Qualitative Methods in Research Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Qualitative Methods in Research - Case Study Example Exeter City Council is unhappy on certain counts about the way in which the festival is being conducted. The Council is interested to find out which events of the festival is being liked by the visitors, and what improvements in the opinion of the visitors must be done to make the festival more effective from the cultural and economic point of view. The Council is un-desirous of using the questionnaire survey method. It is interested in engaging some social research method that can provide an in-depth analysis of the views and opinions of the visitors and on that basis want to devise new programmes for conducting the festival in the future. In general the qualitative research is being supported by different research methods such as ethnography, participant observation, direct observation, unstructured interviewing, case studies, content analysis, and focus groups. The method of ethnography is used normally in research issues connected with the anthropological issues where the method entails an extended period of participant observation, it is considered unsuitable for this study. ... (2) To outline the programme of research for the method selected to do the research and also to detail the features of the research method that makes it suitable for the study (3) To present the final report to the City Council on the recommendations of the research method and the ways in which the qualitative data can be interpreted 4.0 Method In general the qualitative research is being supported by different research methods such as ethnography, participant observation, direct observation, unstructured interviewing, case studies, content analysis, and focus groups. The method of ethnography is used normally in research issues connected with the anthropological issues where the method entails an extended period of participant observation, it is considered unsuitable for this study. Next came in to consideration is the research based on more or less exclusive interviews which is considered as a better alternative for the collection of qualitative data. However interviewing, the transcription of the interviews and the process of analysing the transcripts are all very time consuming. Hence the focus groups and group interviewing is considered as the best suitable method for conducting the research for gathering the qualitative data for advising the Exeter City Council on the possible issues in conducting the festival in the perspective of the visitors. 4.1 Focus Groups Academic literature has provided various definitions to the term 'focus group'. The following are some of the important elements which the focus group method has contributed to the field of social research: Organised discussion (Kitzinger, 1994) Collective

The Acceptability of Torture and Some Viable Alternative Solutions Term Paper

The Acceptability of Torture and Some Viable Alternative Solutions - Term Paper Example Despite the fact that several people criticize acts of torture, I believe that if torture helps to obtain information to save people’s lives, then it is practically good and that torture is justifiable as long as it fulfills this purpose. Despite the fact that several critics of torture would condemn it by calling it â€Å"abhorrent† and by justifying it in a rather simplistic way – that â€Å"making people suffer is a horrible thing [and that] pain hurts and bad pain hurts badly,† there is no denying that torture serves a rather good purpose (Luban 1429). Levin was right in saying that compared to torture, â€Å"mass murder is far more barbaric,† and that governments that do not resort to torture commit â€Å"moral cowardice† and eventually sacrifices innocent lives in favor of one whose life they do not want to be accused of taking (824). In Levin’s essay entitled â€Å"The Case for Torture,† he reiterates that in the case of a ticking time bomb incident, where it is only torture that would serve as the final resort for the authorities to obtain information from a captured terrorist about the location of a time bomb about to explode, the idea of using torture is indeed justified (824). This is indeed perfectly logical for there is no other way for anyone to be able to detect the bomb except by torturing the captive and making him admit where it is. Although the chances of the captured terrorist revealing the exact location may not be 100%, at least there was some hope of finding out where the bomb is. Moreover, even if such a procedure has failed, the government would not have to bear the burden of guilt from not having done anything to stop the explosion. People may criticize a government for failing to rescue hostages. However, there must be greater criticism intended for governments that did not do anything to come up with a rescue plan for hostages on the basis of their decision not to torture and vi olate the human rights of the captured terrorist bomber. The point here is not about the idea of criticism, and it is not that governments have the moral duty to avoid criticism. The point is that governments have the duty to protect its citizens and any negligence of this duty is tantamount to severe criticism and a violation of the human right of the citizens to live. Besides, a government that is bent more on protecting the rights of perpetrators more than the rights of victims must be one which is considered tyrannical, and when people lose their respect for the government – no matter how unjustifiable the basis for such loss of respect is – there is no reason not to expect anarchy. The ultimate end result, therefore, although hypothetical, would be the destruction of human society. If people do not feel like the government is doing its best to protect their lives, interests, and safety, then there must be no reason for them to continue believing in the integrity o f this government. Such resentment and loss of faith would eventually foster dissent and rebellion. Krauthammer may criticize torture as an act which we take when we â€Å"descend to the level of our enemy† and one which is against â€Å"our nature as a moral and humane people,† but I believe that the words â€Å"moral† and â€Å"humane† are but ethical labels or at best mere generalizations (829).

