Childrens functional health pattern Essay

Anemia due to inadequate iron intake, from lack of breast milk and iron fortified formula. 2. Picky eaters. 3. Dental problems due to sleeping with bottle filled with milk or juice. 4. Food being used as a reward or punishment leading to poor concepts of eating. 1. Increased occurrences of food or environmental allergies. 2. Poor dental hygiene can affect appetite and lead to difficulty chewing. 3. Poor nutritional choices of foods offered to children. 1. Dietary guild lines. 2. Weight gain and obesity leading to hypertension and risk for type two diabetes. Pattern of Elimination: List two normal assessment findings that would be characteristic for each age group. List two potential problems that a nurse may discover in an assessment of each age group. 1. Toilet training usually begins at 18 months. 2. Regular schedule for BM develops. 3. Realization of not liking the sensation of being wet or dirty and wanting to be changed. 1. Forgetting to wash hands after using the bathroom. 2. Forgetting to flush the toilet. 3. May still have occasional accidents. 1. Urinating 6-8 times per day. 2. BM 1-2 times per day. 3. Full bladder control at the age of 5. 1. Potential for delays with toilet training. 2. Potential for regression. 3. Potential for using toilet training as a means for control. 1. Positive reinforcement and encouragement aids in the success of mastering independent elimination. 2. Avoid teasing, punishing or making an issue of â€Å"accidents† with elimination. 1. Nocturnal enuresis or bed wetting. 2. Diurnal enuresis or involuntary urination during the day. Pattern of Activity and Exercise: List two normal assessment findings that would be characteristic for each age group. List two potential problems that a nurse may discover in an assessment of each age group. 1. Always in motions a whirl of movement. 2. Parallel play. 1. Play is the primary activity. 2. Plays in a group setting. 3. Can cut and paste and hold a pencil with control. 1. Peer play. 2. Organized team sports. 3. The development of gross and fine motor skills.

