Violence and its effects on children and families Research Paper

Violence and its effects on children and families - Research Paper Example Many video games these days are based on the theme of violence. Violence through media is a very silent yet a very effective way of changing the minds of the young generation especially children. â€Å"[T]he motion picture, music recording, and electronic game industries attempt to market the same products to children that they label as unsuitable for children† (Cornell, 2006, p. 117). Children are drawn toward video games in which they have to do target killing. Anything from rape to genocide and drug dealing can be the activity in a video game or a movie. In the present age, children spend a lot of time watching television and playing video games. Gradually, these activities become ingrained in their personalities. They develop a level of comfort with such activities. Television programs showing children kidnapping and murder teach them the ways and means to do these acts of violence (Freedman, 2002, p. 5). The more they watch it happen, the more the negative or at least, aw kward image of these activities fades away. Children become used to seeing violence and becoming part of it. This reflects in their behavior in the form of rudeness, lack of respect for the elders, lack of discipline, and physical and verbal abuse. Parents adopt different ways of counseling their children but not many get successful in disciplining their children after they have been spoilt. If parents take it too lightly, the chances of children getting spoilt are maximized. If parents take it too seriously and scold their children for such behaviors and activities, their relation with their children is distorted. Parents are perplexed and curious which affects their own lives as well. Family violence is commonly observed in the present age. Domestic violence is defined as â€Å"any violent or abusive behavior (whether physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, verbal, financial, etc.) that is used by one person to control and dominate another with whom they have or have had a re lationship† (Pearson, Hester, and Harwin, 2007, p. 18). Chances of family violence are maximized in distorted families. Family issues that often become the cause of violence include but are not limited to divorce, teenage pregnancy, and step-parenting. Usually, in these cases, at least one of the parents is not able to pay due attention toward the children. Children require care and love from their parents that they are deprived of in such cases. Divorce draws them away from one of the two parents. The emotional and physical gap thus created instills negative feelings in the children that are further strengthened with the passage of time because of lack of parental supervision. Likewise, children born to and raised by single parents are stereotyped and grow up with an inferiority complex. As they reach adolescence, they tend to join groups and gangs for identity. These groups make them part of their violent activities, and children develop into criminals. Many children are abu sed by their step-parents either physically or verbally or both. Many step-parents do not accept children of their spouses from their first marriages as part of their family. The hatred shows up in the form of verbal abuse. Many step-parents also abuse the children physically, thus leaving them with a life-long trauma and suffering. Some children share their experiences with their biological parents while others do not. In either case, the

My High School Experience Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

My High School Experience - Essay Example    But I was a persevering student who mostly kept to himself. I did not feel that I was on par with my classmates in the economic aspect of life which is why I did my best to stay out of their way. Unfortunately, coming from a lower income bracket than the rest of my peers meant that I wore a target on my back. If the guys in gym class needed someone to pick on, that would be me.   After gym class one day, my classmates found a way to get into my gym locker and take my clothes. So there I stood in the middle of the gym, being heckled and teased by my classmates. They picked on everything from my skin color to the size of my male anatomy. I was so angry with them. I wanted to hit them but I did not want to get suspended from school for fighting.   Our coach asked me to report to the guidance office after class for some counseling. He said that I needed to discuss what had happened to me so that I could get over the humiliation of what happened and I would understand that what h appened was not my fault. Counseling helped me understand that bullies were only powerful because I allowed them to have power over me. I was just as to blame for what was happening to me as were the bullies because I chose to let it happen. I did not have to get violent to make the bullying end, I had options, and thanks to counseling, I finally knew what those options where.   It was because of the sound counseling of our school guidance counselor that I finally took stock of the things that were happening to me in high school.

