Linguistics and Language Essay

What will be covered in this class? †¢ How do we produce and recognize speech? †¢ How do we perceive words, letters, and sentences? †¢ How do we learn and recall information from texts? †¢ How can we improve texts to make them easier to understand? †¢ How does the brain function to process language? †¢ What are the causes and effects of reading disabilities? †¢ Is there language in other species? Central themes in psycholinguistics 1) What knowledge of language is needed for us to use language? Tacit (implicit) knowledge vs. Explicit knowledge  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ tacit: knowledge of how to perform something, but not aware of full rules †¢ explicit: knowledge of the processes of mechanisms in performing that thing 2) What cognitive processes are involved in the ordinary use of language? How do we understand a lecture, read a book, hold a conversation? Cognitive processes: perception, memory, thinking, learning Some definitions of basic components of language: Semantics: The meaning of words and sentences Syntax: The grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence or phrase Phonology: The sound pattern of language Pragmatics: How language is used in a social context  Examples from psycholinguistics Parsing garden path sentences The novice accepted the deal before he had a chance to check his finances, which put him in a state of conflict when he realized he had a straight flush. 1) The defendant examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable 2). The evidence examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable The process of parsing is the process of making decisions The effect of prior knowledge on comprehension The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important, but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed, one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more, and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life. Bransford & Johnson, 1973 Recall: No context: 2. 8 idea units out of a maximum of 18 Context afterwards: 2. 7 idea units Context before: 5. 8 idea units Child language development How many words do you know? Hint: Dictionary has about: 450,000 entries Test high school graduates: How many words do they know? About 45,000 english words About 60,000 including names and foreign words. The average six year old knows about 13,000 words. Learning about 10 words per day since age 1. (One every 90 minutes) How much do we have to teach children to learn language? Do you have to teach a child to walk? Is it the same way of learning a language? My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them I eated my dinner A brief history of psycholinguistics Wilhem Wundt (early 1900s) Interest in mental processes of language production †¢ Sentence as the primary unit of language †¢ Speech production is the transformation of complete thought processes into sequentially organized speech segments. Behaviorism (1920s-1950s) †¢ Rejected the focus on mental processes †¢ Measurement based on objective behavior (primarily in lab animals) †¢ How does experience (reward and punishment) shape behavior? B. F. Skinner: Children learn language through shaping (correction of speech errors) Associative chain theory: A sentence consists of a chain of associations between individual words in the sentence What’s wrong with the behaviorist approach? Noam Chomsky (1950s – present) 1) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously 2) Furiously sleep ideas green colorless. 3) George picked up the baby. 4) George picked the baby up. Almost every sentence uttered is a new combination of words The Poverty of stimulus argument: There is not enough information in the language samples given to children to account for the richnes and complexity of children’s language The pattern of development is not based on parental speech but on innate language knowledge Linguistic Diversity vs. Linguistic Universals Linguistic diversity There appears to be a lot of diversity among languages Even within languages there is diversity When are two languages different? We speak the same language if we can understand each other  Exceptions: Norwegian and Swedish Cantonese and Mandarin Dialects within languages: The myth of pure language How/why do languages change? Why does there seem to be a â€Å"correct† English? Members of the dominant (most powerful) sub-culture tend to speak one dialect and may punish those who do not Linguistic Chauvinism Belief that one’s own language/dialect is the best of all possible languages Black English Vernacular (BEV) Study by William Labov Interviewed African-American street youth You know, like some people say if you’re good an’ sh*t, your spirit goin’ t’heaven . . . ‘n if you bad, your spirit goin’ to hell. Well, bullsh*t! Your spirit goin’ to hell anyway, good or bad. [Why? ] Why? I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause, you see, doesn’ nobody really know that it’s a God, y’know, ‘cause I mean I have seen black gods, white gods, all color gods, and don’t nobody know it’s really a God. An’ when they be sayin’ if you good, you goin’ t’heaven, tha’s bullsh*t, ‘cause you ain’t goin’ to no heaven, ‘cause it ain’t no heaven for you to go to. †¢ Place holders: â€Å"There† vs. â€Å"It† in the copula †¢ Copula: â€Å"Is†, â€Å"Was† optional †¢ Negatives: â€Å"You ain’t goin’ to no heaven†. BEV just as linguistically complex as Standard American English We don’t see/understand the complexity in other languages Moral: All languages seem to permit as wide range of expressions as others Linguistic Universals What is in common with all languages? Sentences are built from words based on the same physiological processes †¢ All languages have words †¢ All humans have ways of making sounds. †¢ Languages tend to use a small set of phonemic sounds †¢ Phoneme: The minimal unit of sound that contributes to meaning How many phonemes in a language? †¢ English: 40 phonemes †¢ Range: Polynesian 11 to Khoisan 141. Discreteness Messages in human language (e. g. speech sounds) are made up of units of which there is a discrete (limited) number Arbitrariness The relationship between meaningful elements in language and their denotation is independent of any physical resemblance between the two. Words do not have to look or sound like what they describe Openness †¢ New linguistic messages are created freely and easily †¢ Languages are not constrained in a way so that there are a limited number of messages that can be created. †¢ Linguistic Productivity: The ability to understand and create an unlimited number of sentences. The question studied by psycholinguists is â€Å"how to characterize and account for the creativity to construct and create an infinite number of sentences given the limited capabilities of the human brain† Duality of Patterning Language involves relating two different kinds of patterns or forms of representation †¢ A phonological system †¢ A semantic system These two systems use very different types of codes, although there is a phonological representation for each item in the semantic system Phrase structure Information on how a sentence is grouped into phrases. The quiet boy ate the red apple A set of Phrase Structure rules: PS 1 S (sentence) ————-> NP + VP PS 2 NP (noun phrase)————-> det + (adj) + N PS 3 VP (verb phrase) ————-> V +NP PS 4 N (noun) ————-> boy, dog, man, book PS 5 V (verb) ————-> ate, broke, kissed PS 6 adj (adjective ————-> quiet, red, happy, wormy PS 7 det (determiner) ————-> a, the We use â€Å"lexical-insertion rules† to put words into the structure. Phrase-structure rules provide a good account of phrase-structure ambiguity. They are broiling hens Morphology Morphology is the component of grammar that builds words out of units of meaning (morphemes) A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language How many morphemes? bird firetruck undereducated unmicrowaveability Insights from American Sign Language (ASL) Unlike speech, signs are expressed in visual or spatial form Do a lot of the same grammatical concepts hold? Arbitrariness ASL possesses iconicity signs can represent objects or actions to which they refer. However, the degree of iconicity has declined over the years Duality of Patterning signs are composed of smaller elements that are meaningless Example: 3 parameters †¢ 19 values of hand configuration. †¢ 12 values of place of articulation †¢ 24 values of movements Meaningless patterns can be combined in various ways to from ASL signs. What about â€Å"openness† and â€Å"discreteness† within ASL? Transformational Grammar (Chomsky 1950s) Language: an infinite set of well-formed sentences Grammar: A finite set of rules that generates sentences in the language How do we know that a grammar is a good theory of language? Three criteria: Observational Adequacy: A grammar is observationally adequate if it generates all acceptable sequences and no unacceptable sequences. Descriptive adequacy: A grammar must also explain how a sentence relates to other sentences that are similar & opposite in meaning. The ball was caught by John John caught the ball The ball was not caught by John Explanatory adequacy It is possible for multiple grammars to attain observational and descriptive adequacy. Which is the correct/best one? Children learning language are presented with many samples of language and must determine the grammar from these samples. There must be some innate language constraints that help children determine the correct grammar. There exist Linguistic Universals that are common to all languages. The fact that there are similarities in languages is based on the fact that languages are determined by the nature of the mental structures and processes which characterize human beings A Grammar must explain the role of linguistic universals in language acquisition Deep and Surface structure Deep structure: The structure of the sentence that conveys the meaning of the sentence. Surface Structure: The superficial arrangement of constituents Deep structure ambiguity: A single surface structure that is based on two different deep structures Flying planes can be dangerous. Phrase structure rules would not be able to account for the differences in meaning Sentences can have similar phrase structure, although their underlying structure is different: John is easy to please John is eager to please Sentences can different surface structure, but similar deep structure Arlene played the tuba The tuba was played by Arlene Transformational Grammar A two part process to derive a sentence 1) Use Phrase-structure rules to generate the underlying tree structure (deep structure) 2) Apply a sequence of transformational rules to the deep  structure to generate the surface structure of the sentence Transformations occur by adding, deleting or moving constituents John phoned up the woman John phoned the woman up Phrase structure approach: Two different rules VP –> V + (particle) + NP VP –> V + NP + (particle) Each sentence is derived separately, using different phrase structure rules. Transformational grammar approach: One rule V + particle + NP –> V + NP + particle John phoned up the interesting woman John phoned the interesting woman up John phoned up the woman with the curly hair John phoned the woman with the curly hair up. Restrictions on transformations The particle-movement transformation can not be applied to pronouns John called them up *John called up them Example 2: Passive transformation NP1 + V + NP2 –> NP2 + be + V + en + by + NP1 Arlene played the tuba The tuba was played by Arlene Psychological Reality of Transformational Grammar If using language is a process of converting the deep structure to the surface structure, then the number of transformation rules applied should affect how long it takes to process a sentence. However, experiments do not consistently show that this holds true Current theories of grammar Lexical-Function Grammar  Made up of three components: a constituent structure, a functional structure, and lexical entries Constituent Structure: Similar to phrase structure Functional Structure: All the information needed for semantic interpretation John told Mary to leave Bill Predicate tell (subj, obj, V-comp) Tense Past Subj John Obj Mary V-comp predicate leave subj Mary obj Bill Lexical Entries Lexical entries contain information about: †¢ the forms of the word †¢ the kinds of sentences into which they fit, †¢ arguments and semantic roles Mary kissed John John was kissed by Mary Entry for â€Å"kiss† includes underlying semantic structure  kiss: (agent, patient). Forms of the word kiss: agent = subject: patient = object (be) kiss: agent=object: patient = subject Major