Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Identity theft Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Identity theft - Research Paper Example Identity theft involves the use of another individual’s personal information in order to gain access to financial or other information that would serve to benefit the criminal in some way. Identity theft has become an increasing problem globally in recent years, causing millions of people undue emotional, psychological, and physical trauma. In addition to this, the issue has cost society quite a lot of money. The heartache caused has limited access to critical services and denied credit availability to millions of honest and hardworking citizens around the world, and in particular the United States. It is a serious issue that needs to be tackled immediately before spiraling even further out of control. The aim of this study is to discuss the seriousness of the problem and to explore various ways that society can begin to protect itself from the evils of identity theft moving forward. Problem Statement The problem is that identity theft is destroying the financial security and freedom of countless individuals worldwide. As honest people have their identities stole, they are subject to a potential loss of credit access, have difficulty in gaining employment, and they may encounter problems of various sorts with law authorities. Upon becoming a victim, individuals must often hard to prove that their identity was stolen in the first place, often causing a great deal of anguish throughout the process. Governments and other officials across the globe are currently implementing measure to prevent identity theft, but the problem continues to grow exponentially (Adomi & Igun, 2008). The five major types of identity theft in existence today, and that form the basis for this study, are: 1) Criminal identity theft, 2) Financial identity theft, 3) Identity cloning, 4) Medical identity theft, and 5) Child identity theft. This study examines each of these areas in an effort to help the reader understand the warning signs of identity theft and assists them in the avoida nce of becoming a victim themselves in the future. Relevance and Significance of Understanding Identity Theft As has been discussed to this point, identity theft is a serious issue that must be tackled across all segments of society. It affects nearly everyone in our culture, either directly or indirectly. Even if a person is not a victim on their own, they often pay the price for the crime in other ways. An individual who has fallen victim to any of the major types of identity theft often find themselves embroiled in years of turmoil and strife trying to set the record straight. Families can be denied mortgages, criminals set free, and hospital services rendered to people who have no right to the benefits. These are just a few of the ills that can be realized as a result of identity theft. When honest members of society go to utilize certain services, which they are rightfully entitled to, they can quickly that they are denied access because someone else is using their name and per sonal information. It is an unfair burden to be sure, but one which criminal have bought to the forefront of modern reality. For these reasons, it is critical that we understand the issues surrounding how identity theft occurs and how to prevent it moving forward. That reality forms the focus for this study. Criminal Identity Theft Criminal identity theft involves one person committing a criminal act, proceeding to get arrested, and then

Monday, October 28, 2019

A comparison between Jean Rhys and Una Marson Essay Example for Free

A comparison between Jean Rhys and Una Marson Essay Voyage into the Metropolis: Exile in the Works of Jean Rhys and Una Marson. In Jonathan Millers 1970 production of Shakespeares The Tempest the character of Caliban was cast as black, therefore reigniting the link between the Prospero/Caliban paradigm as the colonizer/colonized. It was not a new idea, indeed Shakespeare himself envisaged the play set on an island in the Antilles and the play would have had great appeal at the time when new territories were being discovered, conquered, plundered and providing seemingly inexhaustible revenue for the colonisers. What is particularly interesting, however, is how powerful the play later becomes for discourse on colonialism. This trope of Caliban is used by George Lamming in The Pleasures of Exile where he likens Prospero in his relationship with Caliban, to the first slave-traders who used physical force and then their culture to subjugate the African and the Carib, overcoming any rebellion with a self righteous determinism. In The Pleasures of Exile Lamming sees Caliban as: Man and other than man. Caliban is his convert, colonized by language, and excluded by language. It is precisely this gift of language, this attempt at transformation which has brought about the pleasure and the paradox of Calibans exile. Exiled from his gods, exiled from his nature, exiled from his own name! Yet Prospero is afraid of Caliban. He is afraid because he knows that his encounter with Caliban is, largely, his encounter with himself. 1 The Prospero/Caliban paradigm is a very relevant symbol for the colonizer/colonized situation of the West Indies but it nevertheless remains a paternalistic position. Where does that leave women of the Caribbean? It could be argued that the Caribbean woman has been even further marginalized. That in making Caliban the model of the Caribbean man it is therefore providing him with a voice. Yet nowhere in the Tempest is there a female counterpart, rendering the Caribbean woman invisible as well as silent and ignoring an essential part of their historical culture. Another issue raised here, is that Caribbean literature has for many years been male dominated. Just as the colonizer sought to ignore and marginalize their savage Other so the Caribbean male has ignored their female counterpart. Opal Palmer Adisa, in exploring this issue, believes that it is out of this patriarchal structure, designed to make her an object, part of the landscape to be used and discarded as seen fit by the colonizer, that the Caribbean woman has emerged.2 It was out of such a patriarchal structure that Jean Rhys and Una Marson emerged. The writing of both women revise and expand theme and personae, subverting a colonial and patriarchal culture. Both women may exist in different ethnological and ontological realms but they both exist in worlds which have, at one time or another, attempted to censure, silence or ignore the ideals and interests of women3 Like many of their male Caribbean counterparts to succeed them, their writing was greatly influenced by voyaging into the colonial metropolis and living in exile. In this essay I will discuss the importance of that journey in seeking to find a voice, an identity, and even a language to challenge established notions of Self, gender and race within the colonial structure. But essential to their experience is their struggle. Naipaul recognised, in Rhys, the themes of isolation, an absence of society or community, the sense of things falling apart, dependence, loss.4 This could also be said of Marson. Jean Rhys was born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams on 24th August 1890, in Roseau, Dominica to a Creole mother of Scottish descent and a Welsh father who was a doctor. Rhys left Dominica in 1907, aged sixteen and continued her education in a Cambridge girls school and then at the Academy of Dramatic Art which she left after two terms. Rhys experienced feelings of alienation and isolation at both these institutions and these feelings were to stay with her for much of her life. Upon pursuing a career as a chorus girl under a variety of names Rhys embarked on an affair with a man twenty years older than herself and which lasted two years. It is broadly accepted that this early period of her London life formed the structure for Voyage In The Dark, and like all of Rhyss novels, explores homelessness, dislocation, the marginal and the migrant. The character of Anna, like most of her female protagonists exists in the demimonde of city life, living on the wrong side of respectability. What Rhy s does effectively in this novel is to centralize the marginalized, those subjects who belong nowhere, between cultures, between histories.5 Una Marson was born in rural Jamaica in 1905. Her father was a well respected Baptist minister and as a result of his standing within the community Marson had the opportunity to be educated on a scholarship at Hampton High School, a boarding school for mainly white, middle class girls. After finding employment as a stenographer, Marson went on to edit the Jamaican Critic, an established literary publication, and from 1928-1921, her own magazine The Cosmopolitan. Having established herself as a poet, playwright and womens activist Marson made the decision to travel to Britain. Her achievements in London were impressive; a social activist within the League of Coloured Peoples which led to her taking a post as secretary to the deposed Emperor Haile Selassie and later she was appointed as a BBC commentator. In reality, however, Marson, like Rhys found the voyage into the Metropolis very difficult. Facing blatant racial discrimination like so many West Indian women migrants of the 1950s, Una found herself blocked at every turn. She complained and cried; she felt lonely and humiliated,. 6 In spite of many literary and social connections she remained an isolated and marginal figure. Her poetry displays the uncertainty of cultural belonging where her language ties her to colonialism yet also provides her with a powerful tool with which to challenge it. In placing Rhys alongside Marson as pioneering female writers, it is important to explore the notion of nationality, of being Caribbean and to question the grounds upon which such ideas are constructed. Both women were writing at the same time, having been born and educated in the British colonies. Both these writers, whose lives span the twentieth century, are situated at the crossroads of the colonial and post-colonial, the modern and post modern, where the threat of fascism and war result in anti colonial struggles and eventual decolonisation across the world. Their voyages from the colonies into the metropolitan centre generate similar experiences. What is clear with both is that by journeying into the metropolis, as women, they occupy a double marginal position within an already marginalized community. Their journey can be seen as an exploration of displacement where, according to Edward W. Said, the intellectual exile exists in a median state, neither completely at one with the new setting nor fully disencumbered of the old, beset with half involvements and half attachments, nostalgic and sentimental at one level, an adept mimic or a secret outcast on the other.7 Rhys and Marson, having left the Caribbean are asking us to consider what it means to write from the margins. Within their work, both women challenge notions of womens place within society and womens place as a colonized subject in the metropolitan centre. The protagonist, Anna Morgan, in Voyage in the Dark, reflects Rhyss own multi indeterminate, multi conflicted identity. Anna, like Rhys is a white descendent of British colonists and slave traders who occupy a precarious position of being inbetween. Hated by the Blacks for their part in oppressing the slaves and continuing to cling on to that superior social position, they are also regarded by the mother country as the last vestiges of a degenerate part of their own history best forgotten. Moreover, 1930s England, still under the shadow of Victorian moral dicta, continued to judge harshly a young woman without wealth, family, social position and with an odd accent. Throughout the novel Anna is identified with characters who are usually objectified and silenced in canonical works: the chorus girl, the mannequin, the demimondaine.8 Much has been made of her reading of Zolas Nana and indeed there are many parallels between the two characters. Anna, like Nana becomes a prostitute and in the first version of Voyage in the Dark Anna like Nana dies very young. There is of course the obvious anagram of her name but, as Elaine Savory highlights, some interesting revisions by Rhys. Whereas Zola, in Nana, creates a character who brings about the downfall of upper class men not through power but with only the unsophisticated currency of youth and raw female sexuality9 Rhys, in Anna, creates a character