Change Management Compulsion Or An Option British Airways Business Essay

Change Management Compulsion Or An Option British Airways Business Essay There is a famous saying stated by an unknown author The only thing that is constant is change (Berman, 2007). With the current changing customer requirements and external environment necessities, organisations which behave as closed systems and do not constantly change themselves to fit the market requirements and customer demands will fail in the long term (Harigopal, 2006). Organisational change is an ongoing process which brings the systems and procedures of the organisation in line with the factors prevailing in the external and internal environment of the organisation (Nemetz and Fry, 1998). As business management gurus argue, external forces of change require not only adaptive, flexible organisations and new management approaches but also competent managers able to adopt to changing times and to manage organisational change (Beckhard and Harris, 1987). It is essential to understand how organisations in the real world implement and deal with organisational change. One such organisation which has implemented various change methodologies in the past few years in response to the changing business environment is British Airways. British Airways is the UKs flag carrier and one of the largest airlines in the world. Like many large organisations, the airline has had to change its strategy, technology, structure and culture in order to achieve competitive advantage in todays rapidly changing global business world. 1.2 Aims Objectives of Research The main objective and strategic aim of this study is to explore the role and significance of Change Management in this era of globalization and changing market needs by taking the case study of British Airways in specific. Research Question- The primary research question of this research study is: To explore the extent to which change management is necessary for a firm to achieve sustainable competitive advantage? Additionally, the secondary research question is to examine the change management initiatives previously taken by British Airways to attain competitive advantage and profitability. 1.3 Literature Review This chapter will highlight the various aspects of change management. It will use academic research to understand the concept of change management by looking at its definition and determining the various approaches of change management. It will then describe the framework for change and various change management initiatives taken by organisations. The various change models will also be listed and analysed and the organisational background of British Airways will be provided along with a SWOT analysis of the organisation. 1.4 Methodology This chapter will determine the methodology used to conduct this research and the reasons for various data collection methods chosen. It will also look into the philosophical aspects of the research study. 1.5 Research Findings and Discussion During this chapter the researcher has analysed the findings and compared these with the literature review and methodology to establish the extent to which change management is necessary for an organisation to sustain competitive advantage and the role and significance of Change Management initiatives taken by British Airways to attain profitability. 1.6 Conclusion The last chapter is the Recommendations and Conclusion chapter. This chapter will list the recommendations generated from the research study findings while also bringing to light the limitations of the research study. The references used and the research related appendices will then be presented at the end of the research study. CHAPTER 2 Literature Review This chapter will review the existing literature on change management. It is important to understand current research on the subject area, to enable the reader to understand the nature of the existing knowledge of the subject (Denscombe 1998, p.15). Specifically, this literature review will focus on the following issues; Firstly, it will determine the definition of change and list the various types from the typology of change. Secondly it will describe the framework for the change process, generic model of change and the various change management diagnostic models are discussed. Thirdly the importance of communication in Change Management is explained. Fourthly the SWOT analysis is also described along with the various change initiatives taken by organisations in the aviation industry. 2.1 Typology of Change Change in academics is defined as the substitution or succession of one thing in place of another. As per research studies conducted, it is identified that the patterns of change repeats and is recurring in every industry. These patterns of change constitute of incremental and radical changes. The increasing frequency of these patterns of change in various industries over the past couple of decades has necessitated for organisations to predict the pattern of changes in their external industry environment so that they are better equipped with the resources and capabilities required to embark upon change and maintain their competitive advantage. A typology of change was developed by Nadler and Tushman to outline the various abilities of organisations to predict the patterns of change in the external industry environment. They have divided the ability to predict changes into two types of proactive and reactive while listing the scope of change as being transformational or incremental in nature. The typology of change is created by Nadler and Tushman by developing a matrix of the type and scope of change. They have differentiated the change strategy among organisations into four types of fine tuning, adaptation, re-orientation and re-creation. These strategies have been described in the following paragraphs (Hayes, 2007 and Chaffey, 2006). The first two changes of fine tuning and adaptation in organisations which occur are incremental changes. Fine tuning is the change process where organisations are proactive and will try to fill in the inefficiencies and gaps internal to the company when compared to the changing external environments which act as reducing agents to the effective performance of the business processes of the organisation. Adaptation is a reactive change process where the organisations have to make changes to their internal processes after they have felt a threat in their competitive position due to the changes made in the organisation. These changes are limited and do not affect the core functions or business processes of the organisation but are targeted towards reducing or removing the threats from the external environment and competition in an effective manner (Cook, Macaulay Coldicott, 2004). The two changes although occur for a long duration, are only basic changes and do not impact the fundament al aspects in which the organisations operations work (Hayes, 2007). The change processes of re-orientation and re-creation are both transformational in nature since they impact the fundamental operations of change. They occur when the need for change is vital to survive (Poole Van de Ven, 2004). The re-orientation change process in organisations basically requires organisations to change or re-define their existing corporate or business strategy (Chaffey, 2006 and Hayes, 2007). This change is conducted for two reasons. The first is to pro-actively prepare the organisation for the future changing external environment or to change the external environment itself by innovation such that the core competency of the organisation is increased over its competitors (Hayes, 2007 Potter, 2004). In Re-orientation, since there is no external threat to the organisation and it is being pro-active, it is difficult for the employee workforce to understand the need for such a drastic radical change. This change process requires the management of the organisation to create a sense of urgency and a necessity for change among the organisational employees so that the change process can be enforced. Otherwise it is difficult for organisations to implement this change. The last type of change process is Re-creation. This is a forced change and is transformational in nature. This type of change is implemented by organisations when they feel they need to change their core operations in order to sustain in the changed external environment. In most scenarios, the success of these re-creation changes can determine the survival of the organisation. These changes however are high risk changes since the organisations do not plan these changes ahead and do not, in most scenarios, have the required time and resources for their successful implementation. The change impact is mostly lower than expected for many reasons such as low involvement and motivation among employees, inadequate readiness in management etc. This change if not tackled effectively can lead to employee resistance and de-motivations (Chaffey, 2006 and Hayes, 2007). 2.2 Framework of Change The framework of change as developed by Lewin (1951) constitutes of the same three steps in all change processes. These steps are unfreeze, change and refreeze. Unfreeze is where the organisation tries to create an urgency for change so that the employees and the management are ready for change. Change, as the name indicates, is the second stage where the change occurs. Freeze is the final stage where the change made is now ensured to become part of the organisation. As per the framework, every change process has a higher level of uncertainty leading to resistance among employees. However, certain techniques can be adopted in order to avoid this resistance. One of these techniques is to introduce additional steps such as identifying the future state prior to implementing the framework of change (Weick Quinn, 1999). There have been many new models which have evolved in the past few years which have tried to add more steps or make modifications to this model. One of them is the generi c model of change created by (Hayes and Hyde, 1998) however, the general concept and baseline in all these change models is still the same. The generic model of change signifies the change process to be continuous in nature. It states that the change results of one process act as the triggering factor for some new required changes. Change process begins by determining the internal inefficiencies and improper capabilities of the internal organisation and the external environment in the industry the organisation operates in and using this gathered information to develop the new organisations strategy. This new strategy will now automatically implement the new anticipated change in the organisation (Johnson, Scholes Whittington, 2008). The ability to determine the correct strategy is the most crucial step in any change process since an incorrect change strategy can also be implemented successfully however it will not deliver the same benefits and fill in the required market inefficiencies as required and the overall change process can in turn be a failure (Buttrick, 2005). After looking at the above studies, the change process is modified as below. The initial aspect of the change process is now moved to identifying the resources required to implement the change process and the various techniques which can be used further to begin unfreezing the organisation. While this is being done, the organisations inefficiencies and gaps with the external environment are determined in order to develop the change strategy. This change strategy is designed that such that it achieves the anticipated future state of the organisation and reviewed to make any modification such that it is aligned towards realising the future state. The next step is to create a change plan before directly implementing the change. This change plan is implemented on a step by step basis and upon completion of each step, it is reviewed to determine if it is still aligned or the future state and rectify any identified deviations. Once this is completed and the future state is realised by the organisation, new techniques in order to merge this change with the organisations culture will be implemented. This is when the final stage of refreezing appears and the success or failure of the change process and the involved resources is determined. It is also used to collect feedback of the change process and reward the resources who had performed effectively towards achieving the future state (Jones, 2008). This generic model of change created by Hayes Hyde in 1998 and the change framework developed by Lewin in 1951 are both effective models which can used to implement change. However, both these models ignore one crucial aspect of change management which plays a vital role in the success of any change event, people management. Without effective people management, it is impossible to implement change in any organisation successfully. 2.3 Change Management Models There are various models which can be used to diagnose the success of a change event or the need for a change event. These models reduce the overall change process into a few key factors which need to be taken into consideration while implementing the change process in any organisation. They allow the management to determine the key aspects from both the process and the people perspective which need to be looked into. This in-turn increases the ability of change managers firstly to implement the change process successfully and secondly to evaluate its success and take necessary actions (Hayes, 2007). One of these models is the McKinsey 7S model. This model divides the change process diagnosis into seven elements which can be used to determine the existing internal environment status in a firm. These seven elements are strategy, structure, systems, staff, style, shared values and skills. The internal organisational efficiency of an organisation is determined successfully using this model and its results can be used to develop the internal strategy of the organisation (Saunders, 2007). This model can be used to develop change initiative programmes in organisations and develop a strategy which will achieve the overall internal fit in the firm however, it cannot be used to determine a fit between the internal capabilities of the organisation and the external environment in which it operates leading to a necessity for another model which takes this into consideration (Burke Litwin, 1992). The model which takes this into consideration is The Burke-Litwin causal model of organisational performance and change. This model is used for many purposes such as to identify the type of change implemented, whether it is incremental step-by-step change or a radical change or to determine the overall effect of using change management procedures in organisations while determining the performance of these management initiatives. This model constitutes of various elements which are crucial for a change process. The input element is the organisational performance and the output element is the individual and organisational performance. The other factors in the model are the through-put of the model. The models elements are further divided into two types of factors. The five factors of external environment, leadership, mission and strategy, organisational culture and the individual and organisational performance are the transformational factors while the remaining factors are the increme ntal factors. They are distinguished so based on the ability of the factors to influence the type of change. One of the successful applications of this model was to determine the success and performance on the change processes implemented in British Airways in the year 1983 (Burke Litwin, 1992). (Burke Litwin, 1992). This model will again be used in this study to determine the performance and effectiveness of the change management strategies used in British Airways in the past year. 2.4 Communication in Change Management: One of the key aspects of any change process in terms of people management is communication. If the communication is ineffective or missing, then the employee resistance to embrace the change only increases further. The communication strategies used by various organisations are different and this determines the amount of information shared by them with their employee workforce. Another factor which affects this amount of information shared with the employees is the managements personal views and understanding on the subject of change management and importance of communication. The Spray and Pray strategy used by management is where the information provided to employees is not considered or evaluated by the management to determine if it is actually relevant to them or not. This sort of communication can allow the vital and relevant information to be buried under irrelevant and not so vital information and reduce the overall necessary impact of communication on the employees. The manag ement which chooses to share the relevant information with their employees and also provides them with the various benefits of the change implemented to these employees use the communication strategy of Tell and Sell. In this scenario, the communication effectiveness is higher than the previous strategy and the amount of the information shared is lower. One of the most effective communication strategies which can be adopted by management in any change organisation is the Underscore and explore strategy where the information is provided to employee workforce in exact reference to the change situation and the various inputs provided by the management are considered at the same time. This ensures that the employees feel to be a part of the change being implemented and reduce their overall employee resistance. In the other two communication strategies of Identify and reply and withhold and uphold, the information shared with the employees is not adequate and the management withholds som e crucial elements of information which can increase the employee resistance to accept change. The below diagram represents the various communication strategies in accordance with the communication effectiveness and the amount of information shared by the management (Clampitt, DeKoch and Cashman, 2000). Figure-2 : Communication Strategy Continuum   (Clampitt, DeKoch and Cashman, 2000) 2.5 SWOT Analysis To determine the inner fit of an organisation with an external environment, one of the techniques which have proven successful on numerous occasions is the SWOT analysis. This SWOT analysis is divided into two segments, the internal factors segment which constitutes of the strengths and the weaknesses of the organisation and the external factors segment which constitutes of the opportunities and threats presented by the external environment in reference to the organisation. The role of strengths and opportunities is to determine the internal capabilities and inefficiencies of the business processes and the employee talent of the organisation. The role of opportunities and threats is to determine the external environment that the organisation is functioning in and find ways in which it can either support or act as a danger to the organisations functions. Once these are determined, it is then determined how the internal strengths of the organisation can be used to benefit from the exte rnal opportunities of the industry environment. The weaknesses are also looked into to determine if there is a possibility to change into a threat and how this movement can be avoided. The threats are looked at from the perspective of changing them into opportunities or reducing their possible impact on the organisation. The weaknesses are also worked upon in a similar way, to reduce their impacts and risks to the organisation or to remove them altogether by changing them into opportunities (Briggs, 2001). 2.6 Change Management in Organisations in the Aviation Industry: Some of the change initiatives which have been experienced by organisations in the Aviation industry are the privatisation of companies such as Qantas airlines. This happened at the same time as most industries in various nations were moving towards privatisation and de-regulation while moving away from the shadows of the public sector. The change process was rapid and radical in nature. Another change in the aviation industry which was not just restricted to one organisation was the agreement of global alliances among the various international and domestic airlines in the global market. This changed the structure and process of operations in the Aviation industry while also bringing in harmony the use of labour and the strategies adopted by management across various airlines in the industry (Fairbrother, 2002). Another change initiative which was related across airline companies was the use of part time and casual employees so that they can benefit from using them when required and paying them only for the number of hours employed. This has allowed them to reduce the overall labour costs however, in most airline companies; most of the part time employees did work overtime just as much as full time employees leading to no change in the overall labour costs (Dawson, 2003). The privatisation of the airlines is not just limited to Qantas airlines but has increased further to British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM etc (Delfmann, 2005). An additional change management initiative is the collaborative effects among most airline companies to ensure a reduction in the carbon footprint overall and thus support the climate change initiatives along with the various other industries and governments (Bishop Grayling, 2003). Steve this is the other introduction to the research study I written, but Im unsure if this is perhaps too current as it relates to the current global economic recession. Could you advise if it is maybe best to delete the information I have highlighted in bold and continue with the original introduction I have written on page 3. Introduction to the research study There is a famous saying stated by an unknown author The only think that is constant is change (Berman, 2007). With the current changing customer requirements and external environment necessities, organisations which behave as the closed systems that do not constantly change themselves to fit the market requirements and customer demands will fail in the longer terms (Harigopal, 2006). The punctuated paradigms irregularities frequency has increased over the past decade implying that the change in organisations is not as fast or as paced as the change in external environments which in-turn is increasing the gaps between the customer requirements and products/services provided by organisations (Hayes, 2007). This has made it crucial to study the significance of change management internally in organisations so that this building gap can be reduced and organisations can benefit from these constant changes through adapting their culture. The recent economic recession and credit crunch with a decreasing GDP rate across the United Kingdom in 2008-09 (Statistics, 2009) has forced organisations to find new ways to reduce costs for the products and services generated by them so that they can survive in this difficult climate. Organisations responses to these necessary changes being forced upon them is being tackled using various techniques such as economies of scale (Grant, 2005), internal re-structuring and creating new operational processes which will reduce their operational and maintenance costs. This in-turn has led to need for effective change management in such organisations so that the changes implemented are widely accepted by the workforce which in-turn ensures that success from the implemented change techniques are achieved (Cameron Green, 2008). One such organisation which has implemented various change methodologies in the past few years in response to the changing industry environment is British Airways. The organisation like many others has undergone some changes in their strategy, technology, structure and cultural aspects in order to survive in the changing environment and maintain the organisations core competency. British Airways will be used as a case study in this research study in order to achieve the aims and objectives of the research study. Many literatures focus on change management in organisations enforced due to various reasons and either at the beginning or at the end of the change management procedures being implemented. However, most of these researches have not taken into consideration the change management forced by external environments due to an economic recession especially since this scenario is not very common or recurring constantly. This research will contribute to the existing literature by using economic recession as one of the external factors leading to implementing changes in the airline industry. This research study will attempt to act as a guide to further researches who wish to identify the necessity for effective change management in the airline industry organisation especially when the external contributing factor is the economic recession. Sharon, This is a very well written first draft of your dissertation. I think there are some very good elements but there are also quite long passages where there are no references cited. I think if you do a little more reading and address these gaps then you will have the basis of a very good literature review. Steve

