Obesity Is The Greatest Epidemic - 2301 Words

Introduction A condition of modern times, obesity is said to be the greatest epidemic currently facing humanity (WHO, 2003; Hill, 2007). Obesity is one of the most frequent causes of preventable death in developed nations (Bauer et al., 2014), with the United States being home to over 150 million overweight or obese individuals – 65% of the adult population (Flegel, 2002; US Census Bureau, 2010). Obesity is often caused by a mismatch between energy intake and usage, thus it is frequently seen in those who live a sedentary lifestyle (Hu, 2003), such as the patient in this scenario. Obesity is now a major public health concern and has recently been voted by the American Medical Association to be classified as a ‘disease’ (Dailey, 2013). Indeed, the cost of obesity to the United Kingdom’s economy was estimated to be  £15.8 billion, with  £4.2 billion in direct costs to the National Health Service (Public Health England, 2007). 1) Definition and classification of obesit y Definition Obesity is a medical condition in which excess fat is accumulated by the body, to the extent that it may have a negative impact on health (Haslam and James, 2005). The patient in the scenario clearly understands this aspect of obesity, as he mentions that he is ‘worried’ about gaining weight. Use of body mass index to define obesity A more objective definition of obesity involves the use of body mass index (BMI), which is given by the following equation: where m is height (meters) and hShow MoreRelatedThe Problem Of Teenage Obesity Essay1177 Words   |  5 PagesTeenage obesity is rising significantly not only in the New Zealand but all throughout the world. It is growing epidemic and it’s a terrible thing. Watching a teenager wobble around all day out of breath and struggling to manage the stairs at school something no one should ever witness but with 18%⠁ ´ of teenagers obese it’s becoming a more common site everyday. Obesity is a risk factor for several diseases and it can lead to more serious problem in the end and can be fatal that can cause even deathRead MoreHealth Risks Of The United States Essay1102 Words   |  5 Pagesbesiege Americans are fought by creating a vaccination or an antibiotic that can be administered to all who are infected, one of the greatest health risks facing America’s nation today is sadly an epidemic, not just of a physical nature but often times also with behavioral origins , and whose eradication has been one of the most difficult our nation faces. Obesity in the United States has increased with alarming rates over the last few decades, which has impacted our nation on several levels, includingRead MoreObesity : A Serious Health Condition1452 Words   |  6 PagesObesity is a serious health condition that, if left untreated, causes serious health conditions. Contrary to popular belief, obesity is more than a condition caused by overeating and lack of exercise (Vallor 2013). Obesity is a disease (Callahan 2013); a disease that Americans are spending about $150 billion on annually (Zamosky 2013). Additionally, changing a person’s diet and exercise regimen may not be effective in some cases of obesity (Vallor 2013). Obesity is not like most well-known diseases;Read MoreEssay on The Obesity Epidemic 1247 Words   |  5 Pages How would you feel if I told you that there is no one state with an obesity rate lower than 20%? Take this information and compare it to twenty years ago when every state had an obesity rate lower than 15%. Obesity has become not only the number one cause in death, but according to David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health and author of â€Å"Don’t Blame the Eater†, it is the number one cost in health care with numbers rising well over 100 billion dollars a year (196). There are manyRead MoreEquity Theory and Childhood Obesity1429 Words   |  6 Pagesforce within the workplace, and a significant barrier to intimacy in personal relationships. This tends to complicate the manner in which managers interact with employees to find ways (salary, praise, training, education, experience) to allow for the greatest possible productivity, or for interpersonal relationships to actualize (Montana and Chanrov, 2008). For the individual to perceive themselves as being treated fairly, that individual must believe that the ratio of his inputs to his outcomes toRead MoreChildhood Obesity And Its Effects On Children And Adolescents1427 Words   |  6 Pagesas physical inactivity, results in an energy imbalance and can lead to a major social issue of childhood obesity. The World Health Organization defines childhood obesity as a ‘serious medical condition consisting in excess body fat that affects children and adolescents.’ To address this problem, assessing the factors that have been suggested as contributing to the development of childhood obesity is vital. Some of these include genetic factors, declining levels of physical activity, increased timeRead More Causes of Childhood Obesity Essay1271 Words   |  6 Pages8-year old daughters obesity, a prideful mother replies Oh its no big deal, she just still has her baby fat. Unfortunately, chances are that the daughters obesity is not ca used by her baby fat, but can be contributed to a combination of diet, genetics, and a sedentary lifestyle. Studies show that obesity among children 6-17 years of age, has increased by 50% in the last 20 years, with the most dramatic increase seen in children ages 6-11 (Axmaker, 1). This obvious epidemic has raised great concernRead MoreCauses of Childhood Obesity Essay1291 Words   |  6 PagesCauses of Childhood Obesity Works Cited Axmaker, Larry. Childhood Obesity Should be Taken Seriously. Online Posting 24 November 2004. Accessed 9 April 2005. 1-4. Bastin, Sandra. Perils of Childhood Obesity. American Academy of Pediatrics Quarterly. Volume 31 (11/2001): 44-49. Retrieved Medline 9 April 2005. 1-5. Buffington, Cynthia. Causes of Childhood Obesity. Beyond Change: Information Regarding Obesity and Obesity Surgery. Volume 17 (12/2003): 12-17. Retrieved AcademicRead MoreObesity Is A Problem That Is Faced Amongst Many Individuals Across The World Essay1288 Words   |  6 Pages Obesity is a problem that is faced amongst many individuals across the world. Obesity is a serious health and societal issue that is rising at extreme rates, some may call it an epidemic in both developed and developing countries. Obesity is a global problem, with almost 30 percent of people globally are now either obese or overweight which is affecting an estimate of 2.1 billion people worldwide and it’s prevalence in the recent decade had a rapid increase. It’s a well-known fact that the oddsRead MoreObesity in the United States1115 Words   |  4 PagesIn the United States today, obesity has become an enormous burden on both the health and healthcare of those affected. In the last 3 dec ades, the number of people overweight has increased dramatically. According to the Centers of Disease Control, as of 2013, 34.9% of our population is considered overweight or obese. America is the richest yet the fattest nation in the world, and our obese backsides are the butt of jokes in every other country (Klein, 1994). Obesity is defined as having excess body

Assisted Suicide Essay - 1177 Words

The laws aim to protect doctors’ and institutions’ rights, but those are seen far from powerless in the process. One of the main arguments against assisted suicide attempts to prevent doctors and institutions from accumulating so much decision power over patients that, over time, unintended incentives and convenience may lead medical community to expand assisted suicide to troublesome or uninsured patients. Research of assisted deaths in Oregon shows the participating patients do not fall into such vulnerable categories, but the concern for future exposure remains. Colorado voters approved Proposition 106 and Colorado End of Life Options Act in the 2016 elections. While Colorado considered assisted-dying bills in mid-1990’s, it was†¦show more content†¦The district is not a stranger to Congress deciding its fate and budget. Disagreements between district government and federal government become more pronounced during Republican administrations and majori ties in Congress. In divided government, the district funding becomes a bargaining chip where the legislators decide its fate without having residents as constituents. This draws some parallels with Colorado on the disparity between popular vote and legislative action. However, in D.C, members of U.S. Congress are even further removed from D.C. constituents than members of Colorado legislature. And whereas in Colorado, the electorate voted for ballot proposition without burdening the legislature with political vote, in D.C., Congressional opposition to its Death with Dignity Act will remain with conservative politicians from other parts of the country. Therefore, the funding for DC’s Death with Dignity Act will be volatile with political changes similar to politically-driven changes in abortion funding for low-income D. C. residents. The Death with Dignity Acts provide for annual report for each year in effect. The states publish their respective reports as public disclosure. According to the reports, states have avoided violations under their Death with Dignity Acts. Most of the patients opting to use the law are elderly cancer patients. TheShow MoreRelatedPhysician-Assisted Suicide Essay1038 Words   |  5 Pagesthe role of a medical professional to ensure the well-being of their patients, or to assist them in ending their lives? Many people may believe that physicians would never perform the latter, but in actuality one practice does so. Physician assisted suicide is the intentional ending of one’s life brought on by lethal substances prescribed by a doctor. In the majority of cases, the patient is terminally ill and simply does not desire to live any longer. Their physician provides the medication necessaryRead MoreThe Right to Assisted Suicide Essay937 Words   |  4 Pagescruel reality we live in when ability to choose the time of our demise, especially for terminal patients, is not seen as a personal right to be acted upon, but to be shunned as a taboo. This is why assisted-suicide, the contraction of a third-party to provide the materials necessary to commit suicide, should be legalized; it would allow both terminal and permanently disabled patients an escape from the mental, emotional, physical pain of useless treatments, and impaired q uality of life, in theirRead MoreEssay on Physician-Assisted Suicide1782 Words   |  8 PagesSuicide is one person’s personal decision; physician-assisted suicide is a patient who is not capable of carrying the task out themselves asking a physician for access to lethal medication. What people may fail to see however is that the physician is not the only healthcare personnel involved; it may include, but is not limited to, a physician, nurse, and pharmacist. This may conflict with the healthcare worker’s own morals and there are cases in which the patient suffers from depression, or theRead More Euthanasia Essay - Assisted Suicide1579 Words   |  7 PagesAssisted Suicide/Euthanasia      Ã‚   Remarkably, few have noticed that frail, elderly and terminally ill people oppose assisted suicide more than other Americans. The assisted-suicide agenda is moving forward chiefly with vocal support from the young, the able-bodied and the affluent, who may even think that their parents and grandparents share their enthusiasm. They are wrong.    Thus the assisted suicide agenda appears as a victory not for freedom, but for discrimination. At its heartRead More Pro Assisted Suicide Essay2026 Words   |  9 Pagesloved ones are often reduced to helpless observers. Terminally ill patients are not merely a statistic; they are mothers, fathers, children, friends, and lovers who leave behind many distraught loved ones in death. By continuing to prohibit assisted suicide, the law denies many terminally ill patients the peaceful death they desire. Instead, patients must waste away slowly and endure constant pain, unless they have powerful and expensive medications to dull their senses. However, no amount ofRead More Physician Assisted Suicide Essay2509 Words   |  11 PagesPhysician Assisted Suicide A poll in 1999 found that 52% of Americans though that Kevorkian should have been found guilty on some charge, while only 27% said that he was not guilty. The survey also found that 45% of Americans have a positive opinion of Kevorkian while 36% have an unfavorable one. After being informed that Kevorkian does not have a license to practice medicine and that he supports the right of doctors to help healthy patients die, his approval rating dropped to 19%, while hisRead MorePhysician Assisted Suicide Essay1214 Words   |  5 Pagesrelentless pain and agony through physician assisted death? Physician-Assisted Suicide PAS is highly contentious because it induces conflict of several moral and ethical questions such as who is the true director of our lives. Is suicide an individual choice and should the highest priority to humans be alleviating pain or do we suffer for a purpose? Is suicide a purely individual choice? Having analyzed and even experience the effects of physician assisted suicide, I promote and fully support its legalityRead MoreThe Right to Physician Assisted Suicide Essay590 Words   |  3 Pages Assisted suicide, by definition, is suicide facilitated by another person, especially a physician, in order to end the life of a patient suffering from an incurable or life-threatening illness. Ever since its first use in the 1970s, physician assisted suicide has been a topic of much controversy in the modern world. Issues surrounding the life or death of a person come with many sensitive areas of concern, including financial, legal, ethical, spiritual, and medical matters. Today, physician assistedRead MoreEssay Problems with Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide1262 Words   |  6 PagesEuthanasia Problems      Ã‚  Doctors do err on cancer patients survival times, so how can they say when the time is ripe for assisted suicide. A study in the July 1 issue of Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society, finds that doctors are often wrong in predicting how long terminally ill cancer patients will live. After studying the accuracy of doctors predictions regarding 233 patients with end-of-life cancer, the researchers found most doctors had a tendency to overestimate survivalRead More Physician-assisted Suicide is Murder Essay3584 Words   |  15 Pages Jeanette Hall once had the desire to die; a desire so strong, she even asked her doctor for help. Jeanette lives in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. On July 17, 2000, Jeanette was rushed to the Portland hospital only to be given a maximum time of survival: six months. She had been diagnosed with an inoperable form of colon cancer. Jeanette had a fear of losing her job, not being able to care for her loved ones, paying h ospital bills, and suffering. It was her choice to die and was