The Main Problems of Lexicography

The main problems of lexicography The most burning issues of lexicography are connected with the selection of head-words, the arrangement and contents of the vocabulary entry, the principles of sense definitions and the semantic and functional classification of words. In the first place it is the problem of how far a general descriptive dictionary, whether unilingual or bilingual, should admit the historical element. In fact, the term â€Å"current usage† is disconcertingly elastic, it may, for instance, be stretched to include all words and senses used by W.Shakespeare, as he is commonly read, or include only those of the fossilised words that are kept in some set expressions or familiar quotations, e. g. shuffled off this mortal coil (â€Å"Hamlet†), where coil means ‘turmoil’ (of life). For the purpose of a dictionary, which must not be too bulky, selection between scientific and technical terms is also a very important task. It is a debatable point whet her a unilingual explanatory dictionary should strive to cover all the words of the language, including neologisms, nonce-words, slang, etc. nd note with impartial accuracy all the words actually used by English people; or whether, as the great English lexicographer of the 18th century Samuel Johnson used to think, it should be preceptive, and (viewed from the other side) prohibitive. Dictionary-makers should attempt to improve and stabilise the English vocabulary according to the best classical samples and advise the readers on preferable usage. A distinctly modern criterion in selection of entries is the frequency of the words to be included. This is especially important for certain lines of practical work in preparing graded elementary textbooks.When the problem of selection is settled, there is the question as to which of the selected units have the right to a separate entry and which are to be included under one common head-word. These are, in other words, the questions of sepa rateness and sameness of words. The first deals with syntagmatic boundaries of word-units and has to solve such questions as whether each other is a group of two separate words to be treated separately under the head-words each and other, or whether each other is a unit deserving a special entry (compare also: one another).Need such combinations as boiling point, carbon paper, department store, phone box be sub-entered under their constituents? If so, under which of them? Or, perhaps, it will be more convenient for those who use the dictionary if these were placed as separate main entries consisting of a nominal compound or a phrase. As to the sameness, this deals with paradigmatic boundaries. How many entries are justified for hound'? COD has two — one for the noun, and the other for the verb: ‘to chase (as) with hounds’; the verb and the noun are thus treated as homonyms. Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary† combines them under one head-word, i . e. it takes them as variants of the same word (hence the term â€Å"sameness†). The problem is even more complicated with variants belonging to the same part of speech. This problem is best illustrated by the pun that has already been discussed elsewhere in this book: Mind you, I don’t mind minding the children if the children mind me (Understand, I don’t object to taking care of the children if the children obey me). Here the dictionary-maker is confronted with the problem of sameness.Should mind be considered one word with several semantic variants, and take one entry? Or is it more convenient to represent it as several words? The difference in the number of entries for an equal bulk of vocabulary may also depend on a different approach to the regularly formed derivatives, like those with -er, -ing, -ness, and -ly. These are similar to grammatical endings in their combining possibilities and semantic regularity. The derivation is so regular, and the meaning and class of these derivatives are so easily deduced that they are sometimes sidered not worth an entry.That is why the definition of the scope of a dictionary is not quite as simple as it might appear at first sight. There exist almost unsurmountable difficulties to a neat statistical evaluation. Some publishers state the number of entries in a subtitle, others even claim for the total coverage with the exception of very special terms. It must be remembered, however, that without a generally accepted standard for settling the problems of sameness and separateness no meaningful evaluation of the scope of any particular dictionary is possible.Besides in the case of a living language the vocabulary is not stable, and the attitude of lexicographers to archaisms and neologisms varies. The arrangement of the vocabulary entry presents many problems, of which the most important are the differentiation and the sequence of various meanings of a polysemantic word. A historical dictionary (the Oxford Dictionary, for instance) is primarily concerned with the development of the English vocabulary. It arranges various senses chronologically, first comes the etymology, then the earliest meanings marked by the label obs. — obsolete.The etymologies are either comparative or confined to a single language. The development is documented by illustrative quotations, ranging from the oldest to recent appearances of the word in question. A descriptive dictionary dealing with current usage has to face its own specific problems. It has to apply a structural point of view and give precedence to the most important meanings. But how is the most important meaning determined upon? So far each compiler was guided by his own personal preference. An objective procedure would be to obtain data of statistical counts.But counting the frequency of different meanings of the same word is far more difficult than counting the frequency of its forms. It is therefore not by chance that up to now many counts have been undertaken only for word forms, irrespective of meaning. Also, the interdependence of meanings and their relative importance within the semantic structure of the word do not remain the same. They change almost incessantly, so that the task of establishing their relative frequency would have to be repeated very often. The constant revisions necessary would make the publication of dictionaries very expensive.It may also be argued that an arrangement of meanings according to frequency would sometimes conceal the ties and relationship between various elements of the semantic structure. Nevertheless some semantic counts have been achieved and the lexicographers profited by them. Thus, in preparing high-school English dictionaries the staff under chief editor C. L. Barnhart was aided by semantic counts which Dr E. L. Thorndike had made of current standard literature, from children’s books to â€Å"The Encyclopaedia Britannica†. The count according to C. L. Barnhart was of enormous importance in compiling their dictionaries, but the lexicographer admits that counts are only one of the criteria necessary for selecting meanings and entries, and that more dictionary evidence is needed, namely typical quotations for each meaning. Dictionary evidence normally exists in the form of quotation slips constituting raw material for word treatment and filed under their appropriate head-words. In editing new dictionaries the lexicographers cannot depend only on the scholarly editions such as OED.In order to meet the demands of their readers, they have to sample the reading of the public for whom the dictionary is meant. This textual reference has to be scrupulously examined, so as to account for new words and meanings making their way into the language. Here again some quantitative criteria must be established. If a word or meaning occurs in several different sources over a wide range of magazines and books during a considerable period of time, it may be worth including even into a college dictionary.The preface to â€Å"The Concise Oxford Dictionary†, for instance, states that its authors find that sense development cannot be presented in every word, because obsolete words are as a rule omitted. Only occasionally do they place at the beginning a rare but still current sense, if it can throw light on the more common senses that follow, or forms the connecting link with the etymology. The etymologies are given throughout, but otherwise the compilers do not seem to keep to any consistent principle and are guided by what they think is the order of logical connection, familiarity or importance.E. L. Thorndike formulates the following principles: â€Å"Other things being equal, literal uses come before figurative, general uses before special, common uses before rare, and easily understandable uses before difficult, and to sum up: that arrangement is best for any word which helps the learner most. † A synchronic di ctionary should also show the distribution of every word. It has been traditionally done by labelling words as belonging to a certain part of speech, and by noting some special cases of grammatically or lexically bound meanings.Thus, the word spin is labelled in â€Å"The Concise Oxford Dictionary† as v. t. & i. , which gives a general idea of its distribution; its various senses are shown in connection with words that may serve as subject or object, e. g. : â€Å"2. (of spider, silkworm, etc. ) make (web, gossamer, cocoon, or abs. ) by extrusion of fine viscous thread †¦ 10. spun glass (spun when heated into filaments that remain pliant when cold); spun gold, silver (gold, silver thread prepared for weaving †¦ ). † This technique is gradually being improved upon, and compilers strive to provide more detailed information on these points. The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary †¦ † by A. S. Hornby, E. V. Gatenby and H. Wakefield supplies informati on on the syntactical distribution of each verb. In their â€Å"Notes on Syntax† the compilers state that one who is learning English as a foreign language is apt to form sentences by analogy, which at times may lead him into error. For instance, the student must be warned against taking the use of the verb tell in the sentence Please tell me the meaning as a model for the word explain, because *Please, explain me the meaning would be ungrammatical. For his purpose they provide a table of 25 verb patterns and supply the numerical indications in each verb entry. This gives the student the necessary guidance. Indications are also supplied as to which nouns and which semantic varieties of nouns may be used in the plural. This helps the student to avoid mistakes like *interesting informations. Many dictionaries indicate the different stylistic levels to which the words belong: colloquial, technical, poetical, rhetorical, archaic, familiar, vulgar or slang, and their expressive co louring: emphatic, ironical, diminutive, facetious.This is important, because a mere definition does not show these data. There is always a difference in style between the dictionary word and its definition. The word digs is a slang word but its definition ‘lodgings’ is not. Giving these data modern dictionary-makers strive to indicate the nature of the context in which the word may occur. The problem is also relevant for bilingual dictionaries and is carefully presented in the â€Å"New English-Russian Dictionary† edited by I. R. Galperin. A third group of lexicographic problems is the problem of definitions in a unilingual dictionary.The explanation of meaning may be achieved by a group of synonyms which together give a fairly general idea; but one synonym is never sufficient for the purpose, because no absolute synonyms exist. Besides, if synonyms are the only type of explanation used, the reader will be placed in a vicious circle of synonymic references, with not a single word actually explained. Definitions serve the purpose much better. These are of two main types. If they are only concerned with words as speech material, the definition is called linguistic. If they are concerned with things for which the words are names, they are termed encyclopaedic.American dictionaries are for the most part traditionally encyclopaedic, which accounts for so much attention paid to graphic illustration. They furnish their readers with far more information about facts and things than their British counterparts, which are more linguistic and more fundamentally occupied with purely lexical data (as contrasted to r e a 1 i a), with the grammatical properties of words, their components, their stylistic features, etc. Opinions differ upon the optimum proportion of linguistic and encyclopaedic material.Very interesting considerations on this subject are due to Alf Sommerfeldt. He thinks that definitions must be based on the fact that the meanings of words render complex notions which may be analysed (cf. componental analysis) into several elements rendered by other words. He emphasises, for instance, that the word pedestrian is more aptly defined as ‘a person who goes or travels on foot’ than as ‘one who goes or travels on foot’. The remark appears valuable, because a definition of this type shows the lexico-grammatical type to which the word belongs and consequently its distribution.It also helps to reveal the system of the vocabulary. Much too often, however, one sees in dictionaries no attention paid to the difference in distribution between the defined and the defining word. The meaning of the word may be also explained by examples, i. e. contextually. The term and its definition are here fused. For example, diagonal is explained by the following context where only this term can occur: A square has two diagonals, and each of them divides the square into two right-angled isosceles triangles. Very often th is type can be changed into a standard form, i. . A diagonal is one of the two lines †¦ , etc. One more problem is the problem of whether all entries should be defined or whether it is possible to have the so-called â€Å"run-ons† for derivative words in which the root-form is readily recognised (such as absolutely or resolutely). In fact, whereas resolutely may be conveniently given as a -ly run-on after resolute, there is a meaning problem for absolutely. One must take into consideration that in colloquial speech absolutely means ‘quite so’, ‘yes’ which cannot be deduced from the meaning of the corresponding adjective.HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN LEXICOGRAPHY Although, as we have seen from the preceding paragraph, there is as yet no coherent doctrine in English lexicography, its richness and variety are everywhere admitted and appreciated. Its history is in its way one of the most remarkable developments in linguistics, and i s therefore worthy of special attention. In the following pages a short outline of its various phases is given. A need for a dictionary or glossary has been felt in the cultural growth of many civilised peoples at a fairly early period.The history of dictionary-making for the English language goes as far back as the Old English period where its first traces are found in the form of glosses of religious books with interlinear translation from Latin. Regular bilingual English-Latin dictionaries were already in existence in the 15th century. The unilingual dictionary is a comparatively recent type. The first unilingual English dictionary, explaining words by English equivalents, appeared in 1604. It was meant to explain difficult words occurring in books.Its title was â€Å"A Table Alphabeticall, containing and teaching the true writing and understanding of hard usuall English words borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine or French†. The little volume of 120 pages explaining ab out 3000 words was compiled by one Robert Cawdrey, a schoolmaster. Other books followed, each longer than the preceding one. The first attempt at a dictionary including all the words of the language, not only the difficult ones, was made by Nathaniel Bailey who in 1721 published the first edition of his â€Å"Universal Etymological English Dictionary†.He was the first to include pronunciation and etymology. Big explanatory dictionaries were created in France and Italy before they appeared for the English language. Learned academies on the continent had been established to preserve the purity of their respective languages. This was also the purpose of Dr Samuel Johnson’s famous Dictionary published in 1755. 