Religious and Artistic Sites of Venice Essay -- Place Geography Italy

Religious and Artistic Sites of Venice The masterpieces of four visual artists, Bellini (1430-1516), Titian (1485-1576), Tintoretto (1518-1594), and Tiepolo (1696-1770), dominate the religious and artistic sites found in the island city of Venice. The city is divided into six districts. Each contains historical sites, however, the most notable are located in the districts of San Marco, San Polo, and Dorsoduro that border the Grand Canal. The artistic and religious sites of Venice are appreciated as part of the island?s historical past, as well as infused in its everyday present. One symbol of the importance of art in Venetian life is the lion of Venice. The lion honors the patron saint of Venice, St. Mark. It can be seen in many different poses including a peaceful, playful stance, an impassive guard, a majestic, stately lion, or even a forceful, warlike lion. The lion, like art and religion, reflects the spirit of Venice. San Marco District Saint Mark?s Basilica Since 830 AD, the basilica has housed the bones of St. Mark which were taken from Alexandria, Egypt and given at the Port of Olivolo to the D oge Giustiniano Particiaco. Mosaics in the basilica depict this event as bones being hidden under barrels of pork to keep Muslims away. Mark was patron saint of Alexandria and then became patron saint of Venice. The emblem of the patron saint is the winged lion with a sword and a book with the words Pax Tibi Marce Evangelista Meus, Peace to You, Oh Mark, My Evangelist. The church was built with eastern inspiration with its oriental domes and lustrous mosaics. This is an example of the connection between Venice and Byzantium, which protected Venice from Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. The church contains four thousand sq... ...artistic sites of Venice leave a lasting impression for all who visit. Works Cited Crivellari, Domenico, and Maria Da Villa Urbani, eds. Basilica di San Marco. Procuratoria di San Marco Venezia. 2003. Girard-Sharp, Lisa, et al. Venice. New York: APA Publications, 1999. Openshaw, Gene, and Rick Steves, eds. Venice 2004. California: Avalon Travel, 2003. Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2003. Pioch, Nicolas. ?Titian.? WebMuseum, Paris. 2002. Pioch, Nicolas. ?Bellini.? WebMuseum, Paris. 2002. Rossi, Gerald. ?Il Tintoretto.? Catholic Encyclopedia. 2003. Steves, Rick. Italy 2002. California: Avalon Travel, 2002. Religious and Artistic Sites of Venice Essay -- Place Geography Italy Religious and Artistic Sites of Venice The masterpieces of four visual artists, Bellini (1430-1516), Titian (1485-1576), Tintoretto (1518-1594), and Tiepolo (1696-1770), dominate the religious and artistic sites found in the island city of Venice. The city is divided into six districts. Each contains historical sites, however, the most notable are located in the districts of San Marco, San Polo, and Dorsoduro that border the Grand Canal. The artistic and religious sites of Venice are appreciated as part of the island?s historical past, as well as infused in its everyday present. One symbol of the importance of art in Venetian life is the lion of Venice. The lion honors the patron saint of Venice, St. Mark. It can be seen in many different poses including a peaceful, playful stance, an impassive guard, a majestic, stately lion, or even a forceful, warlike lion. The lion, like art and religion, reflects the spirit of Venice. San Marco District Saint Mark?s Basilica Since 830 AD, the basilica has housed the bones of St. Mark which were taken from Alexandria, Egypt and given at the Port of Olivolo to the D oge Giustiniano Particiaco. Mosaics in the basilica depict this event as bones being hidden under barrels of pork to keep Muslims away. Mark was patron saint of Alexandria and then became patron saint of Venice. The emblem of the patron saint is the winged lion with a sword and a book with the words Pax Tibi Marce Evangelista Meus, Peace to You, Oh Mark, My Evangelist. The church was built with eastern inspiration with its oriental domes and lustrous mosaics. This is an example of the connection between Venice and Byzantium, which protected Venice from Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. The church contains four thousand sq... ...artistic sites of Venice leave a lasting impression for all who visit. Works Cited Crivellari, Domenico, and Maria Da Villa Urbani, eds. Basilica di San Marco. Procuratoria di San Marco Venezia. 2003. Girard-Sharp, Lisa, et al. Venice. New York: APA Publications, 1999. Openshaw, Gene, and Rick Steves, eds. Venice 2004. California: Avalon Travel, 2003. Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2003. Pioch, Nicolas. ?Titian.? WebMuseum, Paris. 2002. Pioch, Nicolas. ?Bellini.? WebMuseum, Paris. 2002. Rossi, Gerald. ?Il Tintoretto.? Catholic Encyclopedia. 2003. Steves, Rick. Italy 2002. California: Avalon Travel, 2002.

Short Story and Selfishness William Jung

Who can promise that they have never been selfish throughout their life? Who can say out loud that they never did something that had a bad influence on others, only because of personal benefit? The answer is in the short story â€Å"The Lottery†, which was written by Shirley Jackson in 1948.The story takes place in a small town where everyone has to join the lottery, and the winner will be sacrificed for heavy crops for the town. During the lottery, everyone including Tessie Hutchinson, who wins the lottery, expresses their selfishness both consciously and unconsciously.Shirley Jackson is making a point about selfishness. To be specific, she notes that selfishness is born within mankind and lives deep inside, behind their mask of duplicity. In the story, Tessie Hutchinson symbolizes selfishness, she is a happy kind married woman before the lottery, but by the time she finds out that she actually ‘wins’ the lottery, which means she has to sacrifices for the town, i t’s when her selfishness starts to appears.When Hutchinson family is choose to have the second draw, Tessie strongly argues that â€Å"You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted, I saw you, it wasn’t fair! † (P. 6) even though she also pinches his husband Bill to draw the paper.She only worries about her family were chosen. Moreover, she only cares about herself, during the second draw, she strongly agrees about her daughters to join the lottery, which will make more chances for her to survive. Her selfishness is unavoidable even though she is a mother of a family, because selfishness is deep inside her.Beside Tessie Hutchinson who is an adult, some innocent, pure little children also contain absolute selfishness, just like Tessie’s children Bill, Jr. and Nancy. They join the second lottery with Hutchinson family although they are too young, but when they find out that they are not the one who ‘wins’ the lottery, they both â€Å"beamed and Laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads. † (P. 8) They delight about they didn’t get selected to sacrifice. They are happy because the one who will die are not them, but their mother.Children are not able to endure their impressions, which make them express their true emotions, in this case selfishness throughout their innocent faces unconsciously, because they are simply happy, they didn’t learn anything from others, it was just their instinct reactions that appear because of the selfishness, which born within themselves.Everyone in the village also has the exact same feelings as Bill, Jr. and Nancy, but they don’t express their feeling by reactions to others because they have more mature masks which are their faces of conscience.Before the lottery starts, everyone acts like they are nice innocent person. They talk to each other like friends, just like they really care about each other . However, when Tessie says the lottery is unfair, and should do the lottery again, the selfishness within people is no more covering by the masks of â€Å"kindness†.As they face another bad chance to die, their emotions come out right away consciously, they say â€Å"be a good sport, Tessie. † or â€Å"All of us took the same chance. † (P.6) to get away from the danger. Including Bill Hutchinson who is Tessie’s husband, he â€Å"went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. † (P. 8) to make sure she is the one who will die, and shows the slip of paper with black dot to everyone. The masks of ‘conscience’ , ‘kindness’ or even ‘love’ will lose their power in front of the selfishness when people are in an extreme situation. The masks cannot cover the true natural sense of mankind. Selfishness is something that no one can reject it.It’s something that everyone owns, but owns without a ny authority to control it. It’s something that is impossible to hide behind the masks of duplicity forever. It’s the basic and strongest devil that born within everyone.But it is possible to change the way of being selfish, by respecting others selfishness, by knowing that other people only care about themselves just like usual, and by finally realize that the easiest way to protect or gain benefit to yourself is by helping others, because devotion will always come back like a boomerang.

Freaks and Geeks Paragraph

Lights, Camera, Music, Action A filmmaker needs to work extremely hard to create a piece with a strong story line, characterization, twists and a stupendous ending. How are these elements portrayed? Through the elements of media of course. In the pilot episode of â€Å"Freaks and Geeks,† it is undeniable that the use of lighting, music and camera manipulation are utilized to create pathos between the characters and the audience. Music evidently plays a grand part of setting the tone and emotion in a scene whether it is to heighten suspense, set a romantic mood or pick up the pace for an action scene.Prior to the ambush of the school bully Alan in the episode of â€Å"Freaks and Geeks,† the music slowed into a dramatic melody with heroic lyrics and an altogether â€Å"we are going into battle,† feel. This use of music is highly effective in relaying the sense of finality to the viewers, the geeks are finally going to stand up to the bully. It gives everything a ba ttle-ready atmosphere which is perfect for the before-the-fight mood.Furthermore, the use of different camera angles and distances plays a large part in creating sympathy or empathy between the viewer and character as seen when Sam struggles to ask his crush, Cindy out for the Homecoming Dance. The close-up on his face is used to allow viewers to clearly see the hesitancy in his gaze, the nervous way he bites his lip and the internal struggle to find courage and pursue his dream. Without being able to truly see his emotions, viewers would likely be less empathetic towards his cause and not root for him as strongly had the camera been so far as to not being able to see his face.Lastly, another important aspect of media elements that was used frequently throughout the episode is lighting. During the scene where Lindsay’s in Nick’s garage, the lights are dim and soft and the romantic, deep atmosphere is created. It was during this scene where Nick tells Lindsay about his dreams and his passion for drumming, the lighting creates a sense of endearment from the viewers because the lighting, plus the music, plus the camera shots all combine together to create this peaceful, cute moment that makes the viewers really want something romantic to happen.Therefore, lighting, music and camera manipulation are all used extensively throughout the episode to heighten emotion and create pathos between the characters and the viewers. Works Cited Paul Feig, S. W. (Writer), & Jake Kasdan, I. R. (Director). (1999). Pilot [Television series episode]. In Judd Apatow(Producer), Freaks and Geeks. California, USA: National Broadcasting Company.

Mayflies, Order Ephemeroptera

Mayflies, Order Ephemeroptera The order Ephemeroptera includes only the mayflies. Ephemeroptera comes from the Greek ephemeros, meaning short-lived, and pteron, meaning wing. Adult mayflies live just one or two days. Description As adults, mayflies have delicate, slender bodies. They hold their membranous wings vertically when at rest. You can easily identify an adult mayfly by its triangular forewings and two or three long, threadlike tails extending from the abdomen. Most species also produce a subimago stage, which looks similar to the adult but is sexually immature. Mayflies live on land as adults, but are entirely aquatic as nymphs. Adult mayflies live just long enough to mate, which they often do in dramatic swarming flights. Receptive females fly into the cloud of swarming males, and mate in flight. The female deposits her eggs on the surface of a shallow pond or stream, or on objects in the water. Mayfly nymphs inhabit streams and ponds, where they feed on algae and detritus. Depending on the species, a mayfly nymph may live two weeks to two years before emerging from the water to complete its life cycle. Mayflies are known for emerging en masse, usually in May. In some places, large numbers of emerged mayflies can coat roads, making travel slippery and dangerous. Habitat and Distribution Mayfly nymphs inhabit fast-flowing streams and shallow ponds with high levels of dissolved oxygen and low levels of pollutants. They serve as bioindicators of good water quality. Mayfly adults live on land, near ponds and streams. Scientists describe over 4,000 species worldwide. Major Families in the Order Family Baetidae - small minnow mayfliesFamily Heptageniidae - stream mayfliesFamily Ephemeridae - common burrower mayfliesFamily Leptophlebiidae – prong-gilled mayfliesFamily Siphlonuridae - primitive minnow mayflies Families and Genera of Interest The American sand burrowing mayfly, Dolania Americana, is one of a few species of predatory mayflies.The Gila mayfly, Lachlania dencyanna, is known to exist only in one small area of New Mexico, and is threatened with extinction.An unusual parthenogenetic mayfly, Eurylophella oviruptis, employs a surprising method of oviposition. The subimagos abdomen literally ruptures, spilling its eggs onto the waters surface. Sources: Borror and DeLongs Introduction to the Study of Insects, 7th Edition, Charles A. Triplehorn and Norman F. JohnsonOrder Ephemeroptera - Mayflies, Bugguide.netGuide to Aquatic Insects and Crustaceans, Izaak Walton League of America

