Alcohol consumption Essay Example for Free

Alcohol consumption Essay Drinking too much – on a single occasion or over time – can take a serious toll on your health. Here’s how alcohol can affect your body: Brain: Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination. Heart: Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including: †¢CARDIOMYOPATHY – STRETCHING AND DROOPING OF HEART MUSCLE †¢ARRHYTHMIAS – IRREGULAR HEART BEAT. †¢STROKE †¢HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE Research also shows that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect healthy adults from developing coronary heart disease. Liver: Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including: †¢STEATOSIS, OR FATTY LIVER †¢ALCOHOLIC HEPATITIS †¢FIBROSIS †¢CIRRHOSIS Pancreas: Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion. Cancer: Drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of developing certain cancers, including cancers of the: †¢MOUTH †¢ESOPHAGUS †¢THROAT †¢LIVER †¢BREAST Immune System: Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease. Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much. Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk Consequences of drinking too much Alcohol enters your bloodstream as soon as you take your first sip. Alcohol’s immediate effects can appear within about 10 minutes. As you drink, you increase your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level, which is the amount of alcohol present in your bloodstream. The higher your BAC, the more impaired you become by alcohol’s effects. These effects can include.

Environmental Studies Essays | Biomass Energy

Environmental Studies Essays | Biomass Energy Biomass Energy The use of biomass energy as a wide spread, renewable power source provided with proper knowledge, state control and technological how-to, can change both the earths environment and our attitude towards alternative power resources. To understand how this can happen, the basics of what biomass energy is and how it works have to be presented. All organic matter, such as agricultural residue, wood and animal waste, energy crops, and methane, is a potential source for biomass energy (http://www.mna.hkr.se/~ene02p10/biomass.htm). Biomass energy can be produced by either growing crops especially for this purpose (i.e. sugarcane, soya bean, corn, sweet potato, maize, willow and eucalyptus trees), or converting organic waste (http://www.inforse.org/europe/dieret/Biomass/biomass.html). The organic matter can be burned to produce heat, like the wood fire of old, or they can produce ethanol or other alcoholic fuels (http://www.mna.hkr.se/~ene02p10/biomass.htm). There are differing opinions betw een respectable scientific communities and one has to analyze the different arguments for and against the use of biomass energy in order to make an informed decision concerning biomass energy. There are a number of arguments advocating the use of biomass energy. As we see an increase of the greenhouse effect, the trend is to start using renewable power sources. Because in order for biomass energy to be produced needs only organic matter and no chemical is needed for its production, it qualifies as a clean renewable power source. For these reasons, biomass energy generates far less air emissions than fossil fuels. Methane, a more powerful greenhouse gas, can be used for the production of biomass energy thereby decreasing the methane levels in the atmosphere. Biomass materials are often waste products from existing industrial activities that would otherwise be disposed ofat considerable cost. For example, if you burn unusable waste material such as bark, construction waste and tree clippings, you reduce the pressure to expand local landfill sites while generating useful energy (http://www.canren.gc.ca/tech_appl/index.asp?CaId=2PgId=62). Biomass energy decreases the reliance on fossil fuels that may be imported, and whose price therefore is subject to variable economic and/or political issues. Bioenergy has a generally positive impact on the local economy. Biofuels are bulky and have a low-energy density so it is not economical to transport them long distances. As a result, the money spent to purchase biofuels generally remains in the local area (http://www.canren.gc.ca/tech_appl/index.asp?CaId=2PgId=62). As biomass energy is produced locally, it creates thousands of jobs at a local scale as it is labor intensive to create biomass energy. As such, the production of biomass energy helps revitalize rural communities. Extra income without an investment in special equipment can be derived from the collection of agricultural residues, such as straw or corn stover, or from the removal of dead, diseased or low-quality trees from forests. However, there are arguments that contradict those above. Scientists found that reforestation would sequester between two and nine times as much carbon over 30 years than would be saved by burning biofuels instead of gasoline. You get far more carbon