Friday, July 31, 2009

What is the cobalt (II) ion concentration in a solution prepared by mixing 379 mL of 0.372 M cobalt (II) nitrate with 455 mL of 0.209 M sodium...

The balanced chemical equation for the reaction between cobalt (II) nitrate and sodium hydroxide can be written as:


`Co(NO_3)_2 (aq) + 2NaOH (aq) -> Co(OH)_2 (s) + 2NaNO_3 (aq)`


Here, 1 mole of cobalt nitrate reacts with 2 moles of sodium hydroxide to form 1 mole of cobalt hydroxide and 2 moles of sodium nitrate. 


We are given that 379 ml of 0.372 M cobalt nitrate is mixed. This means that 0.141 moles (= 0.379 lt x 0.372 moles/lt) of cobalt nitrate has been mixed.


Also, 455 ml of 0.209 M sodium hydroxide has been used, that is, 0.095 moles (= 0.455 lt x 0.209 moles/lt) has been mixed.


Using stoichiometry, sodium hydroxide is the limiting reactant and we will use only 0.095/2 moles = 0.048 moles of cobalt nitrate and will generate only 0.048 moles of cobalt hydroxide. 


This means that 0.093 moles (= 0.141 - 0.048 moles) of cobalt nitrate are unused and are in aqueous form. 


The solubility product of cobalt nitrate is given as 1.3 x 10^-15.


That is, `[Co^(2+)][OH^-]^2 = 1.3 xx 10^(-15) = [Co^(2+)]^3`


solving this, we get, `[Co^(2+)] = 1.091 xx 10^(-5) M`


Thus, the total concentration of cobalt (II) ions in solution = 0.093 moles + 1.091 x 10^-5 moles = 0.093 moles.


Hope this helps.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

What is ionizing radiation?





Related cancers:
Lung, bone, bone marrow (leukemia), thyroid, breast, liver, skin





Definition:
Ionizing radiation is energy released from the disintegration of unstable atomic nuclei during radioactive decay. This type of radiation may originate from X radiation or the emission of various subatomic particles from both natural and artificial sources. Some substances decay at faster rates than others and are more or less stable than others.



Exposure routes:

Inhalation, ingestion, direct external exposure



Where found: Ionizing radiation is both naturally occurring and artificially produced. It is found in radon (55 percent) and in the earth. Non-natural sources include military weapons, nuclear reactors, and electronic products. Technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORMs) concentrate ionizing radiation in solid sludge, water treatment facilities, aluminum oxide reactions, fertilizers, coal ash, concrete aggregates, diagnostic medical procedures, cable insulation, security screening equipment, and equipment used to kill microorganisms in food.



At risk: Children, pregnant women, industry workers, medical personnel, military personnel, residents in high background radiation areas



Etiology and symptoms of associated cancers: Ionizing radiation, regardless of the source, damages deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA, the genetic material) inside cells. The damage can be chromosomal breaks, cell mutations, and actual cell transformation. The consequences of this damage range from immediate cell death to transformation into cells that become malignant over time. The ability of ionizing radiation to kill cells explains its use to treat many cancers. Cancer cells divide more rapidly and are more vulnerable to radiation. Thus, ionizing radiation has the ability, when the trajectory of the beam is focused on a tumor, to shrink tumors by killing cells.


Immediate symptoms of exposure vary according to the type of particle, the dose, the length of exposure, and the route of exposure. Radiation sickness, or acute radiation syndrome, results from immediate excessive high-dose exposure. Whole body penetration damages the cardiovascular and central nervous systems. The blood pressure will drop (hypotension), and the brain will swell. Nausea, vomiting, convulsions, and confusion will follow. Death is inevitable when exposure is greater than 3,000 rads.



History: In 1896 Henri Becquerel presented his discovery of radioactivity in Paris at the Academy of Sciences. During the 1900s scientists Marie and Pierre Curie, Dmitry Mendeleyev, and Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen defined the properties of ionizing radiation. Many of the scientists working with ionizing radiation died as a result of their exposures. In 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began regulating ionizing radiation.



Belotserkovsky, Eduard, and Ziven Ostaltsov. Ionizing Radiation: Applications, Sources, and Biological Effects. New York: Nova, 2012. PRint.


Christensen, Doran, M, Carol, J Iddins, and Stephen, L Sugarman. "Ionizing Radiation Injuries And Illnesses." Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America  32.1 (2014): 245–65. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 26 Jan. 2015.


DeWerd, L. A., and Michael Kissick. The Phantoms of Medical and Health Physics: Devices for Research and Development. New York: Springer, 2014. Print.


Ryan, Julie L. "Ionizing Radiation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Journal of Investigative Dermatology 132 (2012): 985–93. Print.


Santivasi, Wil L., and Fen Xia. "Ionizing Radiation-Induced DNA Damage, Response, and Repair." Antioxidants & Redox Signaling  21.2 (2014): 251–59.  Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Jan. 2015.

How would you analyze Vera Smith and her religious beliefs from The Dead Zone by Stephen King?

Vera Smith is the mother of Johnny Smith, the protagonist of King's novel. She is a religious fundamentalist who also believes in a number of other unusual theories such as aliens and the lost island of Atlantis (an interesting point: King wrote a novel many years later called Hearts in Atlantis). Her decline into religious obsession began after she had to have a radical hysterectomy following her son's birth and the discovery of tumors. When she first receives the news that Johnny has been in an accident, she thinks it must be God's judgment to punish her and her husband and that they must immediately pray for forgiveness. But eventually she believes that Johnny's accident, a car crash that leaves him in a coma for almost five years, is a blessing from God because she believes Johnny has a mission to fulfill that will serve God's purpose. When Johnny awakes he has advanced powers of perception, in that he can see flashes of future events when he touches people. He gradually becomes a loner subject to depression (we learn much later that he also has a developing brain tumor, paralleling his mother's tumors found after her pregnancy). He plots to kill a senator (who is, ironically, also a religious fundamentalist) who he thinks will instigate a nuclear war in the near future.


Unlike Margaret White, the mother of Carrie White in King's earlier novel Carrie, another religious fundamentalist who believes her daughter's telekinetic powers are evidence that Carrie is cursed by the devil, Vera believes Johnny is special and blessed by God. These themes of religious fundamentalism and unusual psychic powers are frequently seen in King's novels. Margaret White tries to kill her own daughter, so that she will be forgiven and sacrificed to God to pay for her sins; but Vera believes Johnny is destined for greatness. Both mothers seem to be dealing with a certain amount of guilt regarding their children's potential for violence and their socially-deviant behavior. And in both novels we see an extreme religious worldview in these two women related to the birth of their only children (Carrie and Johnny).

What is environmental health?


Science and Profession

The environment is the sum of all external influences and conditions affecting the life and development of an organism. For humans, a healthy environment means that the surroundings in which humans live, work, and play meet some predetermined quality standard. The field of environmental health encompasses biological, chemical, physical, and psychosocial factors in the environment. This is the air that humans breathe, the water that they drink, the food that they consume, and the shelter that they inhabit. The definition also includes the identification of pollutants, waste materials, and other environmental factors that adversely affect life and health. The study of environmental health investigates how human health and disease are influenced by the environment. It encompasses the fields of environmental engineering and sanitation, public health engineering, and sanitary engineering. The majority of professionals working in the field of environmental health are trained as civil engineers, environmental engineers, geologists, toxicologists, or preventive medicine specialists. Many are also qualified in subspecialties such as hydrogeology, epidemiology, public sanitation, and occupational health.



Environmental health deals with the control of factors in the physical environment that cause, or may cause, a negative effect on the health and survival of communities. Consideration is given to the physical, economic, and social impact of the controlling measures. These measures include controlling, modifying, or adapting the physical, chemical, and biological factors of the environment in the interest of human health, comfort, and social well-being. Environmental health is concerned not only with simple survival and the prevention of disease and poisoning but also with the maintenance of an environment that is suited to efficient human performance and preserves human comfort and enjoyment.




Diagnostic and Treatment Techniques

The field of environmental health covers an extremely broad area of human living space. For practical purposes, those involved in the profession of environmental health concern themselves with the impact of humans on the environment and vice versa, balancing their appraisals and allocations of available resources. The scope of environmental health research and community environmental health planning usually includes the following topics: water supplies, water pollution and wastewater treatment, solid-waste disposal, pest control, soil pollution, food hygiene, air pollution, radiation control, noise control, transportation control, safe housing, land-use planning, public recreation, abuse of controlled substances, resource conservation, postdisaster sanitation, accident prevention, medical facilities, and occupational health, particularly the control of physical, chemical, and biological hazards.