significance of LFG Most of the explanation of how we process language is based on the lexicon (where we store information about words) . Government-Binding Theory or Universal Grammar Chomsky’s view of innate grammatical mechanisms. In GB theory, grammar is modular. Grammar due to interaction of several independent subsystems, or modules. Each module is fairly simple and performs part of the task But all modules interact in order to constrain the rules made by the other modules in the grammar. Implications We all inherit a universal grammar that can be set to different parameter values. These parameter values correspond to different languages. As we get experience with a language, we acquire these parameter values, and thus the language upon which it is based. Research methods in Psycholinguistics How do we observe, collect information on phenomena related to psycholinguistics? Naturalistic Observation Observing information in a non-experimental setting Slips of the tongue Phonological switching: Crushing blow –> Blushing crow semantic replacements: blond eyes for blond hair. Language Acquisition The use of language over time Data from naturalistic observation Rich, but hard to analyze Controlled experiments Goal: test an empirical hypothesis Hypothesis: A chapter will be easier to understand if each section starts with a summary of what will be said. Independent Variable: Variable that is manipulated to test the hypothesis. Dependent Variable: Variable representing the behavior we want to measure Control Variables: Other variables we need to control in order to see the effect of the independent variable Subjects: Who is going to participate in the experiment? Analysis: How do we know if there are differences bewteen the two chapters? The Human Information Processing System What psychological mechanisms are involved in using language? The Sensory store Processes incoming information from the environment †¢ Individual sensory stores for each sense †¢ Information retained for a short duration The visual sensory store Experiments by Sperling (1960) X M R K C N J P V F L B The partial report technique Auditory sensory store Experiment by Darwin, Turvey & Crowder (1972) 3 digits or letters auditorally presented to each ear and center at the same time. What is the use of the sensory store? It maintains information long enough so that we can do additional processing to it. Working memory or short term memory (STM) STM used to describe the fact that it holds information for a short time, while working memory refers to the processing capacity. STM works as a temporary holding place for intermediate decisions. Limited in size. Chunking Working memory: there is a limited amount of processing capacity that you can use as you perform a problem Long term memory Knowledge of how to do things, things we have learned, grammar rules, personal memories. All knowledge that is not active. Information that becomes active is retrieved from LTM and put in STM. Anything we learn is first processed in STM and some of it is put into LTM Episodic vs. Semantic Memory distinction Semantic memory †¢ Organized knowledge of words, concepts, symbols and objects. motor skills, general knowledge, spatial knowledge , social skills. †¢ All information is organized semantically, but not tagged based on when it was learned. Episodic memory †¢ Holds traces of events specific time and place. †¢ Memory of personal experiences. Interaction between semantic and episodic memory. What does the organization of the information processing system have to do with language processing? Pattern Recognition Parsing/understanding sentences in working memory This is a long sentence and yet somehow you can keep it all in working memory The organization of Long Term Memory That cat plays really cool jazz Serial vs. Parallel Processing Serial processing: One process working at a time Parallel Processing: Multiple processes working at a time In a serial model of language processing, individual modules would work one at a time to process the information. A parallel model would say that the processes happen at the same time. Parallel models as neurally inspired models of cognitive processes Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up processing Cognitive processing occurs at levels Bottom-up processing is done in such a way that all processing occurs starting from the lowest level processes and proceeds onto the higher level processes Higher level processes do not influence any of the processing done at the lower levels Top down processing: Information at the higher levels influences processing at the lower levels. Advantages and disadvantages of Top-Down processing Automatic vs. Controlled processes We have a limited amount of processes that we can do at a time. Controlled processing: Processes that require a substantial amount of cognitive processing. Automatic processing: Processes that do not require a substantial amount of cognitive processing. The role of practice in automatic processing The Stroop effect Putting it all together: Cognitive processes in action The novice accepted the deal before he had a chance to check his finances, which put him in a state of conflict when he realized he had a straight flush. The Internal Lexicon How are words stored? What are they made up of? How are word related to each other? How do we use them? Internal lexicon The representation of words in long term memory Lexical Access: How do we activate the meanings of words? Aspects of Meaning Reference: The relationship between words and things in the world Things in the world are referents of a word My dog has fleas My dog is from Mars But not all reference can be mapped to concrete things Abstract words: Love, Justice, Equality Non existent objects: Unicorn, Martians Meaning is not restricted to the real world, but also imaginary worlds Sense: The relationship of a word with other words in the language Student at NMSU vs. Undergraduate at NMSU Synonymy (same meaning) Car Automobile Antonymy (opposite meaning) Happy Sad Incompatibility (do the words contradict each other? ) John is happy vs. John is sad Hyponymy (are they part of the same class? ) A dog is an animal, Bowser is a dog, Denotation vs. Connotation Denotation: The objective meaning of the word Connotation: The aspect of the meaning beyond its explicit meaning Bachelor Spinster Hungry Starving The Mental Representation of Meaning The representation of the meaning of a word is based on the semantic features of that word. We acquire the meaning of a word by learning its semantic features Children make semantic mistakes Verbs of possession. We understand more than the meaning, we have knowledge of the relations between these words sold vs. paid give vs. receive lose vs. find Prototypes: Some members of a category are better instances of the category than others Apple vs. pomegranate What makes a prototype? More central semantic features What type of dog is a prototypical dog What are the features of it? We are faster at retrieving prototypes of a category than other members of the category Semantic Networks. Words can be represented as an interconnected network of sense relations †¢ Each word is a particular node †¢ Connections among nodes represent semantic relationships Mental models: A model/understanding of how the world works and how pieces of textual information fits in with it. John is sitting in a chair. That chair is on a table. The table is blue and round. John has red hair. The structure of the Internal Lexicon How do these pieces of semantic information relate to each other? Semantic verification task An A is a B An apple is a fruit A robin is a bird A robin is an animal A dog has teeth  A fish has gills A fish has feathers An apple has teeth NMSU is in New Mexico Harvard is in California Use time on verification tasks to map out the structure of the lexicon. Models of the Lexicon Collins and Quillian Hierarchical Network model Lexical entries stored in a hierarchy, with features attached to the lexical entries Representation permits cognitive economy Testing the model Sentence Verification time Robins eat worms 1310 msecs Robins have feathers 1380 msecs Robins have skin 1470 msecs A category size effect: Subjects do an intersection search Problems with Collins and Quillian model . 1) Effect may be due to frequency of association 2) Assumption that all lexical entries at the same level are equal The Typicality Effect Which is a more typical bird? Ostrich or Robin. A whale is a fish vs. A horse is a fish Major conclusions of the model: 1) If a fact about a concept is frequently encountered, it will be stored with that concept even if it could be inferred from a more distant concept. 2) The more frequently encountered a fact about a concept is, the more strongly that fact will be associated with the concept. And the more strongly associated with a concept facts are, the more rapidly they are verified. 3) Verifying facts that are not directly stored with a concept but that must be inferred takes a relatively long time. Spreading Activation Models (Collins & Loftus) †¢ Words represented in lexicon as a network of relationships †¢ Organization is a web of interconnected nodes in which connections can represent: categorical relations degree of association typicality Retrieval of information †¢ Spreading activation †¢ Limited amount of activation to spread †¢ Verification times depend on closeness of two concepts in a network Context effect in spreading activation models Present either: Murder is a crime or Libel is a crime Then get verification time for Robbery is a crime Subjects faster when they see Murder than Libel. Why? Advantages of Collins and Loftus model †¢ Recognizes diversity of information in a semantic network †¢ Captures complexity of our semantic representation †¢ Consistent with results from priming studies Lexical Access What factors are involved in retrieving information from the lexicon? Semantic Priming Meyer & Schvaneveldt (1971) Lexical Decision Task Prime Target Time Nurse Butter 940 msecs Bread Butter 855 msecs Evidence for associative spreading activation. Ratcliff and McKoon (1981) Subjects study and memorize The doctor hated the book Task: â€Å"Was this word from the sentence you memorized? † Prime Target Time None Book 667 msecs Doctor Book 624 msecs Word Frequency Does word frequency play a role in lexical access? Lexical Decision Task: gambastya, revery, voitle, chard, wefe, cratily, decoy, puldow, raflot, oriole, vuluble, booble, chalt, awry, signet, trave, crock, cryptic, ewe, himpola mulvow, governor, bless, tuglety, gare, relief, ruftily, history, pindle, develop, gardot, norve, busy, effort, garvola, match,sard, pleasant, coin, maisle. Lexical Decision is dependent on word frequency Eyemovement studies: Subjects spend about 80 msecs longer fixating on low-frequency words than high-frequency words Morphological Structure So we strip off the prefixes and suffixes of a word for lexical access? Decision = Decide + ion Lexical Decision Tasks: Prime Target Time Nurse Butter 940 msecs Bread Butter 855 msecs Evidence for associative spreading activation Ratcliff and McKoon (1981) Subjects study and memorize The doctor hated the book Task: â€Å"Was this word from the sentence you memorized? † Prime Target Time None Book 667 msecs Doctor Book 624 msecs Word Frequency Does word frequency play a role in lexical access? Lexical Decision Task: gambastya, revery, voitle, chard, wefe, cratily, decoy, puldow, raflot, oriole, vuluble, booble, chalt, awry, signet, trave, crock, cryptic, ewe, himpola mulvow, governor, bless, tuglety, gare, relief, ruftily, history, pindle, develop, gardot, norve, busy, effort, garvola, match,sard, pleasant, coin, maisle. Lexical Decision is dependent on word frequency Eyemovement studies: Subjects spend about 80 msecs longer fixating on low-frequency words than high-frequency words Morphological Structure So we strip off the prefixes and suffixes of a word for lexical access? Decision = Decide + ion Lexical Decision Tasks: Presented subjects with a sequence of words to study Examined the probability of recognizing words over 14 days Performance systematically decays over time Negatively accelerated decay. Bahrick (1984) Student’s retention of spanish-english vocabulary items from 0 to 50 years Power law of decay Review on the internal lexicon Aspects of meaning: Reference and Sense Denotation and Connotation What is the mental representation of meaning? Models of the Lexicon Hierarchical Network Model Spreading Activation Model What factors are involved in retrieving information from the lexicon? Semantic Priming Word Frequency Morphological Structure Lexical Ambiguity Retention of lexical items.

