Why Teens Smoke Cigarettes Essay Example for Free

Why Teens Smoke Cigarettes Essay According to the BaiDu, more than 80,000 young people around the world start smoking every day. Most people start smoking when they are teenagers, which make it more difficult to quit. The earlier the habit begins, the harder it is it to stop, although many teenagers make multiple attempts to stop smoking. There are three main reasons why teens start smoking which is boredom, lose the weight and as a response to the stress of school and family life. Just like the teens like to act as if they are someone special or dangerous. By smoking they can act on those feelings. Because it is so forbidden it becomes more alluring to teens. The problem is that when they take that first, they can become addicted. The idea that they are breaking the law or going against their parents and schools is an addiction within itself. Kids like to get attention; it does not matter if it’s good attention or bad attention. They crave attention and by smoking they get big attention. The other teens look at them in all kinds of ways and the adults get upset and don’t know what to do. As the research, some teenagers, especially girls, smoke in an effort to lose extra pound. Quit.org states that the nicotine in cigarettes can suppress a teenagers appetite, satisfy her cravings and keep her busy so that she does not think about food. In a culture that obsesses over how someone looks, smoking may allow teens to achieve the appearance needed to gain social acceptance. â€Å"Some teens begin smoking because their friends smoke and they want to be liked and accepted,† according to the CBC News. Many adults who began smoking as teenagers acknowledge that their friends gave them their first cigarette and that they began smoking because it was acceptable behavior. Many teenagers fear rejection, so to avoid embarrassment that they may smoke as a way to appear tough and be rebellious. In some cases, teenagers use smoking as a way to declare independence from their parents. Also having a family member that smokes is another main reason that teens start smoking. Anna Gilmore, professor of public health at the University of Bath, states in a September 2010 BBC News Health article that teens who have a family member who smokes are 90 percent more likely to start smoking. Teens often emulate the behaviors of their parents and older family members. Teens may start smoking simply because they see their parents or older siblings smoking. On the other hand, some teens may start smoking to rebel against family members or  authority figures who tell them not to smoke. Teenagers who smoke usually become addicted faster and on lower levels of nicotine than adults. Teen smoking can become a lifelong habit or a one-time case, depending on the individual. It affects almost 54 percent of high school students in the China every year. One in three people who begin smoking during their teenage years will later die of smoke related conditions, according to the website Teen Smoking. So boredom, lose the weight and pressure are a variety of reasons why a teenager may begin smoking.

Importance of interdisciplinary approach

Importance of interdisciplinary approach 1. Interdisciplinary Approach in IR This paper will analyze the importance of interdisciplinary approach in IR. The complexity of international relations has made it necessary to promote interdisciplinary approach and question the relevance of positivistic science while introducing a set of parameters not previously considered (regimes, social and cultural factors and actors, non-state entities) In my view due to the absence of interdisciplinary approach in IR, theorists were failed to predict major events in history such as the End of Cold War. Methodologies of various international theories did not help in predicting the end of cold war. The third debate between positivist and post positivist give rise the importance of interdisciplinary approach to better understand the world around us. The third debate widened the epistemology of IR. And it allows for more complex understanding on international system. The emergence of transnationals and globalization and its impact on states introduced interdisciplinary approach in IR. Globalization and the interdependency between economics and politics best describes the interdisciplinary nature of international relations. Although politics and economics have been studied separately for analytic purposes and as academic disciplines, and although each has its own paradigms, theories, and methodologies, it has long been recognized that e conomic factors shape political decisions, just as political factors may have a decisive influence on economic choices The realists, the famous school of international relations depict on the assumption that the state system is anarchic, realism depicts a world characterized by security competition and war (Mearshiemer 2002, 93). They also believe that it is possible to create a scientific base, and therefore, they try to be prudent. Critical theorist Cox (1981) questioned the emergence of existing world. The emergence of existing norms and institutions and how it can be changed. All these theories failed to describe scientifically from where state priorities come from and the reason for their change. These approaches have failed to understand or predict major changes in international relations or politics. However, I argue that constructivist scholars to some extent have followed the interdisciplinary approach in IR, such as Fearon and Wendt (2002) tried to bridge a gap between constructivism and rationalism. According to them ontological differences between rationalism and constructivist should be ignored in the study of International Relations. Fearon and Wendt said that there are two areas of convergence that are not taken into account. Both the two theories mostly give parallel, or at least harmonizing, description of international politics, as they are focusing on the same reality. Moreover, even they asks different questions, there are evidences that , other school answer s the question which is asked by opposite school. Therefore I argue that interdisciplinary approach is essential to understand the changing nature and priorities of states. Interdisciplinary approach can help international relations theorists to reach an understanding over the methodology of international relations. Thus, the Interdisciplinary approach can be used to bridge the gap between rationalist and constructivist, and define the systematic changes of international relations. In recent years, I believe that, constructivists have spent time in researching exploring meta-theoretical and ontological similarities between rational and constructivist approaches, therefore constructivist have tried to establish interdisciplinary approach. 2. Comparison Between Constructivist and Rationalist Constructivist and rationalist theories of International Relations often generate opposing propositions and both schools provide empirical evidence to support their claim. However, in this paper I argue that IR scholars should not reject one theory for another. There is a scope in both the theories for bridging the gap. Constructivism, according to Fearon and Wendt 2002 there are no measureable differences between these two approaches. In the first part of the paper I will focus on their differences and later I will argue these differences can be bridged as mentioned by Fearon and Wendt (2002) The visible gap between these two approaches is over ontology, specifically related to the role of international agents and actors. Therefore it can be said that the major difference is on ontological assumptions. Constructivism adds a social dimension that is missing from rationalist approaches. What is rational is seen as a function of legitimacy, defined by shared values and norms within institutions or other social structures rather than purely individual interests. Constructivist stress on a social ontology. Social Constructivism, their ontology gives attention to both social and material realities. Constructivist epistemology gives importance to qualitative and interpretative of seeking evidence. Constructivist focuses more on how structures and agents correlate with each other. Constructivism presents a social dimension which is absent in rationalist theories. Constructivist does not view international relations as a struggle for power. In contrast they emphasize more on the relevance of norms and identities in international relations. Constructivists believe that norms established over a period of time thus, they are deep rooted in international system. In contrast Rationalism believes on individualist ontology they believe on materialism and rigid facts, for rationalist norms, ideas, social element of international relations have no or less value. Similarly rationalist epistemology mainly focuses on the role of actors. Thus, for them state is the most important