YoL @ 6F, Main Lib

How The Brain Generates The Human Tendency For Optimism

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:39:00 +0000

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2007) — A neural network that may generate the human tendency to be optimistic has been identified by researchers at New York University. As humans, we expect to live longer and be more successful than average, and we underestimate our likelihood of getting a divorce or having cancer. The results, reported in Nature, link the optimism bias to the same brain regions that show irregularities in depression.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers from the laboratory of NYU Professor Elizabeth Phelps. The lead author is Tali Sharot, now a post-doctoral fellow at University College London.

The NYU researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain function while participants thought of possible future life events (such as "winning an award" or "the end of a romantic relationship").

"When participants imagined positive future events relative to negative ones, enhanced activation was detected in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala, which are the same brain areas that seem to malfunction in depression," said Sharot. "Activation of the rostral anterior cingulate was correlated with trait optimism, with more optimistic participants showing greater activity in this region when imagining future positive events."

The team found that participants were more likely to expect positive events to happen closer in the future than negative events, and to imagine them with greater vividness.

"Our behavioral results suggest that while the past is constrained, the future is open to interpretation, allowing people to distance themselves from possible negative events and move closer toward positive ones," said Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science. "Understanding optimism is critical as optimism has been related to physical and mental health. On the other hand, a pessimistic view is correlated with severity of depression symptoms."

The brain imaging findings offer a possible mechanism mediating the behaviorally observed optimism bias. The rostral anterior cingulate has previously been shown to be involved in the regulation of emotional responses. The current results suggest that in healthy individuals this region may help integrate and regulate emotional and autobiographical information to generate a positive view of the future.

The research was supported by the National Institutes for Mental Health, the Seaver Foundation, and a Margaret and Herman Sokol Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Adapted from materials provided by New York University.

7 Reality Checks

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:47:00 +0000

From Psychology Today/ How to Handle Rejection
By:Carlin Flora

If you anticipate rebuffs and overreact when they occur, you're operating under the influence of cognitive biases and false beliefs. Here's how to straighten out your thinking.

Expect Rejection
Belief: Everyone should like me, and if someone doesn't, it's a catastrophe.

Reality Check: Inevitably, some people will not like you. "I tell people to ask themselves, 'What are all the things I can still do if so-and-so doesn't like me?' " says Robert Leahy, psychologist and author of The Worry Cure. "The answer is always that there is nothing they can't do."
Learn from Playground Politics
Belief: Popular people never get turned down.

Reality Check: What distinguishes the popular kids in the school yard from the less popular ones is not the number of rebuffs they get, but how they handle them.
It's Not Always About You
Belief: Slights reflect poorly on me and everybody will remember them.

Reality Check: Someone may snub you because you remind him of an old friend with whom he had a bitter falling out, or because he's about to be evicted and is in a state of panic. Even if your behavior is the problem, other people won't likely notice or remember.
The Thing They Hate May Be The Thing You Love
Belief: There must be something inherently wrong with me.

Reality Check: You may be disliked because someone disagrees with the very values you cherish.
Learn to live with Shades of Gray
Belief: People should have only one feeling about me—either they accept me, or they don't.

Reality Check: It's natural for others to feel ambivalent about you. You may do or say something that a friend doesn't like, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't also love and respect you.
Avoid the Overthinking Trap
Belief: If I keep chewing on my worries, I can figure them out and I will feel better.

Reality Check: When you are ruminating, your snowballing negative thoughts crush your ability to come up with good solutions to your problems. First distract yourself with a pleasant activity such as meditating or gardening, says Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, author of Eating, Drinking, Overthinking, and then take concrete action to improve your situation. If you're worried about getting fired, ask for some feedback and change accordingly.
Don't Rush to Judgment
Belief: If I think I've been dissed, I should immediately seek reassurance from and/or confront the offender.

