Sleep and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sleep and Culture - Essay Example This study will guide the readers to understand how factors such as the environment and culture affect the sleeping pattern of a person. Keywords: sleeping pattern, environment, culture Sleep and Culture 2 Sleep and Culture Sleep is an essential activity of our body. The function of sleep has a significant effect in our body. One function of sleep is to repair and to restore both body and brain because during the waking life, our body and brain â€Å"produce wear and tear on the body and some mind/brain down time (Nairne, 2003)† and this can be fixed during sleeping. Another function of sleep is that it increases our survival value. It was believed that â€Å"sleep is an adaptive response to changing environmental condition, a form of behavior that is useful because it increases the chance to survive (Nairne, 2003)†. However, every person has his own sleeping pattern or practice. It is due to the factors such as the environment and culture that affects the sleeping patt ern of a person. The sleeping pattern is incorporated on our biological clock that is influenced by the environment (day and night, climate, lifestyle).

Article Review (advertising) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Article Review (advertising) - Essay Example There are advertisements on the streets, on magazines, newspapers, debit or credit cards, televisions and radio stations, wall, buses, train stations, and all sorts of media forms. With this amount of advertisements, people are almost immune to their intended effect (Poynor, 2006). This paper aims to demonstrate that when people see the advertisements repeatedly, they get used to them, and become disinterested. Some of them may see the advertisements and assume they were intended for them to buy the product. Consumers get irritated and may no longer want to look at the adverts. Other consumers are now used to the advertisements, that they no longer consider them important. Take an example of an ATM card that a consumer uses for various purposes. The adverts printed on the card, like the brand names and logos, are expected to remind the customer, and entice others. These prints in the cards are no longer recognized, and consumers generalize such cards as either debit or credit cards, without much consideration of the brands, companies and difference in services (Poynor, 2006). The aim of advertisement has lost meaning. This paper will show this through a description of the effect of too many advertisements that people are exposed to, as described in Poynor’s article. In order to show how the purpose of advertisement is lost, it is important to know the purpose of an advertisement. There are various purposes of advertisements. The common aim, however, is to inform the consumer about a service or a product, so that the consumer can purchase the product. This contributes to increased sales. Advertisements do more than just informing the consumer. Advertisement can serve as a means of convincing the consumer to buy the product, a means of reminding the consumer that the product or service still exists, and a way of showing off what the company has got, and educating the consumers about the product or service. Parameswaran (2004) indicates that

Human Trafficking Modern Day Slavery Sociology Essay

Human Trafficking Modern Day Slavery Sociology Essay Fifty years ago, the abomination of slavery seemed like a thing of the past. But history has a way of repeating itself. Today, we find that human slavery is once again a sickening reality. At this moment, men, women and children are being trafficked and exploited all over the world. The Thirteenth Amendment did not abolish slavery completely, in fact, human trafficking is now the modern day slavery and is a problem in countries all over the world. Sex trafficking, illegal child labor, and illegal immigrant trafficking are all examples of human trafficking. A global underground problem, it is not only happening in the third world countries but civilized countries as well. Very seldom do victims of trafficking ever escape the vicious crime and many end up in dead or with diseases. Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery What is Trafficking? Every year, millions of people are trafficked into the modern-day equivalent of slavery. They are secretly transported across borders and sold like commodities, or trafficked within their countries for the sole purpose of exploitation. It is a crime that violates the basic human rights of victims. (What is Trafficking, 2010). Trafficking in persons means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (What is human trafficking?, 2010). What does trafficking involve? Trafficking involves forcible movement of a person from one place to another and forcible utilization of their services with the intention of inducting them into trade for commercial gains. The word forcible means that the action is against the persons will or that consensus has been obtained by making deceptive claims and false allurements. In some cases, consensus is obtained because of the victims social conditioning, where the victim is not even aware that s/he is being exploited. (What is human trafficking?, 2010). Trafficking in persons include but are not limited to sex trafficking, child labor, and immigrant