unit. Thus, they both view international system differently constructivist focus on social dimension and rationalist focus on material dimension of international system. Another major difference between these two theories is in empirical terms as a difference about the emerging issues in the world. However Fearon and Wendt (2002) argue that it is not a significant difference .I will discuss this in the later part of the paper. According to Wendt constructivists proclaims that agents are not an independent actors but they work in relation with social settings. Thus, state interests are not independent variables but they came into being as a result of social settings in which state exists, and thus they are endogenous to states. Another disagreement between rationalist and constructivist is over the role of ideas, both school of thoughts believe that ideas matter but differ on their importance and relevance in international relations. For Rationalists there is a difference between ideas and aspirations. Constructivist treats their descriptive role of ideas in more causal terms than constitutive terms. For Constructivist ideas and norms matter and the importance of ideas and norms cannot be overlooked. For realist ideas are matter but they view them in relation with distribution of power. Their comparison is interesting because they view society from different lenses rationalism through bottom-up and rationalism through top-down approach. However, Fearon and Wendt argue that the differences between these two schools can be bridged. Both the schools are concerned about same issues though they view these issues differently such as theory of war and peace (Wendt), role of internationals norms (Checkel T). Nevertheless, Fearon and Wendt argue that there are areas of possible junction that are inadequately addressed. Therefore, we can say that these schools are researching the same deep rooted realities. Fearon and Wendt further believe that both schools sometimes answers the questions that is asked by another school such as agent and structure question. Other theorists also echoed the same proposition as Fearon and Wendt. Adler (1998) mentioned that taking the middle ground is the base to the constructivist development. Guzzini (2000) argues that constructivisms achievement is somewhat based on its hypothetical place in the middle ground. Constructivist theories does not offer new research areas, but often rationalist and constructivist inquire into the same empirical dimensions as rationalist approaches openly categorize interactions as bargaining procedure. During interactions, actors use their power positions to the bargaining power of other actors to achieve maximizes their interests. Constructivist approaches believe that interactions are done through exchange of arguments. Challenges to Constructivist. There is a criticism on constructivist that they have a tendency to choose a single, descriptive logic of social action and they apply it to all social settings. It is a challenge for constructivist to define the boundaries as critics ask that whether constructivism is a theory of international relations or as a theory of philosophy, or it should be regarded as a bridge building theory between different approaches. Challenges to Rationalist Sindal (2001) argued that the intellectual, data collection, and methodological challenges of linking constructivism and rationalism, more recently an important set of critique grouped loosely under constructivist emphasize certain problems and set aside other issues by assumptions. Rational choice found deficient in explaining who the key actors are, in explaining their interest, origin and or in explaining how these change. The second challenge according to Sindal, that rational approach is not offering anything new, instead they tells us what we already aware of. The third challenge is that rationalist techniques are (Sindal 2001, 73) falsely triumphed over substance The fourth challenge is their weakness in empirical terms; their theories are not tested on strong empirical grounds.(Sindal 2001) The fifth challenge for rationalist is that they give importance to some issues, while leave others issues over assumptions. (Sindal 2001). The last challenge for rationalist is that, rationalist to some extent failed in pointing out major actors of IR, their interests and their origin and how these major actors changes. Role of IOs and Constructivist and Rationalist Perception Traditional international relations international relations (IR) theories such, realist,, rationalist and neo-functionalist theorists, such as realists, neo-functionalists or regime theorists, consider international organizations (IOs) as secondary tools with which to accomplish state goals. Therefore, traditional IR theorists give attention mostly towards the establishment of an IO and inter-state collaboration. As a result, I argue that previously filed of IOs was an under-studied field of IR. Constructivist approaches (Barnett and Finnemore 1999; Coleman and Barnett 2004; Alter 2004) overcome this problem; Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore counter traditional theory and provide a base for evaluating IOs as parttially independent actors. Barnett and Finnemore argue that IO is a powerful actor and In particular, they argue that IOs have significant autonomy and they gain their power through different ways not necessarily form the limited resources given to them by. Therefore I believe that their analysis regarding IO, acquires an important position in international relations theory. I argue that their analysis helps us in studying role of IOs in International Relations. IOs have gained much importance in IR. Therefore their analysis of the failure of IOs is also important. However, apart from their strengths in studying IOs their weakness lies in the fact that their primary focus is on IOs and they ignore the role of states in influencing IOs. Therefore, after analyzing the weakness and strength of constructivist and rationalist, I argue that middle-ground approach between rationalist and constructivist might help in better understanding the role of IOs and the influence of states on IOs. The bridge-building effort, as Alexander Wendt (2001) suggested, add greater amount of depth to each perspective. In the first part of this paper, I will discuss the similarities and dissimilarities between Constructivist and Rationalist. Barnett and Finnemore (1999) argued that rationalist theories view IO, staff as egoistic and self centered individuals who want to maximize their interest and hidden goals. Therefore, Finnemore argues that Rationalist and neo liberal institutionalist ignore the role of IOs and give attention to states only. Therefore, rationalist does not view IOs as independent actors whose interests are shaped by outside environment in which the exists. There are very few rationalist scholars who understand the importance of IO-state relationship (Milner, 1997). Therefore according to Checkel (1998) rationalist view does not provide a deeper analysis the possibility that the effects of institutions reach deeper, to the level of interests and identity (Checkel 1998). Therefore it can be said that constructivist theorists gives a more clear picture of IOs their interest, capabilities, organizational structure and its social implications on world. Constructivist and rationalist, both agree that the aim of IO staff is to survive but constructivist view survival not in terms of advancing their own interests but the interest and mandate of IOs. According to Coleman and Barnett (2004) the aim is to produce suitable policies through the adaptation of existing rules and new tasks, thus it gives IOs more space to be more capable and effective in their mandate. Therefore it is clear that constructivist focus on social context, however this point of view is unable to point out the circumstances under which IO staff realize their individual preferences. This paper merges rationalist and constructivist approaches to discover the conditions that enable IO officials to exercise their power. Therefore, in this paper I tried to show that constructivist describes the reasons of IO preferences; on the other hand rationalist describes the power of IOs to achieve their preferences. Therefore, I believe that realist and neo-liberalist did not offer complete set of reasons behind IO actions. The cooperation among states may foster as a result of norms being established in these institutions. Constructivist approach deals with these issues like preference formation but it is unclear on some aspects of social context. Therefore I argue that both constructivist and rationalist approach should fused together in order to better understand IO dependence and independence. 