Basics Of Pharmaceuticals

Aside from the requisites of drug manufacturing, a drug company must also have the knowledge on the legal aspect of the pharmaceutical business. A company must be able to know what agencies of the government he has to seek advice from before it undergoes the manufacturing process in order to have a good start.Relative to this, the company needs to know which regulates the safety and efficacy of the drugs to be manufactured and which agency protects the rights of the manufacturer and the consumers against illicit drugs.This paper will discuss the basic responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency including the approval process of manufacturing a generic drug copy. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is generally responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of all drugs for human and veterinary use.FDA’s 1mission statement specifically states that the administration â€Å"is res ponsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. † This will then give us the idea why FDA need to regulate drugs, and that is to ensure that they are safe and effective. The administration is also held responsible for ensuring that the drugs have information that is honest and accurate for the general public to use.The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) (Drug Enforcement Administration for the United States) is primarily responsible for the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Laws and Regulations. In the United States, DEA is under the wing of the Department of Justice, where it serves as an arm of the justice against the 2those organizations and principal members of organizations, involved in the growing, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substances appearing in or destined for illi cit traffic in the United States. The DEA’s drugs of concern include: Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, inhalants, LSD, Ecstasy, Steroids, Oxycontin and Methamphetamine.The following list of specific responsibilities is adopted by this writer from the DEA’s official website: >Investigation and preparation for the prosecution of major violators of controlled substance laws operating at interstate and international levels. >Investigation and preparation for prosecution of criminals and drug gangs who perpetrate violence in our communities and terrorize citizens through fear and intimidation. >Management of a national drug intelligence program in cooperation with federal, state, local, and foreign officials to collect, analyze, and disseminate strategic and operational drug intelligence information.>Seizure and forfeiture of assets derived from, traceable to, or intended to be used for illicit drug trafficking. >Enforcement of the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act as they pertain to the manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of legally produced controlled substances. >Coordination and cooperation with federal, state and local law enforcement officials on mutual drug enforcement efforts and enhancement of such efforts through exploitation of potential interstate and international investigations beyond local or limited federal jurisdictions and resources.>Coordination and cooperation with federal, state, and local agencies, and with foreign governments, in programs designed to reduce the availability of illicit abuse-type drugs on the United States market through nonenforcement methods such as crop eradication, crop substitution, and training of foreign officials. >Responsibility, under the policy guidance of the Secretary of State and U. S. Ambassadors, for all programs associated with drug law enforcement counterparts in foreign countries.>Liaison with the United Nations, Interpol, and other organizations on matters relating to international drug control programs. DEA’S PROGRAMS AND OPERATIONS Drug Enforcement Agency also updates its programs and operations according to the demand of technology and the development of new methods of illicit drug operations. Recent report published in the KT4 Online alerted the public on the emergence of illegal websites that are bringing prescription drugs out into the market (KT4 Online, August 24, 2007).The DEA reported that such websites are able to market their products using just credit cards as payment modes. The agency now referred the so-called â€Å"rogue pharmacies† to the congress for the legislation of a more formidable law for such illegal and dangerous activities, which are regulated because such companies do not meet the standards set by the United States. Even medicinal or herbal plants that are not yet studied or regulated under the law is also under the responsibility of the DEA to study and made research relative to its danger in the human health.In Utah, a native plant called salvia divinorium, has been put into attention by the Hill Air Force Base which according to initial findings can cause hallucinations. In the report published in the Salt Lake Tribune, â€Å"magic mint† as its street name, is ingested or inhaled usually by the members of the military and the people inside the base (Salt Lake Tribune, August 20, 2007). The herbal plant is still legal as it is still under research by the DEA. Experts also say that the plant that grows in the wilds of Utah can cause lung irritation when its dried leaves are inhaled.LAWS AND POLICIES GOVERNING GENERIC DRUGS The regulations pertaining to generics drugs are under the responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration. Under the law, pharmaceutical companies or drug manufacturers have all the right to apply for a generic copy of their branded drugs. It can also be that a manufacturer seeks for a license from the brand name company to make a generic copy of the branded product . A generic copy of the drug is called â€Å"authorized generics† because the branded product manufacturer had given the authority to the manufacturer of the generic drug copy.However, these generic copied have to undergo the legal process that is regulated by the FDA. It is the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, commonly referred to as the Waxman-Hatch Act, which is being used as a legal basis for FDA for regulating generic drug copies. â€Å"Since the law was enacted over 23 years ago, the number of generic manufacturers and number of generic drug products on the market have expanded exponentially† (Coster, John M. 2007). The law allows a generic drug that is a generic copy of the pioneer drug to be approved by FDA to be marketed by the same company.This is even without the submission of the usual New Drug Application (NDA) that is submitted in full when a branded product is being applied for marketing. The NDA is usually a time-consuming and expensive clinical trials required to be done by the drug manufacturer in order to comply with the safety and efficacy standards required of them. With the Waxman-Hatch Act, NDA is being replaced with the submission of Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) provided that the generic copy has demonstrated the fact that it is bioequivalent to the pioneer drug (J.Coster, The Pharmacist, Vol. 32, No. 6, 2007). This process allows the generic copy to be approved for marketing the easier and faster way because it does not to prove its safety and effectiveness through trials since the pioneer drug had already proven such. For the ANDA of the generic drug to be approved, its pioneer drug must have the four required certifications: (1) that no patent is listed for the pioneer drug; (2) that the patent has expired; (3) the date on which the patent will expire; or (4) that the patent is invalid or not infringed.Such information is listed in the FDA’s Orange Book, a reference for t he pharmacists in determining the interchangeability of the drugs. Just recently, the Waxman-Hatch Act has been replaced with 3McCain-Schumer Act, after its authors Senators John McCain and Charles E. Schumer. The main feature of the new act is the changing of the 180-day exclusivity term of the first generic drug copy to only the 30-day term. Exclusivity, in the old law is granted for the manufacturer of the generic drug to market the product exclusively within 180 days that is for the manufacturer who first secured the FDA’s approval of the generic copy.With the new law, exclusivity term is shortened for the purpose of further price reduction of the generic drugs as competition is encouraged after the 30-day term. It is estimated, according to Schumer’s study that the new law will enable consumers to save 60% of their usual expense when buying branded drugs and that will give consumers a total of $71 billion savings in 10 years (Bash, Dana, CNN Online, May 01, 2001). Schumer cited Claritin, a prescription allergy drug as example which costs an average of $63.65 while its generic equivalent will only cost $25. 46. Generally, the new law is of great help for the Americans in terms of their medical expenditures. CONCLUSION By looking into the basic responsibilities and functions of the FDA and DEA, we were able to have an idea of the basic legal aspect of drug manufacturing and marketing. Also by having an overview of the laws governing generic copy manufacturing, we were able to have the basic knowledge of how the approval process rolls.In general we can conclude that the legal process of drug manufacturing and marketing is really a long and expensive process for the companies especially for the branded or patented drugs. However with the Schumer-McCain Act, the process is shortened and had benefited especially the consumers for enabling the cheaper version of their branded medicine to be marketed. REFERENCES 1FDAs Mission Statement. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http://www. fda. gov/opacom/morechoices/mission. html 2DEA Mission Statement. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http://www.usdoj. gov/dea/agency/mission. htm 3Senate Passes Ground-Breaking Schumer-McCain Generic Drug Bill (Press Release). July 31, 2002. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http://schumer. senate. gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/PR01124. html Bash, Dana. McCain, Schumer introduce generic drug bill. CNN Online. May 01, 2001. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http://archives. cnn. com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/05/01/senate. genericdrugs/index. html Coster, John M. The Waxman-Hatch Generic Drug Law: 23 Years Later. The Pharmacist. June 19, 2007. Vol. 32 No. 6Griffith, Christopher, et. al. (2002). View from Washington: Senate approves changes in generic-drug approval. Leydig, Voit Mayer, Ltd. Report. October 2002. Volume 3 Issue 4 Colonel bans use of ‘magic mint' herb. Salt Lake Tribune. August 20, 2007. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http: //www. sltrib. com/News/ci_6668009 Federal Authorities Warn Against Online Rogue Pharmacies. KT4 Online. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http://www. ktiv. com/News/index. php? ID=16295 What FDA Regulates. Retrieved on August 26, 2007 from http://www. fda. gov/comments/regs. html