Sentence Variety - What It Is and How to Achieve It

Sentence Variety - What It Is and How to Achieve It In a composition, sentence variety refers to the practice of varying the length and structure of sentences to avoid monotony and provide appropriate emphasis. Grammar checkers are of little help with sentence variety, says  Diana Hacker. It takes a human ear to know when and why  sentence variety is  needed (Rules for Writers, 2009). Observations Sentence variety is a means by which the writer helps the reader to understand which ideas are most important, which ideas support or explain other ideas, etc. Variety of sentence structures is also a part of style and voice.(Douglas E. Grudzina and Mary C. Beardsley, Three Simple Truths and Six Essential Traits for Powerful Writing: Book One. Prestwick House, 2006) Thomas S. Kane on Ways to Achieve Sentence Variety Recurrence means repeating a basic sentence pattern. Variety means changing the pattern. Paradoxical as it sounds, good sentence style must do both. Enough sameness must appear in the sentences to make the writing seem all of a piece; enough difference to create interest...Of course, in composing a sentence that differs from others, a writer is more concerned with emphasis than with variety. But if it is usually a by-product, variety is nonetheless important, an essential condition of interesting, readable prose. Let us consider, a few ways in which variety may be attained. Changing Sentence Length and Pattern It is not necessary, or even desirable, to maintain a strict alternation of long and short statements. You need only an occasional brief sentence to change the pace of predominately long ones, or a long sentence now and then in a passage composed chiefly of short ones ...... Used with restraint, fragments ... are a simple way to vary your sentences. They are, however, more at home in a colloquial style than in a formal one. Rhetorical Questions ...  [R]hetorical questions are rarely used for variety alone. Their primary purpose is to emphasize a point or to set up a topic for discussion. Still, whenever they are employed for such ends, they are also a source of variety ... Varied Openings Monotony especially threatens when sentence after sentence begins the same way. It is easy to open with something other than the usual subject and verb: a prepositional phrase; an adverbial clause; a connective like therefore or an adverb like naturally; or, immediately following the subject and splitting it from the verb, a nonrestrictive adjectival construction. . . . Interrupted Movement Interruptionpositioning a modifier or even a second, independent sentence between main elements of a clause so that pauses are required on either side of the intrudernicely varies straightforward movement. (Thomas S. Kane, The New Oxford Guide to Writing. Oxford University Press, 1988) A Strategy for Evaluating Sentence Variety Use the following strategy to review your writing for variety in terms of sentence beginnings, lengths, and types: - In one column on a piece of paper, list the opening words in each of your sentences. Then decide if you need to vary some of your sentence beginnings.- In another column, identify the number of words in each sentence. Then decide if you need to change the lengths of some of your sentences.- In a third column, list the kinds of sentences used (exclamatory, declarative, interrogative, and so on). Then . . . edit your sentences as needed. (Randall VanderMey, Verne Meyer, John Van Rys, and Patrick Sebranek. The College Writer: A Guide to Thinking, Writing, and Researching, 3rd ed. Wadsworth, 2008) William H. Gasss 282-Word Sentence on Sentence Length and Variety Anyone who looks with care into the good books shall find in them sentences of every length, on every imaginable subject, expressing the entire range of thoughts and feelings possible, in styles both as unified and various as the colors of the spectrum; and sentences that take such notice of the world that the world seems visible in their pages, palpable, too, so a reader might fear to touch those paragraphs concerned with conflagrations or disease or chicanery lest they be victimized, infected, or burned; yet such sentences as make the taste of sweet earth and fresh airthings that seem ordinarily without an odor or at all attractive to the tongueas desirable as wine to sip or lip to kiss or bloom to smell; for instance this observation from a poem of Elizabeth Bishop’s: ‘Greenish-white dogwood infiltrated the wood, each petal burned, apparently, by a cigarette butt’well, she’s right; go lookor this simile for style, composed by Marianne Moore: ‘It is as though the equidistant three tiny arcs of seeds in a banana had been conjoined by Palestrina’peel the fruit, make the cut, scan the score, hear the harpsichord transform these seeds into music (you can eat the banana later); yet also, as you read these innumerable compositions, to find there lines that take such flight from the world that the sight of it is wholly lost, and, as Plato and Plotinus urge, that reach a height where only the features of the spirit, of mind and its dreams, the pure formations of an algebraic absolute, can be made out; for the o’s in the phrase ‘good books’ are like owl’s eyes, watchful and piercing and wise. (William H. Gass, To a Young Friend Charged With Possession of the Classics. A Temple of Texts. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)

Thank You Note Definition and Writing Tips

Thank You Note Definition and Writing Tips A thank-you note is a type of correspondence in which the writer expresses gratitude for a gift, service, or opportunity. Personal thank-you notes are customarily handwritten on cards. Business-related thank-you notes are usually typed on company letterhead, but they, too, may be handwritten. Basic Elements of a Thank-You Note [The] basic elements for writing a thank-you note should include: Address the individual(s), using a  salutation  or greeting. . . .Say thank you.Identify the gift (be certain to get this one right. It does not look good to thank Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the lingerie when they sent you a toaster.)Express how you feel about the gift and what it will be used for.Add a personal note or message.Sign your thank-you note. Within this framework, there is a great deal of latitude. When preparing to write a note, sit for a moment and consider your relationship with the person to whom you are writing. Is it intimate and personal? Is it someone you know as an acquaintance? Are you writing to a complete stranger? This should dictate the tone of your writing. (Gabrielle Goodwin and David Macfarlane, Writing Thank-You Notes: Finding the Perfect Words. Sterling, 1999) Six Steps to Writing a Personal Thank-You Note [1]Dear Aunt Dee, [2]Thank you so much for the great new duffel bag. [3]I cant wait to use it in my spring break cruise. The bright orange is just perfect. Not only is it my favorite color (you know that!), but Ill be able to spot my bag a mile away! Thanks for such a fun, personal, and really useful gift! [4]Im really looking forward to seeing you when I get back. Ill come over to show you pictures from the trip! [5]Thanks again for always thinking of me. [6]Love, Maggie [1] Greet the recipient. [2] Clearly state why you are writing. [3] Elaborate on why you are writing. [4] Build the relationship. [5] Restate why you are writing. [6] Give your regards. (Angela Ensminger and Keeley Chace, Note-worthy: A Guide to Writing Great Personal Notes. Hallmark, 2007) Thank-You Note Following a Job Interview An essential job-seeking technique, as well as a gesture of courtesy, is to thank the person who interviews you. Write a note immediately after the interview and before a decision has been made. State what you liked about the interview, the company, the position. Emphasize briefly and specifically your suitability for the job. Address concerns about your qualifications that came up during the interview. Mention any issue that you didnt have the opportunity to discuss. If you felt you misspoke or left the wrong impression, this is where you can correct your interviewbut be brief and subtle. You dont want to remind the interviewer of a weak point. (Rosalie Maggio, How to Say It: Choice Words, Phrases, Sentences, and Paragraphs for Every Situation, 3rd ed. Penguin, 2009) Thank-You Notes to College Admission Offices Call it a testament to how carefully students court college admissions offices these days: Thank-you notes have become the new frontier. . . . Miss Manners, Judith Martin, who writes a syndicated etiquette column that runs in more than 200 newspapers, says she, for one, does not think thanks are needed for a campus visit: I would never, ever say, Don’t write a thank-you note under any circumstances. I don’t want to discourage them. But it is not really a situation that is mandatory. Still, some admissions advisers [disagree]. It seems like a small thing, but I tell my students that every contact with the college contributes to their perception of you, said Patrick J. O’Connor, director of college counseling at the private Roeper School in Birmingham, Mich. (Karen W. Arenson, Thank-You Note Enters College Admission Game. The New York Times, Oct. 9, 2007) A CEOs Thank-You Notes Dear Bloomberg Businessweek Friends, Thank you for asking my perspective on writing thank you notes. In my 10 years as President and CEO of Campbell Soup Company, I sent out over 30,000 notes to our 20,000 employees. I found it was a powerful way to reinforce our strategies, to let our employees know we were paying attention and to let them know that we cared. I kept my notes short (50-70 words) and to the point. They celebrated accomplishments and contributions of real significance. They were virtually all handwritten to make the communication more authentic and personal. It is a practice that I highly recommend. Good luck! Doug (Douglas Conant, Write a Thank-You Note. Bloomberg Businessweek, Sep. 22, 2011) Thank-You Note to Anita Hill Anita Hill, I want to personally thank you for what you did for us twenty years ago. Thank you for speaking up and speaking out. Thank you for your quiet dignity, your eloquence and elegance, your grace under pressure. Thank you for illuminating the complexities of female powerlessness and for explaining why you didn’t complain when the offense first occurred, and for describing how cowed and coerced a woman can feel when she’s hit upon by a man who controls her economic destiny. . . . (Letty Cottin Pogrebin, A Thank-You Note to Anita Hill. The Nation, Oct. 24, 2011)

From Seeds to Civilizations Bruce D Smith Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

From Seeds to Civilizations Bruce D Smith - Essay Example These factors influence the cultural macroevolution. Here the changes are determined by the environmental factors and not by the social economic and political ones. The important influence of these macro evolutionary factors has been brought to the limelight by Jared Diamond. These factors played a very pivotal role at the dawn of history especially when writing was first invented. For example the Inuit could not invent farming but people in the Middle East could do so because they were surrounded by wild animals/plants which could be domesticated. Cultural microevolution on the other hand generated a need for liquid fuels for industrialized nations. But it was the macro evolutionary factors which shaped the World War II, where Germany and Japan had to use all their efforts to obtain and defend their petroleum supplies since their own territories lacked them. Early historians did not give much importance to the evolutionary view of history. But seventeenth century onwards scholars like Voltaire, Comte and others visualized history as an evolutionary process that was moving towards a goal. Karl Marx was one of the pioneers of the first great theories of historical evolution. Marx tried to find an evolutionary pattern of history based on scientific analysis. Apart from historians even... We are all products of our social and biological backgrounds. It is due to this very reason that the human nature of citizens living for long under democracies is different than those under dictatorships. Evolutionary theory has converted biology into a logical discipline. Evolutionary theory, primarily its cultural aspects can do the same to social sciences. Although some aspects of such a theory can be overshadowed by the story of sociopolitical evolution from hunting and gathering through the establishment of states that can be put together today. Evolutionary theory thus can be formed without making assumptions about genetics. The change in human natures is essentially because of cultural and not biological evolution. Plant domestication i.e. agriculture has played a very pivotal role in human history. It first began in the Fertile Crescent which is now a part of Israel and Lebanon. Population pressure, declining game supplies and increased plant gathering are some of the reasons given for the origins of agriculture .It is believed that the key reason for the spread of farming was due to the episodic periods of scarcity- a discrepancy of the general population pressure speculation. This could explain the rapid spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent The second hypothesis is that agriculture developed due to the rapid end of the ice age. The agricultural revolution was accompanied by rising birth rates. This eventually led to the demand of more food and thus led to the pressure of technological change to make more intensive agriculture possible. Due to this intensification and division of labor human society underwent changes through villages, clans to ultimately modern nation states. Differences in the productivity of the physical

