The Found Footage Phenomenon Film Studies Essay

The Found Footage Phenomenon Film Studies Essay The Blair Witch Project is a story of an attempt of three documentary film students to investigate the legends of the Blair Witch. Apparently skeptical, Heather, Joshua, and Michael enter the woods around Burkittsville, Maryland, with two cameras. Heather was determined to document everything in  «as straightforward way as possible ». As the documentarians go deeper, the friends become unsure of their whereabouts. Soon, they realize that they have lost their way. At night, the filmmakers hear bizarre noises, and in the morning, find three fresh rock mounds built outside their tent. The mood is charged with fear, frustration, and anger as the trio is trying to find their way out of the woods but seem to be entrapped and walk in circles. Their sense of doom is enhanced as one night, Joshua vanishes without a trace. Following his screams, Heather and Michael come to a deserted house in the woods. They go inside and search everywhere until Michael runs to the basement claiming that h e has heard Joshua there. The footage ends with Heather screaming and dropping the camera on the floor, the last image being of Michael with his face to a wall in the semi-dark basement. Being a mockumentary, The Blair Witch Project primarily draws on all the elements of the documentary genre to achieve its effects. While the movie was being created, the directors launched a marketing campaign by creating a website with fake reports of the three filmmakers missing and documents of the Blair Witch. Thus, as Emily Shaw points out, billed as a factual piece, the phenomenon quickly gained a cult following (386). It should be remembered that the impression produced by a documentary film is that of greater authenticity than made by a fictional film. According to Joseph H. Boggs and Dennis W. Petrie, even the first documentary productions emanated from what we could call the documentary urge of their creators, who wished, quite simply, to document life » (460). However, the implication of the genre from which found footage takes its roots is more complex as documentary pictures do not merely record objective reality. Like nonfiction literature, a nonfiction film inevitabl y presents the subjective vision of its maker as well (461). Therefore, it is the blend of grainy-film objectivity and the subjective first-person narration of the camera-holder that seems to make the found footage genre so appealing. The director of photography of The Blair Witch Project Neal Fredericks recalls that most of the video footage was shot by Donahue, which was designed to provide a more immediate, you-are-there feeling for their day-to-day behind-the-scenes experiences on this fictional class project. Ive had some experience transferring video to film, so I knew that when we eventually transferred all of the footage to a 35mm print, the aesthetic qualities of the 35mm film would take some of the edge off the video, making it a bit softer and more pleasing to the eye (Pizzello, 100). Film experts have applauded Myrick and Sanchez for the enticing rawness of their approach. For example, Melinda Corey and George Ochoa noted that the movie shot on 16mm black and white and color digital video, was commended for its documentary style, blurring the lines between reality and fiction (131). Another expert, Kevin Harley, called The Blair Witch Project a guerilla-indie hit that, while drawing on mockumentary self-consciousness, channeled raw edge-of-sight fear. Blairs ambiguities amplify its resonances (110). The effect of their first-person narration technique of The Blair Witch Project was fascinating at the time; however, Myrick and Sanchez successors have since considerably ameliorated their method. The use of mirrors, for example, in Chronicle (director: Josh Trank, screenplay: Max Landis, cinematographer: Matthew Jensen), a story of three high-school students who acquire telekinetic powers, or Paranormal Activity (written, directed and filmed by Oren Peli) was innovative for the genre. In Chronicle, the mirrors not only advance its protagonists Andrews characterization as a narcissistic teenager but also help to make the movie more visually sophisticated than the early specimens of the genre. In Paranormal Activity, mirrors hint at its protagonists Katies and Micahs double selves as well as their relationships gradual disintegration. Another improvement in the found footage genre has been its expansion from the domain of horror (i.e. witches, spirits and daemons) to the science fiction film as illustrated, for example, by Cloverfield (2008) and Chronicle. The critic of culture Bruce Kawin has made a distinction between the effects that horror and science fiction films produce on the viewer. According to him, one goes to the horror film in order to have a nightmare, a dream whose undercurrent of anxiety both presents and masks the desire to fulfill and be punished for certain unconventionally unacceptable impulses. Moreover, Kawin claims that science fiction appeals to consciousness, horror to the unconscious (qtd. in Boggs, Petrie, 422). Another cultural critic J.P. Telotte commenting on sci-fi filmmaking points out that the genre has obviously staked out as its special territory the latest possibilities of artifice through the very latest of technological development in cinema. Tellote goes on to compliment the creators of science fiction films for finally making this artifice seem to be less its end than its methodà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ simply a most effective wayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ for gauging the human (qtd. in Boggs, Petrie, 422). It is true that found footage films have progressively focused on exploring the human condition. One of the pervasive themes that unite The Blair Witch Project, Chronicle, and Paranormal Activity is their respective characters inability to cope with reality and isolation; besides, their handheld cameras play a vital role in this. One of the directors of The Blair Witch Project Eduardo Sanchez claims that he drew his inspiration for the movie from such movies as The Shining and The Exorcist. And just like in The Shining (produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick), a 1980 film about a janitor going insane in a snowbound hotel and taking it out on his wife and child, the pervasive theme of Myrick and Sanchezs mockumentary is psychological and physical isolation, which, acco rding to Sanchez, is the key to horror films (Fletcher, 29). While the three young filmmakers searching for the evidence of the Blair Witch find themselves cut off from the outside world, their leader Heather, perhaps, has always been so, for as Joshua half-jokingly remarks to her at one point in the movie: We see why you like this video camera so much. Its not quite reality. Its totally filtered reality. Its like you can pretend everythings not quite the way it is. Heather has no comment on this, but Joshuas banter is echoed in Chronicle, where Steven questions Andrew about always putting up a camera between himself and the world as a barrier, whereas in Paranormal Activity, Katie repeatedly blames Micah for preferring the camera to human communication. However, while no reasons are given for Heathers self-isolation behind her cameras eye, the subject is much better elaborated in more recent found-footage. In Chronicle, it is obviously Andrews abusive and alcoholic father and the terminal illness of his mother that drive him to conquer reality through the camera lens. In Paranormal Activity, Micahs camera plays a role of its own, initially used by him to identify the supernatural activity in the couples house but actually stimulates its outbursts and brings about his demise. It is noteworthy that modern home-video-look directors have detached the camera from the actor, thus defying the very notion of handheld and not without success. For instance, the telekinetic high-schoolers in Chronicle can make the camera float in the air, just like they do, or, like Micah in Paranormal Activity, leave it working on a tripod and review the footage later, thus creating a juxtaposition of the past and present-time planes in the narration something unimaginable in the early found-footage days. Moreover, unlike the late 20th-century hand-held cam fiction, the modern found-footage makers have increasingly been using conventional themes and narration techniques. Chronicle, for instance, is nothing but an account of a duel between good and evil, a subject common to dozens of Hollywood productions that even transcends the limitation of one plot line: the initially ambiguous but eventually fixed relationship of Matt and Casey is opposed to the chronicle of Andrews downfall. Furthermore, Chronicle appeals to its target audience by addressing the adolescent obsession with sex as well as the nerd-turned-Superhero theme, whereas the violent outbreaks of Paranormal Activity could be seen quite conventionally as an artistic metaphor for the love-hate relationship between Katie and Micah. The success of this hybrid approach has made even the forefathers of the found-footage genre redefine their priorities. According to one of the men behind The Blair Witch Project, Eduardo Sanchez, he has recently been frustrated by the idea of always having to have the camera on. This year, Sanchez has released Lovely Molly, a horror film shot partly with the help of handheld and partly with conventional camera. The director says, Whether its found footage or conventional filmmaking, a good idea will transcend (29+). Works Cited Leonard, Michael Williams. Artisan Entertainment, 1999 Boggs, Joseph H., Petrie, Dennis W. The Art of Watching Films. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000 Buzz Section. The Movie Book of Records. Total Film. Dec. 2007: 44-45 Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa, Eds-in-Chief. The American Film Institute Desk Reference. New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc. , 2002 Harley, Kevin,  «History of Horror. The 90s. » Total Film. Nov. 2007: 110+ Pizzello, Stephen. Rev of The Blair Witch Project by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. American Cinematographer. Apr. 1999: 97-100. Sanchez, Eduardo. Director Interview: Lost and Found. Total Film. Issue 195 (2012): 29+ Shaw, Emily. Daniel Myrick. Contemporary North American Film Directors. A Wallflower Critical Guide. London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2002

