Infection and its prevention Essay Example

Infection and its prevention Essay Infection and its prevention have been a prime concern of mankind for a long time. Infection is a condition that results when a microorganism is able to invade the body, multiply and cause injurious effect or diseases. (McCall Tankersley, 2007:71) Infection control therefore refers to policies and procedures used to minimize the risk of spreading infections, especially in hospitals and human or animal health care facilities. The purpose of this is to reduce the occurrence of infectious diseases. The aim of this essay is to look at how infection control and the theatre environment impact on a patient undergoing surgery. The first part of the essay looks at infection control in the hospital setting in general; touching on issues such as hospital acquired infection like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium Difficile (CD). Then the essay delves into the design of the surgical theatre and how it impacts on patients; it further talks about surgical etiquette placing much emphasis on hand washing as this is the first defence in preventing transmission of pathogen (Radford et al, 2004). Finally a conclusion is drawn on all the issues raised and their impact on the patient undergoing surgery. We will write a custom essay sample on Infection and its prevention specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Infection and its prevention specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Infection and its prevention specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer In the past, surgery would have been performed in a convenient location such as the patients home or a hospital ward with only basic infection control in place (Essex-Lopresti 1999). In Phillips (2004) describes the process for preparing the room as rudimentary, amounting to little more than removing furniture and non essential items and boiling linen, perhaps fumigation if time allows. Today, most surgery takes place in operating theatres that are specially designed for that purpose. There are two types of infection, the endogenous and exogenous infection. Endogenous infection occurs when microorganisms that normally exist harmlessly in one part of an individual to become pathogen, whereas exogenous infection happens when microorganisms from other source or from other person, object, animal or the environment (Woodhead 2005). Infection control refers to policies and procedures used to minimise the risk of spreading infection especially in hospitals. Nosocomial or hospital acquired infection (HAI) occur in approximately 5% of all hospital patients. The longer a patient stays in hospital, the higher the risk of getting HAI and sometimes even leading to death. There are many reasons why patients infected with HAI: Firstly weak immune system which makes them more vulnerable to infection due to patient sickness or treatment. Secondly, infection agent can be introduced to the patient by medical procedures and thirdly, on admission with infectable disease agent, patient can transfer diseases to a patient or patient to staff or visitor (Jones, 2008). HAI has, over the past few years dominated the media with its coverage of the superbugs, in particular MRSA and CD. A HAI or nosocomial is that which is acquired or develops as a result of treatment while the patient hospitalised for more than 48 hours and who did not have signs and symptoms of such infection on admission. Radford et al (2004) cited the research of Emmerson et al (1996) 9% of patients admitted to hospital acquire HAI from surgical wound infection after hospital discharge. MRSA has the ability to resist to one or more conventional antibiotics. Study suggests many people are carriers of MRSA but are colonised in their nose or back of their throats and on their normal flora. Report from BBC news (2005) stated that about 100,000 get infected with MRSA each year when they get admitted into hospital. The only way health care workers can reduce this infection is; a good hand washing between patients, a good standard hygiene in hospital and patients with MRSA treated in a highly isolated as much as possible. The operating theatre is designed in accordance by national and processional guidelines as described by Woodhead et al (2005). Each department is divided into three zones, the outer or dirty zone which is unrestricted area where normal clothing can be worn; it contains the entrance to changing areas and usually has access to remove theatre waste. The clean or semi-restricted zones are the staff changing rooms, anaesthetic and recovery rooms and sterile supplies. Access is restricted and all personnel and patients have to wear theatre attire. There is exception sometimes to patients that need support, such as children, mental ill patients or translators to the anaesthetic room. The sterile or restricted zones include the operating theatre, preparation rooms and the scrub areas. Surgical attire and possible masks will need to be worn at all times (Davey Ince 2004). Sterile areas should avoid overcrowding by theatre staff to reduce the risk of accidental contamination to sterile instruments and layout. To reduce airborne contamination, movement of staff and patient should be kept to a minimum. This helps to reduce airborne bacteria from entering the operating theatre (Woodhead 2005). Ventilation, temperature, humidity and airborne contamination have an important role in the design of a good operating theatre. In order to control the movement of air, the operating department requires specialised ventilation system. Usually the system employed in ventilating modern operating departments are laminar airflow (LAF) technology and positive pressure (PP) systems; these are in theory designed to reduce surgical site infections. The theatre is particularly arranged in a way so that air pressure is filtered moving air from clean to less clean areas and this continues when the theatre room is not in use. This is in place to reduce the airborne contamination, reduce expired anaesthetic gases and to control temperature and humidity, thus reducing and minimising bacterial growth. Adequate ventilation in theatre can be achieved by properly closing theatre doors, windows are well sealed, ceiling solid and the floor impermeable to washable material with no gaps or cracks and cove red joints where it meets the wall. Also shelving should be kept to a minimum (Weaving P, et al 2008). In orthopaedic theatre the air is ultraclean. These system are used when the risk and consequences to developing infection are greater. Ultra clean air, provided by the laminar flow systems, is designed to move particle free air over the aseptic operating field in one direction; it can be in vertically or horizontally sweeping away particle in its path. These canopies have the capacity to provide up to 400 to 500 air change per hour and can reduce the incidents of surgical site infection ,so together with good practice and the use of prophylactic antibiotics, the impact of surgery upon the patient should be favourable (Woodhead et al 2005) . 37à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ C and high humidity is the optional where most bacteria reproduce, to keep a theatre room free from bacteria the temperature should be between 20 to 24oc and humidified air levels of 50 to60%, this help to suppress bacteria growth, also help create a good impact upon the surgical patient, as infection rates are considerably lower (Davey and Ince 2004). Infants, children and burnt patient need a warmer temperature to avoid hypothermia, therefore each operating theatre have its own controls for regulating the temperature (Mangum 2001). There are two types of lighting found in theatre, the laminar lighting used to light the operating theatre and auxiliary and the surgical lighting. Both harbour microorganisms on it surfaces due to the movement and activities of staff in the operating theatre (Phillips 2004). This should be clean regularly to reduce the risk of infection. The theatre must be damp dusted before the first case of the day, and it is essential to clean and disinfect all contaminated areas of the theatre at the end of each case (Mangum, 2001) Infection control as defined earlier as policies and procedures use to minimize the risk of spreading infection, staff do not always go by this policies and guidelines. For example policies on air movement in the department, normally doors between the anaesthetic room and theatre are mostly left open by staff therefore affecting the positive pressure from working effectively. Staff need constant trainings and made aware of updated policies. These measures will help to control infection. According to Woodhead et al (2005), 300 million skin squames are shed per day and about 10% of this have microorganisms of which smaller particles stay as airborne for some hours. Some big particles may rest on work surfaces, furniture and equipment. 37% of airborne microbial contamination can be reduced if in every 3 minutes air is changed in the theatre. Different type of waste should be separated and disposed of in the right way. All waste known, or considered to cause disease in humans or other living organisms is considered infectious waste (DH, 2006). In the authors trust yellow is the colour coding for clinical waste which can cause a risk of infection or can be hazardous. Green bags for the linens. All waste bags should not be more than three quarters full (Davey Ince, 2004) and it is the duty of the staff to ensure that and dispose off in the appropriate manner to meet the requirement of the control of substances hazardous to health regulation (COSHH). Maintaining a safe and clean environment is essential for a good impact upon surgical patients, but staff themselves can be a source of microbial contaminated (Green et al, 2003). Staffs are screened by their occupational health department. They are annually screened for such infections as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B.; this screening is mandatory and is design to protect patients from exposure from infected staff. Microorganisms are shed from exposed skin, hair and mucus membranes, so to achieve a sterile field and to reduce infection for both patients and staff; staff need to wear appropriate clothing, prepare patients, use sterile equipment and eliquette during surgery. According to Radford et al (2004), every staff working within the theatre context needs to change into suit and trousers as classed as personal protective equipment (PPE) made from cotton fabric to reduce skin cells to the surroundings. Other PPE such as footwear, mask, eye protection etc. are also worn by staff as an infection control measure during surgery. Hospital Acquired Infections may not be eradicated but many outbreaks can be prevented through effective hand washing. Transient microorganisms are easily removed during hand washing therefore it is one of the most important procedures to prevent the spread of infection (Woodhead Wicker 2005). Hand antisepsis started in the 1860 by Joseph Lister. He realised decay is caused by microorganism and it can be prevented by disinfecting the clinical environment and all equipment with carbolic acid. It also included staff having their hands washed in a solution of 5% carbolic acid before undertaking surgery. Other development on surgical hand antisepsis occurred including scrubbing the hands and arms with a brush where the term scrub comes from. Also introduction of alcohol rubs in the late 1990s which contain antiseptic agent such as chlorehexidine gluconate alcohol solution which when rubbed on the hands does not need rinsing (Tanner 2008). Hand washing takes place before and after patient contact, following removal of protective clothing, immediately following contamination with blood or body fluids and after handling contaminated or potentially contaminated articles (Davey and Ince 2004, p39). This hand washing is a form of standard precautions for all staff to practice since staff cannot tell which patient is contaminated; therefore it is one of the most important procedures to prevent the spread of infection. Healthcare workers handling patient with their catheter, bed linen, wound, disposal of linen and waste come in contact with microorganisms. Also staff or practitioners caring for MRSA patients can have the pathogen on their skin for a few hours, this means it can transfer to another patient or staff easily. During these times, hand washing is vital to help stop the spread of infection. Surgical hand scrubbing gets rid of transient microorganisms which help to minimise the number of resident microorganisms in the recent study of Tanner 2008. Before hand scrub, all jewellery with the exception of single plain band must be removed. False nails and nail polish is not acceptable, since they harbour pathogens as studied by Heddewick et al (2000). Aqueous antiseptic solution such as Chlorhexidine gluconate and providone-iodine are efficient in removing transient organisms and reducing resident organisms to a safe level. Frequent hand wash minimise a low bacterial count under gloves which is accepted by all healthcare workers. To start effective hand scrub, temperature of the water must be checked; also arms and hands must be wet before applying anti-microbial solution. The hands and arms are washed from fingertips to the elbows and hands are held higher than elbows in order to prevent microorganisms dropping back to the fingertips. There is no agreed time for how long a surgical hand wash should last, but between 2 5 minutes have been vouched for by most researchers as enough and effective. Hands should be properly dry. Alcohol based hand rubs are also effective for use between patient contact. When used, the right technique should be employed to ensure it covers the relevant areas and left to dry (Woodhead et al 2005). Sterile gowns are worn after hand scrub to prevent bacteria from scrub staff to the surroundings or operating site, thus reducing surgical side infection (SSI) (Radford et al ,2004). Gloves must be put on using the closed gloving technique, not touched by the staff members bare hands. During orthopaedic operation, double gloving is recommended as any perforations will be highlighted and sterility will not be compromised. Surgical instrument and sterile equipment are prepared in the preparation room just before use, thus minimising the risk of contamination from airborne microbes. Patients are then positioned on to the table before a scrub nurse wheels the trolley into the operating area (Davey and Ince, 2004). A patients skin around the incision site is disinfected to reduce the number of bacteria present so as to reduce the risk of endogenous infections. The most effective antiseptic are those which are alcohol based. This has to be left on the skin to evaporate before draping begins (Weaving et al, 2008). The rationale behind this is to reduce the natural flora from getting into the incision and avoiding the patient contracting SSI. The rest of the patient is covered by draping which comes in disposable or reusable; this is to provide a sterile field in which the operating team can work without risk of contaminating themselves or the instrument. Draping start from the incision site working out towards the peripheries and should not be removed until dressing applied and surgery completed (Radford et al, 2004). Infection can not be totally eliminated and has serious consequences for the patient; however the risk of contracting infection can be reduced by adhering to infection control procedures and policies such as effective hand washing, wearing the appropriate personal protecting equipment. The design of the operating department also plays an important role in the success of controlling infection. Ventilation system needs to be working effectively to achieve its use; temperature and humidity parameters need constant checking. The continuous education of staff about theatre policies and regular update of the policies will go a long way to help reduce infection in theatre.

