce the weight of our cars by keeping trash out of it.

According to the article “5 Ways to Make Your Car More Eco-Friendly,” “it takes more gas to move a heavy car than a light one. ” All of these ideas can not only help yourself economically, but our environment as well. By installing “low-rolling- resistance” tires we can cut back on how much gas we use. By putting les gas into our air, pollution decreases. This also helps financially because the less gas we use, the less money we spend on our vehicle. We should also utilize our car’s cruise control. By using cruise control, using cruise controls saves gas because we are not accelerating as much as we usually do when thinking about our speed. Cars can be a very efficient tool to get places we need to be. With that being said, we need to aware of the effects cars have on our economy and environment. By using these ideas in this paper, we can help ourselves, the economy, and the society. It is very important to make an effort to learn how we can use cars in the most efficient ways.

In his novel “Native Son,” author Richard Wright depicts the struggles of Bigger Thomas, whose life reaches a major turning point after he kills Mary Dalton. The difference between Bigger’s dreams and the “illusion” of reality plays a significant role throughout the novel. Bigger’s dreams and innermost desires symbolize the longing of African Americans as a whole; however, they are oppressed by the reality of their situation. This crisis enhances Richard Wright’s overall message of the novel. His use of this conflicting theme in addition to innocence and brutality and other points of contrast subtly coincide with the central theme of the racial strife experienced between two very different worlds.

The fact that Wright compares Bigger’s life to a nightmare or dream during intense moments supports the notion that Bigger’s perception of life lies on the line where reality and illusions merge together. In addition, the coma-like state that Bigger seems to live in is existent from the birth of his crime to his death. For example, when Mrs. Dalton walks in on Bigger alone with Mary, a terror seizes him as though “he were falling from a great height in a dream”(85). When he wakes up the day after Mary’s murder, he remembers as if it was a mere nightmare that he had “killed Mary, had smothered her, had cut her head off and put her body in the fiery furnace” (97). However, the actuality of her death interferes with the live Bigger lives in his dreams. On several occasions an image of Mary’s head “hovered before his eyes” and he even dreams of his own head “lying with black face and half-closed eyes and lips parted with white teeth showing and hair wet with blood” (165). As a result, Bigger’s dreams serve to signify his conscience towards his murder of Mary, in which remorse is scarcely expressed. In addition, as Bigger is in his cell he contemplates that after death he would “sigh at how simple and foolish his dream had been.” This further justifies the notion that Bigger’s life alternates between reality and a “dream.”

Bigger’s dreams exist not only internally during sleep, but are expressed externally in the form of his aspirations as well. For example, when he and Gus observe a plane writing in the sky above them, Bigger comments “I could fly a plan if I had a chance” (17). Although he only went to eighth grade, Bigger’s actions in the story prove that he has the capacity to fly an airplane. However, Gus retaliates by saying “if you wasn’t black and if you had some money and if they’d let you go to that aviation school.” These “ifs” dismisses Bigger’s dream as a merely unattainable goal. This proves that his aspiration of becoming a pilot is oppressed by his position in society, diminishing his “chance.” Further supporting Gus’s verdict, when Max asks Bigger what he wanted to do that he was not allowed to, Bigger replies that he wanted to be an aviator, but the school he wanted to attend “kept all the colored boys out” (353). The fact that the white world is so exclusive to Bigger instills a feeling of hostility within him, because he knows he will never be able to experience it. Bigger describes this feeling to Gus as being “on the outside of the world peeping in through a knot-hole in the fence.” Nevertheless, Bigger still continues to dream, and he and Gus engage in a game where they “play white.” As they hold back the urge to laugh, they “guffawed, partly at themselves and partly at the vast white world that sprawled and towered in the sun before them” (18). Using the terms “vast,” “sprawled,” and “towered,” Wright’s diction succeeds in creating an image of an overwhelming force against Bigger that reserves the power to distinguish his fantasies from reality.

