Reaction Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Reaction Journal - Essay Example The arrest of Eugene V. Debs is reminiscent of authoritarian governments which Americans now criticize in other global regimes, such as China. However, this had a positive consequence: the formation of the American Civil Liberties Union. ‘The Roaring Twenties’ appears to be a misnomer! Economic prosperity was concentrated in big business, but did not extend to the agricultural sector or rural area. Public support for the Ku Klux Klan, the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, the National Origins Act of 1924, lynching, and the banning of interracial marriages indicated an upsurge in racism. Christian fundamentalism raised its head. Perhaps it assumed a connotation of general well-being, because it was sandwiched between the World War 1 and the Great Depression. Ironically, the New Deal failed to satisfy the privileged class (who resented the higher taxes imposed on them), critics in the Democratic Party (Huey P. Long declared that it failed to do enough for the poor), or the Republican opposition (Senator Taft condemned it for its socialist stance, deficit spending and its attack on private enterprise). The AAA’s destruction of ‘surplus’ agricultural production (during a period of acute food scarcity!) and discrimination against blacks, debase the New Deal.3 President Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ – freedom of speech and worship, and freedom from want and fear, was accepted American ideology, but contradicted and undermined by racism. It is tragic to read Foner’s account of the government â€Å"bending over backward to accommodate German-Americans and Italian-Americans in the war effort† but â€Å"viewing every person of Japanese ethnicity as a potential spy†4. The meaning of ‘freedom’ was controversial during the 1950’s. The Cold War identified freedom with anti-communism: racially segregationist South Africa was part of the ‘Free World’ merely because

Biblical Exegetical paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Biblical Exegetical paper - Essay Example Admittedly, Israel in this context is accused of disobedience to God. Before probing further, I would like to shed light on two commentaries on Micah 6:8 to know how this verse is understood widely. To begin with, Barnes on his commentary on Micah says that the prophet through the 6:8 versus tells the people ‘what thing is good; the inward man of the heart righteousness, love, humility’. This is a question from them â€Å"with what outward thing shall I come before the lord†. What the lord requires is an earnest search within. God seeks you, your heart and your spirit rather than yours, your substances and ram or goat. To seek mercy and love there requires righteous judgment. It is not right if you praise yourself and accuse god for evil in you. It refers to the duty of the man too. As god himself humbled in flesh we need to humble ourselves with God, walk on with him. Matthew 5:48 says be ye perfect as your father which is in heaven is perfect. Be merciful as you r father also is merciful. God is not pleased when they offer creatures ‘blood that cannot take away their sin; and instead they themselves become sinful. In the sight of the lord no man living in this world are righteous. No human can wipe away sins that there is nothing that can wash away the stains of offences. It reveals the helplessness of people that they are not at all able to please god by their own abilities except with the help of god. As we are ignorant about what to do to get our sins forgiven, being hesitated we ask, where and how shall I come before the lord. The obedience to god by the people, especially the Pharisees went single dimensional. They lacked the true meaning of it. It was evidential in their Sabbath practices, their offerings and their interpretation of the law and so on. The blood of the animal cannot compensate our sin but that of us. And Barnes continues that even though we dedicate ourselves with all we have, they are not a repayment for our sin s; only the blood of Christ can cleanse our hearts. Micah adds nothing new to the law but only repeating what is in the law. Micah reveals to the people about their half service to God and that is contrary to the law of God. Micah changes the way people looked at and observed the words of Moses to expose unforgivable sins of Israel. According to Barnes, Micah includes nothing more to the law when he prophesies. He just reminds the people who are doing countless rituals and meaningless practices to please God. God being kind towards his people again asks them to pay attention to the same thing that he had been telling through his prophets before. But on the other hand, Matthew Henry in his commentary looks at the verses of Micah with a different perspective. According to him, the people had been trying hard to please God whenever they were warned by God about their ingratitude towards Him. ‘Where with shall I come’ signifies the inner cry of everyone. People still believ e that there is a God who saved them from slavery and who guided them. First of all they seek to come before God and they also want pay homage to him. Further they inquire what the Lord will be pleased with. Like Barnes Matthew Henry also focuses further on the three requirements that God expects from us. Firstly we must do things justly in our daily life and we must be righteous. Secondly, as God does, love to be merciful. Thirdly, the most important is to walk humbly