Jefferson and his Times essays

Jefferson and his Times essays Jefferon and his people had become a political group that favored the adoption by the states of the Constitution The Federalists were conservatives; they favored a strong centralized government, encouragement of industries, attention to the needs of the great merchants and landowners, and establishment of a well-ordered society. : Hamilton had outlined a plan of government with a strong central authority to replace the weak system of the Articles of confederation he was one of the most powerful leader. First election held under constitution. Tecumseh establishes tribal confederacy to resist white expansion. Jackson and Taney remove federal deposits from Bank of United States. Wigs held their first national Convention. Samuel Morse sends the first telegraph message.Massachusetts supreme court declares unions and strikes legal.John Deere manufactured first steel plow.Failed revolution in Germany spurs emigration to America.Second Great Awakening takes place. Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel.Bacons Bill No. 2 reopens trade with Britain and France.United States declares war on Great Britain.Jackson invades Florida, ends first Seminole War Supreme Court hears Dartmouth college v. Woodward and McCulloch v. Maryland. Jefferson and Burr tie vote in electoral college.Jefferson becomes president after congress confirmselection.Tecumseh establishes tribal confederacy to resist white expansion.First Bank of the United States closes after its charter is not renewed. Madison vetoes internal improvements bill.Mississippi enters the Union. First election held under constitution.First President of the United States.Tennessee becomes sixteenth state. XYZ affair precipitates state of quasi war wit h France. Jefferson and Burr tie vote in electoral college. Jefferson becomes president after congress confirms election. Tecumseh establishes tribal confederacy to resist white expansion.First Bank of the United States closes...