In her essay, “Urban Racism Causes Bigger’s Irrationality,” literary critic Seodial Deena claims that Bigger falls “victim of city politics and the media.” In contrast to the poverty-stricken world of African Americans, the white world is portrayed to have “plenty of food, comfort, privacy, opportunities, money, and fun” (Deena 135). This is evident when Bigger watches The Gay Woman and Trader Horn at the movies. In The Gay Woman, “gleaming sands” and “a stretch of sparkling water” creates a sense of glamour, and ultimately motivates Bigger to take the job. He begins to fantasize whether Mary Dalton was a “hot kind of girl” who “spent lots of money” and perhaps would even pay him not to tell of a “secret sweetheart.” The Gay Woman’s effect of such persuasion is further enhanced when Trader Horn unfolds afterwards. Images of “naked black men and women whirling in wild dances” are portrayed and African-Americans are viewed as uncivilized compared to the wealthy, aristocratic whites. As Bigger watches the film, these images were replaced in his own mind by “white men and women dressed in black and white clothes, laughing, talking, drinking, and dancing.” As a result, Bigger accepts the job because he expects what is portrayed to him by media; however he learns, as Deena claims, “not all that glitters is gold.”

The theme of innocence and brutality is visible in several aspects of Native Son. The deaths of Mary Dalton and Bessie Mears provide an example for these contrasting points. Literature scholar Steven J. Rubin’s, “Native Son is a Novel of Revolt” explains that Bigger’s murder of Bessie is “simply proof of his new ability to act” because it gives him a sense of “control over his destiny.” Unlike Mary, Bigger deliberately and unnecessarily kills Bessie. In addition, although both deaths are equally brutal, Mary’s death generates uproar while Bessie’s murder is used as mere evidence. Richard Wright’s incorporation of these two deaths in such a manner supports the message of racial prejudice set in 1930’s Chicago. Their murders are also symbolic of how innocence is treated with brutality in numerous conditions throughout the novel. Although Mary has good intentions and claimed to be “on Bigger’s side,” he still kills her and cruelly disposes of her body. Adversely, Wright demonstrates that African-Americans were also brutally treated by white police despite their innocence. In his essay, “How ‘Bigger’ was born” Wright explains that in times of crime in which citizens “are clamoring for police action, squad cars cruise the Black Belt and grab the first Negro boy who seems to be unattached and homeless” (455). Although they are innocent, the day they are picked up by the cops, a silent contract is sealed foreboding their sentence or execution. As a result, public tension is relieved at the expense of the innocent-similar to the killings that relieve tension within Bigger from his external surroundings.

In addition, Bigger treats innocence with cruelty due to the sense of shame or helplessness that it instills within him. This can be detected from early on in the novel. When Mrs. Thomas complains of their living conditions briefly after Bigger kills the rat, it is revealed that Bigger “hated his family because he knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them” (10). As a result, he prevents himself from feeling “to its fullness how they lived, the shame and misery of their lives.” In addition, when Reverend Hammond visits and asks Bigger to accept God, the Reverend made him “feel a sense of guilt deeper than that which even his murder of Mary had made him feel” (284). The innocence and salvation Reverend Hammond tried to preach to Bigger was what he had “killed within himself…even before he had killed Mary” (284). Consequently, Bigger treats the Reverend coldly throughout the remainder of his life.

Two opposites on the color spectrum, two opposites in Native Son. Black and white. Through “Native Son” Richard Wright manages to successfully create an accurate portrayal of an African American caught in the gray between these two worlds, through the use of Bigger Thomas. A fruit beared by the society he has been forced to live among, Bigger falls victim to false perceptions of what it means to be on the other side. The muddled line between dreams and realities as well as the cause and effect of innocence and brutality that affected both colors highlights the inequality and racial corruption of 1930’s America. In conclusion, Wright’s central theme of an African American’s role in a white society as well as its involvement in their outcome powerfully radiates through Bigger Thomas.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote reconstructs the Clutter family murder and investigation case into what Capote calls a “nonfiction novel,” an experimental type of journalism that combines the fluidity and continuity of a novel with the facts and sources of a nonfiction work while retaining the appeals of both formats. The story revolves around the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959 at the hands of Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, two seemingly clashing men whose avarice eventually leads to their downfall, with dialogue, backstory, and factual evidence to flesh out the beginning, middle, and end of the truth surrounding the travesty. As the thrill of uncovering the truth underneath the underneath breathes life into what would otherwise be a bland newspaper article, the novel slowly unravels the fallacy, deceit, and half-truths that engulf the mystery of the Clutter family’s end. It is easy to forget that the characters and events in the story were and are real due to the notion of novels being fantasy or purely imagination, but Capote’s usage of pathos, imagery, and atmosphere to elaborate on the Clutter case using his experimental nonfiction novel as a medium to portray the fruits of his research instills unto the audience that the characters, events, and impacts of the murder are actually real.

