Optical Computing Essay

Jainam Shah Kalol Institute Of Technology, Kalol, Gujarat, India. jainam_8888@yahoo.co.in Abstract—Optics has been used in computing for a number of years but the main emphasis has been and continues to be to link portions of computers, for communications, or more intrinsically in devices that have some optical application or component (optical pattern recognition, etc). Optical digital computers are still some years away, however a number of devices that can ultimately lead to real optical computers have already been manufactured, including optical logic gates, optical switches, optical interconnections, and optical memory. The most likely near-term optical computer will really be a hybrid composed of traditional architectural design along with some portions that can perform some functional operations in optical mode. Computing applications as a consequence of faster processing speed, as well as better connectivity and higher bandwidth. II. NEED FOR OPTICAL COMPUTING The pressing need for optical technology stems from the fact that today’s computers are limited by the time response of electronic circuits. A solid transmission medium limits both the speed and volume of signals, as well as building up heat that damages components. One of the theoretical limits on how fast a computer can function is given by Einstein’s principle that signal cannot propagate faster than speed of light. So to make computers faster, their components must be smaller and there by decrease the distance between them. This has resulted in the development of very large scale integration (VLSI) technology, with smaller device dimensions and greater complexity. The smallest dimensions of VLSI nowadays are about 0.08mm. Despite the incredible progress in the development and refinement of the basic technologies over the past decade, there is growing concern that these technologies may not be capable of solving the computing problems of even the current millennium. The speed of computers was achieved by miniaturizing electronic components to a very small micron-size scale, but they are limited not only by the speed of electrons in matter but also by the increasing density of interconnections necessary to link the electronic gates on microchips. The optical computer comes as a solution of miniaturization problem. Optical data processing can perform several operations in parallel much faster and easier than electrons. This parallelism helps in staggering computational power. For example a calculation that takes a conventional electronic computer more than 11 years to complete could be performed by an optical computer in a single hour. Any way we can realize that in an optical computer, electrons are rep laced by photons, the subatomic bits of electromagnetic radiation that make up light. I. INTRODUCTION With the growth of computing technology the need of high performance computers (HPC) has significantly increased. Optics has been used in computing for a number of years but the main emphasis has been and continues to be to link portions of computers, for communications, or more intrinsically in devices that have some optical application or component (optical pattern recognition etc.) Optical computing was a hot research area in 1980’s.But the work tapered off due to materials limitations that prevented opt chips from getting small enough and cheap enough beyond laboratory curiosities. Now, optical computers are back with advances in self-assembled conducting organic polymers that promise super-tiny of all optical chips. Optical computing technology is, in general, developing in two directions. One approach is to build computers that have the same architecture as present day computers but using optics that is Electro optical hybrids. Another approach is to generate a completely new kind of computer, which can perform all functional operations in optical mode. In recent years, a number of devices that can ultimately lead us to real optical computers have already been manufactured. These include optical logic gates, optical switches, optical interconnections and optical memory. Current trends in optical computing emphasize communications, for example the use of free space optical interconnects as a potential solution to remove ‘Bottlenecks’ experienced in electronic architectures. Optical technology is one of the most promising, and may eventually lead to new III. SOME KEY OPTICAL COMPONENTS FOR COMPUTING The major breakthroughs on optical computing have been centered on the development of micro-optic devices for data input. A. VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser) VCSEL (pronounced ‘vixel’) is a semiconductor vertical cavity surface emitting laser diode that emits light in a cylindrical beam vertically from the surface of a fabricated wafer, and offers significant advantages when compared to the edge-emitting lasers currently used in the majority of fiber optic communications devices. The principle involved in the operation of a VCSEL is very similar to those of regular lasers. Fig. 2. Optical Interconnection Of Circuit Boards Using Vcsel And Photodiode VCSEL convert the electrical signal to optical signal when the light beams are passed through a pair of lenses and micromirrors. Micromirrors are used to direct the light beams and this light rays is passed through a polymer waveguide which serves as the path for transmitting data instead of copper wires in electronic computers. Then these optical beams are again passed through a pair of lenses and sent to a photodiode. This photodiode convert the optical signal back to the electrical signal. B. SLM (Spatial Light Modulators) SLM play an important role in several technical areas where the control of light on a pixel-by-pixel basis is a key element, such as optical processing and displays. 1) SLM For Display Purposes Fig. 1. Two semiconductor materials sandwiching an active layer There are two special semiconductor materials sandwiching an active layer where all the action takes place. But rather than reflective ends, in a VCSEL there are several layers of partially reflective mirrors above and below the active layer. Layers of semiconductors with differing compositions create these mirrors, and each mirror reflects a narrow range of wavelengths back in to the cavity in order to cause light emission at just one wavelength. For display purposes the desire is to have as many pixels as possible in as small and cheap a device as possible. For such purposes designing silicon chips for use as spatial light modulators has been effective. The basic idea is to have a set of memory cells laid out on a regular grid. These cells are electrically connected to metal mirrors, such that the voltage on the mirror depends on the value stored in the memory cell. A layer of optically active liquid crystal is sandwiched between this array of mirrors and a piece of glass with a conductive coating. The voltage between individual mirrors and the front electrode affects the optical activity of liquid crystal in that neighborhood. Hence by being able to individually program the memory locations one can set up a pattern of optical activity in the liquid crystal layer. C. Smart Pixel Technology Smart pixel technology is a relatively new approach to integrating electronic circuitry and optoelectronic devices in a common framework. The purpose is to leverage the advantages of each individual technology and provide improved performance for specific applications. Here, the electronic circuitry provides complex functionality and programmability while the optoelectronic devices provide high-speed switching and compatibility with existing optical media. Arrays of these smart pixels leverage the parallelism of optics for interconnections as well as computation. A smart pixel device, a light emitting diode under the control of a field effect transistor can now be made entirely out of organic materials on the same substrate for the first time. In general, the benefit of organic over conventional semiconductor electronics is that they should lead to cheaper, lighter, circuitry that can be printed rather than etched. D. WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) Wavelength division multipl exing is a method of sending many different wavelengths down the same optical fiber. Using this technology, modern networks in which individual lasers can transmit at 10 gigabits per second through the same fiber at the same time. which interact with light and modulate its properties. Several of the optical components require efficient-nonlinear materials for their operations. What in fact restrains the widespread use of all optical devices is the in efficiency of currently available nonlinear materials, which require large amount of energy for responding or switching. Organic materials have many features that make them desirable for use in optical devices such as 1) High nonlinearities 2) Flexibility of molecular design 3) Damage resistance to optical radiations Some organic materials belonging to the classes of phthalocyanines and polydiacetylenes are promising for optical thin films and wave guides. These compounds exhibit strong electronic transitions in the visible region and have high chemical and thermal stability up to 400 degree Celsius. Polydiacetylenes are among the most widely investigated class of polymers for nonlinear optical applications. Their subpicosecond time response to laser signals makes them candidates for high-speed optoelectronics and information processing. To make thin polymer film for electro-optic applications, NASA scientists dissolve a monomer (the building block of a polymer) in an organic solvent. This solution is then put into a growth cell with a quartz window, shining a laser through the quartz can cause the polymer to deposit in specific pattern. V. ADVANCES IN PHOTONIC SWITCHES Logic gates are the building blocks of any digital system. An optical logic gate is a switch that controls one light beam by another; it is ON when the device transmits light and it is OFF when it blocks the light. Fig. 3. a. Wave length division multiplexing b. A WDM System WDM can transmit up to 32 wavelengths through a single fiber, but cannot meet the bandwidth requirements of the present day communication systems. So nowadays DWDM (Dense wavelength division multiplexing) is used. This can transmit up to 1000 wavelengths through a single fiber. That is by using this we can improve the bandwidth efficiency. IV. ROLE OF NLO IN OPTICAL COMPUTING The role of nonlinear materials in optical computing has become extremely significant. Non-linear materials are those, Fig. 4. Optical AND-logic gate To demonstrate the AND gate in the phthalocyanine film, two focused collinear laser beams are wave guided through a thin film of phthalocyanine. Nanosecond green pulsed Nd:YAG laser was used together with a red continuous wave (cw) He-Ne beam. At the output a narrow band filter was set to block the green beam and allow only the He-Ne beam. Then the transmitted beam was detected on an oscilloscope. It was found that the transmitted He-Ne cw beam was pulsating with a nanosecond duration and in synchronous with the input Nd:YAG nanosecond pulse. This demonstrated the characteristic table of an AND logic gate. A. Optical and Gate In an optical NAND gate the phthalocyanine film is replaced by a hollow fiber filled with polydiacetylene. Nd:YAG green picoseconds laser pulse was sent collinearly with red cw He-Ne laser onto one end of the fiber. At the other end of the fiber a lens was focusing the output on to the narrow slit of a monochromatic with its grating set for the red He-Ne laser. When both He-Ne laser and Nd:YAG laser are present there will be no output at the oscilloscope. If either one or none of the laser beams are present we get the output at the oscilloscope showing NAND function. faster read-out rates. This research is expected to lead to compact, high capacity, rapid-and random-access, and low power and low cost data storage devices necessary for future intelligent spacecraft. The SLMs are used in optical data storage applications. These devices are used to write data into the optical storage medium at high speed. Fig. 6. Optical Disk More conventional approaches to holographic storage use ion doped lithium niobate crystals to store pages of data. For audio recordings ,a 150MBminidisk with a 2.5- in diameter has been developed that uses special compression to shrink a standard CD’s640-MB storage capacity onto the smaller polymer substrate. It is rewritable and uses magnetic field modulation on optical material. The mini disc uses one of the two methods to write information on to an optical disk. With the mini disk a magnetic field placed behind the optical disk is modulated while the intensity of the writing laser is held constant. By switching the polarity of the magnetic field while the laser creates a state of flux in the optical material digital data can be recorded on a single layer. As with all optical storage media a read laser retrieves the data. A. Working The 780nm light emitted from AlGaAs/GaAs laser diodes is collimated by a lens and focused to a diameter of about 1micrometer on the disk. If the re is no pit where the light is incident, it is reflected at the Al mirror of the disk and returns to the lens, the depth of the pit is set at a value such that the difference between the path of the light reflected at a pit and the Fig. 5. Optical NAND-logic gate VI. OPTICAL MEMORY In optical computing two types of memory are discussed. One consists of arrays of one-bit-store elements and other is mass storage, which is implemented by optical disks or by holographic storage systems. This type of memory promises very high capacity and storage density. The primary benefits offered by holographic optical data storage over current storage technologies include significantly higher storage capacities and path of light reflected at a mirror is an integral multiple of halfwavelength consequently, if there is a pit where light is incident, the amount of reflected light decreases tremendously because the reflected lights are almost cancelled by interference. The incident and reflected beams pass through the quarter wave plate and all reflected light is introduced to the photodiode by the beam splitter because of the polarization rotation due to the quarter wave plate. By the photodiode the reflected light, which as a signal whether, a pit is on the disk or not is changed into an electrical signal. VII. APPLICATIONS 1) High speed communications: The rapid growth of internet, expanding at almost 15% per month, demands faster speeds and larger bandwidth than electronic circuits can provide. Terabits speeds are needed to accommodate the growth rate of internet since in optical computers data is transmitted at the speed of light which is of the order of 3.10*8 m/sec hence terabit speeds are attainable. 2) Optical crossbar interconnects are used in asynchronous transfer modes and Shared memory multiprocessor systems. 3) Process satellite data. VIII. MERITS 1) Optical computing is at least 1000 to 100000 times faster than today’s silicon machines. 2) Optical storage will provide an extremely optimized way to store data, with space requirements far lesser than today’s silicon chips. 3) Super fast searches through databases. 4) No short circuits, light beam can cross each other without interfering with each other’s data 5) Light beams can travel in parallel and no limit to number of packets that can travel in the photonic circuits. 6) Optical computer removes the bottleneck in the present day Communication system IX. DRAWBACKS 1) Today’s materials require much high power to work in consumer products, coming up with the right materials may take five years or more. 2) Optical computing using a coherent source is simple to compute and understand, but it has many drawbacks like any imperfections or dust on the optical components will create unwanted interference pattern due to scattering effects. Incoherent processing on the other hand cannot store phase information. X. SOME CURRENT RESEARCH High performance computing has gained momentum in recent years, with efforts to optimize all the resources of electronic computing and researcher brain power in order to increase computing throughput. Optical computing is a topic of current support in many places, with private companies as well as governments in several countries encouraging such research work. A group of researchers from the University of Southern California, jointly with a team from the University of California, los angles, have developed an organic polymer with a switching frequency of 60 GHz. This is three times faster than the current industry standard, lithium niobate crystal based device. Another group at brown university and the IBM, Alma den research center has used ultrafast laser pulses to build ultra fast data storage devices. This group was able to achieve ultra fast switching down to 100 picoseconds. In Japan , NEC has developed a method for interconnecting circuit boards optically using VCSEL arrays .Another researchers at NTT have designed an optical backplane with free-space optical interconnects using tunable beam deflectors and mirrors. The project achieved 1000 interconnections per printed circuit board; with a throughput ranging from 1 to 10 Tb/s. XI. FUTURE TRENDS The Ministry of Information Technology has initiated a photonic development program. Under this program some funded projects are continuing in fiber optic high-speed network systems. Research is going on for developing Fig.7. Use of optical devices in future New laser diodes, photo detectors, and nonlinear material studies for faster switches. Research efforts on an particle thin film or layer studies for display devices are also in progress. At the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, efforts are in progress to generate a white light source from a diode case based fiber amplifier system in order to provide WDM communication channels. XII. CONCLUSION Research in optical computing has opened up new possibilities in several fields related to high performance computing, high-speed communications. To design algorithms that execute applications faster, the specific properties of optics must be considered, such as their ability to exploit massive parallelism, and global interconnections. As optoelectronic and smart pixel devices mature, software development will have a major impact in the future and the ground rules for the computing may have to be rewritten. XIII. REFERENCES [1] [2] See for example: Chemical and Engineering ews, â€Å"Photonic Crystals. Assembled on Chip†, 79(47), 31 (2001). P. Boffi, D. Piccinin, M.C. Ubaldi, (Eds.), Infrared Holography for Optical Communications— echniques,MaterialsandDevices,SpringerTopics in Applied Physics: Vol 86, July 2002. Alain Goulet, Makoto Naruse, and Masatoshi Ishikawa, â€Å"Simple integration technique to realize parallel optical interconnects: implementation of a pluggable two-dimensional optical data link†, Applied Optics 41, 5538 (2002) Tushar Mahapatra, Sanjay Mishra, Oracle Parallel Processing, O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, California, USA, 2000. S. J. van Enk, J. McKeever, H. J. Kimble, and J. Ye, â€Å"Cooling of a single atom in an optical trap inside a resonator,† Phys. Rev. A 64, 013407 (2001). A. Dodabalapur, Z. Bao, A. Makhija, J. G. Laquindanum, V. R. Raju, Y. Feng, H. E. Katz, and J. Rogers, â€Å"Organic smart pixels†, Appl. Phys. Lett. 73 , 142 (1998). Henning Sirringhaus, Nir Tessler, and Richard H. Friend, â€Å"Integrated Optoelectronic Devices Based on Conjugated Polymers†, Science 280, 1741 (1988).

The Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition was a controversial time primarily during the 15th century. However, it kept reoccurring during other parts of history rather than only in the 15th century. There were many different methods used in which non-Christians would be tortured. Sometimes, the wrong people would be tortured if they believed that the person they were torturing really wasn’t Christian. The torturing of people because of their religion is what makes the Spanish Inquisition such a disturbing and dark part of history. The reason for the Spanish Inquisition was because the Christians conquered Spain again, which led to the Christians forcing non-Christian people, such as Jews, to convert to Christianity. Any non-Christian who refused to convert to Christianity would be prosecuted and tortured using different methods such as starvation, strappado, racking and many other forms of torture. In 1478, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castile established the Spanish Inquisition. The reason the inquisition was established was because Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castile wanted to unite Spain. The Spanish Inquisition could help economically because money could be made by stealing property from accused heretics. Another reason for the Spanish Inquisition is because Ferdinand and Isabelle believed that Spain could be united under Christianity. Also, Ferdinand and Isabelle discriminated against Jews simply because they were anti-Semites. The first Inquisitors arrived in Seville in 1480 to abolish heresy. Heresy is a belief or opinion that is contrary to an orthodox religious doctrine (especially Christianity). Many Spanish Jews were forced to convert to Christianity and some of them converted by choice. There were different sentences for those found guilty of heresy. If you were found guilty of heresy, then your property would be confiscated and you would be burned to death. There would be public humiliation for those found guilty at the auto da fe, which is the ceremony where the heretic would be burned to death. The time of the greatest influence during the Spanish Inquisition was under the reigns of Philip II and Philip III. This time period occurred in 1569-1621. The Inquisition had suffered previous to this time period because of a lack of direction under Charles V, who ruled from 1517-1556. But, during the reign of Philip II, there eventually became 16 tribunals in Spain, two tribunals in Italy and three in the New World. The Inquisition greatly expanded its prosecution of many different religious crimes. Ordinary Spaniards were drawn into the tribunals as well as Protestants, conversos, Moriscos and foreigners. There was detailed questioning even to people who most likely didn’t commit heresy. These people would be fined one or two ducats, which was considered a very heavy fine. The tribunals relied on unpaid officials. First, there were the two networks of familiars and camisarios. The familiars were laymen charged with carrying messages, arresting suspects and delivering them to the Inquisition. The comisarios were priests who assisted in the gathering of evidence at the local level. Calificadores would advise the inquisitors about the accusations to whether someone was a heretic or not. There was a cruel way in which the Inquisition functioned. Possible heretics weren’t treated like in today’s standards mostly because the phrase â€Å"innocent until proven guilty† wasn’t followed. First, there was the accusation. When the Inquisition arrived in a city, the first step was known as the Edict of Grace. It was called this because a period of grace was offered to the people accused of a crime to bring the accused person to the church without severe punishment. Next, there was the detention. The case would be examined by the calificadores would determine if there was heresy involved. Many cases lasted up to two years before the calificadores examined the case. The property of the prisoner would be taken during detention. This property would be used to pay for expenses and the own costs and maintenance of the person being accused. The entire process was done with much secrecy. The trial process is after the detention process. The trial consisted of a series of hearings. The denouncers and defendants both gave their testimonies. Torture was used until the defendant would confess. The torture used was very unsystematic. It was applied mainly to those suspected of Judaism and Protestantism. Torture would even be applied regardless of a person’s age. Basically even children and elderly people would be tortured. Torture played a major role in the Spanish Inquisition. There were many different methods of torture. One method of torture was strappado. Strappado was when the victims would be suspended from the ceiling by their wrists. The victim would fall from a height and be stopped by an abrupt jerk right before they reach the ground. Another method of torture was starvation in which the person accused of heresy would be starved. Racking was also used. A rack was an instrument of torture consisting of a frame on which the victim was stretched by turning rollers to which the wrists and ankles were tied. Toca was a method of making the victim believe they were drowning by putting a cloth in their mouth and pouring a jar of water in their mouth.

