History &The Philosophies of Enlightenment Essay

The Enlightenment, also named the Age of reason, was an era for the period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The term â€Å"Enlightenment† also specifically talks about a rational movement. Moreover, this movement provided a basis for the American and French Revolutions. During this period, philosophers started to realize that by using reason they can find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. Enlightenment philosophers believed that all human beings should have freedom of religion and speech. Furthermore, they wanted to have a government of their own and a right to vote. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes were two very important philosophical thinkers of their time. John Locke was a prominent thinker from England, and Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most complete materialist philosopher of the 17th century. John Locke believed that people are good, and they should have natural rights such as â€Å"life, liberty, and property† but Thomas Hobbs main focus was how human beings can live together in peace and evade the danger and fear of civil war. John Locke (1634-1704) was one of the most significant and powerful philosophers during the Enlightenment era. Both the French Enlightenment and Founding Fathers of the American Revolution drew on his thoughts. John Locke suggested that the human mind was a tabula rasa (blank slate). There were no â€Å"innate ideas† known from birth by all people and society forms people’s mind. Since all people share the same undeveloped usual features, people are all equal and they determine their liberty. Locke said all human beings are equal expect women and Negroes because they are closer to the state of nature therefore they are less civilized and this led to the American Revolution. Locke’s most important work of political philosophy was the Two Treatises on Government. He argued that the power of the king is derived from the people, each person has a right to hold property, and if ruler takes this property from people without their own permission, people can depose and resist him. . Thomas Hobbes is another philosopher in 17th century who argued that people were naturally wicked and could not be trusted to govern. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in London. He finished his college education at Oxford University in England, where he studied classics. Hobbes was English philosopher, scientist, and historian, best known for his political  philosophy, especially as expressed in his masterpiece Leviathan. In his boos he described the â€Å"state of nature† where all persons were naturally equal. He said that people are frightened of violent death, and every single human on the planet has a right to protect him/herself in any way possible. He assumed that it’s in people’s best interest to avoid war. Moreover, he believed that life in the state of nature is â€Å"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.† Although John Locke and Thomas Hobbes do have some similarities, they have different opinions about most of their political arguments. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two of the great political theorists of their time. Both created great philosophical texts that help to describe their opinions about man’s state of nature in addition to the role of government in man’s life. Both of them believed in individualism. Two years after the end of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan. He believed people had a good personality, if they were left to their own plans, life would become â€Å"a solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.† He said if people give some of their freedom, they can have a harmless life. He believed people are always in competition with each other for the best food, shelter, money, and so on. Hobbes supposed the best way to protect citizens would be to have a sovereign that is threatening and supreme. . Locke’s view of the state of nature says that humans have limits as to what people should or should not do. In contrast to Hobbes, Locke believed that humans are generally nice to one another, and we will not bother one another. Therefore, in Locke’s state of nature, humans are peaceful. Locke believed that people had the basic principles needed for a civilized society, so they were allowed to have natural rights such as life, liberty, and property. Locke believed rather than each person being equally at risk of death, each person was equally free and sovereign. The Enlightenment was an era of free thinking and individualism. Different philosophers had enormous role in this era. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were philosophers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both philosophers had very strong views on freedom and how a country should be governed. Hobbes had more of a negative view on freedom while Locke’s opinions are more positive. Work Cited FernaÃŒ ndez Armesto, Felipe. â€Å"The Exchange Of Enlightenments: Eighteenth Century Thought.† The World : A History. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 738-65. Print. SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on John Locke (1634–1704).† SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2013 SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679).† SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