3. Philosophy of Science and International Relations The debate is still going on the status of international relations that whether it is a science or not. The debate has divided international relation scholars into two camps. The question whether IR is a science or not is still unresolved as scholars are not sure that the basis of IR is scientific. However many attempts have been by made by scholars establish IR as a science. In this article I will argue that scholars should continue their debate on the utility of Philosophy of Social Science in international politics or IR. As debate is always healthy and give rise to various theories that can better help in understanding the role of POS in IR or politics. Scholars and theorists should focus on what changes philosophy of science can offer by incorporating it in the field of international relations. Indeed IR scholars have tried to bridge a gap between science and IR to build the sound foundation of IR. I argue that building of solid foundation of IR on scientific basis is necessary to prove that IR theories can be tested scientifically. Scientific foundation of IR is necessary to show the validity of IR theories in real world. However, scholars who were inclined towards scientific foundation of IR have divided theories of IR into two categories positivist and post-positivist. Positivist theories have their foundations in the methods of the natural sciences by focusing on the impact of material forces. Positivist focus in international relations is on areas such as state relations, size of military forces, balance of powers etc. The positivist scholar Kenneth Waltz (1979) have argued that instrumentalism is an attempt to make IR more scientific and that he has found a more solid social scientific base for realist. He However, in present era the most prominent advocates of philosophy of social science are Colin Wight and Alexander Wendt. Both of them belongs to post-positivist camp and have tried to build a foundation of IR on philosophy of Social science that is acceptable to other camps such as positivist. However, the debate between positivist and post-positivist has not yielded any result so far thus; it is still unclear what should be the relation of science with IR. The first attempts were made by behaviouralist to make IR more scientific as Wight argues that before behaviouralist, scholars were not concerned about the relationship of science with IR. Behaviorist argued that there should be systematic study of IR based on evidence; therefore they reject the traditional historical theories of IR. In supporting the case for the scientific study of international relations, Alexander Wendts model of scientific realism conserved many residue of the positivist model of science.Wendt established a middle way between the positivist and post-positivist struggle. Scientific Realism therefore has tried to protect both positivist and anti-positivist theories in opposition to the efforts made by foundationalist to leave them out. It thus tries to create a room for a sort of inter-disciplinary dialogue in the discipline; they tried to make this debate as problem solving. Arguably there are, which is why constructivism has been contentious among philosophers of social science. The first thing that can be noted is that because of its focus on analysis of inter-subjective normative frameworks, a strong emphasis emerges among (especially moderate) social constructivists on tracing the contours of existing normative consensus in society, or in social sciences. To conclude, I would like to say that scholars should make an effort to understand POS in relation with Politics and IR, which I think now badly understood. Therefore as I mentioned earlier that debate should not be closed and we should not discard POS as BS but we should continue the debate to understand complexities of POS in order to better understand IR. And to answer the question why should we study POS and continue the debate of POS and its relationship with IR is that POS lies in the foundation of IR, I believe that without understanding POS we cannot understand dynamics of International politics or IR. References Adler, Emanuel. 2002. Constructivism and International Relations. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 5 24 pages Bevir, Mark and R. Rhodes. 2002. Interpretive Theory. In David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, Editors. Theory and Methods in Political Science. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan Pages 131-52 21 pages Checkel, Jeffrey T. 2007. Constructivism and EU Politics. In Knud Erik Joergensen, Mark Pollack, Ben Rosamond, Editors. Handbook of European Union Politics. London: Sage Publications 30 pages Cox, Robert. 1986. Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. In Robert Keohane, Editor. Neorealism and Its Critics. NY: Columbia University Press Chapter 8 50 pages Fearon, James and Alexander Wendt. 2002. Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 3 21 pages Finnemore, Martha. 1996. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press Chapter 1 25 pages George, Alexander. 1974. Theory for Policy in International Relations. In Alexander George. Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice. NY: Columbia University Press Appendix 26 pages Gourevitch, Peter. 2002. Domestic Politics and International Relations. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 16 19 pages Hopf, Ted. 2002. Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999. Ithaca: Cornell University Press Chapters 1, 6 76 pages Jackson, Robert and Georg SÃ ¸rensen. 2003. Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press Chapters 8, 9 40 pages Keohane, Robert. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press Chapters 1, 6 37 pages Marsh, David and Paul Furlong. 2002. A Skin not a Sweater: Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science. In David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, Editors. Theory and Methods in Political Science. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan Pages 17-41 25 pages Matthew, Richard and Mark Zacher. 1995. Liberal International Theory: Common Threads, Divergent Strands. In Charles Kegley, Editor. Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge. NY: St. Martins Press Chapter 5 43 pages Mearsheimer, John. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. NY: W.W. Norton Chapter 2 26 pages Risse, Thomas, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink, Editors. 1999. The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Chapter 1 38 pages Schmidt, Brian. 2002. On the History and Historiography of International Relations. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 1 19 pages Smith, Steve. 1996. Positivism and Beyond. In Ken Booth, Steve Smith and Marysia Zalewski, Editors. International Theory: Positivism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Chapter 1 36 pages Snidal, Duncan. 2002. Rational Choice and International Relations. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 4 22 pages Tickner, J. Ann. 2002. Feminist Perspectives on International Relations. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 14 16 pages Van Evera, Stephen. 1997. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press Chapters 1, 2 82 pages Waltz, Kenneth. 1986. Laws and Theories. In Robert Keohane, Editor. Neorealism and Its Critics. NY: Columbia University Press Chapter 2 19 pages Wight, Colin. 2002. Philosophy of Science and International Relations. In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth Simmons, Editors. Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage Publications Chapter 2 29 pages

Problems with Mobile Commerce

Problems with Mobile Commerce The recent years have seen an explosive growth in the mobile phone industry. Research has shown that the number of mobile phone subscribers at the end of the year 2004 has passed 1.6 billion. Mobile commerce more popularly known as m-commerce has made the business mobility a reality. The concept of anytime and anywhere internet facility with an inexpensive and comparatively smaller computing infrastructure is the driving force towards mobile commerce. With the advancements in the Wireless communication, mobile commerce has become a new paradigm for personal communication without any constraints in location. There are no age limitations in conducting mobile commerce. Starting from the teenagers to the retirees, everyone is depending on mobile devices. Mobile Commerce is defined as any direct or indirect transaction conducted through the handheld devices such as PDAs and mobile phones facilitated through mobile or wireless telecommunication networks. It is a subset of electronic commer ce. E-Commerce and M-Commerce differ in the way the business is conducted. In E-commerce, online auction systems act as an intermediary between the buyer and a seller whereas mobile commerce is more personalized and is ideal for the location based services. The characteristics of mobile devices such as mobility, cost, portability, voice, more personalization and global positioning system (GPS) have made the establishment of new business models around mobile devices. Many applications such as mobile payment systems, entertainment, content distribution and business services have been developed. Consumers can use mobile phones as an ATM or debit card to purchase tickets or pay the bills online. Content distribution services such as real time information and notifications and location tracking systems are increasing every day. Consumers can get real time information such as stock quotes, traffic information, news and weather forecasts anywhere anytime on their mobile phones via the internet. In addition to the real time content services, mobile phones have become an entertainment medium. Entertainment services such as ringtone downloads, watching live TV broadcasts, online games and music downloads has become a youth trend today. A report from Screen Digest Ltd., a global market research company, shows that Korea and Japan accounted for 80% of the worldwide online game downloading revenues (approx. 