Capote uses pathos throughout the novel to accentuate the realness of the murder and those involved in it to give life to the tale beyond mere words printed on pages, particularly paying attention to Perry’s life story to create sympathy and pity for someone who would otherwise be deplorable given his situation that then segues to observations on other characters. While each section of the novel provides a kindred feeling between the audience and characters through the extensive use of pathos, Capote strategically targets Perry, a man whom the reader knows is guilty of murder, and surrounds his character with a tragic backstory: “I was scared because I thought my father was going to hurt me . . . [She would] furiously beat me with a large black leather belt - pull me out of bed by my hair & drag me to the bathroom & throw me in the tub & turn the cold water on . . .” (Capote 274). His childhood relays an abusive, loveless relationship with his parents as the missing puzzle piece to his mental illnesses, justifying his present state of mind by developing his character into a pitiable one. However, Capote firmly reinstates the fact that while Perry’s devastating childhood may have led to his current disposition, it is not an excuse or attempt to escape punishment. This helplessness that the audience feels as they are torn between feeling pity for or disappointed in Perry creates a sense of sympathy for his situation due to the inevitability of the hand he had been dealt; this hopeless situation draws on the audience’s sympathy, thereby making Perry a tragic character that readers can relate to because of his very human-like reaction to his scars. His non-cliche past of violence and neglect are flaws to his character, and because humans are naturally flawed in real life in various ways, Perry’s own faults give him an air of realism. Unlike other novels’ characters that seem to be too good to be true, Capote illustrates Perry as a broken yet loyal man who abides to his own set of questionable morals. Due to his imperfections, the audience can relate him to themselves in a way that they are constantly reminded of the fact that he was a real person with real feelings and, eventually, a real death. It makes the audience wonder and ponder the reasoning behind why someone could possibly take another’s life; to what extent was the murderer, Perry, pushed to to even consider killing? These questions and the flaws that birthed them contribute to the relatability of the audience to Perry, for he also feels emotions as the audience does. Opposite to other characters in novels that are merely fantasy, Perry was actually a real person who lived life like the audience did, albeit estranged to the joys of living, and readers are constantly reminded of this through his flaws, thoughts, and mistakes that blossomed from Capote’s pathos-based description of him.

Vivid imagery is a major part of Capote’s novel due to its ability to enrapture the audience in its stunning descriptions and situations that shock them by its realness, a factor that is usually lost in novels but is not in In Cold Blood. The information contained in the highly descriptive imagery that Capote entwines with the text creates a sense of surrealness, as if the reader were viewing it through the eyes of the characters themselves. Instead of simple two-dimensional visions from the text, Capote reminds the audience that his novel is nonfiction to boot by appealing to our senses when he writes during the Clutter’s funeral, “The four coffins, which quite filled the small, flower-crowded parlor, were to be sealed at the funeral services - very understandably, for despite the care taken with the appearance of the victims, the effect achieved was disquieting. Nancy wore her dress of cherry-red velvet, her brother a bright plaid shirt; the parents were more sedately attired, Mr. Clutter in navy-blue flannel, his wife in navy-blue crepe; and - and it was this, especially, that lent the scene an awful aura - the head of each was completely encased in cotton, a swollen cocoon twice the size of an ordinary blown-up balloon, and the cotton, because it had been sprayed with a glossy substance, twinkled like Christmas tree snow” (95). The reader is overcome with a feeling of dread as they read “victims” and “head” due to the prior knowledge of the family being murder victims who were shot in the head. The image of a ghastly mass funeral enters the reader’s mind as they read the overly descriptive text, a scene where each of the four heads is covered with a layer of cotton to shield their gruesome injuries from the public view. The mood is somber and grieving; the family is dressed in nice clothing despite their grotesque forms, almost as if to mock the people who miss them and wish they were still alive. As the audience replays this scene in their head, they are met with the undeniable fact that other characters, real people as well, were affected greatly by this funeral and the death of the Clutter’s. The dark mood that overhangs the funeral and its imagery is nearly palpable, a stark contrast against the vibrancy of the family while they were still alive; readers take this into account and unconsciously take in the small details: the reactions of those around them, the gruesome descriptions of their dead bodies, the funeral service, the specific words used to illustrate the event, and, most importantly, the sullen mood the imagery invokes. Eventually, these small snippets add up and, suddenly and shockingly, the audience realizes the effect the death of the Clutter family had on others around them. It makes them realize that, because this is a nonfiction and they were real people, the impact around them was also real as well. The imagery Capote uses helpfully illustrates the impact of the event and masterfully crafts a sense of tangibility to the fact that the event, people, and reactions were all real instead of mere work of fiction.