Clark Surname Meaning and Origin

Clark Surname Meaning and Origin The Clark surname is an occupational name for cleric, clerk, or scholar - one who can read and write, from the Old English cler(e)c, meaning priest.  Also from the Gaelic Mac a Chlerich/Cleireach; son of the cleric or, sometimes, clerk. During the Middle Ages, the common pronunciation of -er was -ar, so the man who sold items was the marchant, and the man who kept the books was the clark. At the time, the primary members of the literate class were the clergy, which in minor orders were allowed to marry and have families. The term clerk (clark) eventually came to designate any literate man. The Cleary / OClery surname, one of the oldest surnames in Ireland, is often anglicized to Clarke or Clark. Clark is the 25th most popular surname in the United States and the 34th most common in England. Clarke, with an e, is actually more common in England - coming in as the 23rd most popular surname. It is also a very common name in Scotland (14th) and Ireland. Surname Origin English, Irish Alternate Surname Spellings ï » ¿CLARKE, CLERK, CLERKE Famous People With the Surname CLARK William Clark - one half of the legendary Lewis Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean, along with Meriwether Lewis.Guy Clark - American singer/songwriterArthur C. Clarke - British science fiction writer, best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey Genealogy Resources for the Surname CLARK 100 Most Common U.S. Surnames Their MeaningsSmith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown... Are you one of the millions of Americans sporting one of these top 100 common last names from the 2000 census? Clark(e) Surname DNA ProjectThis project was started to determine if the early Clark families in Virginia were of the same family, and/or if they were connected to explorer William Clark. The project has now expanded to include a broader scope of Clark families around the world. Clark Family Genealogy ForumSearch this popular genealogy forum for the Clark surname to find others who might be researching your ancestors, or post your own Clark query. There is also a separate forum for the CLARKE variation of the Clark surname. FamilySearch - CLARK GenealogyFind records, queries, and lineage-linked family trees posted for the Clark surname and its variations. DistantCousin.com - CLARK Genealogy Family HistoryFree databases and genealogy links for the last name Clark. - References: Surname Meanings Origins Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Menk, Lars. A Dictionary of German Jewish Surnames. Avotaynu, 2005. Beider, Alexander. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia. Avotaynu, 2004. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick. Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Smith, Elsdon C. American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.

Obama Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Obama - Essay Example In the US state of Ohio, there was great resonance between President Barack Obama’s arguments and those of the voters regarding the economic woes that America has experienced in the recent years as a result of the Bush government (â€Å"Fox News Exit†). On the national level, President Barack Obama’s campaign played a very important role opposing the supposed war on women by Romney. This gained President Barack Obama heavy support of the female voters whereas Mitt Romney gained no more than a point from the 2008 performance of John McCain. In addition to that, President Barack Obama also approved of the gay marriages in America understanding the fact that gays are growing in population in America. This gained him the support of the gay community as well and has contributed to his presidency for the second time. I personally think that President Barack Obama won the re-election fundamentally because he is black by ethnicity. The blacks in America have grown in population over the years and they see President Barack Obama as their own representative in such a prestigious institution as the government. Equality of races in America has been a growing concern since the end of slavery, but since then, the blacks’ rights have been subjugated at different levels, though not as overtly and openly as they were in the time of slavery. A vast majority of the black Americans voted for President Barack Obama because they did not want to lose their representation in the most powerful seat in America. The white Americans, on the other hand, were not quite as conscious about being represented in the government as the black Americans were because the former have always been more than sufficiently represented everywhere in America. So the white Americans primarily based their decision of voting betwee n President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the basis of their evaluation of their individualistic strengths and weaknesses. Understandably, some white Americans did find

What it means to receive my Black Belt in Kung Fu Essay

What it means to receive my Black Belt in Kung Fu - Essay Example I perceive this accomplishment as a major achievement in my life, and am grateful to the almighty that I had followed the eight essential elements that constitutes such a feat. A positive mind serves the purpose of keeping one constantly motivated. Whatever one does in life, whether it leads to success or failure, has to be augmented with a positive attitude. This will enable one to accept the facts of life and to emerge stronger out of any situation. Kung Fu had always provided me some reason to look up to myself. I was always required to set some standards to myself and to live up to it. This made me a highly positive individual who is willing to turn any negative aspect in life to something positive. For instance, whenever I found myself lacking in energy or focus, I told myself that what any other person could achieve could be achieved by me as well. I always considered my mentor a role model and followed the regime he suggested. And I was never disappointed by this attitude in life, for I was never defeated by any amount hard work. The very fact that I had to practice martial arts on a daily basis helped me maintain my body healthy. I realized that a healthy body is the best asset one could have. It made me feel ultimately confident in taxing situations. I also realized that my physical appearance was highly enhanced by a healthy body, which resulted in a lot of respect and admiration from those who were associated with me. This did boost my self-confidence and motivated me further to follow a strict regime of exercises and Kung Fu practice. I started slow and steady, but progressed to a stricter, more systematic regime, which could have led to a very healthy body which I can be proud of. Balanced relationships matter the most in human life. I was not really convinced at first of maintaining a balanced relationship with the help of learning martial arts. But, after

