Worldviews and Culture an Example by

Worldviews and Culture The three worldviews governing international relations are: the system maintainer, system reformer and the system transformer. First, the system maintainer perspective is associated with strong political orientation. Critical in this worldview is the emergence of newly industrialized countries, which can pose a threat to the current dominance of US hegemony. This emergence might cause a chaotic relationship in the international system. Need essay sample on "Worldviews and Culture" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Given that those states who incorporates this view is anarchic in quality, the challenge that the system maintainer perspective may encounter is the probable resistance of some of the states in the internationalization trends. Another challenge for this worldview, is centered on its assumption that a state must be military equipped and superior, as this point has over the years gained negative feedbacks from the public. Until now, there are growing discontentment on the US pursuit for extra military power and its continuing involvement in wars. The second worldview is the system reformer. Critical in this worldview is its utopian character rather than being realist. The challenges posted to this worldview are towards really solidifying rival nations and create policies that shall manage conflicts in the global political arena and ensure equality among the rich and the poor. Another is the probability of linking nations to cooperate for the pursuit of common interests has always been questionable and it has never occurred in the past that nations work together for common interest, but rather for the benefit of their personal goals. The third world view is the system transformer. Critical in this worldview is its difficulty to assess if there are countries who can play the role of being a system transformer in its altruistic sense rather than being a fake. The challenges that this worldview faces is with regards to its little popularity in the global arena particularly in the US. Somehow, cooperation seems less appealing to the people and favors more an arms race to ensure political and economic stability through military supremacy. Another challenge is that, as this view works to save the Third World from conflicts, it is the case that Third World countries would always seem to favor being associated with First World countries even it would be detrimental to their economy because these underdeveloped countries would tend to seek for protection. The increasing popularity of internet as a means of globalization has widely affected the promotion of loyalty and maintenance of national identity. The advent of internet popularity has been used to manipulate and extract information that although some would serve useful to others, may mean detrimental to a nations culture. The discontentment of France for example towards the published articles and auctioned items in the internet which were vital to their historic heritage is a proof how can internet be used as an agent of cultural loyalty or disloyalty. The internet as it can be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world is one of the most powerful tool in shaping the identity of an individual. The inability to restrict the information that can be shown in the internet may serve dangerous to others. Although there are facts that are to be well-gathered and disseminated, cultural relativism must always be employed. Restriction policy based on the cultural importance of certain facts must be properly guided. If a content of a certain article or feature can promote discontent or disillusionment towards the cultural membership of the people, they must be restricted from access or at least be regulated. Political culture plays a big role in the undertaking of this regulation. The politics of culture dictates which of the facts are detrimental to their culture or which of those can promote their identity and heritage, thus they can influence which of those should be restricted from access. Though, it must also be ensured that the facts stated will also render truthful information and shall not be biased towards other criticisms. Works Cited Lamy, Steven L. Challenging Hegemonic Paradigms and Practices: Critical Thinking and Active Learning Strategies for International Relations. October 8, 2007 http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/Lamy_APSA_2006.pdf Lamy, Steven L. ed. US Perspectives on the Soviet Union. Contemporary International Issues. 1988.

The World of Suzie Wong

The World of Suzie Wong Paramount produced the film "The World of Suzie Wong" adapted from a best-selling novel written by Richard Mason in 1961. The film tells a love story between an American artist and a Hong Kong prostitute who overcome pride and prejudice and start a new stage of life. The story is set in Hong Kong in the late fifties of the last century.Robert Lomax is a middle-aged American architect. Tired of his routine, he takes a year off traveling to Hong Kong to pursue his dream of being an artist. He encounters an attractive girl on Hong Kong's Star Ferry to Kowloon, who pretends herself as coming from a wealthy family. Before he has a chance to learn about her, she disappears in the crowd. To save money, Robert checks into a cheap local Wan Chai hotel. To his astonishment, Robert finds that the hotel is actually a brothel, and he also spots the girl from the ferry and learns that she is not a rich girl as she said at all.SuzieIn fact, she's the most popular prostitute in the hotel, named Suzi e Wong. Robert works as a painter and Suzie is his model. They become friends and like each other. Suzie offers to be Robert's "permanent girlfriend", but Robert refuses. Their relationship grows increasingly complex.Thus, Suzie begins to date a British businessman named Ben Marlowe, who is a playboy separated from his wife. At the same time, Robert meets blonde beauty Kay O'Neill, a British banker's daughter. Kay falls in love with Robert and helps him to sell his paintings. She looks down on Suzie and is jealous of her relationship with Robert because he spends more time with Suzie than her. Robert doesn't really like Kay and Ben ends the relationship with Suzie. One...