1 The idea of purity involved a tendency to oppose change, and S. Johnson’s Dictionary was meant to establish the English language in its classical form, to preserve it in all its glory as used by J. Dryden, A.Pope, J. Addison and their contemporaries. In conf ormity with the social order of his time, S. Johnson attempted to â€Å"fix† and regulate English. This was the period of much discussion about the necessity of â€Å"purifying† and â€Å"fixing† English, and S. Johnson wrote that every change was undesirable, even a change for the best. When his work was accomplished, however, he had to admit he had been wrong and confessed in his preface that â€Å"no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some falling away†.The most important innovation of S. Johnson’s Dictionary was the introduction of illustrations of the meanings of the words â€Å"by examples from the best writers†, as had been done before him in the dictionary of the French Academy. Since then such illustrations have become a â€Å"sine qua non† in lexicography; S. Johnson, however, only mentioned the authors and never gave any specific referenc es for his quotations. Most probably he reproduced some of his quotations from memory, not always very exactly, which would have been unthinkable in modern lexicology.The definitions he gave were often very ingenious. He was called â€Å"a skilful definer†, but sometimes he preferred to give way to sarcasm or humour and did not hesitate to be partial in his definitions. The epithet he gave to lexicographer, for instance, is famous even in our time: a lexicographer was ‘a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge †¦ ’. The dictionary dealt with separate words only, almost no set expressions were entered. Pronunciation was not marked, because S.Johnson was keenly aware of the wide variety of the English pronunciation and thought it impossible to set up a standard there; he paid attention only to those aspects of vocabulary where he believed he could improve linguistic usage. S. Johnson’s influence was tremendous. He remained the unquestionable authority on style and diction for more than 75 years. The result was a lofty bookish style which received the name of â€Å"Johnsonian† or â€Å"Johnsonese†. As to pronunciation, attention was turned to it somewhat later. A pronouncing dictionary that must be mentioned first was published in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, grandfather of the great dramatist.In 1791 appeared â€Å"The Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language† by John Walker, an actor. The vogue of this second dictionary was very great, and in later publications Walker’s pronunciations were inserted into S. Johnson’s text — a further step to a unilingual dictionary in its present-day form. The Golden Age of English lexicography began in the last quarter of the 19th century when the English Philological Society started work on compiling what is now known as â€Å"The Oxford English Dictionary† (OED), but was originally named â€Å"New English Dictionary on Historical Principles†.It is still occasionally referred to as NED. The purpose of this monumental work is to trace the development of English words from their form in Old English, and if they were not found in Old English, to show when they were introduced into the language, and also to show the development of each meaning and its historical relation to other meanings of the same word. For words and meanings which have become obsolete the date of the latest occurrence is given. All this is done by means of dated quotations ranging from the oldest to recent appearances of the words in question.The English of G. Chaucer, of the â€Å"Bible† and of W. Shakespeare is given as much attention as that of the most modern authors. The dictionary includes spellings, pronunciations and detailed etymologies. The completion of the work required more than 75 years. The result is a kind of encyclopaedia of language used not only for reference purposes but also as a basis for lexicol ogical research. The lexicographic concept here is very different from the prescriptive tradition of Dr S. Johnson: the lexicographer is the objective recorder of the language.The purpose of OED, as stated by its editors, has nothing to do with prescription or proscription of any kind. The conception of this new type of dictionary was born in a discussion at the English Philological Society. It was suggested by Frederick Furnivall, later its second titular editor, to Richard Trench, the author of the first book on lexicology of the English language. Richard Trench read before the society his paper â€Å"On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries†, and that was how the big enterprise was started.At once the Philological Society set to work to gather the material, volunteers offered to help by collecting quotations. Dictionary-making became a sort of national enterprise. A special committee prepared a list of books to be read and assigned them to the volunteers, sending t hem also special standard slips for quotations. By 1881 the number of readers was 800, and they sent in many thousands of slips. The tremendous amount of work done by these volunteers testifies to the keen interest the English take in their language.The first part of the Dictionary appeared in 1884 and the last in 1928. Later it was issued in twelve volumes and in order to accommodate new words a three volume Supplement was issued in 1933. These volumes were revised in the seventies. Nearly all the material of the original Supplement was retained and a large body of the most recent accessions to the English language added. The principles, structure and scope of â€Å"The Oxford English Dictionary†, its merits and demerits are discussed in the most comprehensive treaty by L. V. Malakhovsky. Its prestige is enormous.It is considered superior to corresponding major dictionaries for other languages. The Oxford University Press published different abridged versions. â€Å"The Sho rter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles† formerly appeared in two volumes, now printed on thinner paper it is bound in one volume of 2,538 pages. It differs from the complete edition in that it contains a smaller number of quotations. It keeps to all the main principles of historical presentation and covers not only the current literary and colloquial English but also its previous stages.Words are defined and illustrated with key quotations. â€Å"The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English† was first published in 1911, i. e. before the work on the main version was completed. It is not a historical dictionary but one of current usage. A still shorter form is â€Å"The Pocket Oxford Dictionary†. Another big dictionary, also created by joined effort of enthusiasts, is Joseph Wright’s â€Å"English Dialect Dictionary†. Before this dictionary could be started upon, a thorough study of English dialects had to be completed.With this a im in view W. W. Skeat, famous for his â€Å"Etymological English Dictionary† founded the English Dialect Society as far back as 1873. Dialects are of great importance for the historical study of the language. In the 19th century they were very pronounced though now they are almost disappearing. The Society existed till 1896 and issued 80 publications, mostly monographs. Curiously enough, the first American dictionary of the English language was compiled by a man whose name was also Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson Jr. a Connecticut schoolmaster, published in 1798 a small book entitled â€Å"A School Dictionary†. This book was followed in 1800 by another dictionary by the same author, which showed already some signs of Americanisation. It included, for instance, words like tomahawk and wampum, borrowed into English from the Indian languages. It was Noah Webster, universally considered to be the father of American lexicography, who emphatically broke away from English idi om, and embodied in his book the specifically American usage of his time.His great work, â€Å"The American Dictionary of the English Language†, appeared in two volumes in 1828 and later sustained numerous revised and enlarged editions. In many respects N. Webster follows the lead of Dr S. Johnson (the British lexicographer). But he has also improved and corrected many of S. Johnson’s etymologies and his definitions are often more exact. N. Webster attempted to simplify the spelling and pronunciation that were current in the USA of the period. He devoted many years to the collection of words and the preparation of more accurate definitions. N.Webster realised the importance of language for the development of a nation, and devoted his energy to giving the American English the status of an independent language, distinct from British English. At that time the idea was progressive as it helped the unification of separate states into one federation. The tendency became reac tionary later on, when some modern linguists like H. Mencken shaped it into the theory of a separate American language, not only different from British English, but surpassing it in efficiency and therefore deserving to dominate and supersede all the languages of the world.Even if we keep within purely linguistic or purely lexical concepts, we shall readily see that the difference is not so great as to warrant American English the rank of a separate language, not a variant of English (see p. 265). The set of morphemes is the same. Some words have acquired a new meaning on American soil and this meaning has or has not penetrated into British English. Other words kept their earlier meanings that are obsolete and not used in Great Britain. As civilisation progressed different names were given to new inventions on either side of the Atlantic. Words were borrowed from different Indian languages and from Spanish.All these had to be recorded in a dictionary and so accounted for the existen ce of specific American lexicography. The world of today with its ever-growing efficiency and intensity of communication and personal contacts, with its press, radio and television creates conditions which tend to foster not an isolation of dialects and variants but, on the contrary, their mutual penetration and integration. Later on, the title â€Å"International Dictionary of the English Language† was adopted, and in the latest edition not Americanisms but words not used in America (Britishisms) are marked off.N. Webster’s dictionary enjoyed great popularity from its first editions. This popularity was due not only to the accuracy and clarity of definitions but also to the richness of additional information of encyclopaedic character, which had become a tradition in American lexicography. As a dictionary N. Webster’s book aims to treat the entire vocabulary of the language providing definitions, pronunciation and etymology. As an encyclopaedia it gives explana tions about things named, including scientific and technical subjects.It does so more concisely than a full-scale encyclopaedia, but it is worthy of note that the definitions are as a rule up-to-date and rigorous scientifically. Soon after N. Webster’s death two printers and booksellers of Massachusetts, George and Charles Merriam, secured the rights of his dictionary from his family and started the publication of revised single volume editions under the name â€Å"Merriam-Webster†. The staff working for the modern editions is a big institution numbering hundreds of specialists in different branches of human activity.It is important to note that the name â€Å"Webster† may be attached for publicity’s sake by anyone to any dictionary. Many publishers concerned with their profits have taken this opportunity to issue dictionaries called â€Å"Webster’s†. Some of the books so named are cheaply-made reprints of old editions, others are said to be entirely new works. The practice of advertising by coupling N. Webster’s name to a dictionary which has no connection with him, continues up to the present day. A complete revision of N. Webster’s dictionary is achieved with a certain degree of regularity.The recent â€Å"Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language† has called forth much comment, both favourable and unfavourable. It has been greatly changed as compared with the previous edition, in word selection as well as in other matters. The emphasis is on the present-day state of the language. The number of illustrative quotations is increased. To accommodate the great number of new words and meanings without increasing the bulk of the volume, the editors excluded much encyclopaedic material.The other great American dictionaries are the â€Å"Century Dictionary†, first completed in 1891; â€Å"Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary†, first completed in 1895; the â€Å"Random House Dictionary of the English Language†, completed in 1967; â€Å"The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language†, first published in 1969, and C. L. Barnhart’s et al. â€Å"The World Book Dictionary† presenting a synchronic review of the language in the 20th century. The first three continue to appear in variously named subsequent editions including abridged versions.Many small handy popular dictionaries for office, school and home use are prepared to meet the demand in reference books on spelling, pronunciation, meaning and usage. An adequate idea of the dictionaries cannot be formed from a mere description and it is no substitute for actually using them. To conclude we would like to mention that for a specialist in linguistics and a teacher of foreign languages systematic work with a good dictionary in conjunction with his reading is an absolute necessity.