Response paper to Ian Hodder’s “Ethics and Archaeology” Essay Example for Free

Response paper to Ian Hodder’s â€Å"Ethics and Archaeology† Essay Ian Hodder’s article, â€Å"Ethics and Archaeology: The Attempt at Eatalhoyuk,† basically discusses in detail the different roles that archaeologists assume during an excavation and also their ethical obligation and duty to the different communities on the site. Hodder claimed that the roles of archaeologists are not only limited to studying human culture through unearthing, recovering, documenting, analyzing, and interpreting remains, historical objects, artifacts, and landscapes. In addition, he also claimed that they do not also work solely to serve the interest of their benefactors and sponsors. Rather, Hodder stated that archaeologists have bigger roles and wider responsibilities to the different sectors of the excavation site. In short, aside from the interest of their sponsors and other organizations that fund the digs, Hodder believes that it is also the duty of archaeologists to reach to the multiple communities, interest groups, or stakeholders of any excavation site. In his paper, Hodder mainly focused his arguments on the Eatalhoyuk excavation site where is the director of the archaeological dig. According to him, the stakeholders of most sites can be narrowed to four: the politicians, the local residents, the New Age Goddess followers, and the artists. Hodder noted each of these communities has its own agenda or interest and it is part of the archaeologist’s duty to somehow satisfy them. One of the stakeholders that are common to almost all archaeological sites is the politicians or those in the seat of power. Generally, based on Hodder’s paper, all politicians support archaeological digs have their own agenda or interests. These may involve governors, mayors, or government representatives from the surrounding area of the site. Hodder claimed that although a lot of these politicians hail the archaeological site for its richness in history, culture, and identity, among others, their interests mainly lie on a single thing— widespread publicity. While the politicians’ desire to be seen on television or read on the newspapers is normal, Hodder stressed that it is the archaeologist’s role to limit the ways in which they use the site for their personal motives. He also stated that archaeologists should also verify every piece of information that a politician gives to the public about the site. For example, there are certain politicians who claim to be descendants of the site’s residents and speak about his or her origins. In this case, it is the archaeologists’ responsibility to verify these claims and ensure that they are true. Another community that has its own interests is the local residents. According to Hodder, in general, these residents, who have low incomes and limited education, mainly have practical concerns such as earning money for helping in the excavation. However, they are also concerned about the history of the sites and how they contributed to their identity. In this regard, Hodder stated in his paper that is archaeologists job to educate them about their cultural history and identity using solid evidence found on the digs. In turn, these local residents may relate their personal experiences from living in the site’s environment to tourists and researchers as these are helpful information. The New Age Goddess groups, on the other hand, mainly go to excavation sites, such as in Eatalhoyuk, to pray and to practice their beliefs which are in honor of their Goddess, which was a highly significant figure in the past. Their main concerns, according to Hodder, would mostly be regarding the history of the Goddess and the role of women in the Eatalhoyuk’s past. Thus, the archaeologists should try to address these concerns and provide evidence that would show how women lived in the communities of Eatalhoyuk thousands of years ago. By doing so, Hodder surmised that this would not only serve the Goddess’ groups interests but also avoid any misinformation regarding the site’s history. Finally, another sector that has shown significsnt interest in Eatalhoyuk is the artists group. Hodder noted that over the past years, more and more artists have arrived at Eatalhoyuk mainly to create works about the site. However, he claimed that there are also certain artists who help in the interpretation, reconstruction, and visualization of the art objects found in the site. Hodder stated that the main concern of this group is whether the objects unearthed during digs and excavations could be considered art or not. Meaning to say, most of these artists are particularly interested in identifying and describing the works of art recovered from sites. In this regard, the archaeologists involved, according to Hodder, should ensure that these works of art or aesthetic objects are verified to be genuine using past studies and other evidence found on the site. Certain artists also inquire about the role that art played in the history of Eatalhoyuk and it is the archaeologist’s duty to satisfy those questions to the best of his or her abilities. In short, what Hodder was trying to point out in his paper was that archeologists should always consider the agenda and interests of all the groups and sectors concerned during an excavation as it reaps greater rewards and is also more ethical than serving only personal interests. Personally, I agree with Hodder’s claims in his paper. His use of historical evidence and real life situations make his arguments very convincing. I also think it is unethical for archaeologists to go on digs mainly to become famous or serve their own interests only. Rather than setting one agenda, I believe it is important to work with different communities as exemplified by Hodder’s work in Eatalhoyuk as there are greater things at stake. Since archaeologist’s experiences firsthand what it’s like to be in an excavation site or dig, he or she should use his or her knowledge and skill to verify all the information and answer all the questions surrounding an archaeological site. This is not only professional obligation but also an ethical duty. Works Cited Hodder, Ian. â€Å"Ethics and Archaeology: The Attempt at Eatalhoyuk. † Near Easter Archaeology 65 No. 3 (2002): 174-181.

Downfall of Female Body Image: Media’s Influence Essays -- Social Issu

Throughout the years, the connotative definition of beauty has gone through constant change. In today’s world, young women are constantly under the impression that they have to fit the current definition in order to fit in with society and be recognized by men. Many girls feel they need to fit the mold instead of being their true unique selves. Every single individual is different in their own way, however the media has drilled it into every young girl’s mind, that they have just like a Barbie doll in order to be happy. Furthermore, these same girls are resorting to extreme methods in order to feel like they fit in such as taking unhealthy weight loss pills and developing eating disorders. Advertising has caused more harm than good in this particular situation by compelling girls to feel like they cannot be themselves. Even fashion trends have added to this downfall of women’s individualism. Teenage girls feel the need to match the current fashion trend, no matter how expensive, just so they can feel the same as everybody else. As Andrew Delbanco explains in his work, The Real American Dream, consumer culture has the power to â€Å"evacuate the self† (105). This is exactly what is happening in today’s world due to media influence. Young women are idolizing media images and trying to imitate them. This in turn is causing a negative effect on individualism. Young women should grow up wanting to be themselves as individuals. Girls should not mature with the mindset that they want to be just like the models in magazines and television commercials. Kristin Noelle Weissman discusses the effects of the mass media in her book Barbie: the icon, the image, the ideal. Weissman explains, Wood 2 â€Å"The mass media –as a primary and ... ...y. Women all over the world are affected by the media. Even the slightest flash of a tall and skinny girl in a TV commercial can have an influence on a young girl that just wanted to watch cartoons. Starting as kids, icons such as Barbie engrain is a child’s mind that beauty and being thin comes with popularity and happiness. But what happens when those goals of the media’s Wood 10 perfect image are just out of reach? This can cause negative effects on young women and has been for several years. Women everywhere are stuck on the idea that they have to look like Barbie or like the models and celebrities in magazines, sometimes resulting in detrimental methods such as eating disorders. These women eventually develop a loss of their individuality and are left unhappy and disappointed. The cookie-cutter idea is taking over society and the media is to blame.

Making a buffer

Name Date experiment performed   CRN of lab section: Grade: Days late: Instructor Initials: General Grading Items 25 Points Attendance at Pre-lab MeetingCopies of lab pages attached; labeled with name and date, complete information, readable, data recorded matches results given in report| /5| Waste was properly disposed of and lab area was cleanedEvaluation of student performance overall (student was on time, followed safety rules, performed the lab correctly and within the time allowed, etc) Total for General Grading Items Data Analysis and Interpretation Part | 75 Points| Titration Curves| /25|Question 1Question 2Question 3Total for Data Analysis and InterpretationData Table Buffer A| Buffer B| Mass of NaC2H3O2 used to prepare buffer (grams)Volume of buffer prepared (mL) 100. 0| 100. 0Molar concentration of HC2H3O2 in buffer (M) Initial pH of bufferVolume of 0. 5 M NaOH to raise pH by 2 units (mL)Volume of 0. 5 M HCl to lower pH by 2 units (mL)Volume of 0. 5 M NaOH at equivalence point (mL)Data AnalysisWrite reaction equations to explain how your acetic acid-acetate buffer reacts with an acid and reacts with a base.Buffer capacity has a rather loose definition, yet it is an important property of buffers. A commonly seen definition of buffer capacity is: â€Å"The amount of H+ or OH– that can be neutralized before the pH changes to a significant degree. † Use your data to determine the buffer capacity of Buffer A and Buffer B. (Graphically, we can identify buffer capacity by the sudden change to a very steep slope. )Say, for example, that you had prepared a Buffer C, in which you mixed 8. 203 g of sodium acetate, NaC2H3O2, with 100. 0 mL of 1. 0 M acetic acid. a. What would be the initial pH of Buffer C? b. If you add 5. 0 mL of 0. 5 M NaOH solution to 20. 0 mL each of Buffer B and Buffer C, which buffer’s pH would change less? Explain.