Limitations Of Text Based Image Retrieval Psychology Essay

Limitations Of Text Based Image Retrieval Psychology Essay Sometimes a relevant image might be left out owed to the absence of specific keywords. While often there might be no relevant text surrounding the images or videos, but they are relevant. In fact, there might exist images or videos where the surrounding text has nothing to do with them. In these cases, these returned results might be irrelevant and have nothing in common with the required images and videos. The other approach uses the annotation of the images and vides and is often a manual task. The text-based technique first annotates with text, and then uses text-based retrieval techniques to perform image and video retrieval. Annotation of images and videos lets the user to annotate the image with the text (metadata) that is considered relevant. The text can be time, event, location, participants or whatever the user finds relevant. 2.6.1.1. Limitations of Text based Image Retrieval: Nevertheless, there exist two major difficulties, especially when the volume of image collections is large with hundreds of thousands samples. One is the huge amount of human labor required in manual image/video annotation and is very time-consuming. Textual based retrieval cannot append the perceptual significant visual features like color, shape, texture [Bimbo. 1999]. The other difficulty comes from the rich content in the images and the subjectivity of human perception which is more essential. The annotation of the image and videos completely depends on the annotation interpretation [Enser et al 1993] i.e. different people may perceive the same image differently as shown in the figure 3 . The perception subjectivity and annotation impreciseness may cause unrecoverable mismatches in later retrieval processes. And to retrieve the required data the user constructs a query consisting of the keywords that describes the desired image and video. Although the text based retrieval system has gained benefits of traditionally successful information retrieval algorithms and techniques. Figure 3: Multiple interpretation of same images Park like Tree, Sky, Horse, People, Ridding, Sunny Day, Outdoor Critics of text-based approach dispute that for accurate image annotation it must be automated. The automatic annotation is limited due to its deficiency of extracting semantic information from the images and videos. Only automatic annotation of images and videos in integration with pure text-based image retrieval will be inadequate. The available metadata is mostly restricted to the technical information surrounding the image or video, such as time, resolution of the image or video and name of the image or video. The users may find it difficult to use text to perform a query for some portion of the content of an image or video. Text-based retrieval techniques are absolutely limited to search the metadata that is tagged to the image or video. If the text queried is not annotated with the same tag as attached with the image or video, the data is not returned. This means that if a particular piece of the image or video is interesting this must be explicit included in the metadata. If the desired object is not a main part of the image or video, sometimes it may happen that is not described in the metadata and hence cannot be a retrieve as a result from a query describing such portions of the image or video. One of the disadvantages of text-based image retrieval is that a word can have different meanings. This problem is best illustrated with an example, searching for the images or videos of jaguar or Apple. The system cant differentiate either the user is looking for the jaguar car or jaguar animal as shown in the figure 4. The two concepts have the same name but contain an entirely different semantic idea. The retrieval systems dont have reliable ways to separate the concepts. These problems are present even in systems with automatic synonym lists or thesaurus capabilities [Schank et al. 2004]. There exist several text-based image retrieval services today, Google is a large player. Google is the largest player but still faces the same problem. Figure 4: Same name different Semantics Attempts have been made to make the tags attached to the image or videos more flexible by attaching vast number of descriptive words. The thesaurus based annotation or knowledge based annotation has gained much of the researchers attention [Tring et al. 2000]. Recent development in video retrieval has focused on models that combine several modalities for joint indexing and retrieval. Consideration to the demands, researchers concluded that visual features play a crucial role in the effective retrieval of digital data. This initiates to the development of the content based image and video retrieval [Venters et al. 2000]. 2.6.2. Content based Image Retrieval: The need to manage these images and locate target images in response to user queries has become a significant problem. One way to solve this problem would be describing the image by keywords. The keyword based approach has a bottleneck of manually annotating and classifying the images and videos, which is impractical for the overwhelm corpuses. The human perception subjectivity problem may affect the performance of the retrieval system. Current commercial image and video search engines retrieve the data mainly based on their keyword annotations or by other data attach with it, such as the file-name and surrounding text. This relinquishes the actual image and video more or less ignored and has been following limitations. First, the manual annotation of images requires significant effort and thus may not be practical for large image collections. Second, as the complexity of the images increases, capturing image content by text alone becomes increasingly more difficult. In seeking to overcome these limitations, content-based retrieval (CBR) was proposed in the early 1990s [Baeza-Yates et al. 1999]. Content-based means that the technology makes direct use of content of the image and video rather than relying on human annotation of metadata with keywords. Content-based retrieval (CBR) research endeavors to devise a retrieval system that exploits digital content in the retrieval process in a manner that is eventually independent of manual work. CBR is an umbrella term for content-based multimedia retrieval (CBMR), content based visual information retrieval (CBVIR), content-based image retrieval (CBIR), content-based video retrieval (CBVR) and content-based audio retrieval (CBAR). CBR may also be termed as multimedia information retrieval (MIR). Content based retrieval extract the feature of the image or video themselves and use it for retrieval rather than the user generated meat data. CBR uses the primitive features of the image and video like the color, shape, texture, motion etc. [Sharmin et al. 2002]. Content based system index the images and videos automatically by using different techniques for their visual contents. For the computer, a video is merely a group of frames with a temporal feature, where each frame is basically an image. The computer take each image as a combination of pixels characterize by the low-level color, shape and texture. CBR represents these features in the form of vectors called the descriptors of the image or video. CBR extract these primitive features by using automated techniques and then further use it for searching and retrieval. Thus, these low-level visual features extraction from images and videos has initiated to the many research in the CBR [Veltkamp et al 2000]. A typical CBIR system should be able to interpret the content of the images in a query and a collection, compare the similarity between them, and rank the images in the collection according to their degree of relevance to the users query [Tamura at al. 1984]. The figure 5 shows the typical content based retrieval system. Retrieval deals with the problem of finding the relevant data from the collection of images or videos according to the user request. The user request may be in the form of the textual data or in the form of query by example. Its relatively easy to extract the low level features from the images and videos in the query as well as in the collection and then compare it. Figure 5: Typical Architecture of Content Based Retrieval The paramount objective of CBR is efficiency during image and video search and retrieval, thereby reducing the need for human intervention. Computer can retrieve the images and videos by using CBR techniques from the large corpus without the human assumption. These low level extracted features then represent the image or video and these features are used later on for performing the similarity comparison between the other images or videos in the corpus. These extracted features serve like a signature for images and videos. Images and videos are compared by using different similarity comparison techniques. They are compared by calculating the dissimilarity of its characteristic components to other image or video descriptors. CBR approach shows substantial results with the queries like show me the images or videos of the red color, Show me the image with blue color is above the green color etc. The available automated CBR techniques deal such a type of queries elegantly but flunk to cope with the high level semantic queries like Show me the images or videos of the people in the park, people on the beach, car on the road etc. Such type of queries cannot be tackled successfully by the CBR systems. These queries require more sophisticated techniques to extract the actual semantics abstracted inside it. Related work in CBR from the perspective of images can be found from the overview studies of [Rui et al. 1999], [Smeulders et al. 2000], [Vasconcelos et al. 2001], [Eakins 2002], [Kherfi et al. 2004], [Datta et al. 2005] , [Chen et al. 2004], [Dunckley 2003], [Santini. 