The implementation of effective environmental health strategies must take place within the context of comprehensive regional or area-wide community planning. Planning considerations for a community’s environmental health are based on individual community aspirations and goals, priorities, local resources, and the availability of outside resources required to meet projected health standards. The planning and implementation of environmental health activities directly involve engineers, sanitarians, medical specialists, planners, architects, geologists, biologists, chemists, geophysicists, technicians, naturalists, and related personnel. The natural and physical scientists provide research necessary for communities to locate and use available resources responsibly, and they also identify potential and existing health hazards. The engineering specialties provide know-how to communities concerning the design, installation, and operation of equipment. When a problem is identified or an emergency occurs, it is often the engineering professionals who direct remediation efforts. Medical specialists, with scientific backup, identify dangers to a community’s physical health; if health problems arise, they concern themselves with treating and preventing disease and restoring health. The implementation of any environmental health strategy is clearly a team effort.




Perspective and Prospects

The concept of environmental health in modern society is considerably expanded from that of the past. Activities in the field of environmental health were once concerned only with issues known to be disease related. The present concept of environmental health aims to provide a high quality of living.


The field of environmental health concerns itself with the control of physical factors affecting the health of humans and is different from the prevention and control of individual illness and the preservation of human health. Most environmental health problems are the direct result of human activities and interactions with natural and manufactured resources. Human manipulation of natural resources causes changes to the environment. These changes can be local or global, anticipated or unanticipated. At the present time, humans are living in a polluted environment, the result of centuries of lack of concern for and appreciation of the ecologic consequences of human activities. The cumulative effects of human actions on the environment have risen steeply and continuously, while human response to mounting problems of environmental quality has been sporadic and targeted toward high-profile or emergency problems. As a result, environmental programs have been developed to preserve wildlife, maintain clean groundwater supplies, manage resources, combat communicable disease, increase agricultural production, and ensure healthy and sanitary living conditions for human populations.


As a direct reflection of the public’s concern about environmental degradation, environmental health has become a rapidly growing specialty in the fields of engineering, medicine, environmental science, geology, and resource management. As public awareness of the devastating effects of pollution and resource depletion grows, the demand for qualified environmental health professionals and administrators increases. Whether these sought-after professionals are asked to offer stopgap measures for environmental problems that have already progressed to dangerous, possibly unresolvable levels or whether they are employed to foster a new, more holistic approach to the natural world will depend on the environmental conscience of modern civilization.




Bibliography


Environmental Defense Fund. http://www.edf.org.



"Environmental Health." MedlinePlus, July 30, 2013.



"Environmental Health Topics." National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, December 28, 2012.



Friis, Robert H. Essentials of Environmental Health. 2d ed. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 2012.



Moeller, Dade W. Environmental Health. 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011.



Morgan, Monroe T. Environmental Health. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003.



National Center for Environmental Health. http://www.cdc.gov/nceh.



National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. http://www.niehs.nih.gov.



Philp, Richard B. Ecosystems and Human Health: Toxicology and Environmental Hazards. 3d ed. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC, 2013.



"Public Health and Environment." World Health Organization, 2013.



Raven, Peter H., David M. Hassenzahl, and Linda R. Berg. Environment. 8th ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.



"Taking the Pulse of Environmental Health." NIH MedlinePlus 6, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 26–27.



Yassi, Annalee, Tord Kjellström, Theo de Kok, and Tee L. Guidotti. Basic Environmental Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

What is the significance of the setting in "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury?

"The Veldt" has two settings: the Happylife Home where the Hadley family lives, and within that, the nursery with its viewscreens that are almost always set to an African veldt. The significance of the Happylife Home is that it does everything for the Hadleys, taking over the role of the parents. The ease and convenience it offers, this $30,000 house which "clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them" has ruined their family life: the children, Wendy and Peter, have become rude and spoiled and spend all their time in the nursery. Ironically, the Happylife Home brings misery.


The nursery is significant because it represents the amorality of the soulless technology that has taken over parenting the children. In the nursery, the children constantly watch a scene of Veldt, where lions, following the rule of the jungle, devour other, weaker animals. The thirty by forty foot nursery has a "thatched floor." The parents look on uneasily as



here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths. The lions stood looking at George and Lydia Hadley with terrible green-yellow eyes. 



The parents initially try to brush away the threat the nursery represents, but over and over again the children witness the ruthless killing and feeding of the lions until the parents become alarmed and make plans to shut the nursery down.


In the end, the house, and specifically the nursery, takes over the children's life so wholly that the children kill parents. The house and nursery come to represent technology that is out of control. The family, the story suggests, would have been far better off with a house that did less for them and the children happier and healthier without a nursery. 

How have people throughout history used shadows cast by the sun as a way of measuring time?

Before the invention of clocks (and even for some time after) people mostly relied on the shadows cast by the sun to keep track of time. Using shadows to tell solar time involves keeping track of the position of shadows in relation to a stationary object. Tools like a sundial, shadow stick, or even simply the shadow cast by a tall building can all be used to measure time. Bear in mind that these means of telling time by shadows tell us the solar time, which may not match up perfectly with our standardized systems of time. In solar time, the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky at midday, but this isn't always precisely at twelve noon. Another important thing about telling solar time is that it can only be done during the daytime! Of course, most people throughout history lived agricultural subsistence lifestyles and didn't have much concern for the hours of night. 


In Ancient Rome, sundials were a favored method of telling time. Some sundials were installed in public places so that any person nearby could approximate the time, which the Romans split into twelve hours. A few wealthy families even kept sundials in their homes, but most people either relied on public sundials or making an estimate from the shadows of nearby objects. Some people who worked in the fields or otherwise did not have ready access to a sundial may have used methods like this one to approximate the hours before sundown based upon the position of the Sun in the sky.


All of these methods rely on the apparent motion of the Sun through the sky. We now know that the Earth and Sun are both engaged in constant motion, with the Earth rotating on an axis and revolving around the Sun. This creates differential lengths of days during the revolution and the experience of individual days and nights as we turn on our axis. To us, it looks like the Sun is rising and setting above us, and the shadows cast during this journey may be used to approximate the time of day. In the morning and evening, shadows appear quite long due to the positions of the Sun and the stationary object. Approaching midday, shadows seem to grow shorter and may even adjust to the right or left. At midday, there may appear to be no shadow at all, and then throughout the afternoon, shadows lengthen again.


You could try to experiment with telling time on your own, even without a sundial. When you are outside during the day, take note of how long or short your shadow is. You can make a guess to the time and compare with the solar or standard time for the day!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Where is the theme of honor shown in Act 1 of Julius Caesar?

Marullus and Flavius question the honor of the townspeople for celebrating Caesar’s victory over Pompey, and Cassius discusses Caesar’s honor with Brutus.


Marullus and Flavius are upset because the townspeople have gathered for a holiday, adorning Caesar’s statues.  They remind them that not too long ago they were celebrating and admiring Pompey.  In their minds, it is dishonorable to rejoice at Caesar’s victory over Pompey, a consul of Rome.



And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone! (Act 1, Scene 1)



They feel that the citizens are betraying Pompey by following Caesar.  Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome when Pompey was in charge.  He then defeated Pompey and many other Romans, some of them senators and high-placed businessmen.  This is one of the reasons that everyone keeps calling Caesar arrogant.  They can’t believe he would break the law to take power and then make war on other Romans.


When Cassius and Brutus are discussing Caesar’s arrogance, Cassius tells Brutus that one of Caesar’s greatest sins is that he puts himself above others.



Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (Act 1, Scene 2)



This means that if they choose to serve under Caesar, it is their own fault.  They can be slaves if they choose to be slaves.  It is up to them to decide their own fates.  To Cassius, the dishonorable decision is to just sit back and let Caesar take over Rome.  Like Marullus and Flavius, he believes that Caesar has overstepped and has to be stopped, for the good of Rome.

What is vitiligo?


Causes and Symptoms

There is no known cause for vitiligo, but it may be an autoimmune disease or a disorder in which one or more genes contribute to its development. The white patches that develop on the skin are caused when melanocytes in the skin, cells that produce melanin, are destroyed. The color of the skin is determined by the amount of melanin that the body produces. Contributing factors to the development of vitiligo may include emotional distress, sunburn, or preexisting autoimmune diseases such as hyperthyroidism, but they are not considered causative.



Vitiligo usually develops before the age of forty and affects all races and sexes equally, with up to 2 percent of the population affected. The disorder may run in families; those with a family history of vitiligo or premature graying of the hair are at an increased risk.


