Health and Wellness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Health and Wellness - Essay Example The cost of cancer, the dreaded disease, is about half that amount. In the past few decades, obesity has increased by 100 percent among children and adolescents (Stevens, 2003). Overweight is not just about looks but it also encompasses a wide array of medical as well as emotional problems. The major risks related to overweight are poor quality of life and the reduction of life span due to diseases. Some of the medical consequences include diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, arthritis and cancer. The psychological consequences of overweight include disrupted self image, depression and lack of confidence. Hence, it is essential to creatively think how a physical exercise and nutrition wellness lifestyle would improve life Before we get into the details of physical and nutritional aspects of lifestyle it is essential to think what are the important lifestyle factors that play a large role in maintaining good health Positive health habits include: 7 to 8 hours of good sleep each night; healthy eating habits; maintaining a healthy weight; regular physical exercise; avoiding alcohol, smoking and drug abuse; performing self-examinations frequently; and 6 to 8 glasses of water each day (Assess Nutrition and Wellness, N.D.). Physical activity and nutrition have been identifi... Research conducted around the world has demonstrated the benefits of an active lifestyle and sound nutritional practices. The first major benefit that greatly influence an individual is the prevention of chronic diseases as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, as well as several forms of cancer (Nutrition Exercise & Wellness, 2005). Secondly, it is not only a benefit to individual but it is an economic gain for the entire nation as healthy people means healthy nation. 2. Two specific daily/weekly actions you can take toward your goal Unhealthy eating habits can cause long-term health consequences. Poor habits, lack of accurate information, and peer pressure can cause many individuals to jeopardize their health. Accurate information about nutrition and good decision-making skills will help them to improve their health now and for the future. It would be easier to ensure a healthful diet by relying on food supplements such as pills, liquids, or powders that contain purified nutrients in specific amounts. However, common man may find it difficult to buy expensive supplements. Hence, planning an appropriate diet with sufficient quantities of proteins, vitamins, minerals and fiber is essential. One can sit with a dietitian to find out the specific need and plan accordingly. Physical exercise is an important step for having a healthy life. Regular exercise will help individuals to reduce weight and have a good physic. Health professionals advise to lose weight gradually i.e. approximately two pounds per week in weight loss is maximum recommended (Assess Nutrition and Wellness, N.D.). This can be achieved through proper exercise and planned diet. 3. Time lines for implementing your action

Research Assignment Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Assignment - Research Paper Example Nevertheless sometime the terms negotiating and bargaining are employed to depict the same process. The primary purpose of collective bargaining is to reach a conclusion of an issue. Some of the major subjects on which collective bargaining takes place are higher pay packages, more leaves, increase in the number of employees for a particular job, to improve the condition of working, demand for additional facilities, rules and regulations pertaining to hiring and firing, promotion of workers, procedures of lodging complaints, safety within the workplace and about the different policies of the organization. Sometime unions also demand for shorter working hours (Beaumont 43). On the other hand collective bargaining agreement can be defined as the agreement in written form between the union and the employer. It reflects the terms and conditions, rights, responsibilities and the privileges of the employers (â€Å"The Collective Bargaining Process†). Such bargaining agreements or th e union contracts last for a period of one to five years. However the most common period is of three years. A collective bargaining mainly follows an eight step approach. The approaches are preparing, arguing, signaling, proposing, packaging, bargaining, closing and agreeing. In the context of United States whenever an agreement is reached by the process of collective bargaining, the conditions of that contract are written down into a legally enforceable bargaining agreement or a union contract. In order to provide a real life example of collective bargaining, authentic electronic sources have been used. It was about the registered nurses of Tufts Medical Center. The nurses were the members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. They bargained with the management regarding the staffing changes for facilitating better care of the patients, appointment of extra nurses during busy hours (â€Å"Real-Life Examples of Collective Bargaining†). After the negotiations they have been able to ratify the contract in the year 2011. Hence it was a successful collective bargaining. Works Cited Beaumont, Phil B. Safety at Work and the Unions. London: Routledge, 1983. Print. â€Å"The Collective Bargaining Process.† Ilocarib. n.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sep. 2012. . â€Å"Real-Life Examples of Collective Bargaining.† collectivebargainingfacts. AFL-CIO., 2011. Web. 24 Sep. 2012. . Question 2) List and discuss three U.S. laws that support collective bargaining, and three examples of employer unfair labor practices. Also discuss the laws. Solution The three U.S. laws that support collection bargaining between the employee representatives and the employers are the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947; National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 1935; and Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, 1959. The three unfair labor practices include sacking a union supporter, discrimination against the employees based on various factors, threatening the employees on taking up union activities. The laws are discussed below:- Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947: - The labor management relations Act of 1947 is also known as Taft-Hartley Act. It was an amendment of NLRA act of 1932. The Princeton university website highlights that the act was passes in the year 1947. The

Explanations for Inequality Essay Example for Free