Reality Check: Most explanations for others' behaviors are quite benign. Give people the benefit of the doubt, or you may push them away with your desperation or hostility.

Original source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20070723-000013.html

The Science Of Collective Decision-making

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:45:00 +0000

Source: Association for Psychological Science
Date: September 21, 2007

Science Daily — Why do some juries take weeks to reach a verdict, while others take just hours? How do judges pick the perfect beauty queen from a sea of very similar candidates? We have all wondered exactly why we did not win a certain award. Now, new psychological research explains how groups come to a collective decision.

Jean-François Bonnefon, a University of Toulouse psychologist, conducted the first empirical investigation of the "doctrinal paradox." This occurs when judges, say a hiring committee or a jury, must evaluate several factors about a candidate, (e.g. a possible employee or a defendant in a trial) and come to a majority decision. When different opinions arise, the way they conduct the majority vote can be more important than the opinions themselves.

For example, a seven-judge committee must decide whether to promote a candidate to a position requiring a young, trilingual person. Each judge estimates whether the candidate is young, and whether she is trilingual. In the end, 4 out of 7 judges think she is young and 4 out of 7 think that she is trilingual, but only two of the judges think she is both. How should the committee proceed? They can all vote on the profile, and reject the candidate, or they can vote separately on each criterion and promote the candidate.

Bonnefon investigated which voting procedure was preferred by judges, and how this preference could change in different contexts. He presented the aforementioned situation to over 1.000 participants. Their responses, which are outlined in the September issue of Psychological Science, showed that profile-voting was preferred for simplicity reasons. The preference declined when the criteria were not likely to be simultaneously met by the candidate and the judges were then more likely to adopt criteria-voting.

Bonnefon also points out that "Just as jurors tend to eschew conviction when they lack a clear majority, judges showed some tendency to adopt whichever of the voting procedures that yielded the most lenient decision."

Bonnefon writes that the doctrinal paradox is a "shadowy aspect of the majority rule," and that while the majority rule may be appealing to reach a quick decision, it is also critical to investigate its potential for inconsistencies.

Article: "How Do Individuals Solve the Doctrinal Paradox in Collective Decisions? An Empirical Investigation."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Association for Psychological Science.

Mind Your Body: A Higher Road to Relaxation

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:39:00 +0000

From: Psychology Today
By:Stephanie Gold

You're under pressure. Deadlines are looming. Everyone is making demands on your time. Your anxiety level is rising. Your stomach is in knots. So you do what you've been well-trained to do. You make sure you get in your gym time.

But if neuroscientist Steven W. Porges is right, there's an even better way to counter stress. Exercise has its uses, but as a stress fighter it works primarily at a visceral level—and the operative word is fight. You're basically combating excess levels of cortisol, the hormone that spreads news of danger through your body and readies it to fight or flee.

You're better off working through higher—and more direct—channels, like the brain. The most efficient stress-reducer might just be a smile. Engaging socially with others triggers neural circuits that calm the heart, relax the gut, and switch off fear, Porges says.

The path from sociability to tranquillity is paved by the vagus nerve, the main route of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. The vagus wanders from brain stem to body, carrying signals to organs like the heart, lungs, and intestines, and regulating a number of facial muscles to boot. The vagus influences heart rate and breathing. It is intimately involved in how we perceive, react to, and recover from stress. When the vagus nerve is activated, heart rate slows, blood pressure drops, and the body enters a state of physical calm.

Over time, nature has elaborated a three-tier system of wiring to enable us to respond to immediate risk, says Porges, director of the Brain-Body Center at the University of Illinois.

All three are concerned with sorting out safety from danger, friend from foe. When we feel unsafe, we generally activate the fight-or-flight response, which conducts its business through the other half of the autonomic system, the sympathetic branch. Activation of sympathetic pathways is the physiological equivalent of pushing the panic button.