The primary symptom of vitiligo is the loss of pigment in the skin leading to the development of widespread, irregularly shaped white patches on the body. The white patches are more evident in dark-skinned individuals and are much less noticeable in fair-skinned individuals. The patches may develop rapidly. Cycles of depigmentation followed by stable periods may occur throughout the lifetime of the affected individual. The areas commonly affected are the areas exposed to the sun, body folds such as the armpit and groin area, body openings, the area around moles, and areas of previous injury to the skin. Premature graying of the hair, including eyelashes, eyebrows, and beards, may also be symptomatic of vitiligo. The course of the disease is difficult to predict, and the spread of the white patches may spontaneously stop, but in most cases, the entire surface of the body is ultimately affected.




Treatment and Therapy

If an individual notices areas of skin that are losing color, early graying of hair, or loss of eye color, then a doctor should be consulted. A dermatologist, a doctor who specializes in disease of the skin, is usually the physician of choice to treat vitiligo, but other specialists may be involved. There is no cure for vitiligo. The goal of treatment is to restore color to the skin and stop future depigmentation, if possible.


The diagnosis of vitiligo begins with a thorough patient examination and history, including any family history of vitiligo or autoimmune disease, unusual sun exposure, sunburn or other skin condition in the period of time just prior to onset of the white patches, and recent stress or physical illness. Blood may be drawn to determine if there are thyroid or other blood-related dysfunctions. A referral to an ophthalmologist (a doctor who specializes in the eye) for a comprehensive eye examination for inflammation may be indicated.


Treatment depends on the site and extent of the discolored areas. Therapeutic cosmetics may be used to camouflage white patches and are readily available in most department stores. The use of sunscreen is important to prevent normal skin from becoming increasingly darker than the vitiligo patches, especially in fair-skinned individuals. Sunless tanning preparations may also be used to tint areas of skin.


Topical corticosteroids may be useful in the early stages of the disease. Vitamin D derivatives may be used in conjunction with corticosteroids or with ultraviolet light. Other topical ointments may be used in small areas of vitiligo, although studies are small and side effects including an increased risk of lymphoma and skin cancer are possible. Topical psoralen with ultraviolet A (PUVA therapy), or photochemotherapy, may be effective, although severe sunburn, blistering, and other complications may occur. If more than 20 percent of the body is involved, oral PUVA may be used. Regardless of medical treatment, frequent visits to the doctor’s office and careful monitoring are needed.


Narrowband ultraviolet B (UVB) therapy is a newer approach to treating vitiligo. No medicine is needed prior to application of the ultraviolet light. More research is needed, although small clinical trials have shown promise. Depigmentation therapy using monobenzyl ether of hydroquinone twice a day lightens all areas of the skin to match the areas of vitiligo in individuals with depigmentation that affects more than half the body. Autologous skin grafts and tattooing are options that may restore pigmentation or provide color to affected areas.




Perspective and Prospects

Support for the individual experiencing vitiligo is important, as the altered appearance caused by visible white patches may cause emotional distress. The extent of treatment may be determined by the psychological impact of the disease on the individual. Younger people and dark-skinned individuals may find the discoloration more disruptive in their daily lives and seek more aggressive therapies. Support groups are also available in many areas or online through organizations related to vitiligo therapy.


Research is being done to grow melanocytes in the laboratory from the patient’s own skin that can be transplanted into the areas of depigmentation. Studies are also being conducted with other medicines, and piperine found in black pepper has been found to be effective at repigmentation of skin in mice. While there are no significant clinical trials, alternative medicines have been tried in individuals with slow-spreading vitiligo. Patients should talk to their doctors before trying any over-the-counter treatments.




Bibliography:


American Academy of Dermatology. “Vitiligo.”



Halder, Rebat M., and Jonathan Chappell. “Vitiligo Update.” Seminars in Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery 28, no. 2 (June, 2009): 86–92.



Isenstein, Arin, Dean Morrell, and Craig Burkhart. “Vitiligo: Treatment Approach in Children.” Pediatric Annals 38, no. 6 (June, 2009): 339–44.



National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. “Vitiligo.”



National Vitiligo Foundation.



Rosenblum, Laurie B. "Vitiligo." Health Library, September 12, 2012.



Taïeb, Alan, and Mauro Picardo. “Clinical Practice: Vitiligo.” New England Journal of Medicine 360, no. 2 (January 8, 2009): 160–69.



"Vitiligo." Mayo Clinic, April 21, 2011.



"Vitiligo." MedlinePlus, July 11, 2012.

In 1952, the family moved to San Jose, and Papa raised what?

Papa raised premium strawberries just outside of San Jose, California in the early 1950's.


We find this out in Chapter 21: "Girl of My Dreams." Because the novel mostly deals with life in the internment camp, and because moving to San Jose means that the family is free from the camp, you know that this question's answer will be found toward the end of the book.


This information about Papa's last years of life provides closure and relief for readers. We'd seen Papa struggling terribly to be a good father and to deal with his alcoholism, and so it's a great relief to learn here in one of the final chapters that he got sober and took over a large strawberry farm, occupying himself with meaningful work on his hundred acres of farmland.


His decision to move the family to a new area and to work on the farm also provides much-needed direction for Jeanne, who had begun to grow depressed and to hang around in the streets instead of focusing on her schoolwork. The move to the farm and to a new school for Jeanne gave her a chance to start over, both academically and socially.

What is inositol as a dietary supplement?


Overview

Inositol, unofficially referred to as vitamin B8, is present in all animal tissues, with the highest levels in the heart and brain. It is part of the membranes (outer coverings) of all cells. It plays a role in helping the liver process fats and in contributing to the function of muscles and nerves.


Inositol may also be involved in depression. People who are depressed
may have lower-than-normal levels of inositol in their spinal fluid. In addition,
inositol participates in the action of serotonin, a neurotransmitter known to be a
factor in depression. (Neurotransmitters are chemicals that
transmit messages between nerve cells.) For these two reasons, inositol has been
proposed as a treatment for depression, and preliminary evidence suggests that it
may be helpful. Inositol also has been tried for other psychological and
nerve-related conditions.




Sources

Inositol is not known to be an essential nutrient. However, nuts, seeds, beans, whole grains, cantaloupe, and citrus fruits supply a substance called phytic acid (inositol hexaphosphate, or IP6), which releases inositol when acted on by bacteria in the digestive tract. The typical American diet provides an estimated 1,000 milligrams daily.




Therapeutic Dosages

Experimentally, inositol dosages of up to 18 grams (g) daily have been tried for various conditions.




Therapeutic Uses

Inositol has been studied for depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, bulimia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the evidence remains far from conclusive. Other potential uses include Alzheimer’s disease and attention deficit disorder. According to two double-blind studies enrolling almost four hundred people, inositol may help improve various symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome, including infertility and weight gain. Another small double-blind study found that inositol supplements could help reduce symptoms of psoriasis triggered or made worse by the use of the drug lithium. A small double-blind study failed to find inositol helpful for premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of premenstrual syndrome.


Inositol is sometimes proposed as a treatment for diabetic neuropathy, but there have been no double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on this subject, and two uncontrolled studies had mixed results. Inositol has also been investigated for potential cancer-preventive properties.




Scientific Evidence


Depression. Small double-blind studies have found inositol helpful for depression. In one such trial, twenty-eight depressed persons were given a daily dose of 12 g of inositol for four weeks. By the fourth week, the group receiving inositol showed significant improvement compared with the placebo group. However, a double-blind study of forty-two people with severe depression that was not responding to standard antidepressant treatment found no improvement when inositol was added.



Panic disorder. People with panic
disorder frequently develop panic
attacks, often with no warning. The racing heartbeat, chest
pressure, sweating, and other physical symptoms can be so intense that they are
mistaken for a heart attack. A small double-blind study (twenty-one participants)
found that people given 12 g of inositol daily had fewer and less severe panic
attacks compared with the placebo group.


A double-blind, crossover study of twenty people compared inositol to the
antidepressant drug fluvoxamine (Luvox), a medication related to Prozac. The
results of four weeks of treatment showed that the supplement was, at minimum,
just as effective as the drug.



Bipolar disorder. In a six-week, double-blind study, twenty-four
people with bipolar disorder received either placebo or inositol (2 g
three times daily for a week, then increased to 4 g three times daily) in addition
to their regular medical treatment. The results of this small study failed to show
statistically significant benefits; however, promising trends were seen that
suggest a larger study is warranted.