On the Issue of Debt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

On the Issue of Debt - Essay Example This brief analysis will consider what this student believes to be the most pressing and important issue surround the seemingly ever-increasing levels of debt that both federal and state budgets are currently facing. Furthermore, as a function of this increase in overall debt, the negative externalities that such a change portends are vast and systemic. Whereas in previous times the degree and extent to which governments dealt with the issue of debt has always been a high concern for law-makers and citizens, the level and extent to which the current situation weights upon both the government decision makers and the electorate is unprecedented. As a result, the very nature of governance the degree to which this process encompasses nearly every aspect of society and the economy has only exponentially grown (Eichler 1216). For those that are concerned with the overall sovereignty and freedom of the society, this has naturally become a primal concern due to the fact that many nations are able to leverage the United States due to the level of its debt that they hold in the form of bonds and other financial mechanisms. Furthermore, as a function of these factors that have thus far been enumerated upon, this brief work will seek to elaborate upon some key mechanisms through which the problem itself can be lessened over time. The Simpson-Bowles committee put forward what many outside of the realm of politics would deem a fair approach to an infinitely complex issue. The mixed approach that this committee put forward hinged upon the need to make budget cuts, re-work the tax plan, secure Social Security, and reduce the size of the annual budget deficit. The reason that the plan was not latched on to by either political party is due to the fact that it required both an increase in tax revenue and a decrease in spending/budget cuts in order to make the goals that it defined (Croxson 103). These two mechanisms specifically are precisely what must be targeted for the federal (as well as state) budget deficits that currently exist to be minimized. As it is painfully clear, seeking to reduce and/or cancel budget deficits and debt in a relatively short period of time is beyond the realm of possibility. As a result of this, each political party and or leader wants to ignore the issue due to the fact that no political capital can ultimately be gained by seeking to fix an issue that they themselves nor their party will ever receive credit for; however, the larger issue is the fact that the debt crisis threatens the very sovereignty and vitality of the nation, its economy and society (Barth 98). The issue itself is not only a concern for future generations, although this is perhaps one of the greatest concerns that helps to define the size and scope of the problem. Rather, the issue weighs heavily on the way in which the government, both state, federal, and local, seek to provide key services to the communities which they serve. Rather than building more park s, maintaining infrastructure, and providing a litany of other adequate services, the government is forced to expend a large percentage of its annual budget (which itself is already over and above current tax receipts) to service the debt that currently exists. What this portends is a situation in which the government is borrowing money in order to pay the interest on the money that it is already borrowed. It does not take a degree in advanced economics to instantly realize that such a stance is untenable and cannot be long continued without the structure and legitimacy of the entire economic system falling into a state of collapse. As such, the current status quo with regards to debt level and spending is both untenable and unwise. One need look no further than examples of Greece and other nations to rapidly realize what maintaining a dangerously high percentage of debt to national GDP portends. Similarly, whereas the solution mechanism may be a shared sacrifice over a period of ma ny years, the

