Rationalism empiricism Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Rationalism empiricism - Assignment Example The thesis differs with the different variables for, S. The difference between innate knowledge and intuition and deduction thesis comes in on how this knowledge prior to experience is under acquisition. The innate knowledge theory offers that the knowledge is due to rational nature while the intuition and deduction theory argues on basis of subsequent deductive reasoning. This thesis states that some concepts are not from experience. It argues that although an experience may trigger a process by which an action is brought to consciousness, the experience will not determine the information within them. Descartes argues that in order for true knowledge one has to have certainty, and certainty of the external world is not what one can prove through empirical methods, while Leibniz argues that the knowledge of some particular world truths appeals to what we know rather than the nature of knowledge therefore this knowledge is from intuition and deduction. In relations of ideas, Hume argues that this is the confirmation which is either demonstratively or intuitively certain and this is where geometry, algebra and arithmetic lie, while in ‘matters of fact’, their certainty is not true through evidence and a contrary would exist but it would never contradict the matter of fact. The mathematical knowledge seems to be about something bigger than the knowledge in people, the knowledge of moral judgment determines how we ought to behave and the verification principle fails because it has a cognitive meeting. 3) The argument Markie describes as ‘the kind of reasoning that has caused many philosophers to adopt some form of Innate Knowledge Thesis.† (pg. 18). This is the one where plato argues that the knowledge is part of

Critical Appraisal - Packaging Design and the consumer behaviour Lab Report

Critical Appraisal - Packaging Design and the consumer behaviour - Lab Report Example This essay is an appraisal of the product design process that explains and evaluates the different aspects of packaging product designs. Packaging design is a business function in an enterprise that can be utilized to accomplish different strategic purposes for a company depending on the needs of the firm. Among the different attributes a designer can implement into a packaging design include shape, color, weight, technology compatibility, graphics and durability and functionality (Young, 2002). Packaging solution are created based on the needs of a segment of customers who demand for a particular trait in a product can lead to increases sales for a company based on packaging design superiority. A company that used design innovation to increase the sales of its products is Neese Products. This firm specializes in food storage utilized different plastic designs that can be applied to most pre-opened original packaging using a zip slider top and adhesive strips to maintain freshness and prevent spillage (Smith, 2007). There are ways to further integrate packaging design can be used as a strategic tool to add value to a corporation. The packaging industry realized that best way to attract a global customer audience is to identify the customers preferences and integrate the international input into the packaging design. The global audience is interested in protecting the world’s environment. A green product is a product manufactured on an eco-friendly manner to protect the environment (Colorado, 2005). An example of a firm that utilized packaging design environmentally sustainable focus is Johnson & Johnson. The company emphasized a moved to recycled content in its packaging design for products. The firm’s increased its post customer recycled from 15% to 80% while at the same time reducing the use of PVC used on consumer primary, secondary and tertiary packaging solutions (Rhoda, 2007). Packaging designs are influenced by the target market the company