Polycystic ovary syndrome. Polycystic ovary syndrome
(PCOS) is a chronic endocrine disorder in women that leads to
infertility, weight gain, and many other problems. In a double-blind,
placebo-controlled trial, 136 women with PCOS were given inositol at a dose of 100
mg twice daily, while 147 were given placebo. During the study period of fourteen
weeks, participants given inositol showed improvement in ovulation frequency
compared with those given placebo. Benefits were also seen in terms of weight loss
and levels of HDL (good) cholesterol. A subsequent study of ninety-four women
found similar results. However, both of the studies were performed by the same
research group. Independent confirmation is necessary before inositol can be
considered an effective treatment for PCOS.




Safety Issues

No serious side effects have been reported for inositol, even with a therapeutic dosage that equals about eighteen times the average dietary intake. However, no long-term safety studies have been performed.


Although inositol has sometimes been recommended for bipolar disorder, there is evidence to suggest inositol may trigger manic episodes in people with this condition. Persons with bipolar disorder should not take inositol unless under a doctor’s supervision.


Safety has not been established in young children, women who are pregnant or nursing, and those with severe liver and kidney disease. As with all supplements used in very large doses, it is important to purchase a reputable product, because a contaminant present even in small percentages could be harmful.




Bibliography


Allan, S. J., et al. “The Effect of Inositol Supplements on the Psoriasis of Patients Taking Lithium.” British Journal of Dermatology 150 (2004): 966-969.



Gerli, S., et al. “Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial: Effects of Myo-Inositol on Ovarian Function and Metabolic Factors in Women with PCOS.” European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences 11 (2007): 347-354.



Nemets, B., et al. “Myo-Inositol Has No Beneficial Effect on Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.” World Journal of Biological Psychiatry 3 (2002): 147-149.



Palatnik, A., et al. “Double-Blind, Controlled, Crossover Trial of Inositol Versus Fluvoxamine for the Treatment of Panic Disorder.” Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 21 (2001): 335-339.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

True or False? Lava is just magma from Earth's mantle that has escaped to the surface.

A volcanic eruption is one way that Earth's hot interior expels some heat. Earth's interior is very hot; hot enough to melt rocks. This molten rock, along with hot gas, is called magma. This hot mixture moves towards Earth's surface and is able to escape to the surface, either through a crack or fissure in the Earth's crust. The magma that thus escapes to the surface of Earth is known as lava. Depending on the viscosity of the lava, volcanic eruption may be different. If the lava is fluid, that is, has low viscosity, it runs down the slopes quickly. If, on the other hand, the lava is viscous, the hot gases are unable to escape to the atmosphere and we observe a violent expulsion of the hot lava. 


Thus, the given statement is true.


Hope this helps.

How can I analyze Petrarch's "Sonnet 90"?

Sonnet 90 "Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi" ("She let her gold hair scatter in the breeze") is a poem from Petrarch's collection Il Canzoniere (English: Song Book) sometimes referred to as the Rime Sparse (Scattered Rhymes). Unlike many of Petrarch's poems, which are written in Latin, this collection was written in Italian. The poems in the book are generally ones praising Petrarch's beloved, Laura, and at times trying to articulate the relationship of human love to Christian love. 


This poem is a typical Petrarchan sonnet consisting of an octave comprised of two closed quatrains and a sestet, with a turn or break between the octave and the sestet.


The main theme of the poem is a sort of neoplatonizing synergy between the narrator's human love of Laura and the movement of the soul towards God. This is achieved by describing both the beloved and the nature of the love in religious terms. The "light beyond all radiance" is associated in Christian theology with the "uncreated light" that radiates from God. In the sestet, the woman is described as angelic and resembling a heavenly spirit, suggesting that she inspires him not merely to carnal desire but to a higher, spiritual love. 

Which of the following is an example of a firm focusing more on efficiency than effectiveness? ...

Of the options that you give us in this question, the second option is the best example of a company that focuses on efficiency and not on effectiveness.  To see why this is so, let us look at how these two concepts differ.


Efficiency deals with how few resources a company can use to make a given product.  When a company is being efficient, it makes the most possible products using the fewest possible resources (both in terms of material resources and in terms of labor). Effectiveness deals with whether a company is turning out high-quality goods and services.  A company that keeps its customers happy is being effective. In general, efficiency and effectiveness are opposite concepts.  When you increase the quality of your work, you generally use more resources. When you use fewer resources (greater efficiency), the quality of your work generally goes down (lower effectiveness).


With this in mind, we can see that the second option is an example of a company that is pursuing efficiency over effectiveness. If the company combines shipments, it uses fewer resources.  It pays for less fuel per unit of freight moved. It does not have to pay a driver to drive with a truck that is not full.  This is efficient.  However, it is not effective.  It forces its customers to wait for their shipment, something that most customers are not happy to do.  This is an example in which the company has decided it wants to pursue efficiency even if that lowers the quality of its product.

Friday, July 24, 2009

What is denial as a cognitive mechanism?


Introduction

The term “denial” originally described a psychological defense in which aspects of reality were kept out of a subject’s consciousness. In the strict sense, the person who denies something acts as if it does not exist. For example, a person with cancer looks in the mirror at a large facial tumor, blandly claims to see nothing there, does not seek medical care, and does not attend to the wound.















Types of Denial

Over time, the term has been broadened and refined, and related terms have been introduced. “Disavowal” is essentially a synonym, translated from Sigmund Freud’s use of the German word Verleugnung. Denial and disavowal include internal emotions; for example, unacceptable anger toward a parent who died. There is also denial of the emotional meaning of external events, such as the failure by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to recognize the relevance to them posed by Nazi genocide in other areas, even as they recognized the facts of what was happening. One can deny personal relevance, urgency, danger, emotion, or information. In each example, the subject has an unconscious emotional motivation for not allowing something into awareness.


To some degree, all defenses help a person avoid awareness of some part of the self or external reality. To this extent, denial is the cornerstone of the ego’s defensive functions. In denial, however, the excluded idea or feeling is not available to the subject in any form. In contrast, related ego defenses allow greater conscious and preconscious awareness of the avoided elements.


“Repression” is a related term for a psychological defense in which an emotionally charged fact is temporarily ignored and held out of consciousness but can emerge easily. For example, a student who knows he has bad grades on a report card may “forget” to bring home his school backpack containing the grades. However, he will be aware of a nagging feeling of something amiss and instantly remember that he has left it at school when questioned.


Similarly, “negation” refers to a defense in which a fact is allowed into consciousness but only in the negative. An example would be someone who states, “I’m not jealous. I really admire all that she has.” By allowing the possibility of jealousy but negating one’s connection to it, denial of the emotion is maintained. In contrast, in true denial the idea of jealousy could not be allowed in consciousness at all.


Denial functions to prevent the individual from becoming overwhelmed by the threatening aspects of a situation. If the emotional impact of something is too great, it is initially kept out of awareness. Patients diagnosed with a terminal illness often respond with denial when they first receive this news. After the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in 2001, some Americans denied the facts of the huge buildings’ collapse into dust, maintaining hope of survivors being found far beyond what could be medically expected, to soften the impact of that magnitude of loss.


Denial can be adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive denial allows a person to function in a situation of unavoidable pain or danger. Maladaptive denial worsens functioning because action is needed on the denied elements. For example, in Roberto Benigni’s film La Vita é Bella (1997; Life Is Beautiful, 1998), a father and son are in a German concentration camp in World War II. The father translates German commands incorrectly for his son, making up a game in which they must do certain things truly demanded by the Germans to get a big prize. By denying the danger and the meaning of the subjugation they face, he protects his son from overwhelming fear, humiliation, and anger. His denial is also adaptive because his son is still able to function as he must to survive. Ultimately, however, the father’s denial becomes maladaptive for him. He becomes too wrapped up in the story to accommodate a changing situation and makes mistakes that result in his death.


Common examples of adaptive denial include disavowal of one’s eventual death or the degree of risk in daily behaviors such as driving a car. Common examples of maladaptive denial include a substance abuser’s refusal to see a problem or a teenager’s denial of the risk in experimental behavior. In empirical studies, for example, smokers rate the health risk of smoking, especially for themselves, lower than do nonsmokers.