Do Teenagers Need a Part Time Job

Do you believe that teenagers should have a part-time job before they graduate from high school? The purpose of this essay is the explain the reasons why teenagers should have a part-time job before they graduate from high school. First of all, this would allow teenagers to be prepared for the real world. Often some teenagers will go out on their own unprepared and dependent on family or friends for money. Secondly, this could help teenagers become more responsible. Furthermore, having a part-time job would allow teenagers to have spending money. By having a part-time job this allows teenagers to be prepared for the real world. Teenagers can expand their knowledge skills and gain experience for future full-time jobs. Often teenagers may not be aware of the knowledge needed in their employment. Having the experience from part-time jobs would allow them to be more prepared. Teenagers would also learn financial skills for when they go away from home to college or university. Another thing is that by having a part-time job while still in high school that teaches teenagers responsibility by saving their earnings. Responsibility is key to being successful and by having a part-time job, teenagers improve in their accountability. Due to the fact that some students are irresponsible, they may be more efficient to become punctual and reliable. Teenagers would better understand what it is like to hold a part-time job while keeping up in school and homework. Therefore realizing what their parents do on a daily basis. For example, holding a full-time job and meeting the family responsibilities. Teenagers could also think about saving their earnings for buying the things they would like. Money is something almost every teenager wants. If teenagers had a part-time job, this would allow them to have spending money they earned by themselves. With the check they’ve received or money saved from working, they can go out to the movies, go bowling, buy clothes or just buy anything they want. Teenagers would have to spend their earnings very wisely, so they are not asking their parents for money. In conclusion, I strongly believe that it is important for teenagers to have a part time job before they graduate from high school. Although, having a part time job could take time away from yourself such as working on homework or spending time with friends, teenagers can put time aside for a night they aren’t working to go to a movie or just do something they enjoy. Part time jobs have many benefits so I don’t see why some teenagers stay at home doing nothing or spending too much time with friends, when they can be working and getting prepared for the future. Teenagers need to learn life skills early in life. So they are not living at home, with no jobs after high school if they are not going to pursue there education. This is why teenagers should have part-time jobs.

