Thursday, October 31, 2019

Examining a chosen area of media law that relates to the processes or Essay

Examining a chosen area of media law that relates to the processes or business practices involved in magazine publishing - Essay Example This paper aims at discussing the levels to which the law gives such individuals right to privacy. This will be in relation to the right and freedom given to the magazine publishers by the constitution. The intellectual property right is the right given to an individual to control any of his or her intellectual creations. Mostly violation of this right by magazine publishers through publication of these creations without the owner’s permission this may involve the inclusion of photographs a written work by individuals the on the public eye. If a magazine publisher chooses to use any person material without their consent, this would be termed as a violation of intellectual property rights (Phillips & Firth 1999:84). Some of the victims of such violation are photographers, visual artists, and literal creations. If magazine publishers would use images of works by famous photographers without their assent, they would be guilty of violation of this right. However, the magazine can always use these creations by getting in touch with the persons involves and getting either written or verbal assent for the use of these creations. Another form of intellectual property right mostly abused by magazine publishers is the trade secrets. The trade secrets include confidential information that a business or a person uses to get an advantage over their competitors. This information might negatively involve the parties involved if the information gets to the public. A perfect replica of such an incident is one where maybe an artist had a formula or a manner in which he came up with his work. If a magazine publisher publishes this information without the consent of the artist, then the artists’ privacy would have been invaded. The magazine publisher, however, has the right to print this information if the secret of trade violated human rights in any way. The law protects individuals from exploitation just to some limit. Contract law is a section of law that is funda mental for the making of oral and written agreements. These kinds of agreements usually have an association with exchange of goods and services, money, and properties. It entails topics such as the nature of responsibilities, limitation of actions, freedom of contract, privacy of contract, termination of contract and covers also agency relationships, commercial paper, and contracts of employment. In this case, the contract would involve the publisher and the public figure. Such agreement always involves information on the nature of co-existence between the two parties. Magazine publishers sometimes use information about some of the public figures to come up with some of their article. There are cases where the magazine publishers have an agreement of exclusion of some of the information. In such an incidence, it would be a breach of contract if the magazine publishers goes ahead and publishes the information The law of libel protects each and every person from defamation in whatever means. Libels refer to written defamation. This may take place if a magazine publisher decides to publish a story that defames. If it would be proved that the information on the publication is not true, then the publisher will be guilty of defamation. Defamation always takes place as a result of gossip or speculations. When this takes place, the victim usually experiences hatred, shame, disgrace, contempt or ridicule. In some cases, the victim can even experience all the mentioned outcomes. Victims of defamation; however

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Nursing research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 50

Nursing research - Essay Example Mainz identifies structural indicators as those indicators that describe the nature and sum of resources that a healthcare facility utilizes in the delivery of services and programs with these indicators related to the availability of a presence of human resources and material resources that have the potential of improving the quality of care (524). In line with this, it is evident that one quality improvement measure in a healthcare facility is the structural component of the healthcare facility since the structure of the facility is important in providing quality services to patients. Consequently, potential indicators related to the healthcare facility’s quality improvement measure, which is structural in nature, range from the technology used by the facility to professionals working in the facility. Mainz identifies these potential indicators as the proportion of doctors to other specialists, the healthcare facilities access to specific technology such as MRI scans, and ac cess to particular units that promote the provision of quality care

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Benefits of Leisure on the Individual