Human Trafficking: A Transnational Problem Essay

Human trafficking is the world’s oldest form of slavery. Since biblical times, men, women and children have been sold across borders into slavery. Human trafficking today is a growing business. Human rights groups estimate that the number of modern slaves exceeds that of the Atlantic slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (ProQuest Staff). In the modern world, globalization has made it easier to mobilize these victimized individuals. Human trafficking is a recognized problem worldwide that is brought on for various reasons and the methods to end trafficking have, thus far, fallen short. First, it is important to understand precisely what human trafficking is. According to Diaz, human trafficking is as follows: â€Å"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum,†¦ the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (UN, 2000, art. 3).† While it seems unlikely that here in the 21st century slavery still exists, it is a growing concern. In fact, it has grown to â€Å"epidemic† proportions as the forces of globalization have made human trafficking a highly profitable and virtually risk-free enterprise (Kara). While exact statistics are elusive due to human trafficking’s clandestine nature, the U.N. reported that 2.4 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking (ProQuest Staff). Internationally, about 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked each year. In the US alone, 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked annually. Of all trafficked, half are children and approximately seventy-five percent are women. And of all females trafficked, seventy percent are trafficked for sexual purposes (Hodge). In the United States, victims were identified from more than 40 different countries of origin spanning the globe (Hodge). Whether for commercial sex, construction, domestic work, carpet weaving, agriculture, tea and coffee, shrimp, fish, minerals, dimensional stones, gems, or numerous other industries investigated, human trafficking touches almost every sector of the globalized economy in a way it never has before (Kara). Moreover, just behind the drug and arms trade, human trafficking is estimated to be the second highest source of revenue for criminals(Hodge). Of all forms of slavery, sex slavery is one of the most exploitative and lucrative with some 200,000 sex slaves worldwide bringing their slaveholders an annual profit of $10.5 billion (Leuchtag). â€Å"Trafficking in persons† is primarily understood as the movement of persons across international boundaries for a variety of forms of exploitation. The crime of trafficking, of course, is not essentially about the movement of the person but about the exploitation. Trafficking is the denial of freedom (Goodson). Regardless of the trafficker/trafficking industry, they each share three common practices: Acquisition of persons, movement of said persons and the exploitation of said persons (Kara). Acquisition is completed in a variety of ways, but the common thread between them is deceit. The first method for enticing potential victims is through false-front agencies. These consist of elaborate organizations that promise work and help to those who seek it (Hodge). However, they do not intend on giving these services. Instead, they trap these women and children into a binding contract. Usually something along the lines of â€Å"you live here, you do as I say.† This is to say that they are promised jobs like an au pair or secretary, but instead they are forced to sell themselves to cover expenses. The victims are then forced into prostitution or forced labor (Zoba). The next method of acquisition is through the means of local sex industries. That is to say, women currently involved in harmless sexual careers of their own volition are offered a new position. They are told this position will be a promotion but turns out torturous. Now, they are forced in prostitution. Thirdly, traffickers target destitute, downtrodden families when acquiring new bodies. Here, the traffickers simply promise the families a better future. Often times they will get parents to surrender their children by telling them they will bring them to America for a prosperous future. This is never the case, however. Instead, they take these poor, naà ¯ve individuals across national borders. Then, the traffickers force them into prostitution, forced labor or another form of exploitation. Similarly, traffickers will resort to the extreme to keep their market flowing. That is to say traffickers will flat out abduct individuals. No false agencies or open ended lies. The traffickers flat-out steal these individuals from their respective homes and traffic them, continuously, worldwide (Hodge). Typically, trafficked persons are transferred from place to place. The United States, Germany, and Italy are the top three destination countries, with the Netherlands and Japan close behind. It is noted that most destination countries are developed nations. Also, the victims are sent to â€Å"transit countries†, such as Mexico, to make it easier to get them across national borders of the aforementioned destination countries (Zoba).This is both to maximize profit by keeping a constant, fresh supply of women as well as to keep the victims disoriented. While in transit and on the job, those trafficked are exploited incessantly. Most frequently, the individuals are forced to sell themselves with little to no compensation. Slave exploiters often re-sell trafficked slaves to new exploiters. If the slaves do not escape, their cycle of exploitation may never end. Even if they do escape, they often return to the same conditions of poverty or vulnerability that led to their initial enslavement, resulting in one or more instances of re-trafficking (Kara). For those sold into sexual trafficking, they are forced into malicious sexual acts. During this â€Å"career†, the individuals have little say as to what types of sexual acts they are willing to do. If they are to refuse, they may be raped or their pimps or â€Å"owners† would beat or threaten them. This does not end there. Pimps will threaten to harm the prostitute’s family if she becomes unmanageable. Even more so, women may be beaten, stabbed or possibly murdered. Pimps will continue violence to keep them in line, to exert their dominance and humiliate these women, whenever they deem necessary (Hodge). As a result, the average life span of a prostitute is 34-years old and the career has the second highest homicide rate, just behind liquor store workers (Benetts). The women and children that received the deplorable treatment suffer greatly. Injuries are common amongst the victims but negative psychological effects are much more prevalent (Hodge). Often the prostitutes have drug dependencies and mental illness, along with malnutrition (Benetts). Many of the prostitutes experience shame, panic attacks, depression, low self-esteem and post-traumatic stress disorder (Hodge). The list goes on to include disease and stunted growth, often with permanent effect. Victims of sex trafficking may also face exposure to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, permanent damage to reproductive organs, and, depending on the age at which they are trafficked, missed critical opportunities for social, moral and spiritual development (Birkenthal). By age thirty, these individuals are both physically and emotionally disabled (Hodge).To make matters worse, prostitutes that manage to escape human trafficking are commonly treated as criminals. In fact, for every buyer caught purchasing a prostitute, 50 prostitutes are arrested. This negative view towards the victims prevents some individuals from seeking help from law enforcement (Benetts). Human trafficking has a variety of different causes. In other words, societies have many different â€Å"push† factors that are more likely to result in more people being trafficked. In the countries of origin, trafficking is commonly caused by poverty, a lack of political, social or economic stability, a shortage of legal job opportunities, situations of oppression and armed conflict, domestic violence, lack of a family structure, gender discrimination and limited access to education. Destination countries, however, have â€Å"pull† factors that are known to cause human trafficking. These include the costs of paying legally hired workers, an increased demand for cheap labor, and a rise in the sex industry. Other factors that cause human trafficking, not particular to either the origin or destination countries, include the following: a lack of public awareness, lack of understanding of the dangers of trafficking, the high profit potential for those involved in criminal activity, the sophisticated networks formed by the traffickers, a lack of effective legislation and enforcement opposing human trafficking, global economic policies that continually exclude marginalized members of society, a lack of or faulty social protection networks and corruption of political figures or groups (Birkenthal). Human trafficking is a well-known problem in modern day. However, it is elusive. Human trafficking is rooted in criminal secrecy. Due to the minimal risk of trafficking human beings, criminals involved in drug and arms trading are beginning to look into the trafficking of humans; one of the few commodities that can be sold more than once. These criminals then form complex organized crime to get these trafficked victims from place to place. Frequently, criminals involved in trafficking will bribe corrupt public officials. Corruption enables human traffickers to operate successfully, whether through bribes to public officials or collaboration of officials with criminal networks. Officials holding key positions have used their authority to provide protection to those engaged in criminal activities by ignoring the illegal activities or blocking proposed legislation to end the illegal activity (Diaz).There have also been documented links between human trafficking and terrorism. Profits from trafficking and prostitution have been used to support terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. In addition, terrorists use the transportation networks of smugglers and traffickers to move operatives (Birkenthal). In the globalized world, everyone must take steps to end human trafficking. The global effort to combat human trafficking is organized around prevention, prosecution, and protection. Preventing the occurrence of human trafficking as well as remedying its past harms will require a global partnership of countries and governmental/non-governmental organizations. Sending countries should be the focal point of prevention strategies. Economic development, with a special emphasis on women and girls, constitutes perhaps the best long-term approach to combating human trafficking. At the same time, there is a great need for educational outreach programs to alert individuals and communities to the tricks traffickers use and the dangers of being trafficked. Anti-human trafficking education must be offered repeatedly if it is to have lasting effect (Diaz). Equally important, trafficking must not only be universally criminalized, but traffickers must be effectively prosecuted for the crime (Birkenthal).Breaking up trafficking networks and imprisoning traffickers stops the recruitment and movement of trafficked persons. Unfortunately, it has been the most difficult of the three strategies to develop and implement. In countries with weak legal systems and corrupt police and courts, investigation of human traffickers is a rare occurrence, and conviction even rarer. Even in countries where the environment for investigation, prosecution, and conviction is favorable, the results have been disappointing (Diaz). In the United States, the national success rate in solving murder cases is about 70 percent; about 11,000 murders are solved each year. Nevertheless, the annual percentage of trafficking and slavery cases solved is less than one percent. Therefore, if 17,500 people were newly enslaved in America, the Department of Justice would only bri ng charges against merely 111 people for human trafficking and slavery (Bales). The ugliness of human trafficking dates back centuries. Even though it was agreed 150 years ago as a human civilization that slavery is unacceptable, it is more pervasive and expansive today than it was centuries ago (Kara). The forces of globalization have made human trafficking a highly profitable and virtually risk-free enterprise (Diaz). As a matter of ensuring basic human dignity and freedom, the global community must utilize every resource available to combat traffickers and slave exploiters by elevating the real risk and cost of the crime, while eliminating the immense profitability that human traffickers and slave exploiters currently enjoy (Desyallas). The persistence of human trafficking is an insult to human dignity and a denial of morality by modern civilization. The time is long overdue for the world to come together to deploy the kinds of sustained interventions required to eliminate this evil forever. Works Consulted Bales, Kevin. â€Å"Winning the fight: eradicating slavery in the modern age.† Harvard International Review 31.1 (2009): 14+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. Bennetts, Leslie. â€Å"The John Next Door.† Newsweek. 25 Jul 2011: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. Birkenthal, Sara. â€Å"Human trafficking: a human rights abuse with global dimensions.†Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law Annual 2011: 27+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. Desyllas, Moshoula Capous. â€Å"A critique of the global trafficking discourse and U.S. policy.† Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare 34.4 (2007): 57+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. Diaz, Mariel, et al. â€Å"Globalization and human trafficking.† Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare 34.2 (2007): 107+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. Goodson, Jennifer. â€Å"Sex Trafficking Threatens the United States.† Prostitution and Sex Trafficking. Ed. Louise Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from â€Å"Exploiting Body and Soul: Sex Trafficking Is Big Business Around the World—and the Root of That Business Is Closer to Home than You Might Think.† Sojourners 34 (Sept.-Oct. 2005): 20. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. Hodge, David R. â€Å"Sexual Trafficking in the United States: A Domestic Problem with Transnational Dimensions.† Social work 53.2 (2008): 143-52. ProQuest Discovery. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. Kara, Siddharth. â€Å"Supply and demand: human trafficking in the global economy.†Harvard International Review 33.2 (2011): 66+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013. Leuchtag, Alice. â€Å"Sex Slavery Must Be Eradicated.† Slavery Auriana Ojed a. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. At Issue. Rpt. from â€Å"Human Rights, Sex Trafficking, and Prostitution.† The Humanist 63 (2003): 10-16. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Jan. 2013. Today. Ed. ProQuest Staff. â€Å"Human Trafficking Timeline.† Leading Issues Timelines. Sept. 11 2012: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 09 Dec 2012. Siagian, Sandra. â€Å"Celebrity Power Boosts U.N.’s Anti-Trafficking Blitz.† Global Information Network. 27 Nov 2011: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher.Web. 12 Jan 2013. Zoba, Wendy Murray. â€Å"Ignorance and Complacency Promote Sex Trafficking.† What are the Causes of Prostitution? Ed. Louise Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Rpt. from â€Å"The Hidden Slavery.† Christianity Today 47 (Nov. 2003): 68. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

What is an Islamic City and Where has the Idea Come From Essay

What is an Islamic City and Where has the Idea Come From - Essay Example As the report stresses that the idea of Islamic City simply originates from the works of the Western Orientalists, who purported to describe the essence of the Islamic cities that emerged on the eve of westernization to try and make sense of the ancient Arabic cities . It is the work of these Western Orientalists that spread the idea of Islamic City as it is known today. The city has been associated with the convergence of people with different ideas, life perspectives and philosophies of life that results in the generation of different fundamental ideologies that shapes the world. Religion is one of the fundamental principles that shapes different world cultures, and for that reason, it is also associated with urbanization and the city. This paper declares that Islam has been characterized as an urban religion since the days of Prophet Muhammad. This argument has been advanced by the western orientalists, who mainly for lack of full knowledge and understanding of the Islam and then whole Muslim culture made assertions that may not hold true in the true context of understanding the Muslim religion and culture. The western orientalists argued that Islam is an urban religion, due to the fact that the requirement that the solemnization of the Friday Islamic prayers be done at a congressional mosque made urbanization for the advent Muslim faithful a necessity. The early mosques, just like the early churches and synagogues, were mainly built in the urban areas, effectively making Islam an urban religion.