sequestered by planting forests than you avoid emissions by producing biofuels on the same land says a prominents scientist (http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12496-forget-biofuelsburn-oil-and-plant-forests-instead.html). The unsustainable and uncontrolled conversion of natural and even virgin ecosystems into managed energy plantations in order to produce material suitable for biomass energy, can lead to the release of carbon from the soil as a result of the accelerated decay of organic matter. (http://www.ecology.com/archived-links/biomass-energy/index.html). It has been established that since the beginning of farming the soybean in Brazil, seven million hectares of the Amazonian rainforest have been converted into energy pl antations. Thus, the concerns that environmentalists have expressed about the destruction of the forests in order to make room for biomass crops, such as maize and sugarcane, have been realized. Says, Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust, a conservation agency that seeks to preserve rainforests, When you do this, you immediately release between 100 and 200 tonnes of carbon [per hectare] (http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12496-forget-biofuelsburn-oil-and-plant-forests-instead.html). Another by-product of the planting of crops suitable for the production of biomass energy is the loss of biodiversity. Transforming natural ecosystems into energy plantations with a very small number of crops, as few as one, can drastically reduce the biodiversity of a region. Such monocultures lack the balance achieved by a diverse ecosystem, and are susceptible to widespread damage by pests or disease (http://www.ecology.com/archived-links/biomass-energy/index.html). Another important argument is that there simply may not be enough land to grow energy crops and food crops simultaneously. According to a UK survey, the most productive energy crop in the UK is rapeseed and the average yield is 3-3.5 tons per hectare and one ton of rapeseed produces 415 kg of biodiesel, so every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tons of transport fuel. Road transport in the UK consumes 37.6m tons of petroleum products a year (http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/fuelines.html). The total hectares needed to be planted in order to produce the biodiesel quantity of equal to 37.6m tons of fossil fuel would be roughly 25.9m hectares. The UK does not have this much arable land. In the case of Brazil, Alexandre Conceicao, a member of the MST (Landless Workers Movement), pointed out the orientation was towards the global market concerning energy crop plantations with no regard to the domestic production of food (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38051). So, th ere might not be any reliance on foreign fossil fuels, but there may be reliance on foreign food exporters. There are also arguments against the intended location of future energy crop plantations. There has been the suggestion that by converting arable land in Africa into energy crop plantations, both global warming would be tackled and Africans would be helped. It was said that this strategy, provides a sustainable development path for the many African countries that can produce biofuels cheaply (http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/fuelines.html). Although palm oil can produce four times as much biodiesel per hectare as rapeseed and is grown in places where labor is cheap, planting it is already one of the worlds major causes of tropical forest destruction (http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/fuelines.html). It is obvious that the production of biomass energy in this manner would entail serious environmental consequences. The possible creation of jobs has also come under doubt. There have been protests in Brazil about the slavery conditions that the sugar cane plantation workers face. The social cost of this policy is the overexploitation of labour with an army of seasonal workers who cut one ton of sugar cane for 2.50 reals (1.28 dollars) in precarious conditions which have already caused the deaths of hundreds of workers, says Alexandre Conceicao of the MST (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38051). Camilla Moreno of the Rural University of Rio de Janeiro said that, the growth of the ethanol industry is breathing life into a modern-day version of the sugar plantation slave-labour past, along with the expansion of a new form of ecological imperialism. Moreno pointed out that large tracts of land have been purchased by international (largely U.S. and European) investment funds, which has brought a new form of capitalism that was not familiar to Brazil (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38051) The above statements show that not only do the Brazilian people, as a whole, do not benefit from the production of biomass energy, but also that the actual workers are not rewarded properly for their work and work under wretched conditions.