Criminal Justice Trait Theory free essay sample

A study of trait theories as applied to the criminal justice system. This paper considers two different models of trait theories biosocial and biosocial/psychological within the context of the field of criminal justice. It describes the attempt to isolate what it is that defines human nature and human personality, in terms of what is the effect of environment and what is purely genetic in a personality. The author shows how these psychological concepts are applied to criminal rehabilitation therapy. One of the ways in which researchers have tried to answer this question is that they have attempted to isolate what it is that defines human nature and human personality. In other words, they have sought to isolate the different traits that together make up the personality. Although this approach is certainly subject to various criticisms perhaps the most important of these being that personality traits are not consistently manifested over time the trait model has remained useful in some arenas for helping people to understand human personality. We will write a custom essay sample on Criminal Justice Trait Theory or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page

The Influence of Language on Thinking

Introduction Language and how it affects the way people think and act has been a topic of discussion for a very long time with different theories being floated around. According to Gentner and Goldin-Meadow (14), the idea of language influencing thought also generally referred to as the Whorï ¬ an hypothesis, has drawn so much controversy and any advocates for this theory have been regarded by some as being so naà ¯ve or at times seen to be crazy.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on The Influence of Language on Thinking specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Marlowe (1) also argues that in studies concerning language, it is not uncommon to find people raising serious concerns about the relationship that exists between the languages that are spoken by people and the effect this has on how they end up thinking. Some theorists according to Marlowe have argued that since it is possible to have words from different languages imply the same thing, it automatically follows that the language spoken or used to write by a particular group of people will not extensively influence the way these people think (1). Still others are very much convinced that whatever differences there may be in languages can easily be eliminated if translations are done without the use of idioms to make sure that the meaning of the original text is not distorted as one does the translation to the target foreign language (Marlowe 1). According to a study done by Edward Sapir, an American linguist who also happened to be a Jewish emigrant, there are no two different languages that can be so similar to such an extent that they can imply the same in a social setup. The truth of the matter is that societies live in completely different worlds with different labels attached to them. Consequently, the way people will see and hear is a product of the habits that are associated with the language of the community they grew up in (M arlowe 1). Research has revealed that translations from one language to another tend to vary greatly from one language to language. Whereas it may be easy to carry out certain translations, there are some that are just but difficult to perform. If such translations are done tried, the outcome is usually pathetic and the originality of the translated sentences is completely lost in the process. Counter factual thinking for example has been found to be quite difficult in the Chinese language than it is in the English language. Certain constructions of English sentences can not be easily translated to the Chinese language due to the fact that the Chinese language makes it so difficult for people to think about certain scenarios (Bloom Keil 356).Advertising Looking for research paper on linguistics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This paper argues the case that language does influence thinking. Thoughts by various authors are di scussed. Effects of Language on Thought The famous Whorï ¬ an hypothesis, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as it is sometimes known, points out three key things. The first is that different languages will show variations in their semantics about the world. Secondly, the way a person’s language is ordered will have a great effect on how he or she will recognize different things in the world. Finally, the conclusion that follows from the above two statements is that people who speak different languages will see things or situations in the world very differently (Gentner Goldin-Meadow 15). These are hypothesis that for a very long time, people have argued for or against. Even though the belief that language affects a person’s thought process is regarded to be erroneous by critics of the Whorï ¬ an hypothesis, Marlowe argues that the ideas of these opponents are only a recent development and do not have a strong basis to stand on (1). He explains that the hypothesis abou t thought being influenced by language is held by many linguists worldwide and he also strongly argues that opinions that are contrary to this belief are only by a small minority and as such, they should be rejected and must never be taken seriously (Marlowe 1). In addition, a lot that has been written to challenge the fact the thought is affected by language only looks at the how the grammar associated with a particular language will have an effect on its speakers. There is no mention that is made about the vocabulary of the language and how this also has a great influence on the thought process. Apparently, meaningful end results can only be realized when studies done put both grammar and vocabulary into consideration (Marlowe 1). Gentner and Goldin-Meadow present a very interesting scenario that strongly supports the Whorï ¬ an hypothesis (15). In doing this, they considered how retelling a story in Turkey by a Turkish national greatly differed from the way an English person wi ll do the retelling one.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on The Influence of Language on Thinking specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More When a Turkish is re-telling an incident that took place, the language requires that he or she clearly states if as a matter of fact he or she actually witnessed the event or not. Although the speaker would know whether or not he or she witnessed, it is possible that one may decide not to disclose every detail of the event to the listeners. On the contrary, it is upon an English speaker to make a choice as to whether or not to disclose or leave out details about having witnessed the incident. The English language allows the person retelling the freedom to choose (Gentner Goldin-Meadow 15). Looking at this scenario, it is quite obvious to assume if these individuals are subjected to the same way of doing things over and over, then the way a Turkish national will perceive the wo rld later in life will differ substantially from how the English speaker will. This argument is in agreement with the claims of the Whorï ¬ an hypothesis. According to Munger, it is practically impossible for a group of people to understand one another if the language they are using does not offer a means of putting across their ideas to one another (1). This line of thought has, however, been challenged by detractors who are strongly convinced that there are many thoughts that can be conceived even without words being used to communicate them (Munger 1). An experiment carried out by Gary Lupyan gave results that tried to show how language undoubtedly influences the thoughts of men and women (Munger 1). The outcome of the experiment revealed that given a label for objects placed in different classes, it is very much possible for people to quickly learn how to recognize the said objects in based on the categorization. This is not so in situations where there are no labels that have been made available. The essence of the experiment was to confirm the fact that with good training any one can overcome the challenge of categorizing the objects. In a similar way, although it is quite clear that language will certainly affect the way a person thinks, the degree of influence can be altered with proper training. Therefore, as much as it is possible to learn a new language one can also become skilled at learning to have thoughts which can easily be carried from one language to another (Munger 1). Edward Sapir also wrote about language and tried to show that all languages are intertwined within their culture and are as such very tightly bound to anthropology as well as psychology (Marlowe 1). He also pointed out that thought is beyond any doubt, a product of the polished analysis of language. He is absolutely opposed to claims that people can reason out without the use of some sort of language (Marlowe 1). In other works by Edward Sapir, he argued that language has a very strong influence on all the thinking of men and women regarding social issues as well as any problems they encounter. Also, as human beings, we all have to depend on the use of a language to co-exist with others and in the absence of this it will very difficult to relate with other people (Marlowe 1).Advertising Looking for research paper on linguistics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Edward Sapir further argues that it is very wrong to regard language as simply a means of dealing with communication issues. He explains that language is indeed very critical in enabling us to find acceptance in any environment. Apparently, the world as it is known is founded on languages that characterize groups of people in different pats of the globe (Marlowe 1). Eugene Nida, also an American linguist, admits that there is a very tight link between language and culture. He argues that although people may wish to discredit Whorf’s hypothesis, it is impossible to run away from the fact that language actually does offer the basis for thinking in much the same way as the culture of a group of people plays a big role in modeling their behaviour (Marlowe 1). Formation of Thoughts from Words Bloom and Keil (354) has argued that it is very difficult to actually determine whether or not the language that one speaks will have any effect on how he or she will think later in life. Som e examples have been used to show how ideas can easily be formed by the words that we use to communicate. These examples try to establish how the language factor is very vital when it comes to shaping a person’s thought process. After the revolutions that took place in France and Russia, the use of certain words had to be brought to an end so as not to promote hostile thoughts that were considered to be unpatriotic (Bloom Keil 355). Similar concerns like these have been seen in various debates touching on the sexist language and linguists have argued that the use of words such as ‘mankind’ and ‘he’ in situations where one could refer to both sexes is to blame for the controlling the way people look at males and females in the society (Bloom Keil 355). There is also an argument touching on how the Eskimos perceive snow and this is contrasted with how the English people will perceive it. While the Eskimos have various words for snow, the English peop le only have one; they know snow as being simply snow and nothing else. The many words used by the Eskimos thus make them think of snow very differently from many other people who have only one word for snow (Bloom Keil 354). Another example that has been cited touches on the way people perceive color. There are some people who have used the concept of color to try and show that language has such a big influence on how people think. They have argued that whereas English speaking people will be more aware of the differences that are associated with the blue and green colors, speakers of other languages who only have one meaning for color will not experience similar problems. This claim has however been refuted and considered a fallacy by cross-cultural researchers who believe that this can not be the case since all people are known to recognize and classify color in the same manner. These researchers are very much convinced that we all use the same color system that is totally indep endent of the different languages we could be using to communicate (Bloom Keil 355). Marlowe (1) also argues that people must use words properly so as to communicate effectively. If words are not correctly used, there is a danger of passing on ideas that one does not believe in. This is a challenge that can easily be addressed by ensuring that one pays careful attention to how he or she communicates thoughts to other people (Marlowe 1). Marlowe also points out that even though Plato did not widely talk about the effect that language has on the thought process, this can be deduced by reading his writings. In his works, Plato tried so much to show that words are closely linked to both ideas and reality. Plato also explained that quite often, people will fail to communicate appropriately by making use of words that are not well figured out (1). As a consequence, it is very important for people to define and understand their words well before using them to pass a message. A further arg ument is presented by Munger (1) who claims that the words that are available to be used in a particular language play a major role in shaping the way that people will understand different things and situations around the world. As an example, Munger explains that a language that does not provide a way to identify numbers that go beyond ten will subject its speakers to a view about the world that is completely different from that of speakers whose languages have a complete system of numbering (Munger 1). Conclusion Based on the discussion above, it seems very difficult to isolate language and thought. The two are inseparable and clearly, language plays a very critical role in shaping the thought process of men and women. As one grows up, the language and the environment they interact with tends to control their perception of things around the world. Detractors of Whorï ¬ an hypothesis need to carry out more research and present much stronger views if they are to challenge what mos t professional linguists have for a long time, regard as true. Works Cited Bloom, Paul Keil, Frank C. Thinking through Language. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001. Web. Gentner, Dedre Goldin-Meadow, Susan. Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 2003. Web. Marlowe, Michael. The Effect of Language upon Thinking. New Philadelphia, Ohio: Bible-researcher.com. 2004. Web. Munger, Dave. Language Doesn’t Influence our Thoughts †¦ Except when it does. New York: Science Blogs LLC. 2008. Web. This research paper on The Influence of Language on Thinking was written and submitted by user The Fury to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Guns, Germs and Steel essays

