To What Extent Does Shift Work Contribute to the Stress of Working as Essay - 1

To What Extent Does Shift Work Contribute to the Stress of Working as a Paramedic in Adelaide - Essay Example I can also access them when working in order to observe them in their natural working environment and get the feeling of what stress they are encountering as they work in their different shifts (both night and day shifts and the difference between these two shifts).   The sampling technique will be simple random. This is convenient because I will not be biased when conducting the field research and the results will ensure diversity in conditions, the gender of the paramedics and other important factors that other sampling techniques may overlook. I will randomly choose the workstations of the paramedics and then also randomly chose the paramedics I will be observing and those I will be interviewing and minimize biases and sampling error. I will carry out 3 observations (of each shift since the shifts are of 8hours), 7 different interviews (one of the interviews will be for the supervisor and who is also the one in charge of the shifts and organizes the duty calendar), while the other six will be for the different paramedics (randomly chosen). Lastly, I will carry out a focus group discussion that will include all the available paramedics and this will be aimed at getting the general feeling about the shifts not captured in the interviews. Some of the structured interview questions will include: what shift they currently are in? How long does it take before there is a rotation of the shift? Which of the three shifts is the toughest on both the physical and mental strength? Is there a difference health wise of the shifts (this includes having headaches, fatigue, anger, over or under eating, depression or drugs and substance abuse). The rest of the questions will be unstructured in order to get more explanations. One of the ethical problems I foresee is that the interviewees may refuse to be honest due to fear of lack of confidentiality and even anonymity even though this will be assured to them. The other is on the issue of getting voluntary participants to participate in the focus group and especially if the supervisor will be around watching them.  Ã‚  