Leadership Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Leadership Reflection - Essay Example leader is the transformational leadership in which I try to set down such standards that those following me find easy to follow by their own willingness. Other domains in which I see myself as a leader are intrapersonal leadership because I tend to lead my own self in a very effective way; and, interpersonal leadership because I believe that I conduct effective relationship management with my stakeholders through effectual conflict management based on active communication and collaboration. I keep everyone on the platform happy and satisfied and keep them motivated through personal attention and rewards. These were some domains in which I see myself as a good and ethical leader. 2. I take care of the employees so as to preserve a vigorous environment within the organization. I verify that the salaries are being paid in time; try to pursue a system of rewards and bonuses; and, listen to the employees’ troubles and try to remove them. This keeps them working at high competence. I make agreements with business partners while respecting their decisions. This confidence between the partners makes the organization grow and maintains its integrity. I know how to schedule my projects keeping in mind the time frame and instruct the team to manage work schedule accordingly. I know that I have to abide by the rules and regulations I have agreed upon while signing a contract and will never back off. All this adds to the progress of my organization. Strengths that I wish to develop include vision and framing my actions according to ethics. I want to develop a brawny vision so that I am able to solve problems with ethical values. I want to be able to frame my acti ons in such a way that they go just in accordance to my inner beliefs and standards because according to Freeman and Stewart (2006), leadership is â€Å"a fully ethical task†. 3. When I look at my past, I come across many events that have changed my inner self to the kind of person I am today. My leadership skills

Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution Research Paper

Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution - Research Paper Example Constitution. The U.S. constitution was finalized on July 4th 1776 and was drafted by Thomas Jefferson. A significant portion of the Declaration, pointed at the tyranny of King George III, and his refusal to grant the right of self-governance to the Americans. This was used as a base / foundation for the formation of the Constitution. Due care was taken to ensure that the setbacks and abuses faced during the rule of King George III were prevented. This was done by including provisions that ensured the protection of basic human rights, a right which was denied during the reign of the King. ... The new constitution guaranteed a basic set of rules in the interest of the nation, which included the protection of liberty of the people; and the right to democracy i.e. the dispersion of power which was initially concentrated in the hands of a few. This rule was included specifically, in response to the tyranny experienced by the colonists, during the reign of King George III when the power was highly concentrated and the common man hardly had a say in matters important to them. The colonists had experienced severe setbacks under the reign of the King, which was mainly on account of his atrocious laws and a total disregard for the well being of the Americans. There was a severe lack of ethics in the laws formed under the King’s rule, which hindered the progress and development of not only individuals but of the nation as a whole. Hence, the key emphasis during the formation of the new constitution was to include principles of ethics and morality, in order for the laws to be fair and just. The basic concepts of self-government and a basic respect for the individual are the key laws, which were proposed and included in the new U.S. Constitution and can be considered as intrinsically ethical in nature. Furthermore, various religious ethics such as the Judaeo-Christian ethics and political ethics also formed a significant part of the new constitution. The constitution provided for equality among all, its people, a rule which is the foundation of social ethics. The social contract theories propagate the formation of equitable social living arrangements for all. The abolishment of dictatorship and the advocacy of self-government, is also a distinguishing force, which represents a highly ethical view, which is

Financial statement analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Financial statement analysis - Essay Example Additionally, the company has a projected profit for the next three years showing an increase in profit every year. This has been facilitated by the unique service the company will offer to out compete the two competitors in the industry. Besides, the company targets specific customers with specific needs that are lacking in the market. As well, the success of the company is attributed to the diversification of customers according to their specific needs to ensure quality of service s offered to them (Bernotavicz, 1995). With the ambitious mission and vision of the company, it is in a position to offer the services in a planned manner that will see it utilized its competitive advantage to grow continuously. The company will combine the 5P of marketing to achieve an increasing sales forecast every year for the next three years. However, in as much as the business plan is to be implemented, care must be taken to follow all the legal requirements and avoid all the potential risk that may undermine the performance of the

Brand Personalities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Brand Personalities - Essay Example Brand Personality: A Comparison with Human Personality: Hans Ouwersloot and Ana Maria Tudorica in their article â€Å"Brand Personality Creation through Advertising (2001)† says that brand personality replicates how people experience a brand, rather than what they believe the brand is or what it does. He says that the emblematic use of brands is possible for the reason that the consumers frequently give human personalities to brands. Clients perceive the brand on aspects that naturally capture personality of a person, and widen that to the field of brands. The aspects of brand personality are defined by widening the aspects of human personality to the field of brands. One means to measure and conceptualize the human personality is by way of approach of trait, which explains that the personality is a group of traits. â€Å"A trait is defined as component of a person's behavior that is assumed to serve as an explanation of his or her enduring personal characteristics† (Trait 2012). Human personality individuality or characters are determined by multi-aspect factors such as behavior of individual’s, appearance, beliefs, attitude and the demographic characteristic. On the basis of these dimensions of human personality the five dimensions related to brands are identified and they are Excitement, Sincerity, Competence, Ruggedness and Sophistication. J. Aker, in the article â€Å"Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 1997† mentioned that the brand personality dimensions match with three of the five human personality aspects i.e. Excitement, Sincerity and Competence. The brand personality aspects such as Ruggedness and Sophistication vary from the aspects of human personality. According to Jennifer Aker, these brand personality dimension should have function in several ways or influence the preference of consumers for several reasons. The Brand Personality Creation: The traits of brand personality are shaped and influenced by a consumer’s direct or indirect contac t with a brand. A brand, can’t feel, think, or act like an individual,. A brand is merely a set of perceptions in the consumer’s mind. Consumers admit the actions of marketing to brands that are humanized. Personality characteristics are related with a brand by the individuals connected to that particular brand. The other way to influence and form the brand personality is imagery of user. Imagery user is defined as the group of human traits associated with the stereotype or typical user of the brand. The personality characteristics of the individual that are associated with a brand are shifted to the brand directly. Rajagopal in his publication named Brand Excellence: measuring the impact of advertising and brand personality on buying decisions, Measuring Business Excellence, 2006 explains that the effect that advertising have on the growth of the symbolic dimensions of the brands and this in turn affect the brand personality in a positive manner. Eventually, the spoke sperson’s personalities are shifted to the brand. The relation between brand and person may have a more personal nature. One of the main advantages of brand personalities are that on the basis of their unique personalities, consumers will be able to distinguish between brands. Another benefit is that the

Using examples, examine the connections between gender, fear and urban Essay

Using examples, examine the connections between gender, fear and urban space - Essay Example While there are men who have small physical builds in comparison to other men, it is more likely to find a man with a build larger than a woman’s than to find the opposite scenario. Given this difference it is clear that, generally, women face a set of obstacles that most men will not have to ever experience. On the other hand, because of seeming biologically driven needs to defend one’s space, men are often faced with challenges that, similarly, women will unlikely ever have to face. Thus, as distinct as each gender’s biological makeup creates them to be, so too are the vast differences between the obstacles they must face. These differing gender fear invoking issues will be examined within the context of urban space. The urban environment can pose many stress inducing variables for any individual despite gender. Crime, natural disasters, and other such factors create a spectrum of varying fear and anxiety inducing possibilities for both men and women on a daily basis. Needing to be extra careful with personal possessions in public arenas and making sure to be respectful of an individual’s space are added factors that become automatic parts of one’s thought process while living in an urban environment. While both genders must face many similar urban space stressors, the differences begin to come to play when situations become more dependent on a person’s gender versus, for instance, specific environmental weather factors. For women, urban life poses specific problems due to biological factors. Because women are generally smaller and physically weaker than men, women must take this into account when they travel alone or even with other women to specific urban destinations. â€Å"Fear leads women to take precautions which are often spatial, such as avoiding certain parts of the city or not going out after dark† (Koskela, 1999, pp. 111). In other words, the reality

Nursing Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

Nursing Theory - Essay Example Tautology looks into the useless repetition of a concept in different parts of the theory that can confuse the explanation of the theory vague and can confuse the reader. While, teleology is examined by considering the extent to which consequences and causes are put different in a theory. Teleology happens when a theorist describes ideas by consequences and then initiates new ideas instead of getting the definitions of the original ideas. As this procedure continues, the theory remains vague for there is no lucid definition of the theory’s ideas (Peterson & Bredow, 2009). Moreover, diagrams are important to see the interrelationship of the ideas practically to each other before conducting research. They are essential in reviewing the strength of statistical associations between the theories ideas (p. 55). In conclusion, theory development and critique are important because they result to theories that are adequate, clear, and address the complexity and consistency of theories. Theories that are produced after the process are precise, definitive parameters and have clear boundaries of the subject matter. Theories provide nurses with the required basis to restructure and enlighten healthcare and improve the quality of care at all professional

Does Gender or Sexuality Affect a Young Person’s Transition to Adulthood Essay Example for Free