Guns, Germs and Steel essays As Jared Diamond, a biologist, was doing research on tropical birds in New Guinea, he spoke with a local politician named Yali. The spoke about the origins of their peoples and about the commodities that Europeans brought to New Guinea such as steel, clothing, various food, etc...Yali then posed the question of why Europeans had so much to bring and that the people of New Guinea and people like them did not. Yalis question goes to the heart of the question to the modern world; why are there such inequalities in the modern world regarding wealth and how did it evolve. In attempting to answer this question, Diamond touches on several factors that are woven into the answer such as food production, domesticated plants and animals, metallurgy, weapons, communication, and better political organization. These factors are crucial element in the development of the world we presently live in. An example of how different societies had an obvious advantage over each other is exemplified in the encounter between Francisco Pizarro and the Inca emperor, Atahuallpa. This meeting illustrates the basic advantages which the Europeans enjoyed over much of the world at this time. Pizarros victory over the Incas is an perfect representation of how the culmination of many centuries of developments had given Europeans an obvious advantage. Diamond's basic hypothesis is that the Europeans were not "superior in any innate sense over the Incas or Aztecs, but more blessed by geography and nature. The advantages enabled whites to conquer non-whites easily; not only by means of technological advances or the use of large animals as weapons but also the influx of diseases that are developed in concentrated and sedentary societies. After the emergence of humans from our species from African apes, humans spread from Africa throughout the world. The societies that were prevalent at that time were that of hunter-gatherers. Around that ti...

Eastern Connecticut State University Admissions

Eastern Connecticut State University Admissions Eastern Connecticut State University Admissions Overview: 58% of applicants are accepted to Eastern Connecticut State University each year, making it an accessible school to many. Applicants will need solid grades and an impressive resume/application to be admitted. To apply, prospective students may use the Common Application, or can visit the schools website for Easterns application form. Additional materials include high school transcripts, letters of recommendations, and (optional) scores from the SAT or ACT. Admissions Data (2016): Eastern Connecticut State Acceptance Rate: 58%Test Scores 25th / 75th PercentileSAT Critical Reading: - / -SAT Math: - / -SAT Writing: - / -What these SAT numbers meanCompare SAT scores for Connecticut collegesACT Composite: - / -ACT English: - / -ACT Math: - / -Compare ACT scores for Connecticut colleges Eastern Connecticut State University Description: Eastern Connecticut State University, often called simply Eastern, is the designated  public liberal arts college  of the Connecticut State University System. The 182-acre wooded campus is located in Willimantic, about 30 minutes from Hartford and 45 minutes from Providence. Both Boston and New York City are easily accessible. The university has a largely undergraduate focus and takes pride in the broad liberal arts foundation of its academic programs. Undergraduates can choose from 35 majors with business and psychology being most popular. Academics are supported by a 15 to 1 student / faculty ratio and an average class size of 23. For motivated and self-directed students who want a major that brings together multiple disciplines, Eastern offers a popular individualized major. Life on campus is active with over 60 student clubs and organizations, and on the athletic front the Eastern Warriors compete in the NCAA Division III Little East Conference. The university fields seven me ns and ten womens intercollegiate sports. Enrollment (2016): Total Enrollment: 5,362  (5,171 undergraduates)Gender Breakdown: 44% Male / 56% Female83% Full-time Costs (2016 - 17): Tuition and Fees: $10,500  (in-state); $23,361 (out-of-state)Books: $1,000 (why so much?)Room and Board: $12,559Other Expenses: $2,251Total Cost: $26,310  (in-state); $39,171 (out-of-state) Eastern Connecticut State University Financial Aid (2015- 16): Percentage of New Students Receiving Aid: 92%Percentage of New Students Receiving Types of AidGrants: 77%Loans: 76%Average Amount of AidGrants: $7,111Loans: $7,121 Academic Programs: Most Popular Majors:  Accounting, Art, Biology, Business, Communication, English, General Studies, Individualized Major, Psychology, Social Work, Sociology Graduation and Retention Rates: First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 76%4-Year Graduation Rate: 42%6-Year Graduation Rate: 54% Intercollegiate Athletic Programs: Mens Sports:  Soccer, Lacrosse, Basketball, Track and Field, Baseball, Cross CountryWomens Sports:  Track and Field, Lacrosse, Softball, Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming, Cross Country, Basketball, Field Hockey   Data Source: National Center for Educational Statistics If You Like Eastern, You May Also Like These Schools: Roger Williams University: ProfileRhode Island College: ProfileAlbertus Magnus College: Profile  Southern Connecticut State University: Profile  Mitchell College: Profile  University of Hartford: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphUniversity of Bridgeport: Profile  Yale University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphEndicott College: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphUniversity of Rhode Island: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT Graph

Land Rover and its Business System Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Land Rover and its Business System - Case Study Example Now finally the Land Rover is working under the hands of Tata Motors from 2008. (Land Rover confirms grant offer to build a new model, March 2009) (Land Rover Company Profile, April 2009). At present, the company is all set to start its revolutionary project of making the smallest, lightest and most fuel-efficient car that Land Rover has ever built, based on the LRX concept vehicle displayed in the auto show at Detroit last year. The project has got the grand welcome by the UK government by a stimulus package of  £27 million in the month of April, as a support to the UK auto industry whose sales has gone down by 30% in the second half of 2008 and as per the analysis report the situation yet takes some more time to get back to the same level. Phil Popham, the managing director of Land Rover, said: "At the moment we are planning on the assumption that it will be a couple of years before the industry starts to improve drastically, and maybe five years before returning to the pre-credit crunch trends we were seeing globally in the motor industry." (Arnott S., April 2009). The project is going to cost around  £400 million and is to be started by the year-end in Halewood, on Merseyside. The project is primarily taken up due to the shift of the global auto industry towards green cars to check the global warming and also is a part of raising efforts towards making more fuel efficient and cost effective cars. The prevailing economic recession which has made consumers more cautious about their spending and other related factors have driven the demand for lighter, relatively low priced, fuel efficient and environmentally friendly cars. Under European law, automakers have to cut carbon emission of new vehicles by 19% within a period of five years (Arnott S., April 2009). But, Jaguar-Land Rover under sustainability programme is expecting to cut the same by 25%.  The parent company of Land Rover has already taken the initiative to make the world’s lowest cost car â€Å"Nano† (Scanlon J., March 2009).