who is herself destroyed by men. In Rhyss version the men who use her youth and beauty are for the most part evidently cowardly or downright disreputable: Anna herself begins as naively trusting, passes through a stage of self destructive hopelessness and passivity and ends, in Rhyss preferred, unpublished version, by dying from a botched abortion.10 If we are to see Walter Jeffries as the original European, existing in a world viewed certainly by himself as principally ordered and reasonable then Rhys is, through this character, highlighting the degenerate aspect of using power to commodify and even destroy, thereby subverting the colonizers position in relation to the colonized. Through the character of Anna, Rhys explores those oppositions of Self and Other, male and female, black and white. Even though she outwardly resembles the white European, enabling her, unlike Marson, to blend visually within London, her association with the Caribbean sets her apart as between black and white cultures and as an exotic Other. This ambiguity of Annas position results in slippage. Anna and her family would have been regarded in the West Indies as the white colonizers. In England and in her relationship with Jeffries she becomes the colonized Other. In being read as the colonized subject Anna is continually having to adapt her world view and sense of identity to the perspective being imposed on her. A good example of this is the chorus girlss renaming her as the Hottentot aligning her more with the black African and demonstrating the homogenizing of the colonized peoples by the colonizers. This is similar to Spivaks belief that so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism.11 Interestingly, Hottentot is the former name for the Nama, a nomadic tribe of Southern Africa. A somewhat apt comparison which reflects Annas own nomadic existence as she moves from town to town as a chorus girl and from one bed sit to another. The term Hottentot developed into a derogatory term during the Victorian era and became synonymous firstly with wide hipped, big bottomed African women with oversized genitals and then with the sexuality of a prostitute. Jeffries is fully aware of the implications of the name Hottentot. In response to hearing Annas renaming he says, I hope you call them something worse back.12 Elaine Savory makes a strong connection between Annas renaming and her relationship with Jeffries, her eventual seducer. Whilst not looking at Annas body in an obvious way, eventually the transaction between them is understood fully on his side to be a promise of sexual excitement from a white woman whom he perceives as having an extra thrill presumably from association with racist constructions of black females in his culture.13 Franz Fanon, in his book Black Skin, White Masks perceives these complex colonial relations as being in a state of flux rather than fixed or static. In his introduction to Fanons text, Homi Bhabha highlights this point, stating that the familiar alignment of colonial subjectsBlack/White, Self/Otheris disturbedand the traditional grounds of racial identity are dispersed.14 So it is in the relationship between Jeffries and Anna. In transposing the colonizers stereotypical images of a black woman onto Anna he is disrupting and dispersing those traditional grounds of racial identity. Moreover, Anna is subconsciously enacting a mediated performance, aware of her impact upon him and the implications of her actions, in an attempt to adhere to his preconceptions of her. The relationship cannot be sustained on these fundamentally unstable preconceptions. Anna, both as a female and racial Other is penetrated by Jeffries and with the exchange of money is commodified. Without independent means Anna becomes that purchasable girl who is at the mercy of and eventually becomes dependent upon the upper middle class Jeffries. The relationship between these two characters reflects Rhyss own location in the world where the West Indies was at the time still a commodity of the British Empire. In another analysis of the colonial stereotype, Homi Bhabha challenges the limiting and traditional reliance of the stereotype as offering, at any one time, a secure point of identification on the part of the individual,15 in this case Jeffries and Hester. Bhabha does not argue that the colonizers stereotyping of the colonized Other is as a result of his security in his own identity or conception of himself but more to do with the colonizers own identity and authority which is in fact destabilized by contradictory responses to the Other. In order to maintain a powerful position it is important, according to Bhabha, for the colonizer to identify the colonized with the image he has already fixed in his mind. This image can be ambiguous as the colonized subject can be simultaneously familiar under the penetrable gaze of the all seeing, all powerful colonial gaze and be incomprehensible like the inscrutable Oriental. The colonized can be both savageand yet the most obedient and dignified of servants; he is the embodiment of rampant sexuality and yet innocent as a child; he is mystical, primitive, simpleminded and yet the most worldly and accomplished liar , and the manipulator of social forces.16 In short, for Bhabha, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies which, when imposed upon the colonized Other, cause a crisis of identity. So it is with Anna. Jeffries upon first meeting with the very young Anna can see that she is as innocent as a child and is most obedient sexually, but by her association with the Caribbean and the Hottentot as I have previously explored, she is subsequently attributed with being the embodiment of rampant sexuality resulting in his taking of her virginity, abandoning her to prostitution but also leading to as Veronica Clegg observes a loss of temporal referents17 Annas stepmother, Hester, also attempts to impose an identity upon Anna which not only conflicts with Annas own sense of identity but is also based around stereotypical perceptions. . Hester, whose voice represents a repressive English colonial law18 believes that Annas fathers troubles resulted from his having lost touch with everybody in England19 and that these severing of ties with the Imperial motherland is a signal to her that he was failing,20 losing his identity, reduced to the level of the black inhabitants of the island. This idea of contamination and racial reduction is explored by Paul B. Rich who explains that there was a belief in the early twentieth century that white people in the tropics risked in the absence of continual cultural contacts with their temperate northern culture, being reduced to the level of those black races with whom they had made their unnatural home.21 In Hesters eyes this apparent loss of identity is also experienced by Anna. She continually criticizes her speech, her relationship with Francine the black servant, and also insinuates degenerative behaviour on the part of her family, particularly Uncle Bo. Hesters views reflect the growing disapproval in England at that time, of relationships between white people and the black population in the West Indies. Inter-racial relationships were discouraged for fear of contamination of the white Self. In voicing her disapproval of Annas friendship with Francine along with her continual use of the racist and derogatory term nigger, Hester is alluding to the fact that, in her opinion, Anna, especially through her speech, has indeed been contaminated and reduced racially and that Annas association with Francine thwarts her attempts to reconnect her with the colonizers cultural contacts. Hester rails that she finds it impossible to get you [Anna] away from the servants. That awful sing-song voice you had! Exactly like a nigger you talkedand still do. Exactly like that dreadful girl Francine. When you were jabbering away together in the pantry I never could tell which of you was speaking.22 Hesters constant criticism only serves to undermine Annas real identity and dislocate her further from the Caribbean world she once inhabited and the alienating London world she is now experiencing. Her accent sets her apart, drifting between two worlds. Annas difficulties in negotiating these two worlds is a result of the return of the diasporic to the metropolitan centre where the perplexity of the living is most acutely experienced.23 This can certainly be seen in her response to the weather which, according to Bhabha, invokes the most changeable and imminent signs of national difference24 The novel opens with; It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling things gave you right down inside yourself was different. Not just the difference between heat and cold; light, darkness; purple, grey. But a difference in the way I was frightened and the way I was happy. I didnt like London at first. I couldnt get used to the cold.25 And later upon arriving in England with Hester she describes it as being divided into squares like pocket-handkerchiefs; a small tidy look it had, everywhere fenced off from everywhere else 26and then in London where the dark houses all alike frowning down one after another27 Throughout the novel Anna continually experiences feelings of being enclosed. Many of the bedsits are restricting and box-like. On one occasion she remarks that this damned rooms getting smaller and smallerAnd about the rows of houses outside gimcrack, rotten-looking and all exactly alike.28 The many small rooms between which Anna moves emphasize her disempowerment through enclosed spaces. These spaces, in turn, serve as metaphors for the consequences in voyaging into the metropolitan centre. She is at once shut inside these small monotonous rooms and shut out from that world which has sought to colonize her. It is perhaps ironic that the further she moves into the centre of the city, ending up as she does on Bi rd Street, just off Oxford Street , the more she is shut out and marginalized by that imperialist society. Her memories of the West Indies are in sharp contrast to her impressions of England. The images of home are always warm, vivid and exotic, Thinking of the walls of the Old Estate House, still standing, with moss on them. That was the garden. One ruined room for roses, one for orchids, one for ferns. And the honeysuckle all along the steep flight of steps.29 When comparing the two worlds she remarks to herself that the colours are red, purple, blue , gold, all shades of green. The colours here are black, grey, dim-green, pale blue, the white of peoples faces like woodlice. 30 Her memory of home is experienced sensuously as she recalls the sights and smells: Market Street smelt of the wind but the narrow street smelt of niggers and wood smoke and salt fishcakes fried in lard and the sound of the black women as they call out, salt fishcakes, all sweet an charmin, all sweet an charmin.'31 Anna attempts to convey this richness to Jeffries. His failure to appreciate the beauty she describes merely underlines the differences between the two. He expresses a preference for cold places remarking that The tropics would be altogether too lush.32 Jeffriess reaction to the West Indies in fact reflects the colonizers view that the ruined room for roses and orchids portray a disorder, a garden of Eden complete with its implications of moral decay and as Bhabha states, a tropical chaos that was deemed despotic and ungovernable and therefore worthy of the civilizing mission.33 Annas association with this world sets her up, in Walters eyes, as a figure representing a secret depravity promising forbidden desires. Anna, like the West Indies is something to be overpowered, enslaved and colonized, where the colonizer seeks to strip their identity and impose their own beliefs and desires. It is significant, therefore, that following this scene Anna loses her virginity to Jeffries and recalls the memory of the mulatto slave girl, Maillotte Boyd, aged 18, whose record Anna once found on an old slave list at Constance.34 Like Maillotte Boyd, Anna is now merely a commodity and Jeffries has no intention of ever seeing her as an equal. Her purity, in his eyes isnt worth preserving as he already considers her the contaminated Other. By his actions he succeeds in maintaining that patriarchal imperialism which relies on institutional forms of racial and national separateness. Anna, as a twentieth century white Creole, is no freer than the nineteenth century mulatto slave. Just as Maillotte Boyd is, as racially mixed, suspended between two races, so Anna as a white Creole is suspended between two cultures, leaving