The Effects of Overfishing on Oceans Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Effects of Overfishing on Oceans - Essay Example Integrated approach in coastal and ocean resources management must be applied. The tranquility of the sea was at late 1967 and was unhurriedly being disrupted by technological interventions, accelerating and multiplying uses, and a dynamic rivalry which poised to cross the threshold of man's precious seabed (United Nations, 1998). At that time, both dangers and promises were upheld while the dangers were abundant: nuclear submarines charting or documenting deep waters which were never before explored. Supertankers ferrying oil starting Middle East to European going to other ports, then, they pass along congested straits and leaving at the rear tracking of oil spills. These resulted to the rising tensions between nations greater than conflicting claims to ocean regions and resources. Levenson in 1996 stated that ( p 100, par 2), marine resources are severely affected by a broad range of natural as well as human perturbations, such as pollutants from human effluents. Wastes can take place directly in marine waters, although it can also indirectly be transported to the sea by rivers. Several studies can support that pollutants have originated from human activities and have resulted in an extensive diversity of impacts on water quality, marine organisms and sediment quality. Moreover, poisons or toxic chemicals introduced in coastal waters would jeopardize marine life. A toxic chemical (Seger, 2006) is a substance which can cause death or unfavorable sublethal effects in marine organisms exposed to it at certain level of concentration above a critical threshold. Many substances which are considered toxic at high levels may inhibit the life and growth of marine organisms. Anthropogenic inputs of deadly substances can be absorbs safely in the oceans but the quantity introduced does not source concentrations to go beyond the threshold at which sub lethal toxicity exists.All the more, sub lethal or lethal toxicity entry concentrations are difficult to establish because they vary among substances, among species, and with other factors, like the physical stresses, synergistic as well as antagonistic ef fects of further chemical constituents. Usually, it is the marine organisms which bioaccumulate the majority of toxic essences. Bioaccumulation occurs if and when, the concentration in the organism is elevated compare to the environmental concentration; however, the concentrations are in equilibrium. On the other hand, biomagnification takes place when the organism preserves all the toxic substance from food or environment that they have been exposed to and does not remove any of the substance. Lethal substances to marine life include carcinogens, mutagens, and teratogens and can product lethal or sublethal effects. Similarly, Joint Ocean Commission Initiative ( 2009, par 2-6) reiterated that, decline of fish products will produce impacts on fishing communities and this in turn, poses a dramatic threat to people's significant cultural heritage, source of food, income, and

Identity in Trying to Find Chinatown and Death of a Salesman Essay

Identity in Trying to Find Chinatown and Death of a Salesman - Essay Example Reflecting about his desperate situation, his wife Linda informs: â€Å"Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him† (Miller). His material failure as salesman has a negative impact on his own life but also on his relationship with his family. However, instead of confronting his problems and trying to resolve them, he gets angry at his family and denies the love they have for him. Talking about his son Biff, he claims: â€Å"How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!† (Miller) This lack of satisfaction about his son reflects his own insecurities he attempts to cover up. Des pite their similarities in treating identity issues, the two plays use different approaches. Indeed, Hwang’s play foregrounds the importance of family ties and the recognition of roots. Even though his is white, Benjamin values the Asian background of his adopted parents and proudly claims his ethnicity. His presence in New York in an attempt to pay homage to his deceased father at latter’s birth place reflects his deep understanding of family values and gratefulness to his adopted parents. He reflects: â€Å"And when I finally saw the number 13, I nearly wept at my good fortune. An old tenement, paint peeling, inside walls no doubt thick with a century of grease and broken dreams—and yet, to me, a temple—the house where my father was born†(Hwang). This pilgrimage... Identity in â€Å"Trying to Find Chinatown† and â€Å"Death of a Salesman† David Henry Hwang’s play raises a crucial issue of identity that stems from the different perspective that his two protagonists have about what it means to be Asian American. Indeed, Benjamin and Ronnie’s arguments about identity pose the problem about culture and ethnicity. When Ronnie questions Benjamin’s Asian roots he only takes into consideration his racial identity as a white man but ignores his ethnic background as the adopted child of Asian parents: â€Å"I don’t know what kind of bullshit ethnic studies program they’re running over in Wisconsin, but did they teach you that in order to find your Asian ‘roots,’ it’s good idea first to be Asian? (Hwang) Ronnie denies Benjamin’s Asian roots based on the color of his skin and does not take into consideration his parents’ ethnic background. This denial hurts Benjamin who deeply feels Asian and faces rejection because of his physical traits. He complains: â€Å" I forget that a society wedded to racial constructs constantly forces me to explain my very existence† (Hwang). This painful observation expresses the plight Benjamin has to undergo in a society that judges people according to their racial identity. Even though both authors portray the same issue, they employ different approaches that foreground the conflict between culture and ethnicity but also the lack of self-realization. The setting of the plays participates in providing more understanding and identifying the tragic and comic heroes.