380 million Euros). According to Juniper research, a company that specializes in mobile market and technologies, adult mobile services and mobile gambling services accounted for total revenue of US $1 billion and US $ 15 billion respectively. Mobile Commerce has a great impact on business services and applications. Extending the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to have mobile functionality will provide the sales personnel and marketing staff with real time management and corporate data. Mobile inventory management applications benefit the logistic related business in their supply chain management. Also, no time and location based constraints helps in making the offices going paperless in which case a sales person need not have to carry loads of paper for the client delivery. Mobile Commerce is creating new opportunities for the mobile service providers as well as for mobile users. Experts have proposed that the next wave of computing would be mobile commerce and the first decade of 21st century would be considered as the decade of mobile computing and mobile commerce. The driving factors of mobile commerce include various interrelated forces. The social trends where every person is depending on his or her mobile for communication (mobile society), technological advancements and economics are some of the driving forces of mobile commerce. The success of the electronic commerce itself is another major driving factor for mobile commerce. Consumers have embraced the web based e commerce in their day to day life in such a way that they cannot think of doing their tasks without any electronic channel and this has made businesses to extend their services beyond electronic channel into mobile channel. In addition to the above factors, the lowered provider costs, increased internet speed and reliability, availability of content and information anytime through an instant access and reduced time to market have contributed for the growth of mobile services. Although the above mentioned factors indicate that mobile commerce is creating various opportunities for businesses, users and service providers, a report from the Business Studies 2009 shows that only 7% of the 90% of the Americans who own a mobile phone have used their mobile phones to conduct mobile commerce transaction. Electronic Commerce can be divided into four different categories such as Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Business (C2B) and Consumer to Consumer (C2C). Mobile commerce is mainly concerned with the B2B or B2C market. With the widespread adoption of mobile phones, mobile commerce has a prosperous future in business to consumer (B2C) category. As Business to Consumer (B2C) is considered the future of mobile commerce, businesses and consumers are becoming more concerned about security issues since identity theft has become a growing problem. The wireless telecommunication industry has seen enormous advancements in technology and hence the development of standards. But a question arises on whether the early adoption of the standards may hinder future developments in mobile commerce. Let us have a look at the major differences between mobile commerce and electronic commerce and what drives the consumer to adopt m-commerce over e-commerce. The attributes such as ubiquity that is anytime, anywhere availability, high interactivity, convenience, personalization, that is mobile phones are more personal with most probably a single owner when compared to home computers or internet cafes which is shared between a number of people, and finally localization are some of the benefits of mobile commerce which is driving the consumer market. In short, mobile commerce offers more enticing market opportunities than e- commerce. While live internet on the mobile may sound intuitively appealing, it is very difficult to estimate the utility and the extent of its usage. Businesses, governments, service providers, mobile users and stakeholders still need to address many issues and obstacles before mobile commerce pervades in to our daily lives. The next section of the paper discusses the major issues in mobile commerce such as application issues, network challenges, consumer privacy and trust, security concerns, infrastructure problems and legal and regulatory issues. Key Issues in Mobile Commerce * Security in mobile commerce * Location management issues * Limitations of mobile devices * Ethics and Privacy * Wireless Infrastructure * Usability * Legal and Regulatory challenges * Consumer Trust * Interoperability and Compatibility Analysis Security in mobile commerce Wireless communications are more vulnerable than wired communication. Although most of the wireless data networks provide reasonable encryption, security has become a major concern with the introduction of high end mobile devices in the market and the anticipated increase in the number of devices. Many issues exists with the use of mobile devices to conduct transactions such as: Data could be lost and the mobile terminals itself could be misplaced or stolen due to its smaller size and contents stored in the device could be accessed by anyone who possesses the device due to lack of proper authentication techniques . Although mobile commerce enjoys mobility, it raises many serious security threats. In particular, as it plays a very important role in business and personal life, security issues have to be considered seriously. There are many aspects to consider in security which includes physical security, risk assessment, secure wireless transmission, secured access and malware. The built in security features such as passwords and locking keypads are not used by majority of wireless users and the data stored on these handheld devices are often not encrypted which makes it easy for anyone to access the information stored without any authorized access. The article Mobile Commerce: issues and obstacles mentions that Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia did provide industry standard digital signature for authentication but was discarded in 2006. Data transmitted over the wireless medium is more vulnerable for attacks. Wireless transmission can be intercepted and if is not encrypted or encrypted with a flawed protocol, then the information can be made known. Unsecured data transmission may be exploited by hackers for eavesdropping or à ¯man- in-the-middle attacks. Tradeoff between performance and security remains an issue of concern for low power mobile devices. Communication between mobile devices is in the form of ad hoc networks where one node communicates with another without a fixed infrastructure. Network decision making in ad hoc networks is decentralized, as a result all the network protocols rely on the cooperation between the nodes. An attacker can utilize this to compromise a single node with false routing information or can instruct all the routing to go through the compromised node. In addition to compromising the nodes, hackers may route the mobile users to download malicious or miscellaneous information or may even launch denial of service attacks. An attacker need not always target a mobile user but instead if a mobile user roams in an attackers zone he or she is vulnerable to attacks. Roaming in an attackers zone may lead to the alteration or stealing of data and information without the end users knowledge. The difficulty in tracing the wireless devices as they roam in different wireless zones, no fixed geographic points and the ability to go online and offline easily gives the malicious users an excellent advantage to launch the attacks. A question of who would be responsible for the financial or data loss remains a challenge in security. Is it the user or the wireless provider or the financial institution or the software provider held responsible for the loss? Someone has to be responsible for the loss and it is quite costly and becomes a risk for stakeholders. Hence there is a need for wireless risk management. There are some false impressions