her dislocated. Annas voyage into the imperialist metropolis leads to boundaries and codes of behaviour, language and dress being constantly imposed upon her. She is aware for example of the importance of clothes as a means of controlling her social standing and also her standing as a woman. Through her dress Anna almost becomes that elegant white lady, mimicking Londons female high society. For Jeffries, Anna represents the menace of mimicry, which , according to Bhabha is a difference which is almost nothing but not quite and which turns to menace- a difference that is total but not quite.35 This mimicry serves to empower Anna as it ultimately destabilises the essentialism of colonialist ideology, resulting in Jeffries imposing upon Anna the identity of the West Indian Other This in turn leads to feelings of loss, alienation and dislocation, a rejection of being white and a desire to be black. I always wanted to be black. I was happy because Francine was there.Being black is warm and gay, being white is cold and sad.36 Annas association with Hester meant that she hated being white. Being white and getting like Hester, old and sad and everything.37 Yet the warmth she expresses in her memories of Francine are always tempered by her realisation that Francine disliked her because I [Anna] was white.38 Her feelings of being between cultures and feeling dislocated are never fully resolved. Annas voyage in the dark, reflects Rhyss own sense of exile and marginality as a white West Indian woman. Teresa OConnor remarks that Rhys, herself caught between places, cultures, classes and races, never able to identify clearly with one or the other, gives the same marginality to her heroines, so that they reflect the unique experience of dislocation of the white Creole woman.39 The language used to express feelings of exile and loneliness, destitution and dislocation is both sparse and economic. It is neither decorative nor contrived, devoid of sentiment or without seeking sympathy. In commenting upon an essay written by Rhys discussing gender politics, Gregg writes that It is important to note her [Rhyss] belief that writing has a subversive potential. Resistancecan be carried out through writing that exposes and opposes the political and social arrangements.40 Helen Carr, in her exploration of Rhyss language believes that: Rhys in her fictions unpicks and mocks the language by which the powerful keep control, while at the same time shifting, bending, re-inventing ways of using language to open up fresh possibilities of being.41 Una Marson, another Caribbean to voyage into the metropolis, also experienced loneliness, isolation and a struggle with the complexity of identity. Like Rhys, Marson fought with these feelings throughout her life, resulting in long periods of depression. Her belief in womens need for pride in their cultural heritage established Marson as the earliest female poet of significance to emerge in West Indian literature.42 She not only challenged received notions of womens place in society but also raised questions about the relationship of the colonized subject to the mother country43 There was a considerable amount of poetry emerging out of the West Indies around this time but most of it was dismissed as being not truly West Indian,44 the reason for this being partly because many of the writers were English but also because many of the styles used by these writers mimicked colonial forms. Many of Marsons early poetry reflects this mimicry showing a reliance upon the Romantics of the English poetic tradition, particularly Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron. The poem Spring in England reveals this indebtedness to the Romantics, including as it does a stanza where, having observed the arrival of Spring in London, the poet asks: And what are daffodils, daffodils Daffodils that Wordsworth praised? I asked. Wait for Spring, Wait for the Spring, the birds replied. I waited for Spring, and lo they came, A host of shining daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees (The Moth p6)45 Clearly there are echoes of Wordsworths Daffodils throughout the stanza, reflecting the drive by colonialism through education to eradicate the West Indian selfhood. Yet for Marson this harnessing of English culture not only posed few problems but indeed was, I would argue, a necessary step in her voyage of self discovery. As seen with Rhys, mimicry was a subversive threat to colonial ideology, especially through language. Homi Bhabhas notion of mimicry seeks to explore those ambivalences of such destabilizing colonial and post-colonial exchanges. The menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority. The ambivalence of colonial authority repeatedly turns from mimicry a difference which is almost nothing but not quite to menace a difference that is almost total but not quite. And in that other scene of colonial power, where history turns to farce and presence to a part can be seen the twin figures of narcissism and paranoia that repeat furiously, uncontrollably.46 Bhabhas essay in recognising the power, the play and the dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized offers an alternative to the pessimistic view held by V.S. Naipaul who believed that West Indian culture was doomed to mimicry, unable to create anything original. Marsons mimicry of the Romantics could be seen as a preparation to enter the colonizers metropolis, and to attempt to assimilate into the colonizers world. In making that voyage to the metropolis, Una Marson succeeds in taking that step from the copy to the original. By remaining in Jamaica Marson risked remaining in an environment too rigidly ingrained by colonial prescriptions. Una Marsons voyage into the heart of the Empire, however, resulted in intense disappointment. For the first time, Marson experienced open racism and according to Jarrett-McCauley The truth was that Una dreaded going out because people stared at her, men were curious but their gaze insulted her, even small children with short dimpled legs called her NiggerShe was a black foreigner seen only as strange and unwanted. This was the Fact of Blackness which Fanon was to analyse in Black Skins, White Masks(1952), that inescapable, heightening level of consciousness which comes from being dissected by white eyes. 47 Unlike Rhys, Marson was finding it impossible to blend visually within London. Consciousness of her colour made Marson conscious of her marginality. This consciousness led her seriously to question the values of the mother country. Marsons work moved from mimicry to anti-patriarchal discourse, seen in her poem Politeness where she responds to the William Blake poem Little Black Boy with: They tell us That our skin is black But our hearts are white We tell them That their skin is white But their hearts are black (Tropic Reveries p 44) The poem demonstrates Marsons growing resentment at being alienated by the colonial power. There is an uncertainty in her desire to both belong and to challenge, echoing Rhys in her sense of cultural unbelonging. Those anti-patriarchal feelings are present once more in her poem Nigger where she communicates the anger she feels at being abused and marginalized as the racial Other. They call me Nigger Those little white urchins, They laughed and shouted As I passed along the street, They flung it at me: Nigger! Nigger! Nigger! She retorts to this abuse furiously with: You who feel that you are sprung Of earths first blood, your eyes Are blinded now with arrogance. With ruthlessness you seared My peoples flesh and now you still Would crush their very soul Add fierce insult to vilest injury.48 In its repetition of the shocking term Nigger, Marson is confronting the white colonialists use of the word to exert power over and oppress the colonized. The violence of its use reflects the violence of their shared history where Of those who drove the Negroes / To their death in days of slavery, regard Coloured folk aslow and base.49 In highlighting this history of violence, oppression and slavery, Marson is attempting to invert this oppression and dislodge the notion of white supremacy, whilst attempting to negotiate a position from West Indian to African and in doing so, fashion an identity. By writing the poem in the first person singular and moving from They to You when addressing the white colonizers, Marson succeeds in centralizing herself and reversing the binary system of Self and Other. Nigger marks Marsons sharpened perspective on issues such as racism and identity. Her voyage into the metropolitan centre triggers those emergent identifications and new social movements[being]played out.50 It was a time in Marsons life where she was made to feel inadequate, lonely and humiliated but it also roused her to resist the corrosive force of her oppressive world.51 Nigger reveals this sense of belonging and not belonging felt by Marson, of being part of the empire but never part of the Motherland, yet it simultaneously challenges the very essentialism in which the colonial Self is rooted. Moreover, the hostility she experiences in many ways acknowledges the success of Marsons performance as a hybrid. Marsons frustration and anger was compounded by the fact that in being middle class and educated she possibly saw herself as a notch above the poor, black working class women from the old communities in Cardiff, Liverpool and London52 Marson explores this question of how middle class West Indians negotiate being educated and yet marginalized and even considered inferior in her play London Calling. The play, based on the experiences of colonial students in London charts the story of a group of expatriates who, upon being invited to the house of an aristocratic English family, dress up in outlandish native costume and speak in broken English. The play, a comedy, takes a light hearted look at the stereotypical images held by the British, at the same time countering the myth of black inferiority. There is, in the play, a curious twist as the students from Novoko are presented as black versions of the British in their dress and behaviour, mimic men and yet they themselves attempt to mimic their own folk culture. They are eventually discovered by one of the family, Larkspur, who then proposes marriage to Rita, one of the Novokans. The play ends with Rita declining Larkspurs proposal in favour of Alton, another Novokan. This rejection of Larkspur places Rita in a powerful position. Rita is no longer the undesirable Other, she has resisted the oppressive world of the colonialists and placed herself as the centralised Self. Rita is Marsons fantasy where the black woman is recognised as beautiful and an equal. Marsons activities in the League of Coloured Nations gave her purpose, direction and the opportunity to advance her political education whilst introducing her to the Pan African movement a sort of boomerang from the horrors of slavery and colonialism, to which Una, like many of her generation, was being steadily drawn.53 Marsons work around this time reflects a desire to reclaim and restore that Other cultural tradition, a difficult task as the Caribbean was not an homogeneous agency and it was not easy to establish a pre-colonial culture. The ethnic mix was large and hybrid making the notion of Caribbeanness less easy to define. The Pan-African movement provided links with an alternative body to European colonialism and offered Marson a platform to renegotiate and redefine her idea of Caribbeaness and race, an option not offered to Rhys. Having established a sense of being a black person in a white imperialist centre, she now needed to make sense of being a black woman within this paternalistic centre. The poem Little Brown Girl attempts just this, constructing a dialogue of sorts between a white Londoner, whose gender is unclear, and a little brown girl. The poem begins with a series of questions put to the child: Little brown girl Why do you wander alone About the streets Of the great city Of London? Why do you start and wince When white folk stare at you Dont you think they wonder Why a little brown girl Should roam about their city Their white, white city? (The Moth, p11) The questioning of the little brown girls presence in London suggests a linguistic imperialism. It may be construed as the speaker challenging her right to be in the city, establishing her as the nameless, black Other. Her feeling of difference is emphasized in the repetition of the word white on the final line of the second stanza. The third stanza plays out an interesting reversal in notions of