A proposal to review the effect of progressive muscle relaxation Essay

A proposal to review the effect of progressive muscle relaxation techniques on chronic pain in cancer patients - Essay Example A randomised controlled trial 17 3. Chapter Three: Preliminary Literature Review 19 3.1 Progressive Muscle Relaxation 19 3.1.1Complete sequences of progressive muscle relaxation 20 3.2 Synthesis 23 Bibliography 26 Appendixes 29 Appendix 1 Time Table 29 Appendix 2 30 Abstract The proposed research for this study will discuss the progressive muscle relaxation and its techniques along with the effect that it has on chronic pain in patients with cancer. The techniques discussed can have a significant impact on reducing and relaxing chronic pain in patients with cancer. The research for this study will be conducted through an examination of secondary research as relevant literature provides valuable information and knowledge about PMR and its impact on chronic pain. Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Introduction Pain is the eternal companion of mankind, with medical practitioners spending a great deal of their time assessing and finding ways to alleviate pain. Chronic pain is extremely common i n patients with cancer, especially those who are found in stage IV of the disease. Pain can be divided into four types of intensity: weak, moderate, sever, and very severe. All analgesic therapy in cancer patients is based on the use of non-narcotic, narcotic, and support (adjuvant) drugs, the use of which forms the basis of a three-step approach to pain management which was developed and proposed by the world health organization. It is estimated that one third of all cancer patients suffer from moderate to severe pain related to their cancer and over 50% of patients diagnosed with cancer suffer from some form of pain. The most common types of pain related to cancer are due to the cancer tumor and the treatment. Unlike those who suffer from chronic pain that is unrelated to cancer, those with cancer experience pain in more than on area; the pain can be both acute and chronic and often varies in presentation. Pain is associated with the consequences of changes in psychosocial relatio nships, decreased quality of life, and increased rates of depression and anxiety (Melzack 2005, p. 971-979). Unfortunately, patients and providers often find that pharmacologic therapy does not completely control pain associated with cancer. Pharmacologic management of pain often comes with side effects such as nausea, constipation, drowsiness, pruritus, sedation, and delirium. Complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies, including mind-body techniques, are often sought out. Mind-body therapies are recommended in addition to pharmacological approaches for cancer patients experiencing pain. 1.2 Background/Justification Cancer pain is a complex phenomenon that often occurs due to tumor progression and related pathology, surgery or other invasive procedures. Toxicities of chemotherapy and radiation can significantly contribute to that pain as well as infection which all lead to a multidimensional model of cancer pain that can include the five components of: (1) physiologic (o rganize etiology of the pain); (2) sensory (intensity, location, quality); (3) affective (depression and anxiety); (4) cognitive (the meaning attached to the pain); and (5) behavioral (activity level, analgesic

Target Retail Company Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Target Retail Company - Research Paper Example This company was driven by the personal principles practiced by Dayton, whereby he believed in reaching higher grounds of stewardship and this made his store become known for dependable merchandise, generous spirit and fair business practices (Target Brands, Inc., 2011). In 1911, Dayton Dry Goods Company was named The Dayton Company so as to incorporate its assortment of goods and services that it had started offering and soon it is commonly known as the Dayton Store. In the year 1916, this company becomes part of the co-founders of Retail Research Association, which is a leading retailers’ cooperative which later expanded and was named the Associated Merchandising Corporation in 1918. In the same year, George Dayton creates a foundation, The Dayton Foundation endowed with $1 million with the aim of promoting human welfare across the world. This was later renamed the Dayton-Hudson Foundation in the year 1969 and later became the Target Foundation in 2000. Following stalling of shipments in 1920 due to a freight handlers strike, Dayton decided to use airplanes to ship goods throughout the country, an idea that was well received by the public following the effects of the crisis on the consumer market. A radio station was created by Dayton in 1922 with a massive influence on Minneapolis. The son of Dayton, George N Dayton, takes over presidency of Dayton Company in 1938 following his father’s death. This company came up with the idea of giving 5% of its pretax profits to the community as a corporate social responsibility strategy in 1946. A new generation of leadership is borne following the death of George N. Dayton, where the grandson Donald C. Dayton, takes over the running of the company in 1950, and this was followed by all the Dayton’s grandsons taking over leadership positions within the company. A commercial interiors department was opened

Free Speech and the Defamation Bill 2012 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Free Speech and the Defamation Bill 2012 - Essay Example The law of the press only draws the parameters that the press should confine itself to, when broadcasting information. That libel and privacy laws do not wrongly restrict the work of the press is underscored by the fact that the press in its existence and functions does so in light of tort. This is to the effect that the press owes the society duty of care, when handling information, so that it is obligated to eschew using information in a manner that is injurious to an individual, group or organisation’s reputation, character or person. Tweed1 posits that the law acknowledges the duty of care that the press owes the society, so that there is no threshold left for dabbling in acts of libel and privacy violations. All acts that govern dissemination by the press do not make provisions for libel and privacy violations. For instance, even the Freedom of Information Act 2000 creates the right of the public to access information, but this information is limited to that which is held by public authorities and thereby precluding information pertaining to individuals. The Data Protection Act 1998 also governs the protection of personal information in the UK, and thereby limiting space for slander, defamation and breach of privacy by the press. In like manner, UK Stationery Office2 and UK Parliament3 observe that the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 as a UK law legally proscribes the transmission of automated recorded messages, without prior consent of the subscriber. Herein, this law makes it clear that transmission of automated recorded telephone messages for direct marketing purposes outside the subscriber’s permission is not only an infringement of that subscriber’s privacy, but is also illegal. That the law on libel and privacy violation does not limit the work of the press, is a matter that is well confirmed by the fact that they (the laws) have exceptions that safeguard media practices to the same effect. This is exemplif ied by the case laws Greene v Associated Newspaper (2004) and Bonnard v Perryman (1893). Particularly, in the latter, the court of law ruled that judges are not to stop defamatory allegations that are circulated, in the event that the would-be publisher is ready to defend them (in a court of law), unless it is express that no defence is to succeed at trial4. Again, the issue of Civil Liberty extends to not only include the freedom of speech, conscience, property ownership, movement and the right to assembly, but also to also include the right to privacy and dignity. Thus, the law of libel and privacy are not in existence to muzzle the media, but exists to maintain the boundaries that define the freedom of the press and to harmonise it with human freedoms and rights. The Defamation Bill 2012 The idea that the Defamation Bill 2012 is inadequate to deal with the restrictions on Press freedom is not true, since the bill has made provisions that are more in favour of the press than the i ndividual, a group or an organisation. First, the veracity of the standpoint immediately above is premised on the fact that in essence, the Defamation Bill 2012 was chiefly made to strike a balance between the right to protection of reputation and freedom of expression and therefore makes substantive amendments to the law of defamation, without necessarily

The Impact of Increasing Import Prices With Respect to Economic Research Paper

The Impact of Increasing Import Prices With Respect to Economic Variables - Research Paper Example At current market prices, the GDP is at its highest during the year 2004 whereas it is at its lowest during the year 2001. During 2004, the US economy experienced consistent growth with almost over 4%, on average, growth rates during each quarter. This was mainly due to the strong demand created through business spending, the sector which witnessed almost double-digit growth during the period whereas consumer spending was increasing too i.e. it showed an improvement of more than 4% during the year. Similarly, new jobs were created and the employment level fell sharply which not only stimulated spending but also increased the income level of individuals. Similarly, an increase in consumer spending resultantly caused an increase in the business sector when the business expansion was witnessed as it has been discussed earlier. However, what is also important to discuss, here is the fact that inflation during this period was at high level i.e. the current price level was high therefore t he GDP at current market prices was at its highest? Similarly, in the year 2001, GDP at current market prices was lowest because the US was hit by the terrorist attacks on 9/11 which significantly damaged its economy as most of its stock exchanges closed down for a substantial period of time. Secondly, the price level was relatively at a lower level as compared to the base year i.e. 2001 was just one year after the base year of 2000 therefore it was at the lowest level since at the base price GDP growth rate was around 6 – 7% whereas it showed negative growth from 2000 to 2001 at current market price level.

Psychology Articles Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Psychology Articles Critique - Essay Example In the 16th century, most of the women confined in asylums were unfortunates who were shut up by their husbands for what was perceived as mad behavior. A century later, those confined were victims of violence, prostitution, or bad luck, and most of them were women on the poor receiving end of a male-dominated patriarchal society. Chesler points out (p. 94) that by the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th centuries, madness became associated with being a woman by both psychiatrists and novelists, painting a skewed reality where the numbers of men confined for madness were equally increasing. What could account for these misguided perceptions is a mistake of masculine logic: just because male psychiatrists and novelists cannot understand women who as medical evidence has now revealed are anatomically and biologically different, does not mean that all women are mad and that all mad people are women. Chesler attempts to correct such monumental mistakes. Third, by mirroring within the walls of the asylum the inherent 'defects' of outside society - the patriarchal nature, the well-defined gender roles, and expected modes of repressed feminine behavior - the cure may have made the 'sickness' worse. Chesler provides details of her arguments by looking t... And fourth, given these mismatches between diagnoses and prescriptions, asylums did not offer asylum and need to be run differently if these are to cure women patients. Chesler provides details of her arguments by looking through the window of three psychopathological symptoms of how the female social role clashed in and with the outside world. Clinical depression (p. 102-104) is associated with women's emotional makeup and their propensity to search for meaning in daily reality and in everything. As scientific findings point out, most symptoms of depression may be the result of biochemical reactions taking place from hormonal changes that wreak havoc on the mind. What this leads to is frightening, because it is possible that several women were characterized as mad in the past and locked up in asylums because they were classified as mad and depressed, when it could be possible that a weekend walk in the park, a good conversation, or maybe even just a few more hours of rest or sleep would have been enough to cure them. Frigidity (p. 105-108) is a reaction to the masculine worldview of women as sex objects whose self-worth is determined by the presence or intensity of orgasmic experience. She reflects the feminist view that by giving women power over their bodies, birth control pills helped them overcome their insecurities by seemingly gaining the upper hand. Although it made casual sex more guilt-free and opened the door to excesses of irresponsibility by both the woman and her partner, sexual liberation may have even enhanced the male view of women as sex objects and piled up another layer of sex-centered insecurity on what already is a social burden. Suicide (p. 108-109) is the end result of

The Impact of Increasing Import Prices With Respect to Economic Research Paper

The Impact of Increasing Import Prices With Respect to Economic Variables - Research Paper Example At current market prices, the GDP is at its highest during the year 2004 whereas it is at its lowest during the year 2001. During 2004, the US economy experienced consistent growth with almost over 4%, on average, growth rates during each quarter. This was mainly due to the strong demand created through business spending, the sector which witnessed almost double-digit growth during the period whereas consumer spending was increasing too i.e. it showed an improvement of more than 4% during the year. Similarly, new jobs were created and the employment level fell sharply which not only stimulated spending but also increased the income level of individuals. Similarly, an increase in consumer spending resultantly caused an increase in the business sector when the business expansion was witnessed as it has been discussed earlier. However, what is also important to discuss, here is the fact that inflation during this period was at high level i.e. the current price level was high therefore t he GDP at current market prices was at its highest? Similarly, in the year 2001, GDP at current market prices was lowest because the US was hit by the terrorist attacks on 9/11 which significantly damaged its economy as most of its stock exchanges closed down for a substantial period of time. Secondly, the price level was relatively at a lower level as compared to the base year i.e. 2001 was just one year after the base year of 2000 therefore it was at the lowest level since at the base price GDP growth rate was around 6 – 7% whereas it showed negative growth from 2000 to 2001 at current market price level.