2001] [ Santini et al.2001], [Lew et al. 2001], and [Bimbo et al. 1999]. CBIR has received considerable research interest in the last decade [Vasconcelos et al. 2001] and has evolved and matured into a distinct research field. The CBIR mainly comprises of two main steps feature extraction and the similarity measurement. These key technical components of the CBIR system will be introduced in the following sections. 2.6.2.1. Feature Extraction: Images are described by visual words just like text is defined by textual words In fact, an image or a video frame is merely a rectangular grid of colored pixels for a computer. And to a computer an image doesnt mean anything, unless it is told how to interpret it. Image and video descriptors are intended for the motive of image or video retrieval. Descriptors seek to apprehend the image or video characteristics in such a way that it is facile for the retrieval system to identify how similar two images or videos are according to the users interest. CBR system index images or videos by using the low-level features of the image and videos itself, such as colour [Pass et al. 1998, Smith et al. 1996a, Swain et al. 1991], texture [Manjunath et al.1996, Sheikholeslami et al. 1994, Smith et al. 1996b], shape [Safar. M et al. 2000, Shahabi et al. 1999, Tao et al. 1999] , and structure features [Pickering et al. 2003, Howarth et al. 2005]. The color, shape and texture are the principal features of the images. The visual contents of images and videos are then symbolized a s a feature vector of floating numbers. For example, the colour, texture and shape features extracted from an image form an N-dimensional feature vector, and can be written as Where is a vector of its own, and is the colour, is texture and n3 is the shape. While for the video there is an additional vector, where is the motion. In the following section, we introduce the visual features to give an impression of how images and video framesncan be converted into a representation that the retrieval system can work with. 2.6.2.1.1. Color: A very common way to see at images is by analyzing the colors they contain. Colour is the most prominent visual feature in CBIR since it is well correlated with human visual perceptions of objects in an image. A digital colour image is represented as an array of pixels, where each pixel contains three or four tuples of colour components represented in a numerical form. The abstract mathematical representation of colours that computers are able to use is known as the colour model. The similarity between the images and the videos is calculated by using the color histogram value. The histogram depicts the specific values of the pixels inside the image or video frame. The current color based retrieval techniques divides the image into regions by using color proportion. The color based technique doesnt depend on the size and orientation of an image. Since 1980s various color based retrieval algorithms have been proposed [Smith et al. 1996 c]. A most basic form of color retrieval involves specifying color values that can be further used for retrieval. Indeed, Googles image and Picasa 3.0, can also provide the facility to the user to search the images that contain homogenous color composition. The most common representation of color information is in the form of color histogram and color moment. Color anglogram [Zhou X.S. et al. 2002], correlogram [Huang J. et al 1997], color co-occurrence matrix (CCM) [Shim S. et al. 2003] are some of the other feature representations for color. Figure 6: Color based image interpretation 2.6.2.1.1.1. Color Spaces: There are many color spaces designed for different systems and standards, but most of them can be converted by a simple transformation. i. RGB (Red-Green-Blue): Digital images are normally represented in RGB color space; it is the most commonly use color space in computers. It is a device dependent color space, which used in CRT monitors. ii. CMY (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow), CMYK (CMY-Black): It is a subtractive color space for printing, it models the effect of color ink on white paper. Black component is use for enhancing the effect of black color. iii. HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness) or HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value): It was used to model the properties of human perception. It is an additive color model. However it is inconvenient to calculate color distance due to its discontinuity of hue at 360. iv. YIQ, YCbCr, YUV: Used in television broadcast standards. Y is the luminance component for backward compatibility to monochrome signal and other components are for chrominance. It is also used in some image compression standards (e.g. JPEG) that process luminance and chrominance separately. Figure 7: The additive colour model HSV 2.6.2.1.1.2. Color Models: A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers, typically as three or four values or color components. When this model is associated with a precise description of how the components are to be interpreted (viewing conditions, etc.), the resulting set of colors is called color space  [1]  . A color model is a formularized system for composing different of colors from a set of primary colors. There are two types of color models, subtractive and additive. An additive color model uses light emitted directly from a source. The additive color model typically uses primary color i.e. red, green and blue light to produce the other colors. Combination of any two of these additive primary colors in equal amounts produces the additive secondary colors or primary subtractive model colors i.e. cyan, magenta, and yellow. Integration of all these three colors RGB in equal intensities constitute white as shown in the Figurea8 a. Figure 8 (a): RGB: Additive Color for light-emitting computer monitors. Each colored light add to the previous colored lights. A subtractive color model illustrates the blending of paints, dyes,   and natural colorants to produce a full series of colors, each generated by subtracting (absorbing) some wavelengths of light and reflecting the others. Colors observed in subtractive models are the due to reflected light. Different wavelength lights constitute different colors. The CMYK model (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-blacK) model is the subtractive model. The combination of any two of these primary subtractive model color i.e.(Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) results in the primary additive model or secondary subtractive model color i.e. red, blue, green and the convergence of it constitute black color as shown in the figure 8 b. Figure 8 (b): CMYK: Subtractive colors for Printer. Each color added to the first color blocks the reflection of color, thus subtracts color. For some of the concepts the color scheme helps in achieving suitable results like forest, sky, tree, grass, sea etc. The color descriptor will help in retrieving the accurate results. But for the categories like the car, house, street etc. Color descriptors cant play a vital role. The color descriptor will fail in a situation of the same car with different colors as shown in the figure 9. For the retrieval based on the color two most frequently used representative are color histogram and color moment. These representatives are represented in the section below. Figure 9: Same Car with different color composition a. Color Histogram: A histogram provides a summary of the distribution of a set of data. A color histogram provides a comprehensive overview of the image or video frame in terms of color. A colour histogram for a coloured image describes the different intensity value distributions for colours found in the image. The histogram intent to define the number of times each color appears in an image/video frame. Statistically, it utilizes a property that images having similar contents should have a similar color distribution. One simple approach is to count the number of pixels of each color and plot into a histogram. The histogram h of an image I is represented as: H(I)= Where pi is the percentage of i-th color in the color space, N is the number of colors in the color space. To enable scaling invariant property, the histogram sum is normalized to 1. The percentage is proportional to the number of pixels in the image. Figure 10: Shows the Color Histogram Mostly commercial CBR systems like Query-By-Image-Content uses color histogram as one of the feature for the retrieval. Colors are normally grouped in bins, so that every occurrence of a color contributes to the overall score of the bin it belongs to. The bin explains the intensities of different primary color i.e. quantity of red, blue or green for a particular pixel. It doesnt define individual color