labor. Why People Fall Victim International trafficking is not limited to poor and undeveloped areas of the world-it is a problem in virtually every region of the globe. Countries with large (often legal) sex industries create the demand for trafficked women, while Countries where traffickers can easily recruit provide the supply. Generally, economically depressed countries provide the easiest recruitment for traffickers. In such nations, women are often eager to leave the country in search of better employment opportunities. Traffickers exploit this fact and often trick victims into thinking they will be going abroad to work as nannies or models. Sex Trafficking Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery and its victims are majority women and girls, but can also be men or boys. Sex trafficking victims are induced to perform commercial sex by force, fraud, or coercions and theyre also lured into this situation because theyre promised a good job in another country, a false marriage proposal turned into a bondage situation, being sold into the sex trade by parents, husbands, boyfriends, or being kidnapped by traffickers. Types of Sex Trafficking have different forms of commercial sexual operations such as prostitution, pornography, stripping, live-sex shows, mail-order brides, military prostitution and sex tourism. (Rescue and Restore ). Trafficking of women is a transnational industry that generates billions of dollars. Although men, women and children are all victims of trafficking, it is a crime that disproportionately affects women and girls who make up approximately 80% of those trafficked transnationally, the majority of whom are tr afficked into commercial sexual exploitation Child Labor There are millions of children whose labor can be considered forced, not only because they are too young to choose to work, but also because they are, in fact, actively coerced into working. These include child bonded laborers children whose labor is pledged by parents as payment or collateral on a debt as well as children who are kidnapped or otherwise lured away from their families and imprisoned in sweatshops or brothels. In addition, millions of children around the world work unseen in domestic service given or sold at a very early age to another family. Forced child labor is found primarily in informal, unregulated or illegal sectors of the economy. It is most common among the economically vulnerable and least educated members of society such as minority ethnic or religious groups or the lowest classes or castes. (Forced and Bonded Child Labor, 2010) Children are especially vulnerable to exploitation because their lack of maturity makes them easy to deceive and ensures that they have little, if any, knowledge of their rights. Immigrant Smuggling Much like sex trafficking and child labor, the majority of people smuggled are immigrants and non-residents to the county they are being smuggled into. People are promised a good job with good pay with room and board provided. They fall for the trap and answer to the ad without knowing it is a trick. When they are brought to the place, traffickers already stole the immigrants passports and everything they own, making it impossible for the immigrants to go back home. Instead of the good job and pay they were promised, they end up working 12+ hour shifts, with basically no pay, and have bad living conditions. Men have been overlooked as potential victims of trafficking. Even when signs of exploitation that would sound alarms with women such as confiscation of travel documents are clear, immigration officers or assistance groups often classify men as migrant workers and send them on their way. In addition, men often dont want to admit that they were trafficked because this signifies w eakness or failure. (Cardais, 2009) Recruitment Tactics Traffickers used a variety of means to draw girls into the sex trade. The four key tactics of sex trafficking identified include: employment-induced migration via a broker; deception, through false marriage; visits offer; and force, through abduction. The majority of respondents (55%) were trafficked through false job promises. (Simkhada, 2008) Trafficking In Nepal Many girls involved in sex work do so because they are compelled by economic circumstances and social inequality. Some enter sex work voluntarily; others do so by force or deception, sometimes involving migration across international borders. Nepalese girls trafficked from Nepal to India are typically unmarried, illiterate and very young. Key routes to sex trafficking include employment-induced migration to urban areas, deception (through false marriage or visits) and abduction. Young girls who have been trafficked for sex work are a hidden population, largely due to its illegal nature. Employers of trafficked girls may keep them hidden from public view and limit contacts with outsiders. Trafficked girls may not identify themselves as such through fear of reprisals from their employers, fear of social stigma from involvement in sex work or their HIV-positive status or from their activities being revealed to family members. (Simkhada, 2008). Enforcement in Nepal In Nepal, high-level decision makers, lawmakers and politicians at the local level are often accused of being the protector of the traffickers. Many commentators blame the lack of legal enforcement arguing