Explanations for Inequality Essay There are many sociological explanations for female inequality in society. Inequality is where something/ someone is seen as not equal compared to something else. For example men have more opportunities than women in life, suggesting females suffer huge inequality in many factors of life. Firstly, Anne Oakley speaks about how women suffer inequalities in the work place. Oakley notes that after the industrial revolution in Britain acts were passed to limit women working; in 1851 one in four married women worked whereas in 1911 one in ten worked. During the Victorian era the ideology that a womans place was in the home became truly established and industrialisation led to the separation of men from the daily routine of domestic life. Now it is claimed that women suffer from four main inequalities in the workplace. Firstly, there is the much debated pay gap in which, even though legislation to stop unequal pay was introduced in the 1970s, the although narrowing pay gap is still visible between men and women. Secondly half of all females in employment are in part time employment; this form of employment is often less secure with fewer benefits. Thirdly, women suffer from vertical segregation; this is sometimes referred to as the glass ceiling effect. Women are seemingly unable to achieve the higher ranking positions and are stopped from achieving managerial positions by an invisible barrier. Lastly, women are said to suffer from horizontal segregation which is the idea of gendered jobs. Liberal feminist Oakley blames the dominant housewife mother role, suggesting that a wifes role is primarily domestic, thus inequality is inevitable. There are criticisms for this study however, suggesting that it sees inequality as simply just a matter of time. As well as biological factors, and time Victoria Beechey, from a marxist perspective has deleveloped a study which sees women as a reserve army of labour. She uses this in order to explain the position of women in the labour market. Marx argued that capitalism required a reserve army of labour, that is a spare pool of potential recruits to the labour force. Beechey identifies a number of ways in which women in modern Britain are particularly suited to form part of this reserve army. She suggests that womens jobs are least likely to be covered by redundancy legislation, so its cheaper to make them redundant rather than men, suggesting huge inequality as it shows women are superior to men. Furthermore she suggests that unemployed married women may not be elegible to receive state benefits if their husbands are working, and for this reason they might not appear in unemployment statistics. Beechey says that women who are made redundant are able to disappear virtually without a trace back into the family. She also suggests that women are more likely to accept part time work due to their domestic role, women tend to be happy in accepting less wages than their husbands as they can rely on their man. This makes you realise that still in society, women who don’t work, even though they want to is still frowned upon, and it would be easier for men to get jobs than women, showing inequality between women and men. Bruegel challenges this theory, she questions the assumption that the interests of capital must be served if women are to be used as a reserve army of labour. She points out that women can also benefit capitalism by producing domestic labour in the home, as this reduces the amount that needs to be paid to male workers. Linda Mcdowell like Beechey also talks about part time work, and why women are more likely to accept it. She applies post-Fordist theory to female employment. Post-Fordism suggests that there has been a move away from mass production to more flexible production of specialist products. Businesses keep a core of highly skilled workers, but most other workers are temporary, or part time, or work is contracted out to other firms. Women tend to be concentrated in the more flexible jobs, particularly part time work. This suggests that even today it is still hard to for women to have a good career like men, as due to other priorities part time work may be the only suitable explanation. Lovering found evidence to support this theory suggesting that post Fordism trends affect only some women. Furthermore, post-Feminists argue that the feminism of the 1970s and 80s is out dated because it sees all women as sharing the same interests and ignores the diverse interests of different groups of women. Natasha Walter believes that there is still much that feminists need to change. She believes that the post-feminist emphasis on political correctness and language neglects the continuing problems of inequality which affect all women. Women still tend to suffer from problems such a low pay, lack of childcare, the dual burden of paid employment and domestic labour, poverty and domestic sexual violence. Following up on this Germaine Greer suggests that women cannot be themselves as they still have to act in the ways men want them to be. This suggests that women suffer in the hands of men, due to them being more powerful etc. Women thus are brainwashed into being how men want them to be, for example, clothing and make up. Radical feminists also believe that mens power and control over men is the main reason for inequality. They believe that patriarchy is the most important concept when explaining gender inequalities. They tend to focus on the power relationships that are experienced in private, in particular the significance of sexuality and the use of violence. Kate Millet believes that oppressive and unequal relationships between men and women originate not in wider society, but in the intimacy of personal relationships, in sexual partnerships and in families and households or various kinds. She believes personal relationships are also political in that they are based on different and unequal amounts of power which are determined by sex and which are reinforced in every aspect of wider society. Culture, government, tradition, religion, law, education and the media all reflect patriarchal leadership and power. Critics of this theory suggest that this theory is ultimately biologically deterministic, since the biological facts of reproduction are at the heart of the position. Not all sociologists believe that inequality is still a major factor in society. Catherine Hakim (economist) suggests a Rational choice theory. She is critical of all feminist positions. She argues that feminist theories are both inaccurate and misleading, and that women are not victims of unfair employment practices. She identifies five myths; womens employment had not in fact been rising, women were less committed to work than men, that their childcare responsibilities were not the main reason for them working part time, that part time jobs were not necessarily worse and finally that women were less likely to be in stable employment. This goes against all feminist explanations and suggests that inequality is not as we see it, and a lot has changed. However, Crompton argues that Hakim underplays the structures within which women make choices. In particular she cites the development of the male bread winner. Other sociologist like Hakim who neglect mainstream feminist values are the black feminists. They are critical of mainstream feminism suggesting that they neglect the particular problems that black women face. Bourne argues that white feminists are luke-warm about tackling racism because they enjoy social, economic and political privileges which make them part of the system which oppresses black women. Further more Yuval-Davis develops this theme claiming that non-black minority ethnics such as Iranian, Cypriot, and Chinese women not only face racism, they also face cultural patriarchy which is particular to their communities. This is suggesting women are not really all in the same position and it affects people differently. White feminists tend to reject black feminists and ignore them from most of the studies and theories.