Neurology of Denial

Denial can also result from neurological impairment. Anosognosia is a phenomenon common to patients with right hemispheric stroke in which they fail to recognize (neglect) or seem indifferent to anything located to their left. This can be visual—objects held up, words, or their own body parts—as well as tactile or auditory. For example, they will not shave the left side of the face, will forget to wear a left shoe, or will read only “girl” if shown the word “schoolgirl.” Alienation is an extreme version of this, in which patients fail to recognize their own body parts. Shown their left arm, they may say, “Yes, it is attached to my left shoulder, but it is not mine,” or “That is your arm, doctor.” They maintain this view even when confronted. For example, when asked, “Is this not your wedding ring on this hand?” they may answer, “Yes, doctor. Why are you wearing my ring?” Anosodiaphoria is a related syndrome in which the patient recognizes he or she is paralyzed but denies the emotional significance of the inability to move.


Denial and neglect of this type are most often associated with lesions of the right inferior parietal lobule, a brain area thought important in the circuitry of the general arousal response that allows people to attend to stimuli from the opposite side. The cingulate gyrus and right thalamus have also been associated with this deficit. That these lesions are part of more global self-awareness and arousal circuits, however, is demonstrated by the disease of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. In Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, caused by alcoholism, there is no discrete brain lesion. The individual loses the ability to form new memories and will confabulate, that is, make up stories about his or her life and also make up answers to questions, while appearing to deny any awareness that the stories are not true. Anton’s syndrome is another denial syndrome, associated with bilateral occipital blindness, in which the individual believes and acts as if he or she is not blind.


The use and consequences of denial in cancer patients have been extensively studied. The majority of the studies suggest that people with heavier use of denial as a personality trait have an increased risk of breast, melanoma, and other cancers. Such people show increased levels of physical stress, such as blood pressure changes, when confronted with disturbing stimuli, but they are more likely not to report feeling upset. Chronic stress such as this, particularly linked to anger, is likely connected to changes in immune function and other physical events that compromise tumor suppression. Such people also tend to delay going to the doctor for diagnosis and treatment, further worsening prognosis.


In contrast, patients who deny their emotional reactions while in the state of recent diagnosis of cancer tend to have complied with treatment and report less emotional distress when evaluated months later. Their denial helps them not be overwhelmed by the traumatic news that they have cancer. Thus it appears that, in cancer patients, denial as a reaction to an acute threat promotes physical and mental health, while denial as a general coping strategy does not.




History of Denial

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud first described the concept of disavowal, or Verleugnung, in 1923, in developing his notions of infantile sexuality. He said that children see a little girl’s lack of a penis but “disavow” this fact and believe they see one anyway. He believed children later accept that the girl lacks a penis but are traumatized by this awareness, which Freud linked to female penis envy and male castration anxiety. Freud described a similar disavowal in writing about the fetishist in 1927. He believed fetishists choose a fetishistic object to replace a penis and thereby deny female castration in external reality but also experience anxiety if the object is not available, showing internal awareness of castration.


Freud believed that all human capacity to say “no” was fueled by the death instinct. He linked denial to three other types of “saying no”: projection, negation, and repression. Because disavowal most rejects external reality, however, he thought that it “split the ego” and was the first step toward psychosis. It was also the most extreme form of negation.


Anna Freud also wrote about denial as a basic defense that was normal in children but not in adults. René Spitz described a developmental course to the infant’s ability to say no. He took the infant who closes his eyes or falls asleep in an intensely stimulating or upsetting environment as the prototype for later forms of denial. Head-shaking and hiding behind a parent are later forms of denial. Spitz thought that denial expressed in this way was the first abstract thought of the infant because it involves imagining an alternative option to the current reality. He also noted its positive role in promoting independence, both in infants and in adolescents. Contemporary theorists such as Theodore Dorpat and Charles Brenner have refined notions of the psychological mechanism of denial and its subtypes, and they have struggled to distinguish how it differs from and underlies other psychological defenses. Others have studied the effects of denial in different populations, such as cancer patients. In everyday clinical practice, psychoanalysts and psychologists work with individual patients to determine when denial must be broken through to promote the individual’s self-acceptance and mental and physical health, and when denial should not be confronted to avoid overwhelming a person with painful feelings. In this ongoing work, the understanding of denial remains at the core of the understanding of human coping and defense.




Bibliography


Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. London: Souvenir, 2011. Print.



Edelstein, E. L., D. L. Nathanson, and A. M. Stone, eds. Denial: A Clarification of Concepts and Research. New York: Plenum, 1989. Print.



Freud, Anna. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. New York: International UP, 1974. Print.



Gillick, Muriel R. The Denial of Aging: Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007. Print.



Heffernan, Margaret. Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril. New York: Walker, 2011. Print.



Kreitler, S. “Denial in Cancer Patients.” Cancer Investigation 17.7 (1999): 514–34. Print.



Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. New York: Basic, 2011. Print.



Zerubavel, Eviatar. The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.

How does the storm act as a reflection of real life in Kate Chopin's "The Storm"?

In Kate Chopin's story, the literal storm of turbulent weather parallels the figurative storm of human emotion.


Interestingly, both storms have been brewing for a time. In a previous story with which "The Storm" is paired--"At the 'Cadian Ball"--passions have been stirred to stormy levels between the Acadian beauty, Calixta, and the wealthy, upper-class Creole, Alceé. However, before anything happens between the two, the equally lovely Clarisse, who is of Alceé's social class, tells him she loves him. So, Alceé soon marries her. With no chance of having Alceé, Calixta settles for one of her own social level, an Acadian named Bobinot.

After a while, Alceé's love for his wife has cooled. Then, in the sequel story, "The Storm," while Bobinot and the son Bibi are out with a cyclone approaching, Alceé is in the area of Calixta's house and the weather threatens his safe return home. When she steps outside, Alceé Laballiere rides his horse in under an overhanging protection and asks if he may wait out the storm.



May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta? he asked.
"Come 'long in, M'sieur Alceé."



Calixta has not seen Alceé much since her marriage, and then never alone. Perhaps, if the storm were not present, forcing Bobinot and Bibi to delay their return, and if the lightning bolt were not to flash and send a blinding glare and terrible crash, frightening Calixta into Alceé's arms, nothing may have happened. But, the clash of nature's elements has charged the air and this electricity penetrates the hearts of the two who once loved each other. Thus, a storm of nature begets a natural storm of emotion, and Calixta and Alceé make love with great passion.



The growl of the thunder was distant and passing away. The rain beat softly upon the shingles, inviting them to drowsiness and sleep. But they dare not yield.



Returning to their responsibilities after the storm, Alceé rides away, and Calixta prepares supper when Bobinot and Bibi return. Jubilantly, she greets her family, both storms forgotten. 


That same night Alceé Laballiere writes to his wife, encouraging her to stay longer in Biloxi if she and the children are enjoying themselves. For, he writes that he is faring well and is willing to endure the separation for their happiness. Madame Laballiere is glad to receive his note because she has missed the "pleasant liberty of her maiden days," and is in no hurry to resume their conjugal life.


Much like a storm, human emotions rage and, just as quickly sometimes, they abate. The storm of passion between Calixta and Alceé, like a huge thunderstorm or cyclone, has been brewing for some time. Finally, it, too, rages, but its passion abates afterwards.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

In Macbeth, who does Lennox believe killed Banquo?

In Act III, Scene 6, Lennox is talking with an unnamed Lord. Obviously some time has passed since Duncan's and Banquo's murders. Lennox was depicted as very young and naive when he was present at the time Macduff discovered Duncan's mutilated body. But by this point in time Lennox has seen a lot and heard a lot, and he has become more circumspect and sophisticated. He has learned the wisdom of speaking by innuendo, if he speaks at all. His guarded language not only shows his maturation, but by implication it shows that Scotland has become a sort of police state, not unlike Germany in the time of Adolf Hitler or the Soviet Union in the time of Joseph Stalin. Macbeth has become a terrible tyrant and has decided, since everybody hates and despises him, to rule by fear.


Lennox's speech in Act III, Scene 6 is full of verbal irony. He is saying the opposite of what he means, and his tone of voice would undoubtedly be heavily freighted with sarcasm. With regard to Banquo, he says:



And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late,
Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father? 



Lennox is comparing the flight of Fleance at the time of his father's murder to the flight of Malcolm and Donalbain after their father King Duncan was found dead. He implies that Malcolm and Donalbain had to flee for their lives to escape from Macbeth and that, likewise, Fleance had to flee for his life to escape from the murderers Macbeth had sent to ambush his father and himself. 


Lennox obviously does not dare to say what he really thinks. He doesn't even dare to be too candid with the Lord he is talking to, but only to hint at his meaning. Lennox breaks off, fearing he has already said too much.



But, peace! For from broad words, and ’cause he [Macduff] fail'd
His presence at the tyrant's feast, 



No doubt everybody in Macbeth's kingdom is learning to talk in riddles or to say nothing. Macbeth has spies everywhere. In Act III, Scene 4 he has the following exchange with his wife.