Older and more rudimentary among response strategies is total shutdown—freezing and immobilization. It's accomplished through an older version of the vagus nerve. So primitive is this vestigial channel, a holdover from our invertebrate past, that it lacks a protective coating of myelin, the fatty substance that sheathes most nerves in mammals, speeding the transmission of impulses.

Then there's the myelinated vagus, which serves as the pinnacle of our evolved capabilities. Linking the cranial nerves serving face, voice, and ears with the heart, lungs, and gut, it gives facial expressions and vocalizations privileged access to the circuitry modulating our visceral reactions. It is normally activated only under conditions of safety, but it provides the body with a much less taxing, and far more rewarding, escape from anxiety than fighting or fleeing.

When we scan our surroundings for risks, sweet smiles with gentle eye contact and soft voices with rhythmic inflections cue the brain structures that regulate the vagus nerve. The viscera lighten up: Heart rate slows, breathing eases. Stress switches off. You feel safe enough to move closer. Intimacy is now possible. Think of the vagus nerve as a social engagement system. And it works two ways. Social engagement creates the sense of safety that calms the viscera. And released from gut-wrenching anxiety, your insides now enable you to advance your social agenda, which further calms you.

Social interactions are very important in our experience as human beings, Porges says, and the social engagement system determines the quality of those interactions. Further, he calls the power of this system "amazing" both in terms of its effects on behavior and mental state and the speed with which it works. Not only do coping strategies like exercise tackle stress primarily at the visceral level, they actually work against deployment of the higher system. You may think exercise is curative, Porges says, but the calm you get from jogging 10 miles is more analgesic than therapeutic.

Exercise actually turns off the social engagement system by stimulating the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, which dampens the function of the vagus. Among its effects: blocking sensitivity to social cues. Distraction by some novelty may seem alluring at times of stress, but it bypasses the vagus nerve entirely and works at cross purposes to it. If your gut's in a knot, new and strange input will only aggravate the jitters. You're better off with old friends or favorite tunes than experimental sounds or the party where you don't know a soul. A skittish nervous system is really requesting familiarity and predictability, which is a metaphor for safety, Porges says.

Porges contends that our reaction to challenge is organized hierarchically, and that the evolutionarily newer neural circuits inhibit the older ones. We use the newer circuit to promote calm states, to soothe ourselves, and to engage with others. When this doesn't work, we mobilize for fight-or-flight behaviors. And if that doesn't do it, we resort to the old vagal system and freeze.

Our reaction to danger and the mobilization of defensive systems, rather than the engagement system, happens automatically, Porges observes. It's not a voluntary choice. It's as if our nervous system has betrayed us. But that doesn't mean we're stuck. "The mantra I use," Porges says, "is when your nervous system fails you, use behavior." To cope with such betrayals, we can learn to compensate—by moving into a quiet room or moving into social relationships rather than away from them.

Sarcastic Masters: When to Take The Edge Off

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:17:00 +0000

By:Elizabeth Svoboda

From: Psychology Today

Yes, you're sharp. But are you cutting too deep? Here's how to ensure people don't take what you say the wrong way.

Know your audience.
People have as wide a range of tolerance for sarcasm as they do for liquor. "If the person at the receiving end of sarcasm knows it's meant as a joke, the reaction may be more positive," Joakim says. "But I try not to be sarcastic with total strangers. That's usually not pretty."
Scan before you send.
It's best to avoid snarkiness in e-mails and text messages. Sarcasm is highly dependent on tone, while people tend to take typed notes more literally. As silly as those smiley-face emoticons are, use one if there is any possibility that your message could be misinterpreted.
Examine your motivations.
Some people resort to over-the-top sarcasm in an attempt to shore up their own self-image. Consider whether you yourself harbor feelings of inadequacy. Once you feel comfortable with who you are, you won't need to hide behind a veil of sarcasm.
Err on the side of caution.
If you're unsure how the target of your statement will respond, it's best not to unleash sarcasm at all, as Mosteller has learned. "If I'm around my husband's boss, I hold my tongue," she says. "I know that once I open my mouth, things are just going to keep coming."