Study of protocols in a VoIP network Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Study of protocols in a VoIP network - Essay Example These applications later came out with voice conversation features in which users utilize computer headsets or IP telephone handsets in communicating with one another. Services like call forwarding, conference calling, voicemail, contact management and directory assistance were later added and paved the way for the creation of a new revolutionary technology - Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP. This development has captured the attention of telecom regulators and operators who have now started to embrace the technology as one of their mainstream services. The two most popular protocols, H.323 and SIP will be discussed in this report. H.323 is a standard for the transmission of real-time audio, video, and data information over IP-based networks. The standard contains specifications on the components, protocols, and procedures required in providing multimedia communication over local-area networks (LANs), metropolitan-area networks (MANs), wide-area networks (WANs) and even enterprise networks (ENs). Applications of H.323 may include IP telephony (audio only), videotelephony (audio and video), audio+ data and audio+video+data. H.323 can also be used for point-to-point or point-to-multipoint-multimedia communications like videoconferencing. Based on these applications, it can be seen that the standard can be utilized in a wide market segment - from consumer to enterprise to telco services. The H.3 Versions The H.323 standard is specified by the ITU-T Study Group 16. Version 1 was formulated in 1996 and refers to visual telephone systems and equipment for LANs that provide a nonguaranteed quality of service (QoS). It is geared more for consumer applications via LANs and the Internet. Version 2 of the standard was formulated in 1998 to accommodate the introduction of new voice-over-IP (VoIP) applications and IP telephony. The absence of a governing standard for these applications resulted to incompatibility of PC-based equipment and PBX or PSTN-based peripherals, so the new H.323 version was defined. At present, there are moves to add new specifications to the standard for new applications like fax-over-IP networks, gatekeeper-to-gatekeeper communications, and fast-connection mechanisms. This will pave the way for Version 3 of the standard. Components The H.323 standard specifies four kinds of components: 1. Terminals. An H.323 terminal can either be a personal computer (PC) or a stand-alone device, running the multimedia applications. It primarily supports audio communications but can optionally support video or data communications. The primary goal of H.323 is to interface standard-defined equipment with other multimedia terminals. 2. Gateways. A gateway refers to the equipment used to provide connectivity between an H.323 network and a non-H.323 network. The H.323 network can consist of PCs and PC-based peripherals while a non-H.323 network can refer to a PBX or PSTN network. In order to achieve connectivity between these two dissimilar networks, translating protocols were developed for traditional telephony features like call setup and release. It should be noted that a gateway is not required for communication between two H.323 terminals within an H.323 network. 3. Gatekeepers. A gatekeeper is necessary if an H.323 network will be implemented with services such as billing, addressing, call-routing, bandwidth management and authorization and

Explain the importance of Curleys Wife in the novel Essay Example for Free

Explain the importance of Curleys Wife in the novel Essay Plan: * Symbols red lipstick * Not given a name Curleys wife may seem an insignificant character because she has not even been given a name by Steinbeck. Her name suggests that she is nothing more than one of Curleys possessions. When she first appears in the novel, she is dressed up as if she is planning on going out into town, rather than just spending her day wandering around the ranch. The image of her being a sex object is emphasised by the fact that Curley keeps a glove fulla Vaseline, for her benefit. However, Curleys wife is influential to the book as she characterises loneliness, the longing for the American dream, danger and sexism. Her appearances in the novel are extremely important at they change the entire mood of the scene in which she appears in. We see that the first time we are introduced to Curleys wife, she is heavily made up; full, rouged lips, red fingernails and red mules. The colour red symbolises danger and sexiness, and the fact that she is wearing these items creates a sense of foreboding that she will be the cause of George and Lennies failure to achieve their dream of having their own plot of land. Another symbol is shown by the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off. This immediately creates a sense of danger and doom in the readers mind due to the absence of light. However, we can see that the reason for Curleys wife being flirtatious is because she wants to get away from the loneliness that surrounds her. By flirting, it means she can communicate with other men who otherwise would not talk to her because they do not want any trouble with Curley. However, by being flirtatious, she actually increases the hostility of the other men on the ranch as they become suspicious. We can see that she tells Lennie; I get lonelyAint I got the right to talk to nobody? However, she then explains the reason behind her flirtatious nature; I cant talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. However, we actually see that the marriage between them is already starting to break down because Curley thinks that his wife is givin Slim the eye. Curleys wife is also important as she conveys the theme of sexism. We see that Curley, who keeps his hand soft for her, regards her as a sexual object. Instead of showing any consideration towards his wife, Curley only wants to increase his sexual prowess. The only way in which Curleys wife can talk to other men is by; dolling up. However, when she does this, they talk even less to her, driving her behaviour further. Therefore, she remains excluded from everyone. We even see that Whit regards Susy higher than Curleys wife; a laugh and hell of a nice place. This is a rare time when any woman in the novel is actually shown any kindness, and a complement. Curelys wife, as with many of the other characters, wants to live out the American dream; Coulda been in the movies. It is this dream that drives and compels her to carry on with her otherwise miserable life on the ranch. However, her sudden death shatters her only hope of being able to get away from ranch life, where she is clearly not happy. We can see that the shattering of her dream is mirrored exactly by the death of Lennie, ending the dream for George and Candy. This shows that because she failed living the American dream, it is an ominous foreboding of the fate for George and Lennie. Curleys wife also plays an essential part in the novel, as she plays crucial parts in changing the mood of the scene. When she is first introduced, hope created by the arrival of Candy is wiped out and the reader gets an ominous warning, which is emphasised by Georges caution to Lennie; you keep away from herjail bait. Furthermore, when Curleys wife arrives in chapter four, the excited mood created by wanting to achieve the American dream, changes to a more melancholy mood. We can see that because Curleys wife is lonely all the time, she has turned into a spiteful and vicious person; a nigger and a dum dum an a lousy ol sheep.

The Role of the Media in Rwandas Violence Essay -- History Media Viol

Many situations and acts that are unacceptable need a stressor. Stressors are situations and/or events that lead to a catastrophic outcome, such as the Rwanda genocide. The tension between both the Hutu and Tutsi already existed; it only needed something to reach its breaking point – a stressor. On April 6, 1994, the plane that occupied Juvenal Habyarimana, President of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamina, President of Burundi crashed due to unexplained circumstances. Over the next three months in Rwanda after the crash carrying both Presidents, mass killings began to occur. The kill count escaladed dramatically leaving one million Rwandans dead and two million seeking refugee status among its neighbors: Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi (Kellow and Steeves 1998). This stressor is a key contribution to the events that followed; the Rwandan Genocide. â€Å"The rise in tension and violence, the wide distribution of arms to civilians and militia, and the increasingly vehement anit-Tutsi p ropaganda broadcast by Radio Libre de Mille Collines, all indicated the growing potency of ethnic hatred† (Uvin 1998, 83-84). Ethnic hatred centered on the hostility and segregation towards a particular group, in this case the Tutsi. The use of fear, rumor, and panic enabled the unsteady decline of trust between the Hutu and the Tutsi, which eventually escaladed to pure ethnic hatred (Kellow and Steeves, 1998; Straus, 2007; Uvin, 1998). The role of the media in the Rwandan genocide contributed to further violence and hatred among the Hutu and the Tutsi residents. One of the ways in which information could be obtained throughout Rwanda that was easily accessible was through public broadcasting particularly the radio. Through radio broadcasting it enables the public... ... Rwanda before RTLM took over its frequency during the early stages of the genocide (Thompson 2007, 390). Once again media is not the cause for the genocide but rather a tool that is used in advancing its devastation on a nation at a rapid rate. Works Cited Kellow, Christine L, and H. Leslie Steeves. "The Role of Radio in the Rwandan Genocide." Journal of Communication, 1998: 107-128. Li, Darryl. "Echoes of Violence: Consideration on Radio and Genocide in Rwanda." Journal of Genocide Research, 2004: 9-27. Straus, Scott. "What is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking Rwanda's "Radio Machete"." Politics & Society , 2007: 609-637. Thompson, Allan. The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. London: Pluto Press, 2007. Uvin, Peter. Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda. Connecticut: Kumarian Press, Inc, 1998.