Benefits of Leisure on the Individual Introduction / Summary In previous contributions, there should have been wide discussions to draw the limits of leisure. I would like to get assistance one that you have read those chapters, in order to write some introductory paragraph that lets the reader know if my contribution is particularly related to some other one. In this contribution, I will analyze it by using the subjective well-being approach. I will use the leisure experience dimension (as described bellow), and I will study the determinants of subjective well-being. There will be plenty of conceptual discussion, some regularities will be reported, an empirical exercise will be performed results analyzed, and some insights for future research will be presented. In this paper, we will study leisure and its beneficial aspects over individual welfare by using a quite new approach: the subjective well-being or happiness approach to measure individual welfare. Along the discussion, we will present two main points. First, we will discuss on the dimensions of leisure in order to justify that by using subjective well-being procedures, we can get a comprehensive approximation to the, somehow difficult to measure, leisure concept. Second, to determine which are the personal and environmental factors that are needed so an individual can produce and consume enjoyable leisure experiences. In this chapter, we are not going to consider that leisure is just free time, i.e. time that is not dedicated to market work, nor to household maintenance activities. We are not even going to consider that leisure is discretionary time (Goodin, et al. 2005). What we state is that leisure is a universal human need that has to be fulfilled by the production in the household and the personal consumption of what we may call leisure experiences. Each experience is a commodity that enters directly in the individuals utility function. This means that leisure is one of the arguments of the utility function of the individual, one of the instances from which she will get welfare. By doing this, we will adopt from the beginning a beckerian approach (Becker, 1965, and 1990). Other arguments are (Gronau and Hamermesh, 2006). From that list of commodities, we can agree that leisure is the most time intensive one. Individuals have this particular basic need, leisure, to be fulfilled using the most suitable combination of personal resources. As always, we are living in a scarce world where every input has some alternative use, so people have to make allocation choices about the best way to fulfill this leisure need as well as others such as food, shelter, and so on. However, we will introduce into our analysis a basic feature of leisure: the presence of enjoyable others. Only recently has this aspect been introduced in the economic analysis of leisure (Osberg, 2009). In this paper, we address the question of how personal inputs are optimally combined to satisfy the leisure need in a social context. By means the analysis of the leisure domain satisfaction, we will be able to asses how personal free time transforms into leisure and how this outcome contributes to individual welfare. Each person would define the boundaries of leisure on the basis of her tastes, on different resource availability to fulfill her needs, and may value the final outcome in many different ways depending on the social norms, her personal aspirations, social interactions and past experiences. Since using a personal definition of leisure would make any analysis impossible, we will present the main three different constructions of leisure, as proposed by Kelly (1982). The first approach of leisure is the most basic one that defines leisure as quantifiable leisure time, either residual or discretional, based on the freedom to choose. The second one defines leisure as the activity that is chosen at a given time and place so that it is the quality of the activity which defines it as leisure. The third one defines leisure as a subjective condition on the grounds of a freely chosen experience based on intrinsic motivation. The integrative approach proposed by Kelly is the one that we follow in this research, where Leisure is an action that takes place at a given time, develops an identifiable activity and is perceived as a pleasant experience by the actor. In what follows, we would refer to this last integrative approach either as leisure or leisure experience. Actually, it fits very well with the following definition of leisure satisfaction by Beard and Ragheb (1980). For them, leisure satisfaction is the positive perceptions or feelings that an individual forms, elicits, or gains as a result of engaging in leisure activities and choices. It is the degree to which one is presently content or pleased with her general leisure experiences and situations. This positive feeling of pleasure results from the satisfaction of felt or unfelt needs of the individual. Traditional economic theory studies human behavior by means of individual’s observed choices. In such a spirit, observed time allocation can be an outcome of interest recorded on time-use surveys. Actually, as we will discuss in the concluding section, time-use registers are a very valuable source of information, and many of the questions that we are going to address could be complementarily studied by testing those hypotheses with that type of data. However, even if some authors consider that time is the ultimate source of utility, time by itself provides no utility to individuals, since the mere passing of time does not fulfill any human need (possibly except from sleeping time). Moreover, since we have no means of observing the final leisure output, we have to rely on the subjective assessment of how satisfied people feel with the leisure that they enjoy. At the end of the day, the main challenge is to determine how an unobservable, such as leisure, can contribute to individual welfare. In this case, we are considering a double black-box. First, not everyone defines leisure in the same way and not everyone produces leisure experiences by using the same technology or the same inputs. For some people, the presence of others will be much more needed that for some other people. Some people could be much more materialistic than others. Some people could be much more efficient in the production of pleasurable experiences because of their higher education. Second, as indicated before, we know that leisure contributed to enhance the quality of life of people, but the valuation of those experiences is determined by societal norms and arrangements and by personal aspirations, past experiences and comparison effects. Next section will present the happiness or subjective well-being approach. We will introduce a brief discussion of the rationale for using this approach for economic research and for leisure research. To do so, we will present the domain approach; in this setting, leisure satisfaction will be considered a mediator between individual leisure experience and overall satisfaction or happiness. In section 3, we will discuss the relationship between leisure time and well-being. Other crucial aspects will be discussed in section 4, where we review a series of social and economic factors that are said to influence leisure enjoyment, so leisure has a high quality and contributes to a better quality of life. Particularly, we will report previous findings on the social dimension of leisure, one of the attributes that determine high quality leisure experiences. In that same section, some determinants of overall satisfaction, or of particular domain satisfaction will be discussed. Last, sections 5 and 6 will present, respectively, some conclusions and a brief overview of needed research to better understand the contribution of leisure to a better quality of life. Subjective well-being approach Traditional research on quality of life relied heavily on objective and materialistic indicators of living conditions. Actually, Gross Domestic Product has been the â€Å"champion† indicator when studying the evolution of living standards and when comparing economies (Mankiw, 2007). Under the realm of objective indicators, nearly all non market activities and many aspects of human development, such as leisure, are neglected. New studies have highlighted the superiority of including the subjective approach to the investigation of quality of life in developed and developing societies, and happiness research has become quite of a fashionable and popular topic (Layard, 2006). There is a growing interest on using the subjective well-being approach to analyze living conditions and there has been an emerging literature on social sciences. Among other reasons for that flourishing, we can highlight the following: (i) this approach offers richer insight about the quality of life, and considers other indicators of development apart from the traditional indicators; (ii) nowadays there is more information available about living conditions, opinions and perceptions of people and societies, and; (iii) with this approach it is possible to identify the major needs and problems of the population, which is useful for governments and policy makers (Frey and Stutzer, JEL 2002). Economists and other social scientists broadly define `happiness and `life satisfaction as subjective well-being. Following Diener and Seligman (2004, pp. 4) life satisfaction is defined as a global judgment of well-being based on information the person believes is relevant, while well-being includes all of the evaluations, both cognitive and affective, that people make of their lives and components of their lives. While according to some authors, the terms happiness, subjective wellbeing, well-being, satisfaction and quality of life are somewhat different and each have their own specific meaning, responses in different surveys are highly correlated (Fordyce, 1988; Frey and Stutzer, 2002b), and many analyses use them indiscriminately. In this current study these terms are used with the understanding that they have a similar connotation. The present study will use a bottom-up approach to the analysis of subjective well-being. This approach considers that overall life satisfaction is determined by what is called domain satisfaction; the evaluation of own personal situation on different dimensions of life such as: financial situation, housing conditions, health, leisure, job or education, among other dimensions. Some authors signal the mediator role of those domain satisfactions to determine overall happiness (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et al., 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007). In what follows, we will consider that leisure satisfaction has leisure experiences as the main input; higher leisure satisfaction will contribute, in turn, to higher overall satisfaction or happiness. In order to assess the size of different influences upon happiness and satisfaction with life in general, psychologists have been using surveys since long ago, while only recently economists have recognized that there is useful information in a subjective well-being answer as an empirical approximation for the theoretical concept of utility. With the exception of the seminal work of Easterlin (1974), most research has taken place during the last two decades. The existing state of research suggests that, for many purposes, happiness or reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical proxy of individual utility. From the information about the determinants of individual happiness, different situations of economic and social policies inside a country or a region can be analyzed . Frey and Stutzer (2002b) give some important reasons for economists to consider happiness research. First, happiness research can help to evaluate net effects, in terms of individual utilities, for different economic policies. Understanding the determinants of subjective well-being can thus usefully inform economic policy decisions. Second, this research also has relevance to economists because of the effect of institutional conditions such as the quality of governance and the size of social capital on individual well-being. It may also help to solve empirical puzzles that conventional economic theories find difficult to explain. For instance, using this approach it is possible to understand why for several countries since World War ll although they have raised their real income drastically, the self-reported subjective well-being of the population has not increased or has even slightly fallen. Data about happiness are collected through direct questioning via interviews or self-administered questionnaires in which individuals self-rate their happiness on a single item or on a multi-item scale. These scales offer a list of options, which are ranked according to the levels of happiness . Most studies of subjective well-being are based on some variation on the question How satisfied (or happy) are you with your life? The range of possible responses is defined over a scale that varies between datasets (one to four, one to seven, or one to ten), the lowest grades indicating a poor level of life satisfaction. The main use of happiness measures is not to compare levels in an absolute sense but rather to seek to identify the determinants of happiness. The strategy is to use the answers that people give when asked questions about how happy they feel with life. Similar questions are posed with respect to job satisfaction, health satisfaction, housing satisfaction, satisfaction with marital relation, etc. †¦, and leisure satisfaction or satisfaction with leisure time. This study of the different aspects of life is called domain satisfaction. Although this approach could have limitations, as was said by Oswald (1997, p. 1816) if the aim is to learn about what makes people tick, listening to what they say seems likely to be a natural first step. The domains-of-life literature states that life can be approached as a general construct of many specific domains, and that life satisfaction can be understood as a result from satisfaction in these domains of life (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et.al, 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007; Rojas, 2006a, 2006b). It is evident that different domains may be distinguished. In many studies, the domains to be analyzed are determined by data availability. For instance, in the British Household Panel Survey leisure satisfaction is split up into two sub-dimensions; namely, the amount of leisure and use of the leisure time (Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2007); the European Community Household Panel considers only satisfaction with leisure time , and the Latinobarà ³metro only includes satisfaction with the amount of leisure (Rojas, XXXX). Rojas (2007) affirms that the enumeration and demarcation of the domains of life are arbitrary. In addition to this, there are many possible partitions of a human life, and the selected partition depends on the researchs objectives and the available information. For example, Cummins (1996) has argued for a seven-domain partition: material well-being, health, productivity intimacy, safety, community and emotional well-being; van Praag et al. (2003) study the relationship of satisfaction in different domains of life (health, financial situation, job, housing, leisure and environment) and satisfaction with life as a whole. Rojas (2006b and 2007), on the basis of factor analysis, identified seven domains of life: health, economic, job, family, friendship, personal and community. Using information from Mexico , he showed that satisfaction in the family domain is crucial for life satisfaction. Family satisfaction includes aspects of satisfaction with ones spouse, children and with the rest of the family. Rojas also showed that the satisfaction in the health, job and personal domains is also very important for a persons happiness. Satisfaction in areas such as housing and living conditions, financial solvency and income are relatively less important for life satisfaction. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for economic and labor satisfaction, but not for family satisfaction or leisure satisfaction. For that reason, it is possible to find situations where a person is satisfied with his/her life while he/she is unsatisfied economically, or where a person is unsatisfied wit h his/her life and, at the same time, his/her economic satisfaction is high (Rojas, 2008b). Empirical research has focused on different factors associated with subjective well-being and satisfaction. In agreement with psychological and sociological studies (Argyle, 1999), economic research has identified a set of personal and social characteristics associated with life satisfaction. Most studies using data from North America and European countries have found the level of reported life satisfaction to be high among those who are married (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004b; Easterlin, 2003; Carroll, 2007; Clark et al., 2005; Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters, 2004), women (Oswald, 1997; Clark, 1997), whites (Oswald, 1997; Alesina et al., 2004), the well-educated (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a; Frey and Stutzer, 2003; Borooah, 2005), the self-employed (Blanchflower, 2000; Blanchflower, 2004; Frey and Benz, 2003; Alesina et al., 2004), the retired (Di Tella et al., 2003), and those occupied with home duties (Di Tella et al., 2003; Borooah, 2005). The relation between an individuals age and happiness seems to be a bit more complex. Many people believe that the quality of life deteriorates with age and that old people should be unhappier than young people since the old tend to have a worse health, less income, and few are married. Nevertheless, many studies have surprisingly thought that old people report levels of happiness comparatively higher than young people, though this effect tends to be small. Frey and Stutzer (2001) have indicated four reasons that can explain this positive relationship between age and happiness: (i) the old have lower expectations and aspirations. For example, an elderly person waits to remain without work and possibly widower, so the effects of the loss will be lower on the old than on the young. (ii) They have little disparity between goals and achievements, since the eldelrlys goals are fixed closer to what reasonably they can reach. (iii) Older individuals have had more time to adjust to their life conditions, and (iv) old people have learned how to reduce the negative events of the life and how to regulate the negative affects. Besides, economists have identified a U-shape in the relationship between age and happiness (e.g. Oswald, 1997; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a). This implies a convex shape in the relationship of life satisfaction with age. Life satisfaction decreases with age until it reaches a minimum, increasing afterwards. For North America and European countries this minimum typically occurs in the forties (43 in Frey and Stutzer (2001) and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2005); 46 in Peiro (2007)). Aspirations and comparisons effects also are important in relation with income and other factors affecting subjective well-being. The individuals reported subjective well-being in the present is based on a norm of what is `bad, `sufficient or `good. Such norms not only depend on the present situation, but also on what the individual has experienced in the past, on what he/she expects to experience in the future and on what other people think and do (van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004). In relation with income, individual well-being does not only depend on income in absolute terms but also on the subjective perception of whether ones income is adequate to satisfy ones needs. In addition, individual income perception is subject to the individuals own situation, past and present, as well as to the income of other people. The latter reflects the importance of the relative position of individuals in society for their satisfaction with life. This is often referred to as the comparison income or relative utility effect. It is often argued that individuals adapt to new situations by changing their expectations (Easterlin, 2005; Clark et al., 2008). This implies that higher incomes are accompanied by rising expectations that lead to what is known as the hedonic treadmill (Brickman and Campbell, 1971) or hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein, 1999). Thus, individuals strive for high incomes even if these lead only to a temporary or small increase in well-being. This ability to adapt would appear to be a ubiquitous feature of the human condition, some recent examples of adaptation in nonmonetary spheres are Lucas et al. (2003) and Lucas (2005) with respect to marriage and divorce, Wu (2001) and Oswald and Powdthavee (2006) for adaptation to illness or disability, and Lucas et al. (2004) regarding unemployment. The comparisons with different social reference groups are also an important factor that has been widely present in the analysis of two dimensions; namely, the analysis of the effect of relative income on financial satisfaction and/or satisfaction with life as a whole (McBride, 2001; Stutzer, 2004; Luttmer, 2005; Clark, Frijters and Shields, 2008) and the influence of unemployment on subjective well-being. A standard result in happiness literature is that the unemployed report significantly lower levels of subjective well-being than other labor force groups (Winkelman and Winkelman, 1998; Frey and Stutzer, 2002). Indeed, the pecuniary and the non-pecuniary costs of the unemployment are that high that adaptation is non-existent (Lucas et al., 2004) or only very moderate (Clark, 2002). Clark (2003) uses seven waves of the British Household Panel Survey to test for social norms in labor market status. In his analysis, he found that the well-being of the unemployed is the higher, the hig her the unemployment rate in a reference group (at the regional, partner, or household level). It seems that, the more unemployment becomes the norm, the less individuals are affected by it (Winkelman, 2006). Lalive and Stutzer (2004), using a different strategy, obtain the same results for information from Sweden. Social interactions could be either a negative or a positive factor. As previously mentioned, an individuals happiness depends on that individuals own relative (or positional) situation or status, and comparison with others, what would expose that individual to negative externalities in terms of peer-effects (Luttmer, 2005) in utility and/or consumption. Alpizar, Carlsson and Johansson-Stenman (2005) show that positionality matters far more for commodities as houses and cars than for vacation and insurance, but also that both absolute and relative consumption matter for each category, these are positional goods. The positive influence of social interactions may come from social relationships and other relational goods or social capital factors. For instance, Rojas (2007), Winkelman (2006), Argyle (1999), among other social scientists have found that social relationships are a major source of well-being. Although marriage is the relationship that has the most influence on happiness, there are other relationships that affect happiness, as well as health and mental health, by providing social support. Argyle (1999 p. 361) refers some studies where it was found that if all kinds of social support are combined, a social support factor is found to have a strong correlation of 0.50 with happiness. Social scientists in many countries have observed that social support or social networks (and the associated norms of reciprocity and trust (Helliwell and Putnam, 2004)) have powerful effects on the level and efficiency of production and well-being, broadly defined, and they have used the term social capital to refer to these effects (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Lately, some cross-sectional studies from both sociology and economics have shown the importance of key aspects of social capital such as trust, social contacts and membership in voluntary associations over individual well-being (Inglehart 1999; Putnam 2000; Helliwell 2003 and 2006b; Powdthavee, 2008). In Bowling Alone, Putnam (2000) suggested that people prosper in neighborhoods and societies where social capital is high, that is, where people trust one another and are mutually helpful. Putnam reviewed evidence showing that communities with high rates of volunteer activity, club membership, church membership, and social entertaining (all thought to be indirect manifestations of social capital) all had higher well-being than communities that were impoverish these characteristics. Many studies that use cross-sectional data have shown that individuals with rich networks of active social relationships, that do not include people living in the same household, tend to be happier with th eir lives (Phillips 1967; Burt 1987). Helliwell (2003) reported that well-being is high and suicide rates are low where trust in others is high, and he also found that well-being is high where memberships in organizations outside of work are at high levels. Thus, there is evidence that individuals are more likely to experience high well-being when they live in nations with high social capital than when they live in nations with low social capital, a finding that dovetails with the results of studies on individuals social interactions. Helliwell and Putnam (2004) and Powdthavee (2008) are comprehensive reviews about the importance of social capital factor over subjective well-being. Health status is a factor that can be expected to be an important determinant of life satisfaction. In the 1950s the use of concepts such as welfare, adjustment and mental health had much in common with the traditional concept about happiness (Argyle, 1991). Research on the health-related quality of life was developed in the mid 1970s by health scientists and psychologists in order to track peoples perception of their health status (Gough et al., 2007). This was mainly in response to the need for more sensitive measures to compare treatments for chronic illness and to identify the most cost-effective treatments . Good health is considered an important factor included in the capabilities and the necessary functionalities in order for an individual to face life (Deaton, 2007; Sen, 1999). Since the 1980s the state of health has been identified as an important determinant of life satisfaction, as happy people are healthier, both physically and mentally (Veenhoven, 1991; Argyle, 1999). Co nsequently, poor health, which limits an individuals ability to carry out their daily activities, reduces overall satisfaction. The literature about subjective well-being in Latin American countries is few and very recent. Graham and Pettinato (2001) were some of the first to analyze Latin American countries. Using the Latinobarà ³metro 2000, they found that Latin America is not all that different from the advanced industrial economies in relation to some of the determinants of happiness. Similar to the OECD countries, happiness has a quadratic relationship with age, initially decreasing and then increasing monotonically after 49 years of age. As in the industrial countries, being married had positive and significant effects. In contrast to the advanced economies, a significant gender effect was no found in Latin America. Also, as in the industrial countries, the coefficients for level of wealth were strong, positive, and significant in happiness. When wealth was included in the regressions, the coefficient for education level became insignificant or weakly significant, depending on the regression used. Bein g self-employed or unemployed both had significant and negative effects on happiness. When they included country-fixed effects, the coefficient on self-employment became insignificant. While being unemployed also has negative effects on happiness in the advanced industrial economies, being self-employed has positive effects. The most credible explanation is intuitive and it was given by the authors: most self-employed people in the latter are self-employed by choice, while in developing economies, many are self-employed due to the absence of more secure employment opportunities and live a precarious existence in the informal sector. Other analyses by countries have been conducted in Latin America. Among the most important, Rojas (2006b and 2007), using the domains-of-life approach in Mexico, found that people are on average, more satisfied in the family domain, while they are less satisfied in the consumption, personal and job domains. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for the economic and labor satisfaction, but not for either family or leisure satisfaction. Due to that, he found a weak relationship between income and life satisfaction Gerstenbluth et al. (2007) studied the relationship between happiness and health in Argentina and Uruguay using the Latinobarà ³metro 2004. Cruz and Torres (2006), using the Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003, tested various happiness hypotheses among Colombians and Cid et al. (2008), using the survey called Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento en Amà ©rica Latina y el Caribe (SABE), explored the correlation between happiness and income in the el derly in Uruguay. To our knowledge, the previous studies conducted about Latin America have not included the effect of social capital on subjective well-being, and they have analyzed the self-employment as a homogeneous labor market status. However, when considering the specificity of the leisure domain, we should take into account that while satisfaction with other realms of life may lie upon the valuation of objective situations (such as one’s financial situation, health or housing conditions), satisfaction with leisure brings in an additional challenge as individual’s boundaries of leisure are defined by her perception of what is pleasant (Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2008). Conceptual discussion on the nature of leisure time in contemporary societies Time allocation decisions within the family: economic approaches and models. We will attach to the economic approach to human behavior by Becker (moreover, bring arguments such as those contained in a theory of social interactions). Temporal autonomy is a matter of having discretionary control over your time. Discretionary Time. A New Measure of Freedom (Goodin et al., 2005) Other approaches: we have found these relevant arguments: Veblens theory The omnivore Bourdieus distinction Putnams social capital 3.1. What is Social Capital? There is a traditional consensus that there exists three distincs traditions that conceptualize and analyze social capital. All three would be relevant for our reasoning. Pierre Bourdieu bourdieu2: who conceptualised social capital as the `actual or potential resources that an individual has at his/her disposal as a result of `a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition, i.e. membership in a group. Some authors point out that this definition must be viewed as part of his broader concern with developing the different types of capital in order to explain the means by which the social stratification system is preserved and the dominant class-reproduction strategy is legitimised. J.S. Coleman coleman defines it as the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organisations and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or young person. Social relations were viewed by Coleman to make up important `capital resources for individuals by means of processes such as setting `obligations, expectations and trustworthiness, creating channels for information, and setting norms backed by efficient sanctions. These resources may be influenced by factors such as generalised trustworthiness which ensures that obligations are met, the extent to which a person is in Benefits of Leisure