Political Leanings May Show in Brain

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:39:00 +0000

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Sept. 10, 2007 -- Liberals and conservatives may handle mental conflict differently, according to new research on the brain.

The finding comes from researchers including David Amodio, PhD, a research scientist in New York University's psychology department. They scanned the brains of 43 adults during a conflict test.

As part of a confidential personality survey, participants rated their political orientation on a scale ranging from -5 (for extremely liberal) to +5 (for extremely conservative).

After finishing the survey, they donned stretchy caps studded with electrodes to scan their brains during the conflict test.

The test had nothing to do with candidates, votes, or prickly political issues.

Participants watched a computer screen that displayed the letter "M" or "W" for a split second in rapid succession.

The researchers asked half of the group to press a computer key whenever they saw "M" but not "W." The other half of the group got the opposite assignment -- press the button for "W" but not "M."

Most of the time, participants saw the letter that was supposed to prompt them to press the computer key. But 20% of the time, they saw the other letter and were supposed to refrain from pushing the computer key.

Compared with conservatives, liberals were more likely to refrain from pressing the computer key when the wrong letter appeared. Liberals also showed more activity in a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in monitoring conflicting information, note Amodio and colleagues.

"Although a liberal orientation was associated with better performance on the response-inhibition task examined here, conservatives would presumably perform better on tasks in which a more fixed response style is optimal," write the researchers.

The study appears in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

France's chance

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:55:00 +0000

Apr 12th 2007

From The Economist print edition

After a quarter-century of drift Nicolas Sarkozy offers the best hope of reform

Bridgeman/Rex

NO FRENCH presidential election in 50 years has looked as unpredictable as this year's, the first round of which takes place on April 22nd. This is so even though the leader in every opinion poll so far has been Nicolas Sarkozy, the candidate of the ruling centre-right UMP party. His support may be overestimated, just as that of the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen may be underestimated. The rise of the centrist François Bayrou, who at one point almost overtook the Socialist Ségolène Royal, has muddied the electoral arithmetic. And with only ten days to go, more than two in five voters are undecided.

This election matters. France is the euro zone's second-biggest member and home to ten of Europe's 50 biggest companies. But it is deeply troubled. It has the slowest-growing large economy in Europe, a state that soaks up half of GDP, the fastest-rising public debt in western Europe over the past ten years and, above all, entrenched high unemployment. Over the past 25 years French GDP per person has declined from seventh-highest in the world to 17th. The smouldering mood of the suburbs (banlieues), home to many jobless youths from ethnic minorities, blazed into riots in 2005 and lay behind new trouble that flared recently at a Paris railway station. The disenchantment of voters is reflected not only in opinion polls but also in their rejection of the European Union constitution in 2005. Tellingly, they have not re-elected an incumbent government for a quarter-century.

The most urgent cure for all these ills is to get the economy growing faster. That requires radical liberalisation of labour and product markets, more competition and less protection, lower taxes and cuts in public spending, plus a shake-up of the coddled public services. None of these things was seriously tackled in the past 26 years, under the presidencies of François Mitterrand, from the left, and Jacques Chirac, from the right. This was a time when other European countries, such as Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Nordics, transformed themselves for the better, and still largely retained their cherished social models and welfare systems. Here lies the biggest challenge for the next French president.

Worst, worse, bad

How do the candidates measure up? Only three of the 12 are serious runners (see article). A fourth who may shape the outcome is Mr Le Pen, the veteran leader of the racist National Front, who shamed France by edging past the Socialist candidate into the run-off against Mr Chirac in 2002. Mr Le Pen's poll numbers are better now than they were at the equivalent stage then. It is vital for France and its image that Mr Le Pen be kept out of the second round this time.