Nazism vs. Fascism Essay Example for Free

Nazism vs. Fascism Essay R.Q.: To what extent were the German and Italian regimes under Hitler and Mussolini Totalitarian? i. Why? With this research I want to discover whether Hitler and Mussolini transformed Germany and Italy, respectively into Totalitarian regimes. In my discretion this played a major role when looking at traditions, respectability of countries and reputations of countries. Such emotions can also trigger wars, as we so in WWII. Initially, I feel that Dictatorships having absolute power over a country can cause many inconveniences for the citizens of it. Hence, I want to understand their motives and ambitions. Also, I figure that this is a very important time period in which milestones and new dimensions have been opened. Thirdly, I decided on this topic because I am a German citizen, who is naturally interested in the background and history of ones father country. ii. What? I am going to use a series of books written in different time periods by different writers from different countries. This shows a certain scope of viewpoints, which makes the answer to this question more objective. I am also going to use the Internet as one research option of my internal assessment. iii. I planned my essay. This can be seen in the appendix, 1) Essay Plan. This plan shows how I am going to attempt to accomplish my Task i. Define Nazism a. Nazism is the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the National Socialist German Workers Party in the Third Reich including the totalitarian principle of government, state control of all industries, predominance of groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the Fà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½hrer1. ii. Define Fascism a. Fascism is a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition2. iii. Define Totalitarian a. Totalitarian is defined as of or relating to centralized control by an autocratic leader or hierarchy. Of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures (as censorship and terrorism)3 iv. All these definitions above are essential in order to understand how totalitarianism is initially linked with Nazism and Fascism. These terms, Nazism Fascism and Totalitarianism have all got the subordination of the individual to the state and the control of mind etc. of the individual in common. The difference between them, however is that Totalitarian is purely a term describing a situation, a current state of something. Nazism and Fascism on the other hand, describe an ideology that developed over centuries and eventually ruled a country. When we are looking at these definitions, we discover, that both ideologies have a feature of totalitarianism innate. Therefore, initially we would say that they the states, Germany and Italy, both are totalitarian because the autocracy by which they are ruled is totalitarian. This must mean that the people believe in it because they elected this system of government, and hence the system must be totalitarian. This, however, is debatable. In the ongoing lines I will question the above statement by looking closer at the two ideologies and how they became elected. i. Discrimination of Minorities a. Germany i. Minorities, such as Jews, Blacks, Gypsies and women were discriminated widely. Anything not of Aryan derivation, was inferior. Women, for example, were expected to behave just like K,K,K-meaning Kinder, Kirche, Kà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½che. Translated, Children, Church, Kitchen. In other words, they were expected to have as many children as possible to expand the Aryan race, support the religion and cook well. Jews, of course, were treated the worst, i.e.: concentration camps. b. Italy i. Fascist Policy towards women was condescending. Women were not put equal to men. It was also anti-urban and anti-consumerist. There was birth control and additional taxes on unmarried. This, in a way, was similar to Nazi Germany, where there were incentives to bear as many children as possible. It aimed to promote the superior race. Fascist policy was at the beginning not racially concerned. However, when relations with Germany improved, Mussolini adopted some anti-foreign steps. This aimed to give the people a feeling of superiority over other nations and should promote the will to fight for the cause of the nation. Employment conditions for female workers were restricted. They were excluded from several workplaces. ii. Church a. Germany i. Germany was almost entirely a Christian country. Hitler realised this and did not underestimate the power the church, as a single institution, could have on the peoples minds. Therefore, he knew it would not be wise to attack the church during his campaigns. Hence, he made an agreement with the church, the Concordat, which granted the church religious freedom. This, however was only superficially. In reality, any member of the church speaking bad about Hitler or his party, NSDAP, was prosecuted or sent to a concentration camp. Even Church schools were influenced by Hitler; the bible was replaced by Mein Kampf and the cross by the swastika. b. Italy i. In Italy the church played a more important role than in Germany because of the Pope and the Vatican being situated in Italy. Hence, Mussolini tried, after 1922 when coming to power, to include the church as much as possible in the fascist state in order to stabilise and ensure power for his party, PNF. Catholicism was also seen as a possible threat to the emerging fascist state. Hence, a concordat was attempted to improve church-state relations. Catholicism was considered the religion of most Italians, which was so deeply rooted in Italian life that could directly endanger the position of the fascist might. iii. Education a. Germany i. Education in Germany was largely controlled by the Nazis. The main subjects were history, biology and physical education. All of course indoctrinated and altered to shine a good light on the Nazi party and its style of rule. Special schools were build for the most talented. This meant that from a very young age onwards, children in Germany were focused on the Nazi ideology, similar to the Youths, which I will talk about in the next paragraph. b. Italy i. Education was focused on Fascist ideas and ideology. Children were educated in physical education and military training. These are just examples to illustrate what Mussolini wanted to achieve. iv. Youths a. Germany i. Various youths existed in Nazi Germany, all aiming to control the mind of German children. Hitler once described his views concerning the purpose of youths: When an opponent declares, I will not come your side, I calmly say: Your child belongs to us alreadyIn a short time, they will know nothing else but this community. These programs existed for boys and girls. Boys camps were more physical, preparing for war. Girls camps were aiming to make them strong to bear many healthy children. b. Italy i. From 1929 onwards, Mussolini focused more intensely on the control of children in his regime. He wanted to control them by education, which he stated as a right of the leading body in a totalitarian state. The Ministry of Public Instructions was changed to the Ministry of National education (ONB) in 1929. This new organisation provided pre-military training, drill and gym. All measures to convey a more aggressive and disciplined way of live. This program was even integrated into the school curriculum. Recruitment was thus made very easy and numerous. The Fascists wanted to create an Italy were there were young courageous men willing to fight for the cause of the nation. Their motto was: Believe, Obey, Fight. This displays exactly what Mussolini was after. Especially during the great depression, Mussolini tried to give his people a cause to believe in. He created groups or fixed mass meeting so that the people would experience a way of unity. v. Propaganda a. Germany i. Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany was Goebbels. He was an able man, with enormous aims. Not only wanted he the people to accept the regime. He wanted them to capitulate to them, grasping the ideology. He, for the first time in history, effectively made use of the radio and press. He seized control over both. By 1932 less then 25% of the population owned a radio. Hence, he made provisions for producing cheap sets of wireless radios. He called it the Volksempfà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½nger, translated, nation-receptionist. The press seemed harder to control. The Nazi publisher-Eher Verlag-bought many of the 4,700 existing newspapers. Goebbels held a daily press conference and eventually, the Editors Law, made the seizure of the press complete. Via the radio, the Aryan race was emphasized. Jewish music was not played. People were constantly bombed with Nazi propaganda, their ideology. b. Italy i. Mussolini wanted to create an image of the new Italian. This image should be aggressive and patriotic. He also used heroic figurers from the wars to illustrate the alleged superiority of the Italian nation. vi. Police State a. Germany i. The party seemed to be well organized and structured. Hitler himself, however, rejected any document work. Now the question appears, how it was so sufficient? The answer is that a powerful force was acting behind the scenes. This force was the army. It consisted of the SS, short for Schutz-Staffel, the SA, short for Sturm-Abteilung, the Gestapo, known for its brutality and later the SD, Sicherheitsdienst, the party internal police force. All these acted in order to maintain or restore order. The SS was once created to be Hitlers personal bodyguard. It evolved to be a unit with incredible power over, economic, political and social matters. It turned out to be an extremely useful tool for Hitler. b. Italy i. The military was also guaranteed a supreme status in Italy. However, the German army had become a political power whereas the Italian had not. After the death of Hindenburg, Hitler was able to benefit from an exclusive oath. Mussolini never had such an opportunity under the still existing Monarchy. The Italian Military acted with divided loyalties. The Italian army did not face any threats form party-army-type organizations, as opposed to the German SS and SA. vii. Power of the Leader a. Germany/Italy i. Both, der Fà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½hrer and il duce, were charismatic and ambitious men. They had a set aim which they wanted to achieve no matter what the cost was. They managed to elate masses so that they would virtually believe anything they said. These are, among others, characteristics a strong Leader must have in order to be successful. Hitler was not only appointed chancellor but became President after Hindenburgs death. He also appointed himself Chief-Commander of all armed forces. This gave him the mere control over many bodies. i. Weigh factors against each other a. Germany vs. Italy ii. Conclusion a. When looking back at my research and all the information I collected during it, I think it is fair to say that both ideologies and those implementing it, transformed the respective countries to a large extent into totalitarian regimes. Although, I would say that this phenomena did not occur in the conventional way. By definition, a totalitarian regime controls every aspect of life. When looking at the moment they came to power and the day they left, a great difference in many senses can be seen. Especially, when looking at how they controlled the peoples minds. Propaganda, Force, Speeches, youths and discrimination are all factors, which increased their influence. This integrated so quickly into the respective countries roots, so that it was inevitable that people would eventually believe what they heard. They would also obey by it because they the how brutal their measures could be. Power conveyed and achieved by force was one feature in these regimes. The other means was propaganda. New technology, new innovations enabled them to convey their messages and slogans whenever they wanted. They could also reach every member of their community. They not only controlled adults. One of their ideas was to transform the young so that their ideology would be carried further with the next generation. 1 http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionaryva=Nazism 2 http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionaryva=fascism 3 http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionaryva=totalitarian