Electric Vehicles And Their Effect On Society

Electric Vehicles And Their Effect On Society With the depletion of the earths ozone layer and the shortage of our oil supply becoming an issue, we have had to look at alternative fueled vehicles that will not harm the environment, but will still provide us with a reliable source of transportation. Compared to gasoline powered vehicles, electric vehicles are considered to be 97 percent cleaner, producing absolutely no tailpipe emissions that can place particulate matter into the air. Particulate matter can increase asthma conditions, as well as irritate respiratory systems. Because Electric Vehicles produce no emissions, there are no requirements for Electric Vehicle owners to ever take in their vehicle to an Emissions Testing Facility for an emissions inspection. Another factor that makes these vehicles so clean is that since they dont use half of the parts that a gasoline powered vehicle does (including gasoline and oil), they are not at risk of shedding any worn out radiator hoses, fuel filters, etc, to be dumped in our over crowded landfills, and leaking contaminated oil into our water supply, killing plant and animal life. Exceptionally quiet, Electric Vehicles produce no noise pollution. In fact they are so quiet that manufacturers are thinking that Electric Vehicles may one day require some kind of noise device on them to alert pedestrians that they are within the area. In a gasoline powered vehicle, the then engine must be kept running even when the vehicle is idle. When an Electric Vehicle is idle, the electric motor is not running and the vehicle is not using any energy. On hot days, a few hundred gas-powered cars sitting on the freeway produce an unimaginable amount of pollution. Electric Vehicles can run during hot days, cold days, at night, and can accelerate or remain idle and not produce any pollution. Many people claim that Electric Vehicles merely relocate the source of pollution to the power plants. Even though Electric Vehicles produce no tailpipe emissions, they still need electricity to be recharged, which means they need power plants to produce the electricity. These people fail to realize, however, that many modern power plants (especially in states like California) are clean, meaning they produce no pollution. Examples of clean power plants include nuclear reactors, windmills, hydroelectric plants and solar panels. Also, it is much easier to deal with isolated pollution sources such as power plants than it is to deal with millions of automobiles, each a source of pollution. As more and more power plants become clean and as more people realize what Electric Vehicles can do for the environment, Electric Vehicle use will increase, and our environment will become much nicer. Electric cars have been thought of as one answer to our dependence on fossil fuel burning vehicles. Their main appeal is that they produce no air pollution at the point of use so provide a way of shifting emissions to less polluted areas. Unfortunately also out of sight are the environmental consequences of manufacturing and recycling the lead- acid batteries electric vehicles require to run on. A recent drew attention to the problem of lead batteries in electric cars: Smelting and recycling the lead for these batteries will result in substantial releases of lead to the environment. The researchers compared the power, efficiency and environmental effects of electric cars with gas powered vehicles. Not only are electric cars comparatively slower and far more restricted in the distance they can travel but release more lead into the environment as well. The study showed that an electric car with batteries made from newly mined lead releases 60 times more lead than that of a car using le aded gas. Although the lead discharged in lead smelting and reprocessing is generally less available to humans in the U.S. than that dispersed by leaded gasoline cars driving where people are still using leaded gasoline. Even when precautions are taken there are still significant hazards. Lead processing facilities release lead into the air and waterways, and lead in solid waste leaches slowly into the environment. Clearly electric cars, despite their good for the environment image create far more of a problem than leaded gas cars and unleaded gas cars. In addition if a large number of electric cars are produced, the demand for lead for batteries will surge, requiring more lead to be mined. Manufacture needs to be halted until an alternative safer power source is found. These rules out current alternatives such as nickel-cadmium and nickel metal hydride batteries which are also highly toxic and far more expensive. Researchers speculate that lithium-polymer technologies may eventuall y be used. Should cities with a population in excess on 5 million such as LA, New York or Mexico city, which suffer from the adverse effects of smog, implement an electric car society, or a car tax by 2009 or would these measures be too costly