System to Filter Unwanted Messages from OSN User Walls

System to Filter Unwanted Messages from OSN User Walls M.Renuga Devi, G.Seetha lakshmi, M.Sarmila Abstract—One fundamental issue in today’s Online Social Networks (OSNs) is to give users the ability to control the messages posted on their own private space to avoid that unwanted content is displayed. Up to now, OSNs provide little support to this requirement. To fill the gap, in this paper, we propose a system allowing OSN users to have a direct control on the messages posted on their walls. This is achieved through a flexible rule-based system, that allows users to customize the filtering criteria to be applied to their walls, and a Machine Learning-based soft classifier automatically labeling messages in support of content-based filtering. 1. INTRODUCTION ONLINE Social Networks (OSNs) are today one of the most popular interactive medium to communicate, share, and disseminate a considerable amount of human life information. Daily and continuous communications imply the exchange of several types of content, including free text, image, audio, and video data. According to Facebookstatistics1 average user creates 90 pieces of content each month, whereas more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news, stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month. OSNs there is the possibility of posting or commenting other posts on particular public/private areas, called in general walls. Face book allows users to state who is allowed to insert messages in their walls (i.e., friends, friends of friends, or defined groups of friends). The aim of the present work is therefore to propose and experimentally evaluate an automated system, called Filtered Wall (FW), able to filter unwanted messages from OSN user walls. We exploit Machine Learning (ML) text categorization techniques. The major efforts in building a robust short text classifier (STC) are concentrated in the extraction and selection of a set of characterizing and discriminant features. We base the overall short text classification strategy on Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFN) for their proven capabilities in acting as soft classifiers, in managing noisy data and intrinsically vague classes. We insert the neural model within a hierarchical two level classification strategy. In the first level, the RBFN categorizes short messages as Neutral and Non-neutral; in the second stage, Non-neutral messages are classified producing gradual estimates of appropriateness to each of the considered category. The system provides a powerful rule layer exploiting a flexible language to specify Filtering Rules (FRs). In addition, the system provides the support for user-defined Black Lists (BLs), that is, lists of users that are temporarily prevented to post any kind of messages on a user wall. 2. RELATED WORK The main contribution of this paper is the design of a system providing customizable content-based message filtering for OSNs, based on ML techniques. As we have pointed out in the introduction, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first proposing such kind of application for OSNs. However, our work has relationships both with the state of the art in content-based filtering, as well as with the field of policy-based personalization for OSNs and, more in general, web contents. 2.1 Content-Based Filtering Information filtering systems are designed to classify a stream of dynamically generated information dispatched asynchronously by an information producer and present to the user those information that are likely to satisfy his/her requirements. In content-based filtering, each user is assumed to operate independently. As a result, a content-based filtering system selects information items based on the correlation between the content of the items and the user preferences as opposed to a collaborative filtering system that chooses items based on the correlation between people with similar preferences. Documents processed in content-based filtering are mostly textual in nature and this makes content-based filtering close to text classification. Single label, binary classification, partitioning incoming documents into relevant and non-relevant categories. More complex filtering systems include multi label text categorization automatically labeling messages into partial thematic categories. Content-based filtering is mainly based on the use of the ML paradigm according to which a classifier is automatically induced by learning from a set of pre-classified examples. Several experiments prove that Bag-of-Words (BoW) approaches yield good performance and prevail in general over more sophisticated text representation that may have superior semantics but lower statistical quality. The application of content-based filtering on messages posted on OSN user walls poses additional challenges given the short length of these messages other than the wide range of topics that can be discussed. 3. FILTERED WALL ARCHITECTURE The architecture in support of OSN services is a three-tier structure (Fig. 1). The first layer, called Social Network Manager (SNM), commonly aims to provide the basic OSN functionalities (i.e., profile and relationship management), whereas the second layer provides the support for external Social Network Applications (SNAs).The supported SNAs may in turn require an additional layer for their needed Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The core components of the proposed system are the Content-Based Messages Filtering (CBMF) and the Short Text Classifier modules. The latter component aims to classify messages according to a set of categories. In contrast, the first component exploits the message categorization provided by the STC module to enforce the FRs specified by the user. The possible final publication can be summarized as follows: 1. After entering the private wall of one of his/her contacts, the user tries to post a message, which is intercepted by FW. 2. A ML-based text classifier extracts metadata from the content of the message. 3. FW uses metadata provided by the classifier, together with data extracted from the social graph and users’ profiles, to enforce the filtering and BL rules. 4. Depending on the result of the previous step, the message will be published or filtered by FW. 4. SHORT TEXT CLASSIFIER Established techniques used for text classification work well on data sets with large documents such as newswires corpora but suffer when the documents in the corpus are short. In this context, critical aspects are the definition of a set of characterizing and discriminant features allowing the representation of underlying concepts and the collection of a complete and consistent set of supervised examples. We approach the task by defining a hierarchical two-level strategy assuming that it is better to identify and eliminate â€Å"neutral† sentences, and then classify â€Å"non-neutral† sentences. The first-level task is conceived as a hard classification in which short texts are labeled with crisp Neutral and Non-neutral labels. The second-level soft classifier acts on the crisp set of non-neutral short texts. 4.1 Text Representation The extraction of an appropriate set of features by which representing the text of a given document is a crucial task strongly affecting the performance of the overall classification strategy. We consider three types of features, BoW, Document properties (Dp) and Contextual Features (CF). Text representation using endogenous knowledge has a good general applicability; however, in operational settings, it is legitimate to use also exogenous knowledge, i.e., any source of information outside the message body but directly or indirectly related to the message itself. We introduce CF modeling information that characterizes the environment where the user is posting. These features play a key role in deterministically understanding the semantics of the messages. In the BoW representation, terms are identified with words. Dp features are heuristically assessed; their definition stems from intuitive considerations, domain specific criteria and in some cases required trial-and-error procedures. Bad words: They are computed similarly to the correct words feature, where the set K is a collection of â€Å"dirty words† for the domain language. Correct words: It expresses the amount of terms tk 2 T K, where tk is a term of the considered document dj and K is a set of known words for the domain language. Capital words: It expresses the amount of words mostly written with capital letters, calculated as the percentage of words within the message, having more than half of the characters in capital case. Punctuations characters: It is calculated as the percentage of the punctuation characters over the total number of characters in the message. For example, the value of the feature for the document â€Å"Hello!!! How’re u doing?† is 5/24. Exclamation marks: It is calculated as the percentage of exclamation marks over the total number of punctuation characters in the message. Referring to the aforementioned document, the value is 3/5. Question marks: It is calculated as the percentage of question marks over the total number of punctuations characters in the message. Referring to the aforementioned document, the value is 1/5. 