Differentiation made among poor readers into dyslexics

Differentiation made among poor readers into dyslexics Is dyslexia a big, expensive myth (Mills 2007)? Despite the popular acceptance of dyslexia as a type of learning disability, particularly as a persistent and significant form of reading difficulty, the debate surrounding its existence, definition, and diagnosis persists (Doyle 2003). For many years now, school systems around the world have developed and implemented strategies in order to address dyslexia because it affects a considerable percentage in the population. In the United Kingdom, one out of 10 people are considered dyslexic, 375,000 children (Hayes 2005) and in other studies, 5% of the childrens population (Ramus 2003). Dyslexia is widely thought to be a deficit that can be overcome with proper learning interventions; some very prominent personalities have been said to succeed over dyslexia: Hans Christian Andersen and Nelson Rockefeller, for instance. Scientific and academic discourse on dyslexia, which is derived from the Greek words dys meaning difficult and lexia meaning reading, is plagued by a definitional crisis (Snowling 2000; Ingram, Pianu and Welsh 2007). Until now, there is still no consensus on the definition of dyslexia. Moreover, issues on categorisation also face the dyslexia community (Lyon, Shaywitz, and Shaywitz 2003). This is perhaps because poor reading is influenced by a myriad of factors: socio-economic disadvantage, poor diet, poor living conditions, and others. This paper centralises on the controversy on whether or not a) it is possible to differentiate dyslexics from garden-variety poor readers and b) it is useful to make such a differentiation. The issue of differentiation has significant implications and until now, psychologists and academic writers are still debating over it. Treating dyslexia as a distinct entity seems logically sound. In every class, there are students who do very poorly in reading bu t exhibit higher ability in other competencies. There are also those who do poorly in reading and in generally all other competencies. In terms of diagnosis, some claim that differentiating dyslexics from poor readers will enable educators to development the most suitable interventions. Nonetheless, the definitional crisis over dyslexia makes it a dilemma to make that diagnosis. Labelling someone as dyslexic actually makes the assumption that existing literature and empirical data have generated more precise insight into what dyslexia is. The fact of the matter is experts have only agreed to disagree on the criteria by which dyslexia is diagnosed, including the types of intervention necessary to help children overcome their reading difficulties (Rice and Brooks 2004). The peril of differentiating dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers without any clear and conclusive parameters for diagnosis is that in the end, students with temporary reading difficulties may be branded dyslexics needlessly and students who are in genuine danger may not be getting the appropriate learning interventions they need. Due to the unstable and inconsistent definitions of dyslexia, some academic writers have questioned whether the disorder really exists. Some people view dyslexia as a social and emotional construct (Elliott 2005, p. 485) and politicians claim the impairment as a fictional malady (Hayes 2005, p. 1) to suggest that dyslexia is an artificial disorder concocted by the school system to promote their interests or to hide weaknesses in language instruction. Some have even claimed that dyslexia has a class bias: that it is the middle-class way of covering up intellectual weakness. Despite these allegations, the dyslexia movement worldwide has gained wide acceptance and scientific endeavours, which although inconclusive have provided greater insight into how this impairment can be overcome by children and adults. This paper explored recent literature on dyslexia, its definitions, causes, and critically discussed the issue of differentiation between dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers, how such a difference could be diagnosed, and its implications. The paper concludes that while there are proposed methods of evaluation, there remains no conclusive means of differentiating dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers. 1 Dyslexia: definitions and causes 1.1 The reading process In order to critically examine dyslexia, models of the reading process need to be reviewed. There have been two predominant theoretical models to answer the questions: how do children read? and how do they learn how to read? (Harrison 2000, p. 35). Kenneth Goodman (1970, as cited in Harrison 2000) explained that reading was a selective process which requires children to use minimal language cues but maximum contextual information. In what he calls the psycholinguistic guessing game, Goodman argued that the objective of reading is not word or letter recognition but to make sense of it the construction of meaning. Recent studies have shown the fluent reading requires a fairly complete and rapid visual processing of text while hypothesising or guessing as Goodman (1970) suggested has a small role to play in word recognition. The most widely accepted model of reading among experts and psychologists is the interactive model which states that the reading process is largely supportive of the bottom-up model as well as the input of top-down processes when required (Harrison 2000). This means that in order for individuals to read fluently, what occurs is automatic, rapid, and context-free word recognition having a fixation duration dependent on the relative word frequency of separate words. Stanovich (1980) attempted to incorporate what is known about skilled and unskilled reading into the interactive-compensatory model. A key concept of this model of reading is that a process at any level can compensate for deficiencies at any other level (p. 36). Stanovichs model was a response to both bottom-up models and top-down models which had their own problems. One of the problems for the top-down model is that for many texts, the reader has littlele knowledge of the topic and cannot generate predictions. While the top-down models may explain beginning reading, with slow rates of word recognition, they do not accurately describe skilled reading behavior. Stanovich (1980) argued that good readers recognised words rapidly because their recognition was automatic. It was poor readers, by contrast, who needed to make the greatest use of context in order to facilitate word recognition, and they did so at the expense of needing to devote extra time to this part of the processes. The o bvious implication of this model is that accurate, rapid word recognition is really important in fluent reading. 1.2 Defining Dyslexia Dyslexia is difficult to define. Although there have been several definitions introduced since its inception, experts have relied on identifying exclusionary and inclusionary characteristics to define who has dyslexia (Rice and Brooks 2004). Fletcher and Lyon (2008) offered three primary reasons why dyslexia is hard to define. First, dyslexia is unobservable construct meaning that attempts to measure it are imperfect and people suffering from the disorder cannot objectively report it. Second, dyslexia is dimensional, meaning that there are varying degrees to which individuals may experience difficulty, from minor, severe, and even in-between. Third, what characteristics to include and what to exclude have been a site for great disagreement among practitioners and psychologists. Nevertheless, common points in several definitions can be seen are elaborated in this paper. A specific learning disability Defining dyslexia as one disorder among a whole umbrella of learning disabilities (LD) has been criticised (Shaywitz, Morris and Shaywitz 2003; Snowling 2000). Studies have shown that among all learning disabilities, reading disability is the most prevalent, affecting 80% of people diagnosed with learning disabilities. In the past, LD encompassed a broad selection of difficulties experienced by children and adults in several competencies: reading, listening, writing, mathematics, and speaking. Dyslexia is now defined as a specific learning disability (Shaywitz, Morris, and Shaywitz 2003, p. 2). Some definitions on dyslexia describe the different areas impaired. The British Association of Dyslexia (2010) defines dyslexia as a specific learning difficulty which mainly affects the development of literacy and language related skills wherein difficulties may experienced in rapid naming, working memory, phonological processing, processing speed, and other skills. The definition also elaborates that dyslexia may occur among people who are of normal or average intelligence. Shaywitz, Morris, and Shaywitz (2003) explained that among the indicators of dyslexia may be poor spelling, inaccurate word recognition, and poor decoding abilities. The National Centre for Learning Disabilities treats dyslexia as a language processing disorder which may impair reading, writing, spelling, and speaking. Dyslexia Scotland (2010) defined dyslexia as a specific leaning difficulty affecting almost 10% of the population. Dyslexics are said to experience difficulty in reading, spelling, writing, and mathematics. It explained that dyslexia occurs as a consequence of poor short-term memory; hence, dyslexics do poorly in learning abilities because they are unable to maintain the sequencing of numbers, words, or simple instructions. The Miles Dyslexia Centre (2010) defined dyslexia as a combination of abilities and difficulties which affect the learning process in one or more of reading, spelling, writing and sometimes numeracy/language (n.p.). Dyslexics have weaknesses in the following areas: memory, processing speed, short-term memory, visual perception, auditory perception, spoken language, and motor skills. Nevertheless, their definition of dyslexia also reiterates that in place of such weaknesses, dyslexics are gifted with creative or oral skills and that the impairment occurs regardless of socioeconomic or linguistic background. In addition, the National Strategy for Improving Adult Literacy and Numeracy Skills point out that dyslexia is the result of poor phonological processing and poor short-term memory. Hence, dyslexics often struggle with following instructions, copying notes from the board, and difficulty in reading (Department for Education and Skills 2004). The Dyslexia Institute (2002) also outlined some of the shortcomings of dyslexic individuals, such as: 1) difficulty in processing real-time information due to poor short-term memory or working memory, 2) problems in the phonological process which make them struggle in associating letters to sounds, and 3) problems in visual processing. A neurobiological dysfunction Many definitions focus on the neurobiological origins of dyslexia (Shaywitz, Morris, and Shaywitz 2003; Nicolson and Fawcett 2005). Dyslexia is seen not as a consequence of impaired vision or poor intelligence, but as a neurological disorder which has caused brains of individuals to interpret and process information in a different manner (National Centre for Learning Disabilities 2007). The National Institute of Health (2008) also viewed dyslexia as a problem with the brains ability to recognise and process symbols which may affect childrens capacity to separate sounds in spoken words or in rhyming skills which are fundamental in the reading process. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS 2010) indicates that dyslexics experience difficulties with writing, phonological processing and rapid visual-verbal responding. It defined dyslexia as a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a persons ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected of them despite having normal intelligence (NINDS 2010, n.p.). While the effects of dyslexia vary, the most common characteristics among dyslexics are said to include phonological processing, spelling, and rapid verbal-visual response. Dyslexia is also heritable and recent studies have pointed to genes which make individuals predisposed to the learning disorder. A phonological deficit Secondary to the biological basis of dyslexia is that it is the consequence of a phonological deficit. The phonological deficit hypothesis originated from Pringle Morgan, considered to be the father of dyslexia (Snowling 2001). According to this hypothesis, reading entails the segmentation of texts into the smallest units of language called graphemes. Graphemes are then converted to phonemes which then become then complete sound of a word. For this to take place, the reader needs to assemble and address the phonology of a word. Dyslexics have difficulty in phonemic representations and phonemic recall due to poor short-term memory and other weaknesses in brain mapping. The International Dyslexia Association (IDA 2008) describes dyslexia a language-based type of learning disorder. Dyslexics experience difficulty in developing fluent single-word decoding skills. Furthermore, Fletcher et al. (2002, as cited in Rice and Brooks 2004) supported the notion that dyslexia indicates a problem with phonological processing. Accordingly, children who suffer from dyslexia are identified when they appear a deficit in the skills of words recognition which is associated with rapid naming and phonological memory. In addition, Snowling (2001) considered the importance of phonological processing as one of the etiology of dyslexia. Therefore, this definition focuses on the issues with word-decoding more than reading comprehension, which are controversial and critical point to distinguish between children who have specific difficulties in reading and those who have more problems and weaknesses in language. Finally, this definition is clear by clarifying that dyslexia includes some difficulties in spelling and other writing skills. Snowling (2001) attributes dyslexia to weaknesses in language that affect the development of reading and spelling with dyslexic people. The phenomenon of weakness in language do not affect the reading directly, but also affect the development of the spoken language, which is the basic foundation for learning to read. Snowling (2009) then defined dyslexia as: A specific form of language impairment that affects the way in which the brain encodes the phonological features of spoken words. The core deficit is in phonological processing and stems from poorly specified phonological representations. Dyslexia specifically affects the development of reading and spelling skills but its effects can be modified through development leading to a variety of behavioural manifestations (pp. 213-214). This definition stresses the importance of focusing on the ability to read text not only accurately, but also rapidly and with the importance of proper expression. The acute shortage in the development of fluent reading is characteristic of dyslexia, which continues into adulthood, even if accuracy evolved. Therefore, the importance of reading fluently must be encouraged dyslexic children who read accurately but not fluently will pass unnoticed. Fletcher et.al. (2002, as cited in Rice and Brooks 2004) agreed that most students with dyslexia frequently encounter problems in reading comprehension because of the difficulties in the accuracy and fluency of word recognition. They may also suffer from these problems even if the skills of the accuracy and fluency were improved because of weaknesses in vocabulary as well as in language abilities. One of the most popular and widely-used definition dates back to 1928 and developed by The World Federation of Neurology: A disorder manifested by difficulty learning to read, despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and sociocultural opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental cognitive disabilities which are frequently constitutional in origin (as cited in Gustafson and Samuelsson 1999, p. 127). This definition is the basis of what is known as the discrepancy-based view of dyslexia (Fletcher et al. 2007). This definition assumes dyslexia as an unexpected difficulty in reading. By unexpected, dyslexia is taken to occur as a reading disorder in a child or an adult who despite having all the various factors crucial to developing fluent reading (motivation, intelligence, good instruction) still struggles with reading (Shaywitz 1998). More challenging has been the question of how to operationalise the unexpected nature of dyslexia. This has been achieved by allowing a certain amount of discrepancy between a childs level of intelligence (evaluated through an IQ test) and reading ability. Some schools use the absolute discrepancy involving 1 to 1.5 standard deviations across scores while others use the regression-based model of ascertaining the correlation between reading achievement and IQ. The discrepancy-based definition of dyslexia provides the basis for the categorisation of dyslexics with garden-variety poor readers. Genuine dyslexics are those who despite having average intelligence struggle with reading while poor readers are those who struggle with reading because of intellectual weakness and other demographic and sociocultural factors. The phonological deficit is considered as the cognitive basis to dyslexia (Snowling 2001; Vellutino et al. 2004). Nonetheless, this deficit is also viewed as secondary only to other deficits such auditory temporal processing deficits (Tallal 1980) or low-level visual deficit induced by inhibitions in the magnocellular system (Livingstone, Rosen, Drislane, and Galaburda 1991). 