Statement of the problem Essay Example for Free

Statement of the problem Essay This study explored the experience of subjective well-being (SWB) among the institutionalized aged: concept of well-being, indicators of the cognitive and affective components, and the factors which contribute towards their sense of well-being. It also looked into the perception of their close associates on the SWB of the elderly under investigation. Specifically, the study addressed the following questions: 1. What is the concept of subjective well-being among the institutionalized elderly? 2. What are the indicators of the cognitive and affective components of subjective well-being? 3. What are the factors which contribute towards the subjective well-being among the institutionalized elderly? 4. How do the close associates of the elderly view the following: the concept of SWB, the indicators of cognitive and affective components, and the factors contributing toward SWB among the elderly? 5. Are there similarities and differences observed in the view of the elderly and their close associates with regard to the experience of SWB among the institutionalized aged? This chapter presents in detail the research design, the description of the participants, the instruments used, the data gathering and analysis procedures. Research Design The present study employed the qualitative research design (Heppner, Kivlighan, Wampold, 1999; McLeod, 2001). Qualitative research involves doing one’s utmost to map and explore the meaning of an area of human experience. Generally it examines people’s words or actions in narrative or descriptive ways more closely representing the experiences of the people involved. It emphasizes the importance of looking at variables in the natural setting in which they are found and the qualitative researchers believe that human behavior cannot be understood outside of its context. According to McLeod (2001), the knowledge generated by qualitative research through eliciting peoples’ stories, sensitive listening, building up an understanding, and checking it out is usually holistic, nuanced, personal, contextualized and incomplete. Key (1997) observes that in qualitative research detailed data is gathered through open ended questions that provide direct quotations, and the interviewer is an integral part of the investigation. The present study was exploratory in nature (Westman, 2004) and employed case study as well as interview method to collect the data. It helped in understanding the concepts and personal meanings and theories held by the people who were being studied. The study also contributed to the understanding of how the elderly in the home for the aged conceived and defined quality of life or subjective experience of well-being in their lives as perceived by their administrators. Case Study. The rationale for including case studies were: (1) case studies strive towards a holistic understanding of cultural systems of action (Tellis, 1997). The interviews on the elderly elicited holistic information and nuances about their life and subjective sense of well-being. Content analysis alone could not do justice to the nuances came across in the accumulated data. According to Tellis (1997), selecting cases must be done so as to maximize what can be learned. (2) Case study is known as a triangulated research strategy (Tellis, 1997). The present study being qualitative, employing triangulation confirmed the validity of the findings (Yin, 1994). Interviews are one of the most important sources of case study information. Interview Method. In a qualitative study human person is the primary collection instrument. Insisting upon measurable outcomes to determine the quality of life is a disservice to elders (Moberg, 2001) and the world has many accounts of what aging looks like from the outside, but we have little insight into what aging looks and feels like and their sense of well-being from the perspective of older adults (Ray, 2002). It is an unquestionable truth that questions about what makes life worth living and what is their subjective experience of well-being to individuals are answered only by asking the individuals themselves. It helped to explore and explain the complexity of the fabric of life entering to its labyrinth, expressing the personal which is always interpersonal. In other words it gave access to the phenomenological data, which is the respondents’ perception, of themselves and their world. Exploring the concept of well-being, the indicators of cognitive and affective components of subjective well-being among the elderly and different features that they thought were helping toward their subjective experience of well being in the given situation of life, the researcher was able to gather the subjective description of the lived experiences of the institutionalized elderly.