that only laptops or computers are exposed for viruses and cell phones or handheld devices such as PDAs and smart phones are immune to viruses. These viruses when downloaded by cell phones drain battery life or can simply increase the load on the network.28 The compromised security function may affect not only the network but also can lead to the loss of revenue in business. Location management issues Mobile Commerce is an emerging field which involves many applications such as financial applications, user applications, entertainment, mobile inventory management applications, mobile business re-engineering, mobile games and location specific mobile advertisements. All these applications require the support of location tracking to track devices, products or the people. The following figure shows possible mobile commerce architecture. The important components of mobile commerce include wireless infrastructure, user interfaces, devices, database, mobile middleware and servers. In general, mobile commerce is very dependent on the location information of the users, devices, products, services and servers. Because of the mobility involved in mobile commerce, the location management becomes a challenging task. With the varying requirements in precision, scalability and delay between different m-commerce applications, tracking becomes more challenging. Issues in location management include precision in tracking, updating the location, storage and access of the tracked information, updating of the existing location management schemes with few modifications, difficulty in modeling the context-awareness related to the location management, the overhead of location management for various mobile commerce applications under different network size, mobility patterns and transaction size. There are a number of location intensive mobile commerce applications which require location management support as their primary requirement in wireless network. The article Addressing Location Issues in Mobile Commerce identifies some of the location intensive mobile commerce applications which include mobile advertising, mobile financial applications, mobile inventory management and proactive service management. One of the most important components of mobile commerce is financial applications which include mobile banking, mobile money transfer, brokerage services and mobile payments. If implemented properly, these applications may eventually become a business tool. Mobile advertising is another category of application where advertising is targeted to the users depending on the demographic information collected by the wireless service providers and the location of the user. Location sensitive advertisements such as shopping deals or on-going specials can be accomplished depending on the surrounding area of the mobile users. Issues in mobile advertising are: who owns the location information, how to share this information between wireless providers, what are the storage requirements and how to satisfy the need of real time processing in order to capture the user information. Mobile inventory management is tracking the location of products, goods and services. This application is very helpful for logistic providers to determine the time taken for delivery to their customers in order to provide a better customer service and to compete against other businesses. Amongst different inventory management applications, rolling inventory is one of the interesting applications which involve tracking of multiple trucks carrying large amount of inventory which helps for just in time delivery of goods when a store needs certain goods or services. Another category of mobile commerce application is proactive service management which involves collecting pertinent information of current or future needs of a user and providing the service proactively. Some of the issues in these applications are security, reliability and the cost of deployment. Limitations of mobile devices Mobile phones, hand held devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and pagers, palm sized computers and laptops such as tablets and vehicle mounted interfaces are some of the examples of the current wireless devices. Although mobility and flexibility are the main advantages of the mobile terminals, they lack in several aspects when compared to personal computers. Most of the mobile devices have constrained display capabilities with low resolution and small screen size. Limited and complicated input options due to small and multifunctional keypad. The requirement of mobile devices to be physically light and small hinders the development of user friendly interfaces and graphical applications. Mobile devices also have limited processing and computational power, memory and disk capacity, limited battery life and surf ability. All these drawbacks which do not support complex applications and transactions may lead to the limited usage of mobile commerce. Some of the must have features of smart phones are as follows: In order to satisfy multi-tasking and multi-application nature in smart phones, multi-tasking operating system is a necessary feature. Second feature for smart phones to conduct mobile commerce is a real QWERTY keyboard. The third feature is the QVGA or a high resolution display which is necessary for web browsing, gaming and MMS. Business productivity tools and application software for smart phones is a necessary feature to access business, sales, financial, inventory and real time information. Support of the 3rd generation technology for internet access is another important feature. Video and audio streaming, GPS and navigation capability and digital camera are another set of requirements which needs to be incorporated into the ideal client platform. Packing the above mentioned functionalities into a small handheld device with the multi-tasking operating system and a user friendly interface is a formidable task. Figure 2 shows a graph of the global cell phone and the smart phone shipment. As seen from the figure the percentage of the fully featured handsets are growing every year. Although the growth of the smart phones makes smart phones an ideal client platform for mobile commerce, the specifications of todays smart phones are not adequate for the transactions required for conducting mobile commerce. The success of the mobile commerce lies in the user satisfaction and the user experience in the new technology. Thus mobile device limitations have to be overcome for the widespread adoption of mobile commerce. Figure 2: Global Cell phone and smart phone graph Ethics and Privacy In the recent years ethics and privacy have become a major and touchy issue where consumers do not want to expose every aspect of their daily lives. Web applications such as maps and financial applications require personal information from the users which has created a negative impact with consumers. The risk of openness is comparatively more in a mobile environment which has created higher demands of privacy protection amongst the users. Being able to control information about oneself is what has made privacy a major concern for the society. Inappropriateness of the ringing of cell phones such as in a meeting is one of the annoying situations. This raises an ethical concern of the intrusion of cell phones at inappropriate circumstances. This gives rise to several questions on if mobile commerce evolves in such a way that it follows us around, monitors us and tries to anticipate our needs and delivers services, how much does it intrude in our private lives and the lives of people around us? Will there be a boundary between the work and the personal life? These issues if not addressed in a satisfied manner may become the obstacles for the adoption of mobile commerce. The article Mobile Commerce Adoption in China and the United States: A Cross Cultural Study states in its hypothesis 4 as Privacy Perception is positively associated with consumers intention to use mobile commerce which is in fact a true analysis. Federal Trade Commission has to increase its efforts in the inspection on mobile marketing industry. It is the responsibility of the wireless providers to protect the privacy of the consumers in the services they provide. A recent report shows that Verizon Wireless (VZW) customers were billed for downloading the ringtones and other mobile content which was advertised as free by the online marketers. Privacy has to be protected by the mobile service providers in order to make consumers feel comfortable doing business using mobile devices. It is very important for the wireless operators to protect their customers to the fullest and to stand by their word on treating every customer with respect. Mobile devices provide convenience to the consumers with the slimmer and compact style. In addition to that with the increase in the storage capability consumers are able to store more and more data. Research shows that ninety four percent of the mobile users stored