Ms Royal would be an asset in the second round, turning it into a satisfyingly direct left-right contest. She has other attractions: the first woman to be a serious contender, the boldness to push past the elephants in her party to win the nomination, a willingness to break with Socialist taboos by praising Britain's Tony Blair and criticising the French state's imposition of a maximum 35-hour working week. Unfortunately her policies are woolly even by modern standards. And in economics, she stands squarely behind all the old left-wing shibboleths: state intervention, rigid labour protection and high taxes.

On the face of it, the centrist Mr Bayrou is more promising. His pledge to curb the public debt is more credible than Ms Royal's and even Mr Sarkozy's. But he has failed to promote a free-market agenda—he is distressingly fond of farm subsidies and state intervention. Nor is it clear how he would form a government: his centrist party is tiny, and his vague musings of drawing in like-minded leaders from left and right smack of the lowest common denominator.

Faute de mieux

Which leaves Mr Sarkozy as the best of the bunch. Unlike the others, and despite his long service as a minister under Mr Chirac, he makes no bones of admitting that France needs radical change. He is an outsider, born to an aristocratic Hungarian émigré father; he openly admires America; he is enthusiastic about the economic renaissance of Britain. He plans an early legislative blitz to take on hitherto untouchable issues such as labour-market liberalisation, cutting corporate and income taxes and trimming public-sector pensions.

But there are two doubts about Mr Sarkozy. As he showed in his brief stint as finance minister, he has most of the traditional French politician's meddlesome economic instincts, favouring a strong industrial policy, protected national champions and even interfering in supermarket prices. Recently he has taken to heaping blame on the European Central Bank for France's self-inflicted failings.

Such economic populism may merely be a ploy to win over an electorate that has long been averse to the market. But in Mr Sarkozy it is yoked to a second unattractive streak: a form of nativism, reflected in his harsh comments about immigrants and national identity. His supporters say he must tack right to lure voters from Mr Le Pen. But he is now so unpopular in the banlieues that—unlike Mr Le Pen—he has barely set foot in them during the campaign. As interior minister, he took great interest in how to improve the lives of French Muslims, but he has dropped all such talk as a candidate.

This may also explain the biggest defect in Mr Sarkozy's foreign policy: his fierce hostility to letting Turkey join the EU. Ms Royal has bravely supported the principle of Turkish membership. But this is unlikely to be put to the test for at least a decade, and on other EU issues, such as the future of the constitution, Mr Sarkozy has a more sensible, pragmatic approach than either of his main rivals. He is also the most likely candidate to repair France's tattered relations with America.

On the evidence of his career and his campaign, Mr Sarkozy is less a principled liberal than a brutal pragmatist. Yet he is the only candidate brave enough to advocate the “rupture” with its past that France needs after so many gloomy years. It has been said that France advances by revolution from time to time but seldom, if ever, manages to reform. Mr Sarkozy offers at least a chance of proving this aphorism wrong.

Why We Dream

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:00:00 +0000

By:Hara Estroff Marano

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20050420-000004.html

If dreams are the royal road to the unconscious, as Freud claimed, then that route may be a highway full of tortuous twists and turns—leading nowhere. But it affords some spectacular vistas along the way.

By turns, dreams have been deemed prophecies of the future, full of meaning—if only someone could figure out what it is—or the effluence of nerve cells randomly unwinding from a busy day. Once considered a hallmark of the periodic surges of brain activity known as rapid-eye-movement sleep, dreaming now seems somewhat less bundled up; at least 25 percent of dreams are scattered through other parts of the night. Dreaming has been seen as critical for learning, or at least important for solving problems—or as nice but unnecessary. It's an emblem of mental illness—or a safety shield deflecting it.

The newest switchback on dreams comes from South African neuroscientist Mark Solms. Maybe, says Solms, we've been confusing cause and effect. Dreams, he suggests, are not a by-product of sleep, as has been assumed all along. Dreaming may be what allows us to sleep in the first place.