Idiopathic parkinsons disease

Idiopathic parkinsons disease Introduction: Idiopathic Parkinsons disease (IPD) is a movement disorder associated with loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and the development of Lewy bodies. A reduction in normal striatal dopamine levels of 80% or more results in the cardinal symptoms of IPD, namely bradykinesia, rigidity, rest tremors and postural instability (1). Although the motor symptoms of Parkinsons disease are well defined, the non-motor features of this disorder are under-recognized and, consequently, undertreated. Non-motor symptoms and their management have been recognised by the UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence as an important unmet need in IPD (2). Results from a recent international survey show that up to 62% of non-motor symptoms of IPD, such as apathy, pain, sexual difficulties, bowel, urinary incontinence, and sleep disorders might remain undeclared to health-care professionals because patients are either embarrassed or unaware that the symptoms are linked to IPD (3). Results from early studies suggested that urinary dysfunction (UD) affects between 37% and 70% of individuals with IPD (4). However, many of these studies may have overestimated the prevalence of UD since they were published prior to the recognition of multiple system atrophy (MSA) as a separate disease entity. In addition, many studies recruited patients with symptomatic bladder dysfunction from tertiary referral centers. The use of non-validated questionnaires and the inclusion of patients with other forms of Parkinsonism such as cerebrovascular Parkinsonism may have led to further bias (5). More recent studies, using accepted diagnostic criteria for IPD, have found the prevalence of UD to be between 27% and 39%. When compared to a control group the relative risk of bladder symptoms in IPD is 2-fold (6). The aim of this work is to evaluate the urinary symptoms at different stages of IPD severity and its relation to urodynamic tests. Patients and methods: This study was conducted on 57 patients with probable IPD attending Urology and Neurology departments, Tanta University Hospital for evaluations of the lower urinary tract symptoms. ALL patients were subjected to, history taking including International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), physical examination and neurological examinations. IPD patients were stratified into 5 stages according to Hoehn Yahr disability stages (7). The IPSS questionnaire was administrated to each patient by one of us to help the patient understand the questionnaire. All men underwent digital rectal examinations and pelvic ultrasonography to exclude prostatic hyperplasia. Eight patients diagnosed with prostatic hyperplasia were excluded from the study. All patients (49 patients) were subjected to urodynamic studies. Statistical analysis: Data are presented as mean  ± SD. Analysis was performed with SPSS statistical package version 12 (SPSS, USA). For statistical purpose the disease severity stages were divided into mild (stages 1 and 2 HY), moderate (stage 3 HY) and severe (stages 4 and 5 HY). Results: Demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients; This study was carried on 49 patients with probable IPD, 31 male patients and 18 female patients, their age ranged from 56-73 years (mean 63.73 ±7.21 years).The duration of illness was 4-11 years (mean 7.81 ±3.27 years).According to Hoehn and Yaher classification of Parkinsons disease disability stage, we had 4,10,29,5,1 patients distributed into stages 1 to 5 respectively. The number of patients in stage 3 was higher than other stages; this may be due to few lower urinary symptoms in early stage of the disease and severe motor and psychiatric symptoms that affect daily life activities in advanced stages. Antiparkinsonian drugs received by the patients were levodopa (41patients), dopamine agonists (39 patients) and anticholinergics (24 patients). Lower urinary tract symptoms; The most frequent symptoms of lower urinary tract dysfunctions were symptoms due to storage disorder which include nocturia (77.5%), urgency (36.7%) and frequency (32.6%) (Table 1). The IPSS index scores; The total IPSS scores and irritative index scores were correlated significantly with disease severity while obstructive index scores did not (Table 2). Also, there was significant correlation between total IPSS score and quality of life score (Table 3). Urodynamic parameters; In this study, we found 33 (67.3%) patients with detrusor hyperreflexia, 6 (12.2%) patients with hyporeflexia, 10 (20.4%) patients with normal detrusor function (Table 4). Volume at initial desire to void and maximum bladder capacity (urodynamic parameters associated with filling phase) were correlated with disease severity while detrusor pressure and post-void residual urine(urodynamic parameters associated with voiding phase) did not (Table 5).There was significant correlation between irritative symptoms score index and volume at initial desire to void and maximum bladder capacity meanwhile the obstructive symptoms score index had no significant relations with any of urodynamic parameters (Table 6). Antiparkinsonian drugs; The patients were divided into 2 groups, one group was taking anticholinergic drugs (24 patients) plus Levodopa or dopamine agonists, the second group was taking Levodopa and dopamine agonists(25 patients). There was no significant difference between the 2 groups as regard the mean of urodynamic parameters (Table 7). Table 1. Frequency of the of lower urinary tract symptoms of IPD patients Symptoms Patients NO % Nocturia 38 77.5 Urgency 18 36.7 Frequency 16 32.6 Incomplete emptying 4 8.1 Intermittency 3 6.1 Weak stream 1 2 Table 2. Total, irritative, and obstructive symptom indexes of IPSS at each stage of disease severity Stages of disease severity No Pts Mean IPSS ±SD Irritative obstructive total Mild(stages 1,2) 14 6.3 ±2.1 1.4 ±1.2 7.6 ±2.4 Moderate(stage 3) 29 7.9 ±3.2 3.3 ±2.6 11.2 ±4.5 Severe(stages 4,5) 6 10.4 ±2.7 6.2 ±3.5 16.6 ±5.1 One-way ANOVA P =0.001 Table 3. Correlation between IPSS and Quality of life scores at different stages of disease severity Stages of disease severity Total I-PSS mean ±SD Quality of life score mean ±SD Mild (stages 1,2) 7.6 ±2.4 2.8 ±1.9 Moderate (stage 3) 11.2 ±4.5 3.7 ±1.4 Severe (stages 4,5) 16.6 ±5.1 5.2 ±1.1 One-way ANOVA P=0.003 Table 4. The frequency of urodynamic findings in IPD patients Stages of HY No. Pts Normal Hyperreflexia Hyporeflexia 1 4 3 1 0 2 10 3 7 0 3 29 4 20 5 4 5 0 4 1 5 1 0 1 0 Total No. (%) 49 10(20.4) 33(67.3) 6(12.2) Table 5. Urodynamic parameters at different stages of severity of IPD Stages of disease severity Volume at initial desire to void (mean ±SD)(ml.) Maximum bladder capacity (mean ±SD)(ml.) Maximum void phase. detrusor pressure (mean ±SD)(cm.water) Post-void residual urine volume. (mean ±SD)(ml.) Mild (14Pts) 115 ± 28 195 ± 60 55 ± 15 13 ± 12 Moderate (29Pts) 95 ± 25 191 ± 59 57 ± 20 20 ± 18 Severe (6Pts) 89 ± 20 184 ± 56 59 ± 25 22 ±20 One-way ANOVA P=0.006 Table 6. Correlation between urodynamic parameters and IPSS scores Urodynamic parameters Irritative score Obstructive score R P r P Initial void desire vol. 0.95 0.001 0.92 0.35 Max Bladder capacity 0.76 0.04 0.68 0.27 Detruser pressure 0.96 0.24 0.89 0.17 Post residual Urine Vol. 0.89 0.43 0.94 0.06 Table 7. Correlation between urodynamic parameters (storage phase parameters) and antiparkisonian drugs Urodynamic parameters Anticholinergic drug group N0=24 Non anticholinergic drug group No=25 P Initial void desire vol. 102 ±27 97 ±25 ≠¥0.05 Max Bladder capacity 192 ±58 188 ±56 ≠¥0.05 Discussion: Urinary dysfunction in IPD is most frequently caused byurinary storage problems, rather than voiding dysfunction, and manifest as an overactive bladder (8). In the current study, the most prevailing urinary symptom in IPD, was nocturia (up to 77.5%), followed by urgency (36.7%) and frequency (32.6%) and these results are going with previous studies (9, 10). These may lead to urinary incontinence, which may be in part functional if immobility or poor manual dexterity complicates the situation. Since many patients with IPD have a disturbed sleep pattern and nocturnal polyuria, the actual prevalence of definite nocturia may be overestimated (12). In this study, the most striking finding of bladder dysfunction in IPD patients is detrusor hyperreflexia, which is reported in 67.3% of symptomatic patients whereas detrusor hyporeflexia is reported in 12.2% of IPD patients and normal bladder function in 20.4%. Another study which evaluated voiding function in IPD found that 67% had detrusor hyperreflexia, 16% had hyporeflexia, 9% had detrusor hypereflexia with impaired contractile function, 3% had hyperreflexia with detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia and only 6% had normal detrusor functions (11). Dopaminergic mechanisms are thought to play a central role in normal micturition control and dysfunction of these may lead to detrusor overactivity. Dopaminergic neurons have both inhibitory and stimulatory effects on micturition acting via D1 and D2 receptors respectively. Such neurons are of particular abundance in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNC) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain. The most widely accepted theory is that the basal ganglia inhibits the micturition reflex in the ‘normal situation via D1 receptors, and that cell depletion in the SNC in IPD, results in loss of this D1-mediated inhibition and consequently detrusor overactivity (12). However, 12.2% of our patients had hyporeflexia which may be explained possibly by drugs especially anticholinergic and dopammiergic drugs which can inhibit bladder function and impairment of autonomic nervous system in advanced IPD. In this study, both pathological urodynamic parameters, volume at initial desire to void and maximum bladder capacity decreased with disease severity. These findings can be explained by detrusor hyperactivity. In contrast, other studies showed that post-void residual urine volume increased with disease severity (13, 14). This finding was not fully understood, but this was explained on the assumption that with advanced disease process, long standing hyperreflexia may eventually lead to impairment of bladder contractility together with the hypokinesia of pelvic floor muscles resulting in bladder outlet obstruction with consequent increase in post-void residual urine volume (13, 14). Others believe that they may be secondary to anticholinergics, obstructive uropathy, or point to the presence of multiple system atrophy (15). Because many IPD patients are on multiple drug therapy, which can inhibit bladder function, the current study, demonstrated that the mean of urodynamic parameters did not differ in patients who did or did not receive anticholinergics or dopaminergic drugs, which suggests that it is part of the IPD itself. These results are going with that of Araki et al. (11), who found no difference in the mean of urodynamic parameters among patients on different antiparkinsonian drugs (11). On the other hand, many studies showed conflicting results(16-18)that some suggest cortical dysfunction (18) or a possible implication of nondopaminergic lesions in the occurrence of bladder dysfunction in IPD (16). Lower urinary tract symptoms quantified by IPSS showed that irritative symptoms index score correlated with disease severity and with detrusor overactivity that was manifested urodynamically by decrease in volume at initial desire to void and maximum bladder capacity(storage phase) whereas the obstructive symptoms index score did not correlate with disease severity nor urodynamic parameters. In contrast, some other studies show that, irritative symptoms index score correlated with detrusor overactivity and obstructive symptoms index score correlated with voiding underactivity. Additionally, both irritative and obstructive symptom index scores increased with disease severity (13, 21).This discrepancy between the present study and other studies may be explained by fewer numbers of patients in advanced disease stage and the patients evaluated under multiple drugs therapy in advanced disease. In conclusion, most of the patients with IPD suffer from urological disorder; most commonly is detrusor hyperactivity which results in irritative urinary symptoms that correlate well with disease severity. These disabling symptoms significantly affect quality of life of IPD patients. References: 1-Clarke C. Parkinsons disease in practice. 2nd ed. London: Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd; 2006 2-Chaudhuri KR, Healy D, Schapira AHV. The non motor symptoms of Parkinsons disease. Diagnosis and management. Lancet Neurol 2006; 5: 235-45. 3-Mitra T, Naidu Y, Martinez-Martin P, et al. The non declaration of non motor symptoms of Parkinsons disease to healthcare professionals. An international survey using the NMSQuest. 6th International Congress on Mental Dysfunctions and other Non-motor Features in Parkinsons disease and Related Disorders. Dresden October, 2008. Park Related DisordersP0II: 161. 4-Andersen J. Disturbances of bladder and urethral function in Parkinsons disease. International Urol and Nephrol 1985;17:35-41. 5.Blackett H, Walker R, Wood B. Urinary dysfunction in Parkinsons disease: a review. Parkinsonism Relat Disord 2009 Feb;15(2):81-7. 6- Hobson P, Islam W, Roberts S, Adhiyman V, Meara J. The risk of bladder and autonomic dysfunction in a community cohort of Parkinsons disease patients and normal controls. Parkinsonism Related Disorders 2003; 10:67-71. 7-Gelb DJ, Oliver E, Gilman S. Diagnostic criteria for Parkinson disease. Arch Neurol 1999;56:33-39. 8-Eckhardt MD, van Venrooij GE, Boon TA; Symptoms and quality of life versus age, prostate volume, and urodynamic parameters in 565 strictly selected men with lower urinary tract symptoms suggestive of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Urology 2001 Apr; 57(4):695-700. 9-Hoehn MM, Yahr MD. Parkinsonism: onset, progression and mortality. Neurology 1967; 17: 427. 10-Defreitas GA, Lemack GE, Zimmern PE, Dewey RB, Roehrborn CG, OSuilleabhain PE. Distinguishing neurogenic from non-neurogenic detrusor overactivity: A urodynamic assessment of lower urinary tract symptoms in patients with and without Parkinsons disease. Urology2003 Oct;62(4):651-5. 11-Araki I, Kuno S. Assessment of voiding dysfunction in Parkinsons disease by the international prostate symptom score. J Neurol Neurosurg and Psych 2000;68:429-433. 12- Porter B, Walker R. The night time problems facing Parkinsons patients. CME J Geriat Med 2007;8:99-103. 13- Araki I, Kitahara M, Oida T, Kuno S. Voiding dysfunction and Parkinsons disease: urodynamic abnormalities and urinary symptoms. J Urol2000 Nov;164(5):1640-3. 14-Seki S, Igawa Y, Kaidoh K, Ishizuka O, Nishizawa O, Andersson KE. Role of dopamine D1 and D1 receptors in the micturition reflex in conscious rats. Neurourol Urody2001; 20:105-13. 15-Yoshimura N, Mizuta E, Yoshida O, Kuno S. Therapeutic effects of dopamine D1/D2 receptor agonists on detrusor hyperreflexia in MPTP lesioned parkinsonian cynomoglogous monkeys. J Pharmacol Exper Therap 1998;286(1):228-233. 16-Pavlakis AJ, Siroky MB, Goldstein I and Krane RJ. Neurourologic findings in Parkinsons disease. J Urol 1983; 129:80-83. 17-Stocchi F, Carbone A, Inghilleri, et al. Urodynamic and neurophysiological evaluation in Parkinsons disease and multiple systems atrophy. J Neurol Neurosurg Psych 1997;62:507-11. 18-Wing K, Werdelin L, Nielson K, Stimpel H. Effects of dopaminergic treatment on bladder function in Parkinsons disease. Neurourol Urodyn 2004;23:689-96. 19-Aranda B, Cramer P. Effects of apomorphine and L-dopa on the Parkinsonian bladder. Neurourol Urodyn 1993;12:203-209. 20-Christmas TJ, Chapple CR, Lees AJ, Kempster PA, Frankel JP, Stern GM. Role of subcutaneous apomorphine in parkinsonian voiding dysfunction. Lancet1988 Dec 24-31;2(8626-8627):1451-1453. 21- Dubow JS. Autonomic dysfunction in Parkinsons disease. Dis Mon 2007;53:265-274.