phone numbers, eighty three percent stored digital photos, sixty five percent stored contacts and addresses, fifty five percent stored videos and forty eight percent stored their calendar appointments and music and other important information. With the vast amount of private data stored on the mobile devices raises a question of the protection of these mobile devices. If lost or stolen or damaged there is no way to back up the data. Wireless Infrastructure The wireless communication infrastructure required for mobile commerce is complex. The development of appropriate services and standards determines the success of mobile commerce. The technologies used for mobile commerce include wireless local area networks and wireless telecommunication. Bandwidth and data transmissions are some of the obstacles for mobile commerce. Wireless networks bandwidth are less when compared to the wired network. Although applications are created in such a way that it functions effectively in both the wired and mobile environments organizations still need to research on the interaction of the users through the wireless devices and network. Applications running successfully in a wired environment may encounter new problems such as data availability, fault tolerance, concurrency control and processing efficiency when ported to a mobile environment. The table below shows some of the wireless networking issues. Table 1: Comparison of mobile and wireless networks As seen from table 1, bit rate and coverage are two important factors. In addition to that the wireless quality of service which affects the performance in terms of delay and loss, reliability and survivability of wireless networks where a user can access mobile commerce application even during the network failures, roaming capabilities where a user can have access to multiple heterogeneous networks other quality attributes are some of the specific requirements of wireless infrastructure in order to conduct mobile commerce. Wireless Application Protocol or WAP is the protocol used as a standard for mobile commerce in the United States. WAP uses a set of common protocols to facilitate the interoperability among different wireless networks, applications and devices. But in reality WAP has failed to fulfill the technological promises. WAP cannot handle complex transactions such as sequencing of several services distributed over different networks. WAP is not suitable for a distributed networking environment. Another issue with WAP is it tends to be slower since it was not originally designed for broadband communications. The last problem with WAP is its charges are minute based; hence time consuming activities may become expensive. GPRS was designed as an alternative to WAP which is faster than WAP but it has its own downside. Since the charges are based on kilobyte download (kb) in GPRS, it may become expensive if mobile commerce service download volume is considerable. As there is an increase in the demand for bandwidth for new and existing applications, a lot of problems arise on how to obtain the unused airspace. Although reuse of frequency is increasing today the availability of frequency and bandwidth may become more limited in future. Wired devices such as laptops and PCs use a set of established wireless standards such as IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.11b. Will the mobile devices have the ability to interface with more than one communication environment? Will the communication technologies itself have the ability to interfere with one other? All these questions remain as a challenge. The table below consolidates the wireless infrastructure and communication issues. Table 2: Wireless Infrastructure Issues Usability Usability and user experience issues are often neglected in most of the businesses. It is necessary to understand and improve the usability of the web interfaces exposed through the mobile devices. Users conduct communication such as information search and transactions via user interface. Hence user interface is an important pre-requisite for satisfying customers sensory and functional needs. While mobile devices today can access a variety of applications, they enforce limitations in screen size resolution and have cumbersome input mechanisms. A survey from an internet on mobile internet users indicates usability as the biggest source of frustration. A complete understanding of different aspects of usability and how it might differ in a wireless context is necessary for all the designers and the organizations before leveraging the commercial benefits of mobile commerce. Device inefficiency may become a major issue for the adoption of mobile commerce. User interfaces if not properly designed may lead to a fifty percent transaction reduction via mobile devices. Addition of what is called cool features may make mobile devices less convenient for use. There are a number of guidelines available on web site usability such as on how to improve the layout and design of a web page, how to improve the components of a webpage. However these guidelines do not specify which aspects are critical and also the criticality may differ for different contexts and for different users. Furthermore there are limited guidelines on specific situation implementations. Thus it is necessary to understand what is important to users in order to create a more compelling mobile commerce and to drive revenues. The following figure shows the linking of usability, context and value. Figure 3: Linking of usability, context and value Relevance, Structure and Personalization are the important factors for a successful wireless interface experience. In addition to that it is necessary for the designers to understand the value the consumers derive from these three relevance, structure and personalization aspects in order to provide that value. Web presence is not equal to wireless web presence i.e. e # m. Mobile experience differs from web experience in both designs as well as in usage. Legal and Regulatory challenges Mobile commerce raises various legal and regulatory issues and challenges which is very broad as it includes safety along with many others. The difficulty in the application of the traditional laws and principles in the usage of wireless technologies is an issue facing mobile commerce. One particular case is when a seller tries to sell goods or services through a portal which is allocated to receive requests from wireless devices through specific network providers or when a person uses his or her mobile device (cell phone or a PDA) to purchase something poses many legal challenges between various parties as to who is responsible for regulating them and how should they be regulated. There are various legal issues need to be considered in mobile commerce, among them are the m-commerce contracts and identification of contracting parties and their legal capacities. Another legal issue in mobile commerce is determining the ideal method for payment. What methods need to be devised for the payment of a purchase from ones mobile? Another important question is what is the applicable law and jurisdiction if mobile devices are used for business transactions? The article on mobile commerce legal issues gives an example for the above question. What law would apply if a person residing in Lebanon who is a customer of Emarati uses his or her mobile to purchase software from a German firm whose server is located in the USA? Is it the law of the server location or the law of the country of citizenship of the customer or the law where the customer resides or the law of jurisdiction where the customer purchased software? If there is any dispute between the buyer and the seller, which court is responsible for the jurisdiction? Is it the court of the buyers country or the sellers country or the court agreed by both the parties? Digital cameras in mobile devices can be used for taking the photos and exchanging or sharing them over the internet instantly. The sharing or exchanging of the photos done without the proper authorization may result in the violation of the intellectual property rights including the copyright law. In that case who is liable for the infringement? The person who exchanged the photos on the internet or the network providers or the operators who facilitated the exchange? Is it possible to identify the person sharing the photo? Another aspect of mobile commerce issue is the safety and health risks. Safety includes many regulatory concerns such as terrorism and exposure to wireless devices. Today cell phones and other handheld devices are used in airplanes, automobiles, boats and more. This convenience has made the transactions on the go, but is this safe? Cell phones or other mobile devices installed in an automobile or a motor vehicle can distract the user from driving. Mobile commerce in the context of driving may pose serious safety concerns. Health risks of using mobile devices for conducting m-commerce include cancer. A