Free Things They Carried Essays: Syntactic and Paratactic Interpretation :: Things They Carried Essays

Syntactic and Paratactic Interpretation of The Things They Carried  Ã‚  Ã‚   The syntactic and paratactic styles of interpretation are both needed to interpret Tim O’Briens â€Å"The Things They Carried†.   The syntactic aspect of interpretation deals with the imaginary or the things that aren’t said, but that are implied or that happen outside of what is said.   Paratactic interpretation deals with the concrete details that stand out and are specifically stated.   The media, although it didn’t change the outcome of the war much because it provided coverage of both negative and positive aspects, it was the first war to be covered by the media and therefore what it did cover, people believed. This can be observed in Tim O’Briens novel on the coverage of how the war started and how it was covered after the war started.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The historical approach to this novel with respect to the syntactic aspect can be observed if one looks at what the media said had started the war.   The media stated that the war had been started because U.S. ships had been fired upon in friendly waters by hostile warships. Paratacticly this makes sense and should have started a war in which we sent over troops that felt that they were protecting their country, which might have actually changed the outcome of the war.   Syntactically, though, the story was that we had been in two previous tiffs (Cuba and Laos) and had lost.   This caused the president to be looked at in an unfavorable light, which made him and others in power, to stage a war that he thought we could win.   In reality there were no known hostile ships anywhere near the area that our ships went down and he was blindly following a belief that communism should be contained in order not to have a domino effect.   The media later portrayed t his portrait of the war, but it was too late for many young teenagers that had just gotten out of high school. Another example of syntactic analysis is where the media reported a death count.   Paratactically the death count represented the number of bodies dead, but this is misleading.   The death count, for one thing, is misleading because the entire country was covered with mines and these explosives killed both friend and foe. After they had gone off, there was little left of the body.   This leads to miscounting because if the body is blown into microscopic pieces it is hard to tell if one, two, or three people died, and who’s side they were on.

images of gender in the media Essay -- essays research papers

Finding a simple or concrete definition of gender maybe near impossible. Gender roles are what men and woman learn and internalize as the way they are supposed to act. These roles are commonly thought of as natural rather than a construction of culture. Gender is thought to flow from sex, rather then being a matter of what the culture does with sex. This theory is widely and exhaustively debated, according to Wood â€Å"Sex is based on biology; Gender is socially and psychologically constructed† (Wood 19). This statement suggests that culture’s discourses and ideologies form the complexities of gender and gender roles. It is easy to say that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice and boy are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails, but we are actually more intricate then that.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To understand gender, it is necessary to understand the distinction between sex and gender. Sex is defined by the physical body and is characterized by the initial biological structure from birth. The characteristics of each male or female body maybe different but the make ups are the same. Gender on the other hand according to Wood is unstable; it is a category or a means by which we understand the body. The cultures ideologies and discourses surrounding us make sense of the body and determine our gender in multiple ways. It gives us a social, political, symbolic, and economic understanding of our bodies and how they are similar and dissimilar from other bodies. Because culture is a living entity and is always advancing it allows gender roles the ability to change with the culture. The idea of what a woman should be and how and what she can do has changed. Women are now able to do things such as vote and support their own families in our modern culture when in th e past it was thought to be inconsistent with the expected behaviors of the gender. Culture also varies greatly from one to another and there for so does the idea of gender throughout the world. Considering the evolution of what is considered acceptable gender behavior throughout cultures it stands as a reasonable conclusion that gender is neither based on or found in nature, but is rather constructed by its inhabitants. We are surrounded by ideologies and discursive examples that suggest how men and women should act and how they should look like in comparison to one another. Thes... ...ure is so used to seeing woman on display is what makes this ad so subversive. When you realize that the person on the screen is a man you are surprised at such image so far from the norm. The culture is not normally put in the position to view a man in a sexual way. When someone is viewed in a sexual way is it can give a sense of power to the viewer, as if the person being viewed is just a piece of meat. Seeing Joe Namath posing with pantyhose on switches the power roles, now he is on display in a sexual manner rather then a woman. The Namath ad relies on the deeply entrenched and prescribed values associated with each gender, and without the near universal understanding of masculine and feminine roles the ad would cease to make sense. The poignancy of the ad is made by displacement of character, gender, biological sex. When the ad starts at the toes of Namath (the model) the scenario is set for another image enhancing commercial for a woman’s product, but when Namath’s face appears on camera as the main and only spokesperson for the product there is an initial sense of shock and surprise that makes the message of the ad and the cognitions of the viewer converge and coalesce.