Participatory sensing services for smart phones The WritePass Journal

Participatory sensing services for smart phones   1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Motivation Participatory sensing services for smart phones   1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Motivation2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Background3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Methods4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Metrics for evaluation5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Outputs6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Workplan7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ReferencesRelated   1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Motivation In modern society, environmental pollution is usually a headache for citizens, especially those who live in the urban areas. Many researches have shown that there is a direct link between environmental pollution and health effects. In the last two decades, the overall environment quality has improved. However, there is still a concern about environmental pollution in the urban areas. Citizens, especially the elderly and children, are vulnerable to the effects of environmental pollution. Nowadays, the latest technologies in the wireless field provide an innovative approach for the citizens to access the information about environmental pollution. With over 3 billion subscriber lines active today, nearly half the world’s population uses mobile phones [1]. Given the right structure, the ubiquitous mobile devices could act as sensor nodes, capable of capturing, classifying, and transmitting environmental data, such as image, acoustic, and temperature. In the foreseeable future, other sensors may be embedded in or connect wirelessly to the mobile phones to gather information about air pollutants, like CO2, NO2 and SO2. Participatory sending can employ a variety of devices to collect data; however, some special characteristics of mobile phones enable them to be an unprecedented tool for engaging participants in sensing their local environment. The sheer ubiquity across the geographic and demographic spectrum and the broad proliferation of cellular infrastructure and mobile phone usage make it possible to collect data over large areas for little incremental cost. Participatory sensing will utilize current wireless network, which consists numerous mobile phones, to form a vast interactive participatory sensor network that enables professional users and lay public to gather, analyze and share environment information [2]. Citizens, especially the elderly, children, urban commuters, urban office workers and students, will benefit from such a revolutionary technology. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Background In virtue of the rosy prospect and importance of participatory sensing, there are more and more research institutes engaging in this field. The concept of PES has been proposed in recent years (Karatzas, 2005; Burke et al., 2006; Goldman et al., 2009), and related projects have been in development around the world, especially in the USA and Europe [3]. PEIR, one of the most successful participatory sensing projects, is research collaboration between CENS, UCLA and Nokia. It makes use of Internet to allow citizens to use their mobile phones to interact with PEIR, and explore and share the impact between environment and the citizens. PEIR senses pollution by  using existing infrastructure  without user intervention  and emphasizes how individual transportation choices simultaneously influence both environmental impact and exposure, which makes it different from other existing carbon footprint calculators [4]. Eye on Earth project of the European Environment Agency is a two-way communication platform on the environment. It has introduced the participation of millions of ordinary people to create the first environmental portal that includes citizens’ observations on air and bathing water quality at present. Eye on Earth aims to gradually include information on many other environmental topics and grow to a global observatory for environmental change [5]. MESSAGE is to provide data collecting through three sensor platforms for the planning, management and control of the environmental impacts of transport activity at urban, regional and national level. Mobile phones are investigated to support a sensing system, in which people play an important role [6]. In addition to the projects introduced above, other participatory sensing projects have also appeared, such as Living Environments, Citysense, Common Sense, Envitori and MIMAQ [3]. A lot of evidences have shown that new intuitive ways of interactions and user friendly context aware service can be introduced by various sensors in mobile phones. Therefore, mostly specialized sensors were applied in participatory sensing. Some projects also suggest that standard sensors already embedded in the mobile phones can be used for this. Overall, there are a variety of participatory sensing projects, and they can be divided into three categories according to the participation patterns [1]: Collective Design and Investigation. A group of individuals work together to decide where, what and why to sense. Then a data collection system is collectively designed, and an investigation is conducted. The group interprets the data and acts on the results. An evident feature of this participatory pattern is that the community of participants owns the entire process. Instead of serving merely research subjects, individuals play an active role in the investigative process. Public contribution. Individuals or organizations define inquiries and then other individuals collect data in respond to such inquiries. In this case, participants actively engage in the data collection and make contributions to an effort they find meaningful. For organizers, they can gather as many data as possible at a scale unachievable by professionals acting alone. Personal Use and Reflection. Individuals log information about themselves, like images, sounds and so on. Such recorded information may reveal hidden habits and patterns in one’s life after analyzed and visualized. Participants use the results for personal discovery to reflect on, evaluate, and perhaps change patterns that were previously overlooked.    3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Methods Data collection and interpretation are the heart of participatory sensing which places the emphasis on the involvement of citizens and community groups. In spite of participation patterns, the basic process for every participatory sensing project is similar, and it can be broken down into the following eight steps: coordination, capture, transfer, storage, access, analysis, feedback and visualization [1]. Coordination explains the sensing effort to the participants and provides necessary guidance to them. Capture is the collection of data on a mobile phone, which is the core step of participatory sensing. Data can be captured by the existing sensors already embedded in the mobile phones or by those specialized sensors connecting wirelessly to the mobile phones. In the course of data collection, the credibility of data must be guaranteed. More significantly, data about geographical position and time must be captured every time. Transfer is processed automatically by mobile phones via wireless network. Mobile phone software takes the responsibility of uploading data and makes it transparent to the participants. Furthermore, mobile phone software should be tolerant of inevitable network interruptions. Storage takes place on servers which are distributed remotely in the Internet. Access is under the control of project organizers and participants according to the privacy policy. Due to the possible disclosure of private information about the participants, it is of vital importance for the participants to determine what information to share and with whom. Analysis includes various data-processing methods, the calculation of group statistics and the integration of contributed data into statistical and spatial models that can be used to determine patterns in space and time. Feedback may be required in the event of a project triggering manual or automatic events. Visualization is closely related to the analysis. It is the step to present the contributed data after analysis. In some sense, well-designed visualization increases the applicability of a participatory sensing project. The project of Participatory sensing services for smart phones can be divided into two collaborative subprojects based on the Android platform, one focusing on data gathering and the other one dealing with the data processing and visualization. We take the responsibility for presenting data in some friendly and easy-understandable way. Thus the data analysis and visualization are the center of our work. For the subproject of data processing and visualization, we have to deal with data and services. In the assumption that the contributed data are already available and their credibility has been verified, we get data via a server-based application which acts as a data storage. This server-based application will provide web service interfaces for data access. Thus WSDL language for web services will be utilized to develop an Android-based application with the aid of development environments like Eclipse. There are a wide variety of available solutions to make use of web services via Android, and the solution to use ksoap2 will be suitable for our project. The data accessed via web services can be classified into two kinds: subjective data and objective data. Subjective data: a categorization of the quality of the environment. They are feedback commented and reported by the citizens on the air quality. We intend to make use of the EEA categorization for air pollution, which is applicable on eyeonearth.eu/. Objective data: in the form of numeric values. They are automatically captured by the sensors or reported manually by the users. Images, sound, location and time are objective data. All data processed in the frame of participatory sensing project will include the following three categories of information: Georeference. Geographical position and time is extremely important for participatory sensing, and forms the cornerstone of the follow-up work. User categories. At the initial stage, our project will serve the urban commuters, office workers, students and the elderly. Other categories of users are possibly added if necessary at the later stage. We allocate every user group a unique ID, which will be used to identify the category which the users belong to. Furthermore, category ID will be used to send a request to the server which involves user category. Thematic profiling. Our project is to process information about environment and we aim to deal with air pollution, odors, noise, traffic congestion and waste. In order to present the result of the contributed data to the participants in a user-friendly and easy-understandable way, GMap API may be utilized to map the georeference and thematic profiling, which will provide an interactive feature between our project and participants. Due to the distinct flexibility, Modest Maps API is an alternative to achieve the same goal. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Metrics for evaluation To encourage the handset owners to participate in our project, privacy protection policy has to be taken into account to prevent privacy disclosure. One of the basic rules is that participants cannot access other people’s private information, and such an attempt should be denied. Furthermore, the data visualization should be easily and readily comprehended or understood not only by the professional users but also by the general public. In some sense, the degree of understandability of data presentation determines the scope of applicability of participatory sensing. Another metric related to the visualization is that the users are able to customize the configuration to present what they want. With regard to air quality, if the concentration of air pollutants detected does not fall into the scope which is safe and suitable for humankind, the participants should receive a warning, so that they can take actions to avoid being harmed. Due to regional differences, different air pollution standards are applied in different areas. 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Outputs The output of our project is an application running on the Android platform. Interested people can download it from the Internet and install it in their Android phones to access the information about environment surrounding them. 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Workplan The rough time schedule of our project is listed below, including the milestones and corresponding estimated completion dates. In table 1, some stages may overlap with others. In the course of project development, the time schedule may be changed according to specific situation. Milestone Anticipated completion date Analyze the project and do literary review February 28, 2011 Define the project scope February 28, 2011 Write the research proposal March 23, 2011 Study mobile phone programming techniques May 27, 2011 Make a plan for the project May 28, 2011 Implement the project July 28, 2011 Test the project August 3, 2011 Take field trials August 5, 2011 Deliver the project August 8, 2011 Complete the dissertation August 19, 2011    7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   References [1] J. Goldman, K. Shilton, J. Burke, D. Estrin, M. Hansen, N. Ramanathan, S. Reddy, V. Samanta, M. Srivastava, R. West, â€Å"Participatory Sensing: A citizen-powered approach to illuminating the patterns that shape our world† [2] J. Burke, D. Estrin, M. Hansen, A. Parker, N. Ramanathan, S. Reddy, M. B. Srivastava, â€Å"Participatory Sensing† [3] https://projects.