research from the Foster and Moulder from the medical college of Wisconsin indicated that the radiations produced by the wireless devices may cause brain cancer. Cell phones are being used to set off the bombs remotely. A report from a Cellular news showed that terrorists used a cell phone to detonate the bomb in a min bus in Indonesia. Another recent bombing in London England was attempted by cell phones. A slight different issue in legal and regulatory is privacy. Todays wireless technologies provide a lot of information about the users to the network operators which include tracking of the users location. Competitive companies can purchase such information from the network operators which may lead to a privacy breach. The last but not the least issue in mobile commerce is the risk of crime. Hackers can steal the data and information from the mobile devices or simply overload the wireless network traffic to deteriorate the service. Is there any criminal law to incorporate these new types of crime and how will these penalties be enforced? Consumer Trust Trust plays an important role in mobile commerce. Trust is part of security issue but it is more of a business and psychological issue than a technical issue. This does not mean that trust has nothing to do with the technology, however it is necessary for the potential mobile commerce users to perceive wireless environment as a secure environment in order for the mobile commerce to reach its potential. Business relationships would not exist today without the trust which exists in many forms in business context such as laws and regulations, contracts, company policies and personal reputations. Building consumer trust in mobile commerce is a daunting task for the organizations, network providers and mobile vendors. E commerce is also facing the same issue because even today users do not trust technology. They are afraid to do any kind of financial transaction or any purchases using mobile handhelds. Trust plays an important role in business transaction too as trust lays the foundation between the businesses and the customers. The key characteristics in forming the trust include convenience, cost-efficiency, motivation, capacity and integrity. They all play an important role in gaining the consumer trust. Interoperability and Compatibility Interoperability is the ability of a mobile device to be used anywhere around the world. Compatibility as defined by the Gera and Chen is the degree to which an innovation is consistent with existing facilities and practice. Mobile commerce applications are said to be compatible if the applications and services satisfy the needs or lifestyle of a user. Compatibility can be classified into two types: Behavioral and Needs Compatibility. Behavioral compatibility is achieved when an innovation is consistent with the current technology and the users existing value. Needs compatibility is achieved when an innovation satisfies the needs of the users. Both behavioral and needs compatibility play a very important role in the adoption of mobile commerce. An example for the lack of the interoperability is when a network provider offers a text message acknowledgement within their own network and not on other network carriers. Mobile commerce is impeded by the existence of a variety of network communication standards. Applications are developed around the network standards and device characteristics which is the main cause for the interoperability issues. Efforts are being made to overcome

Relay Services for the Deaf Essay -- essays papers

Relay Services for the Deaf In America, there are more than 28 million deaf people but there are many different services available to meet their needs. A hearing person can have a casual conversation without even realizing the difficulties that 202,613 (5.58%) hard of hearing people might face in the world (Stat. on Deafness). It doesn’t have to be so difficult for a deaf/hard of hearing person to have a conversation even if the person they are talking to is in another state. With popular services such as Maryland Relay, the TTY and various telecommunications relay services- it is now possible for deaf people to have a phone conversation. In 1984, of the 85 million telephones in the United States and Canada, less than one percent were used regularly by deaf people (Lang). Advocates for deaf, Robert H. Weitbrecht, James C. Marsters and Andrew Saks â€Å"started the process that led to deaf people around the world having an affordable phone system they could use† (Lang). The new technology that is coming out assist deaf people is amazing and very helpful. Robert H. Weitbrecht led the way to developing one of the most popular technology services for the deaf- the teletypewriter using shortwave radios. If more than 1/3 of the U.S. population has a significant hearing impairment by age 65, it is evident that something needed to be done to help people in the world better communicate with the deaf/hard of hearing population (Stat. on Deafness). One advancement in the world of relay services is the teletypewriter-TTY, also called text telephones, which looks similar to a typewriter with a text screen. It enables deaf or hard of hearing people to make phone calls that they wouldn’t normally be able to make on a standard teleph... ....rm Overview of the Maryland Relay. (2003). Retrieved October 17, 2004, from http://www.mdrelay.org/relay/mdrelayoverview.htm PR Newswire. "Hands on Expands Video Relay Services to include Videophone Users." Deaf Today. http://www.deaftoday.com/news/archives.html. â€Å"Statistics on Deafness & Hearing Disorders in the U.S.† (n.d) Deaf and HOH culture information. Retrieved December 5, 2004, from, http://members.aol.com/deafcultureinfo/deafstatistics.htm. Texas School for the Deaf goes to the head of the class...with Installation of Sprint Empowered EducationSM. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2004, from, http://www.relaytoday.com/admin/previewnewsletter.php?ID=2#27 â€Å"Ultratec Public TTY Hearing Impaired Telephones -Vandal Proof Motorized or Shelf Top Units.†(n.d) Phone Merchants. Retrieved December 4, 2004, from http://www.phonemerchants.com/ulpubttyhear.html.

Rochester as the Rake in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre Essay -- Jane Ey

Rochester as the Rake in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre    The rake became one of the most recognized figures of the Restoration Comedies. The rake character was seen as unmarried, cynical, coarse but with the manners of a gentleman, manipulative and self serving. By the twentieth century the rake had given away to the Regency dandy and the dark Byronic hero of Victorian literature. However, the rake does not completely disappear from twentieth century novels. Charlotte Bronte resurrects the Restoration hero in the creation of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre. Edward Rochester exhibits many of the qualities associated with the Restoration rake; he manipulates the woman around him and his actions are self serving. Bronte’s rake varies just enough that she can present her character as both hero and villain which eventually allows for his reformation. Readers are often deceived into believing that the rake should be viewed as a villain, hence their resistance in accepting Edward Rochester as a rake. However, as Harold Weber suggests that readers should not be concerned "with whether or not the rake emerges as a hero or a villain – he must [. . .] be both" (Weber 53). The rake’s mistreatment of women categorizes him as villain. Rochester’s mistreatment of Jane and the other women in the story is detestable. He confesses that he used Blanche Ingram to make Jane jealous. Rochester admits that he "feigned courtship with Miss Ingram" (261; ch.24). Rochester deceives Blanche into believing his intent was marriage; yet she was merely a pawn in his romantic conquest of Jane. The whole time Rochester pursues Jane he is already married to Bertha. Rochester hides his marriage in an attempt to find his definition of a more suitable wife. He t... ...tion. In the creation of her hero, Edward Rochester, Charlotte Bronte resurrected the Restoration rake. Rochester posses many characteristics associated with the rake. His past life is nonexistent without discussing some former lover. He deceives Jane into believing he is unmarried. Like many rakes, Rochester can be viewed as both villain and hero. While his actions towards the other characters in the novel are villainous, Bronte presents them in such a manner that the reader’s sympathies lie with Rochester. Rochester repents for his debauched lifestyle and is rewarded by the death of Bertha and his marriage to Jane.    Works Cited Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Beth Newman. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1996. Weber, Harold. The Restoration Rake-Hero: Transformations in Sexual Understanding in Seventeenth-Century England. Madison U of Wisconsin P, 1986.