Does Gender or Sexuality Affect a Young Person’s Transition to Adulthood Essay In this essay there will be a discussion about whether or gender effects the transition to adulthood. There will be a brief definition of gender and transition. There has been great debate over gender but there has been little about masculinity and femininity and the transition to adulthood. It will look at the transitions that gender goes through in relation to that of the past and present day. Then which will be compared if they have changed or continuously stayed the same. There will be theoretical discussion of the psychoanalytic and biosocial theory and how this helps us to understand if gender effects the transitions to adulthood. Being in school and going into the workforce will be examples of how these theories can be applied and explain again if the transitions to adulthood are effect by gender. Then to finished there will be a conclusion. When we think of gender we normal think of the sex of the person, so whether they are female or male. According to Mackenzie (2001:150) gender â€Å"relates to social divisions associated with notions of masculinity and femininity and such divisions vary according to changing contexts†. But is it as simple as this?! Gender is not just determined by whether you are male or female; it is a lot deeper than that as has a variety of aspects. These are gender assignment, gender role, gender identity and gender attribution. To become an adult there is considered to be five core transitions that a young person goes through. These are leaving home, completing school, entering the workforce, marriage and having children. This process is prolonged and varied compared to that of half a century ago. In comparison to then it takes longer for young adults to gain economic and psychological autonomy. According to Berlin et al (2010:20) â€Å" experiences in early adulthood now vary greatly b y gender, race, ethnicity and social class. In industrial society’s most men make the transition to adulthood by be able to go out and work. In comparison to some world cultures who make their transition through rituals. However, the passage form boy to man has become more complicated and hard to determine, which has cause issues which they are not mentally and physically prepared for flood et al(2007:666). Today there is contradiction and problems in relation to what it is to be a man is on the upraise and this is practically noticeable where there has been conflict, for example, in Northern Ireland (ibid). In Northern Ireland there is a tradition for men to live up the masculinity that was presented by other before them which has put pressure of the youths to be just the same. The homicide rates between 1969 to 2001 are a reflection of the phenomena that is associated with the transition of youth into adulthood and violence. There has been more studies on the gender norms is not new however there is significant difference in the amount of research on female and males. Morgan 1981 argues that ‘taking gender seriously’ means bring men back in. he stresses that if we accept that men is not the norm women the deviation and if we want to fully understand the life experiences and chances of all men and women we need to consider the social construction of both femininity and masculinity and focus our research and women and men experiences†. Marchbank Letherby( 2007:28) . Although it was not until the 20th century that subcultures were recognised as male due to the youth movement but still masculinity was not studied flood et all (2007:666). It is the belief of feminist that males disempowered women, according to McKinnon that there is system of power in which male dominances that oppresses women. Therefore, masculinity was seen as a problem. (Mackinnon, C. (1993) However Hearn argues that â⠂¬Å"In particular, it refers to the way in which particular forms of masculinity persist not just in relation to femininity, but also to other forms of masculinity. Accordingly, different forms of masculinity exist in relations of power, that may be characterized as hegemonic or subordinated in relation to one another† Bagihole cross (2002: 208). This suggests the men are not only oppressors of women but of other men. Men and female are different in respect to the gender roles in which they adopt. Naturally men are more strong, aggressive and emotionally detached compared to females who nurturing and caring. However, the family play’s is significant in terms of gender and the transition to adult. The family are the first interaction that the child will have and this is where the main socialisation occurs. They will learn the norms, values and morals form their family In the 1950’s and 1960’s the family role and adult responsibility were viewed as bring synonymous. Men were characterized by the capability to marry and support the family. Whereas, it was getting married and becoming a mother for women. By the age of twenty one woman was married and had a child by the age they was twenty three. This suggests that by the age twenty that men and women were recognised as adults. In the 20th century there was not much relevance’s of when adolescence was, but in their late teen ’s men worked and most of them had formed families. Transitions to adulthood were similar today and just before the industrialization because like then becoming and adult was a gradual and characterized by â€Å"semi-autonomy† with youths waiting until they were economically stable to set up a home. Eagly (1987) social role theory looks at two structural aspects of gender relations. These are the gendered divisions of labour and gendered based hierarchy. This theory demonstrates how these factors pin down the beliefs that society has about men and women. It shows hoe roles of individuals require particular traits and behaviour in order to be seen competent of their gender. Society for example has the idea that women have to be the child bearer and a process the child rearing traits. This is due to the biological reproduction that they have. The theory believes that due to the role segregation it encourages set beliefs and stereotype. This can be seen with the traits associated with each gender. Males are expected to be aggressive, brave, breadwinner and physical able. Whereas, in terms of female they are considered to be caring and nurturing due to their child rearing traits. The gendered stereotypes are reinforced by the status differences of men and women. There appears to be a link between divisions of labour and hierarchy. It is said that makes roles carry more importance and statuses compared to those of females. Home rearing is considered to be of low status compared to that of males who are of high statuses and bring money in. This suggests that stereotypes towards gender reflect upon the status of their traditional roles. It was Freud psychoanalytic theory that looks at the idea that biological factors and the social environment as defining influences of a child’s gender role development. Freud believed the gender role developed in the phallic stage, the child will experience a biological based attachment for the parent of the opposite gender. It was the belief of Freud that it was due the child’s identification with the same gender that resulted in gender role development. The theory helps to explain the reason why boys and girls act in certain ways. Freud stated† that boys are more motivated then girls acquire a more define gender role† Lowu (2007:291) there will is more define because of social pressures. According to money and ehrhardt (1972) biosocial theory there are specific events that determine a person gender role. Almost from the minute that the parent’s find out the sex of the child they will treat the child according to their gender. For example, if the sex of the child is a boy then the colour that the parent will dress them is typically blue and pink if it is a girl. The environment in which the child lives in is also determined by their gender. According to jones (2009:81) the colours that the parents pick shows masculinity or femininity. Therefore as there is this assumption then this affects the clothes, activities and toys they are encouraged to do, this would suggest that each gender are encourage to go down a particular path. The colours that the parents pick shows masculinity or femininity. Therefore as there is this assumption then this affects the clothes, activities and toys they are encouraged to do, this would suggest that each gender are encourage to go down a particular path This then in term may affect the way in which they portray themselves as young adolescents in school. Most girls fine this transition from youth to adolescence quiet difficult, most girls will portray themselves in a way to which they will achieve male approval, this is more easy for those of the popular group. This allows more opportunity for this type of grills to put them at rick and in dangerous situation as they are portraying an older sexuality. According to Woods (1994:32) state â€Å"that women are portrayed as women as sex objects who are usually young, thin beautiful, passive, dependent, and often incompetent and dumb. Female characters devote their primary energies to improving their appearances and taking care of homes and people†. If this is the image that is being injected in the youth minds then it is likely that this is how they will behaviour as they enter into a relationship. This can be seen as negative thing in the eyes of feminists as they beleive that women are oppressed by men. However, if they are raised the same way they have been parents were raised then this would be considered the norm. However, those who were not part of the in crowd reject the notion that there body was for the desire of men only. They opted for the comfy culture rather than the ‘tarty’ look. At this age there is a lot of images that young people will be surround by the media. As mentioned before there is the portrayal of ideal women all over the media, it this girl both in the popular crowds and none popular crowds can have an effect on the transition to adulthood. These images will allow the young girls to think that they have to look a certain way in order to be desire by males (Renold. E. (2005) This may resul t in it effecting there health as they may develop an eating disorder to get their desire look. This could be detrimental their ability to have a family in the future. This suggests that they will not meet one of the five core traditions. In comparison males transitions to adulthood by building on hierarchy among there group. A way that they do this is via showing there masculinity by taking up sports, this will be were all the hierarchy ranking will take place. If they have a problem they will generally solve their issue by fighting this results in them protecting their man hood. Whereas with girls if they have an issues with other then this will go on for a period of time ( Goodwin 2006) Another transition that men and women have is going to full time work. This can be a hard transition to adjust to as being a young adolescence most of the time does not mean having the responsibility of a full time job. Especially for women as they will also have to consider with the right time to have a family is. A problem with this is that they will have to a battle for equal pay. The equal pay act was not introduced till 1947 and was a direct change due to the changing roles of women in society. This means that men and women will receive the same amount of pay for the same job. As well as this, they can apply for the same position in a job regardless of where it is in the hierarchy. However, saying this and it being put into action is different. Still today there is a debate about men and women’s pay. If a man and women go for the same job it is more likely that the man will be given the job. A reason for this may be that if a women has ring her finger the employer will take into account that there is a high chance she will want a family. This mean that they would have to pay for maternity leave,whereas will a man this would not be the case. It is the believed that there is â€Å"An important part of this cultural change comes from providing better information to employees and to shareholders on a companys record on equal pay and employment, (www.guardian.co.uk) This may affect the way women transition into the workforce, this is because they may be put of the idea of career as they may feel what’s the point working at the same level as men only to receive less pay then them. To conclude it would suggest that gender does have a effect on the transition to adulthood. It is apparent that the way in which gender transitions in the past was based on the idea of the men being the bread winner and the female the child bearer. However this has seemed to change as time has moved on. The different theories look at the transition from different points of view but all suggest that gender does affect the transition. It will appear that girls more than more have a tougher time making the transition due to surrounding influences in society.

Candidate Conundrum Summary Essay Example for Free

Candidate Conundrum Summary Essay The company personnel Robert (Manager) and Paul (Project leader) are interviewing two potential candidates Sonya and Jacqueline for a new position at the company. After interviewing both candidates Paul feels Sonya is the one they should hire while Robert believes they should hire Jacqueline. Paul’s reasoning is that he feels he’d work better with Sonya both being Caucasian while Robert thinks Paul may have personal feelings for his choice. Robert believes having Jacqueline hired will provide more diversity to the company, but Paul feels he is hiring her solely because of her race since it is stated that both candidates have the same qualifications. The issue is that both have valid reasons for wanting his choice for the job position. What did/didn’t the manager do well: Robert handled the situation relatively well. He listened to Paul’s reasoning for his choice, but was quite set with his decision to choose Jacqueline already. Due to his opinion he didn’t appear to consider Paul’s point of view. Robert shouldn’t have made up his mind on his decision prior to meeting with Paul at the end. This prevented him from having an open mind about Paul’s choice. What would you have done differently: If we were in Robert’s situation we would have tried to keep our minds open to consider Sonya as an option and take Paul’s reasoning into consideration. We probably would have still picked Jacqueline as well because we thought Robert’s reasons were completely valid. In the end Robert had a good case to not hire Sonya and choose Jacqueline for the position.