"Dreams protect sleep," Solms says. They furnish an ersatz world to keep the brain temporarily occupied in its unyielding quest for activity. His iconoclastic view of dreams springs from emerging evidence that REM sleep and dreaming are not synonymous, and that the brain mechanisms involved in REM sleep may be entirely different from those involved in dreaming. Dreaming, in fact, is now thought to recruit areas of the brain involved in higher mental functions.

In other words, dreaming does for the brain what Saturday-morning cartoons do for the kids: It keeps them sufficiently entertained so that the serious players in the household can get needed recovery time. Without such diversion, the brain would be urging us up and out into the world to keep it fully engaged.

"Dreams are a delusional hallucinatory state" driven by activation of the brain's basic motivational system, Solms told a recent gathering of scientists in New York City. And like delusions, they appear to be stoked by an abundance of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Dopamine, scientists now know, plays a critical role in directing our attention. The neurochemical decrees what is salient in our environment, regardless of whether that environment is inside us or outside. Under dopamine's influence, events or thoughts jump out of the background, grab our attention, move us to act and drive goal-directed behavior.

Dreams trick us into thinking we're out striving in the wider world. "The fundamental problem of being alive is that we must get all our needs met in the outside world," says Solms. The brain has an answer to that; it has developed a kind of unified motivational force variously called the "seeking" or "wanting" system, an orchestration of primitive and higher neural structures that orients us to the outside world with an air of anticipation and positive expectancy. As Solms puts it, "It's an all-purpose looking-for-pleasure-in-the-world drive" that sends animals out to satisfy their needs.

Pioneering neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp describes the seeking system as a "goad without a goal" (goals, such as gathering food, being dictated by the specific situation). It is a readiness for action, an appetitive arousal, the neurobiological descendant of Freud's idea of libido. Representing a very basic function of the brain, it commands and activates an array of neural circuits.

Researchers mapping the functions of the brain have shown that the hallucinations of psychosis involve hyperactivation of the seeking system's structures. They also involve dysregulated dopamine transmission. Increasingly viewed as "the wind of the psychotic fire," dopamine prompts the brain to assign abnormal importance to its own internal representations. Delusions, in other words, are errors of salience attribution. We overvalue our own thoughts, which are mistaken for perceptual experience of the world.

Dreams share many qualities with hallucinations. They are the hallucinations we all experience. Both dreams and hallucinations involve intensive activation of the seeking system. And Solms points to accumulating evidence that dreaming, like hallucinating, is driven by dopamine.

French neuroscientist Claude Gottesmann reported that dopamine release in the brain's nucleus accumbens, a site long recognized to be involved in the hallucinations of schizophrenia, is maximal during dream sleep. "Dreaming and schizophrenia have the same neurochemical background," Gottesmann says.

Other studies show that the dopamine-boosting drug L-dopa, commonly used to treat Parkinson's disease, prompts people to have more dreams, more emotional content to their dreams and more bizarre dreams.

Driven by dopamine, dreams fill our minds with myriad stimuli that feel worthy of our attention, says Solms. "That's necessary because the body is withdrawn from the external world."

Goaded into seeking but blocked from action by paralyzing neurochemicals released during dream sleep, we feed on our own internal representations of the world. And we wake hungry for new experiences that build our psychic cinema of internal representations.

Says Solms, "The dopamine hypothesis is at the core of why we dream."

New Words: Christian and democracy

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:42:00 +0000

From a reading of Christian view on democracy

Multitude
Downtrodden
Irrevocable
Portion
Integral
Monotheism
Defy
Iconoclasm
Idolatry
Apathy
Majesty
Humility
Adversary
Rudiment
Covenantal
Transcendent
Evangelical
Congregation
Concomitant
Normative
Magistrate
Homage
Penetration
Theological
Depravity
Preponderant
Coerce
Prerogative
Inordinate
Inclination
Proneness
Paternalistic
Cleavage
Equilibrium
Dispersion
Vocation
Scripture
Judeo-Christian (also spelled Judaeo-Christian) is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Christianity and Judaism, and typically considered a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values.