Bluest Eye

A few decades ago, racial discrimination has been a great concern for many, as it existed in all aspects of the society. What we know of discrimination is that a certain race, color, or ethnicity views themselves superior to others, and the ones who often get discriminated often are the blacks, because of their history of slavery and abuse from the whites (Kuenz). This is the most common form of discrimination at that time. What some wouldn’t know is that discrimination is not limited to one race discriminating another.The other form of discrimination is racial self-loathing, or hating one’s own race because he views it to be inferior, ugly, poor, and the like. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, racial self-loathing in the black community is exposed and attacked through the development of Pecola Breedlove’s character. This development was clearly shown through her desires and aspirations of becoming white – of achieving the bluest eye, in order to a ttract attention and live a happy life. The idea of racial self-loathing was exposed and attacked when eventually her desires and aspirations were destroyed, driving her to insanity.Pecola Breedlove is a picture of a dreamer who seeks a better life at the start of the novel. All throughout the story, it was shown that she desires a few things, hoping that it could change her and her surroundings. One of these desires is to learn how she would be able to make people love her. Being born black, and experiencing a short stay with the MacTeers who are whites, she was able to understand how different she was. Her stay in the white household was very important because she was able to develop hatred for her race.She wanted attention, just like the attention being given to the white kids in the household. Pecola views that it was the overall features that would attract the attention of other people. She hated the color of her skin and her eyes. She thought that if her skin was white and her eyes were blue, more people would be able to notice her and love her (Wills). It was narrated in the story that â€Å"It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different† (Morrison).At this point of the story, we now see the intensity of her desire to shed her physical features as a black girl. We may judge that her desires were only skin deep, and that it was only her childish jealousy speaking. But still, she would grow up with this mentality, and one proof of this was her mother. It can be seen that this racial self-loathing can transcend age, and it doesn’t get any simpler, in fact, it gets worse. Pecola’s mother also hated her color and features, and the indirect effect of this is her fights and arguments with her husband.It was the fights between her parents that insinuated Pecola’s desi re to disappear. She often witnesses her mother and father beating up each other. She feels that it was again caused by their color, intensifying her desire to be different. She taught that if she was white or at least she has the bluest eyes, her parents would be happy and love each other. Her brother wouldn’t run away, and everything would turn out well. Somehow, she uses her racial self loathing as a means to an end. She thinks that the problem is rooted on color, and it would be resolved by color.Looking closely at Pecola’s understanding of her situation, we may say that she uses her desire for the bluest eyes as an escape. She wanted a new, different life, one rooted on love, care, and attention. She sees no difference between her and the white children except well, they’re white. It was pointed out by Claudia when she said â€Å"Nobody paid us any attention, so we paid very good attention to ourselves† (Morrison). If that is so, then the only thing that she wanted to change was her appearance, and she thinks that this would be the solution to all of her problems.At the end of the story, Pecola was driven into madness because her desires were never fulfilled. Instead, the entire world seemed to turn against her. She was sexually violated by her father two times. Her mother didn’t believe her, and even beat her up. She bore the fruit of the abuse, but it was lost in a miscarriage. Looking at the start of the story, we see a big change in Pecola. The hopeful child from the start was almost destroyed by violence in the end. This development in her character was the author’s take on the existing idea of racial self loathing at that time.For Toni Morrison, Pecola embodied every black person who hated their color. Toni Morrison’s take on racial self loathing is evident in the character of Pecola. Desiring for a better life by hating yourself would bring you more harm than good. Well, in the case of Pecola, it see med that it was brought upon her by her society. In her eyes, she sees people ignoring her, making fun of her, and even hating her because of her color. But then again, Pecola’s eyesight is clouded by her desire to be different, to be white, and to have the bluest eyes.Instead of being true to herself, she wanted to change everything. For her, it was a means to an end, the only way for her to accept by the people around her. For the author Toni Morrison, it was not. Hating one’s race and color wouldn’t change anything, instead, it would just attract more hatred, more cruelty, and more violence. Pecola shouldn’t have lost sight of the people around her. Not everyone overlooked and hated her. The MacTeer household, especially the children, loved her despite her color.This is one way for the author to say that color is not everything, and it shouldn’t be the reason for people like Pecola to hate. Works Cited: Kuenz, Jane. â€Å"The Bluest Eye: Notes on History, Community, and Black Female Subjectivity † African American Review Vol. 27. No. 3 (1993). Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. , 1993. Wills, Joy. â€Å"Genealogy of Rejection in Morrison's the Bluest Eye†. 1999. March 23 2009. .

Communication and interpersonal interactions Essay

Explain strategies used in health and social care environments to overcome barriers to effective communication and interpersonal interactions Sometimes in health and social care, professionals find it hard to be able to communicate with patients and clients because of reasons such as disabilities. Sometimes people with certain disabilities need help and support in order to communicate with professionals effectively. People with learning difficulties may need to have a advocate with them who talks behalf of the person who may feel nervous or uncomfortable because they have learning difficulty. They may also feel confused because of the terminology that the professionals may use that the patient may not understand. There are also many types of services that help people with disabilities in order to interact effectively with the professionals such as, signers, translators, physiologists, and mentors. Some patients or clients may have different types of disabilities such as being death. People who have ear imperilment often have signers who will sign whatever is being said by the professional and to the patient who is unable to hear to be able to interact effectively with what is being said by the professional. People who are unable to speak English will have a translator with them who is someone who translates one language into another for the patient so the patient and professional is able to communicate with each other. Some patients use some forms of technologies such as hearing aids and mobile phones to be able to text and communicate. Hearing aids are made for people with hearing imperment, to be able to hear clearly by adjusting the volume to a good level to be able to help them hear clearly. Texting is also another form of communication as some people that are death may prefer communicating with professionals through text. Patients and clients may have preffered languages which may include first language, braile, makaton and sign. People that are paralised E. G. Steven Hawkins, they would use a makaton to be able to communicate which is a language programme for people who are not able to speak efficiently that patients may use to be able to communicate with professionals. Another form of preferred language may be first language, people who speak more than 1 language may prefer speaking their own language with a professional that speaks it too as they may feel that they are able to communicate better with their first language. People who are blind will use a braille which is a form of system that has alphabets of dots which can be read through touch. People with visual impairment will use a braille that needs to be provided to them by professionals to be able to communicate with them. Active listening is also another strategy that is used to interact effectively as it can show a clear understanding of what has being said. Active listening involves listening to patients and then reflecting back on what has been said to make it clear the message they have received is understood. As a individual, all patients have the right to be treated in a caring way by the service workers that they access. Health professions support patients and clients in many ways such as promoting rights, maintaining empowerment, and maintaining confidenialty. Maintain confidentiality under the act of confidentiality y is very important and MUST be maintained to all patients and clients of care and under the law. All patients and clients have the right to confidentiality meaning they have the right to access what information is being held by them, to change any inaccurate information, and to have the right to private information being locked up safely where know one can access. All health professions maintain confidentiality by storing private information about patients in a safe place, not sharing or talking about anyones information with people from outside other than colleagues. Professionals also make sure that they maintain confidentiality by giving patients and clients privacy to be able to have their own personal space. When services users access services, professionals try their best to make them feel pleased about the service so they try the best as they can to make patients feel like they are at home by maintaining empowerment. Empowerment means being able to give choices of freedom to be able to make patients feel pleased about the service and happy. All professionals are aware that everyone has individual differences such as religion, so they make sure that they provide different types of choices to people from different religions such as Muslims and also provide different types of choices according to peoples preferences.