An aseptic technique

An aseptic technique Introduction Aseptic means to be free from microorganisms. Aseptic Technique is the procedure that is performed under sterile condition to prevent the growth of other microorganisms on the growth medium such as the Petri dishes containing the nutrient agar or the pure culture. If the growth medium or the pure culture is contaminated with microorganisms from the environment, it will results in confusion and inaccurate data. Hence, it is important to reduce the risks of these microorganisms to come in contact with the experimental materials. In addition, by maintaining a clean environment when transferring the culture of microorganism onto the nutrient agar is part of the aseptic technique. This is usually done by disinfecting the table before and after working with microorganism using alcohol. Flaming the experimental materials such as bacteriological loops, bottle or flask necks can help in sterilizing. It must be done for several seconds so as to raise the temperature to kill the contaminants; however, the bacteriological loop must be cooled for a while before it is used to pick up the microorganism as picking up microorganism with a hot tool will kill the cells. When removing caps from bottles, it is important to keep the cap in the hand as by putting them on the table, it will be contaminated. Flaming is also required before replacing the cap onto the bottle. It is important to handle open tubes at an angle so that airborne and other microorganisms will not fall into the tube and cause contamination. During streakin g, it is important to keep the lids of the Petri dish over it to prevent contamination. Lastly, try to avoid breathing, coughing, sneezing and talking while transferring the culture so as to reduce the risk on contaminating. Apart from this general aseptic technique, there also several other methods to ensure that destruction of living microorganisms in materials and apparatus. One of the methods is by using dry heat which is sterilising using naked flame or hot air. Sterilising materials or apparatus by a naked flame is usually heated to redness and allowed to cool. They are usually made of metal. Exposure to hot air helps to destroy microorganisms in glass and porcelain apparatus. The other method is sterilizing using moist heat which can be used in three different ways which are heating in water or steam at 100oC, heating in steam under pressure and discontinue heating at low temperature. The different ways are employed according to the different materials or apparatus used. The last method is by using chemical, it can be either in liquid or gaseous state. They are often used in the disposal of contaminated materials and apparatus after a laboratory session. Microorganisms worked with in a lab should not be released into the environment as these strains may contain genetic markers such as antibiotic resistance. Therefore, they must be discarded properly. In addition, aseptic technique is not only applied in laboratory, it is also applied in clinical and surgical setting. Aims There are two aims in this experiment. The first aim is to show that a large number of microorganisms exist on the surface of our hands. The second aim is carry out the aseptic technique properly by transferring pure culture and inoculating them onto an agar plate. Materials and Methods Bacteria on skin Please refer to the Laboratory Manual unless otherwise stated of changes made. Streak Plate Please refer to the Laboratory Manual unless otherwise stated of changes made. A disposable sterile bacteriological loop is use instead of the metal sterile bacteriological loop so no heating is required. Discussion Bacteria on skin The human skins surface do carry a large number of microorganism and that by washing hands, individual can reduce the number of microorganism noticeably. However, even after a hand wash, microorganisms are still present on the surface. Streak Plate By employing the streaking technique on an agar plate correctly, a single colony can be obtained. Furthermore, it can be used to separate colonies of mixed culture. Hence, this pure colony can be picked up and to be grown in large quantity. From the result above, it can be observed that single colonies of the S.aureus are found. Due to the colour and morphology, it can be noted that the S.aureus is of a pure culture. Conclusion Aseptic technique is a basic laboratory technique that must be employed especially during Microbiology laboratory session so as to prevent any contamination and affecting the accuracy of the result. Since microorganism can replicated rapidly, disposal of contaminants must be done properly so as to protect both the equipments and the health of individuals. B- Gram Staining Introduction Gram stain is also known as differential stain in which it will divide bacteria into two large groups, mainly Gram Positive and Gram Negative. This difference is due to the chemical and physical structure of the cell wall called peptidoglycan. During solvent treatment, if the peptidoglycan is able to retain the crystal violet dye, the bacteria will be group as Gram Positive bacteria. However, if it is not able to retain the crystal violet, the bacteria will be group as Gram Negative bacteria and that it will be stained pink. Gram Positive bacteria has a thicker peptidoglycan (50-90% cell wall) as compared to the Gram Negative bacteria (10% cell wall). In addition, the Gram Negative bacteria has another layer which is make up of liposaccharides and proteins and is separated from the cell wall by the periplasm. In gram staining, there are four basic steps which include flooding the heat fixed smear with crystal violet stain, following by the addition of iodine solution to form complex, adding of alcohol for decolourisation and counterstaining with safranin. After flooding the peptidoglycan with crystal violet stain, the dye will enter the cells and all cells will turn purple. With the addition of iodine, a crystal violet-iodine complex will be form such that it will not be able to exit the cells easily. By decolourizing the cell with alcohol, the peptidoglycan of the Gram Negative bacteria will break down because the alcohol will dissolves the liposaccharides layer and hence, with the removal of the layer, the crystal violet-iodine complex will run off which will results in the loss of the crystal violet stain and the cells turn colourless. On the other hand, the alcohol will dehydrate the Gram Positive bacterias peptidoglycan, closing the pores as the peptidoglycan shrinks. As a result, the crystal violet-iodine complex will not be able to run off as the exits will be blocked and they remained stained. By counterstaining with safranin, the Gram Negative cell will turn pink and the Gram Positive cells will remain violet. With gram staining, one is able to differentiate if the culture is a pure or a mixed, the morphological details of the bacteria and the arrangement of the bacteria. Aims The aim is to prepare smears for staining, observe the morphological details of the bacteria and to be able to differentiate between Gram Positive and Gram Negative bacteria. Materials and Methods Preparation of Smears for staining Please refer to the Laboratory Manual unless otherwise stated of changes made. A disposable sterile bacteriological loop is use instead of the metal sterile bacteriological loop so no heating is required. Gram Staining Method Please refer to the Laboratory Manual unless otherwise stated of changes made. Discussion According to the result observed, Bacillus subtilis is rod shaped (bacillus). They are stained purple which suggests that they are Gram Positive bacteria. They are arranged in singles. Although, endospore cannot be observe in this experiment, they can also be found on Bacillus subtilis. The endospore enables the bacteria to tolerate harsh environmental condition such as high temperature. Bacillus subtilis can also be known as a single bacillus bacterium. Escherichia coli is stained pink and thereby, it is a Gram Negative bacterium. The cells are also rod shaped but they do not have any particular cell arrangement. They are found in singles, pairs and even clusters. Proteus vulgaris is also stained pink and hence, a Gram Negative bacterium. Its morphology rod shaped and is arranged in singles. They can also be known as a single bacillus bacterium. Staphylococcus aureus is a Gram Positive bacterium as it is stained dark purple after gram staining. It has a spherical shaped, otherwise known cocci and they are usually arranged in grape-like clusters. Therefore, they are known as a staphylococci bacterium. There were no differences in the shape and colour observed for each of the bacteria, hence, they can be known as a pure culture. Conclusion The Gram staining method is a useful tool used in most laboratories as it helps individual to visualise the bacteria accurately and effectively such as the shape, arrangement and even whether the culture is a pure or mixed. However, it should be noted that not all bacteria will give a gram reaction as some of them are gram variable, otherwise known as gram indeterminate. Therefore, they will give a mix of pink and purple cells after gram staining. For some of the Gram Positive bacteria, their peptidoglycan breaks easily during cell division, hence, after staining, they will give pink cells instead of purple. In addition, the duration of a culture can also affect the gram stain. C- Cell Counting Introduction Cells counting is the accurate and precise counting of cells. They are usually carried out manually or electronically. By counting cells manually, a counting chamber, otherwise known as the haemocytometer is used. The counting chamber is used to determine the number of cells per unit volume of a suspension. On the other hand, a coulter counter is used to count cells electronically. There are two approaches to count the number of cells, mainly total cell counts and the viable counts. Total cell counts are counted directly using the microscope and that both living and dead cells are counted. This is normally accompanied by the use of the counting chamber or coulter counter. Another approach is the viable counts which only count the living cells. The small volume of culture, otherwise known as the dilution of the culture is applied to the surface of an agar plate. After incubating, the colonies are counted, normally colonies between 30-300 are chosen to be used for the calculation of concentration of the given sample. The units given is colony forming units (CFU) per ml. The haemocytometer is a modified glass slides with two count chamber of known area. Each chamber grid is composed of nine squares which are known as subgrid, each square is 1mm2. Within each large square, there are further sub divisions that help in counting. When the coverslip is placed over the grooves of the slide, there will be a thickness of 0.1mm. Hence, the volume is 0.1mm3 or 1 x 10-4ml. Therefore, the cell concentration will be calculated as the number of cells multiply by 1 x 104ml and again, multiplying the dilution factor. Since cells are very small and they can be observed in a very high number, the suspensions should be diluted enough so that the cells are able to distribute uniformly in the counting chamber. Aims There are two aims in this experiment. Firstly, to be able to determine the cell count in different biological species and secondly, to be able to determine the viable count of a live bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus. Materials and Methods Cell Counting using Counting Chamber Please refer to the Laboratory Manual unless otherwise stated of changes made. Serial Dilution is carried out before the sample is loaded into the Neubauer Manual Counting Chamber. Normal saline (0.9% NaCl) is used to dilute the blood and broth medium is used to dilute the brewers yeast ( Saccharomyces cervisiae). Both blood and brewers yeast are dilute in the ratio of 1:10 and 1:100. The 1:10 dilution is prepared by diluting the 10Â µL of whole blood or yeast with 90Â µL normal saline or broth medium respectively. The 1:100 dilution is prepared by extracting 10Â µL from the respective sample from 1:10 and adding 90Â µL of normal saline and yeast into the respective sample. Cell Counting of Live Bacteria, S. aureus (after Serial Dilution) Please refer to the Laboratory Manual unless otherwise stated of changes made. Two changes were made in Step 1 and Step 12 respectively. Only three nutrient agar plates , 10-3, 10-4 and 10-5 were labelled and culture in these dilutions were spread on the respective agar plates. A new spreader and pipette tip were used everything a different dilution culture was spread on the agar plate. Count the number of colonies on the three different agar plates. Choose the agar plate with colonies between 30-300 to calculate the concentration of the original sample. Discussion Using the counter chamber, individual is able to give a quick assessment on the number of cells given that all the procedure on preparing and loading the sample onto it. One of it is that suspension/sample is not mixed before loading. This is due to the fact that cells tend to settle at the bottom of the tube and hence, while pipetting the sample out from the tube, individual do not have the actual or accurate number of cells. Therefore, to get a uniform suspension for a more accurate result, mixing the tube before pipetting is recommended. In addition, it can also help in reducing the clumping of cells. Furthermore, improper filling of chambers can lead to inaccurate volume of suspension in the chamber and leading to inaccurate cell concentration. Improper filling of chamber includes overfilling or under filling of sample. Moreover, there must be a consistency in counting cells which is in contact with the boundary lines (ie. the three lines just outside the grid) or when the cells are clump together. Individual will have to determine which cells to count and which not to count especially a cell which is situated on a border such as if a cell has half of its area outside the border, individual do not count those cells. The other method of cell counting is the viable count where a single cell will give rise to a colony which is visible to the naked eyes on the agar plate. Therefore, by counting the number of colonies on the agar plate, individual is able calculate the cell concentration. However, only plates which have 30 to 300 colonies are used to calculate the cell concentration. In the result for viable count of S.aureus, the plate chosen was 10-5 because there was 82 colonies in one quadrant which is equivalent to 328 (82 x 4) colonies on the agar plate. Although, the number of colonies (328) exceed the number of colonies of 300 that we were supposed to chose, this 10-5 dilution plate has the closest number to 300. However, we should dilute even further because a single colony can have clumps or chain of cells in it and hence, resulting in inaccurate number of colonies/cells in which the actual number of cells should actually be more than the calculated number of cells. The advantage of viable cell counting is that the organism counted will be a positive one (ie. S.aureus) instead of any other organism as if there is contaminant, the morphology or colour will be different. Another disadvantage of viable cell counting, other than cells that clump together or have chains which will form a single colony, is that organism will only grow in condition which is suitable for their growth on the agar plate. Cell counting usually is accompanied by serial dilution as it is impossible to count the number of cells if the concentration is too high as it will lead to a very high number of cells. Conclusion There are several other methods, other than using counting chamber and viable cell count, to count cells in a suspension. However, they are the least expensive and is able to give accurate result in a very short period of time. References Abcam, 2009. Cell counts using a haemocytometer. Abcam plc. Source: http://www.abcam.com/index.html?pageconfig=resourcerid=11454 Accessed: 1 October 2009 George Xu, 2007. History of the Gram Stain and How it Works. University of Pennsylvania. Source: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/bugdrug/antibiotic_manual/Gram1.htm Accessed: 1 October 2009 H. Kayser, A. Bienz, Johannes Eckert. M. Zinkernagel. 2005. Medical Microbiology. Thieme Stuttgart., New York. p. 264-270. Kenneth Todar, 2008. The Growth of Bacterial Population. Todars Online Textbook of Bacteriology. Source: http://textbookofbacteriology.net/growth_2.html Accessed: 6 October 2009 Linda B, Mary R, 2007. Aseptic Transfer. Austin Community College. Source: http://www.austincc.edu/microbugz/aseptic_technique.php Accessed: 3 October 2009 Steve Hogg, 2008. The Gram Stain. Newcastle University. Source: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/dental/oralbiol/oralenv/tutorials/gramstain.htm Accessed: 6 October 2009