Brown versus Board of Education Essay -- Race Segregation

Imagine that your walk to school lasts longer that sixty minutes even though a school is five minutes away. When you finally get there, you enter a shack with makeshift tables and a dirt floor. You do not get paper or writing utensils and you surely do not get good books. Your teacher, who did not even finish her education, hands you a book that another school determined outdated and tossed away. But on one glorious day, May 17, 1954, a promise of change is made. The Supreme Court gave you the right to attend that school at the end of your block, a previously designated white school (Rodgers 1). The next day you and your parents wear nice clothes and walk down the street to the school to enroll for the following school year. You get there and stand proud of yourself and of your new school as you move towards the Dean’s office. You are confronted with terrifying looks of disgust from your white counterparts as they deny you admission based on the color of your skin. Un fortunately, for many African Americans, this was a reality in the years following the Brown versus Board of Education decision (Stephan 19). Although we have made considerable progress since then, our job is far from finished. When examining statistics on testing scores, the quality of schools with African Americans making the majority, on housing segregation and white flight, it quickly becomes apparent that whites and blacks have different numbers. This is due primarily to the ongoing perspective that black people are inferior to them dating back to the pre-emancipation period. Even at the fiftieth anniversary of the infamous Brown versus Board of Education decision, discrepancies between the races remain prevalent. Oliver L. Brown painstakingly wat... ...earch/reseg04/brown50.pdf>. Orfield, Gary, Daniel Iosen, Johanna Wald, and Christopher B. Swanson. â€Å"Losing our Future: How Minority Youths are being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis.† The Civil Rights Project. 25 Feb. 2004 . Rogers, Frederick A. The Black High School and Its Community. Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1975. Stephan, Walter G., and Joe R. Feagin, eds. School Desegregation: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Plenum Press, 1980. Toppo, Greg. â€Å"Integrated Schools Still a Dream 50 Years Later.† USA Today 28 Apr. 2004. United States. Bureau of the Census. Historical Income Tables. Washington: GPO, 2001. Yamasaki, Mitch. â€Å"Using Rock ‘N’ Roll to Teach the History of Post-World War II America.† The History Teacher 29.2 (1996): 179-193.

The Motives for Holding Inventory Explained

In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, retailers stock their inventory with dozens of Christmas items in anticipation of the holiday rush. When Christmas has passed, the store is left with Christmas items that did not sell. To make room for the next calendar holiday, the retailer will sell their Christmas overstock at extreme discounts. Whatever doesn’t sell will be restocked in inventory for the next Christmas season. The retailer is able to get a jump-start for the next Christmas season by placing last year’s Christmas inventory out in October. A good business operation understands that there will be times when holding inventory becomes crucial in their success. From not wanting to spend additional funds on restocking, to preparing for fluctuations in market conditions, motives for holding inventory are indispensable in inventory management. There are 4 motives for holding inventory: Production smoothing, inventories as a factor of production, stock-out avoidance, and work in progress (Gregory, 2007). Production smoothing, the first of the four motives, involves preparing for fluctuations in sales, as well as seeking a more economically sound way to continue production. When sales offset production either positively or negatively, inventories will rise or fall. With production smoothing, it is more logical to produce items at a constant rate (Gregory, 2007). The second motive is consideration for inventories as a factor of production. Let’s say that a drama teacher is looking for a Christmas tree in June for his â€Å"Christmas in July† production. The overstock from last year’s Christmas season assists in the retailer not losing business because they restocked Christmas trees that didn’t sell from last year. The third motive, stock-out avoidance, protects a business from contractual risk, as well as lost sales in the event of high demand (Fafechamps, 1997). With contractual risk, both the business and the client run the risk of not adhering to a contract, but in  the way of business, holding inventory provides better odds that the business will have what the client requires in order to conduct business and comply with their contract (Fafechamps, 1997). In addition to this motive, being prepared for unexpected demand is imperative in keeping business. For example, an unexpected freeze in the fall could cause people to shop in droves for firewood. The retailer who does not meet the demand will lose business and retain the reputation of not being sufficiently stocked. The final motive, although not really a motive at all, is work in progress. Any unfinished item in the store must also be counted as inventory (Gregory, 2007). If you have ever walked into a store to buy a specific item and found that the store does not have it in stock, you may avoid the store all together in the future. Holding inventory is important for both the business and the customer. It ensures repeated business and makes for smooth sailing. References: 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Gregory, Mankiw & Cronovich, Ron C. (2007) Investments and Inventory. January 2007. www.cwu.edu/~wassellc/ECON%20302/Investment.pdf. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fafechamp, Marcel, Gunning, Jan W. & Oostendorp, Remco. (1997) Inventory, Liquidity and Contractual Risk in Marketing. January 2007.   