Difficult in finding good jobs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Difficult in finding good jobs - Essay Example (Lenard, 2011) Depending on which state one resides in, the difficulty in finding employment can be described as .82 workers for every position, (in Washington, D.C.) or as many as 8.24 workers for every position (in Michigan). (Lenard, 2011) Production jobs are down nearly 50% as a result of outsourcing. (Lenard, 2011) With unemployment benefits on the decrease, due to fewer workers in the system supporting the tax base revenues from which those benefits derive, what does the future look like for these people? (Lenard, 2011) The impact of not being able to find work has caused some serious consequences for our economy. (Bruce, 2011) This type of structural unemployment is closely aligned with system failure. (Bruce, 2011) The current economic downturn has been long lasting. (Bruce, 2011) Most business cycles take approximately 20 years to return to their previous position. (Bruce, 2011) That means we have approximately 10 – 12 more years before we will be able to see more availability of employment. (Bruce, 2011) In addition to decreased productivity in the marketplace, unemployed workers are no longer supporting the tax revenue base that pays for unemployment benefits as well as numerous social programs that provide health care, training, and child care assistance to help people stay healthy and find employment. (Bruce, 2011) This creates a situation where the government must either increase taxes or borrow the money to cover this debt. Increased taxes lead to less consumption, which creates new unemployment. (Bruce, 2011) It takes money out of the financial markets, which also increases the interest rates; this, in turn, increases costs for companies and lowers profit margins; again, creating more layoffs. (Bruce, 2011) It’s a downward spiral. As companies outsource, they eliminate American workers and the managers that keep the production cycle in motion. (Bruce, 2011) For the ethnic worker, illegal immigrants take on blue collar jobs that many

Quantitative research critique Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Quantitative research critique - Assignment Example Yes. The beliefs which support restraint from mammography diagnosis are the problem in the study; the variables are the primary care provider status and insurance cover status. The population under the study is women seeking non-urgent interventions in emergency units. Yes. The investigators identified the key research question as investigating the differences in the belief systems which hinder maximum use of mammography for screening for invasive breast cancer. The variables concern the party that will shoulder the costs associated with the screening and or the treatment plan. Yes. The researchers discussed the significance of the problem by noting that adopting mammography screening is the surest way to curb most deaths facing the one-eighth of American who fail to go for the screening early enough. Yes. By quashing unnecessary beliefs and doubts about the effectiveness of mammography screening option among women, the study definitely encourages more women to join the program so as to obtain timely medical interventions against breast cancer. Yes. The literature review follows a logical sequence by revising earlier studies putting the number of women affected by invasive breast cancer as one in every eight people. They also reviews critical literature showing that mammography is effective in early diagnosis of the cancer, but up to 40% of the vulnerable women seeking emergency interventions do not comply with mammography screening. As such, they suffer disproportional rates of mortality from the disease. Yes. The relationship of the study to the previous research is based on clear statistics and facts showing that the underuse of mammography is the greatest risk factor to invasive breast cancer deaths. Yes. The investigators described the varied understandings of the beliefs about mammography screening as the gap in the literature

Critiquing nursing research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Critiquing nursing research - Essay Example In order to answer the above question the background questions were created, for example what is stress incontinence? Stress incontinence can be defined as involuntary urine loss due to sudden extra pressure, produced by activities such as sneezing, laughing, jumping or coughing. Therefore pelvic floor muscles and urethra cannot withstand the extra pressure BMJ (2009). What is the prevalence of stress incontinence? Its estimated around one in three women get SUI at some point in their lives. It can happen at any age, although its more common in women between the ages of 35 and 60 says Foldspang et al ( 1992 ) . What causes USI? Most cases of stress incontinence are due to weakened pelvic floor muscles. The common reason for the pelvic floor muscles to become weakened is childbirth, pregnancy, being overweight, hysterectomy, smoking, and menopause. Some medication can affect the pelvic floor. Examples are alpha-blockers used to treat high blood pressure, some antidepressants and sedat ives, and some muscle-relaxant drugs as quoted by BBC (2009) Another background question to conceder would be What are the current treatment available? According to BBC ( 2009) the wide range of treatments available include pelvic floor exercises, which helps to strengthened muscles by doing exercises, which prevents involuntary leakage and vaginal cones . These are small plastic cones that are put inside vagina. The cones come in a set of different weights. At first, the lightest cone has to be used. Patient has to use pelvic floor muscles to hold the cone in place. In that way patients exercise the pelvic floor muscles. Electrical stimulations include a special electrical device, which is used to stimulate the pelvic floor muscles with the aim of making them contract and become stronger. In surgery various surgical operations are used to treat stress incontinence. The operations aim to tighten or support