Legal System and the Social Construction of Childhood

In 1924 the League of Nations promulgated the first international agreement setting out the principles, which should inform the universal treatment of children. The underlying image of the child contained in the Declaration of Geneva was thoroughly imbued with a modernist concept of childhood. In particular children were seen as incomplete, non-social, weak and dependent. The Declaration, therefore, placed its emphasis on the duties of adults towards children. The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), agreed in 1989, took this a stage further by making its provisions legally binding on national governments that ratified it. By 2003 this included all governments of the world except the US. The UNCRC, however, surpasses the modernist notion of children as a cultural other. It raises children's social participation as a goal alongside protection and provision. Children's participation has become an international rallying point for child advocacy. It is seen as capable of transcending differences in the social, cultural and economic conditions of children's lives around the world (Davie, Upton and Varma, 1996; Flekkoy and Kaufman, 1997; Franklin, 1995; Hart, 1992; Lansdown, 1995). From one point of view the UNCRC represents a benign attempt to bring enlightenment and humane standards to all children. It has been used in this way and it is on these grounds that it draws enthusiastic support and even evokes a certain amount of zealotry. It has also been characterized as high in rhetoric but low in intensity. In this sense it is a highly suitable instrument through which declarations of lofty principle can be made but about which little needs to be done in practice. However, it is also the case that the children's rights lobby is, for good or ill, on the forefront of the global spread of norms about childhood. As Boyden (1997:197) notes, these efforts have their precursors in the ‘civilizing mission' of colonialism: â€Å"As the twentieth century has progressed, then, highly selective, stereo-typical perceptions of childhood – of the innocent child victim on the one hand and the young deviant on the other – have been exported from the industrial world to the South †¦ It has been the explicit goal of children's rights specialists to crystallize in international law a universal system of rights for the child based on these norms.† The effects of this, she argues, are not always positive. Rights is a concept which is ultimately tied up with cultural values. Their successful implementation depends upon the existence of a compatible framework of meaning and an infrastructure of social and economic supports. The right to protection, for example, may translate well into practice when agencies, such as the police, are reliable upholders of law. When they are reliably corrupt it can be a recipe for oppression. Furthermore, some aspects of the concept of childhood contained in the UNCRC might also depend for their realization upon a level of economic wealth that many countries do not possess. As we have seen, for some countries international economic policy has led to deepening poverty, ill-health and inequality at the same time that social policy is urging the adoption of the rights of children. Perhaps, though, this is to underestimate the subtle processes that the UNCRC is enmeshed within. The different ways in which it (or part of it, Article 12) can be interpreted illustrate well how cultural globalization creates both diversity and homogeneity. It is, as Lee (1999) has pointed out, a document that has effectivity only because it is ambiguous. It is framed in such a way that its general principles are given a great deal of space for local interpretation. In fact, such was the level of disagreement among those who drafted it that this was the only way to make it acceptable to a wide range of countries with different cultural traditions about childhood. As Lee (2001a: 95-6) comments: â€Å"If the Convention had been intended to clarify children's position, it would indeed crumple under this burden, but the Convention operates in a rather different way. Having generated childhood ambiguity, it then lays the responsibility for managing that ambiguity on the legislatures and the policy-makers of the states that have ratified it.† The representation of childhood found in the UNCRC has become more complex and ambiguous than the earlier Declaration. The protection and provision articles of the Convention still emphasize children's need of adult support but, at the same time, especially through Article 12 of the Convention, children are pictured as social actors, not outside but inside society, not passive recipients but active participants. Role of the Legal System in Regulating children However, the contradictory effects of globalization do not all flow in the direction of self-expression and rights. From another point of view the twentieth century has witnessed increased levels of institutional control over children. The introduction of compulsory schooling and children's formal exclusion from paid work signaled a historical tendency towards children's increasing compartmentalization in specifically designated, separate settings, supervised by professionals and structured according to age and ability. Nà ¤sman (1994) has called this process the institutionalization of childhood. Throughout the twentieth century schooling has gradually been extended both ‘upwards' (for example in incremental steps towards an older leaving-age for compulsory schooling) and ‘downwards' in the growing emphasis on pre-school education and nursery provision (Moss et al., 2000.) Even leisure time is often framed in this way for many children because activities such as sport or music increasingly take place within some kind of institutional setting. It can be seen in the provision of after-school and holiday clubs that organize and regulate children's activities under an adult gaze, channeling them into forms considered developmentally healthy and productive. Such phenomena have been noted across European societies. German sociologists, for example, have used the terms ‘domestication' to describe the progressive removal of children from the streets and other public spaces and their relocation in special, protected spaces. They use the term ‘insularization' to describe the decreased levels of children's autonomous mobility around cities and the creation of special ‘islands' of childhood to and from which they are transported (Zeiher, 2001, 2002). Within these institutions, but with significant variations according to national policy, it is possible to discern a struggle to tighten the regulation of children and to shape more firmly the outcomes of their activities. Schooling is a good example of this. In the last decades of the twentieth century the rather instrumental schooling regimes of the ‘Tiger Economies' of Southeast Asia were held up as the model for producing economic efficiency and were widely influential in changing educational systems in Europe. I have argued elsewhere that this phenomenon represents a refocusing of modernity's drive to control the future through children (Prout, 2000a). This tightening of control over children derives from a declining faith in other mechanisms of economic control, combined with increasing competitive pressures from the world economy. The intensification of global competition and the intricate networking of national economies erode the state's capacity to control its own economic activity. In such circumstances, shaping children as the future labor force is seen as an increasingly important option. This, after all, is exactly what supply side economics is about but, as far as children are concerned, it often leads to attempts to regulate and standardize what they learn and how they learn it. References Boyden, J 1997, ‘Childhood and the Policy Makers', in James, A and Prout, A (eds), Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood (2nd edn), Falmer Press, London. Davie, R, Upton, G and Varma, V (eds) 1996, The Voice of the Child, Falmer Press, London. Flekkoy, GD and Kaufman, NH 1997, The Participation Rights of the Child: Rights and Responsibilities in Family and Society, Jessica Kingsley, London. Franklin, B 1995, Handbook of Children's Rights: Comparative Policy and Practice, Routledge, London. Hart, R 1992, Children's Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship, Innocenti Essays, Florence. Lansdown, G 1995, Taking Part: Children's Participation in Decision Making, Institute for Public Policy Research, London. Lee, N 1999, ‘The Challenge of Childhood: The Distribution of Childhood's Ambiguity in Adult Institutions', Childhood, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 455-74. Lee, N 2001a, Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty, Open University Press, Buckingham. Moss, P, Dillon, J and Statham, J 2000, ‘The â€Å"Child in Need† and â€Å"The Rich Child†: Discourses, Constructions and Practices', Critical Social Policy, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 233-54. Nà ¤sman, E 1994, ‘Individualisation and Institutionalisation of Children', in Qvortrup, J., Bardy, M., Sgritta, G. and Wintersberger, H. (eds), Childhood Matters: Social Theory, Practice and Politics, Avebury, Aldershot. Prout, A 2000a, ‘Control and Self-Realisation in Late Modern Childhoods', Special Millenium Edition of Children and Society, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 304-15. Zeiher, H 2001, ‘Children's Islands in Space and Time: The Impact of Spatial Differentiation on Children's Ways of Shaping Social Life', in du Bois-Reymond, M., Sunker, H. and Kruger, H.-H. (eds), Childhood in Europe: Approaches – Trends – Findings, Peter Lang, New York. Zeiher, H. (2002) ‘Shaping Daily Life in Urban Environments', in Christensen, P. and O'Brien, M. (eds), Children in the City: Home, Neighbourhood and Community, London: Falmer Press.         

SEX CRIMES Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

SEX CRIMES - Essay Example Introduction Sex crimes include incest, rape, bigamy, child pornography, child molestation, indecent exposure, sodomy and prostitution. Nowadays, sexual motives play a pivotal role in stranger murders, intimate murders, serial murders, child murders, sexual abuse murders and prostitute murders. There exist a close link between homicide and sex. Sexual homicide can be defined as homicide where there exists a sexual motive, relationship or perversion, which includes molestation, rape, intimacy, prostitution, sexual jealousy and battering. Sexual homicide means the killing of an individual in the background of sexuality, brutality and power. Sex played a dominant role in various varieties of homicides involving kids, sexual workers and serial killers. (â€Å"Flowers, 2006, p.9†). Sex offenders comprise of an assorted group of individuals. The term sex offender is associated with the individuals who have carried out felonies like rape, engaged in child pornography, sexual murders and indecent exposures. Sexual offenders can be either juveniles or adults, male or female and of any age. Majority of sexual offenders aware of their victims and are associated to them, have some relationship with them or might have some authority over the minor or acquainted with them. Further, sexual offenses differ across cultures, religions, countries and states. In sexual offenses, there is a lack of consent on the part of victim and some level of intention on the part of an offender. Since 1980, many laws have been enacted in USA to enhance the supervision and administration of sexual offenders. For instance, such policy requires registration of sexual offenders, notification to community, restriction on residence, monitoring by GPS and compulsory chemical castration for those sex offenders under parole. (â€Å"Terry, 2010, p.3†). Statistical Date of Sexual Crime in USA In USA, as per the US Department of Justice, in every 2.7 minutes, one person is raped. In their lif e’s time, every one out of six American women has been the target of an attempted or suffered rape. In their life’s time, one in every thirty-three American men have witnessed an attempted or experienced a rape. In 73% of the sexual / rape attempts, the offender was well known to the victim who may be either an acquaintance or a friend or an intimate. About 191,670 rapes / sexual assaults were experienced by the victims with an average age of 12 or older in 2005 alone. Further, kids under the age of twelve comprise of 15% of the sexual /rape victims. Further, those under the age of 18 comprise about 44% of rape or sexual assaults. About 62% of the all sexual assaults or rapes were not made a complaint to the law enforcement in the year 2005. Of all the age group, people in the age group of 16 to 19 had a higher scale of sexual victimization. About 66% of prostitutes were reported to be sexually assaulted when they were as a kid. About 12% of the rape cases were recogni sed as alleged drug-facilitated cases in an emergency ward of a hospital. About 64,080 American women were reported to be raped in the year 2004-2005 alone. The occurrence of pregnancy for every-time unprotected sexual intercourse is estimated at five percent as per the medical reports. By applying the same to the 2004-05 rape victims, one can come to a conclusion that there would be 3,204 pregnancies due to sexual assault in that period as per RAINN report. Further, those kids

Case analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Case analysis - Assignment Example For example, in 2010 the company recorded low profits for the holiday quarter. The management blamed the sluggish global economy for the decrease in profits. Additionally, the Wal-Mart’s management argued that the cuts in food stamps would have a negative impact on the profits. They further singled out high taxation, reduce in government benefits, and tighter credit as threats to the store’s profits. 4. The store evolves around with social trends. For instance, Wal-Mart’s top management has embraced online shopping. Additionally, the business goes in line with the customers’ demand for healthier foods. However, Wal-Mart did not embrace the use of technology early. The store’s founder, Sam Walton, did not care about technology. Currently, the store’s website is behind its competitors. Their marketing in the social media did not yield much success. The alternative is for the store to give the best customer experience to its customers and hire employees that would give better service to the customers. Additionally, they have to make their business more attractive by making classy colors inside the store. Furthermore, the store has to give low prices to their goods. An improvement in the store’s public image will be a sign that they have improved the customer experience. If there will be an increase in the number of customers, it will be evident the store has reduced its prices and the goods are more affordable to all. A general rise in the profits will indicate the store has implemented all its alternatives. The company will be in the right direction if it improves the customer experience. However, no one can fulfill human wants because they are insatiable. Additionally, a reduction in price in order to attract more customers would hurt the store’s profits. The paper recommends the store to open more branches. It will make the store become more popular globally. The management should consider more

Small Group Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Small Group Project - Essay Example The Ethics Review Committee under the chairmanship of the Compliance Officer is responsible for setting these ethical standards. After review of existing codes of conduct and related laws and regulations, the following codes of conduct applies to all management and employees of ECG, and are accountable for complying with this code of conduct: Adherence to applicable laws and regulations All employees in all ranks of the company must adhere to the legal requirements of the American government and countries that ECG conducts business. They must also adhere to the regulations of local authorities and commands that affect the company or its line of business. The laws and regulations that affect ECG are many; therefore, the company will provide guidelines on certain laws. The Compliance Officer will be available to answer any questions pertaining all laws that can affect the firm or its operations (Bacher, 2007). Conflict of interest This results when personal interests of employees and d irectors clash in any way with the interests of the firm. Despite having the right to engage in personal investments, enjoy private relationships and maintain normal business courteousness, employees, and management of ECG must not engage in activities or interests that may hinder their job responsibilities. Conflict of interest may also result when a member of staff pursues interests and actions that may negatively influence their performance. According to Hansen (2010), conflict of interest may also result when an employee, director or family members receive inappropriate gifts or benefits due to their relationship with the firm, whether the gain is from the firm or a client. Examples of conflict of interest are credit, guarantees for credit to employees and members of their families. Federal laws criminalize loans to executives and top management (Hansen, 2010). Working concurrently for a competitor, supplier or client amounts to a conflict of interest. Despite the fact that it i s not always easy to determine a conflict of interest, it is the firm’s policy to forbid such conflicts whenever feasible. Conflicts of interests may not be obvious in all circumstances; therefore, employees are advised to consult with the compliance officer whenever questions arise. Privacy All members of staff of all ranks at ECG must ensure the discretion of information entrusted to them by the firm, its clients, or suppliers except when admission is demanded by the firm, or required by laws and regulations or a court order. Classified information includes, but not confined to non-public information that may be utilized by opponents or injurious to the firm or its clients when revealed. Whenever possible, all members of staff must seek the guidance of the Compliance Officer if they believe that they have a lawful responsibility to divulge private information. Fair dealing Every member of staff in the company must strive to transact in a fair manner with the firm’s c lients, colleagues, and business competitors. No one should take undue advantage of the other through manipulation, misuse of privileged information, suppression, falsification of true facts and blackmail among other acts of unfair practice. Abusing trade secret information that was retrieved without owner’