Children and the Effects of Television Essay

Television programs were created for children to learn everyday skills, but it can come to start affecting children today because they watch too much they start lacking in physical activity and some can become distant and violent. Studies have shown that children can become obese, violent and even dependent on television if watched too much television. Television can influence children in many different ways like becoming obese, become dependent on it too much; change school habits and even can become violent with watching different types of shows. It is time for parents to start standing up and take control over what and just how much their children watch television. It is said that children watch too much television even though some studies have proven that different types of children’s television shows tend to effect children in different ways also they learn new things faster. Shows like Blue’s Clues, Chuggington, Dinosaur Train, Mickey Mouse Club House, and Team Umizoomi are all filled with educational values that help children develop skills that they need. Blue’s Clues is a much liked show by children ages 2-4. According to â€Å"Common Sense Media† (2012), â€Å"In fact, Blue’s Clues does a very fine job of treating its young viewers as the multifaceted individuals that they are.† T his is very important to young children because it makes them feel as they are a part of something special when they watch shows like this. With these types of shows teach children how to have different types of important social skills, teamwork, science, alphabet, numbers, math problems and even have physical fitness in them which are some of the things that a child needs to know. With these types of show is just what children need to help them expand their brains. According to PEDÃÅ"K (2012) â€Å"Whichever program it may be, it has behavioral, mental and emotional effects.† (p.224).On the other hand more children are watching more television shows for an entertainment purpose which has no educational vales in them. Shows like Sponge Bob Square Pants, The Simpsons, Batman, and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which consist of having violence, rudeness, and poor role models for children are the ones that are shaping our children in this day of age. It is up to the parent to make sure that their children are getting the correct balance of fun, education, and physical activity to help them grow. Studies have shown that cartoons have the most major impacts on children because in the cartoons to children it is something done every day and ok to act out likes the character on television. According to â€Å"Kids Health from Nemours† (1995-2012),† Kids who view violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behavior† which has become an issue to many different children around the world today. Children are like little sponges soaking up everything they can because every little boy and girl wants to be like their favorite cartoon hero or character. How much time a child watches television is a major factor in children’s behavior and their physical health. Whenever parents allow their children to sit in front of the television and watch more than four hours a day then parents could be running a risk of their child to become more dependent on television to keep them entertained, and this can become very harmful to a child’s health, or to their mental state as well. It can be hard on a parent try to clean house, cook a meal, and even do school work with children becoming bored, and parents just do not have the time to spend with them and then so it seem to be a helpful tool to be able to help at the time for them to watch television. One of the things that you can do to make sure when the appropriate times and what is the appropriate show’s to watch according to â€Å"Kids Health from Nemours† (1995-2012),† Come up with a family TV schedule that you all agree upon each week. Then, post the schedule in a visible area (e.g., on the refrigerator) so that everyone knows which programs are OK to watch and when. And make sure to turn off the TV when the â€Å"scheduled† program is over instead of channel surfing.† Instead of giving your children television time when they experience boredom some suggestion to them is to go outside and make believe that they are the characters in their favorite learning television show. Another thing is get them some flash cards with math, spelling or any type of learning cards. If you distract children from television with something better then you will have a child that cares less about the television and more about playing with their learning games. Common assumption say that violent television shows can mold a child to be either violent when they get older or they develop a fear of being hurt. Children take what they see and apply it to what they do, kind of like the saying â€Å"Monkey see monkey do† type of thing. According to Willson (2008) â€Å"Wilson also shows that children’s susceptibility to media influence can vary according to their gender, their age, how realistic they perceive the media to be, and how much they identify with characters and people on the screen.