Holistic Medicine :: essays papers

Holistic Medicine Millions of people around the world are living with pain that could be prevented with the use of alternative therapies. As a result many of these people use harmful or ineffective drugs and surgeries in an attempt to cure their ailments. With a steady schedule of massage therapy, acupuncture, and healthy foods, people can lead a healthy and invigorating life without drugs or surgery. During the time of the ancient Roman gladiators, massage therapy was used to treat everything from headaches to sports injures on them. Today massage therapy is widely recognized as a sensible alternative to traditional medicine, in that it relieves pain and soreness otherwise helped by taking pills or other medicines. Massage can help everyone, including premature infants according to USA Weekend, "premature infants who get regular massages in the hospital gain more weight and leave the hospital sooner then unmassaged babies"(McNichol,22). I firmly believe that massage therapy is one of the best preventative measures that a person can take to avoid most medical problems involved with aging, physical exertion, and the stress of everyday life. Some doctors agree by saying, "If you have a massage every week, you will have 2/3 less illness" (H. Gruenn, M.D.). There are many different types of massage therapy including relaxing Swedish massage for relieving stress, sports massage for treating sports related injuries, and therapeutic massage to name a few. Relaxing Swedish massage is one of the most effective ways to deal with that invisible killer, stress. By applying smooth gentle stokes or other non-invasive massage techniques, the Swedish massage practitioner can relieve the client of the every day stresses of life that can be fatal if not dealt with. In sports massage, the use of more advanced massage techniques can relieve athletes of lactic acid and other wastes that accumulate in the muscles due to exertion. Other therapeutic massage techniques such as Neuromuscular, Myofascal, and Lymphatic drainage can aid in the recovery of injured clients. Another form of alternative therapy is the ancient Chinese healing art of acupuncture. Acupuncture was first experimented within the First Imperial Medical College of China during the Sui Dynasty in 589 AD. "In Chinese medicine, and therefore in acupuncture, health is determined by a persons ability to maintain a balanced and harmonious internal environment."(Mills pg. 8). This theory of internal harmony is expressed through the principles of Ying and Yang and it's five separate phases: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Internal harmony is also based on the uninterrupted flow of the "Qi", or vitality. The Qi is responsible for all Holistic Medicine :: essays papers Holistic Medicine Millions of people around the world are living with pain that could be prevented with the use of alternative therapies. As a result many of these people use harmful or ineffective drugs and surgeries in an attempt to cure their ailments. With a steady schedule of massage therapy, acupuncture, and healthy foods, people can lead a healthy and invigorating life without drugs or surgery. During the time of the ancient Roman gladiators, massage therapy was used to treat everything from headaches to sports injures on them. Today massage therapy is widely recognized as a sensible alternative to traditional medicine, in that it relieves pain and soreness otherwise helped by taking pills or other medicines. Massage can help everyone, including premature infants according to USA Weekend, "premature infants who get regular massages in the hospital gain more weight and leave the hospital sooner then unmassaged babies"(McNichol,22). I firmly believe that massage therapy is one of the best preventative measures that a person can take to avoid most medical problems involved with aging, physical exertion, and the stress of everyday life. Some doctors agree by saying, "If you have a massage every week, you will have 2/3 less illness" (H. Gruenn, M.D.). There are many different types of massage therapy including relaxing Swedish massage for relieving stress, sports massage for treating sports related injuries, and therapeutic massage to name a few. Relaxing Swedish massage is one of the most effective ways to deal with that invisible killer, stress. By applying smooth gentle stokes or other non-invasive massage techniques, the Swedish massage practitioner can relieve the client of the every day stresses of life that can be fatal if not dealt with. In sports massage, the use of more advanced massage techniques can relieve athletes of lactic acid and other wastes that accumulate in the muscles due to exertion. Other therapeutic massage techniques such as Neuromuscular, Myofascal, and Lymphatic drainage can aid in the recovery of injured clients. Another form of alternative therapy is the ancient Chinese healing art of acupuncture. Acupuncture was first experimented within the First Imperial Medical College of China during the Sui Dynasty in 589 AD. "In Chinese medicine, and therefore in acupuncture, health is determined by a persons ability to maintain a balanced and harmonious internal environment."(Mills pg. 8). This theory of internal harmony is expressed through the principles of Ying and Yang and it's five separate phases: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Internal harmony is also based on the uninterrupted flow of the "Qi", or vitality. The Qi is responsible for all