Modified Radical Mastectomy for Contralateral Breast Cancer

Modified Radical Mastectomy for Contralateral Breast Cancer Abstract Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide. With improving survival figures and early breast cancer detection, treatment related long term adverse effects of radiotherapy have become a concern. Contralateral breast cancer due to scatter radiation from during radiotherapy of diseased breast is one of them. This prospective clinical study was conducted to measure the dose received by the contralateral breast and compare the different techniques which influence this dose. It was found that in post mastectomy patients, treatment with telecobalt medial tangential field contribute more dose to contralateral breast compared to supraclavicular field and lateral tangential fields. The mean dose received by contralateral breast during irradiation of chest wall was 168.29 cGy which 3.36 percentage of the prescribed dose. Key Words; contralateral breast dose, breast malignancy, thermoluminescent disc, scattered radiation Introduction Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among the women worldwide. [1] With improved survival figures due to early breast cancer detection and multimodality treatment, long term adverse effects in the form of second malignancy of contralateral breast (CLB) has become a concern. In patients getting radiotherapy to the affected breast, CLB also receives radiation in the form of scattered radiation due to scattered from primary. Second malignancy is a late sequel of radiation appearing at an interval of 10-15 years. [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] Since breast is highly radiosensitive structure this dose to CLB is a major concern especially in younger women and patients with longer life expectancy. Although radiation induced malignancy is a stochastic effect but the intensity increases linearly with increase in dose. [8] Studies have measured CLB dose on phantom and patients and have observed that the dose to CLB is more for medial tangential (MT) than supraclavicular field (SCL) field and later al tangential (LT) field. In our centre 22% of female patients are suffering from breast cancer and majority of them belong to low socio economic status and presented with advanced disease. In the present study we measure the dose to CLB in patients receiving radiotherapy following modified radical mastectomy (MRM). The radiation dose to CLB were measured with the help of CaSO4: Dy thermoluminescent discs (TLD). The TLD are highly sensitivity and can measure even very small doses. Materials and methods Measurement of CLB was done in 25 patients undergoing for EBRT by cobalt teletherapy machine (THERATRON 780 C and E) following MRM. Precalibrated TLD (9mmÃâ€"13mm) were placed on the surface of CLB. Total three discs were placed one at the nipple and other vertically on either side of nipple 3 cm apart. We tried our best to place the TLD on the same position each time. Skin tattooing was done to demarcate the exact position at the first sitting and this was used subsequently to replicate the position. After delivery of radiation dose for a particular field the discs were removed and another set of three discs were placed for next reading. In this way total six discs were used daily, three for SCL field and three for MT or LT field as MT and LT fields were treated on alternate days and SCL field was treated daily. For MT and LT fields breast cone was used for half beam block. Total dose delivered was 50 Gy in 25 fractions, 2 Gy per fraction, 5 fractions per week in 5 weeks. The expos ed TLD were stored in radiation free zone and the readings were taken after 24 hours and within 7 days after exposure because after seven days the TLD start to loose electrons. The scattered dose received by TLD were measured on NUCLEONIX TL 10091 TLD reader. After one set of measurement, the discs were annealed by heating 400 degree celcius and then used for next measurement. For each patient, measurements were carried out at first week, third week and last week, total three times during the course of treatment. Statistical Analysis Mean dose calculation received by CLB. Total dose received by CLB, this was calculated by multiplication of mean dose to number of fractions. The percentage of radiation dose received by CLB with respect to the prescribed dose to diseased breast (Total doseÃâ€" 100 / prescribed dose to diseased breast). We also stratified data based on gantry angle at which EBRT was delivered (≠¤50 degree and > 50 degree). The statistical software SPSS version 20.0 was used for the data analysis. Results The age wise distribution of patients and the mean dose received by CLB is shown in table 1. 19 out of 25 patients in our study were 50 years or younger. 52% patients had left sided breast cancer. Table 2 shows the contribution of SCL, MT and LT field dose with the gantry angle at which the radiation dose was delivered. Total dose received by CLB varies from 1.22% to 5.82% of the prescribed dose of 50 Gy to the affected breast. Mean total dose received by CLB was 105.55 cGy with MT field followed by SCL field, (33.96 cGy) and LT field {(28.97 cGy) as shown in table 2. This data shows that the maximum contribution of dose to CLB was with MT field followed by SCL field and LT field. Mean dose with all three fields received by CLB was 168.48 cGy with SD  ±62.23 which corresponds to 3.36% of prescribed dose to affected breast. 11 patients were treated on cobalt unit with gantry angle ≠¤ 50 degree having 3.00% contribution of CLB dose (table 3). 14 patients treated with gantry angl e > 50 degree had 3.79% contribution of CLB dose (p=0.199). The mean, median and range were 3.66, 3.34 and 4.60 respectively. Discussion It is well known that exposure to ionizing radiation causes carcinogenesis in healthy tissues. Although it is a stochastic effect having no threshold dose but the intensity increases with increase in radiation dose. CLB must be considered as an organ at risk during radiotherapy planning for treatment of cancer breast. Many previous studies conducted to calculate the dose received by CLB, were based on patients, phantom or treatment planning system. Boice et al analyzed the record of 41109 patients of cancer breast and they found the mean CLB dose was 2.82 Gy. [9] They also hypothesized that there was increased relative risk of CLB malignancy due to exposure to ionization given to diseased breast. The relative risk was 1.19 for all patients, however the relative risk was more (1.49) for younger patients who were less than 45 years old. In our study, the maximum dose received by CLB in women below 40 years which was 3.93 percentage (196.437 cGy) of prescribed dose. The minimal dose was received in patients who were above 60 years of age {(1.96 %) (97.875 cGy)}. The possible reason could be the increased laxity of breast tissues in older women cause more lateral shifting of CLB away from the radiation at the time of exposure. Half beam block technique is routinely used while irradiating the breast with tangential beams. [10, 11] Kelly et al measured CLB dose on Alderson Rando phantom using TLD with four different techniques of breast cancer treatment using 6 MV photon beam on linear accelerator. [12] The used half beam block with asymmetrical jaws, custom blocks and symmetrical collimator jaw. Another technique used was isocentric method with non divergent posterior border. They observed highest dose to CLB in MT field with wedge. In our study radiation was delivered using half beam block with breast cone. The dose to CLB was maximum with MT field because in half block beam, the breast cone is placed near to surface of breast which cause increased dose due to secondary collimator scattering. Bhatnagar et al compared dose to CLB during EBRT to chest wall irradiation using conventional tangential technique and intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). [13] They observed 20 percentage reduction of dose to CLB using IMRT. According to a study by Chougule, the average contralateral nipple dose was 152.5-254.75 cGy and the percentage was 3.05-6.05% for a dose of 5000 cGy in 25 fractions for post mastectomy breast cancer. [14] In our study, the measured mean contralateral nipple dose on was 171.88 cGy (55.5-303.80 cGy) which accounts to 3.47% (1.11%-6.07%) of prescribed dose (table 2). Dose to CLB were higher for dose calculated at the level of nipple as compared to dose received by whole CLB. This may be due to TLD at level of nipple being closest to the radiation source. According to Rankel et al with high gantry angle the beam will be closer to the surface leading higher dose to the CLB. [15] In this study, it was found that with gantry angle >50 °, more dose was delivered to the CLB though the difference is not statistically significant (p=0.199). Conclusion In our patient cohort, higher inadvertent CLB dose was delivered in younger patients with MT field; overall, dose being 3.36 percentage of prescribed dose.