on the Individual Benefits of Leisure on the Individual Introduction / Summary In previous contributions, there should have been wide discussions to draw the limits of leisure. I would like to get assistance one that you have read those chapters, in order to write some introductory paragraph that lets the reader know if my contribution is particularly related to some other one. In this contribution, I will analyze it by using the subjective well-being approach. I will use the leisure experience dimension (as described bellow), and I will study the determinants of subjective well-being. There will be plenty of conceptual discussion, some regularities will be reported, an empirical exercise will be performed results analyzed, and some insights for future research will be presented. In this paper, we will study leisure and its beneficial aspects over individual welfare by using a quite new approach: the subjective well-being or happiness approach to measure individual welfare. Along the discussion, we will present two main points. First, we will discuss on the dimensions of leisure in order to justify that by using subjective well-being procedures, we can get a comprehensive approximation to the, somehow difficult to measure, leisure concept. Second, to determine which are the personal and environmental factors that are needed so an individual can produce and consume enjoyable leisure experiences. In this chapter, we are not going to consider that leisure is just free time, i.e. time that is not dedicated to market work, nor to household maintenance activities. We are not even going to consider that leisure is discretionary time (Goodin, et al. 2005). What we state is that leisure is a universal human need that has to be fulfilled by the production in the household and the personal consumption of what we may call leisure experiences. Each experience is a commodity that enters directly in the individuals utility function. This means that leisure is one of the arguments of the utility function of the individual, one of the instances from which she will get welfare. By doing this, we will adopt from the beginning a beckerian approach (Becker, 1965, and 1990). Other arguments are (Gronau and Hamermesh, 2006). From that list of commodities, we can agree that leisure is the most time intensive one. Individuals have this particular basic need, leisure, to be fulfilled using the most suitable combination of personal resources. As always, we are living in a scarce world where every input has some alternative use, so people have to make allocation choices about the best way to fulfill this leisure need as well as others such as food, shelter, and so on. However, we will introduce into our analysis a basic feature of leisure: the presence of enjoyable others. Only recently has this aspect been introduced in the economic analysis of leisure (Osberg, 2009). In this paper, we address the question of how personal inputs are optimally combined to satisfy the leisure need in a social context. By means the analysis of the leisure domain satisfaction, we will be able to asses how personal free time transforms into leisure and how this outcome contributes to individual welfare. Each person would define the boundaries of leisure on the basis of her tastes, on different resource availability to fulfill her needs, and may value the final outcome in many different ways depending on the social norms, her personal aspirations, social interactions and past experiences. Since using a personal definition of leisure would make any analysis impossible, we will present the main three different constructions of leisure, as proposed by Kelly (1982). The first approach of leisure is the most basic one that defines leisure as quantifiable leisure time, either residual or discretional, based on the freedom to choose. The second one defines leisure as the activity that is chosen at a given time and place so that it is the quality of the activity which defines it as leisure. The third one defines leisure as a subjective condition on the grounds of a freely chosen experience based on intrinsic motivation. The integrative approach proposed by Kelly is the one that we follow in this research, where Leisure is an action that takes place at a given time, develops an identifiable activity and is perceived as a pleasant experience by the actor. In what follows, we would refer to this last integrative approach either as leisure or leisure experience. Actually, it fits very well with the following definition of leisure satisfaction by Beard and Ragheb (1980). For them, leisure satisfaction is the positive perceptions or feelings that an individual forms, elicits, or gains as a result of engaging in leisure activities and choices. It is the degree to which one is presently content or pleased with her general leisure experiences and situations. This positive feeling of pleasure results from the satisfaction of felt or unfelt needs of the individual. Traditional economic theory studies human behavior by means of individual’s observed choices. In such a spirit, observed time allocation can be an outcome of interest recorded on time-use surveys. Actually, as we will discuss in the concluding section, time-use registers are a very valuable source of information, and many of the questions that we are going to address could be complementarily studied by testing those hypotheses with that type of data. However, even if some authors consider that time is the ultimate source of utility, time by itself provides no utility to individuals, since the mere passing of time does not fulfill any human need (possibly except from sleeping time). Moreover, since we have no means of observing the final leisure output, we have to rely on the subjective assessment of how satisfied people feel with the leisure that they enjoy. At the end of the day, the main challenge is to determine how an unobservable, such as leisure, can contribute to individual welfare. In this case, we are considering a double black-box. First, not everyone defines leisure in the same way and not everyone produces leisure experiences by using the same technology or the same inputs. For some people, the presence of others will be much more needed that for some other people. Some people could be much more materialistic than others. Some people could be much more efficient in the production of pleasurable experiences because of their higher education. Second, as indicated before, we know that leisure contributed to enhance the quality of life of people, but the valuation of those experiences is determined by societal norms and arrangements and by personal aspirations, past experiences and comparison effects. Next section will present the happiness or subjective well-being approach. We will introduce a brief discussion of the rationale for using this approach for economic research and for leisure research. To do so, we will present the domain approach; in this setting, leisure satisfaction will be considered a mediator between individual leisure experience and overall satisfaction or happiness. In section 3, we will discuss the relationship between leisure time and well-being. Other crucial aspects will be discussed in section 4, where we review a series of social and economic factors that are said to influence leisure enjoyment, so leisure has a high quality and contributes to a better quality of life. Particularly, we will report previous findings on the social dimension of leisure, one of the attributes that determine high quality leisure experiences. In that same section, some determinants of overall satisfaction, or of particular domain satisfaction will be discussed. Last, sections 5 and 6 will present, respectively, some conclusions and a brief overview of needed research to better understand the contribution of leisure to a better quality of life. Subjective well-being approach Traditional research on quality of life relied heavily on objective and materialistic indicators of living conditions. Actually, Gross Domestic Product has been the â€Å"champion† indicator when studying the evolution of living standards and when comparing economies (Mankiw, 2007). Under the realm of objective indicators, nearly all non market activities and many aspects of human development, such as leisure, are neglected. New studies have highlighted the superiority of including the subjective approach to the investigation of quality of life in developed and developing societies, and happiness research has become quite of a fashionable and popular topic (Layard, 2006). There is a growing interest on using the subjective well-being approach to analyze living conditions and there has been an emerging literature on social sciences. Among other reasons for that flourishing, we can highlight the following: (i) this approach offers richer insight about the quality of life, and considers other indicators of development apart from the traditional indicators; (ii) nowadays there is more information available about living conditions, opinions and perceptions of people and societies, and; (iii) with this approach it is possible to identify the major needs and problems of the population, which is useful for governments and policy makers (Frey and Stutzer, JEL 2002). Economists and other social scientists broadly define `happiness and `life satisfaction as subjective well-being. Following Diener and Seligman (2004, pp. 4) life satisfaction is defined as a global judgment of well-being based on information the person believes is relevant, while well-being includes all of the evaluations, both cognitive and affective, that people make of their lives and components of their lives. While according to some authors, the terms happiness, subjective wellbeing, well-being, satisfaction and quality of life are somewhat different and each have their own specific meaning, responses in different surveys are highly correlated (Fordyce, 1988; Frey and Stutzer, 2002b), and many analyses use them indiscriminately. In this current study these terms are used with the understanding that they have a similar connotation. The present study will use a bottom-up approach to the analysis of subjective well-being. This approach considers that overall life satisfaction is determined by what is called domain satisfaction; the evaluation of own personal situation on different dimensions of life such as: financial situation, housing conditions, health, leisure, job or education, among other dimensions. Some authors signal the mediator role of those domain satisfactions to determine overall happiness (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et al., 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007). In what follows, we will consider that leisure satisfaction has leisure experiences as the main input; higher leisure satisfaction will contribute, in turn, to higher overall satisfaction or happiness. In order to assess the size of different influences upon happiness and satisfaction with life in general, psychologists have been using surveys since long ago, while only recently economists have recognized that there is useful information in a subjective well-being answer as an empirical approximation for the theoretical concept of utility. With the exception of the seminal work of Easterlin (1974), most research has taken place during the last two decades. The existing state of research suggests that, for many purposes, happiness or reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical proxy of individual utility. From the information about the determinants of individual happiness, different situations of economic and social policies inside a country or a region can be analyzed . Frey and Stutzer (2002b) give some important reasons for economists to consider happiness research. First, happiness research can help to evaluate net effects, in terms of individual utilities, for different economic policies. Understanding the determinants of subjective well-being can thus usefully inform economic policy decisions. Second, this research also has relevance to economists because of the effect of institutional conditions such as the quality of governance and the size of social capital on individual well-being. It may also help to solve empirical puzzles that conventional economic theories find difficult to explain. For instance, using this approach it is possible to understand why for several countries since World War ll although they have raised their real income drastically, the self-reported subjective well-being of the population has not increased or has even slightly fallen. Data about happiness are collected through direct questioning via interviews or self-administered questionnaires in which individuals self-rate their happiness on a single item or on a multi-item scale. These scales offer a list of options, which are ranked according to the levels of happiness . Most studies of subjective well-being are based on some variation on the question How satisfied (or happy) are you with your life? The range of possible responses is defined over a scale that varies between datasets (one to four, one to seven, or one to ten), the lowest grades indicating a poor level of life satisfaction. The main use of happiness measures is not to compare levels in an absolute sense but rather to seek to identify the determinants of happiness. The strategy is to use the answers that people give when asked questions about how happy they feel with life. Similar questions are posed with respect to job satisfaction, health satisfaction, housing satisfaction, satisfaction with marital relation, etc. †¦, and leisure satisfaction or satisfaction with leisure time. This study of the different aspects of life is called domain satisfaction. Although this approach could have limitations, as was said by Oswald (1997, p. 1816) if the aim is to learn about what makes people tick, listening to what they say seems likely to be a natural first step. The domains-of-life literature states that life can be approached as a general construct of many specific domains, and that life satisfaction can be understood as a result from satisfaction in these domains of life (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et.al, 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007; Rojas, 2006a, 2006b). It is evident that different domains may be distinguished. In many studies, the domains to be analyzed are determined by data availability. For instance, in the British Household Panel Survey leisure satisfaction is split up into two sub-dimensions; namely, the amount of leisure and use of the leisure time (Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2007); the European Community Household Panel considers only satisfaction with leisure time , and the Latinobarà ³metro only includes satisfaction with the amount of leisure (Rojas, XXXX). Rojas (2007) affirms that the enumeration and demarcation of the domains of life are arbitrary. In addition to this, there are many possible partitions of a human life, and the selected partition depends on the researchs objectives and the available information. For example, Cummins (1996) has argued for a seven-domain partition: material well-being, health, productivity intimacy, safety, community and emotional well-being; van Praag et al. (2003) study the relationship of satisfaction in different domains of life (health, financial situation, job, housing, leisure and environment) and satisfaction with life as a whole. Rojas (2006b and 2007), on the basis of factor analysis, identified seven domains of life: health, economic, job, family, friendship, personal and community. Using information from Mexico , he showed that satisfaction in the family domain is crucial for life satisfaction. Family satisfaction includes aspects of satisfaction with ones spouse, children and with the rest of the family. Rojas also showed that the satisfaction in the health, job and personal domains is also very important for a persons happiness. Satisfaction in areas such as housing and living conditions, financial solvency and income are relatively less important for life satisfaction. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for economic and labor satisfaction, but not for family satisfaction or leisure satisfaction. For that reason, it is possible to find situations where a person is satisfied with his/her life while he/she is unsatisfied economically, or where a person is unsatisfied wit h his/her life and, at the same time, his/her economic satisfaction is high (Rojas, 2008b). Empirical research has focused on different factors associated with subjective well-being and satisfaction. In agreement with psychological and sociological studies (Argyle, 1999), economic research has identified a set of personal and social characteristics associated with life satisfaction. Most studies using data from North America and European countries have found the level of reported life satisfaction to be high among those who are married (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004b; Easterlin, 2003; Carroll, 2007; Clark et al., 2005; Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters, 2004), women (Oswald, 1997; Clark, 1997), whites (Oswald, 1997; Alesina et al., 2004), the well-educated (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a; Frey and Stutzer, 2003; Borooah, 2005), the self-employed (Blanchflower, 2000; Blanchflower, 2004; Frey and Benz, 2003; Alesina et al., 2004), the retired (Di Tella et al., 2003), and those occupied with home duties (Di Tella et al., 2003; Borooah, 2005). The relation between an individuals age and happiness seems to be a bit more complex. Many people believe that the quality of life deteriorates with age and that old people should be unhappier than young people since the old tend to have a worse health, less income, and few are married. Nevertheless, many studies have surprisingly thought that old people report levels of happiness comparatively higher than young people, though this effect tends to be small. Frey and Stutzer (2001) have indicated four reasons that can explain this positive relationship between age and happiness: (i) the old have lower expectations and aspirations. For example, an elderly person waits to remain without work and possibly widower, so the effects of the loss will be lower on the old than on the young. (ii) They have little disparity between goals and achievements, since the eldelrlys goals are fixed closer to what reasonably they can reach. (iii) Older individuals have had more time to adjust to their life conditions, and (iv) old people have learned how to reduce the negative events of the life and how to regulate the negative affects. Besides, economists have identified a U-shape in the relationship between age and happiness (e.g. Oswald, 1997; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a). This implies a convex shape in the relationship of life satisfaction with age. Life satisfaction decreases with age until it reaches a minimum, increasing afterwards. For North America and European countries this minimum typically occurs in the forties (43 in Frey and Stutzer (2001) and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2005); 46 in Peiro (2007)). Aspirations and comparisons effects also are important in relation with income and other factors affecting subjective well-being. The individuals reported subjective well-being in the present is based on a norm of what is `bad, `sufficient or `good. Such norms not only depend on the present situation, but also on what the individual has experienced in the past, on what he/she expects to experience in the future and on what other people think and do (van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004). In relation with income, individual well-being does not only depend on income in absolute terms but also on the subjective perception of whether ones income is adequate to satisfy ones needs. In addition, individual income perception is subject to the individuals own situation, past and present, as well as to the income of other people. The latter reflects the importance of the relative position of individuals in society for their satisfaction with life. This is often referred to as the comparison income or relative utility effect. It is often argued that individuals adapt to new situations by changing their expectations (Easterlin, 2005; Clark et al., 2008). This implies that higher incomes are accompanied by rising expectations that lead to what is known as the hedonic treadmill (Brickman and Campbell, 1971) or hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein, 1999). Thus, individuals strive for high incomes even if these lead only to a temporary or small increase in well-being. This ability to adapt would appear to be a ubiquitous feature of the human condition, some recent examples of adaptation in nonmonetary spheres are Lucas et al. (2003) and Lucas (2005) with respect to marriage and divorce, Wu (2001) and Oswald and Powdthavee (2006) for adaptation to illness or disability, and Lucas et al. (2004) regarding unemployment. The comparisons with different social reference groups are also an important factor that has been widely present in the analysis of two dimensions; namely, the analysis of the effect of relative income on financial satisfaction and/or satisfaction with life as a whole (McBride, 2001; Stutzer, 2004; Luttmer, 2005; Clark, Frijters and Shields, 2008) and the influence of unemployment on subjective well-being. A standard result in happiness literature is that the unemployed report significantly lower levels of subjective well-being than other labor force groups (Winkelman and Winkelman, 1998; Frey and Stutzer, 2002). Indeed, the pecuniary and the non-pecuniary costs of the unemployment are that high that adaptation is non-existent (Lucas et al., 2004) or only very moderate (Clark, 2002). Clark (2003) uses seven waves of the British Household Panel Survey to test for social norms in labor market status. In his analysis, he found that the well-being of the unemployed is the higher, the hig her the unemployment rate in a reference group (at the regional, partner, or household level). It seems that, the more unemployment becomes the norm, the less individuals are affected by it (Winkelman, 2006). Lalive and Stutzer (2004), using a different strategy, obtain the same results for information from Sweden. Social interactions could be either a negative or a positive factor. As previously mentioned, an individuals happiness depends on that individuals own relative (or positional) situation or status, and comparison with others, what would expose that individual to negative externalities in terms of peer-effects (Luttmer, 2005) in utility and/or consumption. Alpizar, Carlsson and Johansson-Stenman (2005) show that positionality matters far more for commodities as houses and cars than for vacation and insurance, but also that both absolute and relative consumption matter for each category, these are positional goods. The positive influence of social interactions may come from social relationships and other relational goods or social capital factors. For instance, Rojas (2007), Winkelman (2006), Argyle (1999), among other social scientists have found that social relationships are a major source of well-being. Although marriage is the relationship that has the most influence on happiness, there are other relationships that affect happiness, as well as health and mental health, by providing social support. Argyle (1999 p. 361) refers some studies where it was found that if all kinds of social support are combined, a social support factor is found to have a strong correlation of 0.50 with happiness. Social scientists in many countries have observed that social support or social networks (and the associated norms of reciprocity and trust (Helliwell and Putnam, 2004)) have powerful effects on the level and efficiency of production and well-being, broadly defined, and they have used the term social capital to refer to these effects (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Lately, some cross-sectional studies from both sociology and economics have shown the importance of key aspects of social capital such as trust, social contacts and membership in voluntary associations over individual well-being (Inglehart 1999; Putnam 2000; Helliwell 2003 and 2006b; Powdthavee, 2008). In Bowling Alone, Putnam (2000) suggested that people prosper in neighborhoods and societies where social capital is high, that is, where people trust one another and are mutually helpful. Putnam reviewed evidence showing that communities with high rates of volunteer activity, club membership, church membership, and social entertaining (all thought to be indirect manifestations of social capital) all had higher well-being than communities that were impoverish these characteristics. Many studies that use cross-sectional data have shown that individuals with rich networks of active social relationships, that do not include people living in the same household, tend to be happier with th eir lives (Phillips 1967; Burt 1987). Helliwell (2003) reported that well-being is high and suicide rates are low where trust in others is high, and he also found that well-being is high where memberships in organizations outside of work are at high levels. Thus, there is evidence that individuals are more likely to experience high well-being when they live in nations with high social capital than when they live in nations with low social capital, a finding that dovetails with the results of studies on individuals social interactions. Helliwell and Putnam (2004) and Powdthavee (2008) are comprehensive reviews about the importance of social capital factor over subjective well-being. Health status is a factor that can be expected to be an important determinant of life satisfaction. In the 1950s the use of concepts such as welfare, adjustment and mental health had much in common with the traditional concept about happiness (Argyle, 1991). Research on the health-related quality of life was developed in the mid 1970s by health scientists and psychologists in order to track peoples perception of their health status (Gough et al., 2007). This was mainly in response to the need for more sensitive measures to compare treatments for chronic illness and to identify the most cost-effective treatments . Good health is considered an important factor included in the capabilities and the necessary functionalities in order for an individual to face life (Deaton, 2007; Sen, 1999). Since the 1980s the state of health has been identified as an important determinant of life satisfaction, as happy people are healthier, both physically and mentally (Veenhoven, 1991; Argyle, 1999). Co nsequently, poor health, which limits an individuals ability to carry out their daily activities, reduces overall satisfaction. The literature about subjective well-being in Latin American countries is few and very recent. Graham and Pettinato (2001) were some of the first to analyze Latin American countries. Using the Latinobarà ³metro 2000, they found that Latin America is not all that different from the advanced industrial economies in relation to some of the determinants of happiness. Similar to the OECD countries, happiness has a quadratic relationship with age, initially decreasing and then increasing monotonically after 49 years of age. As in the industrial countries, being married had positive and significant effects. In contrast to the advanced economies, a significant gender effect was no found in Latin America. Also, as in the industrial countries, the coefficients for level of wealth were strong, positive, and significant in happiness. When wealth was included in the regressions, the coefficient for education level became insignificant or weakly significant, depending on the regression used. Bein g self-employed or unemployed both had significant and negative effects on happiness. When they included country-fixed effects, the coefficient on self-employment became insignificant. While being unemployed also has negative effects on happiness in the advanced industrial economies, being self-employed has positive effects. The most credible explanation is intuitive and it was given by the authors: most self-employed people in the latter are self-employed by choice, while in developing economies, many are self-employed due to the absence of more secure employment opportunities and live a precarious existence in the informal sector. Other analyses by countries have been conducted in Latin America. Among the most important, Rojas (2006b and 2007), using the domains-of-life approach in Mexico, found that people are on average, more satisfied in the family domain, while they are less satisfied in the consumption, personal and job domains. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for the economic and labor satisfaction, but not for either family or leisure satisfaction. Due to that, he found a weak relationship between income and life satisfaction Gerstenbluth et al. (2007) studied the relationship between happiness and health in Argentina and Uruguay using the Latinobarà ³metro 2004. Cruz and Torres (2006), using the Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003, tested various happiness hypotheses among Colombians and Cid et al. (2008), using the survey called Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento en Amà ©rica Latina y el Caribe (SABE), explored the correlation between happiness and income in the el derly in Uruguay. To our knowledge, the previous studies conducted about Latin America have not included the effect of social capital on subjective well-being, and they have analyzed the self-employment as a homogeneous labor market status. However, when considering the specificity of the leisure domain, we should take into account that while satisfaction with other realms of life may lie upon the valuation of objective situations (such as one’s financial situation, health or housing conditions), satisfaction with leisure brings in an additional challenge as individual’s boundaries of leisure are defined by her perception of what is pleasant (Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2008). Conceptual discussion on the nature of leisure time in contemporary societies Time allocation decisions within the family: economic approaches and models. We will attach to the economic approach to human behavior by Becker (moreover, bring arguments such as those contained in a theory of social interactions). Temporal autonomy is a matter of having discretionary control over your time. Discretionary Time. A New Measure of Freedom (Goodin et al., 2005) Other approaches: we have found these relevant arguments: Veblens theory The omnivore Bourdieus distinction Putnams social capital 3.1. What is Social Capital? There is a traditional consensus that there exists three distincs traditions that conceptualize and analyze social capital. All three would be relevant for our reasoning. Pierre Bourdieu bourdieu2: who conceptualised social capital as the `actual or potential resources that an individual has at his/her disposal as a result of `a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition, i.e. membership in a group. Some authors point out that this definition must be viewed as part of his broader concern with developing the different types of capital in order to explain the means by which the social stratification system is preserved and the dominant class-reproduction strategy is legitimised. J.S. Coleman coleman defines it as the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organisations and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or young person. Social relations were viewed by Coleman to make up important `capital resources for individuals by means of processes such as setting `obligations, expectations and trustworthiness, creating channels for information, and setting norms backed by efficient sanctions. These resources may be influenced by factors such as generalised trustworthiness which ensures that obligations are met, the extent to which a person is in