blackness. The speaker asks why she has left the little sunlit land / where we sometimes go / to rest and get brown54 alluding to the desire of white skinned people to tan which for the white colonialist signifies wealth, for the black Other being inferior and uneducated. From here there is a subtle shift of speaker and London is seen through the eyes of the little brown girl. Her perception of the city is distinctly unattractive where There are no laughing faces, / people frown if one really laughs and: Theres nothing picturesque To be seen in the streets, Nothing but people clad In Coats, Coats, Coats, (The Moth, p11) If the poem began with the strangeness of the brown girl to the white gaze, here it teases out those feelings of alienation felt by the little brown girl at being in such a cold, drab place, so different from her own home. Once more Marson creates a reversal in the stereotype as she seeks to objectify white people observing that the folks are all white -/ White, white, white, / And they all seem the same.55 In homogenizing the colonizers, the hybridity of the West Indians are then celebrated in the many varied skin tones of black and bronze and brown which are themselves homogenized by the label Black. The vibrancy, colour and friendliness of back home where the folks are Parading the city wearing Bright attractive bandanas contrasts with the previous stanza of the dour images of London. The dialogue is handed back to the white speaker who attempts to establish the origins of the little black girl but succeeds in once more re-establishing the homogeneic white gaze indicated in the speakers inability to distinguish between many distinct nations : And from whence are you Little brown girl? I guess Africa, or India, Ah no, from some island In the West Indies But isnt that India All the same? (The Moth, p13) More than anything the poem conveys that sense of isolation felt by the little brown girl in the city. She never answers the white speaker directly and is positioned in the middle of the poem, again centralizing the colonized. In asking the question Would you like to be white/Little brown girl? there is a sense of the colonizer attempting to manipulate and dominate the colonized, to Europeanise, ultimately leading to mimicry. Yet the questioner responds himself with I dont think you would / For you toss your head / As though you are proud / To be brown. 56 Marson, here, signals a move away from being a mimic man seeking to challenge that whole Eurocentric paternalistic world and centralise the black women, the most marginalized figure in society. The themes central to Little Brown Girls themes echo Rhyss own negative reactions to London seen in the opening page of Voyage in the Dark. Like Rhys, Marson succeeds in capturing that colour and warmth of the West Indies contrasting greatly with the misery of London, experienced by both and which reinforce that racial and national separateness. Those differences prove for both to be irreconcilable, making it impossible for both Rhys and Marson to integrate, leaving both women dislocated from the metropolis. Little Black Girl serves as a useful reminder that many immigrants were women. This encounter between the city and a woman (in Marsons case, a black woman) echoes Annas encounter in Voyage in the Dark albeit as a prostitute. Both walk the streets of the city and as women-as-walkers encounter the metropolis, negotiating its spaces. Denise deCaires Narian suggests that certainly Marson could be considered as a flaneuse.57 Neither Rhys nor Marson, however have the confident panache of the flaneuse and neither fulfil the requirements of flanerie originally set out by Baudelaire. The flaneur, he asserted, saw the crowd as his domain, His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd.58 The flaneur and therefore the flaneuse is engaged in strolling and looking but most importantly merging with the crowd. For Marson this is impossible as she is a black woman in a white city. Moreover, Baudelaire expands upon the idea of the flaneur as having the ability to be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world.59 Again this is problematic for both Marson and Rhys as their wanderings around the metropolis seek only to reinforce those feelings of Otherness, isolation and marginality. For Marson these feelings of alienation gained her the reputation of being a true loner who didnt exactly seek out company60 leading to a heightened level of bodily consciousness which comes from being dissected by white eyes.61 In her struggle with being marginalized as a black women always at the mercy of the white metropolitan gaze, Marson was always aware of that Europeanised sense of beauty being white. This idea of beauty was so entrenched, even within the black community that they themselves set beauty against the paleness of their own skin. The importance of popularly disseminated images is tackled in Cinema Eyes where a black mother in addressing her daughter attempts to challenge the idea that Europeans still provide the aesthetic reference point.62 The speaker urges her eighteen year old daughter to avoid the cinema fearing that it might reinforce the idea that white is beautiful causing the girl to lose sight of her own beauty: Come, I will let you go When black beauties Are chosen for the screen; That you may know Your own sweet beauty And not the white loveliness Of others for envy. (The Moth, p88) By growing up with a cinema mind the mother has allowed herself to be at the mercy of those tools used by the colonizer to marginalize and indoctrinate, promoting their own superiority. Once again the mimic man re-emerges when black women reject their own in seeking an ideal man. No kinky haired man for me, / No black face, no black children for me.63 This rather melodramatic narrative within the poem tells of the mothers fair husband shooting her first suitor whom she had initially rejected for being too dark, and then committing suicide. The shooting scene, a re enactment of a gun fight in a western, presents the cinema as a racist and degenerate institution. By the end of the poem, the speaker acknowledges her mistake in rejecting the first lover and finds a sense of self, previously denied by the saturation of cinematic images. In shaking off the colonizers indoctrination, which seeks to marginalize her, she addresses the question posed by Franz Fanon which is to what extent authentic love will remain unattainable before one has purged oneself of that feeling of inferiority?64 Black invisibility in the cinema results in white ideology being forced upon a black body and essentially commodifying it and it is this which Marson seeks to deconstruct. Another poem which tackles the reconstruction of female identity is Black is Fancy, where the speaker compares her reflection in the mirror with a picture Of a beautiful white lady.65 The mirror serves to reclaim the idea of black as being beautiful and a rediscovery of self: Since Aunt Lisa gave me This nice looking glass I begin to feel proud Of my own self (The Moth, p75) The speaker eventually removes the picture of the white woman suggesting that black worth and beauty can only really exist in the absence of white colonialism. The poem ends in a victory of sorts as she declares that John, her lover has rejected the pale skin in favour of His black ivory girl.66 Kinky Haired Blues represents Marsons quest for a more effective and authentic poetic voice in its use of African American speech.. The poem explores the rhythms and musical influences found in Harlem and gathering momentum about this time. Kinky Haired Blues like Cinema Eyes and Black is Fancy criticizes the oppressive beauty regime of white colonialism which seeks to disfigure and marginalize the black woman. The poem opens with the speaker attempting to find a beauty shop: Gwine find a beauty shop Cause I aint a belle Gwine find a beauty shop Cause I aint a lovely belle. The boys pass me by They say Is not so swell (The Moth, p91) The speaker seeks to Europeanise her black features in an attempt to make herself more attractive. Male indifference experienced in the metropolis forces the speaker to see herself as an aberration, thrusting her onto the margins of a society which is continually projecting the idea that white is right. The beauty shop contains all the trappings of the colonizers idea of beauty, ironed hair and bleached skin. Yet she is caught between being left to die on de shelf 67 if she doesnt change herself, or eradicating her ethnic features and therefore her inner self if she does. By using blues within the poetry she is able to communicate this misery felt within her, that male perceptions of beauty projected by the colonizers dictate that she must distort her own natural beauty in order to fit in and conform. The poem highlights the struggle Marson experiences in trying to preserve her selfhood against such oppressive cultural forces. Marson defiantly attempts to stand against this patriarchal order. She proudly announces that I like me black face / And me kinky hair. Inspite of this brave stand Marson eventually succumbs and admits that she is gwine press me hair / And bleach me skin. She, like Rhys can only resist internally to the colonialists ideals imposed on them. As writers voyaging into the metropolis both Rhys and Marson share in their writing a pervasive sense of isolation where, from the location of London, their particular voices and concerns are, at the time, not recognised. Both writers, from this isolated position on the periphery of the centre. explore issues of womanhood, race and identity,. Marsons experiences bring about an acute awareness of her difference and Otherness as a Black woman. Her work is a defiant voice against this marginalisation and isolation. She was, as Jarrett MaCauley claims the first Black feminist to speak out against racism and sexism in Britain.68 She was a pioneer in a growing literary culture which was to become the new postcolonial order. Rhys, by contrast, a white West Indian from Dominica was experiencing a declining white minority status against a growing black population, itself an isolating factor both at home and within the metropolis. Kenneth Ramchard suggests that the work of white West Indian writers is characterized by a sense of embattlement: Adapted from Fanon we might use the phrase terrified consciousness to suggest the White minoritys sensations of shock and disorientation as a smouldering Black population is released into an awareness of power.69 It is this terrified consciousness which contributes to the struggle experienced by Anna in Voyage in the Dark . Located simultaneously both inside and outside West Indian socio cultural history, her journey to the mother country seeks only to exacerbate these feelings of in-betweenness and to suffer feelings of dislocation and alienation. Both writers, therefore, in their voyage into the metropolis endure different kinds of anxieties in their sense of unbelonging to either or both cultural worlds. Both use their writing to speak for the marginal, the hegemonic, the dispossessed, the colonized silenced female voice situated as they were within the cold, oppressive, hierarchical colonial metropolis attempting to impose an oppressive identity upon the exiled women. 1 George Lamming The Pleasures of Exile (London: Alison, 1960) p15 2 Palmer Adisa De Language Reflect Dem Ethos in The Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars ed. By Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong Leek. (New York: Peter Lang 1998 p23) 3 The Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars ed By Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong-Leek. (New York: Peter Lang 1998 p6) 4 V.S. Naipaul New York Review of Books 1992. Quoted in Helen Carr Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd., 1996) p15 5 Helen Carr Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd., 1996) p. xiv 6 Delia Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998) p51 7 Edward W. Said Representations of the Intellectual (London: Vintage 1994) p49 8 Molly Hite The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative Quoted in Joy Castro Jean Rhys in The Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 20, 2000. www.highbeam.com/library/doc.3.asp p6.Accessed 1 December 2005. 