MACBETH
How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?


LADY MACBETH
Did you send to him, sir?


MACBETH
I hear it by the way, but I will send.
There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee'd. 



The short scene in which Lennox has a conversation with the unnamed Lord is typical of the ones Shakespeare frequently uses to convey exposition to his audience. And this scene conveys a great deal of significant information. The Lord tells Lennox that Malcolm is living at the English court and that Macduff has fled there to join him. Both Malcolm and Macduff have reported such atrocities to King Edward that their report



Hath so exasperate the King that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.



This news comes almost at the very end of Act III. Act IV and V will show Macbeth descent and final ruin.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

`(a + 5)^5` Use the Binomial Theorem to expand and simplify the expression.

The above question will be answered with the aid of pascal's triangle. The expansion of the above question using pascal's triangle is expanded as follows: 


`(a + b) ^5 = 1a^5 + 5a^4b^1 + 10a^3b^2 + 10a^2b^3 + 5ab^4 +1b^5`


Now we will use the above equation to solve our problem: 


`(a+5)^5 = 1* a^5 + 5*a4 * 5^1 + 10 * a^3 * 5^2 + 10 * a^2 * 5^3 + 5* a * (5)^4 + 5^5`


Now we can evaluate above, to determine our final answer: 


`(a+5)^5 = a^5 + 5*5* a^4 + 10 * 25 * a^3 +10 *125 a^2 + 5*625 * a + 3125`


`(a+5)^5 = a^5 + 25* a^4 + 250* a^3 + 1250* a^2 + 3125*a +3125`


This is the answer.

How did Henri Matisse apply color on his artwork Joy of Life? What type of colors were predominantly used in the painting?

In his painting "Joy of Life" (1905), Matisse uses color as an expressive, emotional tool, which is typical of his Fauvist period. Rather than imparting any realistic or representational value, the painting's colors clearly depict the uplifting mood of freedom in nature -- both human and environmental. Matisse applies bold yellows, greens, reds and pinks throughout the canvas for both human subjects and natural elements, such as trees, grass and sky, creating a visual flow and unity of all compositional matter. The fact that Matisse does not exclusively assign realistic 'flesh' colors to human figures and browns and greens to the surrounding environment underscores his intended emotional effect: a sense of oneness and celebration among all living things ('Joy of Life' as a whole, not just human life). Although his chosen colors are vivid, they are not harsh; indeed, the pinks and shades of yellow impart a softness and gentleness to the scene that evokes a childlike wonder and curiosity in the onlooker.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

What is a hypertonic solution?

When you are considering the net movement of water across a semi-permeable membrane (osmosis), you must consider the tonicity of the solutions on both sides of the membrane. Tonicity refers to the concentration of solutes (dissolved particles) in a solution. The liquid in which they are dissolved is known as the solvent. Let's consider a red blood cell in a beaker containing a solution.  


The tonicity of the solution inside of a red blood cell (intracellular solution) is about 0.9%, but to simplify, we will say 1%. If the solution that the cell is in (the extracellular solution) has a higher tonicity, we say that the solution is hypertonic to the intracellular solution. In our example, a hypertonic solution would have a solute concentration higher than 1%. Water will move more toward the hypertonic solution due to osmotic pressure so water will move from the cell, through the membrane, and into the extracellular solution.


If the tonicity of the extracellular solution is lower than that of the intracellular solution, we say that the extracellular solution is hypotonic to the intracellular solution (you could also say that the intracellular solution is hypertonic to the extracellular solution). Again, the water will move by osmosis toward the more concentrated solution so the water will move mostly into the cell and may cause the cell to burst. This happens when you add red blood cells to distilled water (0% solute).


If the tonicity of both solutions is the same, we say that the solutions are isotonic. In this case, the water will move equally into and out of the cell and the overall shape of the cell will not change.

What is crack?


History of Use

Crack first appeared in the US cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Houston in the early 1980s, reportedly as a means of moving a large amount of cocaine that was available in the United States in the 1970s. The major crack epidemic, as it came to be called, took place between 1984 and 1990, mostly in poor, urban areas in the United States. By 2002, the United Kingdom reported a crack epidemic, and today, crack is used worldwide.




Since about 2000, the use of crack has decreased substantially, though it has not disappeared. Young adults (at levels as high as 65 percent) report having tried crack at least once; however, repeat-usage percentages are significantly lower. Arrest rates for crack possession are also dramatically lower than those of the 1980s and 1990s, with some cities showing crack-arrest percentages in the single digits. In 2010 the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there were an estimated 359,000 US crack cocaine users in 2008.


There are several explanations for these lowered rates, including higher prices for cocaine and also changes in how the law handles charges for crack possession. However, the most significant cause for the decrease in the use of crack is the dramatic rise in methamphetamine use. Methamphetamine’s low cost, easy availability, and extremely addictive nature make it popular among drug abusers.




Effects of Use

Crack is a stimulant that artificially increases the levels of dopamine
released from the brain. Also, crack prevents dopamine from being “recycled” by the body, leading to an excess of dopamine with repeated use. This excess causes an overamplification of the dopamine-receptor neurons and leads to a disruption of normal neural communications. For example, the brain loses the ability to properly respond to pleasurable stimuli, which causes the drug user to seek more drugs to feel any pleasure. While the initial response of the brain to this massive dopamine buildup is a drug-induced euphoria, an increase in self-confidence, and increased high energy, these effects become harder and harder to attain as the dopamine system becomes damaged, leading to addiction and tolerance.




Risks of Use

Crack affects not just the brain but also almost every system in the body. One of the most strongly affected is the pulmonary system. Because crack is inhaled using high temperatures (90 degrees Celsius, or 194 degrees Fahrenheit), users often suffer burned lips, tongue, and airways. Another common side effect of crack use is a cough with black sputum, which is caused by the butane torches used to heat the smoking pipes. Other crack-related respiratory illnesses include pulmonary edema (also known as crack lung), asthma, and adult respiratory distress syndrome.


Sudden death from cardiac arrest is another danger to crack users, especially those who drink alcoholic beverages while using crack. (Any polydrug use increases the risk of sudden cardiac arrest.) Psychiatric trauma also is common in crack users and may include severe paranoia, violent behavior, and hallucinations (including delusional parasitosis, or Ekbom’s syndrome, the belief that one is infested with parasites; this can cause a person to violently scratch themselves).


Crack users are especially at risk for infections with the human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis virus. Shared needles are one source; the other source is the exchange of sex for drugs. This often places women at an especially high risk. Another danger is tuberculosis and other saliva-borne diseases, which are passed by sharing a common crack pipe.


The so-called crack-babies epidemic has been weighted by myth and misinformation, leading people to believe that a generation of children became an essentially lost generation. Studies show that the stereotype of the crack baby, born addicted to crack and facing insurmountable developmental issues and an inability to bond, is simply false. The reality is more complicated. Independent of other issues, such as alcohol and tobacco abuse and poor physical environment, many of these babies are living normal lives.


Further research shows that the area of the body most affected in these children is the dopamine system that develops early in the fetal cycle; the system may show long-term effects of crack and cocaine exposure. A child also may have a mild behavioral disorder or a subtler developmental phenotype that resembles attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Cognitive and attention systems may be affected, and these children may require help from a special-needs program.




Bibliography


Laposata, Elizabeth A., and George L. Mayo. “A Review of Pulmonary Pathology and Mechanisms Associated with Inhalation of Freebase Cocaine (‘Crack’).” American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 14 (1993): 1–9. Print.



Lejuez, C. W., et al. “Risk Factors in the Relationship between Gender and Crack/Cocaine.” Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 15 (2007): 165–75. Print.



Palamar, Joseph J., et al. “Powder Cocaine and Crack Use in the United States: An Examination of Risk for Arrest and Socioeconomic Disparities in Use.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 149.(2015): 108–116. PsycINFO. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.



Natl. Inst. on Drug Abuse. “Cocaine: What Is the Scope of Cocaine Use in the United States?” National Institute on Drug Abuse. NIH, Sept. 2010. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.



United Nations. Office on Drugs and Crime. World Drug Report 2014. Vienna: UNODC, 2014. Digital file.



Thompson, Barbara L., Pat Levitt, and Gregg D. Stanwood. “Prenatal Exposure to Drugs: Effects on Brain Development and Implications for Policy and Education.” Nature 10 (2009): 303–12. Print.

What does the Handicapper General and the government require of people in this society to do if they have strength, intelligence, or beauty?