Scavenger Hunt Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Scavenger Hunt - Research Paper Example Question 2: sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that can cause infertility The two main sexually transmitted infections that cause infertility are gonorrhea and Chlamydia (Wingood & DiClemente, 2002). Gonorrhea is caused by bacteria and dwells in the bodily fluids. It is contacted through vaginal, anal or oral sex. It leads to a condition known as epididymitis and Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) (Fogel & Woods, 2008). This is due to the infection of the urethral tract and the vaginal duct. Chlamydia is also caused by bacteria that stay in vaginal fluid and semen. It left untreated Chlamydia causes infertility where a condition known as epididymitis and PID causes the infertility (Covington, & Burns, 2006). Question 3: Giardiasis The disease is commonly known as Beaver fever (Veliah, 2005). It is a gastrointestinal illness that is exhibited by serious diarrhea. The disease is caused by a parasite that is known as Giardia Lamblia. This is disease is water-borne and it affects the human intestines where it affects over 200 million populace globally every years (Langford, & Langford, 2002). The disease is reported to have affected about 90 communities in the United States in the years between 1964 and 1984 (Caveney, Jones & Ellis, 2012). Question 4: peer-reviewed journal article on smoking cessation Michele A Faulkner, (2009), Smoking cessation: an economic analysis and review of varenicline, Journal: Clinical Economics and Outcomes Research, Vol. 1, issu 1. Pgs 25-30 is a peer reviewed article that addresses the attempts in reducing the use of tobacco. The article raises concerns that despite the many efforts in reducing the use of tobacco the rate of smoking continues to go high leading to premature death and morbidity. There are economic costs related to smoking which include health care costs and loss of productivity (AJHP, 1986 & Callahan, 2000). The main program raised in the article is the varenicline novel mechanism aimed at addressing the ability to r educe the addiction and withdrawal symptoms (Michele, 2009). Question 5: Durham Region with the highest percentage of births to teenagers According to various findings it has been established that Oshawa area in the Durham Region has the highest rate of births to teenagers which replicates the place the mother was living at the time the child was born (Smithard, 2009). The high births rates are as a result of availability of less expensive housing and the supports and motivation from the mothers (Goldin, Reinert & World Bank, 2007; Vargas, 2009). Question 6: The difference between angina and a heart attack Angina is a term that is applied by doctors to refer to the pain in the chest as a result of insufficient oxygen supply to the heart muscles (Jevon, 2012). This form of pain is identical to the pain as a result of heart attack (Jackson, 2004). On the other hand heart attack is a long lasting damage to the heart muscle which might lead to inability of the tissues to function well d ue to lack of blood supply. The heart muscles need regular oxygen supply which is initiated through the blood (Ramaiah, 2008). Question 7: The Cost of Type 2 Diabetes in Canada The type 2 diabetes is along life state where

The communist Manifesto Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The communist Manifesto - Essay Example Marx and Engels influenced by the philosophy of Hegel, set out to change the face of the earth by calling the workers to unite to overthrow the capitalists. The Communist Manifesto was meant to provide the proletariat with required impetus for a social change. The Communists have no other interests but the proletariat. Since capitalism exploits the laborers but offers them only their subsistence wages, Communism is opposed to capitalism. The bourgeoisies' notions of freedom, culture, law, etc., are determined by their economical conditions. Communism, hence, abolishes eternal truths, religions and morality, for they are products of historical development. The core agenda is to acquire political supremacy by abolishing the private property and thereby uprooting the bourgeoisies. The proletariat, then, will centralize all instruments of production, and increase the productive forces. As class distinctions disappear, the proletarians will have an association, in which the free development of each will be the condition for the free development of all (Marx and Engels, Proletarians). Capitalism is characterized by private property, freedom of enterprise, profit motive, consumers' sovereignty, freedom of saving and investment decisions, and existence of competition, among others. Capitalist system necessarily envelops the private ownership of the means of production.