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/project?number=P165 [4] http://urban.cens.ucla.edu/projects/peir [5] eyeonearth.eu/About.aspx?culture=en-GB [6] http://bioinf.ncl.ac.uk/message/?q=node/5 Participatory sensing services for smart phones 1. Motivation Participatory sensing services for smart phones 1. Motivation2. Background3. Methods4.Metrics for evaluation5. Outputs6. WorkplanReferencesRelated 1. Motivation In modern society, environmental pollution is usually a headache for citizens, especially those who live in the urban areas. Many researches have shown that there is a direct link between environmental pollution and health effects. In the last two decades, the overall environment quality has improved. However, there is still a concern about environmental pollution in the urban areas. Citizens, especially the elderly and children, are vulnerable to the effects of environmental pollution.   Nowadays, the latest technologies in the wireless field provide an innovative approach for the citizens to access the information about environmental pollution. With over 3 billion subscriber lines active today, nearly half the world’s population uses mobile phones [1]. Given the right structure, the ubiquitous mobile devices could act as sensor nodes, capable of capturing, classifying, and transmitting environmental data, such as image, acoustic, and temperature. In the foreseeable future, other sensors may be embedded in or connect wirelessly to the mobile phones to gather information about air pollutants, like CO2, NO2 and SO2. Participatory sending can employ a variety of devices to collect data; however, some special characteristics of mobile phones enable them to be an unprecedented tool for engaging participants in sensing their local environment. The sheer ubiquity across the geographic and demographic spectrum and the broad proliferation of cellular infrastructure and mobile phone usage make it possible to collect data over large areas for little incremental cost. Participatory sensing will utilize current wireless network, which consists numerous mobile phones, to form a vast interactive participatory sensor network that enables professional users and lay public to gather, analyze and share environment information [2]. Citizens, especially the elderly, children, urban commuters, urban office workers and students, will benefit from such a revolutionary technology. 2. Background In virtue of the rosy prospect and importance of participatory sensing, there are more and more research institutes engaging in this field. The concept of PES has been proposed in recent years (Karatzas, 2005; Burke et al., 2006; Goldman et al., 2009), and related projects have been in development around the world, especially in the USA and Europe [3]. PEIR, one of the most successful participatory sensing projects, is research collaboration between CENS, UCLA and Nokia. It makes use of Internet to allow citizens to use their mobile phones to interact with PEIR, and explore and share the impact between environment and the citizens. PEIR senses pollution by  using existing infrastructure  without user intervention  and emphasizes how individual transportation choices simultaneously influence both environmental impact and exposure, which makes it different from other existing carbon footprint calculators [4]. Eye on Earth project of the European Environment Agency is a two-way communication platform on the environment. It has introduced the participation of millions of ordinary people to create the first environmental portal that includes citizens’ observations on air and bathing water quality at present. Eye on Earth aims to gradually include information on many other environmental topics and grow to a global observatory for environmental change [5]. MESSAGE is to provide data collecting through three sensor platforms for the planning, management and control of the environmental impacts of transport activity at urban, regional and national level. Mobile phones are investigated to support a sensing system, in which people play an important role [6]. In addition to the projects introduced above, other participatory sensing projects have also appeared, such as Living Environments, Citysense, Common Sense, Envitori and MIMAQ [3]. A lot of evidences have shown that new intuitive ways of interactions and user friendly context aware service can be introduced by various sensors in mobile phones. Therefore, mostly specialized sensors were applied in participatory sensing. Some projects also suggest that standard sensors already embedded in the mobile phones can be used for this. Overall, there are a variety of participatory sensing projects, and they can be divided into three categories according to the participation patterns [1]: Collective Design and Investigation. A group of individuals work together to decide where, what and why to sense. Then a data collection system is collectively designed, and an investigation is conducted. The group interprets the data and acts on the results. An evident feature of this participatory pattern is that the community of participants owns the entire process. Instead of serving merely research subjects, individuals play an active role in the investigative process. Public contribution. Individuals or organizations define inquiries and then other individuals collect data in respond to such inquiries. In this case, participants actively engage in the data collection and make contributions to an effort they find meaningful. For organizers, they can gather as many data as possible at a scale unachievable by professionals acting alone. Personal Use and Reflection. Individuals log information about themselves, like images, sounds and so on. Such recorded information may reveal hidden habits and patterns in one’s life after analyzed and visualized. Participants use the results for personal discovery to reflect on, evaluate, and perhaps change patterns that were previously overlooked. 3. Methods Data collection and interpretation are the heart of participatory sensing which places the emphasis on the involvement of citizens and community groups. In spite of participation patterns, the basic process for every participatory sensing project is similar, and it can be broken down into the following eight steps: coordination, capture, transfer, storage, access, analysis, feedback and visualization [1]. Coordination explains the sensing effort to the participants and provides necessary guidance to them. Capture is the collection of data on a mobile phone, which is the core step of participatory sensing. Data can be captured by the existing sensors already embedded in the mobile phones or by those specialized sensors connecting wirelessly to the mobile phones. In the course of data collection, the credibility of data must be guaranteed. More significantly, data about geographical position and time must be captured every time. Transfer is processed automatically by mobile phones via wireless network. Mobile phone software takes the responsibility of uploading data and makes it transparent to the participants. Furthermore, mobile phone software should be tolerant of inevitable network interruptions. Storage takes place on servers which are distributed remotely in the Internet. Access is under the control of project organizers and participants according to the privacy policy. Due to the possible disclosure of private information about the participants, it is of vital importance for the participants to determine what information to share and with whom.   Ã‚   Analysis includes various data-processing methods, the calculation of group statistics and the integration of contributed data into statistical and spatial models that can be used to determine patterns in space and time. Feedback may be required in the event of a project triggering manual or automatic events. Visualization is closely related to the analysis. It is the step to present the contributed data after analysis. In some sense, well-designed visualization increases the applicability of a participatory sensing project. The project of Participatory sensing services for smart phones can be divided into two collaborative subprojects based on the Android platform, one focusing on data gathering and the other one dealing with the data processing and visualization. We take the responsibility for presenting data in some friendly and easy-understandable way. Thus the data analysis and visualization are the center of our work. For the subproject of data processing and visualization, we have to deal with data and services. In the assumption that the contributed data are already available and their credibility has been verified, we get data via a server-based application which acts as a data storage. This server-based application will provide web service interfaces for data access. Thus WSDL language for web services will be utilized to develop an Android-based application with the aid of development environments like Eclipse. There are a wide variety of available solutions to make use of web services via Android, and the solution to use ksoap2 will be suitable for our project. The data accessed via web services can be classified into two kinds: subjective data and objective data. Subjective data: a categorization of the quality of the environment. They are feedback commented and reported by the citizens on the air quality. We intend to make use of the EEA categorization for air pollution, which is applicable on eyeonearth.eu/. Objective data: in the form of numeric values. They are automatically captured by the sensors or reported manually by the users. Images, sound, location and time are objective data. All data processed in the frame of participatory sensing project will include the following three categories of information: Georeference. Geographical position and time is extremely important for participatory sensing, and forms the cornerstone of the follow-up work. User categories. At the initial stage, our project will serve the urban commuters, office workers, students and the elderly. Other categories of users are possibly added if necessary at the later stage. We allocate every user group a unique ID, which will be used to identify the category which the users belong to. Furthermore, category ID will be used to send a request to the server which involves user category. Thematic profiling. Our project is to process information about environment and we aim to deal with air pollution, odors, noise, traffic congestion and waste. In order to present the result of the contributed data to the participants in a user-friendly and easy-understandable way, GMap API may be utilized to map the georeference and thematic profiling, which will provide an interactive feature between our project and participants. Due to the distinct flexibility, Modest Maps API is an alternative to achieve the same goal. 4.Metrics for evaluation To encourage the handset owners to participate in our project, privacy protection policy has to be taken into account to prevent privacy disclosure. One of the basic rules is that participants cannot access other people’s private information, and such an attempt should be denied. Furthermore, the data visualization should be easily and readily comprehended or understood not only by the professional users but also by the general public. In some sense, the degree of understandability of data presentation determines the scope of applicability of participatory sensing. Another metric related to the visualization is that the users are able to customize the configuration to present what they want. With regard to air quality, if the concentration of air pollutants detected does not fall into the scope which is safe and suitable for humankind, the participants should receive a warning, so that they can take actions to avoid being harmed. Due to regional differences, different air pollution standards are applied in different areas. 5. Outputs The output of our project is an application running on the Android platform. Interested people can download it from the Internet and install it in their Android phones to access the information about environment surrounding them. 6. Workplan The rough time schedule of our project is listed below, including the milestones and corresponding estimated completion dates. In table 1, some stages may overlap with others. In the course of project development, the time schedule may be changed according to specific situation. Milestone Anticipated completion date Analyze the project and do literary review February 28, 2011 Define the project scope February 28, 2011 Write the research proposal March 23, 2011 Study mobile phone programming techniques May 27, 2011 Make a plan for the project May 28, 2011 Implement the project July 28, 2011 Test the project August 3, 2011 Take field trials August 5, 2011 Deliver the project August 8, 2011 Complete the dissertation August 19, 2011 References J. Goldman, K. Shilton, J. Burke, D. Estrin, M. Hansen, N. Ramanathan, S. Reddy, V. Samanta, M. Srivastava, R. West, â€Å"Participatory Sensing: A citizen-powered approach to illuminating the patterns that shape our world† J. Burke, D. Estrin, M. Hansen, A. Parker, N. Ramanathan, S. Reddy, M. B. Srivastava, â€Å"Participatory Sensing† https://projects.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/project?number=P165 http://urban.cens.ucla.edu/projects/peir eyeonearth.eu/About.aspx?culture=en-GB http://bioinf.ncl.ac.uk/message/?q=node/5