4.2 Machine Learning-Based Classification We address short text categorization as a hierarchical two level classification process. The first-level classifier performs a binary hard categorization that labels messages as Neutral and Non-neutral. The first-level filtering task facilitates the subsequent second-level task in which a finer-grained Classification is performed. The second-level classifier performs a soft-partition of Non-neutral messages assigning a given message a gradual membership to each of the non-neutral classes. Among the variety of multiclass ML models well suited for text classification, we choose the RBFN model for the experimented competitive behavior with respect to other state-of-the-art classifiers. RFBNs have a single hidden layer of processing units with local, restricted activation domain: a Gaussian function is commonly used, but any other locally tunable function can be used. RBFN main advantages are that classification function is nonlinear, the model may produce confidence values and it may be robust to outliers; drawbacks are the potential sensitivity to input parameters, and potential overtraining sensitivity. The first-level classifier is then structured as a regular RBFN. In the second level of the classification stage, we introduce a modification of the standard use of RBFN. The collection of pre-classified messages presents some critical aspects greatly affecting the performance of the overall classification strategy. To work well, a ML-based classifier needs to be trained with a set of sufficiently complete and consistent pre-classified data. The difficulty of satisfying this constraint is essentially related to the subjective character of the interpretation process with which an expert decides whether to classify a document under a given category. A quantitative evaluation of the agreement among experts is then developed to make transparent the level of inconsistency under which the classification process has taken place. 5. FILTERING RULES AND BLACKLIST MANAGEMENT In this section, we introduce the rule layer adopted for filtering unwanted messages. We start by describing FRs, and then we illustrate the use of BLs. In what follows, we model a social network as a directed graph, where each node corresponds to a network user and edges denote relationships between two different users. In particular, each edge is labeled by the type of the established relationship (e.g., friend of, colleague of, parent of) and, possibly, the corresponding trust level, which represents how much a given user considers trustworthy with respect to that specific kind of relationship the user with whom he/ she is establishing the relationship. 5.1 Filtering Rules In defining the language for FRs specification, we consider three main issues that, in our opinion, should affect a message filtering decision. First of all, in OSNs like in everyday life, the same message may have different meanings and relevance based on who writes it. As a consequence, FRs should allow users to state constraints on message creators. Given the social network Scenario, creators may also be identified by exploiting information on their social graph. Definition 1 (Creator specification): A creator specification creator Spec implicitly denotes a set of OSN users. It can have one of the following forms, possibly combined. Definition2 (Filtering rule): A filtering rule FR is a tuple (author, creator Spec, content Spec, action), where author is the user who specifies the rule; creator Spec is a creator specification, specified according to Definition 1: Content Spec is a Boolean expression defined on content constraints of the form à °C; mlÞ, where C is a class of the first or second level and ml is the minimum membership level threshold required for class C to make the constraint satisfied; action 2fblock; notifying denotes the action to be performed by the system on the messages matching content Spec and created by users identified by creator Spec. In general, more than a filtering rule can apply to the same user. A message is therefore published only if it is not blocked by any of the filtering rules that apply to the message creator. Note moreover, that it may happen that a user profile does not contain a value for the attribute(s) referred by a FR (e.g., the profile does not specify a value for the attribute Hometown whereas the FR blocks all the messages authored by users coming from a specific city). 5.2 Online Setup Assistant for FRs Thresholds As mentioned in the previous section, we address the problem of setting thresholds to filter rules, by conceiving and implementing within FW, an Online Setup Assistant procedure. 5.3 Blacklists A further component of our system is a BL mechanism to avoid messages from undesired creators, independent from their contents. BLs are directly managed by the system, which should be able to determine who are the users to be inserted in the BL and decide when users retention in the BL is finished. To enhance flexibility, such information are given to the system through a set of rules, hereafter called BL rules. Such rules are not defined by the SNMP; therefore, they are not meant as general high-level directives to be applied to the whole community. Similar to FRs, our BL rules make the wall owner able to identify users to be blocked according to their profiles as well as their relationships in the OSN. Therefore, by means of a BL rule, wall owners are, for example, able to ban from their walls users they do not directly know (i.e., with which they have only indirect relationships), or users that are friend of a given person as they may have a bad opinion of this person. 6. EVALUATION In this section, we illustrate the performance evaluation study we have carried out the classification and filtering modules. We start by describing the data set. 6.1 Problem and Data Set Description The analysis of related work has highlighted the lack of an publicly available benchmark for comparing different approaches to content-based classification of OSN short texts. 6.2 Short Text Classifier Evaluation 6.2.1 Evaluation Metrics Two different types of measures will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of first-level and second-level classifications. In the first level, the short text classification procedure is evaluated on the basis of the contingency table approach. In particular, the derived well-known Overall Accuracy (OA) index capturing the simple percent agreement between truth and classification results, is complemented with the Cohen’s KAPPA (K) coefficient thought to be a more robust measure taking into account the agreement occurring by chance . At second level, we adopt measures widely accepted in the Information Retrieval and Document Analysis field, that is, Precision (P), that permits to evaluate the number of false positives, Recall (R), that permits to evaluate the number of false negatives, and the overall metric F-Measure (F_), defined as the harmonic mean between the above two indexes. 6.2.2 Numerical Results By trial and error, we found a quite good parameter configuration for the RBFN learning model. The best value for the M parameter, that determines the number of Basis Function, is heuristically addressed to N=2, where N is the number of input patterns from the data set. 6.2.3 Comparison Analysis The lack of benchmarks for OSN short text classification makes problematic the development of a reliable comparative analysis. However, an indirect comparison of our method can be done with work that show similarities or complementary aspects with our solution. 6.3 Overall Performance and Discussion In order to provide an overall assessment of how effectively the system applies a FR. This table allows us to estimate the Precision and Recall of our FRs, Let us suppose that the system applies a given rule on a certain message. In contrast, Recall has to be interpreted as the probability that, given a rule that must be applied over a certain message, the rule is really enforced. Results achieved by the content-based specification component, on the first-level classification, can be considered good enough and reasonably aligned with those obtained by well-known information filtering techniques. 7. DICOMFw DicomFW is a prototype Face book application8 that emulates a personal wall where the user can apply a simple combination of the proposed FR’s. Throughout the development of the prototype, we have focused our attention only on the FRs, leaving BL implementation as a future improvement. However, the implemented functionality is critical, since it permits the STC and CBMF components to interact. To summarize, our application permits to 1. View the list of users’ FWs; 2. View messages and post a new one on a FW; 3. Define FRs using the OSA tool. When a user tries to post a message on a wall, he/ she receive an alerting message if it is blocked by FW. 8 CONCLUSIONS In this paper, we have presented a system to filter undesired messages from OSN walls. The system exploits a ML soft classifier to enforce customizable content-dependent FR’s. Fig. 3. DicomFW: A message filtered by the wall’s owner FRs We plan to study strategies and techniques limiting the inferences that a user can do on the enforced filtering rules with the aim of bypassing the filtering system, such as for instance randomly notifying a message that should instead be blocked, or detecting modifications to profile attributes that have been made for the only purpose of defeating the filtering system. REFERENCES [1] A. Adomavicius and G. Tuzhilin, â€Å"Toward the Next Generation of Recommender Systems: A Survey of the State-of-the-Art and Possible Extensions,† IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Eng., vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 734-749, June 2005. [2] M. Chua and H. Chen, â€Å"A Machine Learning Approach to Web Page Filtering Using Content and Structure Analysis,† Decision Support Systems, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 482-494, 2008.