that policies are sound in Nepal but not their implementation and that political commitment is required to implement public policies. Political leaders and higher authorities in bureaucracy are accused of releasing the arrested traffickers from custody and taking political and monetary benefits from them or having associations with brothel-keepers. If a slave is trapped in a form of bondage other than commercial sexual exploitation, he or she is highly unlikely to be freed through police intervention. Infections amongst Girls in Nepal South Asia is currently home to 2.5 million HIV infected persons, 95% of whom are from India. However, HIV seroprevalence in a subset of neighboring South Asian countries has rapidly increased in recent years, due in part to migration and human trafficking from these countries into India. Female sex workers, especially those who are victims of sex trafficking to India, are increasingly recognized as a major factor in Nepals growing HIV epidemic. HIV seroprevalence among female sex workers in Nepal rose 24-fold (from Trafficking in Russia Russia from small towns and rural areas to metropolitan areas, and into Russia from the former Soviet space to work on urban and rural building sites, in shops, and in the sex industry. As a low risk, high reward business, trafficking in people now rivals drug trafficking in its profitability in a globalised world. The lifting of many former restrictions on foreign travel from the former post-Soviet space, more permeable borders and the desire to migrate for work abroad provided a fertile legal, economic, social and attitudinal context in which traffickers, whether part of organized crime and large mafia rings or not, could take advantage of potential migrants, including children. When analyzing different patterns of trafficking, social scientists in Russia began to use the term torgovlya lyudmi (literally trade in people), which was also adopted by some journalists, and later treffiking, awkwardly imported from English. (Buckley, 2009) Interpretation in Moscow The group in Moscow thought that work in prostitution was one variant for women. Whereas some condemned it as negative, the male student lightheartedly commented if the girl is attractive . . . for an attractive girl it is easier. The electrician, however, warned that if a person goes to a modeling agency, when they show the clothes, it turns out to be a massage parlor. The barman added, in large towns, I literally saw this notice yesterday Girls are needed in a sauna. No work experience necessary-interesting, in principle. The barman gave another example: Lets say the girl is looking for work. She came to Moscow to enter an institute. She meets a young man. The young man already has several girls in such a profession and off she goes. When pressed by the moderator as to whether the girl received a wage, the student answered, naturally. Perhaps it is his business. Such girls are needed. It exists. The girl gets a percentage. There is a mass of variants. The older singer added the gir l needs money. If she needs money, it is very simple to become a drug dealer. Another interjected, that means finding such structures. The elderly economist in Moscow contributed another version: she could marry unhappily, whether formally or not, and could learn a lesson in life from that. He could get her to sign a work contract, as they usually do to enlist girls in such work. Her point was that social life and a partner could also lead to disastrous and unexpected work in prostitution. (Buckley, 2009) Asian Culture Asian culture, similar to many other cultures, subsequently socializes children to respect and obey parents and to contribute to the familys well-being. This can be seen with Asian children who were trafficked and repeatedly explained how they put themselves at risk for the sake of economic improvement for their families. Many of them felt it necessary to make sacrifices for the benefit of their families, therefore living up to the cultural value of filial piety. Some of the girls who were trafficked for commercial sex talked about their mixed reactions to their experiences. They didnt like what they were doing, but also felt that to not engage in commercial sex work would disappoint their families in terms of making a financial contribution and providing support. Some girls did not want to leave prostitution and return home because they hadnt saved enough money to return without shame or embarrassment about the lack of savings to contribute or send home. A Thai saying captures the c oncept of filial piety. That saying is: Repaying the breast milk. (Chung, 2009) Western takes on Asian Culture Western Asian female stereotypes constitute another factor that contributes to the abuse of power, since these stereotypes create the demand for Asian girls to be trafficked into commercial sex work. The Western stereotypes of Asian girls and women being subservient, obedient, hard working, submissive, passive, docile, shy, demure, softly spoken, eager to please, and exotic, all lead to the China doll, Suzy Wong, and geisha syndrome. These stereotypes increase the demand for Asian girls and subsequently trafficking into the sex industry. (Chung, 2009). Child Abductions in Haiti? The recent earthquake in Haiti left thousands of children homeless and orphaned. A group of ten American missionaries