Can Regulation Of Tobacco Affect Health Care Costs Economics Essay

Can Regulation Of Tobacco Affect Health Care Costs Economics Essay The economic calculations associated with tobacco use are very complicated. For every savings, there are increased costs in other areas. Many productivity costs are subjective, while things like tax revenues are very definitive. These costs can be absorbed by various entities; public, private, and governmental. The tobacco industry has been viewed as the root of many of these costs. This industry has historically been exempt from oversight by any governmental agency, other than taxation. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently taken charge of overseeing and regulating many tobacco products, including cigarettes. Can the new regulations have any effect on health care costs? Why is tobacco use such a big deal? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world, responsible for one in ten adults and the fourth most common risk factor for disease worldwide (2010). Costs (both public and private) associated with health ca re related to tobacco are astronomical. Productivity is reduced or lost when people are at their prime due to tobacco use. â€Å"A 1994 report estimated that the use of tobacco resulted in an annual global net loss of US$ 200 thousand million, a third of this loss being in developing countries† (World Health, 2010). This paper will look at the costs associated with tobacco use in the United States and the relationship regulation may have on reducing these costs. Compared to the length of time tobacco has been used, the health effects of its use are just recently becoming understood by the general public. Prior to this knowledge, the tobacco companies were free to advertise without any regulation. 1789 saw the first tobacco advertisement in the U.S for snuff. Communication, transportation, and manufacturing constraints of the time prevented any major branding and marketing successes. â€Å"The first strong national tobacco brand didn’t emerge until near the end of the Civil War, when both Union and Confederate soldiers in Durham, North Carolina raided a local farmer’s tobacco crop while waiting for a surrender to be completed. After the war was over, these soldiers began writing to the farmer, Mr. John Green, requesting more; Green went on to establish the successful Bull Durham Tobacco Company.† (Collins & Lapsley, 2010) The cigarette machine was one of the two major innovations that changed the industry and embedded tobacco into the minds of Americans. It was introduced in the 1880s and allowed companies to go from producing 40,000 hand-rolled cigarettes a day to over 4 million. The other major innovation came in the form of advertising. The color lithograph revolutionized advertising and packaging. These factors allowed companies to brand their products, searing them into the fabric of everyday life. Promotions, such as trading cards, were packaged with cigarettes and became collector’s items. World War II came and went wit h millions of soldiers and sailors addicted to nicotine courtesy of free cigarettes issued along with meals. Marketing remained pretty much unregulated throughout the 1950s. Advertisements promoted how healthy it was to smoke and how doctors (whom the public trusted) recommend one brand over another. Sponsorship of television shows, like The Flintstones and Gunsmoke, propelled cigarette smoking into a normal and expected part of life. â€Å"For tobacco companies, it was the Golden Age: cigarette ads featured endorsements from dentists, doctors, babies and even Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle† (Collins & Lapsley, 2010).

Diversity and Human Resource Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Diversity and Human Resource - Essay Example The challenge to remain competitive in the current global markets has forced many organizations to change their views on managing the diversity of their workforce. Not only is the diversification of the workforce unavoidable but it has also become essential to tap into the competitive market of talent in the world today for any organization to remain competitive. (Cross, 1994, 110-114) The main reason why diversity should be seen as different function rather than part of human resource is because The definition of diversity among people can be generally defined as the differences between people, physical and psychological. This includes all demographic and cultural differences like age, gender, race, culture, religion, ethnicity, disabilities, personal beliefs, family structure and lifestyle, paying little attention to work skills. (Morrison, 1992, 42-48) This is however not in any way comprehensive, as diversity among people is practically limitless and is constantly evolving with time and the global environment. Outstanding differences are obvious like race and age but some can be difficult to identify especially perceived differences, which vary based on experiences and relationships like lifestyle and personality. (Ellis, 1994, 79-110) Valuing diversity is an important element in organisations today and managing diversity is vital for success. ... Why is diversity becoming an important issue Previously, the diversity of an organization's workforce has mainly been due to legal compliance as in many countries, there are laws against discrimination. However, globalization of the world markets including the employment market is causing dramatic change in the way businesses are run. (Ellis, 1994, 79-110) Globalizations means new open markets with new customers which requires products or services that are suited for these markets. It also means new type of employment market which is extremely diverse. Limiting factors like geography are becoming less an issue as technology advances in travel and communication makes the world increasingly accessible. Diversity is becoming an unavoidable issue that must be addressed if the organization is to successfully adapt to these changes. Organizational goals of diversity today include creation of positive organizational culture and deriving economic value from diversity (Hellriegel 1999 ). In recent years, the field of Human Resource Management has moved to consider not only micro but also macro relationships. The micro focus, evolving from industrial psychology, emphasized human resource policies and their influence on individuals. This focus was concerned exclusively with such outcomes as job satisfaction and employee participation. The macro focus shifts the level of analysis from the individual to the organization. Diversity Orientation: Configurational View Diversity becomes significant organizational objective and diversity management becomes particularly salient because of the natural tendency toward homogeneity in