The Reader Essay -- essays research papers

Memory is a powerful concept. Often when an individual undergoes a traumatic situation, the ramifications of these actions seep into an individual?fs psyche unknowingly. In effect this passes through memory and becomes sub-consciously buried within a person?fs behavioural patterns generally. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink explores the concept of a young mans subconscious desire for a woman whom he ?gcan?ft remember to forget?h (1Memento) as she is so deeply inlaid within his soul. Critically acclaimed as ?gA formally beautiful, disturbing, and finally morally devastating novel. From the first page?c [it] ensnares both heart and mind?h ( Los Angeles Times), the novel tells the story of a young boy, 15, Michael Berg, through his own interior narration. He finds himself emotionally and sexually attached to a woman of over twice his age, Hanna Schmitz. She then breaks his heart by deserting him. Michael is emotionally torn by this incident and consequently develops a subconscious obsession with her. Years after the mysterious disappearance of Hanna, Michael marries a woman named Gertrude. ?gGertrude was smart, efficient, and loyal?h (3p 171) yet she never fulfilled Michael in the same way as Hanna had previously. Unknowingly he drove her away through his constant comparisons and dissatisfaction that Gertrude could not be the woman he wanted. ?gI could never stop comparing the way it was with Gertrude and the way it had been with Hanna; again and again, Gertrude and I would hol...

Literary Devices in Carvers Cathedral Essay -- Raymond Carver, irony

Upon reading Raymond Carver's short story of the Cathedral one will notice the literary devices used in the short story. When analyzing the story completely, one then understands the themes, motifs, metaphors, and the overall point of the piece. This leaves the reader with an appreciation of the story and a feeling of complete satisfaction. Carver tells the story in first person of a narrator married to his wife. Problems occur when she wants a friend of hers, an old blind man, to visit for a while because his wife has died. The narrator's wife used to work for the blind man in Seattle when the couple was financial insecure and needed extra money. The setting here is important, because Seattle is associated with rain, and rain symbolically represents a cleansing or change. This alludes to the drastic change in the narrator in the end of the story. The wife and blind man kept in touch over the years by sending each other tape recordings of their voices which the narrator refers it to being his wife's "chief means or recreation" (pg 581). The narrator does not move chronologically, contrarily, but uses small flashbacks to tell his point, leading up to the actual visit of the blind man where he then tells the story in a present tense. This lets the author seem like he is actually telling the story in person, reflecting on past occurrences of his life when necessary. His tone however, is a cynical, crude, humorous tone that carries throughout the story. The word choice and sentences are constructed with simple, lifelike words, which makes the reader sense the author is really telling the story to them. The narrator is biased against the blind from the beginning. For instance, he stereotypes all blind people thinking they ... ...irst time for everything." However, because of the way her "inhaled" and "held in the smoke", the narrator believes he has been "doing it since he was nine years old" (pg. 506). This alludes to Robert's childhood, another thing the narrator and him share. Hence, upon analyzing the story, one can conclude the certain themes that parallel through the pages. Firstly, a theme of unity and trust is present at the end of the play. This is supported by the image of the cathedral, which is a place of unity. Most importantly, the notion of equality among people is the main theme within this story. The narrator starts as a biased, idiot, who dislikes all people that are not like himself. He even at times is rude to his wife. Ironically, it takes a blind man to change the man that can literally see, to rule out the prejudices and to teach him that all men are created equal.