1.3 Visual Processing in Dyslexia The most dominant etiological explanation for dyslexia had been that it was phonological deficit and not the result of problems in visual functioning or processing. However, in the 1980s, several researchers undertook systematic studies and found that many dyslexic readers experienced visual deficits. For instance, Getman (1985, as cited in Ramus 2003) attributed problems in visual tracking to oculomotor deficiencies as well as a supposed deficit in the transient visual system. This theory has been discredited by several controlled experiments but the hypothesised effect of the transient visual system gained empirical interest. While proponents of theories attributing dyslexia to visual deficits do not exclude other explanations, the relationship between dyslexia and problems in visual processing has spurred academic interest in the subject. The main theory behind such systematic reports indicates that dyslexia is caused by a deficit in the transient system or the magnocellular system in the visual pathway. The magnocellular-deficit theory explains that two parallel systems lead the visual pathway from the eyes to the visual cortex: the magno- (large) and parvo- (small) cellular systems. The larger system consisting of large cells possesses high conduction velocity as well as sensitivity to rapid movement and stimulus changes. The smaller system is sensitive to fine spatial details and color. Dyslexia occurs among people which have magnocellular systems that have reduced sensitivity (Lovegrove, Garzia, and Nicholson 1990). The magnocellular system indirectly influences the parvocellular system by pressuring the latter in the course of the reading process. As one reads, there occurs a series of fixations followed by saccades or short rapid eye movements. The magnocellular deficit theory proposes that the larger system is stimulated by the saccades and the parvocellular system by the fixations. Dyslexia occurs when there is inhibition in the magnocellular system, consequently suppressing activity in the parvocellular system. While a number of psychologists and writers have accepted the magnocellular deficit theory, there have also been counterproductive results. For instance, in a review of contrast sensitivity studies which support the magnocellular deficit theory, Skottun (2000) found the studies which are consistent with the theory are outnumbered by studies that disprove it. An explanation behind the conflicting results is the lack of definite parameters to diagnose dyslexia. One author has alleged that the confirmability of the magnocellular deficit theory is confined to only one subtype of dyslexics (Borsting et al. 1996, as cited in Skottun 2000). 1.4 Auditory Processing in Dyslexia Another alternative explanation to dyslexia does not discount the deficit as phonological in nature but sees it more as one that stems from an auditory deficit in temporal processing. This theory is based on Tallal (1980) who proposed that children who are poor readers have difficulty processing brief or rapidly changing acoustic events whether used in speech or not. Hence, children find it difficult to judge the temporal order of nonspeech tones presented but stop-consonant-vowel syllables as well. This deficit interferes with their overall speech perception which is crucial to normal development of language, in turn, a fundamental requirement in reading. Tallal and colleagues arrived at this hypothesis after studying children with language impairments. When presented with high and low tones at long (400ms) and short (50 ms) interstimulus intervals (ISIs), the children were found unable to make temporal order judgments (TOJ). Tallal (1980) found that compared to normal readers, dyslexics performed poorly when presented long ISIs. From this observation, Tallal made an inference that dyslexics have a non-linguistic deficit in temporal resolution of rapidly changing auditory stimuli which impairs speech perception. Tallal also inferred that this deficit underlies the phonological problem. Studies which replicated Tallals work had mixed findings. Reed (1989, as cited in Ramus 2003) found that when using stop consonants and tones, dyslexics performed poorly compared to normals in making TOJs but performed equally with normals when presented with steady state vowels. Other studies lent support and contradiction to Tallals hypothesis. For instance, Mody, Studdert-Kennedy, and Brady (1997) concluded that dyslexics suffered from speech discrimination deficits rather than TOJs. In sum, evidence suggesting a direct link of temporal processing deficit to dyslexia has not been established. The auditory disorders that are observed in individuals with dyslexia are not particularly rapid or temporal in nature. These disorders are restricted to a subset of the dyslexic population, and have little influence on the development of phonology and reading. It therefore seems that the phonological deficit that is characteristic of dyslexia can arise in the absence of any auditory disorder, with the most severe auditory impairments nevertheless acting as aggravating factors (Ramus 2003). 2. Does dyslexia exist? There is also some debate on whether it is meaningful to speak of dyslexia as a distinct disorder in relation to other individuals classified as poor readers. If it can be proven that there is no significant difference among individuals diagnosed with dyslexia and your average or garden-variety poor reader, then it would make sense to question whether to study dyslexia at all. 2.1 Difference between dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers Gough and Tumner (1986, as cited in Siegel 1992) introduced the concept of the garden-variety poor readers in order to separate dyslexics from poor readers found to be poor in language, listening, verbal knowledge, decoding skills or pronunciation language. The authors differentiated dyslexics from the poor readers by diagnosing them as low in decoding skills but not long in listening. Behind this differentiation is the definition of reading disability based on an aptitude-achievement discrepancy (Stanovich 1991). There were children who were observed to be poor readers but perform well in other skills. On the other hand, there were poor readers who perform poorly in intellectual skills. This discrepancy criterion made the key assumption that: poor readers with a high aptitude (based on IQ test scores) were neurologically and cognitively different from poor readers with a low IQ. Hence, clinically, the term dyslexic came to mean only children with significant discrepancy in reading ability and intelligence. The discrepancy criterion is the basis of legal statutes governing special education practice in the U.S. and elsewhere. Academically, research definitions of dyslexia use this criterion widely. Dyslexia is officially diagnosed using the discrepancy criterion in the ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders (World Health Organisation 1993), and to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV [DSM-IV]. Before a child or adult is diagnosed as dyslexic, his or her reading achievement must be considerably lower than what is expected of him or her by age and IQ score. Valtin (2010) concludes that using this criterion, dyslexia is then defined as a medical, eetiological concept of specific reading impairment in children of normal intelligence, due to genetic or neuropsychological deficits'(p. 3) while normal reading disability occurs in children tested as having subnormal intelligence. The operationalisation of the discrepancy concept has been critiqued as a reification of something that has not been substantiated empirically (Stanovich 1994). The basic assumption is that a child or adults intellectual capacity is the norm for determining reading underachievement. Hence, the degree of discrepancy of reading ability from IQ was judged as meaningful, in the almost total absence of empirical evidence (Stanovich 1994, p. 581). Children with reading disabilities were categorised as RD-D or reading-disabled with IQ discrepancy (dyslexics) and RD-N (reading-disabled without IQ discrepancy (poor readers). Supporters of the discrepancy criterion argue that differentiation among poor readers assists in determining which learning interventions suit groups of reading-disabled children. Because dyslexics suffer from reading disorders without showing measurable signs of intellectual weakness, their needs are different from those who read poorly because of low IQ, socioeconomic disadvantage, health problems, and others. There are many however who question its usefulness in diagnosis because dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers experience the same weaknesses in spelling and reading (Valtin 2010). Moreover, the task of differentiating children with reading disorders into dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers is a largely arbitrary one (Rice and Brooks 2004) because it may be diagnosed under one method but not in another. Because there is no clear-cut definition of dyslexia, it has been considered a construct to refer to descriptive characteristics and not due to any cognitive dysfunct ions (Rice and Brooks 2004). 2.2 Diagnosing differences between dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers It is also relevant to review existing literature and empirical data to conclude that it is scientifically possible to distinguish which children are dyslexics and which are garden-variety poor readers. While some findings have pointed to noticeable differences between dyslexics and poor readers, they are mixed and cannot be considered unequivocal evidence to suggest differences in both groups. Rice and Brooks (2004) listed several studies that suggested moderate differences in the performance of dyslexic and poor readers on a few reading-related tests but these differences are overrun with similarities in performance of the same groups in tests measuring reading-related characteristics such as reversal errors in alphabet, digital sequencing errors, spelling of sight vocabulary, phonemic segmentation, and pseudoword reading. Moreover, studies (Fawcett et al 2001, Jorm et al 1986, as cited in Rice and Brooks 2004) have also found that garden-variety readers had lower scores than dyslexics in the areas of rhyme task, memory span, segmentation, and pseudoword repetition. Badian (1994) conducted an experimental study to secure support for the treatment of dyslexia as a separate entity by proving that dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers differ significantly in cognitive skills which are reading-related. Using 110 children subjects grouped into three dyslexic, garden-variety poor readers, and good readers, Badian (1994) found that it is empirically sound to differentiate dyslexics from garden-variety poor readers. While nonword reading and phonological awareness among dyslexic and garden-variety poor readers were both low in comparison to good readers, the study found that dyslexics had unique weaknesses in phonological coding of graphic stimuli and automatic visual recognition, consistent to Stanovichs phonological-core variable-difference model of dyslexia. Aaron (1989) also found differences between dyslexics and non-dyslexic poor readers in an experimental study on reading comprehension but not on word reading. Using two groups of primary-level poor readers, one group diagnosed as dyslexics (normal IQ scores) and the other as NSRD (nonspecific reading-disabled) or those having below normal IQ scores. The dyslexics were inferior than other two groups in terms of spelling and decoding, were more context-dependent when it came to word recognition, and did the worst on inferential comprehension. Ellis, McDougall, and Monk (1996) had somewhat contradicting results with Aaron (1989). Using four groups dyslexics (mean IQ 118), normal readers (mean IQ 107), and garden-variety poor readers (mean IQ 80), and precocious readers (mean IQ 126) the study measured reading accuracy as a measure of reading ability. They concluded that dyslexics and garden-variety poor readers had insignificant differences in decoding skills, consistent with Siegels (1992) claim and Stanovichs (1994) assertion. Moreover, unlike Aarons (1989) earlier finding, the poor readers obtained lower scores on comprehension of text and listening comprehension compared to dyslexics. The lack of scientific rigour in some of the psychometric tests and research on differentiation has also been criticised. Two control groups are required to undergo such experiments. Controlling for confounding variables in the tests is also difficult. Researchers need to take note of demographic and psychometric measures to establish validity of the findings (Chiappe et al. 2001, as cited in Rice and Brooks 2004). While Aaron (1989) and Badian (1994) gathering encouraging results that support differentiation, they also accepted several methodological issues with their experiments. First, the definitions were not uniformly used. There were considerable age differences in the sample of normal readers and garden-variety poor readers as well as the type of experimental design used. 2.3 Relationship of intelligence and dyslexia The discrepancy-based criterion in diagnosing dyslexics is largely because of a few prominent and highly gifted dyslexics known in history. Hence, dyslexia has come to be known as a disorder afflicting individuals who are otherwise intelligent but have difficulty reading. However, as Siegel (1992) explains, there is absolutely no scientific data suggesting that only intelligent people have dyslexia or that people considered of low intelligence cannot suffer from dyslexia. The reason why level of intelligence is used to isolate individuals having reading programs is that the IQ score is the best measure of someones intellectual capacity. Hence, people with a high IQ can be said to have greater intellectual capacity than those who have lower IQ. In the context of the reading-disabled, a dyslexic is someone who cannot perform up to their maximum potential because of neurobiological or genetic factors. Intelligence scores also