† † (p. 87) Children need positive role models in their life and someone to look up to in life and most children have their television characters. Parents can usually see the signs in a child just by the way they are when watching a certain television show, and the way that they act if they cannot see the television show is a sign that a parent needs to watch the television show to see what it is that is addicting about the show to their child to make them act out. There are many different types of signs to help parents know if the show that your child is watching is appropriate for them or if it is not appropriate for them. Some of the signs that parents want to look for is if they have trouble in school, with drawn away from friends and family just to name a few, and if you see these problems then as a parent should step in and try to pull the child/children away from the television shows that they watch. Some say that it cannot be done but studies have shown that if there is more quality time spent between parents and their child/children then they will more than likely not have the desire to watch television. Over the past 2 weeks I have been conducting my own personal study on how to keep your children from watching too much television and kept some notes on the effects it had on them. They are more a fan of watching different television shows and not wanting to even play with their toys. So one day I went to the store and bout some board games, activity books, coloring books, learning flash cards and even some reading books. What it is that I have found is that if I just took an hour of my time to interact with them to help get them started and interested in one of the activity’s that I have bought and got them started on one of them with me that I could leave them and do my school work, house work and even cook dinner and not one-time did I hear the words â€Å"I want to watch television Aunt Becca!† So if parents just make the time to take time out of your time just to get them interested is a tremendous outcome in the end. Obesity is one of the most dangerous side effects that are found in children that watch more television than get out and do physical activities. When children watch television after eating or while eating breakfast, snacks, lunches, and dinner are found that they don’t want to get up, stop watching television and go outside and play with friends or siblings. Now they are doing nothing to help burn off the calories that they are consuming then they run a risk at becoming obese and develop other health issues later in life. According to â€Å"How T.V. Effects Your Child† (1995-2012), â€Å"Studies have shown that decreasing the amount of TV kids watched led to less weight gain and lower body mass index (BMI — a measurement derived from someone’s weight and height)†. One of the things that can help children avoid becoming hungry while watching television is by trying to minimize the commercials, because commercials are filled with yummy foods and snacks that they like to eat. One of the things to help with that would be when there is a commercial on pull them away to do some sort of activity like, clean their room, fold cloths, or just by even having them come in and explain what it is that is going on in their television show. Monitoring what children watch on television is one of the best things that you can do to keep our children from becoming obese, violent, dependent on television, and less disruptive in school. In conclusion there are many different pros and cons of television and the effects that it has on children can go both ways, but it is up to the parents to make sure that their children get the physical activity, mental education and correct role models that they need to make sure that they live a more healthier and active life style. Because our children are the future of America and parents want to make sure that their future is going to be a bright and active life. Reference: PEDÃÅ"K, Dr. Åž. B. (2012, January). A STUDY ON CHARACTERISTISCS OF PARENTS’ TV VIEWING AND CHILDREN’S OPINIONS ON THE CARTOONS THEY WATCHED. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(1), 224-233. How T.V. Effects your child. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.nemours.org/content/nemours/wwwv2/patientfamily/khlibrary/articles/21720.html Willson, B. J. (2008, Spring). Media and Children’s Aggression, Fear, and Altruism. , 18(1), 87-118.