Because the Constitution of the United States in 2081 requires all citizens to be equal, the Handicapper General must force handicaps on those who have above average strength, beauty, or intelligence. A person who is strong must carry about extra weight so that they will experience the same level of fatigue and difficulty in life that those who are less strong do. George Bergeron has to carry a 47-pound bag of birdshot around his neck. Harrison, who is much stronger, carries 300 pounds of extra weight. Those who are more intelligent than the average person must wear a "little mental handicap radio" in their ears. Every 20 seconds the radio receives transmissions of loud and distracting noises, which have the effect of interrupting smart people's thought processes so they can't take "unfair advantage of their brains." Harrison must wear a "tremendous pair of earphones," presumably to make the sounds louder and harder to ignore. Beautiful people must wear masks to hide their beauty or otherwise modify their faces. The ballerina who reads the news bulletin "must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous." For Harrison's part, he has to shave his eyebrows, wear glasses with wavy lenses (which also make it harder for him to think), wear black caps on some of his teeth, and wear a ridiculous clown nose. By giving handicaps to those with superior talents or gifts, the government believes it can ensure that all of its citizens will be equal.

Monday, July 20, 2009

What is magnetic field therapy?


Indications and Procedures

In this treatment method, which is based on physics principles called the Hall effect and Faraday’s law, magnetic
pads are placed on or near the site of injury or soreness in order to stimulate local circulation by attracting positive and negatively charged ions in the blood and lymph. This biomagnetic attraction of electrolytes utilizes an alternating pattern of polarities that penetrate 5 to 20 centimeters into the body’s tissues, depending on field strength (which is normally between 300 and 950 gauss). A common magnet will not produce this effect because only the ions and fluid in vessels that are precisely in line with the north-south poles will be attracted. Many advocates claim that magnetic therapy works faster than diathermies such as ultrasound. A warm tingling sensation is often felt minutes after application because of the increase of microcirculation, which brings more oxygen, nutrients, white blood cells, and antibodies to the damaged tissues and which removes metabolic waste
products.




Uses and Complications

Several forms of magnetic field therapy (including pulsed electromagnetic therapy) have been used for years in Japan, Germany, and other countries, and double-blind studies are being conducted in the United States to determine the validity of numerous testimonials. Disorders that are regularly treated with magnetic therapy in other countries include carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, tendinitis, bursitis, migraine headaches, and energy problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome and malaise. Magnetic deficiency syndrome is now documented in Japanese medical literature, and many American physicians agree that proper magnetic balance in the tissues is an overlooked ingredient of health.


Magnetic pads come in several sizes and shapes to allow for comfortable attachment to any area of the body, including silver-dollar-sized pads that are one-eighth of an inch thick, for concentrated force, and 5-by-7-inch pads for larger areas such as the back. Magnetic massage balls, mattress pads, pillows, seat cushions, and orthotic insoles are also sold. The magnets are permanently charged and have no harmful side effects, although they are not recommended for pregnant women or patients wearing pacemakers. In 2005 and 2006, some respected medical journals reported positive treatment outcomes for the healing of surgical wounds. Because this result defies conventional medical wisdom, however, the use of magnetic field therapy in mainstream medicine remains controversial.




Bibliography


Burroughs, Hugh, and Mark Kastner. Alternative Healing: The Complete A-Z Guide to Over 160 Different Alternative Therapies. La Mesa, Calif.: Halcyon, 1996.



Jacobs, Jennifer, ed. The Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine: A Complete Family Guide to Complementary Therapies. Rev. ed. Boston: Journey Editions, 1997.



National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. “Magnets for Pain Relief.” National Institutes of Health, February, 2013.



Null, Gary. Healing with Magnets. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006.



Pelletier, Kenneth. The Best Alternative Medicine. New York: Fireside, 2002.



Trivieri, Larry, Jr., and John W. Anderson, eds. Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide. 2d ed. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press, 2002.



Vegari, G. Magnetic Therapy. Christchurch, New Zealand: Caxton, 2004.



White, R., K. Cutting, and P. Beldon. “Magnet Therapy: Opening the Debate.” Journal of Wound Care 15, no. 5 (May, 2006): 208-209.

What is cognitive dissonance?


Introduction


Cognitive dissonance theory, developed by social psychologist Leon Festinger, suggests that there is a basic human tendency to strive for consistency between and among cognitions. Cognitions are defined as what people know about their attitudes and behaviors. An attitude is defined as one’s positive or negative evaluations of a person, place, or thing. If an inconsistency does arise—for example, if an individual does something that is discrepant with his or her attitudes—cognitive dissonance is said to occur. Dissonance is an uncomfortable state of physiological and psychological tension. It is so uncomfortable, in fact, that when individuals are in such a state, they become motivated to rid themselves of the feeling. This can be done by restoring consistency to the cognitions in some way.






What exactly does dissonance feel like? Although it is difficult to describe any kind of internal state, the reactions one has when one hurts the feelings of a loved one or breaks something belonging to someone else are probably what Festinger meant by dissonance.




Restoring Consonance

When in a state of dissonance, there are three ways a person can restore consistency or, in the language of the theory, consonance. Consonance is defined as the psychological state in which cognitions are not in conflict. One way to create consonance is to reduce the importance of the conflicting cognitions. The theory states that the amount of dissonance experienced is a direct function of the importance of the conflicting cognitions. Consider, for example, a person who actively pursues a suntan. The potential for dissonance exists with such behavior, because the cognition “I am doing something that is increasing my chances for skin cancer” may be in conflict with the cognition “I would like to remain healthy and live a long life.” To reduce dissonance, this person may convince him- or herself that he or she would rather live a shorter life filled with doing enjoyable and exciting things than live a longer, but perhaps not so exciting, life. The inconsistency still exists, but the importance of the inconsistency has been reduced.


A second way to reduce dissonance is to add numerous consonant cognitions, thus making the discrepancy seem less great. The suntanner may begin to believe he or she needs to be tan to be socially accepted because all of his or her friends have tans. The tanner may also begin to believe that suntanning makes him or her look healthier and more attractive and, indeed, may even come to believe that suntanning does promote health.


The last method Festinger proposed for reducing dissonance is the simplest, and it is the one that caught the attention of many social psychologists. It is simply to change one of the discrepant cognitions. The suntanner could either stop suntanning or convince him- or herself that suntanning is not associated with an increased risk of skin cancer. In either case, the inconsistency would be eliminated.


This latter possibility intrigued social psychologists because it offered the possibility that people’s behaviors could influence their attitudes. In particular, it suggested that if someone does something that is inconsistent with his or her attitudes, those attitudes may change to become more consistent with the behavior. For example, imagine that a person wanted a friend to favor a particular candidate in an upcoming election, and the friend favored the opposing candidate. What would happen if this person convinced the friend to accompany him or her to a rally for the candidate the friend did not support? According to the theory, the friend should experience some degree of dissonance, as the behavior of attending a rally for candidate X is inconsistent with the attitude “I do not favor candidate X.” To resolve the inconsistency, the friend may well begin to convince him- or herself that candidate X is not so bad and actually has some good points. Thus, in an effort to restore consonance, the friend’s attitudes have changed to be more consistent with behavior.




Dissonance-Induced Attitude Change

Changes in behavior cannot always be expected to lead to changes in attitudes. Dissonance-induced attitude change—that is, the adjustment of one's attitude in an effort to be consistent with a behavior—is likely to happen only under certain conditions. For one, there must not be any external justification for the behavior. An external justification is an environmental cause that might explain the inconsistency. If the friend was paid a hundred dollars to attend the rally for the candidate or was promised a dinner at a fancy restaurant, he or she most likely would not have experienced dissonance, because he or she had a sufficient external justification. Dissonance is most likely to occur when no external justification is present for a behavior.


Second, dissonance is most likely to occur when individuals believe that the behavior was done of their own free will—that is, when they feel some sort of personal responsibility for the behavior. If the friend had been simply told that he or she was being taken out for an exciting evening and was not told that they were going to this candidate’s rally until they got there, the friend most likely would not have experienced dissonance.


Third, dissonance is more likely to occur when the behavior has some sort of foreseeable negative consequences. If the friend knew that each person who attended the rally was required to pay a donation or hand out pamphlets for the candidate and yet still elected to go, he or she would probably have experienced considerable dissonance; now the friend is not only attending a rally for a candidate he or she opposes but also actively campaigning against his or her preferred candidate.