The Social Theory of Du Bois

Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim are widely recognized as the trinity of sociological theory. While these three sociologists were trailblazing social theorists who enhanced the study of human behavior and its relationship to social institutions, other, more contemporary scholars were just as innovative – one of those scholars being W. E. B. Du Bois. W. E. B. Du Bois was a political and literary giant of the 20th century, publishing over twenty books and thousand of essays and articles throughout his life. W. E. B Du Bois is arguably one of the most imaginative, perceptive, and prolific founders of the sociological discipline. In addition to leading the Pan-African movement and being an activist for civil rights for African Americans, Du Bois was a pioneer of urban sociology, an innovator of rural sociology, a leader in criminology, the first American sociologist of religion, and most notably the first great social theorist of race. The work of W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-19 63) has recently become recognized for its significant contributions to sociological theory. Although Du Bois himself was overwhelmingly concerned with the scientific perspective of â€Å"value free† sociological research, later social theorists have found his thoughts on race to offer one of the first instances of the articulation of standpoint theory. This theoretical perspective is anything but value free, because of the self-conscious efforts of the researcher to look at the social world from the vantage point of minority groups. Feminists, multiculturalists, and even postmodernists have come to recognize the importance of the black point of view found in Du Bois's work. They have also come to appreciate Du Bois for his focus on local knowledge and practices. W. E. B. Du Bois was an important American thinker. Poet, philosopher, economic historian, sociologist, and social critic, Du Bois’ work resists easy classification. Du Bois is more than a philosopher; he is, for many, a great social leader. His extensive efforts all bend toward a common goal, the equality of colored people. His philosophy is significant today because it addresses what many would argue is the real world problem of white domination. So long as racist white privilege exists, and suppresses the dreams and the freedoms of human beings, so long will Du Bois be relevant as a thinker, for he, more than almost any other, employed thought in the service of exposing this privilege, and worked to eliminate it in the service of a greater humanity. Du Bois was a prolific author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction era. He wrote the first scientific treatise in the field of sociology; and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history. In his role as editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis, he published many influential pieces. Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament. The United States' Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death. Early in his career Du Bois claimed that the â€Å"race idea† was the central thought of all history and that the primary â€Å"problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the colour line. † Du Bois viewed the goal of African Americans not as one of integration or absorption into white America, but one of advancing â€Å"Pan-Negroism. † Critical of the excessive materialism of white America, Du Bois believed that black culture could temper the self-interested pursuit of profit. Du Bois called on blacks to organize and unite around their race, and although he was not opposed to segregation per se, he did come to realize that discrimination stifled the development of â€Å"separate but equal† facilities and institutions. The concepts of the Veil and double consciousness occupy an important place in Du Bois's theory on race. Du Bois discusses both in his work The Souls of Black Folk. The Veil is an imaginary barrier that separates whites and blacks. Du Bois hoped his work would allow whites to glimpse behind the Veil, so they could begin to understand the black experience in America. Perhaps the most fundamental component of the black experience in America was living with what Du Bois called double consciousness. Blacks are simultaneously both inside and outside of the dominant white society and live with a feeling of â€Å"twoness. † By trying to cultivate and preserve a racial identity, blacks come into conflict with trying to fit into white society. According to Du Bois, the tension of being both black and American can manifest itself in pathologies within the black community and discrimination in white America. Whatever turns out to be the best general account of Du Bois’ philosophy, it seems the significance of his thought only really shows up in the specific details of his works themselves, especially in The Souls of Black Folk. It is here that he first develops his central philosophical concept, the concept of double consciousness, and spells out its full implications. The aim of Souls of Black Folk is to show the spirit of black people in the United States: to show their humanity and the predicament that has confronted their humanity. Du Bois asserts that â€Å"the color line† divides people in the States, causes massive harm to its inhabitants, and ruins its own pretensions to democracy. He shows, in particular, how a veil has come to be put over African-Americans, so that others do not see them as they are; African-Americans are obscured in America; they cannot be seen clearly, but only through the lens of race prejudice. African-Americans feel this alien perception upon them but at the same time feel themselves as themselves, as their own with their own legitimate feelings and traditions. This dual self-perception is known as â€Å"double consciousness. Du Bois’ aim in Souls is to explain this concept in more specific detail and to show how it adversely affects African-Americans. In the background of Souls is always also the moral import of its message, to the effect that the insertion of a veil on human beings is wrong and must be condemned on the grounds that it divides what otherwise would be a unique and coherent identity. Souls thus aims to make the reader understand, in effect, that African-Americans have a distinct cultural identity, one that must be acknowledged, respected, and enabled to flourish. Du Bois’ other major philosophical concept is that of â€Å"second sight. † This is a concept he develops most precisely in Darkwater, a work, as we have seen, in which Du Bois changes his approach and takes up a stauncher stance against white culture. Du Bois holds that due to their double consciousness, African-Americans possess a privileged epistemological perspective. Both inside the white world and outside of it, African-Americans are able to understand the white world, while yet perceiving it from a different perspective, namely that of an outsider as well. The white person in America, by contrast, contains but a single consciousness and perspective, for he or she is a member of a dominant culture, with its own racial and cultural norms asserted as absolute. The white person looks out from themselves and sees only their own world reflected back upon them—a kind of blindness or singular sight possesses them. Luckily, as Du Bois makes clear, the dual perspective of African-Americans can be used to grasp the essence of whiteness and to expose it, in the multiple senses of the word â€Å"expose. That is to say, second sight allows an African-American to bring the white view out into the open, to lay it bare, and to let it wither for the problematic and wrong-headed concept that it is. The destruction of â€Å"whiteness† in this way leaves whites open to the experience of African-Americans, as a privileged perspective, and hence it also leaves African-Americans with a breach in the culture through which they could enter with t heir legitimate, and legitimating, perspectives. Later in life, Du Bois turned to communism as the means to achieve equality. Du Bois came to believe that the economic condition of Africans and African-Americans was one of the primary modes of their oppression, and that a more equitable distribution of wealth, as advanced by Marx, was the remedy to the situation. ( John J. Macionis: Sociology 14th edition) Du Bois was not simply a follower of Marx, however. He also added keen insights to the communist tradition himself. One of his contributions is his insistence that communism contains no explicit means of liberating Africans and African-Americans, but that it ought to focus its attentions here and work toward this end. â€Å"The darker races,† to use Du Bois’ language, amount to the majority of the world’s proletariat. In Black Folk, Then and Now, Du Bois writes: â€Å"the dark workers of Asia, Africa, the islands of the sea, and South and Central America†¦these are the one who are supporting a superstructure of wealth, luxury, and extravagance. It is the rise of these people that is the rise of the world† (Black Folk,). A further contribution Du Bois makes is to show how Utopian politics such as communism is possible in the first place. Building on Engle’s claim that freedom lies in the acknowledgment of necessity, as Maynard Solomon argues (Solomon, â€Å"Introduction† 258), (because in grasping necessity we accurately perceive what areas of life are open to free action), Du Bois insists on the power of dreams. Admitting our bound nature (bound to our bellies, bound to material conditions), even stressing it, he nonetheless emphasizes our range of powers within these constraints. Although difficult to characterize in general terms, Du Bois’ philosophy amounts to a programmatic shift away from abstraction and toward engaged, social criticism. In affecting this change in philosophy, especially on behalf of African-Americans and pertaining to the issue of race, Du Bois adds concrete significance and urgent application to American Pragmatism, as Cornel West maintains, a philosophy that is about social criticism, not about grasping absolute timeless truth. Above all, however, Du Bois’ philosophy is significant today because it addresses what many would argue is the real world problem of white domination. So long as racist white privilege exists, and suppresses the dreams and the freedoms of human beings, so long will Du Bois be relevant as a thinker, for he, more than almost any other, employed thought in the service of exposing this privilege, and worked to eliminate it in the service of a greater humanity. References: Du Bois, W. E. B. Black Folk, Then and Now (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1975). Du Bois, W. E. B. Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil (Mineola, N. Y. Dover Publications, 1999). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072824301/student_view0/chapter10/chapter_summary.html Sociology: 14th edition (John J Macionis; Prentice Hall, 2011)

MGT499 MOD 5 CA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

MGT499 MOD 5 CA - Essay Example The management is feeling the heat of this issue as the brand ranking slipping down at a pace which requires immediate revisit of concerned strategic guidelines. Acknowledging the situation, Riki Inuzuka the Managing Officer, Corporate Planning Division and Research Division for Toyota states, â€Å"We will continue to make concerted and unified efforts to ensure quality as well as to achieve a higher level of safety.† (Inuzuka, 2011). An in-depth analysis into the structure of the organization, controls applied to ensure implementation of strategies and organizational culture can help to trace the root causes of the safety scandals currently facing Toyota. In seventy-five years of history, the company is predominantly governed and steered by â€Å"Toyoda clan† with some regimes of non-family top level management. This obviously, suggests some structural and strategic flaws as far human-resource management is concerned. In the first place, keeping the steering seat reserved for Toyoda family suggest that performance is not the only merit to reach the heights one may aspire in his career with Toyota. Obviously, when this favoritism and nepotism travels down the path and creates serious unrest and concerns among sincere performers. Secondly, it creates rift among family and non-family managers and creates a stressed environment, where non-family manager will feel insecure and therefore may go for some out of the box options to prove their worth and impress the higher management. Last two non-family presidential regimes; 1995-1999 Hiroshi Okuda and 2000-2009 Katsuaki Watanabe have successfully expanded the global share of the car-maker but not without a changed focus of strategic controls from quality to quantity and goodwill to profitability. (Shirouzu, 2010). The Toyoda family regained the leadership at Toyota when Akio Toyoda was announced as the president of the Toyota. Akio is now trying to shift the focus of the company from

Managing Decision Making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Managing Decision Making - Essay Example The result is that decision makers will have better grasp of factors bearing on company performance. Business Intelligence (BI) tools, especially in the form of spreadsheets, can be highly complementary to EUD systems, for they both lend themselves for use by non-specialists. An extension of BI is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which aims to minimize human interference in the preliminary and intermediate stage of data selection and processing. Expert Systems are an even advanced vision of AI, that aim to make the sort of sophisticated decision making and recommendations that only experts were thought capable of doing. In sum, EUD is a promising avenue for business operation. It has wide scope and application within an enterprise, affecting employees from all domains to the top managers. Introduction The practice of End User Development (EUD) was not thought of as viable in the early days of the Information Technology revolution. But in recent years, with storage, processing and progra mming technology having grown at a rapid pace, EUD is given consideration by many business enterprises. All employees, irrespective of their proficiency in IT and programming, can participate and benefit through EUD. Sophisticated software tools with intuitive user interfaces and integration capabilities help create new applications through the study and improvement of existing systems. (Luthy 2002, pg. 69) Hence, the report will cover various ways in which employees can adapt to EUD and increase both individual and overall productivity. Decision making is one area where EUD has had impact. If end users merely point to what comprises relevant data for the company, the powerful IT system can create salient reports for the top management. Spreadsheets are a great aid in this process, but the key is in identifying valuable information from the vast amounts of data that a company generates. EUDs also changes the role and responsibility of regular IT staff, in that, they now coordinate w ith non-specialists in fine-tuning the system. A company would also need lesser number of IT staff, leading to cost efficiency. Each employee will bring his/her domain knowledge to the information system, making it a multi-dimensional tool. With the incorporation of Knowledge Management (KM) features into EUD, the IT system can prove to be focussed and yet flexible. The key to successful KM lies in understanding where important data lies and in devising ways of tapping into it. (Lindvall &Rus, 2002) The report speculates on the potential of KM to offer a competitive edge for the business. Business Intelligence (BI) tools, especially the ubiquitous spreadsheet, can be a great ally for EUD systems. The simplicity of working a spreadsheet makes it accessible to non-IT personnel. When aligned with sophisticated data mining principles, a spreadsheet can be programmed to produce the most relevant reports, future trends and estimates. Expert Systems and related Artificial Intelligence tech nology are going to be at the centre of business functioning in the future. (Rao, David 2004. 779) The pros and cons of these cutting edge technologies are explored in the report. Finally, the importance of EUD is analyzed in light of rampant growth in the services industry, which is more data intensive compared to manufacturing industries. The report outlays various aspects of EUD and analyzes how much this nascent technology can transform business operations

Debate Preparation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Debate Preparation - Essay Example Moreover, it may also send confusing messages to girls that premarital sex is acceptable. Consequent high risk behavior in young girls may ultimately lead to fatal carelessness by acquiring HIV infection. Another concern which remains is that Gardasil is only protective against HPV strains 16, 18, 6 and 11, which account for 70% of all cervical cancers. As there are more than 80 serotypes, with several serotypes associated with high and intermediate risk of developing cervical cancer, protection against all of them remains elusive. Moreover, different HPV serotypes may be linked with cervical cancer in different regions of the world, resulting in marked differences in the protective efficacy of the vaccine. The highest risk relates to the safety of the vaccine, which has not been proven yet. Majority of the subjects who received Gardasil had side effects within 15 days, which included fatigue, muscle pain and inflammation at injection site (Merck's Gardasil vaccine not proven safe). The current vaccines containing synthetic/ recombinant antigens are less immunogenic than the older versions of vaccines derived from live attenuated or killed organisms.