Essay --

Life is short. This is why you need to do as much as you can during your lifetime. In other words, make every breath count. One of the best ways to do this is by traveling around the world. Traveling will expose you to other cultures. It will also introduce you to new experiences and new people. In fact, traveling breathes life into your adventurous spirit. However, the most difficult question any traveler can ask himself is where he should travel. Many people do not know which cities can offer them the best experience. Fortunately, you will be able to discover which cities can offer you the best value for your time and money. Here are the top ten most beautiful cities in the world. 1. Venice in Italy This is undoubtedly the most beautiful city in the world. Its beauty comes from its natural landscape and its exquisite architectural designs. The natural landscape of Venice is unique in every sense of the word. In reality, Venice is a group of one hundred and eighteen islands interconnected by a vast network of bridges and canals. 2. Paris in France This city hosts over eighty million international visitors each year. These visitors come to Paris to see its many attractions. These attractions bear witness to the beauty and splendor of European advancement. Truly, Paris is the center of European sophistication. It has buildings that date as far back as the Roman conquest of France, the Renaissance period, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. 3. Rome in Italy Rome needs no introduction. It is the most famous city in the world. It has been the case for thousands of years. It is here in Rome that the wealth of a fifth of the world’s population was once concentrated. It is also in Rome that the world’s finest arc... ...t famous political theorists. Attractions in Florence include the Florence Cathedral, Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Vecchio. 9. Budapest in Hungary This is one of the largest cities in Europe. The Danube River splits Budapest in two. This means that Budapest is the result of three cities that merge into one grand city. Some of the most important attractions in this city include the Chain Bridge, Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion and the Hungarian State Opera House. 10. Bruges in Belgium This city presents you with an opportunity to see some of the best-preserved medieval buildings in the world. The expression of Gothic artistry in these buildings is just amazing. Bruges is one of the most visited cities in the whole of Europe. Travel to Bruges and see some of its wonderful attractions. These attractions include the Belfry of Bruges and the Church of Our Lady Bruges.

Causes of Poverty in the United States Essay -- Poor Economy Education

Causes of Poverty in the United States The United States defines poverty for a family of four as being less than $16,036 per year, or $4,009 per person (Leone 12). People find themselves under this line for an innumerable amount of reasons. Some of these causes are under one's control and others are greater factors beyond an individual's power. Each family or individual person has unique and separate reasons for living in a state poverty. There is no way to try and define them all. Focusing in, three main topics arise that encompass the most predominant reasons for a person to fall into poverty. Education, family life and influence, along with the business cycle may work individually or together to cause poverty. These three leading causes are presented and discussed along with facts prevalent to the issue in the section below. Education and Poverty Education, or inadequate education or lack of an education, causes poverty. From the early years of preschool, into the years of K-12, without a college education and on into the work force people in poverty may never stop suffering from it if they do not become educated. The United States generally looks at education as a path to success but the people with the longest road towards success are not getting enough education. In the years before kindergarten, children form their basic thinking skills and children who don't learn these at home fall behind everyone else. In most cases children in poverty do not achieve these skills to the extent of middle-class children from their environment at home. When poor children enter school they are generally a year and a half behind the language abilities of their middle-class peers. Already children of poverty are behind in their ... ...ge & Family May 2002. Seccombe, Karen. "Famlies in Poverty in the 1990's: Trends, Causes, Consequences, and Lessons Learned." Journal of Marriage and Family Nov. 2000. Starr, Alexander. "The Importance of Teaching Tots; Given the strong evidence of its benefits to society, preschool education for the poor - and perhaps all children- is a must." Business Week 26 Aug. 2002. "Unemployment Rate of Persons 16 Years Old and Over, by Age, Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Highest Degree Attained, 1996, 1997, and 1998" Digest of Education Statistics1999. National Center for Education Statistics March 2000. U.S. Census Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States. 2001 Weir, Margaret. "Race and Urban Poverty." Brookings Review Summer 1993. Yapa, Lakshman. "What causes Poverty? A post-modern view." Annals of the Association of American Geographers Dec. 1996. Causes of Poverty in the United States Essay -- Poor Economy Education Causes of Poverty in the United States The United States defines poverty for a family of four as being less than $16,036 per year, or $4,009 per person (Leone 12). People find themselves under this line for an innumerable amount of reasons. Some of these causes are under one's control and others are greater factors beyond an individual's power. Each family or individual person has unique and separate reasons for living in a state poverty. There is no way to try and define them all. Focusing in, three main topics arise that encompass the most predominant reasons for a person to fall into poverty. Education, family life and influence, along with the business cycle may work individually or together to cause poverty. These three leading causes are presented and discussed along with facts prevalent to the issue in the section below. Education and Poverty Education, or inadequate education or lack of an education, causes poverty. From the early years of preschool, into the years of K-12, without a college education and on into the work force people in poverty may never stop suffering from it if they do not become educated. The United States generally looks at education as a path to success but the people with the longest road towards success are not getting enough education. In the years before kindergarten, children form their basic thinking skills and children who don't learn these at home fall behind everyone else. In most cases children in poverty do not achieve these skills to the extent of middle-class children from their environment at home. When poor children enter school they are generally a year and a half behind the language abilities of their middle-class peers. Already children of poverty are behind in their ... ...ge & Family May 2002. Seccombe, Karen. "Famlies in Poverty in the 1990's: Trends, Causes, Consequences, and Lessons Learned." Journal of Marriage and Family Nov. 2000. Starr, Alexander. "The Importance of Teaching Tots; Given the strong evidence of its benefits to society, preschool education for the poor - and perhaps all children- is a must." Business Week 26 Aug. 2002. "Unemployment Rate of Persons 16 Years Old and Over, by Age, Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Highest Degree Attained, 1996, 1997, and 1998" Digest of Education Statistics1999. National Center for Education Statistics March 2000. U.S. Census Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States. 2001 Weir, Margaret. "Race and Urban Poverty." Brookings Review Summer 1993. Yapa, Lakshman. "What causes Poverty? A post-modern view." Annals of the Association of American Geographers Dec. 1996.