Brain Structure

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Reflection Paper

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:48:00 +0000

Source 1: http://www.cascadia.ctc.edu/facultyweb/instructors/jvanleer/intro%20geol/Reflection%20Paper%20Guidelines.htm

Reflection papers are designed to formally consider what they have been learning and to organize it through writing.

When writing, consider the following:

What have we studied that is interesting?
What new things have you learned?
How has your learning affected preconceptions or misconceptions you brought with you into class
How does your learning affect you view of the world and the universe?
Will what you have learned change your behavior in the future?

Source 2: http://daphne.palomar.edu/di/reflectionpaper.htm

A reflection paper should report some of your thoughts about the reading in question. It may include questions about the reading, arguments on the issue raised by the author, and relevant point not raised by the author.

Feel free to write down questions you have about the reading or issues it raises. Feel free to disagree with the reading and criticize the writer's point of view. Stick to specifics. Criticism is fine; vague whining is not. Write about what the writer says, not just how you feel about having to read it. But feel completely free to criticize or disagree with what he or she says. Feel free to raise other issues suggested by the reading.

If I don't give you a specific question to write on, reflect on these questions: What are the issues this reading raises? That is, what questions does the writer set out to answer? What are her answers? How would you evaluate the evidence she presents to support her position? Where do you think the author is right? Where wrong? Why? What points need further exploration?

Globalisation's offspring

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 07:23:00 +0000

From The Economist print edition
Apr 4th 2007

How the new multinationals are remaking the old

FOR as long as multinational companies have existed—and some historians trace them back to banking under the Knights Templar in 1135—they have been derided by their critics as rapacious rich-world beasts. If there was ever any truth to that accusation, it is fast disappearing. While globalisation has opened new markets to rich-world companies, it has also given birth to a pack of fast-moving, sharp-toothed new multinationals that is emerging from the poor world.

Indian and Chinese firms are now starting to give their rich-world rivals a run for their money. So far this year, Indian firms, led by Hindalco and Tata Steel, have bought some 34 foreign companies for a combined $10.7 billion. Indian IT-services companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro are putting the fear of God into the old guard, including Accenture and even mighty IBM (see article). Big Blue sold its personal-computer business to a Chinese multinational, Lenovo, which is now starting to get its act together. PetroChina has become a force in Africa, including, controversially, Sudan. Brazilian and Russian multinationals are also starting to make their mark. The Russians have outdone the Indians this year, splashing $11.4 billion abroad, and are now in the running to buy Alitalia, Italy's state airline (see article).

These are very early days, of course. India's Ranbaxy is still minute compared with a branded-drugs maker like Pfizer; China's Haier, a maker of white goods, is a minnow next to Whirlpool's whale. But the new multinationals are bent on the course taken by their counterparts in Japan in the 1980s and South Korea in the 1990s. Just as Toyota and Samsung eventually obliged western multinationals to rethink how to make cars and consumer electronics, so today's young thrusters threaten the veterans wherever they are complacent.

The newcomers have some big advantages over the old firms. They are unencumbered by the accumulated legacies of their rivals. Infosys rightly sees itself as more agile than IBM, because when it makes a decision it does not have to weigh the opinions of thousands of highly paid careerists in Armonk, New York. That, in turn, can make a difference in the scramble for talent. Western multinationals often find that the best local people leave for a local rival as soon as they have been trained, because the prospects of rising to the top can seem better at the local firm.

First, count your blessings

But the newcomers' advantages are not overwhelming. Take the difference in company ethics, for instance, which worries plenty of rich-world managers. They fear that they will engage in a race to the bottom with rivals unencumbered by the fine feelings of shareholders and domestic customers, and so are bound to lose. Yet the evidence is that companies harmonise up, not down. In developing countries (never mind what the NGOs say) multinationals tend to spread better working practices and environmental conditions; but when emerging-country multinationals operate in rich countries they tend to adopt local mores. So as those companies globalise, the differences are likely to narrow.