to execute and burdensome for the average citizen. The creation of an electric car city would be a grueling task indeed. For it follows that the car in many countries is ubiquitous. A cultural symbol that is deeply embedded in the worlds psyche from the day it was created. To some it seems as though it is an impossible task, that we replace so many cars or that we limit the number of cars in the populated areas Although many argue that it is the car that contributes to the blight on this earth, spewing its pollutants into the air, and that a society without them would be a better one. The nature of todays world and in todays modern cities demands that we have a form of fast transportation. We would not function at all without it and walking, while it woul d make us all healthier, would consume too much of our time. I feel that if carefully planned and thought out, we neednt get rid of one without having to lose the benefit of the other. It is felt by many that the cause of urban pollution is as a result of too many cars. The poor design of many cities with regard to transportation has caused urban congestion. Consider of course the fact that many cars right now in cities are running but not moving. For example, in New York City, trying to find a parking space is both a cause and symptom of poor urban design. Clearly when there is not enough space in the city to house all of our cars, when parking space is considered a rare commodity then we have a problem. But in other cases such as Mexico City or Los Angeles the problem of poor urban design is even worse. Clearly when these cities were built the planners did not foresee the large number of gasoline chugging vehicles that would clog them. In addition there are various health problems that are suffered by urban dwellers as a result of the pollution. Asthma is a prime example, as it is the fastest growing childhood disease in urban areas, and most likely the result of the billions of particulates spewed into the atmosphere. Electric vehicles have more than technical hurdles to overcome: Some experts fear that the vehicles environmental impact is no lighter than that of gas-powered vehicles. And the biggest concerns center on the vehicles all-important batteries. Now researchers have published the first in-depth environmental analysis of electric cars using lithium-ion batteries, and have found that they beat their gas-fueled counterparts. When experts consider batteries environmental footprint, they worry about a range of issues, including the impacts of mining the necessary metals, the chemical manufacturing process, and whether the batteries end up in landfills or get recycled. According to the researchers analysis, about 15% of an electric vehicles total environmental burden comes from manufacturing, maintaining, and disposing of the lithium-ion battery. Most of those costs, about 50%, stem from mining and manufacturing the copper and aluminum used in the battery and its connecting cables. Extracting the necessary lithium produces only 2.3% of the batterys total environmental footprint. Still, the largest contributor to electric vehicles total environmental burden comes from recharging the battery. These operational costs were three times greater than the battery alone, but they fluctuated when the researchers looked at other electricity sources besides the typical European power mixture that includes nuclear power, hydropower, and fossil fuels. When the vehicles charged up on electricity from coal-fired plants alone, their total environmental impact increased by 13%, but it dropped by 40% when the electricity came solely from hydropower. Overall, when the researchers compared battery-powered vehicles to their gas-fueled counterparts, they calculated that a car with an internal combustion engine would need a fuel economy of about 60 to 80 mpg to achieve a lower environmental impact than a battery-powered electric vehicle that recharged using Unites States power sources. Overall, Electric Vehicles are stating to change the way people think about à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Going Greenà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ . With the advancement of battery technology and alternative fuels, these vehicles are producing fewer emissions and going further than ever before. We need to start relying on these technologies to start reducing our carbon footprint. As the years continue to pass, these vehicles are going to start changing the way we live, and operate in society. Bagatelle-Black, Forbes. EV WORLD: Electric Vehicles and the Environment. 27 Nov. 2007. Web. 04 May 2011. . Electric Vehicle. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 04 May 2011. . Gustafson, Sven. How Would Electric Cars Affect Our Environment? Michigan Local News. 14 Feb. 2008. Web. 04 May 2011. . Zemanta. The Negative Impact of Electric Cars on the Environment. News and Reviews on Electric Cars, Hybrids, Plug-in Electric Vehicles 9 Mar. 2010. Web. 04 May 2011. .