Interactive Video Delivery Services

Interactive Video Delivery Services Video-On-Demand Interactive Services Interactive video delivery services are a fundamental change in the TV interface  paradigm. They shift the delivery paradigm from carrying many simultaneous parallel  streams (channels) to one that carries concurrent accesses through separate channels into a  database. Traditionally, in a broadcast TV system, many stations broadcast their programs  simultaneously and the user selects a specific channel to view. As a result, a user is  restricted to a chronology of parallel and competing programming whereas, an interactive  system makes all programming available to its users without this restriction. There is no  temporal restriction. All programming becomes available any time to the user. Types of Interactive Services Based on the amount of interactivity allowed (adapted from [4]), interactive services can be classified into several categories. The user is a passive participant and has no control over the session in broadcast (No-VOD) services that are similar to broadcast TV. The user signs up and pays for specific programming, similar to existing CATV PPV services in pay-per-view (PPV) services. The users are grouped based on a threshold of interest in quasi video-on-demand (Q-VOD) services. By switching to a different group, users can perform rudimentary temporal control activities. The functions like forward and reverse are simulated by transitions in discrete time intervals (on the order of 5 minutes) in near video-on-demand (N-VOD) services. The multiple channels with the same programming skewed in time [5, 15] can provide this capability. The user has complete control over the session presentation in true video-on-demand (T-VOD) services. The user has full-function VCR (virtual VCR) capabilities including forward and reverse play, freeze, and random positioning. For T-VOD, only a single channel is necessary; multiple channels become redundant. Technological Inhibitors There are other inhibiting issues to the ubiquitous deployment of interactive multimedia applications than just technological issues. In the digital environment, information is readily copied, reproduced, and altered, jeopardizing the established markets of the information providers. To convince an information provider to accept an all-digital system, certain incentives like mechanisms like encryption to protect intellectual property rights – that will maintain their data and thus help them stay in business are needed. (The Internet does not copy data, people copy data.) System Components for Video-on-Demand 5A detailed analysis of these issues is beyond the scope of this paper. An interesting survey of the  intellectual property rights problem has been provided by Samuelson [14]. Hundreds (if not thousands) of users with different viewing preferences will access a VOD system simultaneously. The quality of each session must remain within specified bounds to achieve customer satisfaction. This ensures the quality of the system. We will survey the individual technologies in the context of an end-to-end architecture for a VOD system. A typical VOD scenario contains a local database and server connected to user homes  via a communications network. The user home consists of a network interface coupled to a  display [4]. The user interacts with the system via a mouse or a computer keyboard. Fig. 2 illustrates this architecture. user interface and display high-speed backbone local database local server home viewer network interface multimedia archive and distributor multimedia archive Figure 2: A Simple VOD Architecture Management of System Resources in VOD We identified some of the technical problems in designing a VOD system in the previous sections. A VOD system is required to support a large customer population and many movie titles. Most existing prototypes are constricted to laboratory or office environments and support at most a few hundred users and up to a hundred movies. Large scale commercial systems  should need to more closely match the per-user resource requirements and usage patterns to  achieve economic feasibility. In this section, we look over some of these problems and discuss  existing research in this area. Resource Reservation One of the fundamental problems in developing a VOD system is one of storage and network I/O  bandwidth management. The VOD system possesses a finite amount of resources measured in  terms of storage I/O and communication bandwidths. As various customers compete for the same  system resources, efficient schemes that ensure fairness of allocation have to be designed. The service provider wants to generate the maximum revenue from the offered services. A  balance between these two often opposing requirements is necessary to tap the potential  benefits of the system. The first step to solve this problem is the development of an  accurate system model. We use the model proposed in Fig 2 as the basis for the remainder  of this discussion. The end-to-end VOD system comprises of three basic components; the storage server,  the network, and the user interface. The metadata server provides an additional level of  complexity to the system model. The time dependency of continuous media requires the  VOD system to ensure that the data transmission mechanism can provide for strict deadlines.   If these deadlines are missed, it is possible for the quality of the session to degrade. To ensure customer satisfaction, resources should be reserved along the entire data path of a connection on a per-session basis. The complexity of the resource reservation mechanism depends on the  application under consideration. Interactive services need the resource reservation to be made per-session along the entire data path, including at the source. A crucial factor which is affecting resource reservation is Quality-of-Service (QOS). The common interpretation of QOS is from a network perspective rather than a user or customer perspective. A more suitable view makes use of the two perspectives and yields two QOS characterizations (we can call them delivery quality and system QOS). A present  challenge is to identify the mapping from delivery quality to system QOS for a range of  system design parameters (e.g., data compression and network switching modes). User Traffic Characterization Although customers access the VOD system randomly, having a priori knowledge about  user access patterns can lead to a more efficient design. The system can make use of this information to manage network and storage bandwidths. As an example, if the traffic characteristics indicate that a movie is popular at a particular site, the system can replicate the movie locally to increase availability. The access pattern of users to the system will not be uniform over a given  24 hour period. Typically, one would expect the load to be low to moderate during the  daytime and to increase gradually through the evening and decrease again during the night. A hypothetical graph characterizing the access to a VOD database for a 24 hour period  is shown in Fig. 4. The access to the database is high during the evening hours, peaks at  around 9:00 PM, and is low-to-moderate during the day. This access pattern can be used for  designing schemes for various considerations like resource management; to update popularity tables, redistribute data, and reconfigure the system during off-peak hours. 0 5 10 15 20 time-of-day database-load Figure 4: A Schematic Daily-Access Model for a VOD System Similar models can be implemented and maintained for different geographical regions, movie categories, and individual titles. Such models are able to accommodate the differences in programming choices (e.g., children’s movies are more popular during the early evening hours) of different user groups. However, the complexity of these models, and their tractability is still to be established. Load Balancing An issue related directly to resource reservation is load balancing. The load balancing of VOD can be viewed as a combination of two sub-problems (i) The movie-storage  allocation problem and (ii) the resource location and connection establishment mechanism. Even though these problems are solved more easily individually, they are not independent  with respect to performance. From the perspective of a generic interactive  system, solving these issues is an open problem; however, simplifications can yield tractable solutions. As an example, if one assumes that a VOD system supports only stored data; i.e., movies  have to be digitized and stored before they can become available online, then the data  characteristics of a movie are well known in advance (e.g., the system has a priori knowledge  about the average bandwidth, burst rates, burst durations, etc.). This knowledge once available, can be used to simplify the design process. Making use of the metadata mechanism as described in Section 3 simplifies the task of management by decoupling the storage problem from the location problem.