Globalization †Has Globalization Made The World More Or Less Secure Essay

The world is evolving and in the last few decades, some of the major changes have taken place in the world. Out of the many changes, one of the major transformations that have taken place is what is referred to as globalization. Globalization has taken over the world by storm and reduced large distances; it has resulted in many changes in the last decade and has been supported and promoted by the advent of technology. The world has turned into a global village which is so small that distances no longer carry much importance. Globalization is not a single concept but one which has various aspects like technological, economical, cultural and social and each one of its dimension has a broad scope. Since, the world is now interconnected because of globalization, this has facilitated and created opportunities in different aspects, but has also resulted in increased competition and many insecurities. In this essay, we first discuss globalization and explain what it is, discuss briefly some of its drivers, then discuss some of the non state actors and the impact of globalization on the world in terms of security. Globalization Globalization can be defined in various ways. It is the process where extension of connections takes place on a global basis, creating a social connection of life at a global level and resulting in the fusion of global societies. The term is comprised of different large processes; the definitions thus also vary according to what is emphasized in the description. With respect to the true meaning of the word, there is difference in opinion as to what it actually refers to as it may indicate actual processes as they take place in life, thoughts which validate the course of action or simply the manner in which people form perception of these processes. Globalization is thus understood through the different definitions that exist and each of these definitions articulate diverse considerations of global change brought about by the phenomenon of globalization (Lechner, 1, 2001). Globalization generally is considered to be a procedure that increases the interconnectedness and inter reliance amongst the business and markets of the world (INVESTOR 2008). Thus, globalization results in bringing the markets and businesses of the world closely linked to each other, but the term is not limited to just an economical dimension, therefore, it would be more appropriate to inculcate in it the aspects of politics, social, culture and ethics. Globalization may also be considered as a practice of a social nature where the diminution of the limitations of geography on provisions of cultural and social nature occurs and people are more conscious over time of the fact that limitations are diminishing (Waters, 9, 1995). Drivers of globalization Globalization has been driven by a number of factors which have broadened its scope even more. The increased pressure on costs causes companies to move their resources to such places where they are more cheaply available. Many products have reached a certain level of market saturation in their respective markets, therefore, giving rise to the need to search for new markets. Customers have become more savvy and quality conscious which has resulted in globally increased demands that have to be met. Governments at different places have introduced policies to promote globalization such as levied taxed and allowing open markets. There is development in technology every other day and many of these technological changes facilitate globalization (Briscoe & Schuler, 14-15, 2004). There are a number of trading blocs existing in different regions that place different rules for trading among countries and pave way for open trade amongst them. The advent of internet has resulted in world wide communication and flow of information which makes information available at fingertips to be accessed at any time. The different cultures are more closely integrated and boundaries have become blurred because of global communication and availability of different products and services like music, food, clothing etc. the workforce is now more educated across the world and thus is able to meet the demands of globalization. Trade barriers have decreased and markets have become more open resulting in increased competition and thus searching for opportunities in overseas market to keep up with the competition. Finally, E-commerce makes a business global, the very moment it hosts its website online, making it available to customers across the globe (Briscoe & Schuler, 14-15, 2004). The major contribution to globalization has been made by technological advances which have paced up the process considerably in the last two decades, thus, facilitating traveling, communicating and conducting business on an international level. Amongst the many drivers of globalization, two major ones are advancement in telecommunication infrastructure and internet, which are a result of technological development (INVESTOR, 1, 2008). Non state actors Governments have a vital role to play in the process of globalization, they should be able to plan and implement vital policies and negotiate important international bodies for expressing the views of their nations and obtain benefits by stressing their national interests. Though the states are important but there are different non state actors, among them are organizations which support globalization. Among these, World Economic Forum and World Trade Organization are the two most prominent ones. The World Economic Forum lacks the authority to make decisions yet it has great influence and high importance. This foundation has played its part in providing a forum for the networking needs of governments, business and non-profit leaders on a global level. On the other hand, The World Trade Organization is an entity which was created with the objective of defining rules that will oversee global trade and capital flows by taking consent of its members and make sure that the established rules are adhered to by supervising the concerned acts of the member countries (INVESTOR, 1, 2008). The formation of WTO was meant to revolutionalize the scope of issues related to global trade and to assure the conformity of to its principles of international trade and settle conflicting disputes of the concerned domain by its dispute-settlement mechanisms (UN, 1, 2000). Another important non state actor is the UN which has a vital role to perform in globalization on the basis of its multilateral system, which is necessary for working globally as there is a need for cop operation with each other across the globe. The multilateral system is important for the making of international policies that reflect shared values within the boundaries of law (WC, 1, 2004). But the UN has delegated its power of dealing with social and economic subjects to WTO, WB and IMF. The WTO has such approach that often leaves out developing countries in the decision-making. The decision making policy of the UN need to have more participation from the developing matters at least in the issues pertaining to them so that they may efficiently serve the needs of such nations. The economic and social powers that were shifted to other bodies are over burdening these bodies and resulting in inefficient mechanisms, therefore, these powers should be brought back with the UN but with proper policies and rules that may benefit all nations (Khor, 1, 2000). Implications of globalization Globalization is now a common feature of the world economy but it is not accepted by everyone with open arms. Though globalization results in opportunities and competition for everyone across the globe and provision of opportunities is good and if viewed positively, even competition is good as it results in more efficient production. But on the other hand, globalization cause deprivation for specific groups of people who do not have sufficient resources to cope with it. Consequently, in the increasing pressure of competition brought about by the inter-connection of their economies with the rest of the globe, these people are incapable of functioning efficiently and thus stand at a disadvantage (INVESTOR, 1, 2008). Globalization requires economic, social and political adjustments for people of different societies, areas or regions to accept and characterize their culture with an aim to integrate it with that of the rest of the world. It endorses global integration significantly and asks for elimination of existing barriers between different cultures. Those who support the process justify this kind of integration by resembling it with that of the significant technological information devices like satellites and computers. The critics argue that the proposed integration of cultural is in fact aimed at cultural invasion and will result in the degeneration of cultural identity and its spirit whereas those who support it deem the declining of cultural boundaries as an ample indicator of improved communication processes, combination of societies and a signal of capacity aimed at amalgamation of civilizations. There is evidence of how the global socioeconomic forces belonging to the industrialized West have invaded these poorer countries and may eventually cause them to lose the characteristics of their religion and society. It is observable that the means which assisted in bringing cultures nearer to each other may also have caused the exhaustion of many of these global cultures (Moussalli, 1, 2003). An overlook of the governance of globalization shows that it is dictated by strong players and countries, proper rules and institutions to regulate the different aspects like trade or finance are lacking and poor people and countries stand at a clear disadvantage as they are unable to reap the benefits of the phenomenon (WC, 1, 2004). Globalization has not helped in equitable development as there is an increase in disparities and poverty. Politically, even though the national boundaries are growing blurred but upon closer observation, we get to know that it is not a result of the free choice of people but a model imposed by stronger powers (Sabourin et al. , 56, 2000). The focus of globalization has stayed on the aspect of economy and business for a long time but it is about time to realize its effects on the personal and professional life of people. Although problems like poverty, human rights violation, unemployment were present even before globalization took over but these have been fuelled by globalization along with added disadvantage of social exclusion for many poor nations of the world. Deduction from many of the studies related to globalization shows that it is someway responsible for the growing inequality as the poor usually do not get to derive their share of the benefits offered by the phenomenon; among such nations, the developing countries are most affected. But there are also studies that suggest the benefits availed by the poor from globalization when facilities are provided to the poor like credit access, technical know-how, social safety nets as income support and well targeted food aid (Nesvisky, 1, n. d. ). With respect to employment, we see that there has been a decline in labor intensive jobs which has consequently led to lower demand of unskilled labor and resulted in lower earnings for this group as compared to the skilled group of workers. Another phenomenon is that low-skilled jobs are moved over to countries which offer labor at lower wages; this results in low demand for low-skilled workers. Liberalization of economy is of great concern to the developing countries, which have a motive to derive benefits from increasing trade and investment flows, yet they yield increased unemployment and inequality (Lee, 1, 1996). The phenomenon of child labor is deeply interwoven within the context of the societies or households where it exists, it was present even before globalization in the developing countries and it is in these countries that the practice has increased even more because of globalization. In the developing countries, mainly those of the poor and consequently the pressure and need for working for women and children has increased and in certain cases become vital for survival. Due to inflation and decreasing social sector budgets, children have to work either to substitute for the working mothers domestically or to add to the family income by working outside (Raman, 1, 1997). Global insecurities The economic, technical and social changes brought about by globalization have greatly affected the lives of people. Global insecurities have been brought about by the fast spreading of information and growth of the media industry globally which has affected existing identities and resulted in decline of social cohesion and cultural diversity. Globalization is guided only by a few powers and works in their favor, the strategies established by them doesn’t seem to work and benefit the great majority of the people around the world. This has resulted in insecurity and ambiguity for the poor and the middle-classes (Raghavan, 1, 2000). There has been unsustainable development, excessive use of resources, negative impacts on existence of original communities, and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Consequently, there are insecurities and social tensions coming from international and intra-national inequalities (Dass, 1, 2002). The insecurities are also attributable to the international bodies, which are explicitly in absence of state influence as these are non state actors. Their rules are designed and implemented on a basis which considers regulation of the global activities in various aspects of life by and under the control of such influences which are not considerate towards the smaller powers and play by their own rules without having a respect for the weaker associates who are exploited (UN, 1, 2000). The insecurities have also been created due to a lack of widely available social services for every country and social class. Global insecurities are also related to hindrances towards the development of low income groups and therefore it is vital to erase distortions like inequalities and take measures to encourage the productive potential of low-income groups. Globalization definitely has its benefits but they are accompanies with new vulnerabilities, for this reason, there is confusion in the voice of public opinion about globalization. Taking steps to reduce global insecurity and equally distributing the benefits may help in creating a sustainable support for the phenomenon (Brookings, 1, 2001). Conclusion: Though globalization may be considered to be a positive phenomenon which has resulted in various opportunities for people in the form of increased trade, choices of goods, improved lifestyle, enhanced communication and other benefits. But, globalization has also created many adverse impacts upon the life of people like increased poverty in poor nations, unemployment and low wages for low skilled workers, turning education into a commercial activity and cultures losing their individual identities. There are non state actors like international organizations which integrate the different nations together and formulate rules to guide their path in the light of globalization, making the process a little smoother but on the same lines, the same bodies result in insecurities for people magnified by globalization. Thus, globalization is a phenomenon which apparently may look beneficial to all but actually benefits only the dominant powers and that too at the expense of weaker ones and unless something is done to stop the exploitation and mutually benefit everyone, insecurities will continue to grow.

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Mixed Code in Hong Kong Speech