Looking for Alibrandi

Looking for Alibrandi is a novel written by Melina Marchetta. It is about a young female named Josephine Alibrandi. This book is about Josephine’s journey in search of her identity, and her relationships around her. It shows how her views are depicted and how her views change throughout the course of the novel. This novel portrays the use and abuse of power and its effects on individuals in society. These powers include the powers of freedom, education, legal, psychological, cultural, pressure, parental, empowerment, personal choice and relationships.All these powers make a huge impact throughout the course of the novel, whether they or negative or positive powers. The power of freedom, with the theme of destiny is a power present throughout the whole novel. This power plays positively through the novel. Josie believes that a person can chose their destiny and create their own path of life. She believes that no matter who you are, you can prevail over anything that is holding you back and that you can defy the stars and create your own destiny.In the novel Josie mentions â€Å"†¦ we’re masters of our own destiny† which highlights the power of freedom, and having a choice in where your life is heading. On the other hand, the power of freedom ties in with the power of culture. The power of culture plays a negative path of the story in Looking for Alibrandi. The power of culture intertwines with the themes of racism and multiculturalism. Josie’s culture, being of Italian descent, holds her back in the course of the novel. As Josephine is an ‘ethnic girl’, it holds her back from being the person she wants to be, and the things she wants to achieve.Her culture is a wall seperating her from who she is right now, and she wants to be. As an ethnic, she is looked down in society, and it makes her life more difficult. In the novel, Josie states â€Å"†¦ no matter how smart I am or how much I achieve, I am always going t o be a little ethnic from Glebe, as far as these people are concerned. † This statement clarifies her struggle of being an ethnic in the Australian society. The power of education is a power used positively in the book. With the power of education and Josie’s intelligence, she earns a scholarship at a ich, high class school. This power is used positively as Josie’s family is of the working class society, and they are unable to afford fees at St Martha’s but with the help of her scholarship, allows her to enter the school. Whilst attending this school Josie gets a taste of real life experiences within a complicated society. Josie then receives a broader perspective on the views of how she see’s other people, and how they depict her. The psychological powers in the book are abused both negatively and positively.First of all, psychological powers are used negatively when Nonno Francesco forces Nonna Katia to stay with him because of Katia’s secr et with Marcus Sanford. Francesco uses these occurrences to his advantage and blackmails Katia to stay with him, so that he is not looked down upon in shame by his family if Katia were to leave him. In contrast, the use of psychological powers is also used in a positive aspect. Josie’s search for her identity uses psychological power. As Josie learns more about herself and her family, she finds out many things that help her to become the person she was longing to be and to uncover her true identity.Josie’s positive use of psychological powers in using it to find her true self, has helped her understand the concepts of life and broaden he horizons towards her views on life altogether. Whilst finding her identity, Josie quotes â€Å"I’ll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself. Not as an Australian and not as a not as an Italian and not as in between. I’ll run to be emancipated. † This statement show’s how Josie views her self, and that she just wants to be her own person and uncover her true identity. Parental power is used in the negatively in this novel.It shows how people in society pressure their children, and do not let them choose to be the person they want to be. An example of this is John Barton. He receives a lack of freedom, not only this, but great amounts of pressure are laid upon him to follow the family footsteps. Even though he had everything anyone ever needed, it’s not what John wanted. When expressing himself to Josie, John states â€Å"I’ve always had to be the best because it’s expected of me. † With this quote, you could feel the pressure laid upon John, to be who his parents want him to be. This leads to the path of personal choice.Personal choice is connected to parental power, empowerment and relationships. The power of personal choice is used negatively; an example of this negative use is John Barton’s choice to commit suicide. With all the weight put upon John, and the pressure he received from his family, he was confused and did not know what to do. With his weak relationship with his family, and having too much power, he felt he had no other choice to rid of all these pressures, but to revert to suicide. John believed that suicide would solve all his problems and he would be set free of everything laid upon him, and that he would receive complete ‘emancipation’.A positive power did arise from John’s personal choice of suicide. This was the power of empowerment. John’s death impacted the other characters positively. John’s death empowered the other characters; it made the other characters, like Josie and Ivy think thoroughly about where they were in life, and where there lives were heading. It provided determination for the characters to pursue themselves to be who they want to be. It had motivated the characters to be strong, to talk and interact with each other and express what th ey each felt.This incident made everyone bond, and everyone’s relationships strengthened through the experience. End here, and add conclusion if not enough time The power of relationships is the strongest power in the novel. It is one of the only powers present throughout the entire novel. There are many relationships in the novel, one being with the women of the Alibrandi family. All three, Josie, Christina and Katia share a love hate relationship with each other. Since Josie and her mother Christina live together and Christina is a single parent, they support each other and talk like