9 Elaine Savory Jean Rhys p92 10 Elaine Savory Jean Rhys p93 11 Gayatri Spivak Three Womens Text and a Critique of Imperialism in Henry Louis Jr. Gates Race, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) p269 12Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark (London: Penguin Books 1969) 13 Elaine Savoury Jean Rhys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998) p 95 14 Homi Bhabha Remembering Fanon, forward to Franz Fanon s Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986) p ix 15 Homi Bhabha The Other Question Location of Culture (London: Routledge 1994)p69 16 Ibid p69 17 Veronica Marie Gregg Jean Rhyss Historical Imagination: Reading and Writing the Creole (North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995) p115 18 Sue Thomas The Worlding of Jean Rhys ( Westport: Greenwood Press 1999) p106 19 Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark p53 20 Ibid 21 Paul B. Rich Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) p19 22 Voyage in the Dark p56 23 Ibid p320 24 Homi Bhabha DissemInation: Time, Narrative and the margins of the Modern Nation The Location of Culture p319 25 Voyage in the Dark p7 26 Ibid p15 27 Ibid p16 28 Ibid p26 29 Ibid p45 30 Ibid p47 31 Ibid p7 32 Ibid p46 33 Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture p319 34 Voyage in the Dark p45 35 Homi Bhabha Location of Culture p85 36 Ibid p27 37 Ibid p62 38 Ibid p62 39 Teresa OConnor The Meaning of the West Indian Experience for Jean Rhys (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1985)cited in Caribbean Woman Writers; Essays from the first International Conference. p19 40 Taken from Rhyss non fictional analysis of Gender Politics. Veronica Gregg, Jean Rhyss Historical Imagination p47 41 Helen Carr Jean Rhys, (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 1996) p 77 42 Lloyd W. Brown, West Indian Poetry (London: Heineman, 1978) p 38 43 Denise deCaires Contemporary Caribbean Womens Poetry: Making style (London: Routledge, 2002) p 2 44 Ibid p4 45 Una Marson The Moth and the Star, (Kingston, Jamaica: Published by the Author, 1937) p24 46 Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture, (London: Routledge, 1994) pp85-92 47 Delia Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson pp 49, 50 48 The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature ed. Alison Donnell and Sarah Lawson Welsh (London: Routledge, 1996) p140-141 49 Ibid 50 Homi Bhabha Location of Culture p 320 51 Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson p51 52 Ibid p51 53 Ibid p54 54 Una Marson Little Brown Girl, The Moth and the Star. (Jamaica: The Gleaner. 1937) p11 55 Ibid 56 Ibid p13 57 deCaires Narain puts forward an interesting link between Marson and Sam Selvons The Lonely Londoners highlighting external identity in her book Contemporary Caribbean Womens Poetry p 21 58 Baudelaire The Painter and the Modern Life cited in Keith Tester The Flaneur (New York: Routledge, 1994), p 2 59 Ibid p3 60 Jarrett-MaCauley, p53 61 Ibid p50 62 Laurence A. Brainer An Introduction to West Indian Poetry (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), p154 63 Una Marson Cinema Eyes The Moth and the Star. (Jamaica: The Gleaner.1937) p87 64 Franz Fanon Black Skins, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986), p4 65 Una Marson Black is Fancy The Moth and the Star p75 66 Ibid p76 67 Una Marson Kinky Hair Blues The Moth and the Star p91 68 Jarret MaCauley pvii 69 Kenneth Ramchard The West Indian Novel and its Background (London: Faber, 1870), p225

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Proteus Mirabilis Essay -- Biology Medican Medicine Essays

Proteus Mirabilis Life History: Proteus mirabilis is part of the normal flora of the human gastrointestinal tract. It can also be found free living in water and soil. When this organism, however, enters the urinary tract, wounds, or the lungs it can become pathogenic. Proteus mirabilis commonly causes urinary tract infections and the formation of stones. Microbiological Characteristics: Proteus mirabilis is part of the Enterobacteriaceae family. It is a small gram-negative bacillus and a facultative anaerobe. Proteus mirabilis is characterized by its swarming motility, its ability to ferment maltose, and its inability to ferment lactose. P. mirabilis has the ability to elongate itself and secrete a polysaccharide when in contact with solid surfaces, making it extremely motile on items such as medical equipment. Disease: The most common infection involving Proteus mirabilis occurs when the bacteria moves to the urethra and urinary bladder. Although Proteus mirabilis mostly known to cause urinary tract infections, the majority of urinary tract infections are due to E. coli. One-hundred thousand cfus per milliliter in the urine are usually indicative of a urinary tract infection. Urinary tract infections caused by P. mirabilis occur usually in patients under long-term catherization. The bacteria have been found to move and create encrustations on the urinary catheters. The encrustations cause the catheter to block. Symptoms for urethritis are mild including frequency of urination and pyuria (presence of white blob cells in the urine). Cystitis (bladder infection) symptoms are easier to distinguish and include back pain, concentrated appearance, urgency, hematuria (presence of red blood cells in the urine), a... ...d ciprofloxin. In cases with severe stone formation, surgery is necessary to remove the blockage. Proteus mirabilis is part of the normal flora of the gastrointestinal tract, and as a result the bacteria enters the urinary tract or infects medical equipment by the fecal route. Consequently, prevention includes good sanitation and hygiene, including proper sterilization of medical equipment. It is also suggested that patients not requiring catherization should not receive catherization, despite its convenience for the caretaker. Sources Cited: http://www.cdc.gov http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic1929.htm http://bact.wisc.edu:81/ScienceEd/stories/storyReader$108 http://www.microbelibrary.org/FactSheet.asp http://gsbs.utmb.edu/microbook/ch026.htm file://C:DOCUME~1BobLOCALS~1TempAM8EQCBC.html http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/full/37/9/2840

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Data Analysis – Viscosity

Data Analysis – Viscosity Introduction: My aim it to find out the different types of liquids are more or less viscous than each other and why. Some liquids flow more easily than others do. For example, honey is very â€Å"thick† and flows very slowly. Water is thin and flows very quickly. So honey is more viscous than water. Liquids that are made up of small molecules have a low viscosity and liquids with long chain molecules (such as plastics) have a much higher viscosity. The viscosity of materials generally decreases with increasing temperature. (EXAMPLE) A definition of viscosity; â€Å"Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's resistance to flow.It describes the internal friction of a moving fluid. A fluid with large viscosity resists motion because its molecular makeup gives it a lot of internal friction. A fluid with low viscosity flows easily because its molecular makeup results in very little friction when it is in motion. Gases also have viscosity, although it is a little harder to notice it in ordinary circumstances. † (1) As temperature increases, the average speed of the molecules in a liquid increases and the amount of time they spend â€Å"in  contact† with their nearest neighbours decreases. Thus, as temperature increases, the average intermolecular forces decrease.The exact manner in which the two quantities vary is nonlinear and changes abruptly when the liquid changes phase. (2) I am going to use the following alcohols: Ethanol Propanol Butanol Pentanol Hexanol Heptanol Octanol Decanol As there are many of them I am not going to use all of them, only a couple, because it would take time doing all of them, also we don’t have a lot of time in our lesson. Aim: My aim is to find out why some liquids flow more freely than others I am also going to investigate the different alcohols. Hypothesis: I predict that the more carbon molecules it has the less viscous it is.So it would take longer to flow. It is because of the types of alcohol. For instance Propanol is less viscous than Octanol. Preliminary experiment: I carried out a preliminary experiment with different alcohol for each experiment. We did this experiment only once just to get an idea of which experiment seemed the best for us to do. The results are shown in the table way below. Aim: The aim of this was to find out which experiment we wanted to do and which seemed the best to us also which one was fairer and would be easier for us to do and explain why we chose the experiment we did.Prediction: Once I saw our teacher show us the experiment I thought the Tilt Test would actually be ‘cool’ to do but I didn’t want to make my mind up just yet so I tried all of them out. I predict that once you go down to the alcohols with the more carbon lengths are more viscous. Apparatus used: * Alcohols; * Ethanol (2), * Propanol (3), * Butanol (4), * Pentanol (5), * Hexanol (6), * Heptanol (7), * Octanol (8), * Dectanol (10)) For Til t Test: * White tile * Clamp Stand * Pipette * Gloves * Stopwatch * China graph Pencil For Glass Tubing: * Clamp Stand * Blue Tack Air Bubble * Stopwatch * Gloves * Clamp Stand For Ball Bearing: * Ball * Test Tube * Bung * Test Tube Rack * Stopwatch * Gloves Method: Ball bearing: 1. Hold the bung with your thumb and turn it. 2. Quickly time the time taken for the ball to move up. 3. Write down the time taken. Tile Test: 1. Mark the tile from the top horizontally same for the bottom. 2. Get the alcohol and put a drop at the top before the black line so you can measure it easily. 3. Time the time taken for the liquid to flow down at your finish line. 4. Then write down the time taken. . Wipe off the liquid and start again from No. 2. Glass Tubing: 1. Turn the tube upright by holding the clamp not the tube. 2. Time the time taken for the bubble to move up 3. Write down the time taken. Fair test and Safety: Results: Tilt Test: Chemical| Time Taken (1)(Seconds)| Time Taken (2)(Seconds)| Time Taken (3)(Seconds)| Mean(Seconds)| Ethanol (2)| 20. 16| 20. 28| 20. 16| 20. 20| Propanol 2-ol (3)| 30. 00| 12. 52| 28. 79| 23. 77| Butanol (4)| 10. 5| 19. 42| 15. 94| 15. 30| Heptanol (7)| 18. 52| 15. 72| 20. 12| 18. 12| Octanol (8)| 31. 03| 12. 9| 19. 52| 21. 08| Glass Tubing: Chemical:| Time Taken (Seconds):| Ethanol (2)| 20 seconds| Butanol (4)| 28 seconds| Hexanol (6)| 48 seconds| Pentanol (5)| 39 seconds| Octanol (8)| 54 seconds| Ball Bearing: For ball bearing it was really hard to time the amount of time it took to fall as it was really fast. So we could write down our results quick enough. Conclusion: We chose to do ball bearing as it was really fast and we hardly had any time to time it also because thought it was an unfair test as we couldn’t time it probably and we could get it wrong.We chose not to do glass tubing because it was hard turning the clamp stand around plus it was really slow and took long to time. We chose to do tilt test as it seemed the fairest test out of the 3. Also we could change a few things so it would be fairer, like mark a point on the pipette so we get the same amount of alcohol on the tile etc. and wipe of the liquid later. Plus it would be good for a group of 3 as there are 3 jobs that we could do like putting the alcohol on the tile, timing the time taken for it to go pass the finish line also to note down the time taken and draw the table.Real Experiment: Aim: Prediction: Apparatus used and Justification: * Alcohols; * Ethanol (2), * Propanol (3), * Butanol (4), * Pentanol (5), * Hexanol (6), * Heptanol (7), * Octanol (8), * Dectanol (10) * White tile – We used this as it would be clearer to see than a black tile. * Clamp Stand – To keep the tile in the same position to keep it a fair test. * Pipette – to keep the measurements of the alcohol on the tile. * Gloves – To not get any of the liquid on our hands and also because of the safety. Stopwatch – To time the length of the time taken for the liquid to travel down the tile and it seems fair as we aren’t doing it in our heads because we could count slowly or faster than an actual second. * China graph Pencil – It is easier to see and to stop the pencil from dissolving as the marks did this. Method: 1. Mark the tile from the top horizontally same for the bottom. 2. Get the alcohol and put a drop at the top before the black line so you can measure it easily. 3. Time the time taken for the liquid to flow down at your finish line. 4.Then write down the time taken. 