2012 International Conference on Asian Language Processing A Corpus-based Analysis of Mixed Code in Hong Kong Speech John Lee Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics City University of Hong Kong [email  protected] edu. hk Abstract—We present a corpus-based analysis of the use of mixed code in Hong Kong speech. From transcriptions of Cantonese television programs, we identify English words embedded within Cantonese utterances, and investigate the motivations for such code-switching.Among the many motivations observed in previous research, we found that four alone account for more than 95% of the use of English words in our speech data across genres, genders, and age groups. We performed analyses over more than 60 hours of transcribed speech, resulting in one of the largest empirical studies to-date on this linguistic phenomenon. Keywords-code-mixing; English; corpus linguistics. code-switching; Canton ese; II. PREVIOUS RESEARCH I. INTRODUCTIONWhile Cantonese is the mother tongue for the vast majority of the people in Hong Kong, English is also spoken by 43% of the population [1], reflecting the city’s heritage as a British colony. A well-known feature of the speech in Hong Kong is code-switching, i. e. , â€Å"the juxtaposition of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems or sub-systems, within the same exchange† [2]. Specifically, in the case of Hong Kong, the two grammatical systems are Cantonese and English.The former serves as the ‘matrix language’, and the latter as the ‘embedded language’, resulting in Cantonese sentences with English segments such as (example taken from [3]): canteen heoi3 canteen jam2 caa4 ‘let’s go to the canteen for lunch’ Here, the English segment contains only one word (‘canteen’), but in general, it can be a whole clause. We will use the general term â₠¬Ëœcode-switching’ rather than the more specific term ‘code-mixing’, which refers to switching below the clause level, even though most English segments in our corpus indeed contain only one or two words (see Table 3).There is already a large body of literature devoted to the study of Cantonese-English code-switching from the theoretical linguistic point of view [3,4,5]. This paper investigates the motivations behind the use of mixed code, on the basis of a large dataset of speech transcribed from television programs. In Section II, we outline previous research on the motivations of code-switching, and discuss how our investigation complements theirs. In Section III, we describe our methodology for corpus construction, in particular the design of the taxonomy of code-switching motivations.In Section IV, we present an analysis of these motivations according to genre, gender and age. The first major framework for classifying codeswitching motivations in Hong Kong c onsists of two categories: ‘expedient’ and ‘orientational’ [6]. Central to this framework is the distinction between words in ‘high Cantonese’ and ‘low Cantonese’. In everyday conversations, a speaker sometimes cannot find any word from ‘low Cantonese’ to describe an object, institution or idea (e. g. , ‘application form’). Using a word from ‘high Cantonese’ (e. g. , biu2 gaak3), however, would sound too formal and therefore stylistically inappropriate.In expedient mixing, the speaker resorts to an English word; the mixing is pragmatically motivated. In contrast, orientational mixing is socially motivated. The speaker chooses to use English (e. g. , ‘barbecue’) despite the availability of equivalent words from both ‘low Cantonese’ (e. g. , siu2 je5 sik6) and ‘high Cantonese’ (e. g. , siu1 haau1), since he perceives the subject matter to be inherently more ‘western’. This dichotomy has been criticized as overly simplistic, because of the ambiguity in defining lexical and stylistic equivalents among ‘low Cantonese’, ‘high Cantonese’, and English.Instead, a four-way taxonomy is proposed: euphemism, specificity, bilingual punning, and the principle of economy [7]. This taxonomy is then further extended, in a study of code-switching in text media [8], to include quotations, doubling, identity marking, and interjection. These categories will be explained in detail in Section III. While these classification systems are comprehensive and well grounded, they do not per se convey any sense of the relative importance or distribution of the various motivations.Our goal is, first, to empirically verify the coverage of these classification systems on a large dataset of transcribed speech; and, second, to give quantitative answers to questions such as: Which kinds of motivations are the most prominent? Does t he range of motivations differ according to the speech genre, or to the speaker’s gender or age? We now turn our attention to the methodology for constructing and annotating a speech corpus for these research purposes. III. DATA A. Source Material Our corpus is constructed from television programs broadcast in Hong Kong within the last four years by Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB).The programs belong to a variety of genres, including two drama series, three current-affairs shows, a news program, and a talk show. The news program, TVB News at Six-Thirty, carries the most formal register, containing mostly pre-planned 165 978-0-7695-4886-9/12 $26. 00  © 2012 IEEE DOI 10. 1109/IALP. 2012. 10 speech by the anchor. The current-affairs shows, Tuesday Report, Sunday Report and Hong Kong Connection, are serious in tone but contain spontaneous discussions. The talk show, My Sweets, is about food and drink.It also contains spontaneous discussions, but the topics tend to be lighte r. Although pre-planned, the speech in both drama series, Moonlight Resonance and Yes Sir, Sorry Sir, is arguably the least formal in register, designed to reflect natural speech in everyday life. Details of these TV programs are presented in Table 1. Table 1: Television programs that serve as the source material of our corpus. Genre Program Length Current Tuesday Report ( ), 135 episodes affairs ), X 20 minutes Sunday Report ( Hong Kong Connection ( ) Talk 24 episodes My Sweets ( ) show X 30 minutesEuphemism: When a Cantonese word explicitly mentions something that the speaker finds embarrassing, s/he might opt for an English word that contains no such mention. For example, to avoid the female body part hung1 ‘breast’ in the word hung1 wai4 ‘bra’, the speaker might prefer to use the English ‘bra’ (all examples are taken from [7]): bra tau3 bra gaak3 gaak3 ‘A princess whose bra is visible’ Specificity: â€Å"Sometimes an English e xpression is preferred because its meaning is more general or specific compared with its near-synonymous counterparts,† [7] in either low or high Cantonese.For example, the verb ‘to book’ means ‘to make a reservation for which no money or deposit is required’, which is more specific than its closest equivalent in Cantonese, deng6 ‘to make a reservation’. It is often used in sentences such as: book ngo5 soeng2 book saam1 dim2 ‘I want to book 3 o’clock’ Principle of Economy: â€Å"An English expression may also be preferred because it is shorter and thus requires less linguistic effort compared with its Chinese/Cantonese equivalent. † [7] While the word ‘check-in’ has two syllables, its Cantonese equivalent baan6 lei5 dang1 gei1 sau2 zuk6 ‘check-in [on a plane]’ has six.The principle of economy is thus likely the reason behind mixed code such as: check-in nei5 check-in zo2 mei6 aa3 Ã¢â‚¬Ë œHave you checked in already? ’ The taxonomy in [8] builds on the one in [7], further enriching it with categories2 below: Quotation: When citing text or someone else’s speech, one often prefers to use the original code to avoid having to perform translation. An example is direct speech: â€Å"What do you think? † jau5 go3 pang4 jau5 man6 ngo5 what do you think ‘A friend asked me, â€Å"What do you think? ’ Doubling: Originally named ‘Emphasis or avoidance of repetition’ [8], it will be referred to as ‘Doubling’ [9] here to make it explicit, as this category refers to English words that are embedded alongside Cantonese words that have the same or nearly the same meaning. The purpose is to emphasize the idea or to avoid repetitions. In the following sentence, it serves as an emphasis: 2 News Drama TVB News at Six-Thirty ( ) Moonlight Resonance ( ), Yes Sir, Sorry Sir ( Sir Sir) 5 episodes X 20 minutes 4 episodes X 45 minute s B.Data Processing From the television programs listed in Table 1, all code-mixed utterances were transcribed, preserving the original languages, either Cantonese or English. Following standard practice, loan words are not considered to be mixed code; in our context, all English words (e. g. , ‘taxi’) that have been adapted into Cantonese phonology (e. g. , dik1 si2) were excluded. The TV captions corresponding to each of these utterances are also recorded as part of the corpus. These captions are in standard Chinese, rather than Cantonese.Furthermore, alignments between the Chinese word(s) in the caption and the English word(s) in the utterance are annotated. This information will be used in the classification of motivations. Finally, two kinds of metadata about the speaker are recorded: gender (male or female) and age group (teenager or adult). C. Taxonomy of Code-Switching Motivations Our goal is to quantitatively characterize the motivations behind code-switching; to this end, each English segment in the Cantonese sentences in our corpus is to be labeled with a motivation. Due to time constraint, this classification was performed only on the currentaffairs and talk shows.The ‘expedient’ vs. ‘orientational’ classification system is too coarse for our purpose. Instead, we adopted the taxonomy in [7,8] as our starting point, then introduced some new categories to accommodate our data. The categories in [7] are1: 1 A fourth category, ‘bilingual punning’, is excluded from our taxonomy. As may be expected, punning is rarer in speech, and is indeed not found in our corpus. Among these categories is ‘identity marking’, for mixed code that marks â€Å"social characteristics such as social status, education status, occupation, as well as regional affiliation. [8] We found it difficult to objectively identify this motivation, and excluded it from our taxonomy. 