best friends.On the other hand, with Katia, she is very distant with Christina because of the secret behind Christina’s true identity. At the start of the book, Katia & Josie practically hate each other, but as the story progresses, they bond and grow a stronger relationship. With this relationship, Josie uncovers the truth of why Francesco could never act as a ‘real father’ to Christina and why Francesco had so much hatred and kicked her out at sixteen. Towards the end of the book, the three find out how common alike they are with each other, they gain a mutual bond and there relationship grows stronger as they grow fonder of each other.The relationship between Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco & Marcus Sanford has a huge impact on how things turned out for Christina and Josie, and the relationship they share with Katia. Katia and Francesco had a very one sided relationship. When Francesco goes off to work, Nonna meets a Marcus whilst she has an emotional breakdown. Marcus comforts her, and this starts their relationship. Their relationship would grow, and they would grow fonder and fonder of each other as time passes.When Katia was with Marcus she states she felt passion, and this was the only time she ever felt ‘love’ which was never shown to her by Francesco. With this passionate relationship, it led to Katia and Marcus making love, and the refore having Christina. Marcus gave Katia what Francesco could not give her, love, passion and a child. Josie and Michael Andretti started off with a weak relationship; it grew stronger & stronger as they got to know each other. At first they did not want anything to do with each other, but as time went on their view’s changed.Michael then turned into a father figure and finally acted as a father towards Josie. Michael helps Josie get through a lot of her problems, like a possible court case, having heart to heart talks to express feelings & just being there for her. Josie and Jacob their relationship changed each other’s points of views, made each others perspectives broaden. It made each other’s outlook change towards the way they see their lives & futures. They teach other that social class doesn’t mean everything and that they an choose their own destiny, and defy whatever barriers hold them back. Looking for Alibrandi Tuesday, October 30, 2012 Looking for Alibrandi By: Melina Marchette Looking for Alibrandi is the story of Josie Alibrandi’s experiences at school, and her relationships with friends and family during her last year at St Martha’s girls’ school. This is the year her father comes back into her life, the year she falls in love and discovers the secrets of her family’s past. Josie tells us the story of her struggles with her Italian-Australian identity and the highs and lows of teenage life.It’s the story of a young girl who feels she doesn’t belong. She learns to cope with these feelings of insecurity and learns that everyone has similar feelings at different times. 1. Josie must learn to deal with a whole range of issues. How and why does Josie change? In Melina Marchetta’s novel, Looking for Alibrandi, Josie confronts and resolves a number of problems she has in her life. Josie’s attitudes towards her family and friends alter as she learns more about them and tries to understand them.Ultimately, Josie is not the same girl at the end of the novel as she was at the beginning. 2. Josie has conflicting feelings towards Jacob. Explain. Josie has conflicting feelings towards Jacob. â€Å"I don’t know if he’s my type†. Josie is still initially stuck on John. It is not until after his death that she realises her real feelings for Jacob. 3. Josie’s transformation from school girl to young adult is the result of major events in her personal and school life.Indeed, without these influences, Josie heightened understanding of herself and others would never have occurred. In reflecting on these experiences and understanding, how do these transformations impact her life? (This question is fit for conclusion – 2 sentences) Josie’s transformation from schoolgirl to young adult is the result of a number of major events in her personal and school life. Indeed, without these influences , Josie’s heightened understanding of herself and others would never have occurred.In reflecting on these experiences and understanding their impact on her life, Josie’s transformation is complete. 4. Josie says, â€Å"I’m not going to be trapped like them. † Does Josie seem trapped or cursed? 5. Look for examples of tradition in the family and school. In the novel, Looking for Alibrandi, Melinda Marchetta explores how Josie is initially embarrassed about being Italian but throughout the text she becomes proud of her Italian heritage.She finds Tomato Day suffocating labelling it â€Å"Nation Wog day† as she wonders, â€Å"How many other poor unfortunates our age were doing the same? † She also says, â€Å"This might be where I come from, but do I really belong here? † This however changes through hearing Katia’s story and realising the importance of her heritage. 6. Why does Josie react strongly to other characters referring to her ethnicity or using the word â€Å"wog†, even though she uses the word and is sometimes critical of her Italian heritage? 7.How does Michael Andretti appear to be adapting to his role as a father? Josie initially resents her father but comes to love and respect Michael and accept him in her life. â€Å"Stop being polite, you’re making me puke. Be angry or rude – but don’t you pretend I’m not here†. Josie rejects Michael at first, but then starts to warm to him. â€Å"I’ll ring my father – he’s a barrister†. 8. What impressions of Josie’s family do you form? What reasons does she have for wanting to â€Å"burst out of family life? † Do you sympathize with her feelings? Looking for Alibrandi Looking for Alibrandi is a novel written by Melina Marchetta. It is about a young female named Josephine Alibrandi. This book is about Josephine’s journey in search of her identity, and her relationships around her. It shows how her views are depicted and how her views change throughout the course of the novel. This novel portrays the use and abuse of power and its effects on individuals in society. These powers include the powers of freedom, education, legal, psychological, cultural, pressure, parental, empowerment, personal choice and relationships.All these powers make a huge impact throughout the course of the novel, whether they or negative or positive powers. The power of freedom, with the theme of destiny is a power present throughout the whole novel. This power plays positively through the novel. Josie believes that a person can chose their destiny and create their own path of life. She believes that no matter who you are, you can prevail over anything that is holding you back and that you can defy the stars and create your own destiny.In the novel Josie mentions â€Å"†¦ we’re masters of our own destiny† which highlights the power of freedom, and having a choice in where your life is heading. On the other hand, the power of freedom ties in with the power of culture. The power of culture plays a negative path of the story in Looking for Alibrandi. The power of culture intertwines