of the pixels. Histograms are usually normalized, so that images of different sizes can be fairly compared. The colour histogram is the most commonly and effectively used colour feature in CBIR [Swain et al. 1991, Faloutsos et al. 1994, Stricker et al. 1995, Deselaers et al. 2008, Chakravarti et al. 2009 and Smeulders et al. 2000]. Retrieving an images based on the colors technique is widely used because it does not depend on image size or orientation. The most common method to create a colour histogram is by splitting the range of the RGB intensity values into equal-sized bins. For example, a 24-bit RGB colour space contains 224 possible (RGB) values. Since this gives us approximately 16.8 million bins, it will be too large to be dealt with efficiently. Therefore, we need to quantize the feature space to a smaller number in order to reduce memory size and processing time; as examples [Stricker et al. 1995, Swain et al. 1991] have proposed techniques for colour space quantization. After having defined the bins, the numbers of pixels from the image that fall into each bin are counted. A colour histogram can be used to define the different distributions of RGB intensity values for a whole image, known as a global colour histogram, and for specific regions of an image, known as a local colour histogram. For a local colour histogram, the image is divided into several regions and a colour histogram is created for each region. A histogram refinement strategy has been proposed by Pass for comparing the images [Pass et al.1996]. Histogram refinement splits the pixels in a given bucket into several classes, based upon some local property. Within a given bucket, only pixels in the same class are compared. They describe a split histogram called a color coherence vector (CCV), which partitions each histogram bucket based on spatial coherence. [Han et al. 2002] proposed a new color histogram representation, called fuzzy color histogram (FCH), by considering the color similarity of each pixels color associated to all the histogram bins through fuzzy-set membership function. This approach is proves very fast and is further exploited in the application of image indexing and retrieval. The paradigm of the color histogram works on the assumption that all the images or videos frames with the similar color composition are similar [Jain et al. 1995]. It will retrieve all the data whose color composition is similar to the given query. This will be true in some cases. Color composition cant be the identity of the image or object inside the image. Color Moment: Color moment approach was proposed by [Stricker et al. 1995]. It is a very compact representation of color feature. The mathematical meaning of this approach is that any color distribution can be characterized by its moments. Moreover, most of the information is concentrated on the low-order moments, only the first moment, second and third central moments (mean, variance and skewness) were extracted as the color feature representation. Color similarity can be measured by Weighted Euclidean distance. Due to the ease and sound performance of color histogram technique it is widely used in color based retrieval systems. Color is the human visual perceptual property. Human discriminate an images or objects initially on the basis of colors. Color can be extracted from the digital data easily and automated and effective functions are available for calculating the similarity between the query and the data corpus. Color feature are effectively used for indexing and searching of color images in corpus. The existing CBIR techniques can typically be categorized on the basis of the feature it used for the retrieval i.e. color, shape, texture or combination of them. Color is an extensively utilized visual attribute that plays a vital role in retrieving the similar images [Low et al. 1998]. It has been observed that even though color plays a crucial role in image retrieval, when combined with other visual attributes it would yield much better results [Hsu et al. 1995]. This is because, two images with entirely similar color compositions, may have different color composition and sometimes two images have same color composition but they are not similar as shown in the figure. Hence something that looks similar is not semantically similar. The color composition of both the images in figure 11 is same but they depict the entirely different semantic idea. By analyzing both the images using the color based retrieval techniques both the images are similar

Comparing Kafkas Metamorphosis and The Stranger (The Outsider) :: comparison compare contrast essays

The Metamorphosis and The Stranger (The Outsider)  Ã‚   Existentialism is defined as a philosophical movement that human beings are completely free and responsible for their own actions.   Existentialists will try not to cause waves and remain completely uninvolved with anyone because they do not want to hurt anybody.  Ã‚   There is absolutely no such thing as an existentialist because he would have to be so uninvolved to the point where he would not be able to live at all.   Although the two stories: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and The Stranger by Albert Camus are very different in approach, their endings are similar in that they both support the basics of existentialism.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The biggest difference between the two characters: Gregor and Mersault is their physical form.   One has changed physically into a giant insect while the other remains a normal human being.   Another difference is the situation between the characters and their mothers.   Gregor wants to have a relationship with his mother but cannot because of his physical form.   Mersault’s mother is alive and well for part of the novel, but he does not want to take care of her or have anything to do with her.   The two characters are similar in the way that they do not believe in God and will both die lonely and abandoned.  Ã‚     Kafka creates a very lonely and abandoned world for Gregor Samsa in his short novel Metamorphosis.   Gregor is an existentialist character who mutates into a giant bug without reason and no longer has any control over his life.   He becomes completely uninvolved in the way that he does not talk or have any interaction with anyone inside or outside of the family.   He is dehumanized.   Gregor’s mother is disgusted by the looks of him and refuses to see or talk to him.   Gregor is now lonely and abandoned by his family, does not eat and eventually dies.  Ã‚     Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the short novel The Stranger, Mersault is also an existentialistic character.   He does not wish to become involved with anyone, including God and his own mother and does not have any emotion what so-ever when she dies.   Although Mersault does not want to become involved with anyone, he also does not want to create waves, thus he cannot help but to say yes to a friend when he asks him for help.

Nature and Death in In Memory of My Dear Grandchild and Upon Wedlock an

Nature and Death in In Memory of My Dear Grandchild and Upon Wedlock and Death of Children Literature delivers or expresses ideas according to the social and cultural settings of the particular time of the writers. Even though it is designed to be in a certain time frame, the concepts overlap each other. The poems "In memory of my dear grandchild" by Anne Bradstreet, "Upon wedlock and death of children" by Edward Taylor though were written in different eras, they have a common concept "death". The writers in their poems describe that death is a natural process and compare it with different aspects of nature. Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) and Edward Taylor (1642-1729) are both early American litterateurs, and are firm believers in the Puritan experiment in America. Anne Bradstreet was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, and got married to Simon Bradstreet when she was sixteen years old. She received a better education than other young women did of her times. Due to her childhood diseases and deadly, childbirth experiences, she became very weak. She had to lead a life full of hardships in the new land. Although her distress is not hidden, faith in God is also the prominent object in her works. Edward Taylor was a son of a yeoman farmer, went to Harvard for higher education, and became a teacher for a while. He was not involved with the church and instead became a puritan minister. He wrote poems for his own pleasure and not as a part of religious service. He too believed in the puritan experiment in America. The poems chosen of these two writers are about death immediate family members . Although, both the writers have different intentions, they associate death with some aspects of nature. There is a common mechanics ... ...and most of all they had the common Faith in God. They both take death as a natural process of life and do not protest to God regarding the loss of their beloved. Instead they solaced themselves by saying that it was God's and so he took it away. There is a constant comparison between nature and death in the works of these writers. One belief that is prominent is that everything in nature ends (including humans); it is just the difference in time frame. Meaning that some die early and some livelong than the others. Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor are from different periods of the history of American literature, but they have the same belief system. They both have faith in God that He is the one to decide about everything's destiny. They support their belief by exemplifying it with the way the world is organized that is anything that is born has to end.