An analysis of how dikh (‘justice’) and its associated values are Essay

An analysis of how dikh (‘justice’) and its associated values are presented and translated in two passages from Sophocles: Electra. What broader issues are raised and how would these be investigated further? The concept of dikh, or ‘justice’ has many subtle meanings and variations in Ancient Greek ranging from the primary definition given in LS (Liddell and Scotts, ‘Greek-English Lexicon’, Intermediate, 1889, page 202) of custom to right, judgement, lawsuit, penalty and vengeance. The OCD (Hornblower S, Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1996, Page 469) reference to Likh describes it as the, ‘personification of justice’ and the daughter of Zeus that, ‘reports men’s wrongdoing to Zeus’. Sophocles’ rendition of the tragic play Electra forms a useful focal point for the analysis of how dike and its associated values are presented and translated. As Kitto (Kitto, H.D.F, ‘Greek Tragedy’, 1997, Routledge Page 131, Section 4) pointed out, this play’s, ‘central problem is a problem of ‘dikh’ (‘Justice’). The play itself examines both the desire for justice by the children of the murdered Agamemnon as well as the arguments of justice by his wife (Clytaemnestra for his murder). All of this takes place under the watchful eye of Apollo, the God of both reason and prophecy, both of which play a part in the story that is told. The first extract is that of the argument between Clytaemnestra and Electra (Sophocles, Translator Watling, E.F., ‘Electra and other plays’, pg 84-56, lines 518-543) concerning her justification for the murder of Agamemnon. In this extract we are presented with a selection of references to justice and how Clytaemnestra explains how she was right in her murder of her husband. At line 518 (Ibid.,) she complains at her portrayal as ‘an unjust tyrant’, presumably implying that she was not within her right or custom to kill him. Between lines 524-526 (Ibid.,) she says that justice and duty are tied together and that her duty was to seek justice whilst Electra failed in this area. At line 535 (Ibid.,) she says, ‘why should he not be brought to justice for killing what was mine?’. In modern terms this could be considered simple revenge, or dikhn. She is does not justify her action because of tradition or precedent, purely because he took something of hers. In lines 539-541 (Ibid.,) she argues that Agamemnon love might ... ... study ties in perfectly with the idea of moral dilemmas, duty and especially justice. In ‘Electra’ we find our idea of our own values and those of the period to be challenged, this study may assist here. Williams. B, ‘Moral Luck’, 1981, Cambridge Williams. B, ‘Problems of the self’, 1973, Cambridge Williams. B, ‘Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy’, 1985, Cambridge Williams’ work covered a wide range of ethical and morals areas and his research is relatively recent. ‘Moral Luck’, though not directly related will almost certainly have a few useful ideas concerning fate and possibly justification. Plato, Translator Guthrie, W.K.C. ‘Protagoras and Meno’, 1956, Penguin Books Plato discusses the idea of virtue in great depth in the ‘Protagoras’ and this could shed further light on the ideas of virtue, honour, duty and possibly justice. Aeschylus, Translator Fagles, R, ‘The Orestia’, 1977, Penguin Books Euripides, Editor Ferguson, J , "Medea and Electra", 1987, Bristol Classical Press Another version of the story of Electra would be of great use, especially by another tragedian, in this case Euripides. This version is written as more of a melodrama.