Friday, October 25, 2019

Women in the Military Essay examples -- Women in Military Essays

I am in favor of equality for women, just not when it comes to women in combat. There have been women in society doing heroic things since the Revolutionary war. There have been brave women in war posing as men so they could fight. There are a select few women who could handle war and combat. The negative aspects of women in combat outweigh the positive. Women should not participate in military combat. However they may join the military and served in traditional roles such as nurses and office staff. The difference between men and women is women are physically weaker, they have vital personal needs, and they attract male troops. Women are physically weaker. Their genetic structure is made differently than the males. Susan Brownmiller wrote in "Femininity" that "Men were straight-edged, sharply pronged and formidable, women were softly curved" (126). When I go to the weight room there are never any women lifting free weights. When they do, it is usually the bar only. Males generally lift at least forty-five pounds on each side of the bar. My friend was in the military for over thr...

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Muslim, Islam and American culture Essay

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the current experience of Muslims in America and the quest for clues as to the future interaction between Islam and American culture. In particular, I will concentrate on three areas: Islamic influence on the culture of Americans with emphasis on how it has affected political and social development; the interaction between Islamic traditions and American culture on the establishment of American Muslim Organization; and the social, cultural and educational trends among the Muslim youth in America. Introduction Whatever is happening to the Muslim culture in the American society and the American society as it interacts with the Islamic culture can only be comprehended by the conception of culture as a fluid entity that interacts and borrow from each other. It is important that any study of Islam in the United States must not ignore the interplay between religion and culture neither should it assume that one overwhelms the other. The experience of American Muslims puts into sharp relief matters of identity and assimilation and how they must be distinguished from the concept of values. Even with movements such as the Nation of Islam rejecting identification with the broader culture including some of the then dominant values, it accepted other values such as the work ethic and entrepreneurship. My argument is that this selective acceptance of American values was a result of a confrontation between Islamic values and American culture seen from the perspective of an alienated minority group robbed of its identity. The past few decades have witnessed the evolution of American Muslim organizations. The majority of these organizations until 1980s were mosques and even these were in few numbers. Today, there exists a number of formal Muslim organizations in various areas of endeavor. The complexity of their organizations and the extent of their influence are increasing. These organizations are increasingly fitting into the weave of American culture rather than become a bulwark against it. They in effect influence the ambient culture around them. The Muslim Student association is normally the root of Islamic organization among the immigrant population. The association’s alumni are in most cases found in leadership positions of the current wave of immigrant dominated organizations (Ahmad, 2003). The only Muslim organization with an immigrant composition until the formation of the Muslim Student’s Association in the 1960s was the Federation of Islamic Associations. This was basically an Arab-American organization founded on traditional culture rather than religion. The histories of Muslims in United States is varied with diverse and changing identities. The followers of this major world religion are not surprised at the processes of individual and community identity formation and change such as the ones that are being experienced in the United States. There were contending interpretations, social groups, and sources of legal authority within a century of the birth of Islam in seventh century Arabia. Yet, an identifiable fundamental Islamic way of thinking and acting, founded on the example and teachings of Muhammad developed over time. This core consists of the five pillars of Islam. With its expansion to new places and the subsequent confrontation of older religions, Muslim conquered or coexisted with such religions. Such regional interactions have influenced the ways in which this decentralized and non-hierarchical religion is practiced throughout the world. The religion lacks a centralized clergy and mosques operate independently of each other. With this regard, Muslims in the United States comprehend and practice Islam in ways strongly shaped by the American historical context. The universal Muslim community may be the goal sought by Muslims but the reality is that their everyday lives are shaped by group solidarity and experience. The United States Muslim community has been defined and redefined by voices both internal and external to Muslim communities. Those definitions reflect the complex relations among members of the ruling class and those being ruled in the American political context among other things. It is important to place Muslim communities in the socioeconomic structure of the United States when any analysis of the community is being done. Tracing their transnational networks and affiliations is also crucial. Muslims now comprises an important part of the United States society. It may be the fastest growing religion in the United States, poised to displace Judaism and become second only to Christianity in the number of adherents. This growth can be attributed to the rapid influx of immigrants and their relatively high birthrate. However, it is difficult to know exactly the number of Muslims in the United States. Distinctions An important distinction is made in Islamic law between the basics of fundamentals of jurisprudence upon which disagreement is not condoned, known as usul al-fiqh, and the branches or subdivisions in which disagreements and new and original problems and cases are permitted. There has however been disagreement concerning what usul is and what furu is in the long history of disputation, debate, and disagreement among jurists since the classical period of Islam (Elkholy, 2005).. The historical debate has often been about the use, authority, and interpretation of different sources of knowledge. In the United States today, the trend among the emerging spokespeople is to assign positive commandments of the law to one or other category even though they seem to assign more and more laws to usul and to disallow disagreement about usul, thereby restricting the scope for legitimate disagreement and discussion. There is also distinction between culture and religion. This distinction is frequently invoked as Muslims debate beliefs and practices that are accepted or unaccepted in Islam. There have been arguments among lay Muslims concerning the beliefs and practices that are fundamental to the religion and those that have accrued to it because of culture in one or another region. This issue has also been raised elsewhere by those individuals who see culture as having absorbed the function of religion such that religious difference now symbolizes basically cultural difference for the majority of Americans. Interaction between culture and religion occurs in every realm of American Muslim world. With regard to Islamic identity, America has come to be an arena for competing self images where religious authority and cultural preferences are mostly conflated if not displaced and de-territorialized altogether. Just as some scholars have identified the conflict over usul and furu, the conflict over religion and culture in the United States mainly centers on issues involving women (Waugh, Abu-Laban & Qureshi, 1983). Shared culture is more important than religious or ethnic diversity in determining gender roles. The conflict between parents and children, and men and women has been heightened up by migration thereby producing a rising rate of divorce. Alterations in traditional conceptions of the role of women is taking place faster in women than in men. The issue of dating is the most serious hindrance to the integration of Islamic religion and American culture. Personal relationships are considered highly by all human beings. To young adults, sexual relationships are extremely important and they are natural. Islam has never approved of sexual activity, always confining it to marriage. The American culture on the other hand has never been comfortable with the notion of sex. The notion of adolescence is one of the most serious flaws in American culture. The American society identifies as children individuals that previous cultures characterize as young adults (Haddad, 2004). Because of the role played by extended schooling in training young individuals for their place in the industrial system, young people of marrying age in the United States are discouraged from marriage. This denial of natural institution has resulted in fornication and unwanted mothers. The majority of Muslims have abandoned the marriage traditions of their homelands without embracing the American system, putting children in a difficult position at the time when their hormones are raging. Contributions The strength of the American culture lies in its respect for the individual, the flexibility of its civil society, and the restraints it seeks to place on the arrogance of political power. Its weakness lies in its vulnerability to sacrifice family and personal morality to the appetites of commerce. The religion of Islam, founded on the willing submission of the individual to the divine will can be an appropriate religion for such a society. The divine will reveals the principles by which the welfare of the individual and the community are harmonized. Muslims should therefore be able to find an important place in the American society using the framework of institution building and for individual advancement to make use of the strengths of the American culture and to help overcome its weaknesses. The major challenge to the integration of Islam with American culture is managing to disentangle scriptural commandments from cultural accretions (Leonard, 2003). This may be achieved by Muslims owing to their diverse community, race, ethnicity and national origin that makes untenable the confusion of culture and religion that has marked the stagnation of much of the Muslim world. Beyond this, the rising number of Muslims that are born in America implies that it is only a matter of time before the Muslim community becomes dominated by indigenous Muslims who are already integrated into the American culture. As such, they are likely to have an American understanding of Islam in which case they will further its integration into and influence the American culture or they will lack good understanding of Islam at all in which case they will become secularized as the majority of Christians, Muslims and Jews before them. Summary The American society has to some degree been influenced by Islam just as the Muslim society has been influenced by the American values. However, there are no particular aspects of the holistic American culture that can be said to be adversely influenced by Islam owing to the communal nature of American Muslims. The influence of Islam on the Americans can also be analyzed looking at the various Muslim organizations within the United States as it is through this organizations that thoughts and convictions become shaped thereby infiltrating the general American society. References Ahmad, I. (2003). Islamic Religion and American Culture. Freedom Institute Elkholy, A. (2005). The Arab Moslems in the United States: Religion and Assimilation. New Haven: College University Press Haddad, Y. (2004). Not quite American? the shaping of Arab and Muslim identity in the United States. Baylor University Press Leonard, K. (2003). Muslims in the United States: the state of research. Russell Sage Foundation Waugh, E. , Abu-Laban, B. & Qureshi, R. (1983). The Muslim community in North America. University of Alberta

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Psychological theory of development phase Essay