Hill Country snack food Co. Case Essay

Hill Country’s operating strategy and its impact on business risk & financial strategy The operating strategy is to produce high quality products through efficient, low-cost and aggressive operation as well as singular management. In detail, the company provides several kinds of snacks to satisfy different type’s customers. The company expands its presence into sporting events, movie theaters and other leisure events to attract customers. An efficient and low-cost operation is achieved by strong control of budgets and costs. Customers are satisfied by companies’ quick react to their requirements or preferences and reinvent and expand its products, showing the efficient management for the customer requirement. Also, all decisions are made in order to build shareholders’ value, indicating singular management. For the business risk, the snack foods industry was very competitive, facing off against competitors like PepsiCo and Snyder’s-Lance very day. In this high rivalry industry, company could not succeed by price increase. And unfavourable cost due to both internal and external factors is not easy to control. In order to control the business risk, the company is actively involved in the budget approval process, and the operating strategy has very important part to keep the costs under control. For the financial risk, the more debt financed the higher financial risk it is. The company’s risk avoidance strategy is manifested in its financing decision. The company is managed in preference for equity finance and against debt finance, investments are funded internally. The optimal capital structure for Hill Country The optimal capital structure is the capital structure at which the market value is maximised and the cost of capital is minimised. There are 3 alternative capital structures from pro forma 2011 financial information. If Hill take 60% debt to capital ratio, the company repurchases the most of the shares comparing with 20% and 40% debt to capital ratio structure, the debt would be B rated with highest interest rate of 7.7%, reflecting the higher risk. The net income would drop to $76M, however, the tax would reduce by around $12M, but the interest expense increases to $33.5M, there is big gap between them. In terms of the 20% debt to capital ratio one, the debt is  rated at AAA with 2.85% interest rate, the tax and interest both decreases and increases slightly, the EPS and dividend per share in 20% and 60% are less than which in 40% scenario. Regarding to the 40% debt to capital structure, the debt is rated at BBB with 4.4% interest rate. Also, the interest coverage ratio is strong(11.8). The very important part is that even the net income reduces by 8.5%, the EPS and dividend per share, are both the highest compared with 20% and 60% scenarios, thus adding value to the shareholders. In addition, it allows the firm not to be over leveraged, which is in favor of the firm that it does not want to have too much debts. The financial risk is the highest in the 60% scenario since the shareholders have the highest financial leverage(facing bankruptcy). According to the calculation(appendix), the highest value of the firm is $2482M under 40% debt scenario compared with 20% and 60% debt scenarios, thus maximizing the firm value. Therefore 40% debt to capital structure is recommended. Benefits of debt financing Debt financing allows control of business. Owner can made decision and does not need consider shareholders or investors. * Debt is tax-deductible. This means that it shields part of business income from taxes and lowers the tax liability. * The lender do not share the profits. Business only need to make repayment. * Debt is less expensive than equity due to its contractual nature and priority claim How large the benefits are depending on the magnitude of the tax benefit numbers, the benefits that reallocated to investors and whether the costs of debt that are less than the benefits from debts. Changes the capital structure? It is recommended that Hill Country to change the capital structure. The capital structure is too conservative, having negative impact on financial performance measures. Hill Country has excessive liquidity, and the interest rate is quite low, it is good opportunity to involve debts. The impacts of the change would be the increase in debt and decrease in equity. The company can get advantage of debts as mentioned before, it is aggressive growth strategy. And the financial ratios such as ROE, ROA, EPS, dividend per share as well as the value of firm would improve. Also, the repurchase of the shares will result in the increase in the share price. However, most lenders  provide severe penalties for late or missed payments, which may include charging late fees, taking possession of collateral, or calling the loan due early. Failure to make payments on a loan, even temporarily, can adversely affect a small business’s credit rating and its ability to obtain future financing. Debt financing is also borrowing against future earnings. This means that instead of using all future profits to grow the business or to pay owners, the firm has to allocate a portion to debt payments. Also, debt can limit future cash flow and growth, decreasing in equity could lead to higher debt-to-equity ratio. Alternatives to increase debt/decrease equity Instead of issuing debt, the firm can borrow debt from banks to increase debt. In order to reduce equity, another method is to rewards its investors by distributing a portion of its profits in the form of cash dividends. Since the cumulative earnings of a company are reported within the balance sheet equity account â€Å"retained earnings,† cash dividends are shown on the company’s financial statements as a direct reduction of the account. In addition, Increase expenses can bring the same effect. Depreciation is an operating expense that allows a business to allocate or spread the costs of its assets over the length of their useful life. The use of an accelerated depreciation method results in a higher depreciation expense during the asset’s earlier years of service, resulting in a lower net income and equity balance during this time. Conclusion and Recommendation Due to the strong cash balance and high liquidity of the firm, it is recommended that Hill Country to take 40% debt to capital finance with respect to the several benefits with the debt financing to increase the firm value. Also, the firm can consider the alternative ways to change the capital structure. Appendix NOPAT=EBIT(1-tax) tax rate=35.5% Hamada equation: Beta L=Beta U[1+(1-T)(D/E) Risk free rate(Rf)=1.8% Market interest rate(Rm)=3.8% cost of equity=Rf+ Beta L*(Rm-Rf)

First to Fight

FIRST TO FIGHT BOOK REPORT PFC WALTERS 1. TITLE: FIRST TO FIGHT 2. CBRN 1st Marine Division 3. AUTHOR: Victor H. Krulak Lieutenant General, USMC (Ret. ) 4. PUBLISHER: U. S. Naval Institute 5. PUBLISHED: 1984 6. PAGES: 227 7. COST: Base Library 8. SUBJECT: First to Fight is about Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak’s personal experiences in the Marine Corps, and his ideas and opinions on how he views the Marine Corps. 9. OPINION: I thought First to Fight was a good book that went into a lot of detail into what Lieutenant General Krulak was a part of in the Marine Corps throughout his career.I did like the way he pointed out how the Marine Corps has always stood up for the American people’s rights in a roundabout way, without actually spelling it out. I also believe that every Marine needs to read this book because it shows how the Marines were almost absorbed and disbanded throughout history, and how close we were to not having a Marine Corps today. 10. INTRODUCTION: The book First to Fight starts off with a letter from then commandant General Randolph McC. Pate to Lieutenant General Krulak asking why the U.S. needs a Marine Corps. He responded five days later by answering the question conversely by asking why the U. S. does not need a Marine Corps. And the truth is America does not really need a Marine Corps. But the people want us to be here, not on any technical level but on a whole different level. The American people want it that way not on what we know what we are or what we know we can do, but what our country believes we are and believe what we can do. If that ever disappears, then so will the Marine Corps. 11.BODY: First to Fight starts out with Lieutenant General Krulak asking Gunnery Sergeant Walter Holzworth how the Marine Corps came by its reputation as of the world’s greatest fighting formations. He answered by stating that â€Å"they started right out telling everybody how great they were. Pretty soon they got to believing it themselves. And they have been busy ever since proving they were right. † He then goes on to talk about the beginning of the Marine Corps back in 1775 and how the Marines were initially raiders against British Commerce. The Continental Marines actually disappeared after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.They were revived in 1794, and their position was solidified in law in 1798. The Marines were used as seagoing police to help the Navy maintain discipline in its ships. Lady Luck has played a big role in keeping the Marines around also, by Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon at Derna, Floyd Gibbons report of Belleau Wood, and by playing the photographer Joe Rosenthal on top of Mt. Suribachi at the precise moment five Marines and one Corpsman raised the flag. There have been several big thinkers in the Marine Corps history that had the foresight to see what it would take to keep the Marine Corps alive in the future.The continuous struggle for a viable existence clearly fixed one of th e distinguishing characteristics of the Corps, a sensitive paranoia that has led to the Marines always challenging themselves to higher standards just to stay in the fight. The Marines have almost been disbanded several times throughout history. The Army has tried to disband or absorb us on more than one occasion. The Navy has tried to kick us off of their ships and hinder us from having any say so in any major military actions.Each time we have succeeded through congress and the American people to stay alive by showing we live, fight, and act to a higher standard than any of the other services. It is said the Marine Corps is the best in amphibious assault. In truth we were the first of the U. S. military to study it in depth. The Marines developed the Tentative Manual in 1934, which in 1935 was renamed the Manual for Naval Overseas Operations. It took seven months to write. This was a major part of the strategy for World War II, and was crucial for the Pacific island hopping campai gn.The Marines Corps has always struggled with the need for money, and one major example is outlined in Chapter Five and Chapter Six about how most of the doctrine was made before the Marines even had enough boats that could actually storm a beach. By the end of 1941, the Navy finally decided that the Marines were right and adopted the Higgins boat and the LVT and the Pacific Campaign was finally possible. The United States Congress sees the Marines as very frugal. This is another point that has kept the Marines here throughout the last two hundred years.They have been able to get into the Seminole War and the Mexican War because the Commandant told the President Marines would be cheaper to use than the Army. Under Commandant Lejeune the Marines actually returned money to the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year. From uniform items to equipment, compared to the other branches, all have been cheaper or out modeled. Finally in 1954 the Department of Defense engaged in a massive stan dardization program. Contracting and Manufacturing were consolidated but the Supply Depot still sits where it always has as a testament to the frugality of Marines over generations. 2. LESSON: The Marine Corps has been tested again and again about their very existence over the years. Each and every time the Marine Corps has stepped up to the test, and will continue to do so. The U. S. Congress has had to step in a few times to help the Marines, but they only do so because of our actions they have seen and the American people still want the Marine Corps alive. From the time a recruit steps on the yellow footprints all the way to a commissioned officer, all must strive to be better than they are, and continually raise the bar.If not the Marine Corps will cease to exist. If it was not for a small group of extremely dedicated Marines, the Marine Corps would already be a thing of history. 13. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, I think this is a very motivated book. It goes through past events th at made the Marine Corps what it is today. It is extremely detailed into what Lieutenant General Victor Krulak did and was a part of during his career. There is pride and purpose in it that show through his words what it means to be a United States Marine.