Anti-Cancer Drug Screening in Vitro Essay Example for Free

Anti-Cancer Drug Screening in Vitro Essay Introduction: The incidences of cancer remain high despite advances in our understanding of cancer. Cancer is a class of diseases characterized by out of control cell growth. Normal cells are constantly subject to signals that control whether the cell should divide, differentiate into another cell or die. Cancer cells develop a degree of independence from these signals, which results in uncontrolled growth and proliferation. If this proliferation is allowed to continue and spread, it can be fatal (1). Almost 90% of cancer-related deaths are due to metastasis – the complex process of tumor spread through the lymphatic system or bloodstream. The emergence of genomic technologies holds therapeutic potential for personalized cancer management. Personalized cancer management combines standard chemotherapy and radiation treatments with genomic profiling and in vitro cell proliferation studies. Individualized genomic profiling allows the researcher to identify specific genes that contribute to unregulated cellular mechanisms that normally control cellular growth. By determining the molecular profile of a specific cancer, suitable treatment can be considered that target those gene products (2). Cultured cancer cells have the capacity to dramatically exceed normal doubling times to almost indefinite levels, unlike normal cells. HeLa cells are a great example of this. One of the most widely used continuous cell lines in research is the HeLa cell line, which was derived in 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a cervical caner patient in 1951. These cells continue to grow and proliferate in hundreds of laboratories across the world to this day. These cancer cells have been called ‘Immortal’ as they have bypassed the senescence regulators within the cell and acquired the capacity for unlimited division. Measurement of cell viability and proliferation forms the basis for numerous in vitro assays of a cell population’s response to external factors. The reduction of tetrazolium salts is now widely accepted as a reliable way to examine cell p roliferation. MTT viability assays is based on the ability of a mitochondrial dehydrogenase enzyme from viable cells to cleave the tetrazolium rings of the pale yellow MTT and form a dark blue formazan crystals, which is largely impermeable to cell membranes, thus resulting in its accumulation within healthy cells. The resulting  intracellular purple formazan can be solubilized and quantified by a spectrometer and is then subject to examination to evaluate cell viability. These measurements can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of certain treatments to cells. These anti-cancer drugs in vitro allows drugs to be tested against live cells which helps determine drug effectiveness and side effects. Cell proliferation, also known as cell growth, cell division, or cell replication is the basic process through which cells form new cell. Cell proliferation is the increase in cell number as a result of cell division and growth. The quantification of cellular growth, including proliferation and viability, has become an essential tool in any laboratory working on cell-based studies. These techniques enable the optimization of cell culture conditions, and the determination of growth factor and cytokine activity. Even more importantly, the efficiency of therapeutic agents in drug screening, the cytostatic potential of anticancer compounds in toxicology testing, and cell-mediated toxicity can be assessed when quantifying cell growth (3). This practical is designed to evaluate the sensitivity and response of putative anti-cancer drugs using a modified anti-proliferative drug assay. Using a modified MTT drug assay, the sensitivity and response of anti-cancer drugs can be determined. In this blind trial, three unlabeled drugs are tested to discover their properties. The trial of these drugs was carried as a blind trial to insure that the results obtained with unbiased. Results In this practical, we were given three drugs. One of the drugs had no known anti-cancer properties; one was a known chemotherapeutic agent and the third was a mystery drug with putative anti-cancer properties. The HeLa cells were also treated with a no-drug, medium-only control. The objective of the study was to identify the nature of the unlabeled drugs. The identities of these three drugs were unknown in order to make the experiment a blind trial. Doing the study as a blind trial allowed any bias data to be avoided in data interpretation (2). Calculations: From the raw data obtained column 0 acts as the control, this column contains the HeLa cells but no drug, and is used to see if the unknown drugs A,B and  C have an effect on the viability of HeLa cells. The last row on the 96 well plates contained no HeLa cells and acted as a reference to observe whether column 0 contained living cells. When the absorbance value for column 0 was similar to the no cell value, that data set would be ignored, as this would indicate no cells were present in column 0 which would have been invalid as column 0 contained medium only. This method was applied when choosing appropriate data sets for data interpretation. Discussion: In this study we were given three drugs. One of the drugs had no known anti-cancer properties, one had a known chemotherapeutic agent and the third was a mystery drug with putative anti-cancer properties. The objective of this blind trial study was to identify the nature of these unlabeled drugs.  