A hero today and yesterday Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A hero today and yesterday - Essay Example Under both of these definitions, then, Spiderman can be considered a hero. Despite the fact that he’s a fictional character, Spiderman emerged in comic book form in the 1960s in just enough time to give adolescents a courageous figure to look up to at a time when definitions being provided in the news were delivering conflicting messages regarding real-life figures to admire. Re-makes of the comic book hero into motion picture form in the 1990s has again provided children with a role model in a changing world. Although the character of Spiderman of the 60s and Spiderman of the 90s share several common characteristics, there are some significant changes that have been made to his character to meet the demands of the more worldly audience of the modern city. Whether experiencing Spiderman in the 60s or the 90s, there are several fundamental characteristics and biographical notes regarding the character that remain unchanged. That Peter Parker is a somewhat socially inept teenaged bookworm that lives with his aunt and uncle is a common theme that serves to both humanize him and to make him an approachable figure for the adolescent crowd. His difficulties adjusting to society, making a living and struggling to come to grips with himself reveal how he is just as human as the next guy. He becomes a person they can relate to by his somewhat unconscious mumblings that reveal his thoughts and his own wry sense of humor at the trouble he gets himself into. He also doesn’t set out to save the world the moment he realizes his new talents. Instead, he sets out to make money and is somewhat dragged into helping others by his human sense of what is right. Although he has hyper sensitive hearing, vision and other senses, he is a hero not becau se of the things he can do, but because of the way he uses those talents to do the things that he does. There are a few fundamental differences between the

A Look at Japanese Scroll Paintings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A Look at Japanese Scroll Paintings - Essay Example The essay "A Look at Japanese Scroll Paintings" analyzes Japanese Scroll Paintings. There are a number of great scroll paintings to note. One of them is Tosa Mitsuoki, who lived between 1617 and 1691. He was the sun of Tosa Mitsunori, also a painter as this family was a long line of Japanese artists, dating back to 1434. In earlier works, there was large use of traditional Japanse style, the yamato-e. It was Tosa Mitsuoki who used a bit of realism in his art, used little gold. He also tended to paint scenes that were not typically painted, scenes not portrayed before he painted them. Comparing past art in the Tosa family to the later ones, you can tell that the styles are different. The older paintings were more crowded, with more fantasy elements. The later ones showed realistic scenes, less gold. They all have the typical Japanese style, with paint covering every inch of scroll in some areas. In a particular painting, there are rich colors, details and in the style, says the source , of a Tosa school. Gold painted as clouds and mist frame most of the scenes. Most of the colors are flat, kind of a contrast to the gold that surrounds it. The many people in the scenes have long flowing robes folding over very heavy set looking people, people of money I presume. And their faces dramatically portrayed in each scene to reveal their emotions up front. Most of the images let you see inside the buildings so you can see what is going on inside and what is going on outside at the same time. For example, one has the Prince Genji in a boat coming up a river, while a daughter in a palace is looking outside. You can see her looking down into the boat. The scroll paintings have a mix of different styles thought the centuries. Each one has some painting, some have Japanese calligraphy, noted that it states which scene the artists were focused on at that time. Some did not have calligraphy, as did the 17th century artists often did not. Not so many had a named artist either. The original tale was painted in a set of about fifty-four chapters. For each chapter, the artists took on about two paintings per chapter. It is said from various sources that there were over a hundred paintings in the original scroll of art for The Tale of Genji. Each painting within the original scrolls was a little over seventeen inches long. The remainder of the collection that has survived until today is displayed at the Gotoh Museum in Tokyo and with other foundations. Looking at several of these earlier scrolls and comparing them to the later scrolls painted by artists, the simplicity of the artists use is sort of a reminder of anime art today. This style is represented in the "simple dashes for eyes and hooks for noses", as described in the style that is hikime-kagihana. While simple in style, it was clear that the artists had a very high knowledge of the style of tsukurie, what they mentioned as manufactured painting. One thing that did remain thorough out the centuries was the ability of looking into the life of those within the buildings. You will see people laying out tatami mats for sleeping or taking care of daily activities or holding court. The Tale of Genji does reveal a story, though it also reveals information about what goes on in the homes and life of the Japanese court. The stories about Prince Genji and the life of the courts and the prince's antics are very richly

Motorola Marketing Campaign Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Motorola Marketing Campaign - Case Study Example Marketing has grown by leaps and bounds today. It is a creative industry that has expanded down to various genres such as advertising, distribution and selling. Customer base is figured out, their needs and aspirations realized and the relevant product developed accordingly. Future predictions and the expected turn the market is to take is often analyzed through various forms and types of Market research. Motorola had witnessed significant rise in its profits in the year 2009. It registered a profit of $143 million against a loss of $ 3.7 billion it faced in 2008. The situation was a very drastic one which led to the top management to adopt a very aggressive strategy. There were some heavy cost cutting measures adopted followed by a heavy profit. There was a hefty cost cut strategy applied leading to heavy profit margin, whereas on the other hand sales graph was in the decline state for the mobile phones. Currently Motorola is looking around to launch new technologies .Recently it was announced that they would be launching a new indoor and outdoor wireless networking solution in Australia, that will cover a variety of industries benefiting the enterprises with high speed secured wireless communications. They also have a plan of releasing eight more products and solutions related to networking. This would bring in flexibility, convenience and productivity in the way of work of the employees of these enterprises. It has also announced to split up of the company into two separate companies which will be effective by first quarter of 2011. One of the companies will focus on the mobile phones and home units operated by Co-CEO of Motorola, whereas the other one, headed by Co-CEO Greg Brown will focus on the mobility and business solutions. The primary reason behind this is to generate customer value and ensure the delivery of customer specific products on time that would cater to all their needs. Motorola's Market Orientation: Market Orientation: Marketing has derived its influences from innumerable fields of life such as social sciences, psychology, sociology and economics. It is a unique amalgamation of various fronts of life. Anthropology has been impacting marketing for quite some time though the influence is comparatively smaller in scale. Research conducted by marketing analysts has chalked out these activities. Its association with advertisement has co-joined with creative arts too. Today marketing variables have incorporated creative arts too for marketing the product. The Marketing literature is no more constant and is infamous for its rapidly changing nature. There have been a multitude of marketing definitions connoted by various institutes. The Chartered Institute of Marketing is one such marketing premise and it explains marketing in terms of customer needs and the efforts undertaken to satiate them. This is normally achieved by transforming and adapting the product completely in accordance with the needs of the customers. Another organization goes on to define marketing as a process closely related to management which is aimed at identifying and assessing customer needs efficiently while some others claim

IRAC Brief Essay Example for Free

IRAC Brief Essay According to United States District Court District of Massachusetts Civil Action 11-10313-GAO (2013), Anderson, Silva, Johnson and Funches contracted through a limited liability company by the name of SLS to perform delivery services work on behalf of HDA (United States District Court District of Massachusetts, 2013). Plaintiffs Case Each driver was provided with their truck Trucks provided to the contractors bore Sears Logo Uniforms bore both Sears and HDA logos Each driver hired their helpers and paid their helpers directly Drivers worked full-time and solely for HDA (while under contract) (United States District Court District of Massachusetts, 2013) HDAs Argument Plaintiffs contracted through SLS and not directly with HDA as individuals; therefore, HDA should not be a litigant in this case Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149,  § 148B is preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, 49 U.S.C (See Case 1:11-cv-10313-GAO Document 99 Filed 12/30/13 Page 3 of 5) (United States District Court District of Massachusetts, 2013) IRAC Issue: The issues below are the reasons this case has been brought to court. The court must provide the answers to these reasons in order to begin the rule assessment portion of IRAC (1) Were the plaintiffs (Anderson, Silva, and Funches) misclassified as independent contractors by HAD? (2) Were deductions taken from plaintiff’s wages in violation of wage laws? Rules Below are the rules found in Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149,  § 148B. These rules must be applied to the facts of the case to assess the fault or culpability of the litigants. Below is cited via United States District Court District of Massachusetts Civil Action 11-10313-GAO (2013). (1) The individual is free from control and direction in connection with the (2) Performance of the service, both under his contract for the performance of service and in fact; and the service is performed outside the usual course of the business of the employer; and (3) The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation; profession or business of the same nature as that involved in the service performed. (United States District Court District of Massachusetts, 2013) Application When looking at the mass general law 149 subsection 148B, we can apply the three stipulations of the law to the case against HDA violating this law. The plaintiffs in the case were acting solely for the purposes of HDA as a delivery service wearing both the seniors and HDA logos on uniforms provided to them. None of the drivers worked outside of the scope of work on subcontracts for any other provider other than HDA, and finally, each driver performed these duties under the direction of HDAs vision. It is clear in this case that circumstances are such that every appearance and performance of duties was done in a way to appear that they were solely employees of HDA in that HDA has violated Mass General Law on salary and wages (United States District Court District of Massachusetts, 2013). When applying this to business setting the business entity hiring subcontractors must stipulate in a written contract as to whether the employee is to be treated as a subcontractor under a 1099 tax form or as a subcontract employee for the business. Under the assumptions made in mass general law 149 subsection 148B, subcontractors are deemed employees if they meet certain criteria within the law. This criteria is easily determined under general operating practices and business owners should be aware of these criteria before hiring subcontractors (United States District Court District of Massachusetts, 2013). Analysis/Conclusion Plaintiffs (Anderson, Silva, and Funches) were misclassified as independent contractors by HDA. It was found that deductions were taken from plaintiffs wages in violation of wage laws. Thus, findings were established through determining that HDA violated the law in place (Mass General Law on Salary and Wages). For the foregoing reasons, the plaintiffs Motion for Partial Summary Judgment as to liability against HDA (dkt. no. 65) is GRANTED. It is SO ORDERED. Business Managerial Setting Application There are numerous torts to consider when reviewing Anderson v HDA: (1) Intentional Tort a civil matter resulting in an intentional act of damages. (2) Unintentional Tort civil matter unintentional acts that results in economic loss, property damage, or physical injuries. (3) Property Torts occur when ones enjoyment of their private property is interfered with by either acts of trespass or illegal conversion of the private property. (4) Negligence a civil matter resulting damages due to the lack of care or duty that is owed. (5) Strict Liability Torts can be criminal or civil and culpability or finding of fault is not a factor, to name a few. The tort that is evident in the case of Anderson v HDA is an Unintentional Tort resulting in an act of economic loss. The wage deduction and mis-classification of employment status have led to the loss of wages and possible benefits to the plaintiffs and their helpers. The issues that arose in the Anderson v HDA civil lawsuit could have been avoided by utilizing an effective risk management process for contracts review and management. Co-employment issues arise in the third party relationships due to the unknown, so it is beneficial to know as much as possible about all relationships that are encompassed for the work at hand. Understanding the Torts liabilities that can arise in the areas of contract language and negotiations will ensure that liabilities are managed early in the relationship building process. An effective way to manage this risk is to identify the gaps that may exist with employment status classification, ensure that necessary tax forms are completed, monitor direct partnership and obtain direct partnership attestations regarding their direct  relationship with their contractors. The next step is to have an ongoing control mechanism in place to monitor regulations and update business checklist and standard operation procedures. Reference United States District Court District of Massachusetts. (2013). Civil Action 11-10313-GAO. Retrieved from United States District Court District of Massachusetts, website.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder Case Study