Bloodlines Chapter Two

A COUPLE OF PEOPLE GASPED, no doubt over Keith's use of the term â€Å"vamp lover.† Neither word was that terrible in and of itself, but together†¦ well, they represented an idea that was pretty much anathema to all that the Alchemists stood for. We fought to protect humans from vampires. Being in league with those creatures was about the vilest thing any of us could be accused of. Even while questioning me earlier, the other Alchemists had been very careful with their choice of language. Keith's usage was almost obscene. Horowitz looked angry on my behalf and opened his mouth as though he might make an equally biting retort. After a quick glance at Zoe and me, he seemed to reconsider, and stayed silent. Michaelson, however, couldn't help himself from muttering, â€Å"Protect us all.† He made the sign against evil. Yet it wasn't Keith's name-calling that really set me off (though that did certainly send a chill through me). It was Stanton's earlier offhand comment. We know you requested Zoe. Keith had requested Zoe for this assignment? My resolve to keep her out of it grew by leaps and bounds. The thought of her going off with him made me clench my fists. Everyone here might think Keith Darnell was some kind of poster child, but I knew better. No girl – let alone my sister – should be left alone with him. â€Å"Keith,† said Stanton, a gentle warning in her voice. â€Å"I can respect your feelings, but you aren't in a position to make that call.† He flushed. â€Å"Palm Springs is my post! I have every right to dictate what goes on in my territory.† â€Å"I can understand why you'd feel that way,† said my father. Unbelievable. If Zoe or I had questioned authority like Keith had, our father wouldn't have hesitated to tell us our â€Å"rights† – or rather, he'd tell us that we had none. Keith had stayed with my family one summer – young Alchemists sometimes did that while training – and my father had grown to regard him like the son he'd never had. Even then, there'd been a double standard between Keith and us. Time and distance apparently hadn't diminished that. â€Å"Palm Springs may be your post,† said Stanton, â€Å"but this assignment is coming from places in the organization that are far above your reach. You're essential for coordination, yes, but you are by no means the ultimate authority here.† Unlike me, I suspected Stanton had smacked a few people in her day, and I think she wanted to do that to Keith now. It was funny that she would become my defender, since I'd been pretty sure she didn't buy my story about using Rose to advance my career. Keith visibly calmed himself, wisely realizing a childish outburst wasn't going to get him anywhere. â€Å"I understand. But I'm simply worried about the success of this mission. I know both of the Sage girls. Even before Sydney's ‘incident,' I had serious concerns about her. I figured she'd grow out of them, though, so I didn't bother saying anything at the time. I see now I was wrong. Back then, I actually thought Zoe would have been a far better choice for the family position. No offense, Jared.† He gave my father what was probably supposed to be a charming smile. Meanwhile, it was getting harder and harder to hide my incredulity. â€Å"Zoe was eleven when you stayed with us,† I said. â€Å"How in the world could you have drawn those conclusions?† I didn't buy for an instant that he'd had â€Å"concerns† about me back then. No – scratch that. He'd probably had concerns the last day he stayed with us, when I confronted him about a dirty secret he'd been hiding. That, I was almost certain, was what all of this was about. He wanted me silenced. My adventures with Rose were simply an excuse to get me out of the way. â€Å"Zoe was always advanced for her age,† Keith said. â€Å"Sometimes you can just tell.† â€Å"Zoe's never seen a Strigoi, let alone a Moroi! She'd probably freeze up if she did. That's true of most Alchemists,† I pointed out. â€Å"Whoever you send is going to have to be able to stand being around them, and no matter what you think of my reasons, I'm used to them. I don't like them, but I know how to tolerate them. Zoe hasn't had anything but the most basic of instruction – and that's all been in our home. Everyone keeps saying this is a serious assignment. Do you really want to risk its outcome because of inexperience and unsubstantiated fears?† I finished, proud of myself for staying calm and making such a reasoned argument. Barnes shifted uneasily. â€Å"But if Keith had doubts years ago†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Zoe's training is still probably enough to get by,† said my father. Five minutes ago, my father had endorsed me going instead of her! Was anyone here even listening to me? It was like I was invisible now that Keith was here. Horowitz had been busily cleaning and putting away his tattooing tools but looked up to scoff at Barnes's remark. â€Å"You said the magic words: ‘years ago.' Keith couldn't have been much older than these girls are now.† Horowitz shut his tool case and leaned casually against the wall, arms crossed. â€Å"I don't doubt you, Keith. Not exactly. But I'm not really sure you can base your opinion of her off memories from when you were all children.† By Horowitz's logic, he was saying I was still a child, but I didn't care. He'd delivered his comments in an effortless, easy way that nonetheless left Keith looking like an idiot. Keith knew it, too, and turned bright red. â€Å"I concur,† said Stanton, who was clearly getting impatient. â€Å"Sydney wants this badly, and few would, considering it means she'll actually have to live with a vampire.† Want it badly? Not exactly. But I did want to protect Zoe at all costs and restore my credibility. If it meant thwarting Keith Darnell along the way, then so much the – â€Å"Wait,† I said, replaying Stanton's words. â€Å"Did you say live with a vampire?† â€Å"Yes,† said Stanton. â€Å"Even if she's in hiding, the Moroi girl still has to have some semblance of a normal life. We figured we'd kill two birds with one stone and enroll her in a private boarding school. Take care of her education and lodging. We would make arrangements for you to be her roommate.† â€Å"Wouldn't that mean†¦ wouldn't that mean I'd have to go to school?† I asked, feeling a little puzzled now. â€Å"I already graduated.† High school, at least. I'd made it clear a number of times to my father that I'd love to go to college. He'd made it equally clear that he didn't feel there was a need. â€Å"You see?† said Keith, jumping on the opportunity. â€Å"She's too old. Zoe's a better age match.† â€Å"Sydney can pass for a senior. She's the right age.† Stanton gave me a once-over. â€Å"Besides, you were homeschooled, right? This'll be a new experience for you. You can see what you were missing.† â€Å"It would probably be easy for you,† said my father grudgingly. â€Å"Your education was superior to anything they can offer.† Nice backhanded compliment, Dad. I was afraid to show how uneasy this deal was making me. My resolve to look out for Zoe and myself hadn't changed, but the complications just kept growing. Repeat high school. Live with a vampire. Keep her in witness protection. And even though I'd talked up how comfortable I was around vampires, the thought of sharing a room with one – even a seemingly benign one like Jill – was unnerving. Another woe occurred to me. â€Å"Would you be an undercover student too?† I asked Keith. The idea of lending him class notes made me nauseous again. â€Å"Of course not,† he said, sounding insulted. â€Å"I'm too old. I'll be the Local Area Mission Liaison.† I was willing to bet he'd just made that title up on the spot. â€Å"My job is to help coordinate the assignment and report back to our superiors. And I'm not going to do it if she's the one there.† He looked from face to face as he spoke that last line, but there was no question who she was. Me. â€Å"Then don't,† said Stanton bluntly. â€Å"Sydney is going. That's my decision, and I'll argue it to any higher authority you want to take it to. If you are so against her placement, Mr. Darnell, I will personally see that you are transferred out of Palm Springs and don't have to deal with her at all.