Essay --

The main objective of this study is to clarify the impact of the over expressing protein p7. Cells used had completed the amitotic stage but not the cytokinesis. Since the protein was previously shown to bind GFP and myosin of Tetrahymena thermophila, it was immunostained with anti-myo1 to acquire immunofluoresence images. Macronucleous undergoes amitosis where the intramacronulcear microtubules form lines. It is common in MYO1 and in overexpression of GFP-tagged MYO1 that these lines don't work properly in macronuclear elongation which lead to unequal division of macronucleus. Although, there is co localization of GFP-p7 with antitubulin to intramacronuclear microtubules, it is not regulated enough. At the beginning of GFP-P7 over expression the cells are directed randomly on the intramacronuclear microtubules, they don’t form the parallel array since the macronuclei did not achieve full elongation. Then the macronuclear division in overexpressiong cells was either unequal o r inhibited. Introduction The experiment is based on Myo1 which has a MyTH4 and a FERM domain. Myo1 knockout strain affects both mitosis and amitosis which occurs in Tetrahymena in the same cell but different nuclei. Some micronucleus divide with spindles fibers while others divide without spindle fibers. The intramacronuclear microtubules shape array directed parallel to the axis of macronuclear elongation in amitosis (Williams & Williams, 1976). Macronuclear elongates along with the elongation intramacronuclear microtubules. The elongated macronucleus can enlarge the length of the cell borders through cytoplamic microtubules. Subnuclei are formed due to constriction of nucleus at its midpoint. Although these parallel arrays work as a spindle, nu... ...peron is a major factor that determine normal or abnormal functioning of the protein upon its formation even though other processes referred to as post translational modification plays a necessary process (Aufderhide, 1979). From the observation below, the GFP tagged p7 colocalize within the live cells. Production of an intense GFP means that the protein aggregated more to the cell body. This means that the protein has an increased potential for the cell membrane. Analysis of the cells was based on Leitz wetzlar epifluoresence using LAS as software that gave the images shown below. A protein has a feature like cyclin-like, binds to GFP and myosin of Tetrahymena Thermophila. This study also compliments previous studies that in fact the molecular mass is 7 kDa, which has the ability of processing cyclin-like protein can bind to Myo1 and GFP (Ejercito & Wolfe, 2003).

Tradition of Tension and Oppression Essay -- China

Xinjiang lies on the far western boundaries of the People’s Republic of China. An area three times the size of France, home to the vast majority of the People’s Republic of China’s Uyghur population (along with twelve other officially recognized ethnic groups), the Xinjiang Autonomous Region has been isolated from its central Beijing-based government by rough terrain, a language barrier, and starkly different religious traditions and economic structure. Even the region’s Chinese name, Xinjiang or â€Å"new frontier† implies both the relative recentness of the province’s acquisition by China and the imperialist nature of this acquisition. Early Chinese Communist Party policy in the region led to atrocious acts of cultural genocide. Separatist movements developed as resistance to the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to incorporate the region into a culture with which it was incompatible. While Mao era policies had disastrous effects a cross the People’s Republic, the effort to promote a stronger Chinese identity lead to the isolation of the Uyghur community and the development of Uyghur nationalism as demonstrated by PRC policy towards the non-Han populace during the 1950s and the resulting Yi-Ta incident of 1962. Xinjiang’s past status throughout Chinese history has been used as justification both for and against its incorporation into PRC, depending solely on political perspective. As a sparsely populated and resource-rich vast buffer region between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic, Xinjiang was strategically and economically valuable. When the Peoples’ Liberation Army entered the province in 1949, despite a lack of familiarity with either the geography or the people, they successfully quelled resistance efforts . A provin... ...-145. Web. Gladney, Dru C. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the Peoples' Republic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Print. Kaltman, Blaine. Under the Heel of the Dragon. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007. Print. McMillen, Donald H. Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949 - 1977. Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1979. Print. Millward, James A. Eurasian Crossroads. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Print. Moseley, George. "China's Fresh Approach to the National Minority Question." The China Quarterly.24 (1965): pp. 15-27. Web. of Slavists, Canadian. "The Uighurs between China and the USSR." Canadian Slavonic papers 17.2/3 (1975): 341-65. jstor. Web. Waite, Edmund. "The Impact of the Sate on Islam Amongst the Uyghurs: Religious Knowledge and Authority in the Kashgar Oasis." Central Asian Survey 25.3 (2006)Print.

Dying With Dignity :: social issues

Dying With Dignity I am here today to explain the different legal aspects euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. There are two sides to this controversy, and their basic ideas are of the following: terminally ill patients should be allowed to end their lives with dignity. Physician-assisted suicide is a compassionate solution to human suffering, and should not be criminalized, and that doctors should be in the business of saving lives, not ending them. Allowing physicians to aid in suicides makes them accomplices in an immoral and unethical act. Every individual has dominion over their body and should be allowed to decide when to end their life. To achieve that end, with dignity and without pain, doctors should be allowed to aid terminal patients by providing necessary doses of drugs (under the Oregon law, doctors are not allowed to administer the drugs; they are only allowed to prescribe a lethal dose.) The only other places in the world that currently have legalized euthanasia are Columbia, Japan and the Netherlands. Many pro-life activists believe that the choice between life and death belongs to God, not to an individual. Our society today does not condone suicide under any circumstances and there is no moral difference in this case. In addition, it is felt that many terminally ill patients suffering extreme pain may not be competent to make a rational decision about whether they want to live or die. The role of doctors in this complex situation is to provide medical treatment when possible, and appropriate pain relief when treatment options have been exhausted. By assisting patients in suicide, doctors play a role that is contrary to the mission of their profession. An excelled example of physician-assisted suicide is the famous practice of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. In March 1999, he was convicted of second-degree murder and the delivery of a controlled substance for assisting in the death of a terminally ill patient. For his participation in the man's death, which was videotaped and shown on the television show "60 Minutes," Dr. Kevorkian was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. However, despite Dr. Kevorkian’s prison sentence, last October, the U.S. House of Representatives passed "The Pain Relief Promotion Act," which encouraged doctors to take all possible action to relieve the pain of terminally ill patients, short of prescribing lethal doses of medication, however, currently Oregon is the only state that has legalized physician-assisted suicide. Dying With Dignity :: social issues Dying With Dignity I am here today to explain the different legal aspects euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. There are two sides to this controversy, and their basic ideas are of the following: terminally ill patients should be allowed to end their lives with dignity. Physician-assisted suicide is a compassionate solution to human suffering, and should not be criminalized, and that doctors should be in the business of saving lives, not ending them. Allowing physicians to aid in suicides makes them accomplices in an immoral and unethical act. Every individual has dominion over their body and should be allowed to decide when to end their life. To achieve that end, with dignity and without pain, doctors should be allowed to aid terminal patients by providing necessary doses of drugs (under the Oregon law, doctors are not allowed to administer the drugs; they are only allowed to prescribe a lethal dose.) The only other places in the world that currently have legalized euthanasia are Columbia, Japan and the Netherlands. Many pro-life activists believe that the choice between life and death belongs to God, not to an individual. Our society today does not condone suicide under any circumstances and there is no moral difference in this case. In addition, it is felt that many terminally ill patients suffering extreme pain may not be competent to make a rational decision about whether they want to live or die. The role of doctors in this complex situation is to provide medical treatment when possible, and appropriate pain relief when treatment options have been exhausted. By assisting patients in suicide, doctors play a role that is contrary to the mission of their profession. An excelled example of physician-assisted suicide is the famous practice of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. In March 1999, he was convicted of second-degree murder and the delivery of a controlled substance for assisting in the death of a terminally ill patient. For his participation in the man's death, which was videotaped and shown on the television show "60 Minutes," Dr. Kevorkian was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. However, despite Dr. Kevorkian’s prison sentence, last October, the U.S. House of Representatives passed "The Pain Relief Promotion Act," which encouraged doctors to take all possible action to relieve the pain of terminally ill patients, short of prescribing lethal doses of medication, however, currently Oregon is the only state that has legalized physician-assisted suicide.