Nation Building Through An Identity Realisation Sociology Essay

Nation Building Through An Identity Realisation Sociology Essay Nation-building refers to the process of constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. This process aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. Nation-building can involve the use of propaganda or major infrastructure development to foster social harmony and economic growth. Originally, nation-building referred to the efforts of newly-independent nations, notably the nations of Africa, Post-Soviet states, to reshape colonial territories that had been carved out by colonial powers without regard to ethnic or other boundaries. These reformed states would then become viable and coherent national entities. Nation-building included the creation of national paraphernalia such as flags, anthems, national days, national stadiums, national airlines, national languages, and national myths. At a deeper level, national identity needed to be deliberately constructed by molding different gr oups into a nation, especially since colonialism had used divide and rule tactics to maintain its domination.  [1]   National identity derives from a unique blend of human will and material circumstance. To understand how people or states identify themselves, and therefore what interests and visions motivate them. So some questions of national identity are not simple. National identity exists alongside many other meanings of identity. It does not always override them all, or not in every circumstance. Consider personal identity both philosophically and psychologically. Three questions can be asked: How do each of you perceive yourself, how do you want to be perceived by others, and how do others actually perceive you? These three questions are obviously related, but do not always give the same answer at all times and in all circumstances. Of course, this term was investigated and examined before. For instance, I chose Anthony D. Smiths explanation for it, and I must say that I agree with him. So, he says that, whatever else it may be, what we mean by national identity involves some sense of political community, however tenuous. A political community in turn implies at least some common institutions and a single code of rights and duties for all the members of the community. It also suggests a definite social space, a fairly well demarcated and bounded territory, with which the members identify and to which they feel they belong.  [2]  This was very much what the philosophers had in mind when they defined a nation as a community of people obeying the same laws and institutions within a given territory. This is, of course, a peculiarly Western conception of the nation. But then the Western experience has exerted a powerful, indeed the lead ing, influence on our conception of the unit we call the nation. A new kind of policy the rational state and a new kind of community the territorial nation first emerged in the West, in close conjunction with each other. They left their imprint on subsequent non-Western conceptions, even when the latter diverged from their norms. But it is worth definition of nation. According to this view, nations must possess compact, well-defined territories. People and territory must, as it were, belong to each other, in the way that the early Dutch, for example, saw themselves as formed by the high seas and as forging (literally) the earth they possessed and made their own.  [3]  But the earth in question cannot be just anywhere; it is not any stretch of land. It is, and must be, the historic land, the homeland. A historic land is one where terrain and people have exerted mutual, and beneficial, influence over several generations. The homeland becomes a repository of historic memories a nd associations, the place where our sages, saints and heroes lived, worked, prayed and fought. All this makes the homeland unique. Another thing, by which the national identity can be defined, is the idea of patria, a community of laws and institutions with a single political will. It explains as least some common regulating institutions that will give expression to common political sentiments and purposes. So, concurrent with the growth of sense of legal and political community we may trace a sense of legal equality among the members of that community. It also implies a common code of laws over and above local laws, together with agencies for their enforcement, courts of final appeal and the like. As important is the acceptance that, in principle, all members of the nation are legally equal and that the rich and powerful are bound by the laws of the patria. Finally, the legal equality of members of a political community in its demarcated homeland was felt to presuppose a measure o f common values and traditions among the population, or at any rate its core community. In other words, nations must have a measure of common culture and a civic ideology, a set of common understandings and aspirations, sentiments and ideas that bind the population together in their homeland. The existence of these common assumptions allows us to list the fundamental features of national identity as follows: 1. an historic territory, or homeland 2. common myths and historical memories 3. a common, mass public culture 4. common legal rights and duties for all members 5. a common economy with territorial mobility for members.  [4]   By moving to another term, nation, I can make a result of the nation. Nation can be defined as a named population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members.  [5]   Such a working definition invented the complex and abstract nature of national identity. The nation, in fact, draws on elements of other kinds of collective identity, describes not only for the way in which national identity can be combined with these other types of identity-class, religious or ethnic-but also for the different rearrangements of nationalism, the ideology, with other ideologies like liberalism, fascism and communism. Such a definition of national identity also sets it clearly apart from any understanding of the state. The latter refers exclusively to public institutions, differentiated from, and autonomous of, other social institutions and exercising a monopoly of coercion and extraction within a given territory. The nation, on the other hand, signifies a cultural and political bond, uniting in a single political community all who share an historic culture and homeland. This lack of congruence between the state and the nation is exemplified in the many plural states today. Indeed, Walker Connors estimate in the early 1970s showed that only about 10 per cent of states could claim to be true nation-states, in the sense that the states boundaries coincide with the nations and that the total population of the state share a single ethnic culture. While most states aspire to become nation-states in this sense, they tend to limit their claims to legitimacy to an aspiration for political unity and popular sovereignty that, even in old-established Western states, risks being challenged by ethnic communities within their borders. These cases, and there are many of them, illustrate the profound gulf between the concepts of the state and the nation, a gulf that the historical material to be discussed shortly underlines.  [6]   To gain a fuller understanding of what nationhood involves, it may be helpful to clear away two common misunderstandings that bedevil this question.  [7]  The first is the confusion of nation and state. In ordinary speech nation is sometimes used as a synonym for state: when someone refers to the newly emerging nations of the Third World, it is very likely that they are really talking about newly created states. This usage is not likely to be helpful if we are trying to clarify the principle of nationality, since one of the main issues we have to consider is precisely the relationship between nations and states, and in particular the question whether each nation has a right to its own state. When this question is posed, nation must refer to a community of people with an aspiration to be politically self determining, and state must refer to the set of political institutions that they may aspire to possess for themselves. Let us say, following Weber, that a state is a body that successfully claims a monopoly of legitimate force in a particular territory.  [8]  We count states by seeing how many such bodies there are. Some of these states will be multinational, in the sense that they exercise their rule over several discrete nations. The Soviet Union was such a state; rather unusually, it openly conceded that the peoples it governed were of different nationalities. (More than one hundred were recognized.) Rather less common is the case where a single nation is for historical reasons divided between two states. This was the case for the Germans before the reunification of 1990, and is still the case for the Chinese and Koreans today. A third case occurs where people of a single nationality are scattered as minorities in a number of states-the position today of the Kurds and the Palestinians. None of this would make sense if we did not understand nation and state in such a way as to make it an empirical question whether those who compose a nation are all united politically within a single state. If we look to history, nations emerge over time as a result of numerous historical processes. As a consequence, it is a pointless undertaking to attempt to locate a precise moment when any particular nation came into existence, as if it were a manufactured product designed by an engineer. Let us examine why this is so. All nations have historical antecedents, whether tribe, city-state, or kingdom. These historically earlier societies are important components in the formation of nations. For example, the English nation emerged out of the historically earlier societies of the Saxons, Angles, and Normans. However, these historical antecedents are never merely just facts, because key to the existence of the nation are memories that are shared among each of those many individuals who are members of the nation about the past of their nation, including about those earlier societies. Every nation has its own understanding of its distinctive past that is conveyed through stories, myths, and h istory. Whether historically accurate or not, these memories contribute to the understanding of the present that distinguishes one nation from another. This component of time when an understanding of the past forms part of the present is characteristic of the nation and is called temporal depth. As the mind of the individual develops within various contexts, such as the family or different educational institutions, it seeks out those various and fluctuating traditions that are at hand. The child learns, for example, to speak the language of his or her nation and what it means to be a member of that nation as expressed through its customs and laws. These traditions become incorporated into the individuals understanding of the self. When those traditions that make up part of ones self-conception are shared by other individuals as part of their self-conception, one is then both related to those other individuals, and aware of the relation. The relation itself, for example living in the same geographical area or speaking a common language, is what is meant by the term collective consciousness. This term in no way implies the existence of a group mind or a combination of biological instincts, as if humans were a colony of ants. Rather, it refers to a social relation of each of a number of individuals as a consequence of those individuals participating in the same evolving tradition. When those individuals not only participate in the same tradition but also understand themselves as being different from those who do not, then there exists a self-designating shared belief, which is called a collective self-consciousness, that is, a distinctive culture.  [9]   Also, there is a very short and well defined explanation of nation by Ernest Renan. He says, that, a nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things constitute this soul: the past and the present. The past refers to the possession in common of a rich legacy of remembrances; the present is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue as a nation. To have accomplished great things together in the past, and to wish to do so again, that is the essential condition for being a nation. A nation is a grand solidarity constituted by the sentiment of sacrifices. A great aggregation of men, with a healthy spirit and warmth of heart, creates a moral conscience which is called a nation. This explanation fully concludes the definition of nation for better understanding. So, if we talk about nationality