Generalized Anxiety Disorder Case Study Case Study: Anxiety Answer Sheet Diagnosing Tina Student Name: Robert Gianella Diagnosing Generalized Anxiety Disorder: 1a. Refer to the DSM-IV checklist for generalized anxiety disorder. Which of Tinas symptoms meet any of the criteria? (Be sure to match specific symptoms with specific criteria.) 1b. Based upon your review of Tinas symptoms and the diagnostic criteria, could Tina be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder or not (and if not, why not)? Diagnosing Specific Phobia: 2a. Refer to the DSM-IV checklist for specific phobia. Which of Tina’s symptoms meet any of the criteria? (Be sure to match specific symptoms with specific criteria.) 2b. Does Tina have a specific phobia and if yes, what is the feared object? Diagnosing Panic Disorder: 3a. Refer to the DSM-IV checklist for panic disorder with agoraphobia and the checklist for panic disorder without agoraphobia. Which of Tina’s symptoms meet any of the criteria? (Be sure to match any specific symptoms with specific criteria.) 3b. Does Tina meet the diagnostic criteria for panic disorder with agoraphobia or panic disorder without agoraphobia or neither? Explain why you believe your choice is the most appropriate diagnosis. Understanding Tina’s Disorders: 1. How would the Socio-Cultural Perspective explain Tinas GAD? 2. Explain Tinas GAD from the Existential Perspective. 3. Explain Tina’s GAD from the Cognitive Perspective (please identify any basic irrational assumptions that Tina is making, even if they may be unspoken). 4. Explain Tina’s Phobia from a Behavioral Perspective (please use classical conditioning as a possible example). 5. Explain Tina’s Phobia from a Psychodynamic Perspective. 6. Considering the biological correlates or causes of Tinas panic disorder, what role does the neurotransmitter norepinephrine play in her panic disorder? 7. What does Tinas locus ceruleus have to do with her panic disorder? 8. What role might GABA play in her symptoms? Treating Tina 1. Which Psychodynamic technique has been found to be the most useful in the treatment of GAD? 2. Explain why a humanistic approach would be helpful in treating Tinas GAD. 3. How might you use Rational-Emotive Therapy to treat Tina’s GAD? 4. How would Systematic Desensitization be used to treat Tina’s phobia of bridges? 5. What medications have proven useful for treatment with panic disorder? 6. What role could cognitive therapy play in Tinas treatment for panic disorder? 7. Considering that Tina may be treated for comorbid disorders, how do you see the treatments for the various disorders complementing each other? 8. Is there any reason to think that any of the treatments would be contraindicated when utilized together? Explain why/how or why/how not.