collected thirty-three children (some of whom had living parents) after the January earthquake. They were stopped as they attempted to return to the Dominican Republic, where they planned to establish an orphanage. Because the missionaries had neglected to get official permission to transport the children out of the country, Haitian authorities charged them with child abduction and jailed them. The prisoners families released a statement asking for leniency: We are pleading to the Haitian prime minister to focus his energies on the critical tasks ahead for the country and to forgive mistakes that were made by a group of Americans trying to assist Haitis children. The Americans intentions may have been pure. Human trafficking, however, is a grievous problem in Haiti, and protecting children from exploitation was a critical task for the government even before the earthquake plunged the country into chaos. There have been calls for Haiti to lift restrictions on international adoptions in light of the greater number of children now in need. On the New York Times Web site, journalist E. J. Graff noted the risks involved. If you were a child trafficker or adoption profiteer, she asked, wouldnt you pretend to be a humanitarian worker trying to save orphans? (Commonweal, 2010) Activist Somaly Mam Somaly Mam knows the harsh truth of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. For years she lived it from the inside. When she was 12, her grandfather sold her into the sex trade in Cambodia. In the ensuing decade she was traded through brothels across Southeast Asia where she suffered unimaginable horrors. She counts herself fortunate to have escaped death at the hands of entrepreneurial pimps and brothel keepers. But, unable to forget the faces of the girls she left behind, Mam decided to rescue them. Today, she fights child sex trafficking, sexual slavery, illegal confinement and sexual violence at home and abroad. (Olivera, 2010). Mam has won international acclaim and numerous awards for her activism. She has infiltrated brothels to save enslaved girls, engineering their escape and providing them with a safe refuge. She has, without hesitation, pressured the police to raid brothels in spite of the fact that the legal system in Southeast Asia often supports the criminals, n ot the victims. In 1997, Mam and her ex-husband founded AFESIP, an organization dedicated to rescuing, housing and rehabilitating women and children in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam who have been sexually exploited. (Olivera, 2010) U.S Takes on Trafficking The United States has taken steps to respond to this trafficking dilemma. Congress first voted on an antitrafficking act in 2000, then again in 2003 and 2005. The government has appropriated $528 million toward this effort. In December, the governments tools for combating trafficking were strengthened by the passage of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008. On the international front, TVPRA establishes the Trafficking in Persons Report as a diplomatic tool to encourage foreign governments to increase efforts to refrain and fight against modern-day slavery. The annual publication will include reports on individual countries progress or lack thereof. The bill also contains provisions for penalizing countries that violate trafficking laws in an attempt to steer any traffickers. The passage of TVPRA was a big step forward for U.S. antitrafficking efforts overall. (Todd, 2009). Today virtually every credible antitrafficking organization -including UN agencies, NGOs and responsible governments- agrees that engagement with law enforcement is the best and only sustainable way to protect victims and apprehend perpetrators of sex trafficking. Corruption within police forces should not be a reason to deny trafficking victims the enforcement of laws designed to protect them. Hollywood Movie Taken The recent release of the Hollywood film Taken opened up the eyes of all the viewers who watched it. It was about a man who loved his daughter very much and when she goes on a trip to Europe, she is abducted and enters the world of human and sex trafficking. The fathers stop at nothing to find his daughter. Movies like this give an overview of what the trafficking world really looks like .For a person that has never heard of the term, it really opens up ones eyes and perspective. Educating Women Research has shown that investing in the education and financial power of girls and women generates multiple social benefits. Better educated women have higher incomes and raise healthier children. They are more likely to be able to plan the size of their families, and they choose to have fewer children. Women are more likely than men are to use their earnings to support the health and education of their children. One study showed that women invest 90 percent of their income in their families, whereas men invest only 30 to 40 percent. Investing in young women is the key not only to ending sex trafficking, its the key to changing the world. Opening the Worlds Eyes Trafficking is a global problem and will probably always be a problem. It has been around for centuries and one can only tell when it will ever stop. Though there may never be an end to human trafficking, knowledge is the ultimate power and people working together to fight human trafficking, lives can be saved.