The atmosphere of In Cold Blood that Capote illustrates greatly increases the audience’s awareness of the reality of his nonfiction work. Immediately, the story begins with: “The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ . . . The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them” (3). This rustic description of the primary setting invokes a podunk feeling about the story, as if the village the novel took place in was a separate reality from the rest of the world. “A lonesome area” and “out there” are phrases used to describe Holcomb, giving it a cryptic, mysterious air because of the lack of details. Simply stating that Holcomb was “as graceful as Greek temples” offers the audience a feeling of awe as they imagine a majestic village closed off from the rest of the world, still within reach but not quite there, just like the great Greek architectures full of grandeur. Greek temples were known to inspire awe from those who have seen it, so to describe Holcomb as such would be to compare it to an awestruck sight. This creates an atmosphere of mystery surrounding the podunk village; its lack of industrial details makes Holcomb seem like a place where reality is slightly warped, where time has no place and things are perpetually perfect. This puzzling feeling the audience feels is similar to how one feels about their own home: it is there but not quite connected to the rest of the world. The relatability of Holcomb’s description as the Clutter’s home to the audience’s home provides insight on how the characters, real people who lived in this real village, must have felt about it. The solemn, almost dignified atmosphere the state of Holcomb, Kansas is in reminds the audience that even if Holcomb seems like an exotic world all by itself, it’s still the home to many others who share similar feelings about it as the audience does to their own home, that Holcomb isn’t some fantasy world created from pure fiction alone.

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In Cold Blood is an experimental novel by Truman Capote that takes the boundaries of fictitious novels and nonfiction works and combines them to create a nonfiction novel. Capote retells the tale of the Clutter family murder in 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas using pathos, imagery, and atmosphere as his main strategies to grab the audience’s attention and show them that despite the novel seeming like a work of fiction because of its format, the work pertains to real people who existed and lived lives similar to the audience’s. His surprising detail in these three devices give the audience a sense of realism towards the characters and events in this story.

In modern literature, suspense and tension are almost essential in producing works that are both successful and interesting to the reader. These two aspects of literature are especially important in Truman Capote's novel, In Cold Blood, which delineates the story of how a mere robbery attempt concludes in the death of four well-respected and affable family members. Although the reader is cognizant of various outcomes in the story beforehand, Capote effectively retains the reader's interest through suspense and tension. Capote particularly engenders this suspense and tension by shifting between simultaneous events, waiting to disclose the details of the murder, and suggesting fallacies in America's judicial system.

Suspense proves to be an essential aspect to this novel, particularly in the way in which it proves to be a new plot mechanism. For example, one way Capote introduces suspense is through the short segments within each chapter. He constantly switches back and forth between Dick and Perry and the people in Holcomb, leaving the reader longing to discover what happens on both perspectives of the story. More importantly, he ends many of the segments with surprising and suspenseful actions and thoughts. For example, when Nancy broaches her suspicions about the smell of cigarette smoke, Capote cunningly ends with this thought: "Before she could ask if this was really what Nancy meant, Nancy cut her off: 'Sorry, Susie. I've got to go. Mrs. Katz is here'" (22). This ending leaves the reader wondering whether Mr. Clutter, who possesses a strong aversion toward such matters, would actually take part in smoking. This suspected, sudden change in the daily habits of the family allows Capote to stir up a suspenseful atmosphere in the reader's mind because these details seem to foreshadow the murder. In addition, Capote amplifies the suspense by ending the section on this note, leaving the reader at a climactic point. Furthermore, as Capote switches back to the murderers, he describes their preparations in a casual manner. The tensions thus increases as the reader becomes upset at the lack of morals of the murderers and the total obliviousness of the Clutter family toward the upcoming events. The constant switching also serves another purpose by bringing the reader into the actual story as he or she tries to keep up with simultaneous events as they occur. Furthermore, Capote presents many of the unfolding events through the testimonies of various citizens, which gives more credibility to the story.