By observing the overall averages from the results (Table 1 Figure 1) we can conclude that drug A had the highest percentage cell viability out of the three drugs. The percentage value of A is similar to the percentage value of the control (0). The control consisted of a medium-only solution and not meant to effect the cell viability of HeLa cells at all, this implies that Drug A has no anti-cancer properties and has little effect on the HeLa cells viability. From this data we can conclude that Drug A was the drug with no known anti-cancer properties (negative control). By observing the percentage cell viability of drug B, we can conclude that drug B had the smallest cell viability value that was close to 0%. Small percentage viability indicates that there is a reduction in cell proliferation occurring in the HeLa cell line, however 0% cell viability would indicate that there are no viable cells in the well, meaning there was a complete reduction in cell proliferation. Lack of cell proliferation means an absence of mitochondrial succinic dehydrogenase activity to metabolize MTT into its results purple formazan, producing a lower absorbance value (4). From this we can conclude that drug B has anti-cancer properties as it had a large negative effect on HeLa cell viability. By observing drug C, we can determine that drug C also has a relatively low percentage cell viability value. This would indicate that drug C, like drug B, has a negative effect on cell viability, meaning it causes a reduction in cell proliferation in HeLa cells. From this we can conclude that Drug C also had anti-cancer properties as it had a negative effect on HeLa cell viability. At this point, two drugs have yet to be identified, Drug B and Drug C. Both Drug B and Drug C have anti-cancer properties, shown by their low cell viabilities values. A positive control will be a drug that will give a large cell viability percentage. From this, we would conclude that Drug B was the positive control with a chemotherapeutic agent leaving Drug C to be the mystery drug. However we cannot accept this without actually knowing what the mystery drugs anti-cancer properties are. The mystery drug could have stronger anti-cancer properties than the positive control. In this scenario, Drug B would be the mystery drug as it observed the lowest cell viability, making it the most effective against cancer cells. For this reason, we cannot accurately identify drugs B and C without more information about the mystery drug. However if we accept that the mystery drug has a smaller  effect on cancer cells than the positive control, we would then conclude that Drug B is the positive control and Drug C is the mystery drug. If we observe the overall data used to calculate the average cell viability percentages for each drug, we can see there are values higher than 100% and values lower than 0% (negative values). Values higher than 100% would indicate that there are more viable cells present in drug A compared to our control. Since we know drug A has no effect on the cancer cells, we would expect the cell viability of drug A to be similar to the control. These anomalies could be due to cell proliferation in the drug A column, meaning the HeLa cells grew and divided to create new cells, meaning the number of cells in column A increased, resulting in a higher absorbance value, due to the increase in MTT reduction. A higher absorbance value in the no cell row compared to the drug B column results in a negative value. Absorbance values that are lower than the control cells indicate a reduction in the rate of cell proliferation. Conversely a higher absorbance rate indicates an increase in cell proliferation. Values lower than 0% would indicate that there are fewer cells present in the drug B wells compared to the no cell wells. This could be due to human error where cells where accidently transferred due to poor lab technique, or been caused by a high absorbency of the buffer used in the no cell row. In this study, the reduction of the MMT is used to estimate cell viability and proliferation. However recent studies have shown that superoxide can also reduce tetrazolium salts, such as MTT. Therefore studies investigating the cytological effect of HeLa cells may encounter misleading results when using MTT to measure viability proliferation. This is because MTT assays may yield inaccurate results due to the increase in superoxide formation in cultured HeLa cells (7). This kind of limitation may have played apart in this study and could have caused our abnormal values discussed in the paragraph above. To overcome this limitation, we could use different techniques to measure cell viability. One way of assessing cytotoxicity is by cell integrity. Compounds that have cytotoxic effects, such as the drugs we are investigating, often compromise cell membrane integrity. An example of this method is a Tryphan Blue exclusion test (10). This exclusion test can be used to determine the number of viable cells present in a cell suspension. It is based on the principle that viable cells have intact cell membranes that are impermeable to dyes,  such a trypan blue, whereas dead cells do not. In this test, a cell suspension is mixed with the tryphan blue dye and then visually examined to determine whether cells take up or exclude the dye (11). A viable cell will have a clear cytoplasm whereas a dead cell will have a blue cytoplasm. Tryphan blue is not affected by superoxide formation so will yield more accurate results than the MTT assay. The problems that arise from dye exclusion tests is that they are operator depend and are subject to human error. Another way of assessing cell viability via membrane integrity is by using fluorescent DNA binding dyes such as SYBR Green I (10). SYBR Green I is a fluorescent dye used as a nucleic acid dye. SYBR Green I binds to DNA and the resulting DNA-dye-complex absorbs blue light and emits green light (9). This is based on the principle that an increase in cell proliferation will cause an increase of DNA in the cell suspension. More SYBR Green 1 will bind to the DNA and more green light will be observed under blue light.