Masculinity At Its Straightest Essay -- Gender Issues

The misguided perception of masculinity is the absence of anything remotely homosexual. In Michael Kimmel’s novel Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men he discusses the contradictions of masculinity and what it takes to be seen as a real men. In American, middle class white society, manhood is more than beards and sleeping around with women, it is being as far away from feminine as allowed. The most foreign idea to most would be to consider a gay man to be â€Å"manly.† This unfathomable idea is what spurs on homophobia and gives homosexuality a foul name. To be called a â€Å"sissy† or â€Å"faggot† is worse than being called a â€Å"bastard† or â€Å"dick.† Shaking a man of his masculinity and naming him a woman psychologically destroys a man. Guyland best describes this as, â€Å"Homophobia—the fear that people might misperceive you as gay—is the animating fear of American guys’ masculinity. It’s w hat lies underneath the crazy, risk-taking behaviors practiced by boys of all ages, what drives the fear that other guys will see you as weak, unmanly, frightened† (Guyland 50). This kind of methodology has been growing for generations, seen mostly in high schools as young boys get physically tortured or beaten for effeminate behavior. The lack of acceptance in culture is increasingly appalling for all age groups. It is a form of conformity of culture as psychologist Karen Franklin discusses: Assaults on homosexuals and other individuals who deviate from sex role norms are viewed as a learned form of social control of deviance rather than a defensive response to personal threat ... in other words, through heterosexism, any male who refuses to accept the dominant culture's assignment of appropriate masculine behavior is labeled early on as a â€Å"sissy† ... ...people from being considered masculine. All sexualities have the capability of masculinity, but just not all choose to follow the path of aggression and strength. Works Cited Franklin, Karen. "Inside the Mind of People Who Hate Gays." PBS. WGBH educational foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. "Gay Men and Masculinity." MyOutSpirit. N.p., 19 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. "Gay Teens Bear Burden of Homophobia." Lambda.org. American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry, 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Kimmell, Michael. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. New York City: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. Kimmell, Michael. Manhood in America. New York City: Simon and Schuster, 1996. 284. Stevens, Tom. "Fraternity Initiations - The Elephant Walk." Liberty Lion. N.p., 13 Jan. 2011. Web. 10 Dec. 2011.