† All eyes swiveled to Keith, and he hesitated. She'd caught him in a trap, I realized. I had to imagine that with its climate, Palm Springs didn't see a lot of vampire action. Keith's job there was probably pretty easy, whereas when I'd worked in St. Petersburg, I'd been constantly having to do damage control. That place was a vampire haven, as were some of the other places in Europe and Asia my father had taken me to visit. Don't even get me started about Prague. If Keith were transferred, he took the risk of not only getting a bigger workload but also of being in a much worse location. Because although Palm Springs wasn't desirable for vampires, it sounded kind of awesome for humans. Keith's face confirmed as much. He didn't want to leave Palm Springs. â€Å"What if she goes there, and I have reason to suspect her of treason again?† â€Å"Then report her,† said Horowitz, shifting restlessly. He obviously wasn't impressed with Keith. â€Å"The same as you would anyone.† â€Å"I can increase some of Zoe's training in the meantime,† said my father, almost as an apology to Keith. It was clear whose side my father was on. It wasn't mine. It wasn't even Zoe's, really. â€Å"Then, if you find fault with Sydney, we can replace her.† I bristled at the thought of Keith being the one to decide if I had faults, but that didn't bother me nearly as much as the thought of Zoe still being tied to this. If my father was keeping her on standby, then she wasn't out of danger yet. The Alchemists could still have their hooks in her – as could Keith. I vowed then that no matter what it took, even if I had to handfeed him grapes, I would make sure Keith had no reason to doubt my loyalties. â€Å"Fine,† he said, the word seeming to cause him a lot of pain. â€Å"Sydney can go†¦ for now. But I'll be watching you.† He fixed his gaze on me. â€Å"And I'm not going to cover for you. You'll be responsible for keeping that vampire girl in line and getting her to her feedings.† â€Å"Feedings?† I asked blankly. Of course. Jill would need blood. For a moment, all my confidence wavered. It was easy to talk about hanging out with vampires when none were around. Easier still when you didn't think about what it was that made vampires who they were. Blood. That terrible, unnatural need that fueled their existence. An awful thought sprang into my mind, vanishing as quickly as it came. Am I supposed to give her my blood? No. That was ridiculous. That was a line the Alchemists would never cross. Swallowing, I tried to conceal my brief moment of panic. â€Å"How do you plan on feeding her?† Stanton nodded to Keith. â€Å"Would you explain?† I think she was giving him a chance to feel important, as a way of making up for his earlier defeat. He ran with it. â€Å"There's only one Moroi we know of living in Palm Springs,† said Keith. As he spoke, I noticed that his tousled blond hair was practically coated in gel. It gave his hair a slimy shine that I didn't think was attractive in the least. Also, I didn't trust any guy who used more styling products than I did. â€Å"And if you ask me, he's crazy. But he's harmless crazy – inasmuch as any of them are harmless. He's this old recluse who lives outside the city. He's got this hang-up about the Moroi government and doesn't associate with any of them, so he isn't going to tell anyone you guys are there. Most importantly, he's got a feeder he's willing to share.† I frowned. â€Å"Do we really want Jill hanging out with some anti-government Moroi? The whole purpose is to keep them stable. If we introduce her to some rebel, how do we know he won't try to use her?† â€Å"That's an excellent point,† said Michaelson, seeming surprised to admit as much. I hadn't meant to undermine Keith. My mind had just jumped ahead in this way it had, spotting a potential problem and pointing it out. From the look he gave me, though, it was like I was purposely trying to discredit his statement and make him look bad. â€Å"We won't tell him who she is, obviously,† he said, a glint of anger in his good eye. â€Å"That would be stupid. And he's not part of any faction. He's not part of anything. He's convinced the Moroi and their guardians let him down, so he wants nothing to do with any of them. I've passed a story to him about how Jill's family has the same antisocial feelings, so he's sympathetic.† â€Å"You're right to be wary, Sydney,† said Stanton. There was a look of approval in her eyes, like she was pleased at having defended me. That approval meant a lot to me, considering how fierce she often seemed. â€Å"We can't assume anything about any of them. Although we also checked out this Moroi with Abe Mazur, who concurs he's harmless enough.† â€Å"Abe Mazur?† scoffed Michaelson. He scratched at his graying beard. â€Å"Yes. I'm sure he'd be an expert on who's harmless or not.† My heart lurched at the name, but I tried not to show it. Do not react, do not react, I ordered my face. After a deep breath, I asked very, very carefully, â€Å"Is Abe Mazur the Moroi who's going with Jill? I've met him before†¦ but I thought you said it was an Ivashkov who was going.† If Abe Mazur was in residence in Palm Springs, that would alter things significantly. Michaelson scoffed. â€Å"No, we'd never send you off with Abe Mazur. He's simply been helping with the organization of this plan.† â€Å"What's so bad about Abe Mazur?† asked Keith. â€Å"I don't know who he is.† I studied Keith very closely as he spoke, looking for some trace of deception. But, no. His face was all innocence, openly curious. His blue eyes – or eye, rather – held a rare look of confusion, contrasting with the usual know-it-all arrogance. Abe's name meant nothing to him. I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. â€Å"A scoundrel,† said Stanton flatly. â€Å"He knows far too much about things he shouldn't. He's useful, but I don't trust him.† A scoundrel? That was an understatement. Abe Mazur was a Moroi whose nickname in Russia – zmey, the serpent – said it all. Abe had done a number of favors for me, ones I'd had to pay back at considerable risk to myself. Part of that payback had been helping Rose escape. Well, he'd called it payback; I called it blackmail. I had no desire to cross paths with him again, mostly because I was afraid of what he'd ask for next. The frustrating part was that there was no one I could go to for help. My superiors wouldn't react well to learning that, in addition to all my other solo activities with vampires, I was making side deals with them. â€Å"None of them are to be trusted,† my father pointed out. He made the Alchemist sign against evil, drawing a cross on his left shoulder with his right hand. â€Å"Yes, well, Mazur's worse than most,† said Michaelson. He stifled a yawn, reminding all of us that it was the middle of the night. â€Å"Are we all set, then?† There were murmurs of assent. Keith's stormy expression displayed how unhappy he was at not getting his way, but he made no more attempts to stop me from going. â€Å"I guess we can leave anytime now,† he said. It took me a second to realize that the â€Å"we† meant him and me. â€Å"Right now?† I asked in disbelief. He shrugged. â€Å"The vampires are going to be on their way soon. We need to make sure everything's set up for them. If we switch off driving, we can be there by tomorrow afternoon.† â€Å"Great,† I said stiffly. A road trip with Keith. Ugh. But what else could I say? I had no choice in this, and even if I did, I was in no position to turn down anything the Alchemists asked of me now. I'd played every card I had tonight, and I had to believe being with Keith was better than a re-education center. Besides, I'd just fought a hard battle to prove myself and spare Zoe. I had to continue showing I was up for anything. My father sent me off to pack with the same briskness he'd ordered me to make myself presentable earlier. I left the others talking and scurried quietly up to my room, still conscious of my sleeping mother. I was an expert in packing quickly and efficiently, thanks to surprise trips my father had sprung on me throughout my childhood. In fact, I always had a bag of toiletries packed and ready to go. The problem wasn't so much in speed as it was in wondering how much to pack. The length of time for this assignment hadn't been specified, and I had the uneasy feeling that no one actually knew. Were we talking about a few weeks? An entire school year? I'd heard someone mention the Moroi wanting to repeal the law that endangered Jill, but that seemed like the kind of legal process that could take a while. To make things worse, I didn't even know what to wear to high school. The only thing I was certain of was that the weather would be hot. I ended up packing ten of my lightest outfits and hoped I'd be able to do laundry. â€Å"Sydney?