with the themes of racism and multiculturalism. Josie’s culture, being of Italian descent, holds her back in the course of the novel. As Josephine is an ‘ethnic girl’, it holds her back from being the person she wants to be, and the things she wants to achieve.Her culture is a wall seperating her from who she is right now, and she wants to be. As an ethnic, she is looked down in society, and it makes her life more difficult. In the novel, Josie states â€Å"†¦ no matter how smart I am or how much I achieve, I am always going t o be a little ethnic from Glebe, as far as these people are concerned. † This statement clarifies her struggle of being an ethnic in the Australian society. The power of education is a power used positively in the book. With the power of education and Josie’s intelligence, she earns a scholarship at a ich, high class school. This power is used positively as Josie’s family is of the working class society, and they are unable to afford fees at St Martha’s but with the help of her scholarship, allows her to enter the school. Whilst attending this school Josie gets a taste of real life experiences within a complicated society. Josie then receives a broader perspective on the views of how she see’s other people, and how they depict her. The psychological powers in the book are abused both negatively and positively.First of all, psychological powers are used negatively when Nonno Francesco forces Nonna Katia to stay with him because of Katia’s secr et with Marcus Sanford. Francesco uses these occurrences to his advantage and blackmails Katia to stay with him, so that he is not looked down upon in shame by his family if Katia were to leave him. In contrast, the use of psychological powers is also used in a positive aspect. Josie’s search for her identity uses psychological power. As Josie learns more about herself and her family, she finds out many things that help her to become the person she was longing to be and to uncover her true identity.Josie’s positive use of psychological powers in using it to find her true self, has helped her understand the concepts of life and broaden he horizons towards her views on life altogether. Whilst finding her identity, Josie quotes â€Å"I’ll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself. Not as an Australian and not as a not as an Italian and not as in between. I’ll run to be emancipated. † This statement show’s how Josie views her self, and that she just wants to be her own person and uncover her true identity. Parental power is used in the negatively in this novel.It shows how people in society pressure their children, and do not let them choose to be the person they want to be. An example of this is John Barton. He receives a lack of freedom, not only this, but great amounts of pressure are laid upon him to follow the family footsteps. Even though he had everything anyone ever needed, it’s not what John wanted. When expressing himself to Josie, John states â€Å"I’ve always had to be the best because it’s expected of me. † With this quote, you could feel the pressure laid upon John, to be who his parents want him to be. This leads to the path of personal choice.Personal choice is connected to parental power, empowerment and relationships. The power of personal choice is used negatively; an example of this negative use is John Barton’s choice to commit suicide. With all the weight put upon John, and the pressure he received from his family, he was confused and did not know what to do. With his weak relationship with his family, and having too much power, he felt he had no other choice to rid of all these pressures, but to revert to suicide. John believed that suicide would solve all his problems and he would be set free of everything laid upon him, and that he would receive complete ‘emancipation’.A positive power did arise from John’s personal choice of suicide. This was the power of empowerment. John’s death impacted the other characters positively. John’s death empowered the other characters; it made the other characters, like Josie and Ivy think thoroughly about where they were in life, and where there lives were heading. It provided determination for the characters to pursue themselves to be who they want to be. It had motivated the characters to be strong, to talk and interact with each other and express what th ey each felt.This incident made everyone bond, and everyone’s relationships strengthened through the experience. End here, and add conclusion if not enough time The power of relationships is the strongest power in the novel. It is one of the only powers present throughout the entire novel. There are many relationships in the novel, one being with the women of the Alibrandi family. All three, Josie, Christina and Katia share a love hate relationship with each other. Since Josie and her mother Christina live together and Christina is a single parent, they support each other and talk like best friends.On the other hand, with Katia, she is very distant with Christina because of the secret behind Christina’s true identity. At the start of the book, Katia & Josie practically hate each other, but as the story progresses, they bond and grow a stronger relationship. With this relationship, Josie uncovers the truth of why Francesco could never act as a ‘real father’ to Christina and why Francesco had so much hatred and kicked her out at sixteen. Towards the end of the book, the three find out how common alike they are with each other, they gain a mutual bond and there relationship grows stronger as they grow fonder of each other.The relationship between Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco & Marcus Sanford has a huge impact on how things turned out for Christina and Josie, and the relationship they share with Katia. Katia and Francesco had a very one sided relationship. When Francesco goes off to work, Nonna meets a Marcus whilst she has an emotional breakdown. Marcus comforts her, and this starts their relationship. Their relationship would grow, and they would grow fonder and fonder of each other as time passes.When Katia was with Marcus she states she felt passion, and this was the only time she ever felt ‘love’ which was never shown to her by Francesco. With this passionate relationship, it led to Katia and Marcus making love, and the refore having Christina. Marcus gave Katia what Francesco could not give her, love, passion and a child. Josie and Michael Andretti started off with a weak relationship; it grew stronger & stronger as they got to know each other. At first they did not want anything to do with each other, but as time went on their view’s changed.Michael then turned into a father figure and finally acted as a father towards Josie. Michael helps Josie get through a lot of her problems, like a possible court case, having heart to heart talks to express feelings & just being there for her. Josie and Jacob their relationship changed each other’s points of views, made each others perspectives broaden. It made each other’s outlook change towards the way they see their lives & futures. They teach other that social class doesn’t mean everything and that they an choose their own destiny, and defy whatever barriers hold them back.