Outcomes of Prosthodontic Management Essay

Speech is the coordinated function of the vocal tract includes respiratory, phonatory, resonatory and articulatory systems. Hindrance to any of these systems results in speech disorders. Cleft lip and palate (CLP) is one such congenital disorder leading to speech disorder. The abnormal speech of these individuals with cleft lip and palate can be analyzed interms of acoustical, perceptual and physiological measurements. The speech of individuals with cleft palate is primarily characterized by abnormalities in nasal resonance. This is a direct result of unoperated cleft / fistula and or velopharyngeal dysfunction. The individuals with velopharyngeal dysfunction cannot either adequately or consistently close the velopharyngeal port during speech leading to nasal escape of sound energy. In addition, there may be articulatory errors, including compensatory articulations and reduced voice quality resulting in poor speech intelligibility (McWilliams, Morris & Shelton, 1990; Kuehn & Moller, 2000; Kummer, 2001; Peterson-Falzone, Hardin-Jones & Karnell, 2001; Bzoch, 2004). Nasal resonance increases and is perceived as hypernasality if the durations of the velopharyngeal opening and closing movements in relation to the opening and closing of the oral cavity become prolonged. Many investigators have showed that certain timing measures reflecting the movements of speech articulators are related to the degree of oral-nasal resonance imbalance in individuals with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (Warren et al. , 1985; Jones, 2000; Dotevall et al. 2001, 2002; Ha et al. , 2004). Jones (2000) opined that excessive perceived nasalization could result from a mistiming of velopharyngeal movements, relative to voice onset and offset. Few studies (Ha, Sim, Zhi, & Kuehn, 2003; Ha, David, & Kuehn, 2010) concluded that individuals with cleft palate exhibit longer acoustic nasalization than normal speakers and also temporal measures of their speech are positively correlated with the perceived hypernasality. Hence they concluded that acoustic measures of temporal characteristics of speech can provide supplementary diagnostic information in relation to the degree of hypernasality. Hoopes, (1970) demonstrated that speed of velar movement during speech was slower for individuals with cleft palate than normal subjects. Forner (1983) observed some difficulty with normal rate and range of movement and interarticulatory timing based on the results of significantly longer than normal speech segment durations. The rehabilitation of individuals born with cleft lip and palate and related craniofacial anomalies require coordination of plastic surgery, prosthetic intervention and behavioral therapy. A multidisciplinary approach is essential to achieve optimum results. To permit development of normal speech patterns, habilitation of these individuals should be considered surgically or prosthetically as early as possible (Riski, 1979; Dorf & Curtin, 1982; Witzel et al. , 1984). Definitive prosthodontic treatment is usually one of the final therapies instituted and it must attempt to alleviate any anatomical and functional deficiencies that may remain after the gamut of other treatment is essentially completed. The concept of using speech prosthesis was introduced as early as 1860 in treating velopharyngeal dysfunction in clients with cleft lip and palate (Mc Grath and Anderson 1991) and has since been adopted by others (Leeper et al. 1996). The use of speech bulb obturator in the treatment of hypernasality became less popular in the 19th century, but was revived in the 20th century. This was partly due to the development of techniques that permitted direct visualization of the velopharyngeal mechanism and advances in the surgical procedures. A prosthetic device palatal lift can be suggested for the persons in whom adequate tissue is present but poor control of coordination and timing of velopharyngeal (VP) movements are observed. The palatal lift aims to lift the soft palate in a posterior and superior direction through the use of acrylic additions on the back of a dental appliance. It is used to prosthetically create a normal VP closure for speech development until the surgical repair can be performed. Hence this can assist for the better velopharyngeal closure by improving the oral – nasal coupling. The velopharyngeal closure dynamics can be studied using acoustic analysis of the speech, along with the perceptual evaluation. Acoustic analysis offers the opportunity to observe the speech patterns resulting from simultaneous and sequential interactions of phonation, resonation and articulation as these occur in real time speech production. Spectrographic data have been used frequently to study cleft palate speech (Horii, 1980). McGrath and Anderson (1990) reported a review of the outcome management of 200 individuals with cleft palate and found that 95% were able to eliminate both hypernasality and nasal emission distortions in speech through prosthetic management. Jian Ningyi & Guilan (2002) investigated the effect of a temporary obturator to treat VPD and found that velopharyngeal closure can be greatly improved by using a temporary oral prosthesis and speech training. Most of these studies have used obturator or speech bulb in individuals with cleft palate, and very few studies included speech training along with the prosthetic management and shows positive results. There are dearths of studies using palatal lift in persons with submucous cleft palate along with the speech therapy. The present study is a part of the longitudinal study which is aimed to determine the effect of palatal lift prosthesis on temporal parameters of speech and correlating with the physiological findings. The aims of the study are three fold. First, is to compare the temporal parameters of nasalization and nasalence values with the normal subjects. Second, is to investigate the temporal parameters of nasalization and nasalance values without prosthesis, with prosthesis and after undergoing 10 sessions of speech therapy. Third, is to investigate the velopharyngeal closure with and without prosthesis using nasoendoscopy.