How Safe Are Mobile Phones? :: essays research papers fc

Millions of people own a mobile phone these days, and ever since they have been around scientists question the fact of they are safe or not. Do they cause tumors, earaches, mercury poisoning? All these health risks are mentioned in every article I found. But nowhere could I find anything that was sure if mobiles did cause all of the above. This is where science fails us. The problem is that mobile phones are still too new to know the long-term effects on human. Mobile phones give of a radiation of radio frequency round 10MHz to 300Ghz. But so do other appliances. Why does mobiles especially get put in the picture of being hazardous? Soon it will be clear whether the radio frequency emissions from mobiles cause health effect. Drivers who use there mobiles whilst driving are the only â€Å"health risk† that can be proven, the drivers get distracted and lose control over the vehicle. Technology invented something for this, hands-free sets. But now the question is do those hands free sets really solve the problem? Researchers now are looking at if the hands free sets don’t cause other problems. A report from the magazine â€Å"which?† said that hands free kits raised levels if radiation to the head from mobile phones by up to three and a half times. The consumer association immediately stressed that it had done no research into this whether this radiation could cause damage to the brain. That just proves that whenever there has been research a report is released to prove that research wrong. Probably is done not to cause any chaos. Mobiles are said to cause brain tumors, they say this because there was found to be more tumors of the same kind amongst mobile phone users. Mobiles cause memory loss, radiation sickness. Mobiles can disturb your sleep pattern, according to the researchers from the university of Zurich, mobile phones increases brain activity during our sleep. A really strange result of the use of mobile phones is that mobile phones can release the poisonous mercury from fillings causing brain damage, scientist say this is due to the electrical fields given off by mobile phones can activate the mercury, giving off a gas. The fumes attach the nervous system causing conditions from depression, asthma to Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Some studies have suggested links between Radio frequency radiation and lymphoma, microwaves and memory loss, mobile phone use and a rare type of brain cancer, mobile phone radiation and DNA destruction, and mobile phone use and damaged scalp nerves

Statistics Exercise 36 Answers

Exercise 36 Answers 1. Since the F value is significant, based on the p-value of 0. 005 which is less than 0. 05 which is sufficient to reject the null hypothesis. This suggests that there is a difference in the control and treatment groups. 2. Since the p- value is less than 0. 05 and therefor the null hypothesis can be rejected. This presents that the mean, difficulty and mobility scores, must be different 3. The result was statistically significant with a probability score of p < 0. 001. 4. Yes, because 0. 001 < 0. 01 and would still be significant. . The 0. 04 > 0. 01 would indicate that there is no statistical significance and except the null and conclude that there is no difference between the groups. 6. NOVA cannot be used to test proposed relationships or predicted correlations between variables in a single group. This is because ANOVA is tests relationships within various groups and among the groups. 7. The study had 149 subjects and 2 groups 8. The strength of the study whe re that they include a control group to test the dependent variable to examine the differences over time.The weakness of the study comes from the low number of subjects in the study. More subjects would have made the study more creditable. 9. The study results indicated a significant improvement in the pain scores of women with OA who received the treatment of guided imagery (F(1, 26) =4. 406, p = 0. 046). Thus, the null hypothesis was rejected. But in my opinion I would have liked to have seen a larger number of subjects. Also, including the standard deviations for the treatment and control groups also are needed to calculate the effect size in the study.The effect size is needed to conduct a power analysis to predict the sample size needed for future studies. 10. Possible problems and limitation with the study is that the pain that leads to limited mobility and may lead to disability which can hinder them form taking the treatments. Also, with it being over such a long time span y ou have to worry about subjects stopping the treatment and with a low number of subjects this could alter the data drastically.