† I was putting my laptop in a messenger bag when Zoe appeared in my doorway. She'd redone her braids so that they were neater, and I wondered if it had been an attempt to impress our father. â€Å"Hey,† I said, smiling at her. She slipped into the room and shut the door behind her. I was glad she'd come to say goodbye. I would miss her and wanted her to know that – â€Å"Why did you do that to me?† she demanded before I could get a word out. â€Å"Do you know how humiliated I am?† I was taken aback, speechless for a few moments. â€Å"I†¦ what are you talking about? I was trying to – â€Å" â€Å"You made me sound incompetent!† she said. I was astonished to see the glint of tears in her eyes. â€Å"You went on and on about how I didn't have any experience and couldn't handle doing what you and Dad do! I looked like an idiot in front of all those Alchemists. And Keith.† â€Å"Keith Darnell is no one you need to worry about impressing,† I said quickly, trying to control my temper. Seeing her stormy face, I sighed and replayed the conversation in the study. I hadn't been trying to make Zoe look bad so much as do whatever I could to make sure I was the one sent away. I'd had no clue she would take it like this. â€Å"Look, I wasn't trying to embarrass you. I was trying to protect you.† She gave a harsh laugh, and the anger sounded weird coming from someone as gentle as Zoe. â€Å"Is that what you call it? You even said yourself that you were trying to get a promotion!† I grimaced. Yes, I had said that. But I could hardly tell her the truth. No human knew the truth about why I'd helped Rose. Lying to my own kind – especially my sister – pained me, but there was nothing I could do. As usual, I felt trapped in the middle. So, I dodged the comment. â€Å"You were never intended to be an Alchemist,† I said. â€Å"There are better things for you out there.† â€Å"Because I'm not as smart as you?† she asked. â€Å"Because I don't speak five languages?† â€Å"That has nothing to do with it,† I snapped. â€Å"Zoe, you're wonderful, and you'd probably make a great Alchemist! But believe me, the Alchemist life†¦ you don't want any part of it.† I wanted to tell her that she'd hate it. I wanted to tell her that she'd never be responsible for her own future or get to make her own decisions again. But my sense of duty prevented me, and I stayed silent. â€Å"I'd do it,† she said. â€Å"I'd help protect us from vampires†¦ if Dad wanted me to.† Her voice wavered a little, and I suddenly wondered what was really fueling her desire to be an Alchemist. â€Å"If you want to get close to Dad, find another way. The Alchemist cause might be a good one, but once you're in it, they own you.† I wished I could explain to her how it felt. â€Å"You don't want this life.† â€Å"Because you want it all for yourself?† she demanded. She was a few inches shorter than me but filled with so much fury and fierceness right now that she seemed to take up the room. â€Å"No! I don't – you don't understand,† I finally said. I wanted to throw my hands up in exasperation but held back, as always. The look she gave me nearly turned me to ice. â€Å"Oh, I think I understand perfectly.† She turned around abruptly and hurried out the door, still managing to move quietly. Her fear of our father overpowered her anger at me. I stared at where she'd been standing and felt terrible. How could she have thought I was really trying to steal all the glory and make her look bad? Because that's exactly what you said, a voice inside me pointed out. I supposed it was true, but I'd never expected her to be offended. I'd never known she had any interest in being one of the Alchemists. Even now, I wondered if her desire was more about being a part of something and proving herself to our father than it was about really wishing she'd been chosen for this task. Whatever her reasons, there was nothing to be done for it now. I might not like the heavy-handed way the Alchemists had dealt with me, but I still fiercely believed in what they were doing to protect humans from vampires. And I definitely believed in keeping Jill safe from her own people if it meant avoiding a massive civil war. I could do this job and do it well. And Zoe – she would be free to pursue whatever she wanted in life. â€Å"What took you so long?† my father asked when I returned to the study. My conversation with Zoe had delayed me a couple minutes, which was two minutes too long for him. I didn't attempt to answer. â€Å"I'm ready to go whenever you are,† Keith told me. His mood had shifted while I was upstairs. Friendliness oozed from him now, so strongly that it was a wonder everyone didn't recognize it as fake. He'd apparently decided to try a more pleasant attitude around me, either in the hopes of impressing the others or sucking up to me so that I wouldn't reveal what I knew about him. Yet even as he wore that plastic smile, there was a stiffness in his posture and the way he crossed his arms that told me – if no else – that he was no happier about being thrown together than I was. â€Å"I can even do most of the driving.† â€Å"I don't mind doing my share,† I said, trying to avoid glancing at his glass eye. I also wasn't comfortable being driven by someone with faulty depth perception. â€Å"I'd like to speak to Sydney in private before she goes, if that's all right,† my father said. No one had a problem with that, and he led me into the kitchen, shutting the door behind us. We stood quietly for a few moments, simply facing each other with arms crossed. I suddenly dared to hope that maybe he'd come to tell me he was sorry for how things had been between us this last month, that he forgave me and loved me. Honestly, I would've been happy if he'd simply wanted a private, fatherly goodbye. He peered down at me intently, his brown eyes so identical to mine. I hoped mine never had such a cold look in them. â€Å"I don't have to tell you how important this is for you, for all of us.† So much for fatherly affection. â€Å"No, sir,† I said. â€Å"You don't.† â€Å"I don't know if you can undo the disgrace you brought down on us by running off with them, but this is a step in the right direction. Do not mess this up. You're being tested. Follow your orders. Keep the Moroi girl out of trouble.† He sighed and ran a hand through his dark blond hair, which I'd also inherited. Strange, I thought, that we had so many things in common†¦ yet were so completely different. â€Å"Thank God Keith is with you. Follow his lead. He knows what he's doing.† I stiffened. There was that note of pride in his voice again, like Keith was the greatest thing walking the earth. My father had seen to it that my training was thorough, but when Keith had stayed with us, my father had taken him on trips and lessons I'd never been part of. My sisters and I had been furious. We'd always suspected that our father regretted having only daughters, and that had been proof. But it wasn't jealousy that made my blood boil and teeth clench now. For a moment, I thought, What if I tell him what I know? What will he think of his golden boy then? But staring into my father's hard eyes, I answered my own question: No one would believe me. That was immediately followed by the memory of another voice and a girl's frightened, pleading face staring at me with big brown eyes. Don't tell, Sydney. Whatever you do, don't tell what Keith did. Don't tell anyone. I couldn't betray her like that. My father was still waiting for an answer. I swallowed and nodded. â€Å"Yes, sir.† He raised his eyebrows, clearly pleased, and gave me a rough pat on the shoulder. It was the closest he'd come to real affection in a while. I flinched, both from surprise and because of how rigid I was with frustration. â€Å"Good.† He moved toward the kitchen door and then paused to glance back at me. â€Å"Maybe there's hope for you yet.†