Successful mentors are those who develop relationships that foster Essay

Successful mentors are those who develop relationships that foster growth & development in others(Walsh 2010).Supporting your an - Essay Example This paper will primarily focus on mentoring in relation to the characteristics or traits that enable mentors to undertake their duties and responsibilities. The paper will also analyse the extent to which successful mentoring is informed by these characteristics or enabling traits, and finally highlight strategies that could see mentors enhance their mentoring qualities. A mentor is expected to exhibit a given level of experience or a set of qualities/attributes that enhance effective and efficient mentorship Walsh (2010). Such attributes allow the parties involved to relate in a way that is mutually beneficial and productive in their respective fields. In a bid to enhance mentees’ growth and development, mentors should build functional relationships that best address the issues, concerns, or interests of the mentees. To do so, mentors require a number of traits, personal characteristics, attributes, or qualities. These aspects allow them to establish strong ties with their m entees, as they work to inspire, encourage, motivate, empower, and challenge the mentees. The first quality or attribute in this line is respect. Mentors have to be respectful to their mentees. Although mentors are most likely more experienced than the mentees, the mentors have a duty to respect their mentees in order to produce the desired results. Without respect, the resultant relationships are less likely to be functional, and the whole mentoring process could fail. It is important to note that the respect factor in this case should be mutual. That is to say that mentors will respect mentees who will show some respect in return. Otherwise, mentors will find it difficult to deal with disrespectful mentees if their respect is not appreciated. According to Elcock and Sharples (2011), respect is a critical factor in any given form of relationship, regardless of the setting within which the relationship is established. The relationship between mentors and mentees is built on trust; t his is according to Hinchliff (2004). Either of the two parties involved should find it easy to confide in the other. Without trust, the entire mentoring process becomes prone to operational difficulties, especially if trust issues emanate from the mentor’s side. Mentors who are trustworthy are highly likely to work cooperatively and collaboratively with the mentees, thereby ensuring that mentoring process achieves its purpose. Trustful grounds are created when mentors accord their efforts towards building the mentees’ life positively. Basing this on inspire, motivate, and challenge mode of mentorship allows the mentor to focus on every aspect of the mentee’s life within and without the learning environment. The form of interaction between mentors and mentees calls for mentors to be understanding. Mentees are normally faced with critical issues, concerns, or interests. Striking a balance between them and the mentee’s personal life can prove to be a diffic ult task. While it may or may not seem to be the case with the mentors, the understanding trait for mentors is fundamental in order to effectively relate with, enhance the growth, and develop their mentees. Working with people whom they do not understand could result in negative results to the mentees. Mentorship, in the light of Aston’s and Hallam’s (2011) arguments, requires that mentors place themselves

Construction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Construction - Essay Example 2. b) Majority of the pitched roofs used in modern day construction use concrete tiles or fibre cement slates. For the use of tiles, they can be laid either in single lap fashion or double lap. Single lap tiles are made such that each tile overlaps the edge of its adjacent tile and is fixed with one nail per tile. They are fixed at pitches of 45 degrees. Double lap tiles are fixed with two nails per tile at pitches over 60 degrees. The following figure shows single and double lap tile fixing. 2. c) In context of pitched roofs, eaves is the term used to describe the lowest level tiles and also the timber used for supporting them. The eaves can be open or closed depending upon requirements or choice. Open eaves are those where the underside of rafters is exposed whereas for closed eaves edge rafters are made to project out in order to cover the underside of it. This is done by putting boards. Both kinds of roofs can be seen in the diagram below: left is open eaves and right is closed eaves. 3.a) For fixing a timer window frame into a cavity wall, we need to make sure the timber is hardened and dried so as to fix on both sides of a cavity wall. The general structure of a timber window frame is illustrated below. The number of rails shown here are not mandatory. It depends on the desired design of the window. However, the fitting and grip on the wall can be seen in the figure. Since the frame is made of timber, precaution needs to be taken that wood is not loose so that the fixing is permanent. Due to the cavity, the sill of the frame has to be made broader. The outside look of a timber frame when fitted to a cavity wall can be seen in the figure on the right. On the other hand, PVC window frames are made of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) which is a synthetic plastic made of oil or gas. The fitting of PVC frame is more expensive. A PVC frame can be seen in the picture below: The advantages of double glazing window

Parkinson's Disease Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Parkinson's Disease - Research Paper Example The earliest known record of the study of Parkinson’s Disease is mentioned in James Parkinson’s â€Å"Essay on the Shaking Palsy†. The article describes the most common features of the disease which remain as the standard by which other types of parkinsonism are compared. The disease is mainly characterized by trembling of the limbs, muscular stiffness, and slow body movement. In addition, individuals suffering from the disease exhibit the following: standing in a stooped posture; walking in short, shuffling steps, and speaking softly in a rapid and even tone. In most cases, 60 to 80 percent of an individual’s dopaminergic neurons – dopamine-producing cells of the body – are already non-functional by the time Parkinson’s disease has been diagnosed. The mechanism which causes Parkinson’s disease remains unknown. Its pathological classification describes it as a systemic degeneration of the brain which targets specific cells in the brain. In 1908 Dr. Frederick Lewy discovered abnormal structures in the brain associated with Parkinson’s Disease. Called Lewy bodies, these structures are not found in other forms of parkinsonism. It has been theorized that a premature aging process, unknown nutrient deficiency or toxin may be causing the deterioration of the substantia nigra. Tremors Tremors are the most common of Parkinson’s disease, as observed in 50 percent of reported cases. It is the involuntary rhythmic movement of a body part which may occur during rest or when an individual performs a certain movement or action. When the trembling occurs in the middle of a movement, it is classified as an action tremor. However, this does not show as a sign of the disease (Christensen, 2005). Body tremors usually affect the arms and legs, but may also be observed on the lips, tongue, jaw, abdomen, and chest. The trembling action only occurs when the body part concerned is at rest, thus it is described as a resting tremor (Duvoisin & Sage, 2001). In its advanced stages, Parkinson’s disease may also cause postural or action tremors (Schapira, 2010). Rest tremors usually start at the hands or feet, progressing until all four limbs are affected. Since rest tremors disappear once the body part affected starts to move, it does not interfere with an individual†™s ability to perform usual activities such as walking or holding objects (Sharma & Richman, 2005). Jankovic’s (2008) review of existing literature on Parkinson’s disease show that 69% of patients had rest tremor at the onset of the disease. Meanwhile, 9% of the patients lost their tremors at later stages. On the other hand, 11% of patients reported not experiencing tremors. However, another study involving autopsies among victims of Parkinson’s disease revealed that all patients had experienced tremors at some point. Minen and Louis (2008) performed a study on clinical correlates among 53 patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Analysis of the data collected revealed that 100% of the patients had rest tremors. In addition, the data also show that majority of patients with rest tremors were male. Muscular Rigidity Muscular stiffness among patients with Parkinson’s disease is characterized by a constant and uniform resistance to limb manipula tion. This type of stiffness in the muscles is called plastic rigidity wherein the patient’s muscles lose their ability to go back into a relaxed state even when the muscle is at rest (Duvoisin & Sage, 2001). Normally, muscle action involves the contraction and relaxation of specific muscle pairs. One muscle contracts while the other muscle relaxes. However, in

History of air conditioning Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

History of air conditioning - Research Paper Example He did this while working at Apalachicola in Florida. This first attempt ,done in 1830s involved a device that brought a cooling effect by blowing air over a bucket of ice. This aimed at solving the problem experienced by yellow fever and malaria patients. The article then moves to show the construction of a structure like a box carrying cloths that contained melted ice water saturated. Naval engineers constructed the structure and it had a fan blowing overhead hot air. This article is very important as it gives a sequential development from an idea slowly but sure. It mentions that, Willis Carrier an American engineer made an air conditioner that closely resembled the air conditioner units of the present time. In my final research, I will use this article in tracking the outline of the development of air conditioners. I will use this resource because of its precision in giving the dates and those who patented the technology at various stages. Biddle, Jeff E. "Making Consumers Comfor table: The Early Decades Of Air Conditioning In The United States." Journal of Economic History 71.4 (2011): 1078-1094. EconLit. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. Biddle’s article gives historical overview of air conditioning. ... This article is important in this research because it shows the various customers of the air conditioning over historical time starting from movie theatres in 1920s and 1930s. it also shows a marked increase in use of air conditioning in 1950s with the new hotels construction in America. According to Biddle, 60 percent of motels and hotels in the nation used air conditioning by 1960s. I will use this article in my final research to discuss the history of air conditioning in America. The article will be important in giving details of the various uses of air conditioning in America’s history. Cooper, Gail . Air-Conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960. Baltimore: JHU Press ,2002. Print. Coopers book gives a history of the air conditioning tracing from the papers of Willis Carrier at New York, Ithaca, and Cornell University, the records of Carrier Corporation at Connecticut, East Hartford and United Technologies. The book considers the records of the Carrier Corporation very rich in detailing the work of the engineers involved in the development of air conditioners. Although, this book by Cooper does not give the history of air conditioning itself, it points to relevant materials that show historical development of air conditioning. Thus by pointing the sources, it is useful in giving guidance to the research. The book points Margaret Ingels’s â€Å"professional biography,† as the most helpful book giving the history of air conditioning. I will use this book in the final research to analyze contribution of some renowned personalities in the history of air conditioning. This book will prove important in giving the various

Financial Markets and Institutions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Financial Markets and Institutions - Essay Example economy, impact of recent monetary policy on U.S. economy and the strategy for the use of bond markets. Foreign Exchange Market The foreign exchange market is an over-the-counter (OTC) market. The participants of foreign exchange markets are portfolio managers, importers and exporters, commercial banks, central banks, and foreign currency brokers. Types of Transaction and their benefits There are three types of foreign exchange transactions: spot transaction, forward transaction and swaps. A spot transaction includes deliver of the exchange by the seller of the foreign exchange to the buyer, on the spot, and the settlement of deal is within two business days. A forward transaction involves an agreement between the seller and buyer of currency to purchase or sell a preset amount of currency for a rate which is determined in advance at a specified date in the future. A currency swap is defined as a conversion of one currency into another with an agreement to revert it back at some date in the future. Forward transactions are valuable to the U.S. and global economies in several ways. It can fully eradicate risk by locking in now the rate or price at which the transaction is going to be made in future. Forward trading offer the economic benefits of risk control and price discovery as well as rich opportunity for speculation. It provides protection against price changes through hedging. Spot market is also considered as most developed market and central banks have judged it as the neutral market for interventions. Forward transactions also protect the investors and traders from exposure towards the fluctuations of the spot rate known as currency hedging. (Peng, 2008, p.194). Factors Affecting Interest Rates Interest rates are determined by the forces of demand and supply. There are numerous factors that affect the interest rates and these are as follows: First is the monetary supply and demand. The interest rates for saving accounts of U.S. citizens can be affected by the demand and supply of the currency in circulation and more demand and less supply result in a higher rates being offered. Second is the inflation. Inflation rate impact interest rates because every lender desire returns from the loan in order to reflect the reduced purchasing power. They add the expected or existing inflation value to the interest rates to evade losses. Third is the Central Bank policy. It helps to decide the interest rates for saving accounts. Fourth factor is the demand for credit. When the demand for credit is high, then the best savings account interest rates are seen. Interest rates tend to decrease with the decrease in the credit demand. Fifth factor is the economic state of the U.S. It enables to determine the interest rates for saving accounts. Interest rates tend to decrease with the recession and economic prosperity cause the interest rates to go up. Sixth factor is the expectation of the economic growth. Interest rates tend to increase when economic growth is predicted. Seventh factor is the level of competition among financial institutions. When financial institutions compete for consumer business, then the saving accounts and best interest will be seen.