Rational Performance Testing

Hello World: Rational Performance Tester Get to the bottom of application performance issues Skill Level: Intermediate Dennis Schultz (dennis. [email  protected] ibm. com) Marketing Engineer IBM 12 Mar 2007 This tutorial in the Hello World series introduces you to IBM ® Rational ® Performance Tester and highlights its basic features. Practical, hands-on exercises teach you how to record automated performance tests, use data-driven techniques to ensure randomization, play-back tests, and evaluate real-time performance reports.Upon completing the tutorial you will be able to use Rational Performance Tester to determine the cause of performance problems in your applications. Section 1. Before you start About this series The Hello World series is for novice developers who want a high-level, hands-on overview of IBM software products. Each tutorial in the series provides simple exercises and step-by-step instructions to familiarize you with the components and use of a particular pro duct. Upon completing a tutorial in the Hello World series you will know enough about the product to begin exploring and using it on your own.About this tutorial This tutorial uses hands-on exercises to familiarize you with Rational Performance Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 1 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Tester. Step-by-step instructions teach you how to record an automated performance test, enhance the test using built-in data-driven techniques, play-back the test as part of a performance schedule, and evaluate real-time reports to determine the root cause of a performance problem. The maximum estimated running time for the tutorial is three hours. ObjectivesAfter completing this tutorial you should understand the basic functions of Rational Performance Tester and be able to use it to discover and analyze performance problems in your applications. Prerequisites This tutorial is for testers new to test automation and unfamiliar with Rational Performance Tester. As you are taking the tutorial, you can practice the steps yourself if you have access to the environment the tutorial requires. If you don't have access to the environment, you can still read the tutorial and view the animated demos. You just won't be able to try the steps for yourself.The easiest way to access the tutorial environment is through the Rational Performance Tester online trial system created for the tutorial. The trial system uses the Citrix Access Platform to provide you with a connection from your workstation to a remote server running Rational Performance Tester, WebSphere Application Server 6. 0, and the sample application to be tested. If you choose to set up the tutorial environment on your own machine, please use the Hello World: Rational Performance Tester (for downloadable trial code) version of this tutorial that is written for this purpose.In order to view the animated demos for the tutorial you must enable JavaScript in your browser and install Macromedia Flash Player 6 or higher. Animated demos If this is your first encounter with a developerWorks tutorial that includes animated demos you might want to know a few things about them: †¢ Demos are an optional way to see the steps described in the tutorial done for you. To view an animated demo, click the given Show me link and the demo will open in a new browser window. †¢ Each demo contains a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen.Use the navigation bar to pause, exit, rewind, or fast-forward portions of the demo. Rational Performance Tester Page 2 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® †¢ The demos are 800 x 600 pixels. If this is the maximum resolution of your screen or if your resolution is lower than this then you will have to scroll to see some areas of the demo. †¢ You must have JavaScript enabled in your browser and Macromedia Flash Player 6 or higher installed to view the demos. Section 2. Getting started Overview of Rational Performance TesterIBM Rational Performance Tester, hereafter known as Performance Tester, is a performance test creation, execution, and analysis tool that helps development teams validate the scalability and reliability of their Web-based applications before deployment. Many of Performance Tester's features have been explicitly designed with the novice load tester in mind. Performance Tester allows you to use one of several Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, or Firefox) to test a Web-based application. The results of your interaction are captured and recorded on the operating system of your choice (Windows or Linux).The test is presented in a concise tree-based editor that is capable of exposing underlying details to the expert on an â€Å"as needed† basis. Test scripts are then grouped together in various combinations to reflect the multiple types of user that comprise the projected user population. You can specify the number of simulated system users at execution time. Test execution is accompanied by easy-to-read, real-time reports that update throughout the test run. Bottlenecks based on metrics such as round-trip performance, transaction rates, and system diagnostics are highlighted in these reports.You can also use Performance Tester to further identify the root cause of poor performance problems from the hardware- or software-component level through advanced resource monitoring and response-time tracking. Although this tutorial focuses on testing a J2EE, Web-based application, you can use Performance Tester to test any Web-based application. You can also extend Performance Tester to test the performance of additional application types such as Siebel, SAP, and Citrix (see Resources). Setting up the tutorial environment Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008.All rights reserved. Page 3 of 26 develop erWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks As previously mentioned, the easiest way to access this tutorial is through the online trial system developed using the Citrix Access Platform. The trial system gives you free access to Performance Tester, WebSphere Application Server 6. 0, and the Adventure Builder sample application, and minimizes your installation and configuration time for the tutorial. Once you have registered for the online trial system, installed the Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server, and logged into the server, you are ready to begin.Performance Tester will launch in a Citrix client session and will appear just as if it were running on your local desktop. You can interact with it just as you would if it were installed locally. The countdown clock on the Rational Test Drive Environment Web page will keep track of the time remaining in your session. If you choose to set up the tutorial environment locally you will need to install and configure Rational Performance Tester and WebSphere Application Server 6. 0 in your workstation. Note that the Adventure Builder sample application used by this tutorial is only available with WebSphere Application Server 6. , not 6. 1. You should also allow additional time to create and configure a project in which to store your test artifacts before starting. The tutorial is written from the assumption that you are using the online trial system. Performance Tester and Eclipse Performance Tester is based on the open-source Eclipse platform. Eclipse provides a rich working environment for many tools, both open source and commercial, including many of the offerings of the Rational Software Delivery Platform such as Rational Software Architect, Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software, and Rational Functional Tester (see Resources).This provides a common user experience for tooling across the software development life cycle. Not only are these tools all based on Eclipse, but often times they actually share th e same shell. In other words, the capability of each of these tools is presented to the user as a new perspective in the same shell. A perspective is a consolidation of tools and views focused on one particular task. The perspective for Performance Tester is known as the Test perspective. As the name implies, the Test perspective provides views that are needed by a developer or QA professional focused on testing a software application or system.The tutorial workspace and sample projects Assuming you are using the online trial system, Performance Tester will be associated to a pre-configured workspace. A workspace can be any directory location where your work is stored. In your case, this workspace contains two projects. The first project is the Adventure Builder Application. This project contains the source code for the Adventure Builder sample application you will be testing. The application has already been deployed to WebSphere Application Server on the online trial system. The p roject is only in your workspace so that Rational Performance Tester Page 4 of 26 Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® Performance Tester can navigate to the source code later when you are attempting to find the root cause of a performance bottleneck. The second project, Adventure Builder Performance Tests, is the test project you will use to store your tests, datapools, schedules, and results. If you expand the project, you will see several folders used to organize your test assets. You can add, remove, and customize folders as you like. There isn't much to examine in this project yet. You will look more closely at it once you have recorded a test.Figure 1. A Performance Tester workspace viewed in the Test Navigator Section 3. Record a test scenario Performance tests are most often created by recording your manual interactions with the system under test. In this section of the tutorial, you will use the automated HTTP recorder to capture the scenario of interacting with the Adventure Builder sample application to construct a vacation package and purchase it. The Adventure Builder application is already running in the online trial environment. All you need to do is connect to it through a Web browser while the recorder is engaged.Browser support Although you are using Internet Explorer in this tutorial, Performance Tester can work with any Web browser that supports SOCKS proxies. Performance Tester can automatically launch Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Firefox. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 5 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show Start the recorder 1. Start the recorder by clicking Create a Test from Recording on the toolbar . This opens the Create New Test From Recording window.Figure 2. The Create New Test From Recording window 2. Select H TTP Recording and click Next. Rational Performance Tester Page 6 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 3. 4. On the next page of the wizard, select Adventure Builder Performance Tests > Tests as the location to create the file. Enter PurchaseIslandAdventure as the test-file name and click Finish. Figure 3. The Create New Test From Recording window, page 2 5. The recorder is engaged and Internet Explorer is launched to the â€Å"Welcome to Performance Testing† page.Clear the cache of temporary files by selecting Internet Explorer Tools > Internet Options †¦. Under Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Cookies and confirm. Then click Delete Files. Check Delete all offline content and click OK to confirm. Click OK to dismiss the Internet Options window. 6. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 7 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWor ks 7. Launch the Adventure Builder application by clicking the Adventure Builder button in the Internet Explorer Links toolbar. Figure 4. Launch the Adventure Builder applicationNavigate the application Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show Now that the recorder is engaged, you will navigate the application just as you normally would. 1. In the left navigation area of the page, click Island Adventures. Figure 5. Island Adventures link 2. Here you see an expanded list of island adventure trips. From the submenu on the Available Adventure Packages page, click Maui Survival Adventure. Figure 6. Maui Survival Adventure link Rational Performance Tester Page 8 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks eveloperWorks ® 3. This page shows you the options available for the package you have chosen. Click Select Package on the right side of the Adventure Package Details page. You are taken to the Packa ge Options page. Here you can personalize your vacation package by changing the number of people, start date, number of days, etc. For now, just accept the defaults by clicking Set Package Options. On the Adventure Package Details page, click I Will Provide My Own Transportation. On the Adventure Package page, click Checkout. Let's keep it simple for now: on the Sign On page, click Sign In as a returning customer.On the Enter Order Details page, scroll to the bottom and click Submit. After a moment, you will be taken to the Checkout page. Here you should see your order ID. Figure 7. The Order ID link on the Checkout page 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 9 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Note that your order ID will be unique and will not be exactly as shown here. Wait for several seconds after the checkout page loads, then check on the status of your order by clicking on the Order ID l ink. 10.Once the Order Tracking Results page loads, close the browser. This will cause Performance Tester to begin generating the test based on the traffic it has captured. Section 4. Review and customize the test Performance Tester generates a test based on the HTTP traffic it captured during the recording. The test is much more than a simple HTTP trace log, however. Behind the scenes, Performance Tester does a lot of processing to create a test that is robust, extensible, and easy to maintain. In this section, you will examine the generated test in greater detail and customize it to use unique data.Examine the test Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show The test is represented in a tree format in the left portion of the Test Editor view. Each top-level node in the tree represents a Web page visited during your recording session. The name of the node is based on the name of the Web page. Figure 8. The Test Contents tree view Rational Performan ce Tester Page 10 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 1. Expand the Welcome to the Adventure Builder Reference application node.Here is where the advanced performance test engineer can see all the details of the transactions behind the page. The first element is highlighted in blue to indicate that it is the primary request — the request for the page HTML contents. Figure 9. The expanded page in the Test Contents tree view 2. Click on the Protocol Data view in the bottom portion of the window, then Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 11 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks click on the primary request highlighted in blue in the tree.The details of the request and its corresponding response are shown in the Request, Response Headers, and Response Content tabs of the Protocol Data view. The Browser tab even renders the contents of the selected element. Figure 10. The Browser tab in the Protocol Data view 3. Detailed information about the selected element is also presented in the right-hand portion of the Test Editor view. You can edit this data if you need to change the host, URL, request header values, or any other field. Automatic data correlation Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me ShowWeb applications tend to be highly dynamic. For example, in the scenario you recorded you placed an order for a vacation package and were given a unique order ID. You then used that order ID to check the status of your purchase. When you play-back this test, it will place another order and you will be given a different order ID. You would want Performance Tester to check the status of that new order ID, not the one you previously recorded. For that reason, Performance Tester performs automatic data correlation. That is, it looks at data parameters sent to the server and matches them up w ith prior response data from the server.Accessing the correlated data is easy. Rational Performance Tester Page 12 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 1. Highlight the Order Tracking Results node in the Test Contents area of the Performance Test view. Now right-click inside the Test Data area to the right and select Show References. Notice that the orderId field is being substituted with data from a prior response. Figure 11. Show References for data correlation 2. Double-click orderId. This takes you to the URL of the actual request for that page.Figure 12. Correlated data in the URL of a request 3. Right-click the highlighted string and select Go To. This takes you directly to the orderId value in the response text of the Checkout request. During test playback, Performance Tester will substitute the orderId value it receives in this response for the orderId in the request for order tracking. Figure 13. Co rrelated data in the prior response Granted, you now know far more than you probably wanted to know about data correlation; but that is the beauty of Performance Tester: it does all this for youRational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 13 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks without any hand coding or other effort on your part. Randomize the data Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show In performance testing it is essential to be able to randomize the data being sent to the server. Modern Web applications have many layers of caching. If you were to emulate a thousand users using the application doing exactly the same thing, you would not observe typical performance behavior.Once the first emulated user performed the transaction, all the subsequent users would be drawing information from the cache. For this reason, performance test engineers often spend much of their time configur ing tests to pull random data from a â€Å"datapool† so that each emulated user uses unique information. Performance Tester automatically identifies likely candidates for datapool access and makes it possible to associate these fields with data sources you provide. 