The Effect of Violence in Movies to the Society

The last few years have seen an increase in violence in movies. Action movies seem to get more ‘exciting' than the previous movies each year and therefore, more violence is shown. Many people complain that violence is influencing our country and it's youths which causes many youths to fascinate about violence, eventually experience the fascination of violence for themselves and go crazy – go on a killing spree or something similar. Violence in movies do in some way affect youths and people in society. It affects people's views of themselves, other people, the world and people's thoughts on certain things. Beliefs or values and attitudes may be affected by violence in movies. For example, if a certain person is a racist and believes white people are superior to black people, they may watch a movie which displays racial discrimination, such as ‘American History X', and after viewing violent action against blacks, the person may decide to take action and go out and kill black people. This is an example of someone's beliefs/values and attitudes being affected by violence in movies. It is believed that whatever is seen at the movies, children will praise certain shows and characters featured and try to be like them. They look up to their hero and want to do everything that person does. In an action packed movie, the hero or the ‘good guy' is loved by children and they may try to copy their actions, thus leading to violence. So it is believed that violence in movies will increase physical aggressiveness among children and violent criminal behavior. One method by which violent movies may promote criminal violence is simple imitation. Two surveys of young American male violent felons found that 22-34% had imitated crime techniques they watched on an action packed movie. On the questionnaire I conducted, 60% of the people who participated in the questionnaire said they have an urge to go fight, kill, save people, etc, after watching a movie full of violence and action. This is only an urge, but may still result in the action of violence taking place. Children do imitate the behavior of models such as those portrayed in movies and other things such as television. They do so because the ideas that are shown to them on television are more attractive to the viewer than those the viewer can think up him/herself. This can be seen with the advent of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Young children cannot seem to get enough of these fictional characters and will portray them often. But it is Not only can violence in movies inspire children to take action, but can also inspire and empower potential criminals. Of course, not everyone who watches a Rambo or Terminator movie becomes a criminal. The harm of violent television is felt most by the already vulnerable segments of the population. Alfred Blumstein, dean of John Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie-Mellon, notes that â€Å"the glorification of violence on television has little effect on most folks, but it has a powerful effect on kids who are poorly socialized †¦. It dehumanizes them and becomes a self-fulfilling process. † Repeated exposure to violence in movies may make violence seem ordinary or normal to these type of people. Perhaps all sides of the movies and violence debate can agree that reducing movie violence should be considered as efforts to change the conditions that make the children so vulnerable and dangerous in the first place. Maybe ratings of movies should be taken more seriously and be more strict so that children cannot view violence which would pollute their minds with violence and criminal behavior. In the questionnaire, the majority said that the movie ‘The Matrix' entertained them. This is an action film, and when asked whether they have an urge to go fight, kill, save people, etc, after watching an action film contained with violence, 40% replied no. This may show that some people like to watch movies with violence – no matter how it is rated – purely for entertainment and that it would not effect their attitudes towards violence in a negative way. These days, violence in movies are seen to be very realistic. The fighting, the pain, the blood and guts are made to look real. These are all done through the use of computers and digital editing. So the violence in movies may seem real, but in fact it is all fake and have just been performed by the click of a mouse. The question is, why do filmmakers show violence as their main subject in movies and why do they want the violence to seem real? There are many reasons to this. One could be to impress audience, another could be the demand for more action films, or another could be that action movies seem to be more popular nowadays. But the main reason would be to make the movie full of excitement which would most probably make the movie become huge and popular, which would then result in a lot of money for the filmmaker. This is not right and portrays filmmakers as selfish people only looking for money, as they do not stop to think that the violence could pollute children's minds. Filmmakers could say this could be prevented by making the ratings high, but that certainly does not stop children from watching the movie. They may be taken in to watch it with someone older for supervision, or simply view it on video once it is released. Fixing the problems of children and movie violence is not easy. There are many factors that have to be considered and people to be convinced. This problem will, no doubt, never go away and continue to get worse as the years go by. However, there are measures that can be taken to prevent the children from ever being exposed to such things. After all, what is the world going to be like when the people who are now children are running the world?