166 Very good very good m4 co3 aa1 Ã¢â‚¬Ë œVery good, very good! ’ Interjection: English interjections may be inserted into the Cantonese sentence. For example: Anyway anyway nei5 hou2 sai1 lei6 ak1 ‘Anyway, you are awesome! ’ A significant amount of mixed code in our corpus, however, still does not fit into any of the above categories. Most fall under one of two reasons, ‘Personal Name’ and ‘Register’.We therefore added them to our taxonomy: Register: This is roughly equivalent to the ‘expedient’ category in [6], but will be referred to as ‘Register’ in this paper to make the motivation explicit. Sometimes, the speaker cannot find any equivalent ‘low Cantonese’ word, but feels awkward to use a more formal ‘high Cantonese’ word (e. g. , paai1 deoi3 ‘party’). As a result, s/he resorts to an English equivalent instead. For example, party hoi1 ci2 laa1 ngo5 dei6 go3 party ‘Our party is starting’ Personal Name: It is common practice among Hong Kong people to adopt an English name.Although this phenomenon may be considered ‘orientational’ codemixing in terms of the ‘western’ perception [6], it is given its own category, because it is very specific and accounts for a substantial amount of our data. A typical example is: Teresa, Teresa ngo5 dei6 zing2 dak1 leng3 m4 leng3 ‘Teresa, did we make it nicely? ’ D. Annotation Procedure We thus have a total of eight categories in our taxonomy of code-switching motivations. Five of these categories – namely, ‘euphemism’, ‘quotation’, ‘doubling’, ‘interjection’, and ‘personal name’ – can usually be unambiguously discerned.The annotator, however, has often found it difficult to distinguish between ‘specificity’, ‘register’, and ‘principle of economy’. To maintain consistency, we adopted the fol lowing procedure. When an English segment does not fit into any of the five â€Å"easy† categories, the annotator is to decide whether it has the same meaning as the Chinese word in the caption to which it is aligned. If it is deemed not to have the same meaning, then it is assigned ‘specificity’. If it is equivalent in meaning, and the annotator cannot think of any equivalent in ‘low Cantonese’, then it is labeled ‘register’.Lastly, if there is a ‘low Cantonese’ equivalent, but its number of syllables is larger than that of the English segment, then the motivation is ‘principle of economy’. IV. ANALYSIS English segments in Cantonese speech (section A), then discuss the distribution of the categories of motivations, both overall and with respect to genres, genders, and age groups (section B). A. Density and Length of English Segments It is well known that English words are sprinkled rather liberally in the Canto nese speech in Hong Kong. We measure how the frequency of English segments varies across different genres.As shown in Table 2, the frequency correlates with the register of the genre (see Section III. A). In the drama series, the most colloquial genre, one and a half English words are uttered per minute on average. The talk show occupies second place, and the current affairs shows have slightly less frequent English words. In the news program, where the speech is preplanned, the anchor did not utter any English word. Table 2: The total number of Cantonese sentences containing English segments, and the total number of English words transcribed. The last column shows how often an English word is uttered.Program genre Drama Talk show Current affairs News # sent with English 219 487 1495 0 # English words 259 625 1995 0 Frequency (words/min) 1. 4 0. 87 0. 74 0 Second, we measure the length of the English segments. Table 3 shows that the vast majority of English segments contain no more than two words. Across all genres, more than 80% of the English segments consist of only one English word. This figure is comparable to the 81. 4% for text data reported in [8]. Table 3: Proportion of English segments with only one (e. g. , â€Å"canteen†) or two words (e. g. , â€Å"thank you†).Program genre Drama Current affairs Talk show One-word 85% 85% 81% Two-word 11% 11% 17% This section presents some preliminary analyses on this corpus. We first consider the frequency and length of B. Motivations for the use of mixed code A plethora of motivations have been posited for the use of mixed code in Hong Kong (see Section II). Applying our proposed classification system (see Section III. C) on our corpus of transcribed speech, we aim now to discern the relative prevalence of the various kinds of codeswitching motivations. Table 4 shows the distribution of these motivations in the current-affairs and the talk shows.Four dominant motivations – chiefly ‘reg ister’, but also ‘personal name’, ‘principle of economy’, and ‘specificity’ – are attributed to more than 95% of the English segments. This trend is the same across genres (current-affairs and talk shows), genders (see Table 6), and age groups (see Table 5). All other categories, including quotations, euphemism, doubling, and interjection, are relatively infrequent. Genres. Among the four dominant motivations, ‘register’ – the use of appropriately informal words – is the most frequent motivation in both the current-affairs and 167 talk shows.Its proportion, however, is significantly more marked (47. 4%) in the talk show than in current affairs (36. 4%), reflecting the more informal nature of the former. Table 4: Distribution of code-switching motivations, contrasted between genres. Motivation Current affairs Talk show Register 36. 4% 47. 4% Personal Name 26. 8% 24. 5% Principle of economy 19. 0% 17. 6% S pecificity 13. 2% 8. 2% Quotation 2. 1% 1. 0% Doubling 1. 4% 0. 4% Interjection 0. 9% 1. 0% Euphemism 0. 3% 0% Age groups. Table 5 contrasts the distributions of code-switching motivations between adults and teenagers in the current-affairs shows 3 .As mentioned above, the four major motivations remain constant. However, teenagers are much more likely than adults to use English words to achieve more informal register (52. 4% vs. 35. 1%). They also tend more to opt for English to save effort (23. 8% vs. 18. 6%). Somewhat surprisingly at first glance, teenagers address others in English names less often than adults (2. 4% vs. 28. 8%); it turns out that in the conversations in our corpus, teenagers often prefer to address adults with the more formal Chinese names, likely out of respect.Table 5: Distribution of code-switching motivations, contrasted between age groups. Motivation Adults Teenagers Register 35. 1% 52. 4% Personal Name 28. 8% 2. 4% Principle of economy 18. 6% 23. 8% Specif icity 13. 1% 14. 3% Quotation 1. 9% 4. 0% Doubling 1. 3% 2. 4% Interjection 0. 9% 0% Euphemism 0. 3% 0. 8% use English names to address others (32. 9% vs. 18. 9%); men, on the other hand, more frequently use English words to reduce effort (22. 9% vs. 14. 8%). V. CONCLUSIONS We have described the construction of a corpus of Cantonese-English mixed code, based on speech transcribed from television programs in Hong Kong.Drawn from more than 60 hours of speech, this corpus is among the largest of its type. A novel feature of the corpus is the annotation of the motivation behind each code-mixed utterance. Having proposed a classification system for these motivations, we applied it on our corpus, and reported differences in the use of mixed code between genres, genders and age groups. A key finding is that four main motivations – ‘register’, ‘personal name’, ‘principle of economy’, and ‘specificity’ — account for more than 95% of the embedded English segments.ACKNOWLEDGMENT This project was partially funded by a Small-Scale Research Grant from the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at City University of Hong Kong. We thank Man Chong Mak and Hiu Yan Wong for compiling the corpus and performing annotation. REFERENCES [1] K. H. Y. Chen, â€Å"The Social Distinctiveness of Two Code-mixing Styles in Hong Kong,† in Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, MA: Cascadilla Press, 2005, pp. 527541. J. Gumperz, â€Å"The sociolinguistic significance of conversational code-switching,† in RELC Journal 8(2), 1977, pp. 1—34. J.Gibbons, â€Å"Code-mixing and koineizing in the speech of students at the university of Hong Kong†, in Anthropological Linguistics 21(3), 1979, pp. 113—123. B. H. -S. Chan, â€Å"How does Cantonese-English code-mixing work? †, in Language in Hong Kong at Century’s End, M. C. Pennington (ed. ), 1998, pp. 19 1—216, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. D. C. S. Li, â€Å"Linguistic convergence: Impact of English on Hong Kong Cantonese,† in Asian Englishes 2(1), 1999, pp. 5—36. K. K. Luke, â€Å"Why two languages might be better than one: motivations of language mixing in Hong Kong†, in Language in Hong Kong at Century’s End, M.C. Pennington (ed. ), 1998, pp. 145—159, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. D. C. S. Li, â€Å"Cantonese-English code-switching research in Hong Kong: a Y2K review,† in World Englishes 19(3), 2000, pp. 305— 322. H. Cao, â€Å"Development of a Cantonese-English code-mixing speech recognition system,† PhD dissertation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. R. Appel and P. Muysken, Language contact and bilingualism. London: Arnold, 1987. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Table 6: Distribution of code-switching motivations, contrasted between genders.Motivation Female Male Register 37. 5% 40. 7% Personal Name 32. 9% 18. 9% Principle of economy 14. 8% 22. 9% Specificity 10. 9% 13. 2% Quotation 1. 9% 1. 7% Doubling 1. 1% 1. 3% Interjection 0. 7% 1. 1% Euphemism 0. 3% 0. 2% Genders. Finally, we investigate whether codeswitching motivations are biased according to gender. Aggregating statistics from both the current-affairs and talk shows, Table 6 compares the motivations of males and those of females. Females are shown to be more likely to 3 [7] [8] [9] The speakers in the talk show are predominantly adults. 168