Kingdoms of Life Essay

On our planet earth we have what are called kingdoms, 5 to be exact, consisting of a very diverse group of living things. Using these five kingdoms we classify our species and organize information on what we are and what resides with us. When we place every living creature into one of the five kingdoms it better helps us understand the world around us and it’s habitants. The five kingdoms include: Moneran, Protist, Fungi, Plantae, and the one we call home, Animalia. 1. Monera The simplest of all organisms is the bacteria of the Moneran kingdom. They are broken down into two types: Eubacteria and Archaebacteria. Eubacteria is known as the â€Å"true bacteria† which makes up the roughly 10,000 species in the Moneran group. Archaebacteria or â€Å"ancient bacteria† if you will, is the minority of the group and are only found in extreme environments including but not limiting; swamps, salt lakes, deep-ocean hydrothermal vent, etc. There are many types of species belonging to the Moneran kingdom that have yet to be discovered. Monerans are also the only group within the five kingdoms that are all prokaryotes. Prokaryotes are one-celled or colony of cells. 2. Protista In this kingdom we have multi cellular organisms (Protista) which are not a part of nor do they fit, the Animal, Plant, or Fungus Kingdom. In the beginning, protozoa were placed in a sub-kingdom of Animalia but because of the problems this classification had, it later became it’s own kingdom. All members of this phylum have what are known as nucleated cells and live in aquatic habitats (both freshwater and marine). According to Lynn Margulis, K.V. Schwartz and M. Dolan (1994), the cells of all Protoctista originally formed by bacterial symbioses or symbiogenesis. Members of this kingdom are not considered animals because they do not come from an embryo, they are not plants nor are they considered fungi because they do not develop from spores. 3. Fungi There are some members of the Kingdom Fungi that are associated with algal cells of the Kingdom Protista and/or prokaryotic cyanobacteria of the Kingdom Monera. Fungi plays a very critical role in nature’s continuous rebirth: Fungi actually recycle all dead organic matter turning it into useful nutrients. Fungi consits of species like: mushrooms, molds, mildews, stinkhorns, rusts, puffballs and many others. There are on estimate 100,000 known species today with hundreds of new species being discovered each year. 4. Plantae  With over 1.6 million species of living organisms on earth and new species discovered every single day, in particular; insects and nematodes residing in rsecluded tropical regions. However, with the present rate of destruction, a majority of the virgin tropical rain forest are headed straight for extinction, leaving millions of species undiscovered by the human race. It is the theory that approximately 99 percent of species that ever resided on earth were extinct long before the human ever set foot on this planet. Even with humans having such an incredible significance to the development of earth, technically they are considered to be newcomers on this marvelous planet. If all theories are correct, earth is aged at about 4.5 billion years old, meaning the ancient life forms (such as the cyanobacteria) appeared roughly 2-3 billion years ago. 5. Animalia There are nine phyla of this kingdom including the following: Porifera (poriferans), Cnidaria (cnidarians), Platyhelminthes (flatworms), Nematoda (roundworms), Annelida (annelids), Mollusca (molluscs), Arthropoda (arthropods), Echinodermata (echinoderms) and Chordata (chordates). Animals are considered to be part of this group because they are all multi-cellular organisms whose cells are connected by a plasma membrane and not by a cell wall of cellulose like the others. The differences between plants and animals led to the division of all life into what is known as (referenced above) Plantae and Animalia. In animals, the cells are organized into tissues and specialized tissue systems that permit them to move freely in search of food. They build energy by acquiring and ingesting their food, unlike plants, which use the system photosynthesis to benefit from the nutrients they need to survive. A well developed nervous system with sensory and motor nerves is what enables animals to receive environmental stimuli as well as a response to the environment around them. It was found that some were plant like while others (protozoa) resembled animals in that they obtain locomotion by means of flagella and that they actually digest food. The Animal Kingdom holds the most species of all of the kingdoms, ringing in a little over one million. Interesting fact, is that more than half of the animal species are insects. The result of 300,000 beetles plus the 800,000 different insect species a make up the largest order of insects (one fifth of all species–using a total of 1.5 million). It has been said that if the species between plants and animals on earth were lined up at random, every 5th species would be a beetle. Viruses Viruses are out of the Kingdom assortment completely and sometimes they are said even to belong to their own kingdom, the kingdom Virus. The small and less complex infectious agent is made of tiny macromolecular units composed of DNA or RNA covered by an outer protein coat. Virus’ do not contain membrane-bound organelles, ribosomes, a cytoplasm, or any other source of energy formation of their own. They do not have the self-maintenance metabolic reactions of living systems, they lack cellular respiration and gash exchanges. They are completely capable of reproducing but only at the expense of a host cell. They can and will only survive as minute macromolecular particles outside of their body. Plant viruses are transferred between each other by insects that feed on sap, such as aphids, while animal viruses can be carried by blood-sucking insects (mosquitos for instance).    http://www.biology-questions-and-answers.com/life-kingdoms.html

Codes of Practice Essay

1. Legislations that relate to the handling of information in health and social care are: The Human Rights Act 1998 The Data Protection Act 1998 Codes of practice that relate to the handling of information in health and social care are: Codes of Practice – set out by Skills for care CSSIW guidelines 2. The main points of the data protection act are: 1. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless- 1. at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and 2. in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met. 2. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes. 3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed. 4. Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. 5. Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes. 6. About the rights of individuals e.g.[10] personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects (individuals). 7. Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.