Workplace Bullying: Literature Review

Workplace Bullying: Literature Review Workplace Bullying Table of Contents Introduction: Aim of This Study: Background for this Study: The Research Problem 1. Defining the effects of bullying 2. Sensitivity of the subject 3. Categories of bullying behaviour Methodology Literature Review: Does Workplace Violence Encompass Physical as well as Emotional Violence? How Bullied Persons Are Seen: What is a Bully Like? What Does Bullying Do to An Organization? Bullying and Workplace Violence: Fundamental Features and Categories of Bullying: Features of bullies: Types of Bullying: Bullying at Schools: Bullying at Workplaces: Cyberspace: Effects of bullying: Analysis: Negative Behaviors: Nature of Bullying: Causes of Bullying: Workplace Environments: Personality of an Individual in Relation to his or her Workplace: Bullying Negates Productivity at the Workplace: Can A Manager Be A Bully? Dictatorial Management Cannot Achieve the Best Results: Survey Results: Conclusion: References: Appendix: People in this modern world have generally become more aware of their surroundings and the ways that they should be treated. They are generally more aware of their self-esteem and their value in society than they were in the past. One reason for this may be because in recent decades there has been more emphasis on things like human rights and equality of all individuals. With particular emphasis on working conditions, people are generally aware of how they should be treated and what sorts of conditions they should be allowed to work in. From a general viewpoint, one may think that this only refers to working conditions such as the physical environment that should not have any hazards in it. The reason for this thought is due to the fact that there have been several cases in the past in which employees were given hazardous conditions to work under. In contrast to this, people are more aware of these past problems, and probably would not hesitate to object to any hazards in workplaces today. In contrast to having asserted the awareness that people might have regarding workplaces hazards, there are several individuals who may not realize that they are still facing workplace problems and end up not objecting to problems around them. Also, some individuals who are aware may not be able to oppose these forces, and thus, are compelled to work under these conditions. Some working conditions may not necessarily be hazardous in the conventional sense, but they may be considered as inappropriate for employees if they suffer stress because of them. One particular type of workplace hazard is known as ‘bullying’, and may be carried out by superiors as well as colleagues[1]. Statistics reflect more than 2 million people at work feeling bullied (Andrea Adams Trust 2005). One in four people say that they have been bullied at least once in the past 5 years. With these statistics, it is further said that workplace bullying results in a loss of 18.9 million working days and à ‚ £4 billion[2]. This is because those being bullied tend to be absent from work more often. In addition to loss experienced in industries in terms of days and revenue, there is evidence of high levels of stress in individuals being bullied. Yet, it is not easy to evaluate workplace bullying, and this is because of the difficulty in precisely defining what workplace bullying is. There are several definitions of ‘bullying’, but none are agreed on. However, some of these are interesting and do help to gain significant insight to the problem. According to Stale Einarsen (1999), it is suggested that †¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"bullying occurs when someone at work is systematically subjected to aggressive behaviour from one or more colleagues or superiors over a long period of time, in a situation where the targets finds it difficult to defend himself or herself or to escape the situation†¦Ã¢â‚¬ [3] According to the above definition, bullying might be described as a process through which individuals feel intimidated by someone who uses their strength and power to hurt and frighten them. The presence of this person makes them feel vulnerable and uncomfortable to the extent that it stresses or de-motivates people at their work. In other words, it is a systematic approach through which an individual corners another, and there is no escape unless one escapes the system. Recent research in the UK conducted in the form of surveys and UK cases have highlighted the importance of exposing ‘bullying’. This is because there is significant evidence to prove that it causes anxiety that leads people to suffer physical and mental distress. These are believed to be direct results of bullying in the workplace. It is estimated that in the UK, six million working days are lost annually due to stress caused by bullying, job insecurity, shift work and long hours[4]. According to Cary Cooper (2000), people that reported being bullied had the poorest health, the lowest work motivation, the highest absenteeism figures as well as the lowest productivity compared with those who were not bullied. In addition to this, based on research in Sweden, Heinz Leyman (1993,1996) firstly introduced the concept of mobbing (bullying) as a relentless form of harassment in organisations. Theoretically, it could be asserted that bullying is an extreme type of social stressor at work that works in a system. It may be then said that bullying is a long lasting harassment, systematically aimed at a target person.[5] Having acknowledged the tremendous loss that bullying causes an industry, the UK Government believes that employees should have the rights to work in an environment without being bullied and harassed. In order to combat bullying in the workplace, the UK legal framework gives employees the rights, which protect them from any form of unreasonable treatment wit hin the work place. Keeping the above statistics in mind, this project is concerned with the effects of bullying in workplaces on individuals. It will also explore the nature and causes of bullying at work. Most studies regard bullying as a unified phenomenon, in spite of the fact that different kinds of behaviours are involved.[6] It may be asserted here that these behaviours make individuals feel intimidated and occur in different situations and cross gender, age, and race of individuals. The intimidation and anxiety caused by bullying creates stress and stress related illnesses. The aims of the proposed study are outlined below: What type of negative behaviours that makes individuals feel bullied at their workplace? Explore the nature and causes of workplace bullying. Examine the effects of bullying on individuals. According to Andrea Adams in â€Å"Bullying at work† published in 1992 bullying at work is like â€Å"a malignant cancer and the disturbing manifestations of adult bullying†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (Adams et al 2000, p.9) Andrea Adams, broadcaster and journalist, was the first person to recognise the significance of workplace bullying, and her book â€Å"Bullying at Work†, remains a landmark in this field. Adams suggests that bullying occurs when â€Å"professional abrasiveness becomes tainted with an element of personal vindictiveness† (Adams et al 2000, p32). Bullying is a sustained form of psychological abuse and often radiates from a senior person taking what they feel is strong management. However, bullying may not always come from a senior person in the workplace. It is thought that individuals may be singled out by a number of colleagues for various reasons. Debrah Lee (1998), who has been researching workplace bullying, argues the emergence of workplace bullying as being a problem or whether it should be considered to be an interpretation for an existing problem. She demonstrates that workplace bullying is an interpretation for a range of unfair work practices. She identifies workplace bullying as: †¦Ã¢â‚¬ Persistent, offensive, abusive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviours, abuse of power or unfair penal sanctions which makes the recipient feel upset, threatened or humiliated or vulnerable, which undermines their self confidence and which may cause them to suffer stress†¦taking credits for another persons idea, ignoring or excluding an individual by talking only to a third party to isolate another, spreading malicious rumours, persistent criticisms†¦[7]. Therefore, it could be said that bullying encompasses various kinds of negative behaviors. There have been a range of debates around the nature and causes of workplace bullying. Stale Einarsen (1999) suggests that bullying may be used in a joking manner describing good natured horseplay or refer to minor events of aggressive behaviour that tend to be easily accepted and tolerated. In this scientific study, the concept refers to rather specific phenomenon where hostile or aggressive behaviour, whether physical or non-physical, are factors of stigmatisation and victimisation of the recipient.[8] However, Dieter Zapf (1999) categorises five different types of bullying behaviour. They are: Work related bullying which may include changing your work tasks or making them difficult to perform; social isolation personal attacks on your private life by ridicule, insulting remarks, gossip or the like; verbal threats of such violence Physical violence or threats of such violence. (Adopted for use quoted in Zapf 1999; source Stale Einarsen 1999) Zapf (1999) argues theoretically that bullying is an extreme type of social stressor at work. It is a long lasting escalating practice aimed at a target person. There is inadequate research and it is difficult to prove the causes and effect of bullying. It emerges that multiple causes of bullying have to be taken into consideration, and that bullying can be caused for various reasons. 1. Defining the effects of bullying One of the main problems of finding out the effects of bullying is â€Å"stress†. Estimates of the cost of stress and stress related illnesses range from  £5 billion (TUC) to  £7 billion (IPD) to  £12 billion (CBI) each year. Stress can be caused from a variety of reasons. (www.bullyonline.co.uk) (11/11/05) Christine Hudson (2001) defines stress as: †¦Ã¢â‚¬ literally a pressure of force exerted on an object. The emotional state that occurs when an individual believes that they do not have the resources to deal with a situation or series of events†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (Hodson 2001, p: 144). Beehr Franz (1987) suggest that â€Å"stress† has commonly been defined in three ways: as an environmental stimulus often described as a force applied to the individual, as an individual’s psychological or physical response to such an environmental force (Warr 2002, ch: 8 p: 204). If the cause of stress could actually be pinpointed to an individual’s workplace, it would be convenient to study how s/he may have been bullied. 2. Sensitivity of the subject Bullying is a sensitive topic and people may be in denial or embarrassed because of the fact that they are being bullied. Not everyone will admit that they have a problem and some may not be aware that they are being bullied. Hence, it is a very sensitive area. Precautions must be taken when research is carried out. 3. Categories of bullying behaviour Different theorists have different perceptions of categories of bullying behaviours. Also, individuals have different perceptions of defining what negative behaviour is. The literature review and analysis will help to reveal what authors have to say about different categories of bullying. The method selected for this research paper consists of a quantitative as well as a qualitative approach. Both approaches will help to collect as much data as possible. Qualitative data will be obtained though pertinent journals, books, studies, magazines and newspapers, all presented in a literature review that will be analysed. Quantitative data will be obtained through a survey consisting of 50 participants. A range of questions will be presented to them, and the accumulative answers to these questions will be analysed. In addition to this, the quantitative data will be discussed with regard to the literature review as well. This quantitative method has been selected because a questionnaire will provide the opportunity to seek answers to questions in a larger quantity. Advantages: Questions are designed so that answers from the individuals’ interviews can be added together to produce results, which apply to the whole sample. The research is based on interviews with a representative sample of respondents. The questions are designed to be unbiased Large survey can often be broken down Surveys lend themselves to future replication. Disadvantage: Data becomes the main focus of the research issues. The data provide snapshots of points in time rather than a focus on the underlying process processes and changes. The researcher is often not in a position to check first hand the understandings of the respondents to the questions asked. Issues of truthfulness and accuracy are thereby raised. The survey relies on breadth rather than depth for its validity. This is crucial issue for small-scale researchers.[9] Making use of primary data (Surveys, focus group interviews) and secondary data (journals, databases, case studies, books, newspapers etc.), the clients aim is to find out what types of negative behaviours make people feel bullied at the workplace. This data will also help to reveal the nature and causes of workplace bullying. Analyzing the survey data against the reviewed literature and the analysis will prove interesting. It is through this comparison that one will be able to tell whether the literature reviewed has any similarities shared with the results of the survey. It is expected that there would be similarities, and it is interesting to observe how significant these similarities are. Bullying at a workplace can very easily be likened to bullying in schools. The difference between the two types of bullying is that each of them takes place in different age brackets. Bullying at a workplace is similar to bullying at school because it takes place within an institution that works as an arena within which bullying can be sustained. It is often thought that bullies at schools tend to do the same thing at workplaces when they grow up. This is perhaps because their behaviors may have been ignored by superiors and cheered on by classmates. As a result, the will to dominate continues as they grow up. Some bullies target their victims because they feel the need to control a situation or an environment while others have a natural urge to dominate without any specific reason. Whether bullying takes place at the school level or in a workplace, it has often been noted that insecure individuals exemplify these behaviors. Does Workplace Violence Encompass Physical as well as Emotional Violence? According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) (1999), one of the severest problems being faced at workplaces is physical as well as emotional violence. The ILO defines workplace violence as: â€Å"any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work. These behaviors would originate from customers, co-workers at any level of the organization. This definition would include all forms or harassment, bullying, intimidation, physical threats/assaults, robbery and other intrusive behaviors.†[10] This definition is also said to encompass bullying. According to CUPEs National Health and Safety Survey of Aggression Against Staff (1994) a similar definition to the previous one is observed, verbal aggression and harassment in its definition of violence is: â€Å"Any incident in which an employee is abused, threatened or assaulted during the course of his/her employment. This includes the application of force, threats with or without weapons, severe verbal abuse and persistent sexual and racial harassment.†[11] Definitions such as this one may also encompass bullying. In order to establish a connection between these definitions of physical and emotional violence, and bullying, the following case is important. An employee of OC Transpo in Ottawa (April 6 1999) shot 4 employees dead, after which he shot himself. It was said that the employee had suffered from workplace harassment. The definition of workplace violence that had to be included in the coroner’s examination had to include definitions of physical violence as well as psychological violence[12]. Psychological violence or emotional violence includes acts such as bullying, mobbing, teasing, ridicule or any word or deed that could psychologically harm or single out an individual person in the workplace. From the inclusion of emotional violence in the definition of workplace violence, it can be asserted that definition is very broad. Such a definition has helped to encompass several behaviors that are objectionable and are recognized as harmful to employees (Einarsen, 2002, 25-30). How Bullied Persons Are Seen: Usually, those who are bullied are seen as weak individuals or individuals that are different and singled-out. As opposed to the way that bullied person might be seen generally, s/he might well be a capable person, and one that handles his or her work independently. Quite often, such individuals are also well liked by their co-workers. However, bullies may pick on such individuals who may have a non-confrontative interpersonal style. Bullies may see the target as a threat, and set out to cut the target down. A bully of this kind may be a superior or even a co-worker. A co-worker may bully another worker because the target is considered one that is capable of excelling in his or her duties. A superior on the other hand may want to bully an employee in order to keep the target’s personality in check. This may be done in order to create or reinforce an impression of the superior being in control. Some superiors do take pleasure in bullying their employees in order to, in typical terms, show them who is the boss. What is a Bully Like? Bullies are usually insecure individuals, lacking social skills. The have little compassion for individuals in general, but tend to be harsh on individuals whom they decide to target. Bullies generally try to turn their insecurity outwards by targeting others. They take pleasure in knowing that they can throw their weight around. They use their positions to attack fully capable individuals around them by subjecting them to undue criticism. A bully may also tend to humiliate, ignore and isolate a target in front of others[13]. If the bully is in a senior position, s/he may make things difficult for the target or victim to work through. This would include setting up tasks that cannot realistically be achieved[14]. A bully may also take away important tasks from a target and replace them with demeaning ones. No matter what a bully does to intimidate a target, the basic idea is to control situations and environments. What Does Bullying Do to An Organization? Bullied employees tend to waste anywhere between 10 to 52 % of their work time. Many of them spend time preparing themselves against bullies, searching for support, thinking over the situation, and suffering stress and demotivation[15]. Many of them also do not show up for work regularly due to stress and stress-related illnesses caused. A work environment in which employees are bullied is poisoned with lack of morale, anger, fear, depression, and related feelings. All this results in an employer suffering: loss of efficiency, absenteeism, high turnover of staff, and lawsuits[16]. Not only does an employer suffer because of bullying in a workplace, but bullying has an impact on the target’s family and friends as well. The daily stress that an individual suffers is carried to relatives and friends. A target’s marriage is also likely to suffer as well with long-term stress. Friendships too come under strain because a target may become possessive (Badzmierowski Dufresne, 2005). The damages caused by bullying also impact the healthcare system. This is because those who suffer stress through bullying tend to receive medication and counseling for coping with the problem, and these could last for significant periods. Bullying and Workplace Violence: Workplace violence is a practice that might be physical or emotional. This means that the tactics used in the process may be physical or emotional. Bullying is one of the tactics considered under workplace violence. Encompassing the emotional tactics used in workplace violence are: bullying, incivility, disrespect, psychological abuse, and emotional harassment. All these tactics may also be referred to as ‘psycho terror. Whichever way one chooses to define and describe these various aspects of workplace violence, they all have the same impact. This is to say that they all result in work time being lost, demotivated employees, medical claims, legal fees, and ultimately, company decline. Quite obviously, there are tremendous losses experienced in terms of both financial loss and in quality of life (Badzmierowski Dufresne, 2005). Focusing more on bullying as a tactic of emotional workplace violence, it can be asserted that bullying is any form of negative behavior that shows disregard for other workers. It might be asserted here that along with there being several definitions for bullying presented by various scholars, there are also several behaviors that may coincide or overlap bullying behaviors. However, it can also be asserted that bullying and other overlapping practices are emotional workplace violence. Bullying is thought to consist of some of the following negative behaviors: Harassment Incivility Teasing Gossiping Purposely withholding business information Overruling decisions without a rationale Sabotaging team efforts Demeaning others Verbal intimidation (Badzmierowski Dufresne, 2005) In addition to the above types of bullying, there are several more that may be included. The different types of bullying that can occur do so in an organization that tolerates incivility. Though organizations may be aware of the damages that bullying does to an organization, responses to the problem are insufficient. Many managers ignore incivility because they either do not want to get involved or they simply believe that it is too much of a waste of time getting involved. Managers sometimes like to keep their slates as clean as possible. So they would rather avoid getting themselves into any interpersonal conflict. In addition to managers not wanting to get into interpersonal conflicts, many of them may not even hear of any problems in the workplace. This could be for various reasons. Perhaps their co-ordination is insufficient and the opportunity for employees to bring up these kinds of problems does not arise. Some employees might feel that they would be going way beyond expected territory if they were to take complaints forward (Badzmierowski Dufresne, 2005). Another reason why managers may not hear about bullying at the workplace is because employees are afraid to bring these issues up even if the opportunities do arise. Employees may be afraid to bring bullying matters up because there are organizations that would regard these complaints as personal disputes and they may not be seen as the concern of the management. It might be asserted here that this could occur because managers know that employees would not take these matters too far even if they were to get serious. However, targeted employees have been known to bring lawsuits against companies for bullying. In the UK, there is legal support for employees that feel bullied, as the UK suffers a loss of several working days and revenue due to workplace bullying. The matter is a serious one, and so is the legal protection of targeted employees in the UK. Though there is legal protection available for targeted employees, there are organizations that permit or even reward blatant confrontation among employees. This is done in the name of competition within organizations. However, there are lines that need to be drawn and if rude language and negative behaviors are overlooked, an organization can suffer intensely. â€Å"Research shows that when targets believe that someone at work has treated them disrespectfully, half will lose work time worrying about future interactions with the instigator, and half will contemplate changing jobs to avoid a recurrence. One-fourth of research respondents who feel that they have been treated uncivilly will intentionally cut back their work efforts. A few will steal from their instigators or their organizations. Some will sabotage equipment. Most will tell friends, family and colleagues about how badly they have been treated†¦in the worst case, some targets of incivility will exit† (Pearson and Porath 2005). Fundamental Features and Categories of Bullying: According to common terms, bullying is known as a type of harassment, carried out by one child over another who is seen as weaker. With this common view of bullying in mind, there are three common features in this form of behavior: It is aggressive and negative, both The behavior is sustained There is in inequality in power of the bully and the target, with the bully having more power (Einarsen, 2002, 25-30) There are also two main categories into which bullying falls. These are: Direct and Indirect bullying, which may also be called aggression Direct bullying is common among males. Indirect bullying is common among females and children. Indirect bullying usually results in the target becoming socially isolated. There are several ways through which this may be achieved. Some of the ways include: gossip, ignoring the target in public, treating those who mix with the target in the same manner, and finding fault with the target’s style of dressing and various other social belonging that the target may have, such as his or her religion, race, disability, etc. Bullying can take place in almost any type of set up. It is known to commonly take place in schools, colleges, universities, workplaces, in neighborhoods, and even between countries. No matter where bullying takes place, it must be noted that the element of power has an important role to play, and the power structure seems to be of great importance (Einarsen, 2002, 25-30). To observers of a relationship in which bullying takes place, the power a bully has is dependant on the perception a target has of the bully. The target usually is afraid to defend him or herself effectively. In many cases, a target has reason to be intimidated. S/he may fear the bully may carry out threatened actions such as physical/sexual violence, or loss of livelihood. Features of bullies: There are few notable characteristics of bullying, particularly in male bullies. These include the need for a bully to feel in control and be powerful, sadism, which is a situation where a bully gets satisfaction at watching another person suffer, complete lack of consideration for others, and a particular pattern according to which they work in order to blame the target (Einarsen, 2002, 25-30). Quite commonly, an individual’s upbringing is blamed for the way that a bully behaves. It is thought that a bully may have been brought up in an abusive environment where s/he might have been exposed to physical forms of punishment at home, little or no parental concern, and an environment in which violence has been used as a way of sorting out problems. Other research reveals that aggressiveness and forceful behaviors, perceiving other’s behaviors as aggressive, a drive to preserve one’s image, and demonstration of obsessive actions are also observed[17]. Types of Bullying: Bullying, whether a male or a female carries it out, may be considered to be an obsessive and compulsive behavior. This behavior has repeated actions or verbal insults that are used in order to have power over a target (Einarsen, 2002, 25-30). There is also a mixture of intimidation and humiliation used against targets. Some examples of bullying techniques are given below: Name-calling often using the target’s or victim’s names; commonly, the target is accused of being useless in all s/he does Gossiping about the target Stealing items that belong to the victim Unjustly demoting a victim Use of threats to get a victim to do what a bully wants Cyberbullying; this includes making use of various information technologies to bully a victim Physically assaulting a person or his or her property Blackmail Framing a victim before an authority figure Use of insulting remarks against a victims family, about ones home, personal appearance, sexual orientation, religion, race, income level, or nationality Ignoring or Isolating a victim Interfering with a victims personal belongings, and damaging them or using them to mock a victim Dominating a victim by staring Insulting graffiti[18] When bullying occurs in school