5. Wipe off the liquid and start again from No. 2. Fair test and Safety: Results: Conclusion: We marked the pipette so we got the same amount of solution each time to keep it a fair test. We kept the tile at the same height; we changed the types of alcohols. We thought it wouldn’t be fair if we left the alcohol on the tile so we wiped it off after every alcohol we used even if we had to use the same alcohol we still wiped it a s it would be unfair because that alcohol would’ve had more liquid so it could make it faster or even slower.We also kept the maker at the same starting and ending point. We had 3 people in our group, so we did the experiment 3 times so it was fair as we would be changing around what everyone did for instance, putting the liquid on the tile, timing th length it take =s for the alcohol to come down and also writing the time taken down. It was goo as if someone did it wrong we wouldn’t done it again but with a different person doing something different. Evaluation: We were all safe as we used gloves so the alcohol didn’t touch our fingers. We tied our hair back so it wasn’t flying around everywhere.We put our chairs under the table so no one got hurt and we had more room. We made sure the clamp stand was in the middle of the table so it doesn’t fall on anyone’s foot. We also made sure that the tile wasn’t loose so it wouldn’t fal l. I’d say we were 99. 9% safe! The tile wouldn’t stay on so it was at different length but one of us held it steady as one of the sides were up and the other was on the table. We measured it every time we used a different alcohol so it was at the same height each time. Next time we could just put it steady on one angle then measure it instead of doing it the other way.I guess my results are about right as my range bars ion my graph are quite close together, some more than others. So they are quite accurate. I think there are two outliers which are Propan 2-ol (2nd Try) and Octanol (1st Try). It was probably a silly mistake that we did, or it could’ve been the temperature of the room. We all did try the experiment and we did different things such as timing the amount taken for the alcohol to go down, getting the liquid in the pipette and putting it down on the tile and also noting down the time taken.One of us could’ve timed it before or after the alcohol was put on the tile, either that or the amount was too much or too less. Also some of them did evaporate when it nearly got to the end. I think from a scale from 1-10 my results would be a 6 with 10 being the most accurate and 1 being inaccurate. Next time I could measure the temperature and go into a room with no windows and nothing that’s going to affect the temperature so it’s always the same temperature. I could use the same pipette each time. References: 1. http://www. rinceton. edu/~gasdyn/Research/T-C_Research_Folder/Viscosity_def. html (date accessed 20th March 2013 – 15:25) 2. http://physics. info/viscosity/ (date accessed 20th March 2013 – 15:33) 3. http://chem4652011. webs. com/chem465-2. gif (date accessed 20th March 2013 – 15:44) 4. http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Propanol_flat_structure. png/640px-Propanol_flat_structure. png (date accessed 20th March 2013 – 15:41) 5. http://upload. wikimedia. org/wi kipedia/commons/4/4b/Butanol_flat_structure. png

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Behaviour Modification Approaches In Us Public Schools

The growing need for effective procedures in disciplining and correcting undisciplined students in the US public schools has become nascent nowadays. Behaviour modification is essential in modelling young people who’ll become responsible members of the society. Effectiveness of behaviour modification procedures is seen to reduce deviance and problematic characters in a child.The effectiveness of social skills and social inoculation procedures which have blown out sub-procedures are behaviour modification methodologies whose perspective is to use culture and organizations within the social context to enforce proper moral projections in public schools. Procedures to modify behaviour have transformed from aggressive methodologies like caning, but legislation and physiological research has downplayed the effectiveness and pointed out health implications emanating from these methodologies.Expulsions, suspensions and parental advice and parent-teacher collaboration to enforce, advic e and correct indiscipline in students is an approach which is so far a commonplace practice. The need to understand these procedures, the profundity of their impacts and success in correcting and modifying behaviour in students in the US public schools is paramount and integral in the public school systems. US public schools are having problems implementing various behaviour modification procedures due to various legislation laws.There is also the growing need to identify modalities to tackle the increasing implicit character and behaviours which are negatively affecting other students in these schools. Drug abuse, alcoholism, early sex, smoking, unconventional language and outward ness towards teachers, community and other students are problematic characters seen in the students and need to be modified. This paper explores the various strategies and methodologies employed to modify these problematic behaviours and disciplining students in the US public schools. IntroductionSocial skills and social inoculation procedures have been intensively reviewed as collective and effective behavior modification procedures in public schools. These school-based strategies developed first in smoking prevention and later applied to other substances have been practically admissible due to their approach to teacher-parent and society collaboration to impart and correct irresponsible behavior in students. However, cognitive control methodologies have led to more terse approaches to disciplining and modifying behaviour in students.Suspensions and expulsions have successfully instilled discipline and positive virtues in students. A zero tolerance on indiscipline approach has now become the lead methodology applied in US public schools. Zero tolerance approach as been in force as a proactive approach to a perceived rise in gangs, drugs, and violence in United States public schools and community. Typically, zero tolerance policies mandate predetermined consequences or punishments for specified offense. These policies have been subject to debate as to whether they are effective and whether they have unintended consequences that negatively affect students.This approach has become the principle methodology in US public schools. This behavior modification approach is most often characterized by disciplinary action that punishes all students severely regardless of mitigating factors such as severity of infraction, age, or intent.. However, parents and some legislators often criticize the methodology citing consequential health implications. The need for espousing these procedures is important, especially in this wake of a huge populace in the United States. The multi cultural aspect of the community in which the populace is composed of various communities .i. e. Caucasian, blacks and Whites is troublesome due to dissenting interests and attitudes towards education and moral facade of each student from each community. According to statistics, escalation of moral d ecadency and the overt-ness of sexuality in young people is more of an intricate social quagmire and an intrinsic social problem with wide spread implications on the long term and adverse socio-economic-health implications on family and the public domain. This has been manifested in public schools wherein the behaviours and indiscipline are seen.On substance abuse and violence, teachers in school need to identify the time and place where their students engage in alcoholism. This will help in identifying proper means of creating recreational or rehabilitative timetables for these students. Drug abuse and alcoholic sprees usually happen between 3pm and 7pm (www. samhsa. gov) outside the school compound or homestead, or in the most neglected and limitedly visited areas of these two environments. The most common alcoholic substances abused are beer and spirits (www. samhsa. gov).These escalations In moral problems in students and indulgence in sexual behaviors, violence, disrespectful, bullish, and various problematic characters is increasingly affecting the level of education in American public schools. Research indicate so many youths are now unable to finish schooling due to indulgence in bad morals and problematic activities and subsequently being expelled from school while others drop out in pursuit of these vices. The need to correct and modify these behaviours and arrest any escalation of these problems n the public schools is becoming integral in the education system.Methodologies and approaches are being employed and comprehensively used to counter the situations and model students into responsible young people who are admissible in the modern American society. Besides, identifying problems in students and using the proper counselling and behaviour modification strategy is vital. Problems faced by US public school system regarding students with bad behaviour The problems faced by the public schools onset with dropping out school by students due to their i ndulgence and subsequent immersion in problematic lives like being parents or even going to jail.Secondly, students nowadays have developed various behaviours which are deemed dangerous. There is also a growing trend of students practicing and exhibiting immoral projections which do not reflect respect of upright morals and behaviours and are deemed disrespectful. According to research conducted in Baltimore, the following are the problems faced in US public schools (Brecht Donoghue , 2004) †¢ Possession, use or distribution of tobacco on school property †¢ Disruptive behavior †¢ Verbal harassment †¢ Possession of drugs or alcohol †¢ Possession of weapons or firearms †¢ Arson†¢ Vandalizing, damaging, defacing, or destroying school property †¢ Violent behaviors/assaults, vicious fighting †¢ Extortion, coercion, blackmail, and robbery †¢ Trespassing †¢ Damaging property †¢ Insubordination †¢ Dress code violations †¢ Cheating/copying the work of another †¢ Fighting †¢ Possession of electronic devices (e. g. , beepers, cell phones) †¢ Sexual harassment †¢ Sexual misconduct †¢ Verbal abuse, ethnic slurs, vulgar statements or gestures, including the distribution of obscene material †¢ Misbehavior on bus or school transportation †¢ Disorderly conduct †¢ Gambling†¢ Assault on school staff Behavior intervention approaches Frank M. Gresham (2004), argues that Behavioral interventions is conceptualized using four broad theoretical categories: (a) applied behavior analysis, (b) social learning theory, (c) cognitive behavior therapy, and (d) neobehavioristic S-R theory (Powers & Franks, 1988). Applied behavior analysis (ABA) descends directly from Skinner's (1953) operant conditioning work and is based on the three-term contingency that describes the functional relationship between antecedents, behaviors, and consequences (Gresham, 2004).Social cognitive theor y utilizes the concept of vicarious learning and the role of cognitive mediation processes in determining which environmental events are attended to, retained, and subsequently performed when an individual is exposed to modeling stimuli (Gresham, 2004 pp 327). Social learning theory is based on the notion of reciprocal determinism that describes the role an individual's behavior has on changing the environment and vice versa (Bandura, 1986). Much of the work in social skills interventions utilizes modeling as an essential treatment strategy (Elliott & Gresham, 1991; Gresham, 2002).Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) assumes that an individual's behavior in response to environmental events is mediated by their cognitions or thoughts (327). The goal of CBT is to change maladaptive cognitions that, in turn, lead to changes in behavior. Techniques such as self-instruction, self evaluation, correction of maladaptive self talk, and problem solving are used in CBT to change behavior (Kendall, 1985). CBT interventions are commonly used in the clinical treatment of anxiety and mood (depression, dysthymia) problems (Kazdin, 1990; Laurent & Potter, 1998).Neo-behavioristic S-R models are based on features of classical (respondent) conditioning and avoidance learning in which maladaptive responses are conditioned to stimuli in the environment (Gresham pp 327). Procedures such as systematic desensitization and exposure based treatments (e. g. , flooding, implosion) for treating anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders are based on these S-R models of learning. These concepts have been dissected into simplistic approaches by school experts and education stakeholders.They have been incorporated in the public school behavior correction faculties as methodologies whose effectiveness varies with the level of behavior intricacy and extent of effect on the respect and view by the teachers Behaviour modification methodologies used to correct this indiscipline Various moder n approaches to these problems are in place. Teacher intervention techniques as well as school rules modification approaches are also in force. These approaches differ with effectiveness and time frame of implementation. Expulsions, suspensions, caning are commonplace.They compose the zero tolerance methodology which is the common practice used in public schools. Drugs, alcoholism, language and violence are approached as cases which need to be addressed cognitively. Teacher intervention methods revolve around counselling and participating in initiating good behaviour and positive perceptions in the students who have these problematic behaviours. School teacher intervention The creation of a positive social interaction environment in a friendly and unrestrictive atmosphere offers the proper environment for the teacher to address the problem.This kind of environment greatly increases recovery. It’s aimed at improving collective social behavior so as to inspire and correct the s tudents. The school counselor should counsel the students, encourage them to share their problems, initiate recreational activities like playing chess, bridge, and other in-house games (Ken & David 2007). Through a cognitive-control system the teacher manifests self analysis, self recognition, and self help so as to regulate behavior. It involves reading materials wherein the teen reads her problem and follows a set of procedures like, playing with her pet, watching an inspiring video, etc.The procedure is used in the environment created by the school teacher (above). The objective of the method is to create competing system within the brain and make adolescents lessen brain capacity to want physical engagement with substances. A school counselor should address the teen alcohol problem through an educative perspective; He gives complete clinical views on use and abuse of substances and comprehensively emphasizes the importance of the context (David Masci,, 2000). This perspective sc ope is on teenage cases who are supposed to actively attend and play roles in the education and during the classes.The concept is to keep these teens safe from alcohol and to stop substance abuse. The school counselor should give social and drug life education to enable teenagers to make responsible decisions by providing honest information. Secondly, the student should emphatically give a complete clinical and legal overview of implications of both on substance abusers to discourage the teens from excessive or partial indulgence. The counselor is also supposed to advise the students to understand their place in the society and their future as citizens in the educative approach (Flannery, 2007).After-school programs Students tend to have various social networks where they interact. The school counselor should integrate these networks as extracurricular activities by allocating time to be with the students. According to research, drug abuse takes place mostly after school and evening hours as stated above (Bachman, Johnston & O’Malley 1990). A school counselor is involved in participating, and listening to what students express and how they relate with their peers. In a group setting, he encourages the students to speak freely, express their views, thoughts, ideas, and perspectives.He intervenes only while asking them why they feel or think a certain way, then offer his support. Students can have a friend or family member participate in order to improve the advice being offered. The setting is a homely, conducive, and well equipped with internet and all communication tools to help these students research their problem with guidance from the school counselor. This is a very effective method and creates a backbone for the gradual and even instant ceasing of alcohol habits.According to (Rosenbaum, 2003), the after school programs form the basis of a communal approach to the problem. The students are able to understand their problem through guidance. If a st udent’s drug use becomes a problem, the after-school drop-in program enables her to make informal contact with a professional, even if she is not ready for formal treatment. If problems escalate, a referral to the appropriate agency can be made (Rosenbaum 2003). Peer mediation Education experts also suggest providing opportunities for students to become more engaged in school activities.Adopting strategies that include students in the discipline process, including peer mediation and mentoring, may assist violence prevention efforts. In peer mediation, students are encouraged to sit down with a trained student mediator (often accompanied by an adult) and resolve their differences through dialogue. In many cases problems that would otherwise escalate can be resolved through mediation. However, if the problem is not solved, students may be required to meet with an adult or older student mentor once a week for further mediation and mentoring until all parties agree that the issue is resolved.Approaching the student’s problem to foster an understanding that the student is capable of excelling in all aspects of life if he/she desists from substance abuse is helpful. The school counselor should as often as possible make groups which consist of most disciplined students to act as the role models. These role model groups actively integrate with other groups and incorporate the students who have drug problems. This makes these students sociable and gradually makes them feel acceptable in these groups and most important, desists from substance abuse due to the moral aspect of the group personality status.Zero tolerance methodology These policies mandate predetermined consequences or punishments for specified offenses, especially those deemed very criminal in terms of the age and environment they are committed. Sex, drugs, violence, assault on a student, teacher, damaging school property and related cases are approached through the zero tolerance approach. T he methodology is related to substantial drop in school crimes and is common practice (Ronnie Casella, 2000). Zero tolerance is a policy that mandates predetermined consequences or punishments for specified offenses.It is intended to deter student misconduct by weeding out potential troublemakers and setting an example to others who might choose to misbehave, zero tolerance policies are most often characterized by a variety of high-tech detection methods (such as metal detectors and video surveillance) and strict discipline policies that punish all offenses equally severely without consideration of mitigating factors, such as the severity of the infraction or the intent or age of the individual (Russell Skiba, 2000.In most cases, these policies mandate that perpetrators be subject to school exclusion disciplinary actions ranging from suspensions and expulsions to arrest by in-school police (Brecht Donoghue , 2004). Great results have been seen through this methodology, however, its harsh aspects and the suspension of the student affects the educational background of a student (V. K. Costenbacher and S. Markson, 1994). Proponents of zero tolerance argue that these policies are needed to remove disruptive elements from the classroom and keep schools free of violence.Zero tolerance is implemented in cases where the student exhibits behaviors which are deemed too harsh to be contained in the school (C. Bowditch, 1993) . School student communities approach Public school administrations espouse building a sense of community within the school has been effective at preventing violence (Russell Skiba, 2000), because students are held accountable by their peers for harm they cause. Public school administrations adopted a community model in which students rectify their mistakes whenever possible.In schools these communities institute pee juries or teen courts in which students accused of misbehavior must appear before a jury composed of fellow students. The accused stude nt must explain his or her misbehavior to the jury, and then the jury is responsible for communicating to the student how the behavior violated the rules of the school community and develop an appropriate consequence (Brecht Donoghue , 2004). The student’s sentence is not punitive, but rather an attempt to reintegrate the student into the school community.Most often, the student is required to make restitution for his or her action and engage in some type of community service Decision-making and problem-solving This approach emphasizes the development of cognitive and behavioral skills which are flexible and not situation-specific. On a cognitive level, students are taught decision-making and problem-solving techniques which will better prepare them to avoid peer pressure situations without alienating friends. Students are also taught specific self-instruction techniques that are designed to provide them with a framework for guiding themselves through high-risk situations.Fin ally, students are taught basic interpersonal skills designed to enable them to implement specific decisions or act in a way which is consistent with what they want (Catherine S. Bell and Robert J. Battjes, 1984). Other measures used in US public schools Schools’ use of programmatic prevention efforts, such as conflict resolution and behavior management, help prevent student violence and aggression and eliminate the need for harsh disciplinary action (David Masci, 2000).Conflict resolution has a moderate effect on the level of student aggression in schools, and helps students remember and employ alternatives to violence when solving conflict. More support and training in classroom management of behavioral problems helps teachers deescalate potentially violent situations. Expansion of training for principals and teachers in the development and implementation of behavioral management programs to help them learn strategies useful in deescalating potentially violent interactions. This has helped more of the teachers in the public schools to have more efficiency and capacity in Expansion of violence prevention programs in schools accelerates awareness and proficiency in recognition of faulty behaviors. Introduction of school counselors in public schools is becoming a very effective methodology. As seen in the teacher intervention methodology, through a cognitive-control system the teacher manifests self analysis, self recognition, and self help so as to regulate behavior. This will help address the decline on the learned youths which is adversely affecting the social balance.More Hispanic youths, especially males, is on the declines. The effects on the society are more poor families, crime rate increase and joblessness. The long term effect is a social imbalance with Blacks and Hispanics as well as other immigrants joining the lesser society and the poor Americans. A steady decline on stable families and the many unlearned and jobless children is affecting th e national economic stability. Subsequently there will be more children, the poor and the aged in the population that the stable workers (Sandra Yin, 2007).Parents and social involvement in correction of behaviour The role of parents in behavior modification is the most integral in the public school behavior modification approaches. The parents and community members have been involved in contributing as the guardians of proper social behaviors in the community. The counselor involves concepts of capacity building and establishment of more positive youth groups so as to build on youths’ strengths. This is through advising on developing positive mental attitude towards their abilities in education and entrepreneurship.The teacher invites the community to lead in playing a role of advisors while he is the active leader. These community members and the school counselors have the obligation to present appropriate role-models and opportunities for remediation for young people growi ng up in the school community. The message to young adults and their peers must be that they understand the dangers of substance abuse and make appropriate choices when confronted