Marketing and Product Development

The question in the case is whether Kim should spend the fresh (2nd round) VC financing in Marketing and scale up the business or should focus the resources on fine tuning the existing product. Our recommendation is that the company should allocate around 70% of $4mn in marketing spend and 30% in product development and fine tuning the existing one.This recommendation is primarily based on the fact that the company should maximize the first mover advantage and develop barriers to entry by reducing the cost of goods sold with the help of economies of scale and ventually reducing the sales price so as to be competitive and not let others to enter the space. This is mainly because the business model is very easily replicable and thus create the risk of being thrown out of business in the long run.Moreover, the product development and fine tuning is largely replicable irrespective of the number of customers and each customer could be segmented based on the 4 bins Kim and Nolan came up wi th. With reference to the spend, the company should focus on Email marketing, Sophisticated social media, developing sophisticated search echanics, promoting the deals websites advertising and also advertising through blogs.However, it is worthwhile a mention that though emails and network affiliates program involves huge spends, they are directly proportional to the amount of business the firm does or the customer acquisition. The company may run the risk of: 1. Exposing the activities and products in addition to the business model by scaling up the marketing spends and bringing unprecedented levels of transparency to customers along with the firms competitors and potential competitors 2. Exponentially increase the customer retention and acquisition costs by developing ultiple layers of acquisition costs 3.May negatively affect the performance and reputation of the firm if the customers have complaints about the product However the firm may mitigate these risks by: 1. Acquiring max imum amount of market share and create growth in the market size. Thus, creating barrier to entry as a result of low selling price and variety of product match. This is mainly because the idea is substantially untapped and the product is simultaneously acceptable. The firm must target to tap as much market as possible before any new or existing player takes it over. Marketing and Product Development The question in the case is whether Kim should spend the fresh (2nd round) VC financing in Marketing and scale up the business or should focus the resources on fine tuning the existing product. Our recommendation is that the company should allocate around 70% of $4mn in marketing spend and 30% in product development and fine tuning the existing one. This recommendation is primarily based on the fact that the company should maximize the first mover advantage and develop barriers to entry by reducing the cost of goods sold with the help of economies of scale and eventually reducing the sales price so as to be competitive and not let others to enter the space.This is mainly because the business model is very easily replicable and thus create the risk of being thrown out of business in the long run. Moreover, the product development and fine tuning is largely replicable irrespective of the number of customers and each customer could be segmented based on the 4 bins Kim and Nolan came up with. With reference to the spend, the company should focus on Email marketing, Sophisticated social media, developing sophisticated search mechanics, promoting the deals websites advertising and also advertising through blogs.However, it is worthwhile a mention that though emails and network affiliates program involves huge spends, they are directly proportional to the amount of business the firm does or the customer acquisition. The company may run the risk of:1.Exposing the activities and products in addition to the business model by scaling up the marketing spends and bringing unprecedented levels of transparency to customers along with the firms competitors and potential competitors2.Exponentially increase the customer retention and acquisition costs by developing multiple layers of acquisition costs3.May negatively affect the performance and reputation of the firm if the customers have complaints about the product However the firm may mitigate these risks by:1.Acquiring maximu m amount of market share and create growth in the market size. Thus, creating barrier to entry as a result of low selling price and variety of product match. This is mainly because the idea is substantially untapped and the product is simultaneously acceptable. The firm must target to tap as much market as possible before any new or existing player takes it over.2.The increasing customer retention and acquisition costs could also  be countered by lowing the COGS as a result of economies of scale and effecting the retention by further lowering the selling price without affecting the margins much.3.Negative reputation due to customer complaints could be countered with the help of product development and fine tuning the existing products and ideas based on customer needs and value system. This could be done by implementing the CRM with the help of 30% of the additional funds raised in the 2nd round.