Juniad is ten, he is currently experiencing constant developmental phase through his life experience, the nature of his current developed behavior problems are: aggressiveness, defiantness, disobedient and incompetence in class activities. His challenges are reading disorder, school insufficient resources, failure, bullying and dysfunctional parenting. Using the Erik Erikson psychological theory of developmental phase I will be looking at Junaid’s current developmental stage, and I will also be analyzing the factors playing a role in junaid’s developmental stage and also how efficient he will be able to handle the current crisis he is experiencing. Furthermore I will be suggesting options available to facilitate a successful resolution of Junaid’s current developmental stage bolstering his chances of exiting this stage with confidence and competence. With the Erik Erikson psychological theory of development phase Juniad is currently in Industry vs Inferiority. Ju naid is ten this stage begins at the age of 6 to puberty, the challenge is mastering of certain basic skills required for success in adult life while avoiding feelings of inferiority. In this stage children develops ability to work with others, success becomes very important to the child the Synthesis when this psychological crisis is resolved successfully. Children develop a sense of competency at useful skills and tasks. More and new demands are imposed upon children and children in turn are generally ready to meet these demands. The danger at this stage, is, inferiority this is reflected in sad pessimism of children who have little have little confidence in their ability to do things well. This sense of inadequacy may develop when parental attitudes are negative towards the child’s developing competency, when family life has not prepared children for school life or when experiences with teachers and peers are so negative that they destroy children’s feeling of competence and mastery (Louw & Louw, 2007). Junaid is not successfully resolving the crisis faced by him, because factors like reading disorder, school insufficient resources, failure, bully ing and dysfunctional parenting are challenges that are interfering with his current stage in Erikson’s psychological theory of development. All this factors leads to his developed behaviour problems of aggressiveness, defiantness, disobedient and incompetence in class activities; this is an interpretation that he couldn’t acquire the basic  skills in life for the next developmental stage, his incompetence around this areas lead to behavioral problems, because this is the best way he knows how through his life experiences and the factors around him. Problems like aggressiveness looking into Instrumental aggression; it refers to aggression as a means to an end (Louw & Louw, 2007). Junaid could be aggressive just to pass a message to the parent or the social environment, that is emotional needs are not meet. According to Louw and Louw (2007) Erikson’s basic trust vs. mistrust; from Basic trust infants develops the necessary self-confidence, mistrusting infants are usually subjected to erratic or harsh care and cannot depend on the goodness and compassion of others. They therefore tend to protect themselves b y withdrawing from others around them and it is carried into later relationship. Juaid lacks self-confidence in himself and his abilities, his non-participation in class activities shows he is unable to meet up with the teacher’s expectation. Looking into self-confidence in terms of Erik’s basic trust vs mistrust, it is necessary to develop self-confidence this only shows that Junaid’s was subjected to harsh care and he is trying to protect himself from his parents’ behaviour towards him and the social environment. He feels there is no goodness or compassion and these basic mistrust issues can also be added with the crisis he faces in his current live as he lacks self- confidence in everything he does. Children developmental stages is a process that still relies on pass encounters or experience to predict or understand present behaviour. Children development is a continues process, the behavior of every individual’s is unique, children generally have these unique way in which they cognitively and emotionally interpret and proces s their experiences this plays a significant influence on their development. Looking into developmental areas; aggressiveness, defiantness, disobedient and incompetent with class activities are all related to â€Å"social development â€Å" It is the development of an individual’s interaction and relationships with other people. Furthermore it also refers to the influence of society and significant other persons on the individuals, one importance aspect of social development is â€Å"moral development† (Louw & Louw, 2007). Being aggressive, defiant, disobedient and incompetent with class activities shows there is also a problem in the moral development. Going back into social development, society and significant other person’s plays an important role  in the individual’s life. Some of Juniad’s challenges like Bullying and dysfunctional parenting style, Reading disorder and failure, we could clearly see how social factors have an effect on his current developed behavior problems. Bullying it is destructive form of peer interaction in which children become frequent targets of verbal and physical attacks or other forms of abuse (Louw & Louw, 2007). Bullying has influence on the child’s psychical, emotional, social and educational wellbeing. Reading disorder which leads to failure can be associated as a result of bullying since Juan’s first grade. Parent and educators have an important role to play in eradicating bullying. Dysfunctional parenting style and aggression, social factors of aggressive behavior parents play a vital role in their children’s aggressive behavior, the type of nurturance a child receives and the disciplinary strategies that parents follow. Children whose parents are cold, negative, hostile and rejecting towards them tend to be more aggressive. Parents negative behavior may cause frustration in the children because their emotional needs are not being meet; they react with aggressive behaviour (Louw & Louw, 2007). Juniad’s father wants him to be involved in sport. As a result of his lack of competency in sports due to physical nature his father criticized him. Recalling back to social factors of aggressive behaviour and parents, we could actually see one or more reasons why junaid is aggressive how the negative behaviour of his dad causes frustration in his life. Parents need to know children developmental phrase and the developmental stages each developmental characterizes and crisis, the opposing poles according to which individuals must orientate. The positive and negative poles of a crisis in children development and also find the necessary solution to remedy the current crisis, because the earlier stage of psychological development provide the foundation for the later stage (Louw & Louw, 2007). Parents should take the development of their children seriously by acquiring the right information from the right source like local medical practitioner, psychologist. Etc. If they can’t make time they can watch related narrative videos online; on how to raise children into successful adult. Mankind has developed through ages and current ly in the era of information technology (Elliott & Jacebson 1991). Internet can be as a source for helpful information which is uploaded out there, parent can make internet research and also view helpful videos  like; About Child Development, Child Development Stages, Infant Developmental Milestones (Youtube 2014). Parent should understand what developmental miles stone stands for and what they should expect from their children at certain ages, just an insight to understand that children are fragile and they shouldn’t be forced in development. Parent should know what to expect from their children when they know more about developmental miles stones. They should be informed on things to do so they don’t hurt their child emotionally and psychically. According to UniCef South Africa (2008) parents/family have roles to play in the life of their kids, they are supporting guards giving to assist parent to know their roles and how to assist their children. Aggressive behaviour sometimes is as a result of low self-esteem treatment to improve low self-esteem emphasis on encouraging the patient to examine their beliefs and the evidence to support them and to acknowledge their positive qualities and also method to enhance self-esteem which is focused on eliciting statement about positive qualities that the patient may have and then investigating evidence to support these positive statements. (Pauline & Nicholas 2003). People with low self-esteem need positive activities to strengthen the already positive form of action helping them to get through their behavioral problems. They need to realize well power. Phonologically driven instructional Treatment can be of help with patient suffering from dyslexia, a phonological driven instructional treatment has to do with motivation of the patients with general phenomenon that they engage in or interact with that makes them happy like stories, cartoons, depending on the age of the patients and what generally appease or interest them. Understanding dyslexia involves a lot of combinations like, the current patient’s situation with the characters of the stories or the cartoons or the hero, making them understand they can be more. This encourages or convinces dyslexia patient that despite a slow start in learning to read, they could finish the race as skilled readers. The using of a systems approach in which instruction will be aimed at all levels of lan guage (subword, word, and text). Create instructional session, where by each session begins with a sound games to remediate the deficits in phonologic processing. Present polysyllabic words from texts present them orally, allow Junaid to count the number of syllables in the spoken word and use colored counters to represent each phoneme in the syllables. Only after  he analyzed the phonologic structure of each word will he see the same words in written form. Teach him how to decode the words by using syllabic patterns of written english and correspondences between one and two-letter spelling units and phonemes. Be Patient give him more time in analyzing and utilizing the complexity of syllabic patterns and spelling-phoneme of English. Present reading materials for reading then, enlighten Junaid more about the brain and functions of the brain. Repeat treatment from time to time. Phonologically driven treatment suggests that the brain is not only an independent variable that can cause a language disorder, such as dyslexia, but is also a dependent variable that can be modified by instructional intervention from the environment (Richards & Corina a & Serafinia & Steurya, & Echelarda & Dagera & Berningera 2000). In conclusion: A child development is a gradual process, social factors plays an important role in children’s development. It is important to note that developmental stages in children are important, unsuccessful developmental stage can be a problem in the next stage of development creating behavioral problems. Parents should understand children behaviour is unique, in a sense that pass experience creates present situation in behaviour. Parents should lookup data in this technology era that will assist them in raising their children. Aggressive behaviour or other unable acceptable social behaviour is mostly driving by unmeet emotional needs. Dyslexia patient sometimes end up using â€Å"drugs† one of the most common results of the limitation is the response of aggression (Hall & Tarrier 2003). It is important remedy behavioral problems in time. Reference List.Elliott, R. K., & Jacebson, P. D. (1991). ACCOUNTING A NATIONAL EMERGENCY. Journal of Accountancy, 55. Chicago Hall, P. L., & Tarrier, N. (2003). The cognitive-behavioural treatment of low self-esteem in psychotic patients: a pilot study. Behaviour research and therapy, 41(3), 317-332. Chicago Louw, D., & Louw, A. (2007). Child and adolescent development. South Africa. Richards, T. L., Corina, D., Serafini, S., Steury, K., Echelard, D. R., Dager, S. R., †¦ & Berninger, V. W. (2000). Effects of a phonologically driven treatment for dyslexia on lactate levels measured by proton MR spectroscopic imaging. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 21(5), 916-922. Unicef South Africa. (2008). Nation Building From The Start Early Childhood Development. Unicef, August 26. [On-line].Available: http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/SAF_resources_kbsreport.pdfYoutube. (2014). Child Development Stages. Child development, August 26. [On-line]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7f5TggIVLgYoutube. (2014). Infant Developmental Milestones [UndergroundMed]. UndergroudMed, August 26. [On-line]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0fnBTUuRIAYoutube. (2014). About Child Development. Child development, August 26. [On-line]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0fnBTUuRIA

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Health Hazards of Barbecue Carcinogens

Health Hazards of Barbecue Carcinogens One of the best parts of summer, in my opinion, is barbecue. See that marshmallow? Its perfect. Brown all the way around, gooey all the way to the center. You know it will melt in your mouth. I didnt take the photo. Thats because my marshmallows inevitably burst into flame and end as cinders with cold, white centers. I imagine either type of toasted marshmallow contributes to your cancer risk. So does anything charred, like seared steak or hamburgers from the grill or even burnt toast. The carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) is mainly benzo[a]pyrene, though other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are present and can cause cancer, too. PAHs are in smoke from incomplete combustion, so if you can taste smoke on your food, expect it contains those chemicals. Most of the PAHs are associated with smoke or char, so you can scrape them off your food and reduce your risk from them (though that kind of defeats the point of a toasted marshmallow). HCAs, on the other hand, are produced by a chemical reaction between meat and high or prolonged heat. Youll find these chemicals in fried meat as well as barbecue. You cant cut or scrape away this class of carcinogens, but you can limit the amount that is produced by cooking your meat just until its done, not blackening it into oblivion. Just how dangerous are these chemicals? The truth is, its very hard to quantify the risk. There is no established this amount will cause cancer limit because the genetic damage that leads to cancer is complex and affected by many other factors. For example, if you drink alcohol with your char, you further increase your risk, since alcohol, though it doesnt cause cancer, acts as a promoter. This means it increases the likelihood a carcinogen will be able to induce cancer. Similarly, other foods may lessen your risk. What is known is that PAHs and HCAs definitively cause cancer in humans, but they are also a part of everyday life, so your body has mechanisms for detoxifying them. What you want to do is try to limit your exposure. I guess that means you should take the time to toast the perfect marshmallow rather than go for the quick sugary fireball, but thats just so hard... You can also try to  eat your greens to help cure cancer and learn about  the most poisonous chemicals.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Cholera and Ebola Essay Essay Example