Different between secondary school and university Essay

I used to say that I could not wait until I finished secondary school and have a greater say in what do. In reflection I can say that my experience in secondary school was more fulfilling for me than the university currently is for me. As I commenced my secondary school life, I was registered. Although I registered at the beginning of my university life, I have to register every semester for the courses that I would be pursuing. In addition, at secondary school level everything was handed out to me; while at the university I have to collect my information for different courses. I believe that secondary school was easier because if I did not understand a topic, teachers were easily accessed. If I do not understand a topic at university I have to wait until the tutorial or office hours. I easily interacted with my teachers while at the university some of my lectors are not approachable. In secondary school I had three sets of vacations while at university I only have two sets of vacations. In addition, secondary school had two set of three weeks’ vacation and a ten weeks summer while university have one month in the Christmas vacation and four months for summer vacation. I found that at secondary school I was taught the fundamentals of learning, while the university teaches me the advance structure of learning. I learned subject and verb agreement and not how to write essay but at university I learn additional fundamental of English like topic sentence use of punctuation marks and structure different types of essays. I also learned basic United Kingdom accounting principle for Caribbean Examination Council level. United State accounting is taught at the university level. In addition, secondary school I did internal exam and was promoted to the year level while I do exams to earn credits towards my degree at the university. I did external exam and gain Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) certificate in several subjects but the university does an increment of courses and receive one degree. The secondary school structure is rigid while the university structure is flexible. The School year is divided into three terms while the university has semesters. In addition at secondary school the children have a long summer vacation while university students have the option of attending summer school. School class times were scheduled for a school year while at the university classes would be chosen by me and changes every semester. I remember having one break time and a fixed hour for lunch whereas for university I can have lunch at time where there is free period. There were many rules at school which were enforced. However, there are some at the university which student are not acquainted with and no one enforces them. For example, if I did not attended classes regularly, the principal would call my parents. However at university there is not anyone who checks up and realized when I am missing from lectures or tutorial sessions. Furthermore, there was a uniform at school that I wore; in fact, the principal and teachers made sure we wore our uniforms correctly. However, at university I can wear my own clothes, which my mother provide for me. I remember the principal sent me back home a last day for having on braids. Now I can wear braids, weave and even colour my hair at the university. Secondary School was small and had limited classrooms but university is bigger and have many different rooms. When I was at school I had a form room where I could eat my lunch and talk to my friends. On the other hand at the university I do not have any fixed room that I can be in. There was also small number of children in the class in contrast to the large number of students at university. Most of the teaching was done in our form room whereas I have to go different places for lectures and tutorials. I knew everyone in my class because they came from first to fifth form, and some of the other children throughout the school. However, I am unable to know everyone in the lectures and I only know a few in the tutorial since my courses changes ever semester. I was able to have a face to face teaching at school whereas I am taught different ways at the university such as lecture, tutorials and online learning. The work load at university is much heavier than at secondary school although I did eight subject at CXC level and I am only doing four course a semester. I conclude although secondary school was structure and rigid I thoroughly enjoyed my life there and those memories would remain with me forever. Even though, my university life is flexible and I have a greater say on my activities, I can now say that I prefer the structure of secondary school life.