In addition to the timely shifts in the novel, Capote engenders suspense by waiting to disclose various details of the story, most importantly of the actual murders. Capote chooses to stop the description of the "score" just as the murderers approach the house: "Dick doused the headlights, slowed down, and stopped until his eyes were adjusted to the moon-illuminated night. Presently, the car crept forward" (57). After this passage, Capote skips straight to the discovery of the dead victims. Capote utilizes this very effective tactic of skipping ahead in order to build suspense. He surprises the reader and leaves him or her with the desire to continue in order to unearth the facts and details of that hideous night. In addition to building suspense, this method again places the reader in the eyes of the bemused Holcomb citizens, as they are equally clueless on the details surrounding the murders. Similarly, Capote does not explicitly introduce the murder plot: "Still no sign of Dick. But he was sure to show up; after all, the purpose of their meeting was Dick's idea, his 'score'" (14). Referring to the murder plot as the "score" serves various purposes. First, this reference adds to the suspenseful ambience because the reader cannot decipher its exact meaning; he or she can only construe that the term refers in some manner to the murder. Secondly, it puts the reader in the eyes and thoughts of Perry because he too appears incognizant of the actual plan before meeting Dick. Finally, during the period between the meeting and the murders, Capote adheres to using the reference "score" so that he may keep any motives and details mysterious and suspenseful. Again, Capote masterfully puts the reader into the eyes of the curious Holcomb citizens because neither the reader nor the citizens become aware of the motive until much later in the novel.

In addition to using suspense as an efficacious tool in retaining the reader's interest, Capote also brings into play an aspect of tension during the court trials and psychiatric evaluations. Capote commences to impose his own thoughts and beliefs into the story during the court trials. He lucidly demonstrates his condemnation of the M'Naghten Rule due to its tight strictures and inflexibility: "But had Dr. Jones been permitted to discourse on the cause of his indecision, he would have testified: 'Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental illness'" (296). By including the statements of Dr. Jones, if he would have been allowed to speak further, Capote evinces his concern and frustration over the utilization of the death penalty when dealing with the insane. A one word response to a question dealing with whether or not a person is insane is, of course, hardly sufficient to convey the full scope of the evaluation, especially if the subject's life depends on this evaluation. Capote also probes the inner mind of Perry Smith during his incarceration: "Eventually he wondered if perhaps he had invented them (a notion that he 'might not be normal, maybe insane' had troubled him 'even when I was little, and my sisters laughed because I liked moonlight. To hide in the shadows and watch the moon')" (265). This passage creates tension and the reader's mind vacillates on whether or not Perry experienced schizophrenia. Moreover, by including this passage, Capote foments a feeling of sympathy for the murderer. Throughout the beginning of the novel, the reader feels animosity towards Perry, but as Capote discloses these new details, the reader begins to reevaluate his or her previous convictions. Thus, Capote again allows the reader to see things through Perry's perspective. Once more, tension arises from a sudden shift in the mindset of the reader. Nonetheless, Capote leaves the reader with an ambiguous ending. Only the reader can decide whether Perry could acknowledge his actions as wrong on that horrific night or if the emotional and physical scars created by Perry's childhood drove him insane.

Thus, because Capote effectively uses tools of suspense and tension, he retains the reader's interest throughout the entire novel. The simultaneous shifting between events, delaying of crucial facts and details till later in the story, and the questioning of the court's laws on cases dealing with the insane and the death penalty are only some of the mechanisms Capote utilizes to conceive an extremely powerful and intriguing novel.