Download Sites Violate Copyright Rules

Download Sites Violate Copyright Rules Many years ago technology wasn’t as popular as it is today. At most there may have been one computer in the home that the family had to share, the Internet wasn’t wireless†¦ you had to utilize your phone line in order to get on the Internet. Cell phones weren’t popular, at best there were two phone lines in your home and there were cordless phones that could be used. There may have been cable television, but not every room had a television in it. And there definitely weren’t any sites that you could get to in order to download things such as movies and music. How do Download Sites Violate Copyright Rules? Download sites have become very popular for many people to utilize these days. It’s a lot easier to get to these download sites with wireless Internet, everyone having a tablet, smart phone, smart television and so much other technology of their own. But what many people, that do utilize these download sites don’t take into consideration, is that these very download sites they are using violate copyright rules. Download sites violate copyright rules because these sites allow people to copy and get the media from the Internet that has been copyrighted without paying for it and without gaining permission from the person that did copyright the media. When You Download Content Without Paying for It, Youre Committing a Crime Anytime there is a form of media that has been marketed or produced, those that are involved in the process of doing so, get paid from the sale of the media content that has been produced. While they are producing that media they become the owners of it and at the end of the production copyright the media. The process of copyrighting says that the media cannot be reproduced, copied or resold without the permission of those that produced this very media. No matter what format the media is in†¦ whether it is music, a movie or games; if it is copyrighted you must pay to download it. If you are getting any form of media from a site that allows downloads without paying for it, you are committing a crime. It is also a crime if you share the music, movie or game without permission from the person or people that copyrighted the media. It’s not okay to just get the media format without getting permission from the copywriter. The exact crime that is being committed is copyright in fringement. In short, you are interfering with the exclusive rights that only belong to the person that is the copyright owner. If you choose to reproduce, display, distribute or even try to perform the work that has been copyrighted and protected by the owner you are performing copyright infringement. You should also enjoy these articles: Fraternity Violence in Higher Education The Bright Sides of Academic Intellectuals We Call Nerds Violent Video Games Are Dangerous for Psychological Health Violence in Children and the Media Violence Against Female University Students As much as some don’t like to admit, there are people that are watching out for people that are committing copyright infringement by downloading media from these download sites. There are certain groups that are monitoring these sites like these ones: the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).These are groups that are put in place just to monitor the illegal download. Although these groups tend to focus a lot of their attention on universities and colleges, they also look at repeat users and track where they are. Once they see who is downloading the media that has been copyrighted, they get in touch with the university or college (if it is someone that is a student). They let them know that illegal downloading is taking place, the school then tracks the student down and the authorities can begin legal action and in a lot of cases, they will seek ramifications from the person that has downloaded from the sites ille gally. Those that aren’t students get reported to local authorities and the same actions are taken place with them as with the students. What Are the Consequences? As a result, you should pay for the illegally downloaded media. Although it may not seem like it, if you are found guilty of copyright infringement there are a lot of things that you could be facing. You could have to do up to five years in jail. There may also be fines charged to you†¦ in a lot of cases those fines could be up to $150,000 for each file that you have downloaded. And if the copyright holder decides to file a legal suit against you, you could have more legal fees that you would have to pay. These sites aren’t safe for anyone involved. You don’t want to continue to download media from these sites. If you are found, you don’t want to have to endure the consequences that may follow. Although it seems like it’s easy and that you’ll get away with it, you don’t want to take the chances that you will get caught performing this illegal act.

Finding a Paying Market in Homeschoolers

Finding a Paying Market in Homeschoolers Most writers are always on the lookout for ways to earn a little extra cash with their craft. One of those ways kind of fell into my lap, and I face-palmed myself for not thinking about it before. A friend asked if I would teach a writing class at her homeschool co-op. I homeschooled my own children for 18 years, and it never occurred to me to offer my knowledge to other homeschoolers. Here are a few things you need to know to break into a local homeschool group. ==They plan classes for the following year in January. September of one year isn’t too early to approach them with your class ideas for the next year. ==Co-ops have wish lists to include their course needs and requests from parents. Many of those wishes go above and beyond what most homeschooling curriculums offer. For example, most parents teach grammar at home, but can’t teach their children how to write a novel. Perhaps a journalism class, with a bimonthly printed newspaper, would be a good addition to the co-op’s class list, or teaching a freelancing class where students could actually submit stories and articles to magazines that accept writing from kids. theclaremontreview.ca/#!writing-submissions/c1bm7 http://kidspiritonline.com/help/ newmoon.com/content/?id=1006type=1 http://polyphonyhs.com/submit/ skippingstones.org/submissions.htm stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/ teenink.com/Submissions/guidelines.php) ==Offer different ideas, reaching different age groups. While they may already offer a journalism class for high school age students, maybe teaching elementary students how to write and illustrate a picture book would complement the co-op’s needs. Many groups use IEW for creative writing classes. You can find out more about that curriculum at their website (http://iew.com). Study it and come up with an idea that is different, a need that isn’t already met. ==Write course descriptions and be specific. You don’t necessarily have to have your lessons planned out for the entire year, but you do need to know, and be able to communicate, what your plans are for the class. Create a syllabus to give students at the beginning of the year. ==Some parents want grades for their children to add to transcripts. Depending on what the parents are doing at home with their children, they may need you to grade, even if it just a pass/fail type of grade. Talk with the homeschool co-op to see what they require. ==Some co-ops will allow you to charge an extra fee for printing or supply costs. For example, when teaching a picture book class, you may need fancy paper, markers, stencils, and other art supplies for the children to use. This is a one-time fee for the year that allows you to purchase what is necessary for the benefit of the class. ==Expect a wide range in class number. You may only end up with a few students or up to as many as twenty, depending on the size of the co-op, scheduling conflicts, or simply the number of students interested in taking your class. ==Don’t be surprised if they require a background check. After all, you are working with their children. Teaching writing to homeschool students can be fun and exciting as well as profitable. To find a homeschool co-op in your area, visit http://a2zhomeschooling.com/regional/regional_worldwide_homeschooling/ or home-school.com/groups/ for list

Amity Centre for eLearning Essay Example for Free

Amity Centre for eLearning Essay Mr. Sreenivas (55) working as manager in Alfa Chemicals, a large scale industrial establishment engaged in the production of Phosphate and Sulphur. He has 30 years of experience in Alfa Chemicals. He has an excellent track record as Manager Human Resources within the organization. Many times he got ‘best  employer award’ to performance excellence. His area of expertise in recruitment and selection process, and performance appraisal has been widely acknowledged. The Information Technology division of Alfa Chemicals industry once faced acute shortage of manpower. Mr. Raj, Manager IT division put forward an immediate requirement of 10 employees in the IT division, to HR department, starting from junior level to senior level. As and when Mr. Sreenivas got the letter from Mr. Raj, in his department, he started processing of it. To get it done, he approached many sources. He had gone through the data bank of company and considered 100 resumes for recruitment from it. He also informed the employees and employers of the organization, in their respective departmental notice board, showing the immediate requirement of 10 employees to facilitate the internal recruitment procedures. From the employees and employers of Alfa Chemicals he got around 150 applications with resumes. In addition to that in order to give an opportunity to candidates’ external to the organization he floated an advertisement in several daily news papers viz., Times of India, Sakal, and Indian Express. From external sources he got around 350 applications. Almost 600 candidates, including internal and external applicants, applied for 10 vacant posts. To ensure the reliability and dependability of the process, Sreenivas made his personal scrutiny at all levels, in the recruitment and selection process. Since the entire department function as a team in HR, all the members trust each other and extended their valuable contribution in the recruitment and selection. The department conducted a preliminary interview in order to made first  screening process and filter the number of applicants. After the first screening process the HR department reduced the number of applicant list from 600 to 500 applicants. He conducted a written test and group discussion and there by further reduces the number of applicants to 300. These 300 candidates then exposed to one hour psychometric test and out of which 50 candidates selected for the final interview. From the final interview, 10 candidates finally selected. The entire process of recruitment and selection took almost 3 months. The selected candidates list then forwarded to the top management for the final approval. HR department informed the candidates that the appointment letters will be sent to those who are selected for the post. Sreenivas approached several time to the top management about to get final approval of list of candidates for the IT department. Sreenivas informed the IT department also that the delay in the final list announcement as the top  management take some more time. He waited almost 4 weeks. But, no reply at all. Mr. Raj, the IT manager every day enquired about the latest information about the final list of the candidates and tentative date of induction. Sreenivas faced the difficulty to make any comment on the subject as there was no information from the top management. HR department had to answer many phone calls from out side and inside the organization, as recruitment involved candidates from inside and outside. The employers and employees of the industry, whose relatives got into the final selection process, became regular visitors of the HR department, asking for the finalist. Sreenivas called a meeting of HR team members and once again made a close verification of the entire process. But he couldn’t find any fault in any of the recruitment and selection process. As the time went on he became more suspicious about the delay in the announcement of the result. When the problem becomes so crucial Sreenivas got direction from the top management to meet Mr. Kartik, General Manager, one of the top officials in the organization. Mr.Kartik asked the entire process of recruitment and selection that made on IT professionals. Sreenivas furnished the entire details of the process in a precise report. Mr. Kartik read the entire  report and soon after made a direct comment that the recruitment and selection process that for IT professionals need to be cancelled as he observed some discrepancies in the process made by his department. He further directed Sreenivas that the vacancies have to be filled through contract basis and no permanent vacancies to be made in these positions, for one year. Further he informed Sreenivas that another recruitment process to be done from external candidates applied and no internal application to be entertained. Sreenivas couldn’t agree with the Mr. Kiran comment on his department’s inefficiency in the recruitment and selection process. For a while he thought about quitting the organization, as he faced a baseless allegation from the top management. Till date there is no black mark in his functional dissemination. On many occasion he helped the industry to find out best possible solutions in order to tackle the many manpower crisis. Sreenivas became so depressed and felt quiet unhappy about the decision taken by the management. Mr. Sreenivas called an urgent meeting of his subordinates and communicated the management decision and directives. He shared with the team members that the management had greater dissatisfaction on the recruitment and selection process done by the department. He enquired that any one made any mistake in the  process. All members denied the probability of any mistake. As there were clear norms and regulations related to each step and there was no dual command, they found no possibility of creeping errors in the selection process. In the meeting he informed his subordinates that the management freezes the appointment process for IT professionals and asked for external recruitment on contract basis. It was shocking news to members. They asked several questions to get a proper clarification from Sreenivas. As Mr. Sreenivas himself unaware of the reasons behind management decision, he informed his subordinate his inability to give a proper reply in this regard. Sreenivas also informed this matter to Mr. Raj. During the evening hours, in the same day, Sreenivas got a call from Mr. George, one of his senior-level Managers, with whom he had friendly and informal relationship. Mr. George asked Srinivas to come to his cabin. As per the call Mr.  Sreenivas met George in his cabin. George enquired about his family and many unofficial matters in the informal interaction. Half an hour later, Mr. George enquired about the recruitment and selection process of IT professionals. He shared with George all those things happened with top management. Leaving aside the informal interaction, George initiated formal discussion with Sreenivas. He told Sreenivas that the selected list of IT professionals consisted two names, Mr. Avdesh and Mr. Praveen, they are the relatives of two trade union leaders of the organization. The management felt that being the relatives of two trade union leaders, in the long run, they could be a threat to organization. It may create an image that the trade unions still have a control over the decision making process in organization. Further, the hold of trade union may expand if this selection process materializes. Mr. Geroge informed Sreenivas that management didn’t have any doubt about the dependability and exactness of the recruitment processes that HR departmentr did. George further informed Sreenivas that as per the intimation from top management he called Mr. Sreenivas and briefed about the undercurrents of this episode. The entire news was shocking to Mr. Sreenivas. He didn’t know that the management decision had this much of undercurrents. After hearing entire story Sreenivas become so silent and returned to his cabin. While sitting inside his cabin, he made a silent comment that, â€Å"what a useless effort. Questions 1. What are the undercurrents of selection process in Alfa Chemicals? 2. How management decision justifies management effort in the maintenance of harmonious industrial relation? 3. Do you believe that as HR Manager, Mr. Sreenivas failed to gather direct and indirect information about the candidates? 4. How ‘cancellation of appointment’ decision that affect the moral of organizational members? 5. How you interpret the dilemma of HR managers have to face in such kind of situations. 6. What would be your decision if you have to face such situation? 7. Do you believe that trade unions have ‘quota’ in appointments? 8. How the decision affect the reduction of wastages and improvement of resources. 9. Is the decision reflecting management fear towards trade union or inability to develop a congenial industrial relationship within the organization? 10. How you interpret the silence of Mr. Sreenivas? Amity Centre for eLearning. (2016, Jun 02). We have essays on the following topics that may be of interest to you