Effect of Rewards

Perhaps the most-researched application of dissonance theory concerns how attitudes are affected by rewarding people for doing things in which they do not believe. In one study, Festinger and J. M. Carlsmith had students perform a boring screw-turning task for one hour. They then asked the students to tell another student waiting to do the same task that the task was very interesting. In other words, they asked the students to lie. Half the students were offered twenty dollars to do this; the other half were offered one dollar. After the students told the waiting student that the task was enjoyable, the researchers asked them what they really thought about the screw-turning task. The students who were paid twenty dollars said they thought the screw-turning task was quite boring. The students who were paid only one dollar, however, said that they thought the task was interesting and enjoyable.


Although surprising, these findings are precisely what dissonance theory predicts. When a student informed a waiting student that the task was enjoyable, the possibility for dissonance arose. The cognition “This task was really boring” is inconsistent with the cognition “I just told someone that this task was quite enjoyable.” The students paid twenty dollars, however, had a sufficient external justification for the inconsistency, so there was no dissonance and no need to resolve any inconsistency. The students paid one dollar, however, did not have the same external justification; most people would not consider a dollar to be sufficient justification for telling a lie, so these students were in a real state of dissonance. To resolve the inconsistency, they changed their attitudes about the task and convinced themselves that the task was indeed enjoyable, thereby achieving consonance between attitudes and behavior. Thus, the less people are rewarded for doing things they might not like, the more likely it is that they will begin to like them.




Effect of Punishment

Dissonance theory makes equally interesting predictions about the effects of punishment. In a study by Elliot Aronson and Carlsmith, a researcher asked preschool children to rate the attractiveness of toys. The researcher then left the room, but, before leaving, he instructed the children not to play with one of the toys they had rated highly attractive. This became the “forbidden” toy. The researcher varied the severity of the punishment with which he threatened the children if they played with the forbidden toy. For some children, the threat was relatively mild: the researcher said he would be upset. For others, the threat was more severe: the researcher said that he would be angry, would pack up the toys and leave, and would consider the child a baby.


Both threats of punishment seemed to work, as no children played with the forbidden toy. When the researcher asked the children later to rerate the attractiveness of the toys, however, it was apparent that the severity of the threat did make a difference. For children who were severely threatened, the forbidden toy was still rated as quite attractive. For the mildly threatened children, however, the forbidden toy was rated as much less attractive.


By not playing with the forbidden toy, children were potentially in a state of dissonance. The cognition “I think this is an attractive toy” is inconsistent with the cognition “I am not playing with the toy.” Those in the severe-threat condition had a sufficient external justification for the discrepancy. Hence, there was no dissonance and no motivation to resolve the inconsistency. Those in the mild-threat condition had no such external justification for the inconsistency, so they most likely felt dissonance, and they resolved it by convincing themselves that the toy was not so attractive. Thus, perhaps surprisingly, the more mild the threats used to get children not to do something, the more likely it is that they will come to believe that it is not something they even want to do.




Role of Decision Making

A last type of everyday behavior for which dissonance theory has implications is decision making. According to the theory, many times when one makes a decision, particularly between attractive alternatives, dissonance is likely to occur. Before making a decision, there are probably some features of each alternative that are attractive and some that are not so attractive. When the decision is made, two sets of dissonant cognitions result: “I chose something that has unattractive qualities” and “I did not choose something that has attractive qualities.” To resolve this dissonance, people tend to convince themselves that the chosen alternative is clearly superior to the unchosen alternative. Because of this, although each alternative was seen as equally attractive before the decision was made, after the decision, the chosen alternative is seen as much more attractive.


For example, Robert Knox and James Inkster went to a racetrack and asked a sample of people who were waiting in line to place their bets how confident they were that their horse was going to win. They then asked a sample of people who were leaving the betting window the same question. As might have been predicted by now, a bettor was much more confident about a horse’s chances after having placed the bet. Before placing a bet, there is no dissonance. After actually placing money on the horse, the potential for dissonance (“I placed money on a horse that might lose and I did not bet on a horse that might win”) arises. To avoid or resolve this dissonance, bettors become much more confident that their horse will win and, by default, more confident that other horses will not.




Prominent Influence in Psychology

Cognitive dissonance theory was introduced in 1957, at a time when social psychologists' interest in the motives underlying people’s attitudes and behaviors was at a peak. Although dissonance theory has emerged as perhaps the best-known and most-researched theory in social psychology, when it was first developed it was one of a handful of theories, now collectively known as cognitive consistency theories, that proposed that people are motivated to seek consistency among and between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.


There are numerous explanations for why cognitive dissonance theory has become as important as it has, but two seem particularly intriguing. One concerns the intellectual climate in psychology during the time the theory was introduced. At the time, research in most fields of psychology, including social psychological research on attitude change, was influenced by learning theory. Learning theory suggests that behavior is a function of its consequences: people do those things for which they are rewarded and do not do those things for which they are not rewarded or for which they are punished. Therefore, according to this perspective, to significantly change any form of behavior, from overt actions to attitudes and beliefs, some kind of reward or incentive needs to be offered. The bigger the incentive (or the stronger the punishment), the more change can be expected. Research on attitude change, therefore, also focused on the role of rewards and punishment. What made dissonance theory stand out was its prediction that sometimes less reward or incentive will lead to more change. This counterintuitive prediction, standing in stark contrast to the generally accepted ideas about the roles of reward and punishment, brought immediate attention to dissonance theory not only from the social-psychological community but also from the psychological community in general, and it quickly vaulted the theory to a position of prominence.


A second reason dissonance has become such an important theory has to do with its particular influence on the field of social psychology. Before the theory was introduced, social psychology was identified with the study of groups and intergroup relations. Dissonance theory was one of the first social psychological theories to emphasize the cognitive processes occurring within the individual as an important area of inquiry. As a result, interest in the individual waxed in social psychology, and interest in groups waned. Indeed, the study of groups and intergroup relations began, in part, to be considered the province of sociologists, and the study of the individual in social settings began to define social psychology. Thus, dissonance theory can be credited with significantly changing the focus of research and theory in social psychology.




Bibliography


Allahyani, Mariam Hameed Ahmed. "The Relationship between Cognitive Dissonance and Decision-Making Styles in a Sample of Female Students at the University of Umm Al Qura." Education 132.3 (2012): 641–63. Print.



Aronson, Elliot. “The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Vol. 4. Ed. Leonard Berkowitz. New York: Academic, 1969. 2–34. Print.



Cooper, Joel. Cognitive Dissonance: Fifty Years of a Classic Theory. Newbury Park: Sage, 2007. Print.



Festinger, Leon. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1957. Print.



Gawronski, Bertram. "Back to the Future of Dissonance Theory: Cognitive Consistency as a Core Motive." Social Cognition 30.6 (2012): 652–68. Print.



Harmon-Jones, Eddie, and Judson Mills, eds. Cognitive Dissonance: Progress on a Pivotal Theory in Social Psychology. Washington: APA, 1999. Print.



Martinie, Marie-Amélie, Laurent Milland, and Thierry Olive. "Some Theoretical Considerations on Attitude, Arousal and Affect during Cognitive Dissonance." Social and Personality Psychology Compass 7.9 (2013): 680–88. Print.



McClure, John. Explanations, Accounts, and Illusions: A Critical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.



Tavris, Carol, and Elliot Aronson. Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. Orlando: Harcourt, 2007. Print.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

How does Nick’s perception of money and wealth impact his reliability as the narrator of The Great Gatsby?

Nick's reliability as a narrator could be affected by his perception of wealth because he has grown up as a member of a "prominent, well-to-do" family, the Carraways.  He went to Yale, and when he announced his intention to go into the bond business after the Great War, his father agreed to "finance [him]" for one year.  In other words, Nick is used to being around people like Tom and Daisy, old-moneyed individuals who act like the world belongs to them because, in many ways, it actually does.  As one of them, Nick might be softer on them than a different narrator would be; he might allow them to get away with more than someone else might.


However, on the other hand, Nick says of Gatsby that he "represented everything for which [Nick has] an unaffected scorn."  Perhaps this is because of Gatsby's incredible luxuriant new-moneyness, a gaudiness associated with his status as one who is newly wealthy.  We might expect Nick, then, to be a bit harder on him than a different narrator might.  On the other hand, he says that "Only Gatsby [...] was exempt from [his] reaction" even despite what he represents to Nick.  Although we might normally expect Nick to be harder on Gatsby, because of what he says, it turns out that he will not be.

How does the choice of details set the tone of the sermon?

Edwards is remembered for his choice of details, particularly in this classic sermon. His goal was not to tell people about his beliefs; he ...