Asylum Seekers - a Contemporary Social Issues in Australian Society Essay Example for Free

Asylum Seekers a Contemporary Social Issues in Australian Society Essay The Oxford English Dictionary defines asylum as the shelter afforded by a country to someone who has had to leave their country of origin due to danger from political or other reasons (Oxford English Dictionary 2012). Structuralism, according to Babbie (2006), is a theory supporting the establishment of communities of different cultures. This paper will discuss the concept of asylum seekers in Australia as part of multiculturalism within the global population flow and critically examine the roles and values of the Australian people towards â€Å"uninvited immigrants† and the policies in relation to the recent influx of asylum seekers. Specifically, this paper will first give an overview of Australians and asylum seekers, then discuss the history of asylum seekers coming to Australia and review the effectiveness of current policies in addressing the issues surrounding admission of asylum seekers. The paper will also examine the arguments and issues surrounding the policies for, and attitudes towards asylum seekers, as viewed through the lens of structural functionalism. Finally the paper will conclude with an overview of Australia’s current multicultural strategy for asylum seekers and what the future holds as globalisation increases. As the complex issues surrounding asylum seekers in Australia are increasingly challenged, constant changes due to globalisation and population flow affect Australia’s political, economical and social stance towards those seeking asylum (Jupp, 2007). The broader field of population flows and multiculturalism is the topic within which the issue of asylum seekers looking for entry into a multicultural Australia is contextualised. The Settlement Council of Australia (SOCA) is the main organisation nationally representing the settlement service division and has a close working relationship with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. SOCA states that a refugee is a victim of oppression who fits the description of a refugee as set out in the 1951 agreement concerning the Status of Refugees, of which Australia is a participant, whereas an asylum seeker has already sought protection from the government under international law and is awaiting a decision on their status. (SOCA, 2012). The current view of multiculturalism, and the approach to asylum seekers amongst Australians today, is still mixed (McMaster, 2001). It is difficult for some to accept what they perceive as outsiders queue jumping in to the system to obtain status. Multiculturalism is a vital element of the settlement procedure, assisting in establishing the best environment for settlement to occur (SOCA, 2012). To understand the desperation faced by asylum seekers is hard, and we can only draw from media coverage or second-hand knowledge, if not personally experienced (Suter, 2001). Most will have fled from their homeland due to tyranny, warfare, or horrendous abuses of their human rights. As argued by Suter (2001), Australia has reacted with obstinacy over recent years with the growing arrival of asylum seekers from countries, such as Afghanistan in 2001, where the refugees were refused entry to Australia forced to relocate to Indonesia as the boat had initially foundered in Indonesian waters. International condemnation did nothing to soften the government’s stance and interestingly, most Australians, according to surveys at the time, supported the government’s hard line. The fear of invasion still seems pervasive amongst many (Suter 2001). The humanitarian element of protection is superseded by a fact that another person is attempting to get into the country and must be assessed. As SOCA states, the reinstatement of processing migrants off-shore will have a large impact psychologically on people who are vulnerable with a bleak and uncertain outlook surrounding their status in Australia. For those arriving by boat separation from their families is traumatic and the restoration of devastated families is a main element in settling successfully. Asylum seekers will need continued support from the community during difficult times of change while establishing a safer and more protected life (SOCA, 2012). It is significant that multiculturalism is a policy that recognises, and endorses, cultural diversity, not non-racism (Van Krieken, Habibis, Smith, Hutchins, Haralambos, Holborn 2006). Australia has received immigrants for many years, as Jupp (2007) discusses, emigrants from Europe arrived in 1788, opening the way for 160,000 convicts. The Immigration Restriction Act, introduced in 1901 named the ‘White Australia Policy’, was to prevent the admission of non- Europeans into Australia. As the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship state, Australia assesses claims made by asylum seekers under the Migrations Act 1988 and Migration Regulations 1994. There is also an independent review process for people who arrive by sea know as â€Å"irregular maritime arrivals† and asylum is granted on individual circumstances after thorough background checks, which in some cases take years. Whilst waiting for their status to be recognised, asylum seekers are required to remain in detention centres (Commonwealth, 2012). The statistics published by the Department of Immigration show that when the Refugees Convention was set up in 1951 around 1. 5 million immigrants existed worldwide. Towards the close of 2010 that figure had risen to 43. 7 million, comprising many refugees, some 15 million with over 838,000 seekers of asylum and 27million relocated from their country of origin (Commonwealth, 2012). Whilst it is difficult to account for exactly why people are displaced, a large number may be foreign students and people looking for changes in lifestyle, due to globalisation and easier forms of transport (Xu, 2007). There are still many people from war torn countries escaping from oppressive and deadly regimes looking for an improved lifestyle for their relatives and loved ones. (Lusher Haslam, 2007). Australia is a socially diverse country, which has grown to accept and embrace differing cultures. Race and racism were a fundamental part of the national Australian community, as in the case of the Aboriginal Australians, to be rid of those considered racially disagreeable, those who were not white. As Lusher and Haslam (2007) discuss, historically up to the First World War, the admission of Europeans to Australia was virtually unobstructed, so there was no motive to assess immigrants entering due to persecution in their country of origin. The Second World War saw the admission of many Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany with Australia assisting in an international aid scheme. Following on from the ever-increasing influx of refugees, Australia was one of the first to sign the United Nations document on the Status of Refugees in 1951 (Jupp, 2007). From then on, Australia accepted some refugees, and rejected others. Australia’s policy on refugees has consistently formed part of its immigration policy. The first major modern controversy, which sets the scene for today’s issues, was in 1977 when a boat carrying Vietnamese refugees arrived off the coast of Darwin. The media then used labels, such as â€Å"queue jumpers† and â€Å"Boat people†, names that hold to this day (Jupp, 2007). Historical incidents such as this give a background to the treatment of asylum seekers today and what some might see as Australia’s contemptuous and cold-hearted management towards them. The numbers of refugees and asylum seekers is growing annually, as statistics from the Refugee Council of Australia show: five people arrived by boat during 1975 to 1976 compared to 4,730 on 89 boats during 2010 to 2011 (Refugee Council, 2012). Yon (2000) asserts that many Australians of â€Å"old† or white descent still do not identify with the multiculturalisms view of the â€Å"new† Australia. These fundamental ideas not only marginalise ethnic cultures, but also are destructive as they produce a situation whereby â€Å"old† Australians position themselves as being on the outside of a multicultural Australia. To assert that the legitimacy of the current Australian policy on asylum seekers is being questioned is understandable when viewed from a structural functionalism perspective. People with different cultural beliefs and values come together, particularly in the strained circumstances of asylum seeking; one party running for fear of their lives and Australian Immigration viewing this flight as another invasion (McMaster, 2001). Many, according to Tepperman and Blain (2006), believe that Australia’s multicultural policy should be restructured to accommodate the rapid advances in globalisation bringing together more ethnic cultures and be in line with assimilation of ethnic cultures whilst working towards a common goal. Current policies in Australia to assist asylum seekers are not effective in this age of globalisation, and should be focused on as a matter of urgency (Lusher Haslam 2007). On July 21, 2012 in The Australian, Cameron Stewart discusses that the government’s current policy on refugees and asylum seekers which has, until recently, been the one of the basic key stones of Australia’s commitment to human rights and is now in danger of collapse. The ineffectiveness of the current policy is highlighted by the inability of the government to prevent people smugglers bringing more boats to Australian shores, hence more and more people are arriving. But, the government continued to maintain a policy, initiated in 1996 by the Howard government, which set a cap on the intake allowed each year and which is currently much lower than the influx of new refugees to these shores (Stewart, 2012). The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (Article 13) declares people should be able to leave their place of origin with a right to decent health care, food, housing and a right to the safekeeping in areas of welfare such as unemployment, illness of death of a family member (Article 25). The UDHR also states (Article 2) that no one should be discriminated against based on of his or her viewpoint politically, or his or her status internationally (UDHR 2012, cited Xu, Q 2007). The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) advised Australia in April 2010 to seek out better options than the detention of asylum seekers who arrive by boat. The UNHRC is still in discussion with the Australian government on the best way to reduce the deferment of the mounting claims for asylum and compulsory detention, whilst concentrating on the wellbeing and health of asylum seekers in Australia (UNHRC, 2012). The theory of structural functionalism, argues that each of us is born, into set communal structures that have fixed behavioural expectations, which people generally do not contravene (Van Krieken et al, 2006). Social issues are approached scientifically assessing changes in urban growth, population flow to explain the structures underpinning society. As Bessant and Watts (2007) assert, structural functionalists focus on statistics of given situations, which are then used to describe the progress of and structure of social development and may help to create the basis of a policy on multiculturalism. Babbie (2010) posits that it is pertinent to understand how a person who once fitted in to a different society with different roles and functions may have difficulties initially, or if ever, adapting to the structure and function which makes up Australian contemporary society. It is therefore useful using the structural perspective, to assess the asylum seekers who may appear disruptive when placed for months in detention centres, as people who are displaced from their â€Å"norm† and are reacting against that displacement. Structural functionalism would be looking to understand why problems are occurring and what could be done to effectively integrate the asylum seekers into the Australian larger society, taking into account the adjustments that would be needed for those people to assimilate (Babbie 2010). According to Xu (2007), using the welfare benefit system is crucial for helping the acculturation and settlement of all immigrants. Yet as Xu (2007) notes, resentment amongst many Australian citizens is building towards asylum seekers as they often take low-paid jobs, out of necessity, which contributes to employment issues and a sense of insecurity for many indigenous and natural born workers. As a result, over the last 20 years Australia has moved its policy on immigration to focus more on assimilating asylum seekers and refugees with discussions about multiculturalism, and how that affects the native Australians, and less on the welfare of the immigrants arriving, sometimes under dire circumstances (Xu, 2007). In conclusion the analysis in this paper of the social issue of asylum seekers admitted into Australia suggest that many factors may disrupt feelings amongst native Australians, and unless handled sensitively the deep rooted fear of invasion, which still endures for many, will not go away (Jupp, 2007). Multiculturalism does not have the legitimacy it was trying to assume and marginalisation of asylum seekers still exists. As Bessant and Watts (2007) show when viewed through the paradigm of the structural functionalism theory, the current Australian policies on the treatment of asylum seekers create maladaptation and malignancies. An irrefutable fact exists, asserts Jupp (2007), which is globalisation. More people daily are coming to and from Australia and continually communicating with other countries and cultures. The frenetic pace of globalisation and the ensuing and inevitable cultural change in the form of assimilation is inevitable (Xu, 2007). The emphasis, according to Xu (2007) should be on a tactical approach that creates a long-term solution to prioritise the management and protection of asylum seekers across Australia, and adapting current policies on immigration to ensure that migrants skirting around current arrangements make no gain. The focus therefore should be on Australian observance of its international responsibilities concentrating on an improved policy for immigration, encouraging a reasonable and managed humanitarian programme which minimises fear and anxiety across all sectors yet creates an adhesive force for change.