1. Select the Enter Adventure Package Details page node in the test contents. Notice in the Test Data area the start_month, start_year, and start_day parameters.These were the default values in the Options page, which were subsequently transmitted back to the server when the Set Package Options button was clicked. Figure 14. Datapool candidates 2. 3. 4. Set up a datapool to randomize the values used by your virtual users when you play-back this test. Select start_month in the Test Data area. Click Substitute From below the Test Data area. Select Datapool Value†¦. Figure 15. Substitute start_month from the datapool variable Rational Performance Tester Page 14 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks eveloperWorks ® 5. 6. 7. Click Add Datapool on the â€Å"Select datapool† column window. You will add an association to an existing datapool to this test. Select the existing VacationStartDates datapool and click Select. Back in the â€Å"Select datapool† column window, select start_month and click Use Column. Note that the â€Å"Substituted with† column next to the start_month variable now has a reference to the datapool column. Select start_year in the Test Data area. Repeat the process. This time you will not need to add the datapool reference; just select start_year and click Use Column.Repeat the above procedure for start_day. The three variable rows should be highlighted in green to indicate they are being substituted from the datapool and should show references in the â€Å"Substituted with† column. Figure 16. Variables substituted with datapool variables 8. 9. 10. Press Ctrl-S to save the test when finis hed. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 15 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks Section 5. Schedule a workload One of the keys to a successful performance test is the ability to accurately model the anticipated system workload.Software systems typically have various types of users that perform varied tasks. Performance Tester provides a graphical interface to enable you to model your user activities. Create a schedule Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show 1. Expand the Schedules folder and double-click the AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule to open it in the Schedule Editor view. This is a schedule that has been partially completed for you. Figure 17. AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule in Test Navigator view 2. Two user groups have already been defined in this schedule.As you can see from the annotations on the Schedule Contents, browsers represent 20 percent of your emula ted users while buyers represent 80 percent. Figure 18. Schedule Contents shows defined user groups Rational Performance Tester Page 16 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 3. Expand the Browsers user group and all contained elements in the Schedule Contents. Figure 19. Details of the Browsers user group Performance Tester offers many advanced constructs to help you test the impact of a realistic load on your system.The hierarchy under the Browsers user group can be interpreted as follows: Each browser will peruse three adventure packages. Browsers will randomly choose to look at either mountain adventures or western adventures but are twice as likely to look at mountain adventures. The action of browsing the adventure category is emulated by tests that were recorded in much the same way you recorded your test. After looking at each category, a browser will wait 1000 milliseconds before browsing another cate gory. 4. The Buyers group has not been completed.Use the test you recorded earlier as an implementation for the Buyers test. Click the Buyers user group. Click Add ; Test and select PurchaseIslandAdventure from the Select Performance Tests window. Save the AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule. 5. Section 6. Run an automated performance test Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 17 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks In this section you will learn how to execute your test against the Adventure Builder application and monitor the results. Launch the test Animated demoWould you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show 1. Select the topmost node in the Schedule Contents — that is, the AdventureBuilderLoadTest node. A number of execution options are available in the tabs on the right-hand portion of the Performance Schedule Editor view. You can specify the number of users you want to emulate in the N umber of users field on the General tab. Since the user groups in this schedule have been defined in terms of percentages, Performance Tester will do all the adjustments for you each time you change the size of your schedule. Leave the Number of users set to 5.The online trial environment is configured for a maximum of five emulated users and attempting to run with more users will result in a license error. Click Run on the toolbar. This launches your performance test. Figure 20. Run button on the toolbar 2. Monitor the test Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show While your test is running, you can monitor its progress in near real-time. The Overall tab of the Performance Report view will show you test progress in the bar across the top. The bar graph will show the status code success rate for pages and elements.Both should show 100%. While the test is running you can browse the various tabs on the report to see what is happening. 1. Select the Summary tab along the bottom of the report. Basic statistics about the test run, pages, and page elements are given here. Note that these statistics will continue to update until the run has completed. Rational Performance Tester Page 18 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® 2. 3. Select the Page Performance tab. This tab presents a bar graph of the average page response time for the 10 pages with the highest times.Feel free to browse through the other report pages. The default information presented is relatively easy to read and gives you quick insights into the performance of Adventure Builder application. Note that the graph on the Resources tab will be blank: this is expected. When the test has finished (note the progress bar on the Overall tab), go back to the Page Performance tab. You should notice that the Checkout page is considerably slower than any of the other pages. 4. Section 7. Analyze the root cause At this point, you have successfully used Performance Tester to uncover a performance problem in your application.The next question you will ask yourself is, â€Å"What is causing the problem? † To get to the bottom of this question you will use Performance Tester's Root Cause Analysis facilities. In this section, you will re-run your test with additional data collection tools engaged. The additional information will help you determine if you are facing a hardware or software issue and drill down to the root cause of the performance bottleneck. Engage resource monitoring Animated demo Would you like to see these steps demonstrated for you? me Show 1. 2. 3. Double-click the AdventureBuilderLoadTest schedule in the Test Navigator view.Revisit some of the additional execution controls on the schedule: start by selecting the top node of the Schedule Contents again. Select the Resource Monitoring tab in the Schedule Element Details area. Resource monitoring enables Performa nce Tester to log any system parameter from Windows perfmon, Unix or Linux rstatd, or Tivoli Monitoring. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 19 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks 4. 5. Check Enable resource monitoring. Click Add New†¦ to define a new server on which to monitor resources.Note that you may need to scroll down the right portion of the Performance Schedule view to see the button. In the Resource Monitoring window, enter localhost as the host name. Check Windows Performance Monitor. Note that in this trial environment, the Web server, application server, and Performance Tester system are all running on a single machine: localhost. This is, of course, not a realistic situation. In a true performance testing environment, you can define any machines that might be part of your application or test system. Select the Resources tab. After a few seconds, you can see the extensive list of counters ava ilable.To keep it simple, deselect all counters except Memory > Pages/sec and Processor > % Processor Time. Click OK to close the Resource Monitoring window. 6. 7. 8. Engage Response Time Breakdown 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Select the Response Time Breakdown tab in the Schedule Element Details area of the Performance Schedule. Check Enable collection of response time data. This enables Performance Tester's response-time data collection infrastructure. Since you know the only test that actually visits the Checkout page is PurchaseIslandAdventure, select only that test. In the Options area, set the Detail level to High.Save the schedule by pressing Ctrl-S. Click the Run button on the toolbar again. Performance Tester launches the test just as before, but this time with resource monitoring and response-time breakdown collection engaged. Examine resource-utilization data 1. While the performance schedule is executing, select the Resources tab Rational Performance Tester Page 20 of 26  © Copyr ight IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® on the Performance Report. This time, you'll see data for the resources you chose to collect in the schedule. Figure 21. The Resources tab on the Performance Report . The data you see here, although accurate, is not really representative of a typical load test. In this trial environment, the Performance Tester load generation, Web server, application server, and database server are all running on a single machine. You would normally track resources on each tier of your application. In addition, the load test you just ran was of very short duration. Normally, performance tests will be significantly longer, allowing the systems to reach a steady state. Nonetheless, the trial system gives you a sense of how easy it is to track resource utilization during a performance test.If you have a concern, you can now go to the Response vs. Time Detail tab, right-click on the graph, and click Add/Remo ve Performance Counters to overlay resource counters onto page response data. This helps you visually correlate any spikes in resource utilization with page activity. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 21 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks 3. Since it doesn't appear that the performance issue with Adventure Builder is hardware related, use the response-time breakdown data to find out if it is software related.Examine the response-time breakdown data 1. 2. Select the Page Performance tab of the Performance Report. Drill down into what went on behind the scenes for the Checkout page. Right-click on the bar in the graph for the Checkout page and choose Display Response Time Breakdown Statistics†¦. Select the /ab/checkout. do URL from the Selection Wizard and click Finish. The Response Time Breakdown Statistics view lists methods called on the server tiers of the Adventure Builder application. There are var ious ways to examine this information.Switch to the Tree Layout view using the Layout button in the upper-right corner of the view. Figure 22. The Tree Layout view 3. 4. Now sort by descending cumulative time by clicking twice on the Cumulative Time column header. Find the root cause of the problem The top node labeled rationaltd represents the machine. In this trial, all system-under-test and test-harness components are running on a single machine. In a real-world test, you would likely see multiple machines listed. The second-level node labeled J2EE/WebSphere†¦ is the WebSphere application server component.From the information here, you can quickly see that the J2EE facet type consuming the most cumulative time is the Servlet. 1. Expand the Servlet node and the com. sun. j2ee. blueprints. waf. controller. web package, and the Rational Performance Tester Page 22 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® Mai nServlet class nodes. This tells you that the four invocations of the doPost method in the MainServlet class consumed 42. 113 seconds. Note that your actual values will probably differ. Figure 23.Response time of the doPost method of MainServlet 2. Right-click the doPost method and choose Open Source. Well, what do you know — you have located the source of your performance problem! Figure 24. A sleep statement in the source code Section 8. Summary This tutorial has introduced you to IBM Rational Performance Tester. In a very short time you were able to construct a test suite by recording a performance test for a Web application, customizing the test to randomize data upon playback, and using that test as part of a realistic performance test schedule.You executed that schedule on a small scale and used the near real-time reports to identify a slow page. Once you had identified the page, you gathered resource utilization data and response-time breakdown statistics, which you th en used to investigate possible hardware and software causes. You then drilled down to the specific source code method causing the problem. Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 23 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorksWhile you may have learned a lot in this tutorial, you have only scratched the surface of what Performance Tester can do. As you continue to explore Performance Tester you will discover many more features to assist you in testing the performance of your applications and releasing them with confidence. See Resources to learn more about Performance Tester and other IBM software products covered in the Hello World tutorial series. Rational Performance Tester Page 24 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. ibm. com/developerWorks developerWorks ® ResourcesLearn †¢ The Hello World: Rational Performance Tester (for downloadable trial code) is another version of this tut orial that is written for people who would prefer to set up their own environment, rather than use the online trial of Rational Performance Tester. †¢ The Hello World series of hands-on tutorials introduces IBM software products that play a critical role in implementing an SOA foundation in your enterprise. †¢ See the Rational Performance Tester product page for technical documentation, how-to articles, education, downloads, and product information about Rational Performance Tester. â€Å"Using IBM Rational Performance Tester to find bottlenecks† (David M. Chadwick, developerWorks, September 2006) presents a real-world case study in using Rational Performance Tester. †¢ IBM Rational performance testing solutions provide scalability and load testing for J2EE, Web-based, Siebel, Citrix, and SAP applications. †¢ Learn more about the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform — a complete set of tools to build, integrate, modernize, extend, and deploy soft ware and software-based systems. †¢ Learn more about the Eclipse development environment.Get products and technologies †¢ Download a free trial version of Rational Performance Tester. †¢ Build your next development project with IBM trial software, available for download directly from developerWorks. Discuss †¢ Participate in the discussion forum for this content. About the author Dennis Schultz Dennis Schultz joined Rational in 1995 as a technical sales engineer. For eight years, he worked closely with numerous clients, implementing Rational solutions in their projects. Dennis helped deploy solutions for software configuration management, change management, requirements management, and test management and implementation.Since 2003, Dennis has been a Technical Marketing Engineer for Rational Performance Tester  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved. Page 25 of 26 developerWorks ® ibm. com/developerWorks IBM Rational software. Dennis holds a B. S. in computer engineering from Iowa State University. He is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and fills his non-work time with his four children. Rational Performance Tester Page 26 of 26  © Copyright IBM Corporation 1994, 2008. All rights reserved.