with opportunities of drug use (David Masci, 2000).In expulsions and suspensions, parents are involved in these decisions which are seen more punitive and applicable as ways to correct bad morals projected by students. Effective parenting onsets good behavior and structures long term proper characters in children. This proper behaviors and morals are carried to schools where these children meet children with different characters and up-bringing. Parenting skills have led to development of approaches to train parents in skills seen as necessary for a harmonious parent-child relationship and for the amelioration of a number of childhood problem (Pinsker & Geoffroy, 1981).Parents with skills and knowledge about effective parenting have been able to address and reduce deviant child behaviours. This has also le d to harmonisation of family and school perceptions in these children. School administrators have been approaching parents to attend as often ass possible school based behaviour modification approaches to arm the parents with enough knowledge on how to manage their children and the implications of immoral and indiscipline in school. The approach has been to intensify the knowledge of parents and their capacity on how to be proficient in behaviour modification.Parents have increased their capacity in communication when discussing and reprimanding their children who show immoral characters and problematic behaviours. The public schools administrators and stakeholders have emphasised on parents to learn more effective means of dealing with typical parent-child relationship conflicts and develop a healthier parent-child relationship. Behaviour modification approach contains an emphasis on direct behaviour aims at direct behaviour change. Parent’s capacity to modify inappropriate behaviours is emphasised so as to arrest these problematic problems.Parent’s capacity, based on the training attained and knowledge imparted in the school administrators, is aimed at making the communication approach of the parents to aim at focussing upon maladaptive communication patterns between parent and child that are seen as the cause of inappropriate child behaviour (Pinsker & Geoffroy, 1981). Impact of bad behaviour on good students The impact of the bad behaviour in the well behaved children in schools negatively impacts on those students who have good moral back grounds.The consequence of these impacts are unsafe learning environments, exposure to smoking, drugs and other problems portrayed by the bad students. The students are intimidated and coerced so as to identify with these students. These impacts result to poor academic performance and profound moral decadency in the schools. Safety and correction to reduce harm and to reconstitute behavior and perception in the teens is important. The school counselor can actively and consistently provide extra attention and consideration to the teens with the problem and follow up their recovery.The impacts of bullying and coercion lead to traumas and children seeking to leave these schools due to intimidations by these problematic students. Sources Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and actions: A social cognitive theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Barbra Flannery, (2007) International Research Institute, Baltimore Brecht Donoghue, (2004): Zero Tolerance in Baltimore C. Bowditch(1993), â€Å"Getting Rid of Troublemakers: High School Disciplinary Procedures and the Production of Dropouts,† Social Problems, Vol. 40,(David Masci,, 2000) â€Å"Preventing Teen Drug Use: Is the Get-Tough Approach Effective? † Congressional Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 10 Frank M. Gresham (2004) Current Status and Future Directions of School-Based Behavioral Interventions; School Psychol ogy Review, Volume 33, No. 3, pp. 326-343 Sandra Yin: http://www. prb. org/Articles/2006/TheUnitedStatesat300Million. aspx Hser, Y-I. ; Grille, C. E. ; Hubbard, R. L. ; et al (2002). An evaluation of drug treatment for adolescents in four U. S. cities: Archives of General Psychiatry; Volume 17, pp 1 (J. G. Bachman, L. D. Johnston and P.M. O’Malley 1990), â€Å"Explaining the Recent Decline in Cocaine use Among Young Adults: Further Evidence That Perceived Risks and Disapproval Lead to Reduced Drug use: Journal of Health and Human Social Behavior 31. 2 (1990): 173-184 (Ken & David 2007), Social-economic decline due to substance abuse by teens: An intelligence approach to teen physiology through counter brain measures. Goldman Intelligence, Nairobi p1-5 Mark Pinsker, Kevin Geoffroy (1981): A Comparison of Parent Effectiveness Training and Behaviour Modification Parent Training ,Family Relations, Vol.30, No. pp. 61-68 M. Rosenbaum, â€Å"‘Just Say No’ Wins Few Poi nts with Ravers,† Los Angeles Times, 31 Jan. 2001: A13. M. Rosenbaum (2003) Safety first: A reality based approach to teen’s drugs and drug education. Drug Policy Alliance www. safety1st. org Russell Skiba (2000), Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence, Policy Research Report #SRS2, Indiana Research Center, Ronnie Casella (2000), â€Å"Zero Tolerance Policy in Schools: Rationale, Consequences, and Alternatives,† Teachers College Record, Vol. 105, Texas drug and rehabilitation center U. S.Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2006 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, accessed online at www. census. gov, on Sept. 15, 2006 US Department of Education: Findings from the school survey on crime and Safety: (2006) U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Public Health Service †¢ Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration: Prevention Research: Deterring Drug Abuse among Children and Adolescents (2004) V. K. Costenbacher and S. Markson (1994), â€Å"Sch ool Suspension: A Survey of Current Policies and Practices,† NAASP Bulletin, No. 78 http://www. drugfree. org www. samhas. gov www. nida. nih. gov

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Learn About the Distant Dwarf Planet Pluto

Learn About the Distant Dwarf Planet Pluto Of all the planets in the solar system, the tiny dwarf planet Pluto captures peoples attention like no other. For one thing, it was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. Most planets most planets were found much earlier. For another, its so distant no one knew much about it. That was true until 2015 when the New Horizons spacecraft flew by and gave gorgeous close-up images of it. However, the biggest reason Pluto is on peoples minds is for a much simpler reason: in 2006, a small group of astronomers (most of them not planetary scientists), decided to demote Pluto from being a planet. That started a huge controversy that continues to this day.   Pluto from Earth Pluto is so far away that we cant see it with the naked eye. Most desktop planetarium programs and digital apps can show observers where Pluto is, but anyone wishing to see it needs a pretty good telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth, has been able to observe it, but the great distance didnt allow a highly detailed image.   Pluto lies in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt. It contains more dwarf planets, plus a collection of cometary nuclei. Planetary astronomers sometimes refer to this area as the third regime of the solar system, more distant than the terrestrial and gas giant planets.   Pluto by the Numbers As a dwarf planet, Pluto is obviously a small world. It measures 7,232 km around at its equator, which makes it smaller than Mercury and the Jovian moon Ganymede. Its much larger than its companion world Charon, which is  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹3,792  km  around.   For a long time, people thought Pluto was an ice world, which makes sense since it orbits so far from the Sun in a realm where most gases freeze to ice. Studies made by the New Horizons craft show that there is indeed a lot of ice at Pluto. However, it turns out to much denser than expected, which means it has a rocky component far beneath the icy crust.   Distance lends Pluto a certain amount of mystery since we cant see any of its features from Earth. It lies an average of 6 billion kilometers from the Sun. In reality, Plutos orbit is very elliptical (egg-shaped) and so this little world can be anywhere from 4.4 billion km to just over 7.3 billion km, depending on where it is in its orbit. Since it lies so far away from the Sun, Pluto takes 248 Earth years to make one trip around the Sun.   Pluto on the Surface Once New Horizons got to Pluto, it found a world covered with nitrogen ice in some places, along with some water ice. Some of the surface appears very dark and reddish. This is due to an organic substance that is created when ices are bombarded by ultraviolet light from the Sun. Theres a great deal of fairly young ice deposited on the surface, which comes from inside the planet. Jagged mountain peaks made of water ice rise up above flat plains and some of those mountains are as high as the Rockies.   Pluto Under the Surface So, what causes ice to ooze up from underneath Plutos surface?  Planetary scientists have a good idea that theres something heating the planet deep within the core. This mechanism is what helps pave the surface with fresh ice, and shoves up the mountain ranges. One scientist described Pluto as a giant, cosmic lava lamp. Pluto Above the Surface Like most other planets (except Mercury) Pluto has an atmosphere. Its not a very thick one, but the New Horizons spacecraft could definitely detect it.  Mission data show that the atmosphere, which is mostly nitrogen, is replenished as nitrogen gas escapes from the planet. Theres also evidence that material escaping from Pluto manages to land on Charon and collect around its polar cap. Over time, that material is darkened by solar ultraviolet light, too.   Plutos Family Along with Charon, Pluto sports a retinue of tiny moons called Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Theyre oddly shaped and appear to be captured by Pluto after a gigantic collision in the distant past. In keeping with naming conventions used by astronomers, the moons are named from creatures associated with the god of the underworld, Pluto.  Styx is the river that dead souls  cross to get to Hades. Nix is the Greek goddess of darkness, while Hydra was a many-headed serpent. Kerberos is an alternate spelling for Cerberus, the so-called hound of Hades who guarded the gates to the underworld in mythology. Whats Next for Pluto Exploration? There are no further missions being built to go to Pluto. There are plans on the drawing board for one or more that could go out this distant outpost in the solar systems Kuiper Belt and possibly even land there.

Monday, October 21, 2019

The Distribution of Power at Gateshead in Jane Eyre essays

The Distribution of Power at Gateshead in Jane Eyre essays At Gateshead, the Reed family holds power over Jane Eyre. The Reeds power comes in several forms, including limiting Janes social contact as well as bullying her. The Reeds also psychologically abuse Jane by attacking her value. Mrs. Reed does not allow Jane to interact with her cousins saying that not until, by her own observation that I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and child-like disposition, ...she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children. (p.7) This line not only shows the limit of Janes social contact, but also her exclusion from the family as well as a psychological attack against her. Janes cousin John is the member of the Reed family that physically holds power over her. He bullied and punished me: not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him ... (p.10) Up until Janes fight with John, she was expected to remain silent until she cou ld speak pleasantly, she also took all of her abuse without reply. Throughout Johns bullying, Janes, care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult. (p.10) She realizes that reacting will do her no good and that is shown when she does react to John throwing the book at her, Mrs. Reed punished her by sending her to the red-room, while it appears that John receives no punishment. Jane is also reminded of how she is not apart of the Reed family. When John finds her reading he tells Jane that, You have no business to take our books: you are a dependant, mama says: you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemens children like us. (p.11) Once Jane does gain hope of leaving the Reeds household, the Reeds begin to act curler towards her. Janes social interaction is further red...