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Knowledge management structures in NATO versus the United Nations Essay

Knowledge management structures in NATO versus the United Nations - Essay Example n and knowledge far better then it was previously possible, knowledge management in organizations has also the added dimension of interaction, knowledge sharing, communication and analysis. A lot of organizational knowledge is contained in the heads of personnel within the organizations. Because humans have a finite life – span and ambitions about better opportunities, all organizations have structures which not only create new knowledge but also transfer existing knowledge to those in need of it. The nature of the knowledge which is important to an organization is dependant on the task or mission which the organization is expected to perform and different organizations may have different requirements associated with the speed, reliability, volume of information or knowledge which has to be communicated for organizational use. The knowledge management structures which are put into place within organizations are shaped by the organizational requirements for knowledge management , which are different for various organizations. In this essay, an attempt has been made to compare the knowledge management structures within NATO with those which exist in the United Nations. NATO, which is a military alliance, has a requirement to manage large amounts of information which can quickly become obsolete and convert this information into knowledge for reliable and secure communications for the use of designated personnel. The pace at the United Nations is more leisurely. Hence, the knowledge management structures at these two organizations are slightly different. The term knowledge management refers to the management of intellectual capital which has bee described as: â€Å"Intellectual capital is intellectual material – knowledge, information, intellectual property, experience – that can be put to use to create wealth. It is the collective brainpower†. The term knowledge is subjective to the organizational and social context in which it is being thought of. Knowledge

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Religion and Well-Being Essay Religion can be defined as a strong belief in the supernatural power that holds the sole authority to control human destiny. It is an institution that helps to express our belief in a heavenly power. Religion is as old as the human civilization and came into existence when the human brain became superior to realize the significance of faith, and worship. Earlier humans lived in small groups, and each group recognized an icon that harmonized the ideologies of different people in the group. Rituals were an essential part of lives and were carried for natural resources icons such as moon, sun, fire, river, etc. since its beginning religion has been very beneficial for humans and it still holds an important place in the lives of people. Religion is a completely personal choice and should be left to the choice of individuals. It is unfair to force a religion on followers of some other religion through offering gifts and cash. Each religion has its own beliefs and ideologies and should be mutually respected by others in the world. Only then this world can become a better place to live. A growing number of studies convincingly demonstrate that people who are more deeply involved in religion tend to enjoy better physical and mental health than individuals who are less involved in religion (Ellison Levin, 1998; Koenig, McCullough, Larson, 2001). As this literature continues to develop, researchers have begun to tackle challenging issues that involve explaining how the salubrious effects of religion on health might arise. A number of potentially important theoretical perspectives have been devised. For example, some investigators argue that involvement in religion exerts a beneficial effect on health because it helps people cope more effectively with the deleterious effects of stress (Pargament, 1997), whereas other researchers maintain that the potentially important health-related effects arise from the sense of meaning in life that many people find through greater involvement in religion (Park, 2005). An explanation that was proposed some time ago forms the focal point of the current study. More specifically, a number of researchers have argued that people who are more involved in religion tend to have better health because they are more likely to adopt beneficial health behaviors than individuals who are less involved in religion (Levin Schiller, 1987). Subsequent research has provided support for this perspective. For example, a number of studies indicate that individuals who attend religious services often are more likely to avoid the use of tobacco and alcohol (Gillum, 2005; Strawbridge, Shema, Cohen, Kaplan, 2001). Moreover, greater involvement in religion has been associated with more frequent exercise, a better diet, better sleep quality, and the regular use of seat belts (Hill, Burdette, Ellison, Musick, 2006; Hill, Ellison, Burdette, Musick, 2007). There is also some evidence that religious individuals are more likely to engage in a range of preventive health practices, such as getting a regular mammography, having a routine cholesterol screening, and obtaining flu shots (Benjamins, 2006; Benjamins Brown, 2004; Benjamins, Trinitapoli, Ellison, 2006). Although there is broad-based empirical support for the notion that religious involvement is associated with beneficial health behaviors there is still a great deal that is not known about this relationship. One area that is in need of further development forms the focal point of the current study. More specifically, researchers have not devised well-articulated models that explain how involvement in religion promotes the practice of better health behaviors (e. g. , Benjamins et al. , 2006; Ellison et al. in press). This information is essential for the development of more effective interventions that are administered in religious institutions. As van Ryn and Heaney (1992) observe, â€Å"Clearly, application of well-defined and carefully tested theories to the program development process holds tremendous advantages for health educators in terms of coherence, effectiveness, and evaluation of interventions† (p. 328). Three potentially important mechanisms have been identified in the research that has been done so far. The first involves the notion that certain religious beliefs encourage people to take better care of their bodies. Included among these beliefs is the notion that the body is the â€Å"temple of God† (Ellison et al. , 2009) as well as the belief that better spiritual health is associated with better physical health (Benjamins et al. , 2006). Second, a number of investigators provide evidence which suggests that some people take better care of themselves if they worship in congregations that provide formal programs that are designed to promote better health behavior (Campbell et al. 2007; DeHaven, Hunter, Wilder, Walton, Berry, 2004). Third, other researchers report that people who attend church on a regular basis are more likely to adopt beneficial health behaviors because they are encouraged to do so by their fellow church members (Ellison et al. , 2009). For more than 100 years, researchers have argued that religion is an inherently social product. For example, James Mark Baldwin, an early president of the American Psychological Association, wrote in 1902: â€Å"The fact is constantly recognized that religion is a social phenomena. No man is religious by himself, nor does he choose his god, nor devise his offering, nor enjoy his blessings alone† (p. 325). Although the early theorists made invaluable contributions to the literature, they did not explore the more pragmatic implications of their insights. The current study was designed to contribute to more recent efforts by a new generation of scholars who have begun to assess health-related effects that appear to arise from deeper involvement in religion. We hope the findings from the current study and the theoretical perspective we have devised encourage further research in this field.