Public Sphere

â€Å"The idea that a public sphere to which everyone can contribute on equal terms is simply a fantasy. † To believe that there exists a public sphere where every single member contributes on an equal level is highly unrealistic. Correspondingly, many academics have critically supported as well as argued against this view. There will be discussion of the public sphere and various writer’s views and concepts regarding it, with specific references to Howley (2007) and Turnbull (2006), as well as Hackett (2010), Holub (1994), Apppadurai (2000), Meikle (2008), and Fraser (1990). The different academics will introduce and discuss; an ideal and flawed public sphere, a democratic public sphere, and the important roles of audiences and participants. Furthermore, there will be a particular focus on Habermas, his theories and findings consequently deconstructing his ideas on his bourgeois public sphere theory. Overall, the key argument in this discussion is that the public sphere is ideally seen as an arena for equal opinions, however pragmatically this is not the case and it is difficult to achieve it because of the different factors that exist between individuals and participants. Holub (1994) explains the public sphere as; â€Å"a realm in which opinions are exchanged between private persons unconstrained (ideally) by external pressures. Theoretically open to all citizens and founded in the family, it is the place where something approaching public opinion is formed. It should be distinguished both from the state, which represents official power, and from the economic structures of civil society as a whole. Its function is actually to mediate between society and state; it is the arena in which the public organizes itself, formulates public opinion, and expresses its desires vis-a-vis [face to face with] the government†. Similarly, a majority of modern conceptualisations of the public sphere relate back to Jurgen Habermas and his bourgeois public sphere. Habermas defines it as a space of reflective discussion about issues and subjects of a common interest, following an informed democratic procedure (Meikle 2008). Thus, a relevant example would be; supplying different resources of media to developing countries in preparation for an election or some sort political decision. By doing this, individuals are being provided an informed democratic process, allowing them access to sources of independent media to make a more informed decision before they elect. This is often present in events such as elections as it is an arena where private people come together as a public; as one. By looking back, the characteristics of the public sphere have not changed when comparing the old and contemporary. Meikle (2008) discusses how Habermas emphasized the role of periodical press in the development of his public sphere (p. 129), describing it as the ‘coffee-house culture’ and how at the time people would sit and discuss topics and events which would in turn lead to influencing the political culture of the 17th and 18th century. However, it must also be noted that Habermas’ accepted criticism to his notion, as well as making it clear that the public sphere is not given to every type of society, and it does not own a fixed status. Furthermore, Meikle (2008) also likens the public sphere to a place where participants can discuss their ideas freely. However, it is important to regard these definitions as the ‘idyllic’ public sphere, Holub (1994) mentions ‘ideally’ in brackets, because realistically it is unachievable to have this sort of ‘perfect’ public sphere where everyone contributes equally. Many academics have criticized Habermas’ bourgeois public sphere, questioning if it ever really existed, and if it did, would it really be able to ever exist again? On that note, Hackett (2010) brings forth the notions that this concept of Habermas’ public sphere that presumes rationality, equality is false, and consequently, he critiques it, alongside Fraser (1990), saying that; â€Å"it embeds a masculinist notion of rationality, and a taken-for granted gendered distinction between private and public spheres. It ignores the ‘counter’ and minority public spheres of subordinate groups, the intrusion of social and economic inequalities into the processes of the public sphere, and the conversion of public opinion into effective state policy through representative political mechanisms. (2010, p. 4). Additionally, Fraser (1990) looks at how Habermas’ theory of the bourgeois public sphere constitutes a number of exclusions, in particular excluding women and individuals of lower social class, as it was not accessible to all. Lower class people did not have the resources and women did not have the same rights, privileges and power as men, in society, to have their equal say. Moreover some of these factors are still relevant, such as the social classes and accessibility to resources. Furthermore, Fraser (1990) mentions the exclusion of subordinate groups, where she states â€Å"subordinate groups sometimes cannot find the right voice or words to express their thoughts, and when they do, they discover they are not heard [and] are silenced, encouraged to keep their wants inchoate, and heard to say ‘yes’ when what they have said is ‘no. ’† (1990, p. 64). It is evident, that this access, whether it is technological, power or status related, to contributing to the public sphere still does not equate to equality. Rather, the factors that need to be considered are not access alone, but also what kind of ‘voice’ the speaker possesses in society. All of which are dependent on a number of factors, such as the speaker’s status in society, gender, age, class, education, culture and country. Moreover, public spheres are relevant in today’s new social media’s like Twitter, Facebook and various blogs. They create an arena in which social sites, like these, generate meanings which are then distributed and discussed amongst a large audience, consequently becoming a public sphere and letting interaction occur with all its participants. This emergence of social media has called for a new public sphere to be formed. Meikle (2008) discusses how media is an integral aspect of the public sphere and that in present society, it is inescapable. Media plays an obligatory part; today’s â€Å"newspapers and magazines, [internet,] radio and television are the media of the public sphere† (Habermas in Meikle, 2008, p. 128). However, for Habermas this role that media plays is an issue, stating that the world shaped by the mass media is only a public sphere on the exterior; only in ‘appearance’ and nothing else. Though the public sphere cannot be regarded as equal, Meikle does suggest that it can be look at in a positive sense; regarding it as a useful standard against which we can measure how the media actually do operate (Meikle, 2008, p. 131). Furthermore, Habermas’ ideal public sphere has often been said that it is being compromised by contemporary tabloid media and culture. It produces a blur between the private and public spheres in regards to celebrity culture and making their private lives a public concern and discussion. As well as regarding media as just pure entertainment, the tabloid media are constructing participants who only consume what they are being fed by the media instead of making their own informed decisions (Meikle 2008). Furthermore, Habermas (in Meikle 2008) believes that our contemporary political mediascapes, which refers to the â€Å"distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information [such as] newspapers, magazines and†¦ Television stations† (Apppadurai, 2000, p. 326), are in fact are a long way away from being an ‘ideal public sphere’. He looks at how â€Å"public opinion is no longer produced by the public, instead, public opinion is now something produced for the public† (2008, p. 129) we are being influenced and there is no opportunity to discuss ideas freely, or for there to be complete equality in the contribution to the public sphere because of the different factors that come into play. Similarly, Habermas (in Meikle 2008) uses the term ‘equals’ in regards to participants in the public sphere. Yet, Meikle (2008), in accordance to Fraser’s (1990) view, discusses how the public sphere cannot guarantee each person’s contribution to be of equal amount. This is because of the reasons and factors that exist in society such as; power and status; celebrity power over ordinary individuals, access to resources; developed and developing countries, and gender; the imbalance of power between men and women. Turnbull (2006) looks at the roles of audiences, and why their role is so vital in instances like these. Turnbull discusses the media’s audience and argues how media is looked at as a centrality in our lives and world, some have less or no access and the social and cultural context of the individual is â€Å"embedded in their access to and use of various media technologies†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ The â€Å"participation [of audiences] in an increasingly mediated public sphere may be largely conditional† (p. 80), as it alters the stance on every participant having an ‘equal’ contribution to the public sphere. Howley (2007) states that people need to promote a more democratic media culture, for a place that individuals can share their mutual interests and concerns, discuss topics. He supports that there is not one sole public sphere because there is not a single medium that is ‘perfect’ (pp. 357-358). Furthermore, Howley (2007) brings forth the idea that the public sphere is the centrality for media institutions but is also significant for media students, providing a theoretical perspective; it helps to emphasize the essential and crucial relationships between democracy and modern communication systems. As the role of a democracy, a citizen who is informed and wishes to engage, needs to be accommodated by the media; providing them resources of news, information and opinion, for that individual to then be able to use this to identify themselves towards this common interest. However, this notion of a democratically public sphere has issues that arise, the main one being the nature and conduct of public discourse in a highly mobile and heterogeneous society. By regarding societies that have things like ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, partisan politics, and economic stratification present, the sole idea of achieving agreement on matters of public policy seem inaccessible and unachievable. Also, another issue is the â€Å"contemporary media systems – characterised by unprecedented consolidation of ownership and control on the one hand, and the fragmentation of mass audiences into even smaller ‘niche markets’ on the other – makes issues of access to and participation in public discourse equally problematic† (pp. 343-344). Thus, this idea of an equal and democratic public sphere is difficult to have and carry out. In conclusion, the ideal public sphere tries to offer a place where people are able to discuss their ideas freely between one another. However, to believe that individuals can discuss in a completely free manner, with no influence and be complete equals, contributing on equal terms, is a far-fetched hope. There can only ever be a place of equality and rationality in an ideal society, as factors of social, linguistic and cultural inequalities, rights and even freedom of speech of an individual, all affect any possibility of equal communication and contribution between people in a public