Life Experience Growing Up Essay

It is hard to explain to most people the reason why even though I was born in the United States of America and had a complete set of parents at the time of my birth, I was still sent to Haiti to be raised by a surrogate family. Not everyone understands the crazy things that parents do when their marriage is failing and the family is falling apart, as my parents chose to do. I do not remember much about my childhood in the USA because I left when I was seven years old. All that I could remember about that time was that my mother came home one day really sad and she asked my two sisters and I to pack up our things because we were going on an airplane ride. When I asked her where we were headed, thinking that we were probably going to Disneyland or something, she told me that we were going to take a vacation at her sister’s house in Haiti. This did not strike me as strange at the time because I had never met my mother’s sister at that point in time so I was excited to meet her. Mom told us that we had cousins in Haiti and we would get to meet them for the very first time during this trip. When I asked my mom if Dad would be joining us on this trip, she said that he was too busy at work to come along but that he loved us and wished us a safe trip. So it happened that I left my country of birth in 1973 to embark on a life that was thrust upon me without a choice nor a reason why I had to live it. Our mother spent a whole month with us in Haiti. I have some vague recollection of my mother sitting at the dining table at night with her sister, crying and in need of consolation. At the end of the month, I remember seeing my mother packing her suitcase. I thought it was time to go home and that she had simply forgotten to tell my sisters and I to pack up our things. So I began doing so without being instructed to. When mom saw what I was doing, she asked me to stop and come out to the backyard to have a talk. We sat on the swing in the small backyard of my aunt’s house as my mother explained what our new family situation was. She asked me if I remembered how she and dad had been fighting a lot lately and sometimes he would not come home for days because of the arguments. I recall that at the time I had vague recollections of my parents voices breaking through the bedroom walls at night when they thought we were already asleep. Slowly, mom explained to me that the marriage was in trouble and that the family was falling apart. She assured me that they both still loved us more than life itself but that they felt it would be best if we stayed n Haiti while they finalized the divorce and they both tried to get back on their feet after. It hurt me a lot to be indirectly told that my sisters and I had no place in our parents lives anymore. I felt abandoned and betrayed by both my parents. I was angry that even though I was just a little girl, I would have to find a way to explain what was going on to my sisters and make sure that they would be able to adjust to a life without our real mom and dad. We were all born in New York City and were accustomed to its lifestyle and culture. O when we were forcibly left in Haiti by our mom, we had to overcome the culture shock and social difficulty of having to live in a different environment from what we were used to. My sisters and I also had to lowly began to adjust to life with our surrogate parents. That is, our aunt and her husband. We had surrogate siblings as well because they eventually had their own children. We were a large, convoluted, extended family. As time passed, we became less American and more Haitian. French became our mother tongue and English was a stranger to us. We were happy and well adjusted kids who saw no difference in the way we were treated by our guardians who loved and treated us as if we were their own flesh and blood. Our parents? We spoke to them separately over the phone 4 times a month. We were strangers who did not really know anything about each other and did not have much to talk about over the phone. Those times were more like mandatory duties that our aunt and uncle made sure we accomplished without fail.