The Characteristics Of Childrens Learning Styles

The Characteristics Of Childrens Learning Styles CHAPTER I The background and main characteristics of childrens learning style 1.1 The characteristic of teaching young learners The concept of learning is influenced by the psychological study of the learning process and is widely interpreted in the popular use. The psychological concept extends quite far and includes all parts of childrens development, from language acquisition to social roles and changes in their personality. Language teaching can be widely interpreted as all activities intended to facilitate and cause language learning. At the beginning of learning the new language, the learners knowledge has none or hardly any associations with the language, it is as an infant learning its first language. The lack of contact with the language and the lack of a safe reference system can give the learner an intellectual and emotional shock which can discourage from further learning. Thus, the task for the teacher is to overcome childrens disorientation which characterises the beginnings of learning, build up and associate a system of positive attitudes and feelings with the language: that is, being able to reply spontaneously and to think in the second language. In teaching of the second language, certain social strategy is also needed, so that children should feel a need of imitation and acquire the second language in the same way as their first one. (H.H. Stern Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching:397-400) Childrens world is based on games and having fun and the same should apply to their learning. Children should not be aware of learning, neither lexicon nor grammar, but the teacher can easily use these facts to teach the foreign language through games, stories and songs. In teachers work with young learners, it is important to teach them according to psychological and pedagogical rules. The amount of material which the learners can remember depends on teaching techniques and the way the material is drilled. It is important to remember that lack of stress in learning makes it more efficient and easier to use in real situations. What is more, only friendly attitude of the teacher towards a learner, teachers willingness for learning and using all methods of relaxation can protect a child from being discourages and shy in learning and using the foreign language. Any good associations with parts of the material can cause that vocabulary or grammar will be better and longer remembered. It is also important that childrens concentration span is quite short and it is crucial to use any procedures which can make the learner able to longer concentration. Student should be also involved and interested in the lesson (BrzeziÅ„ski 1987: 145-150). Childrens learning is based on imitation and having fun rather than on their awareness of learning. Imitation is the easiest way of introducing new vocabulary and its aim is to lead to correct articulation and intonation of sounds and their memorization. In teaching young learners, intonation exercises are especially useful because of childrens flexibility of larynx which disappears with time. In terms of imitation exercises, the teacher should pay attention to learners reactions determined by their age. Furthermore , the teacher should change the techniques of teaching to avoid learners getting bored (WoÃ… ºnicki, T./ Zawadzka, E. 1979: 60). Most activities for children should consist of movement and involve their senses. The teacher needs many objects, visuals and pictures to work with, and to create a possibility to use all of the schools surroundings. It is also important for the teacher to let the pupils play with the language, talk to themselves as much as it is possible, use songs, rhymes and tell stories. As a matter of fact, the teacher should let pupils talk even nonsense to enable them to experiment with the language. The basic principle in teaching a language is a variety of activities, pace, organisation, voice and face expressions. Nevertheless, routines in the classroom are also essential so that the children can know the rules, be able to use the mark system and complete tasks. Using familiar situations or activities creates the atmosphere of safety, especially for the shy learners. Another important criteria in making teaching a language efficient is the classroom atmosphere. During the lesson, there is s upposed to be room for shared experiences, group work, pair work; what is more, rewards and prizes should be avoided. It is much more useful for the teacher to make notes about each pupil regularly in case the teacher would like to inform the pupils parents about their progress (W. A. Scott Teaching English to Children:5-7). 1.2 Theory of language acquisition in the early age From around 1975, â€Å"language acquisition† is contrasted with language learning. The American applied linguist Krashen uses the word â€Å"acquisition† to describe learning of the second language which is analogous to the way in which a child learns â€Å"naturally† his or her first language and does not focus on the linguistic form. The disadvantage of Krashens terminology is that it is contrasted with psychological terms. Krashen differentiates between â€Å"acquisition† and â€Å"learning†, as learning for him is more or less conscious. It is a very valuable distinction but it implies a constraint on the use of the term â€Å"learning†, and frequently deliberately limits it to the school-like learning (H.H. Stern Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching: 18-20). In the light of an early start of language learning, Anderson claims that the way a person acquires mother tongue still remains a riddle. Between birth and the fifth year of life, children develop their ability to speak. Children in the first stage observe adults behaviour and any noises they produce. After some time, they start understand the meaning of such noises without seeing adults movements. The next step is imitation of sounds and (partially) a creation of their own ones. Consequently, children find out that they can control adults behaviour by making certain sounds. Lonnerberg mentions that only 10% of childrens utterings is like adults ones and that 90% of such utterings is their own language production. As far as it is concerned, childrens language acquisition is a dispute between an innate, individual parole and the langue created and used by the society (BrzeziÅ„ski 1987: 22-23). 1.2.1 A critical age for foreign language learning Regarding the age of the earliest acquisition and learning point as birth, the best moment to start teaching a child the second foreign language is the age of 4-5. This is because of childrens flexible larynx which allows for nearly ideal imitation of sounds and the most efficient brain which all together create a great opportunity for language acquisition. Nevertheless, only until the age of 12-13, children keep their flexibility and natural readiness for language acquisition. Lenneberg shows through extended case studies the stages of physiological maturity processes taking place in the brains hemispheres (especially the left one), which is dominant. What is more, if it happens that the left hemisphere is damaged before the age of 12-13, it is possible that the right hemisphere takes over the domination and speech problems can be reduced. In addition, after this age such a process is almost impossible (BrzeziÅ„ski 1987: 28-29). 1.2.2 Childrens second language acquisition The phenomenon of mother tongue acquisition is interesting for linguists, psychologists, neuropsychologists and even neurophysiologists. Furthermore, it is connected with natural bilingualism which occurs when a child learns, in a natural way, the second language. The process of the second language acquisition in natural conditions is quite similar to the first language acquisition or even identical. The only difference between those two is the fact that the second language is assimilated later and is based on experience and knowledge of the first one and, as a result, the whole process happens faster and more effectively (BrzeziÅ„ski 1987: 18). Chomsky(1964) claimed â€Å" it is a common observation that a young child of immigrant parents may learn a second language in the street, with amazing rapidity, and that this speech may be completely fluent and correct to the last allophone, while the subtleties that become second nature to the child may elude his parents despite motivation and continued practice† (BrzeziÅ„ski 1987: 8). The first international meeting connected with childrens acquisition and its use in teaching foreign languages took place in Hamburg in 1961. Participant tried to find out if it is right to introduce foreign languages in the primary schools, if it is true that children learn better than teenagers and adults and which techniques are supposed to be used in teaching them. After four years, the second meeting took place and the first answers were given. During many decades, lots of contrary opinions developed. As early as 1967, Corder points out: â€Å"It still remains to be shown that the process of learning second language is of fundamentally different nature from the process of primary acquisition†. On the other hand, in 1972, Moulton stresses that in teaching a foreign language to young children it is possible to adopt some methods and intuition procedures, used by a child during mother tongue acquisition, and weave them into learning of the foreign language (BrzeziÅ„ski 19 87: 8). 1.2.3 Factors of efficient language learning In 1960s, the matter of teaching a foreign language during the early age was a topic of many discussions. After the war, in many methodological books it was said that children can easily absorb, imitate and produce the new language. Learning of languages in the early age is connected with the habit of repeating words and sentences in a foreign language and acquisition of language material with the help of various memory techniques. The technique of frequent repetition of the material, as the main key to learning a language, is also supported by many psychologists such as Watson and Thorndike. In many psychological books, it is easy to find many completely different definitions of habit. According to â€Å"MaÅ‚y sÅ‚ownik psychologiczny†, habit is well-practised through numerous repetitions: actions which are done always in the same way and automatically. This definition can bring one to a wrong opinion that one should always react in the same way. Lado definites habit as fluency in using units and models of a particular language in answering while attention is not paid to units but to content. There are many more definitions of habit written by A. Szulc, Lompscher or Rubinsztejn, but all these definitions come down to the conclusion that the habit is way of mechanic, unconscious repetition and conscious production leading to the conscious process where consciousness is removed so long as the automatic element is eliminated. In this case, the fact that the process of repetition is the most important comes from the opinion of psychologists based on the theory that acquiring the mother tongue comes from the imitation of adults. There are also certain reasons directly influencing and shaping the process of learning and its efficiency:  · age - ­ after the age of 10, language acquisition ease diminishes. Childrens minds lose their flexibility and it is not that easy to acquire a language. Younger learners have better and more specific memory but have less ability to learn and need more repetitions. Children are more willing to imitate but have a very short concentration span. Their mechanical memory is better than that of the adults, and their short memory is more dynamic and more effective. The older the child, the more specific the way of learning is. Older children have their own range of memory, their long-term memory is more developed and more logic. They can focus more easily and have wider general knowledge. Being more mature, having better learning techniques and better motivation, the young and adults can easily make up this matters, which children can reach thanks to their imitating skills and more flexible minds.  · attitude in learning, there are many elements which have influence on better acquisition or learning, but attitude is one of the most important because it stimulates brain to better work and makes memory work more efficiently. What is more, the lack of motivation can cause that person who is not interested in the topic or in learning itself will not remember anything.  · previous experience connected with the material that has to be learned the more experience the learner has, the easier and more efficient learning is for him or her.  · material and content there are some units of material which are more difficult to understand or remember, for example, sentences which have lots of information. Also, the size of the material, the length of sentences, the kind of material (Passive Voice sentences are harder to remember and require longer time to learn than Active Voice sentences) significantly influence the effectiveness of the learning process.  · way of learning Humans use mechanical or logical memory while the logical one is more preferred and a part of material learned in a logical way is not only easier to reconstruct, but also stays longer in human memory. Certain researches show that talking in a foreign language is not only a simple reproduction of material that was learned. A learner should pay attention to very basic patterns which can be modified and updated with new vocabulary and structures. Mechanical memorising of sentences can be even a quite dangerous and tricky factor because certain language elements occur in a particular arrangement, in a way they were learned and drilled by exercises.  · number of exercises and repetitions Psychological research shows that the long term memory is extended in proportion to the learning time. What is more, overlearning is a very important element in the memorizing process. The higher the level of overlearning, the slower is the process of forgetting. Yet, the level of overlearning is reached individually after each learner performs a number of repetitions. At the same time, mindless repetitions cannot be treated as overlearning.  · time spent on learning It is important how long and how often repetitions and exercises are done. Frequent and short exercises are more efficient than rare and long ones (WoÃ… ºnicki, T./ Zawadzka, E. 1979: 30-40). 