sphere. Public Sphere â€Å"The idea that a public sphere to which everyone can contribute on equal terms is simply a fantasy. † To believe that there exists a public sphere where every single member contributes on an equal level is highly unrealistic. Correspondingly, many academics have critically supported as well as argued against this view. There will be discussion of the public sphere and various writer’s views and concepts regarding it, with specific references to Howley (2007) and Turnbull (2006), as well as Hackett (2010), Holub (1994), Apppadurai (2000), Meikle (2008), and Fraser (1990). The different academics will introduce and discuss; an ideal and flawed public sphere, a democratic public sphere, and the important roles of audiences and participants. Furthermore, there will be a particular focus on Habermas, his theories and findings consequently deconstructing his ideas on his bourgeois public sphere theory. Overall, the key argument in this discussion is that the public sphere is ideally seen as an arena for equal opinions, however pragmatically this is not the case and it is difficult to achieve it because of the different factors that exist between individuals and participants. Holub (1994) explains the public sphere as; â€Å"a realm in which opinions are exchanged between private persons unconstrained (ideally) by external pressures. Theoretically open to all citizens and founded in the family, it is the place where something approaching public opinion is formed. It should be distinguished both from the state, which represents official power, and from the economic structures of civil society as a whole. Its function is actually to mediate between society and state; it is the arena in which the public organizes itself, formulates public opinion, and expresses its desires vis-a-vis [face to face with] the government†. Similarly, a majority of modern conceptualisations of the public sphere relate back to Jurgen Habermas and his bourgeois public sphere. Habermas defines it as a space of reflective discussion about issues and subjects of a common interest, following an informed democratic procedure (Meikle 2008). Thus, a relevant example would be; supplying different resources of media to developing countries in preparation for an election or some sort political decision. By doing this, individuals are being provided an informed democratic process, allowing them access to sources of independent media to make a more informed decision before they elect. This is often present in events such as elections as it is an arena where private people come together as a public; as one. By looking back, the characteristics of the public sphere have not changed when comparing the old and contemporary. Meikle (2008) discusses how Habermas emphasized the role of periodical press in the development of his public sphere (p. 129), describing it as the ‘coffee-house culture’ and how at the time people would sit and discuss topics and events which would in turn lead to influencing the political culture of the 17th and 18th century. However, it must also be noted that Habermas’ accepted criticism to his notion, as well as making it clear that the public sphere is not given to every type of society, and it does not own a fixed status. Furthermore, Meikle (2008) also likens the public sphere to a place where participants can discuss their ideas freely. However, it is important to regard these definitions as the ‘idyllic’ public sphere, Holub (1994) mentions ‘ideally’ in brackets, because realistically it is unachievable to have this sort of ‘perfect’ public sphere where everyone contributes equally. Many academics have criticized Habermas’ bourgeois public sphere, questioning if it ever really existed, and if it did, would it really be able to ever exist again? On that note, Hackett (2010) brings forth the notions that this concept of Habermas’ public sphere that presumes rationality, equality is false, and consequently, he critiques it, alongside Fraser (1990), saying that; â€Å"it embeds a masculinist notion of rationality, and a taken-for granted gendered distinction between private and public spheres. It ignores the ‘counter’ and minority public spheres of subordinate groups, the intrusion of social and economic inequalities into the processes of the public sphere, and the conversion of public opinion into effective state policy through representative political mechanisms. (2010, p. 4). Additionally, Fraser (1990) looks at how Habermas’ theory of the bourgeois public sphere constitutes a number of exclusions, in particular excluding women and individuals of lower social class, as it was not accessible to all. Lower class people did not have the resources and women did not have the same rights, privileges and power as men, in society, to have their equal say. Moreover some of these factors are still relevant, such as the social classes and accessibility to resources. Furthermore, Fraser (1990) mentions the exclusion of subordinate groups, where she states â€Å"subordinate groups sometimes cannot find the right voice or words to express their thoughts, and when they do, they discover they are not heard [and] are silenced, encouraged to keep their wants inchoate, and heard to say ‘yes’ when what they have said is ‘no. ’† (1990, p. 64). It is evident, that this access, whether it is technological, power or status related, to contributing to the public sphere still does not equate to equality. Rather, the factors that need to be considered are not access alone, but also what kind of ‘voice’ the speaker possesses in society. All of which are dependent on a number of factors, such as the speaker’s status in society, gender, age, class, education, culture and country. Moreover, public spheres are relevant in today’s new social media’s like Twitter, Facebook and various blogs. They create an arena in which social sites, like these, generate meanings which are then distributed and discussed amongst a large audience, consequently becoming a public sphere and letting interaction occur with all its participants. This emergence of social media has called for a new public sphere to be formed. Meikle (2008) discusses how media is an integral aspect of the public sphere and that in present society, it is inescapable. Media plays an obligatory part; today’s â€Å"newspapers and magazines, [internet,] radio and television are the media of the public sphere† (Habermas in Meikle, 2008, p. 128). However, for Habermas this role that media plays is an issue, stating that the world shaped by the mass media is only a public sphere on the exterior; only in ‘appearance’ and nothing else. Though the public sphere cannot be regarded as equal, Meikle does suggest that it can be look at in a positive sense; regarding it as a useful standard against which we can measure how the media actually do operate (Meikle, 2008, p. 131). Furthermore, Habermas’ ideal public sphere has often been said that it is being compromised by contemporary tabloid media and culture. It produces a blur between the private and public spheres in regards to celebrity culture and making their private lives a public concern and discussion. As well as regarding media as just pure entertainment, the tabloid media are constructing participants who only consume what they are being fed by the media instead of making their own informed decisions (Meikle 2008). Furthermore, Habermas (in Meikle 2008) believes that our contemporary political mediascapes, which refers to the â€Å"distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information [such as] newspapers, magazines and†¦ Television stations† (Apppadurai, 2000, p. 326), are in fact are a long way away from being an ‘ideal public sphere’. He looks at how â€Å"public opinion is no longer produced by the public, instead, public opinion is now something produced for the public† (2008, p. 129) we are being influenced and there is no opportunity to discuss ideas freely, or for there to be complete equality in the contribution to the public sphere because of the different factors that come into play. Similarly, Habermas (in Meikle 2008) uses the term ‘equals’ in regards to participants in the public sphere. Yet, Meikle (2008), in accordance to Fraser’s (1990) view, discusses how the public sphere cannot guarantee each person’s contribution to be of equal amount. This is because of the reasons and factors that exist in society such as; power and status; celebrity power over ordinary individuals, access to resources; developed and developing countries, and gender; the imbalance of power between men and women. Turnbull (2006) looks at the roles of audiences, and why their role is so vital in instances like these. Turnbull discusses the media’s audience and argues how media is looked at as a centrality in our lives and world, some have less or no access and the social and cultural context of the individual is â€Å"embedded in their access to and use of various media technologies†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ The â€Å"participation [of audiences] in an increasingly mediated public sphere may be largely conditional† (p. 80), as it alters the stance on every participant having an ‘equal’ contribution to the public sphere. Howley (2007) states that people need to promote a more democratic media culture, for a place that individuals can share their mutual interests and concerns, discuss topics. He supports that there is not one sole public sphere because there is not a single medium that is ‘perfect’ (pp. 357-358). Furthermore, Howley (2007) brings forth the idea that the public sphere is the centrality for media institutions but is also significant for media students, providing a theoretical perspective; it helps to emphasize the essential and crucial relationships between democracy and modern communication systems. As the role of a democracy, a citizen who is informed and wishes to engage, needs to be accommodated by the media; providing them resources of news, information and opinion, for that individual to then be able to use this to identify themselves towards this common interest. However, this notion of a democratically public sphere has issues that arise, the main one being the nature and conduct of public discourse in a highly mobile and heterogeneous society. By regarding societies that have things like ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, partisan politics, and economic stratification present, the sole idea of achieving agreement on matters of public policy seem inaccessible and unachievable. Also, another issue is the â€Å"contemporary media systems – characterised by unprecedented consolidation of ownership and control on the one hand, and the fragmentation of mass audiences into even smaller ‘niche markets’ on the other – makes issues of access to and participation in public discourse equally problematic† (pp. 343-344). Thus, this idea of an equal and democratic public sphere is difficult to have and carry out. In conclusion, the ideal public sphere tries to offer a place where people are able to discuss their ideas freely between one another. However, to believe that individuals can discuss in a completely free manner, with no influence and be complete equals, contributing on equal terms, is a far-fetched hope. There can only ever be a place of equality and rationality in an ideal society, as factors of social, linguistic and cultural inequalities, rights and even freedom of speech of an individual, all affect any possibility of equal communication and contribution between people in a public sphere.