Strategic Drift

Identify four organisations that, in your view, are in the different phases of strategic drift (see Exhibit 5. 2). Justify your selection. Strategic drift, as defined by Gerry Johnson in Exploring Corporate Strategy, is the tendency to develop strategies incrementally on the basis of historical and cultural influences, while failing to keep pace with a changing environment. In such circumstances the strategy of the organization gradually drifts away from the realities of its environment and towards an internally determined view of the world of management. Strategic drift occurs when a company, especially one that has enjoyed considerable success, responds far too slowly to changes in the external environment and continues with the strategy that once served it very well. There are four phases in strategic drift; incremental change (phase 1), strategic drift (phase 2), flux (phase 3) and transformational change or death (phase 4). Phase 1 is characterized by relatively long periods during which strategies are either unchanged or change incrementally. This change is generally in keeping with the environment or may have slight variations around a successful theme as the company avoids drifting too far from some past successes. In phase 2 the environment grows at a faster rate than the firm’s strategies. This may occur for several reasons, that is ; while one may be aware that changes are happening, the extent may not be so easily appreciated except in hindsight or as reflected through the financials; it could also be that while the changes are observed they are interpreted in terms of the familiar thus resulting in the wrong conclusion being drawn. There is also the situation where although the firm may see the environmental drift, it refuses to align as it binds itself to the successful strategies of the past. These strategies become the company’s core around which it revolves and has its competitive advantage. Another contributory factor can also be unwillingness of the firm to alter the current relationships with suppliers, customer base or the internal skills to align with the market. Phase 3 may be a period of flux as management pressured to alter the firm’s strategies in response to downturn in profit does so but not in any clear direction. Internal rivalry may be high as solutions are sought to determine which strategy to follow. There may also be loss of confidence in the company resulting in lowering share prices. As the situation worsens there are three options in phase 4. The firm can die, be taken over by another organization or simply go through a period of transformational change. Motorola found itself in phase 4 of the strategic drift in the late 90’s as in response to depressed profits it was forced to conduct a series of layoffs, restructures and restrategising before transforming. According to Sydney Finkelstein article on â€Å"Why smart executives fail†, Motorola which was founded in 1928 has had a long tradition of technological innovations. It solidified its reputation as a world leader in this area through innovation with the television, pager, microprocessor, analogue phone among other things. Motorola’s first cellular system began commercial operation in 1983 with them becoming the world top cellular phone supplier shortly thereafter. They claimed 60 per cent of the US mobile market, revenues growing at an average of 27 percent to $27 billion in 1994, while net income surged 58 per cent a year to $1. billion. During this period, although digital mobile technology was introduced, it was not embraced by Motorola even after receiving several signals from the market. The market signals included – direct prodding by their customers requesting that they provide the new technology especially based on the benefits offered; increase in royal ty income from digital patent it licensed to Nokia and Erikson and finally the falling market shares and profit. Motorola’s shares dip to 34 percent in the early 1998’s, while Nokia’s share went from 11 per cent to 34 per cent during the same time period. That same year Motorola laid off 20,000 employees. Motorola was fully poised with the potential to maintaining their position as market leader using digital technology however they chose to rely on internal forecasting models that predicted carriers would be better off with analogue phones rather than digital. Sony whose mission statement was ‘a clever company that would make new high technology products in ingenious ways’ aggressively marketed its hardware entering the big league when it formed a joint venture with CBS Records in 1975 with the launch of the new technology – the Betamax home videocassette recorder. Within two years a new videocassette recorder (VCR) made by it arch-rival Matsushita using the VHS standard became the product of choice for consumers. This happened as Sony was too busy defending the hardware than marketing and creating customers. Matsushita, on the other hand, aggressively aligned electronics firms to their brand so that when motion picture studios began to release a larger number of their library titles VHS was the format of choice. ‘We didn’t put enough effort into making a family. The other side, coming later, made a family’, founder Akio Morita later stated. Sony also concluded that the compelling reason for the purchase of hardware is software. Resulting from lessons learnt from competition with arch rival Matsushita, Sony adjusted their strategy. Consequently, convinced that its record library had helped guarantee the success of the Compact Disc, Sony looked to CBS Records to provide the software necessary to ensure the success of its new Digital Audio Tape. In the years that followed Sony acquired expensive movie studios to showcase their impressive arsenal of hardware. As much attention was not paid to the American management team and the lavish spending spree on renovation production, management, and television ballooned. Overheads increased by 50 per cent to $300 million by 1991, some $60 million greater than other major studios, and its $700 million production budget were nearly twice that of its competitors. The average Sony motion picture cost $40 million versus the industry average of $28 million. In November 1994 Sony announced a $3. 2 billion write-off related to Columbia Pictures which wiped out nearly 25 per cent of Sony’s shareholders’ equity. It was not until Sony found itself here in phase 3 of the strategic, drift having major decline in shareholder values, that it restructured its management team and strategies. Wang Labs based on strategies created in an attempt to avoid the mistakes of the past found itself in phase 4 of the strategic drift as it filed for bankruptcy in 1992. An Wang, an inventor and innovator, sold several of his creations to companies who used them to make products for commercial uses. Resulting from one such deal with IBM in 1956, Wang’s feeling of being cheated by the computer giant biased his future decisions towards them. Starting from the late 80’s Wang Labs lost out when the world shifted from using word processors to PC, however they were blinded by their love for the word processors and made major losses as IBM took the PC to the market. Wang could have raise capital by issuing shares however because he felt that he had given up too much of the company in a similar past transaction he refused and instead opted to seek loans According to Paul Golding, prior to 1999 the Jamaican telecommunications sector was dominated by Cable and Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ), which changed its name in 2008 to LIME (Landline Internet Mobile, Entertainment). In 1988 the company was granted five exclusive licenses each for 25 years, which would be valid until 2013, with options for extensions for a further 25 years. The licenses made C&WJ the sole provider of the island’s domestic and international telephone service and guaranteed an after-tax rate of return of 17. 5% – 20%. C&WJ was quite comfortable with the strategies they employed especially as they were a monopoly in these early years. This resulted in the organization being stuck in phase 1 as they became complacent, relying on the same old strategies as technology boomed globally. They were â€Å"out of touch† with customer demand and the untapped potential of the market. Liberalization of the telecommunications market commenced with the granting of two new carrier licenses for the provision of domestic mobile voice, data, and information services. In April 2001 Digicel launched its mobile telecommunication company in Jamaica. Rates rose from 4 per cent in 2001 (Digicel’s launch year) to close to 100 per cent today – making it one of the most highly penetrated countries in the world and driving a grassroots level ICT development across Jamaica. Of the less than 2. million local population, Digicel Jamaica has 2 million customers, representing a 75% market share. Additionally, scores of small entrepreneurs owe their successes to a reliance on their Digicel phones, especially in areas where there were no previous mobile signals by the competition. On October 27th, Digicel announced its intention to move its Jamaica and Group offices to a bra nd new facility on the waterfront in downtown Kingston, demonstrating its commitment to spearhead the rejuvenation of this area of the capital city of the first country in which Digicel launched back in 2001. In April 2001, when Digicel launched its GSM mobile service in Jamaica, the company anticipated reaching the 100,000 customer plateau by the end of its first year in operation. Instead, it hit the 100,000 mark a mere 100 days after launch. Never before in the country’s history of mobile telecommunications had such tremendous growth been seen in a network, as Digicel broke record after record on its way to surpassing its major competitor as the mobile provider with the largest customer base in the island. It took LIME, its major competitor approximately 10 years to reach the 400,000 customer mark. In comparison, it took Digicel about 13 months to reach the same figure. Digicel's customer base in 2010 was over 2. 1 million customers in a population of 2. 8 million. Digicel raised the bar where an acceptable level of network coverage was concerned. Jamaicans living in rural parishes finally had a genuine option for mobile communications. With an island-wide network of over 1,000 cellular towers spread across all 14 parishes, Digicel firmly established itself as the mobile provider with the premier network coverage across the country. Digicel currently appears to be in Phase 2 of the strategic drift as its strategy of providing islandwide service has materialised and it continues to be poised towards supplying any further required hardware. However there is growing concern that Digicel needs to review its customer service as well as its rates. If you really want to understand a company, you need to understand its history and culture. In analyzing an organization one of the most common flaws is to disregard the past in trying to make sense of the present. Culture is also a major component of history, as is highlighted with Motorola that is known as an engineering-driven company. It is likened in its mindset to an ‘internal think-tank’, focused on the market while customers are secondary. Digicel is also similar in this regards as its main focus appears to be on the hardware and to a lesser extent the customer. Motorola’s had an insular culture where its workforce had a ‘fortress mentality, cut off from reality, in-bred, with tremendous self-confidence, and a lack of concern with the outside world’. One former CEO stated, ‘every time we stumble significantly it is because we have been so successful in one generation of the technology that we don’t focus on replacing ourselves with the next technology quick enough’ People make sense of new issues in the context of past issues; they are likely to address a problem in much the same way as they dealt with a previous similar one. Moreover, they are likely to search for evidence that supports those inclinations. So some data will be seen as more important than other data, and some may not be taken on board at all. The important points are: * The interpretation of events and issues in terms of prior experience is inevitable. The idea that managers approach strategic problems and issues entirely dispassionately and objectively is unrealistic. * Such interpretation and bias arise from experience of the past, not least with regard to what is seen to have worked or given rise to problems. So the future is likely to be made sense of in terms of the past. As with individuals, so also with groups – managers do not operate purely as individuals; they work and interact with others, and at the collective level, too, there are reasons to expect experience to count. This is reflected in the taken-for-granted assumptions and ingrained organizational routines that are collectively referred to as ‘organizational culture’. Such taken-for-granted assumptions and routines can be especially important as an influence on the development of organizational strategy. For a group or organization to operate effectively, there has to be a generally accepted set of assumptions which in effect, represents the collective experience without which people would have to ‘reinvent their world’ for different circumstances. As with individual experience, this shared understanding allows the collective experience gathered over years to be brought to bear to make sense of a given situation, to inform a likely course of action, and to gauge the likelihood of the latter’s success. Such collective thinking typically stretches even beyond the organization. Managers may assume that they can manage the environment, but the evidence is that the environment largely determines managerial action. If managers sensitize themselves to the influence of the history of their organisation they stand a better chance of better appreciating their current strategy and may be able to detect and avoid strategic drift. Managers would more likely to be able to question the extent to which the strategy they are seeking to develop is usefully informed by that history as distinct from being driven or captured by it.