The Role of Computers in Family Life :: Technology Society

The Role of Computers in Family Life In this paper I will be explaining how computers play both a positive and negative role in the family life. Along with how much computers have changed the â€Å"Family Life†. I will explain how computers open the doors to endless access to the world. All this freedom however comes with a price. One must realize that you will be losing security with every new site signed up for or every purchase made on-line. Not to mention all the other problems that come along with having a computer. You must be ready and aware of the risks so you can be prepared when you hook-up your computer. Right now you can practically do everything you need to do right from your own computer. There are so many tools to work with and things you are capable of doing. You can virtually talk to anyone anywhere at anytime if they have the proper hook-ups. This also includes the newly on-line dating services that has pro’s and con’s of its own. Another plus for computers is instead of the children being glued to the TV for hours, they are now being productive on the computer. They are doing things that force their minds to keep thinking and not just zoning out. The introduction of computers to the family life also helps families come together and spend more quality family time together. The list can go on, but with all these opportunities we have, we also lose a lot. We lose privacy and security. There are also some greater drawbacks when in comes to the net, like Internet related crimes and identity theft. When you think of computers, what do you think about? Conducting business at work or writing assignments at school maybe. There is so much more to do with computers. I don't even know the half of them, but a computer at home can make things a whole lot calmer. First off, you can do all your bills on line. You can check on balances, or check when the payments were received. Also check your savings/checking accounts. This is a great feature because you get away from talking to machines and being put on hold. No more driving out in the cold or in traffic to see if you have enough money to cover your checks.