1.3 The characteristic of childrens memory Learning styles are various ways of learning. They involve education methods, characteristic for an individual, which are used by the individual to learn best. The alleged basis and efficacy for these proposals have been extensively criticized. Learning styles depend on individual preferences, and, according to Nail Fleming, such styles may be divided into four categories. The fist group is made of visual learners, who, as the term suggestsplies, receive most information visually. These learners have a tendency to do well at public schools because most of what they are taught is presented through visual teaching tools. They do well with visual aids like pictures. For visual learners, the easiest way to learn is watching and calling up visuals in their minds to remember what they studied in the past. They have a tendency toward appreciating arts: crafts, painting or drama. They tend to be creative and imaginative. The second group are auditory learnerswho tend to learn better through listening. They listen to instructions and follow them in such a way that they can gather large amounts of information and deal with it. Auditory learners are very good at listening to lectures and conversations for a longer time without getting bored. They are more concentrated than visual learners and may be more discerning and attentive in the class. They prefer to study with music in the background. These students may also be creative and imaginative. They are good at listening to information and reproducing it in their individual ways. Students with another style known as kinesthetic learning might be mistaken for too active in the classroom. They do not like waiting for information. They prefer to find things out for themselves without any prompts. They are the explorers who want to make new discoveries. They are quick to learn new things and do not mind being left on their own with a particular toy to find out how it works. They can be successful in practical tasks, such as carpentry and design. These children prefer doing rather than thinking. Homeschooling might be a better for these learners because regular classroom activities might not be interesting enough for them. The forth group consists of logical learners who think in a conceptual manner. They explore patterns and like to know how things work. They often ask questions and are good at puzzles, math problems, strategy games and computers. They understand abstract concepts faster than others. These students prefer inventing and building their own contraptions, for example, with toys (http://www.ehow.com/info_7881656_inventory-learning-styles-child.html#ixzz1MXMcJS9C). 1.3.1 Initial memorisation According to many researches, children have lots of problems when trying to remember and repeat parts of material or longer sentences. In a situation when a group of kindergarten children was asked to remember and repeat, they were passive and even did not take any action to do so. 8-year-old children are a slightly better and show some will to do what they were asked, although only the 10-year-old children and older pupils are able to deal with efficient memorization, data processing and are even able to organise new information to remember it better. According to this research, one can observe that at the beginning children can use only simple techniques and just after some time those techniques develop, become more complicated and fitted to individual preferences and styles. This fact is quite disturbing because during the very early school-years children are often required to remember mane, sometimes even complicated information like lyrics, grammar rules or definitions. On the o ther hand, children can easily learn their mother tongue, they widen their knowledge about society or nature quite fast. Children are often able to repeat the dialogue of their parents even if they seem not interested in it. In their first years, they are not aware of how their memory works. The flash memory term became very popular according to the discovered phenomena that some people have perfect perception and prefer things they saw rather than those which they listened to. It is a very important fact that children use flash memory in a metaphorical way because they mechanically transfer the received information to their memory. Everything seen by people is remembered for a very short time in their operation memory. For a long-term memorisation, it is useful to include various visual aids in the teaching process. Children are able to remember not only pictures but also many details from such pictures. However, sometimes a picture shown to a child may be slightly different, may h ave different colours or shapes (especially of those elements which amazed the child). Autistic children have a very efficient flash memory and after a few seconds they are able to memorise very complicated and detailed pictures; what is more, they do so without much effort. From the previously discussed research, one can deduct that only from the age of ten children can consciously memorise some facts for a longer time. More effective memory depends on which study techniques the child uses. Those study strategies consist of certain elements like: the level of consciousness and awareness of the aim the child is learning for and willingness the child hasmemorisation strategy effort used to learn a specific part of the material Sometimes it is very hard to prove which element from the ones mentioned above is used. It can be even said that children create memorization strategies in internalisation. Before a child creates its own technique of learning, a child cannot achieve better results in learning but when those strategies are already created, the child knows how to study to achieve his or her aim. Then, the process of memorisation becomes faster, easier and more efficient. After some time, children not only know how to learn faster but also can understand more and do this more freely. Nevertheless, at the age of six it is still very complicated for the young learner to organise material which has to be learnt, and this is why children start to repeat. Only nine-year-old children are consciously able to group certain pictures into categories to achieve better memorisation. To sum up, one can easily say that children develop their memorisation skills according to their age and in this process children reme mber those things which they pay attention to but it is short memory and at the same time hard memory which are used. Sensitivity on keeping memory on the alert and reaction do not depend on where this new information comes from (society, nature or their own body) but in case of children it is mainly automatically received and processed by their brain. This process happens quickly and almost without any effort and the teacher cannot see those processes and cannot stop or modify them. This process can be only stopped and controlled, but then it works much slower and requires some effort. What is more, a child has to be conscious of information and has to recognise it. To distinguish between automatic and controlled memorisation, one can distinguish three levels of the automatisation processes: the first level is dominated by the automatic use of information (also without paying attention) the second level is partially automatic when attention is not focused on information the third level is only rarely automatic but full attention is needed in this case ( E. Gruszczyk- KolczyÅ„ska, Ewa ZieliÅ„ska Wspomaganie dzieci w rozwoju zdolnoÅ›ci do skupiania uwagi i zapamiÄ™tywania WSiP Warszawa 2005: 52-68). 1.4 The theory how media influence children Media themselves may introduce lots of positive things but also the negative ones into the human life, shape attitudes and mentality of the young people. Furthermore, especially children may be easily influenced by commercials. Media contents are brought to people through the Internet, radio or television, and such media information consists of specific stimuli which affect brain, senses and create or change attitudes and ways of looking at the reality. The good side of the media is the fact that it is created for peoples development, making life more convenient, introducing social and personal values and causing that long distances are easier to overcome. As a result, even such aspects as education or culture are closer to various and separated nations. On the other hand, mass media become a kind of of a boundary or a cage in which a person is isolated from the others, as it may create a situation of misunderstanding and limit of ones social life which is then substituted with cyber space. Needless to say, the mass media caused radical reorganisation of the social life. In terms of education and upbringing of young generation, the media are creating new types of personalities, a sort of a new civilisation. This new generation of media-people is an inextricable part of the modern life, and can be source of many good, positive and improving aspects as well as bad, demoralising, violent and the ones encouraging unacceptable deviations. 1.4.1 Media in education The fact of striving for more effective ways of teaching is a main subject of many modern researches. Nowadays, in order to achieve the goal it is natural to use the most entertaining and universal tools like the Internet and other mass media. Thanks to these tools, learning can be more pleasant and successful for the learners and also easier and less effort-requiring for the teachers. More and more modern teaching techniques make education up-to-date and allow for leaving (old) traditional methods in education and introduce the modern model of integration of education with entertainment. In this context, education becomes a product, (almost a technological device), a source of educational tools and an incentive for the unconscious learning. Media may be easily and freely used not only in school teaching but also in private, out-school or even global, social, personal and cultural training. They can provide news, information and educational content using all possible multilingual tools. What is more, this kind of instrument has certain aspects which are singled out by Henryk GrudzieÅ„ in his work Media jako skÅ‚adnik procesu dydaktyczno-wychowawczego: direct influence this means that especially television programs and films immediately influence their audience (human emotions and intellect) building-up influence means building up information, associations and feelings connected with films or TV programs which cause some changes in the human psyche subconscious influence similar to the one above, but the audience is not conscious of changes in its attitudes because at the beginning the audience refuses the given way of thinking due to its unsuitable content and after some time its resistance disappears. Media also have a tremendous influence on the lifestyle of the young people, and they affect lots of spheres of young peoples lives, for example: the effect on the way that somebody behaves (making decisions, aggressive behaviour, social actions etc.) the effect on the level of knowledge (level of information, range of knowledge, level of communication skills etc.) the influence on attitude (believes, religion, judging of other people, etc.) the influence on physical fitness (damaging of senses, lack of motion, addiction) The processes mentioned above depend on many conditions such as age, psyche, actual situation in ones life, level of knowledge, weather, place of receiving such information or influences, company or gender. For example, the most influential may be a film watched in a cinema where the level of focus is very high, a bit weaker may be television and the weakest the radio. 1.4.2 The Internet in childrens education Nobody can deny that modern technology has changed and revolutionized education. Teachers have also quickly adjusted their teaching methods in a response to new technology because gadgets in the classroom can create a more interesting, interactive and entertaining environment. If schools strive to keep up with technological trends, then the learning that takes place there becomes more relevant and meaningful for the learners. The Internet and computer knowledge and literacy of major software programs is no longer reserved only for higher educational systems or special trade schools in the modern society. ( http://www.ehow.com/about_5410187_uses-modern-technology-classroom-teaching.html#ixzz1Iai4xP5X) Many children, when going to school, deal with individual difficulties on the basis of their opportunities. Nowadays, from the very early age, children get used to computers, the Internet and other modern technologies. The access and the use of the Internet fulfil many of the aims of education. What is more, it broadens childrens mind horizons, gives them a sense responsibility, builds up their self-esteem and develops their autonomy. A big advantage of the Web is its easy access and lack of duty to have a face-to-face contact. The author of the book Special educational needs and the Internet: issues for the inclusive classroom Chris Abbott claims that there are four principles and each one proves that websites and the Internet have become an influential tool for teaching as the pupils are: Informed The Internet is a source of information and news used in topic work, planning visits, web sites pictures of classmates work, connection with other pupils even outside the school, village or town and also link with past friends. Involved In the virtual tour, in preparing material, in creating and sharing their ideas; in group with the integrated activities where physical presence is not significant. Empowered enabling access for children with any physical difficulties, various tools, e-mails Recognised pictures on websites of the children and their work, whiles of the school council meeting, aiding successes and building self-esteem. (111-112) The Internet has a large part to play in the future education of the young people. In this book, the author included many useful tips when using computers in teaching young learners. For example, the page a teacher wants to use should be put on the screen before children come into the classroom. What is very important, computers should be set in a way so that the children cannot open unauthorized sites and also it is important to remind the children of behaving in a good way to prevent the pupils from running to get to the computers first. It is also useful to create a list of computer room rules. Wherever possible, there should be no more than three pupils per one computer. If children cannot see the screen, they may quickly lose interest in their school work and may not be willing to learn. All these elements can make children more concentrated and make learning more effective (C. Abbott Special educational needs and the Internet: issues for the inclusive classroom New York 2002).