Cholera and Ebola Essay Essay Example Cholera and Ebola Essay Essay Cholera and Ebola Essay Essay Cholera. aka Asian Cholera or epidemic cholera. is an infective disease of the GI piece of land caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacteria. From the household Vibrionaceae. the bacteria is characterized as a Gram-negative rod. As with other Gram-negative rods. Vibrio cholerae produces an endotoxin. known as cholera toxin. This bacteria is nomadic due to the presence of a individual polar scourge and is extremely infective. The Vibrio cholerae bacteria grows in both fresh water and Marine home grounds and besides in association with aquatic animate beings. Originally discovered in 1824 by the Italian Anatomist. Filippo Pacini. Vibrio cholera most likely originated in India with the Ganges River helping as the primary taint reservoir. About 30 old ages subsequently bacteriologists Robert Koch and John Snow found the nexus between Cholera and imbibing H2O. Since its find in the early nineteenth century Cholera has claimed many lives due to its transmittal via the imbibing H2O supply. Through many old ages of research and chlorination of imbibing H2O supplies. Cholera has non been considered a menace to the United States and Western Europe for about a century. However. purposeful debut of the bacteria into a local H2O supply. could so do taint and mass spread of infection. Ebola hemorrhagic febrility ( EHF ) is a extremely infective. extremely fatal disease caused by the Ebola virus. Ebola virus is a member of the household Fivoviridae and is named after the Ebola River in the Republic of Congo ( once Zaire ) which is where the first epidemic occurred in 1994. The virus is classified as follows: Group: Group V ( ( ) ssRNA ) Order: Mononegavirales Family: Filoviridae Genus: Ebolavirus Speciess: Ivory Coast ebolavirus Reston ebolavirus Sudan ebolavirus Zaire ebolavirus The first two strains of the virus were identified in 1976 in Zaire and Sudan. Dr. F. A. Murphy was the first to insulate the virus and gaining control it for negatron microscopy. Dr. Murphy noted that the virus was a simple-strand RNA virus with encoding for seven viral proteins. Since its find and initial eruptions. four sub-species have been isolated ( as outlined above ) which are named after their several outbreak locations. Due to its extremely infective nature and its ability to mutate quickly. Ebola virus has a mortality rate of about 77 % . Although. non a dainty in the United States and other civilised states. the Ebola virus could present a serious wellness hazard if intentionally introduced into the H2O or nutrient supply. A protein on the surface of the virus has been discovered that is responsible for the terrible internal hemorrhage ( the death-dealing characteristic of the disease ) . The protein onslaughts and destroys the endothelial cells run alonging blood vass. doing the vass to leak and shed blood. In fact. the virus has a really specific tropism for liver cells and cells of the reticuloendothelial system. e. g. macrophages. Massive devastation of the liver is the hallmark characteristic of Ebola virus. The Ebola virus. one time inside a host. begins to retroflex. The seven proteins that make up the organic structure of the virus Begin to devour the host cell as the virus starts doing transcripts of itself. These seven proteins attack the organic structure of the cell and somehow attack the structural proteins of the organic structure of the host. As the disease progresses. it manifests itself in the signifier of shed blooding. particularly in the mucous membrane. venters. pericardium. and vagina. The capillary escape leads to loss of blood volume. shed blooding from assorted points in the organic structure. daze. and acute respiratory upset. Infections with Ebola virus are acute with an incubation period runing from 2 to 21 yearss. Cholera is an acute unwellness characterized by watery diarrhoea and is caused by certain members of the species Vibrio cholerae ( bacterium ) . The cholera source is passed in the stools. The toxin released by the bacteria causes increased secernment of H2O and chloride ions in the bowel. which can bring forth monolithic diarrhoea. Death can ensue from the terrible desiccation brought on by the diarrhoea. The symptoms may look 1 to 7 yearss after eating nutrient or imbibing H2O contaminated with the bacteriums. typically within 2 to 3 yearss. Contamination is from contact with the fecal matters or puke of person infected with cholera. Cholera is transmitted by fecal-oral path ( eating or imbibing nutrient or H2O contaminated by the faecal waste of an septic individual ) . Vibrios are sensitive to acid. and most dice in the tummy. Surviving deadly beings may adhere to and colonise the little intestine. where they secrete the potent cholera enterotoxin ( CT. besides called â€Å"choleragen† ) . This toxin binds to the plasma membrane of enteric epithelial cells and releases an enzymatically active fractional monetary unit that causes a rise in cyclic adenosine 51-monophosphate ( camp ) production. The ensuing high intracellular camp degree causes monolithic secernment of electrolytes and H2O into the enteric lms. Symptoms of cholera are an ague. diarrheal unwellness caused by infection of the bowel with the bacteria Vibrio Cholerae. One of 20 individuals will hold terrible disease with profuse watery diarrhoea. purging. and leg spasms. The rapid loss of organic structure fluids and weight lead to desiccation and circulatory prostration. Death can happen within hours. Symptoms of Ebola are fever. concern. articulation and musculus hurting. sore pharynx. failing. which are followed by diarrhoea. purging. and tummy hurting. Some patients have a roseola. ruddy eyes and internal and external hemorrhage. A individual becomes infected with cholera bacteriums by devouring contaminated nutrient or H2O. In most epidemics the infection comes from human fecal matters. which contaminate inadequately treated sewerage. The bacterium can besides populate in rivers and costal Waterss where it contaminates shellfish. Undercooked shellfish have been a beginning of cholera. The disease is non likely spread by direct person-to-person contact. Cholera is diagnosed by laboratory isolation of the bacteria from a stool sample or by happening antibodies in serum bespeaking recent infection. The toxigenic signifiers of Cholera are O group 1 or 139 and can be identified through gm strain or civilization. Darkfield of stage contrast microscopy can straight visualise motile vibrio. Generally diagnosing is clinical by H2O diarrhoea and desiccation. Cholera is most efficaciously treated through rehydration of fluids and salts lost through diarrhoea. An unwritten rehydration solution that combines sugar and salts n prepackaged expression is assorted with H2O and used throughout the universe ensuing in a 1 % mortality with intervention compared to 20-25 % without. Sever instances may necessitate endovenous unstable replacing. Antibiotics may shorten class and cut down badness of symptoms every bit good as lessening sloughing of virus but must aim being susceptibleness as antibiotic opposition is a turning job. The natural reservoir of the virus is unknown as is the mode in which it fist appears during an eruption. It has been hypothesized that the index patient becomes infected through contact with an ailment animate being. After the first instance patient. the virus can be transmitted through direct contact with septic blood or secernments or through contact with contaminated objects such as acerate leafs. Nosocomial transmittal is common in eruptions when health care workers do non have on proper protective vesture. Ebola is signifier of viral hemorrhagic febrility that is normally clinically diagnosed by the configuration of symptoms described. Laboratory diagnosing is through ELISA proving for IgM antibodies and PCR and virus isolation can be used to place virus within a few yearss of symptom oncoming. Subsequently in class of disease IgG antibodies can be tested. There is no healing intervention for Ebola. Merely supportive interventions including fluid and electrolyte reconciliation. and care of O position and blood force per unit area are available. In March 1999. cholera was detected in the state for the first clip in 10 old ages and was traveling fast throughout the state. Poor H2O quality and sanitation substructure were the major lending factors to high rates of cholera. By November 1999. 30 of the poorest communities in urban Antananarivo. which is the capital of Madagascar. was chosen as the mark population for flying the Safe Water System in the state. The system consisted of behavior alteration techniques along with point-of-use intervention and safe storage of H2O. The organisations who collaborated on this undertaking were the CARE Madagascar ( Community Assistance for Relief Everywhere ) . Population Services International ( PSI ) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) . CARE Madagascar implemented and combined community mobilisation. Population Services International took attention of the societal selling and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention handled the plan rating. The societal selling involved local production of a 0. 5 % Na hypochlorite solution packaged in a 500-mL bottle. and sum sufficient to handle about 2000 L of H2O. A local company was so contracted to bring forth 20-L narrow-mouthed plastic Kraut tins. The trade name name given was Sur’Eau. French for â€Å"safe water† . The plan was launched months in front of agenda because of the rapid addition in the disease. The bottle of H2O was sold to jobbers and retail merchants in the communities take parting in the plan and provided the merchandise to CARE-trained community-based gross revenues agents. The organisations designed wireless and Television musca volitanss and gave out booklets and postings. Originally the undertaking was limited to the 30 vicinities. but PSI and CARE broadened the intercession to cover all of Antananarivo. In nine months the gross revenues ranged form 8. 000 to 80. 000 bottles per month. The success of the undertaking was due to the Waterss usefulness and the project’s easy deployment in response to exigencies. The organisations did non desire the communities to look at this H2O as a cholera bar merchandise. They wanted the people to utilize the H2O all the clip. non merely during cholera season. This is where the behavioural alteration comes in to play. Mentions hypertext transfer protocol: //images. Google. com/images? q=Vibrio+cholerae+photos A ; hl=en A ; lr= A ; sa=N A ; tab=ii A ; oi=imagest hypertext transfer protocol: //bact. wisc. edu/Bact330/lecturecholera hypertext transfer protocol: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cholera hypertext transfer protocol: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Ebola hypertext transfer protocol: //www. astdhppe. org/infect/ebola. hypertext markup language hypertext transfer protocol: //www. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola. htm