Nor is cost as big an advantage to emerging-country multinationals as it might seem. They compete against the old guard on value for money, which depends on both price and quality. A firm like Tata Steel, from low-cost India, would never have bought expensive, Anglo-Dutch Corus were it not for its expertise in making fancy steel.

This points to an enduring source of advantage for the wealthy companies under attack. A world that is not governed by cost alone suits them, because they already possess a formidable array of skills, such as managing relations with customers, polishing brands, building up know-how and fostering innovation.

The world is bumpy

The question is how to make these count. Sam Palmisano, IBM's boss, foresees nothing less than the redesign of the multinational company. In his scheme, multinationals began when 19th-century firms set up sales offices abroad for goods shipped from factories at home. Firms later created smaller “Mini Me” versions of the parent company across the world. Now Mr Palmisano wants to piece together worldwide operations, putting different activities wherever they are done best, paying no heed to arbitrary geographical boundaries. That is why, for example, IBM now has over 50,000 employees in India and ambitious plans for further expansion there. Even as India has become the company's second-biggest operation outside America, it has moved the head of procurement from New York to Shenzen in China.

As Mr Palmisano readily concedes, this will be the work of at least a generation. Furthermore, rich-country multinationals may struggle to shed nationalistic cultures. IBM is even now trying to wash the starch out of its white-shirted management style. But today, General Electric alone seems able to train enough of its recruits to think as GE people first and Indians, Chinese or Americans second. Lenovo's decision to appoint an American, William Amelio, as its Singapore-based chief executive, under a Chinese chairman, is a hint that some newcomers already understand the way things are going.

IBM's approach is possible only because globalisation is flourishing. Many of the barriers that stopped cross-border commerce have fallen. And yet, Mr Palmisano's idea also depends on the fact that the terrain remains decidedly bumpy. Increasingly, success for a multinational will depend on correctly spotting which places best suit which of the firm's activities. Make the wrong bets and the world's bumps will work against you. And now that judgment, rather than tariff barriers, determines location, picking the right place to invest becomes both harder and more important.

Nobody said that coping with a new brood of competitors was going to be easy. Some of today's established multinational companies will not be up to the task. But others will emerge from the encounter stronger than ever. And consumers, wherever they are, will gain from the contest.

Secondary Data

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:34:00 +0000

Source 1: http://brent.tvu.ac.uk/dissguide/hm1u3/hm1u3text2.htm

SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION

All methods of data collection can supply quantitative data (numbers, statistics or financial) or qualitative data (usually words or text). Quantitative data may often be presented in tabular or graphical form. Secondary data is data that has already been collected by someone else for a different purpose to yours. For example, this could mean using:

data collected by a hotel on its customers through its guest history system
data supplied by a marketing organisation
annual company reports
government statistics.

Secondary data can be used in different ways:

You can simply report the data in its original format. If so, then it is most likely that the place for this data will be in your main introduction or literature review as support or evidence for your argument.
You can do something with the data. If you use it (analyse it or re-interpret it) for a different purpose to the original then the most likely place would be in the ‘Analysis of findings’ section of your dissertation. A good example of this usage was the work on suicide carried out by Durkheim. He took the official suicide statistics of different countries (recorded by coroners or their equivalent) and analysed them to see if he could identify variables that would mean that some people are more likely to commit suicide than others. He found, for example, that Catholics were less likely to commit suicide than Protestants. In this way, he took data that had been collected for quite a different purpose and used it in his own study – but he had to do a lot of comparisons and statistical correlations himself in order to analyse the data. (See Haralambos, 1995, for details of Durkheim’s work).

Most research requires the collection of primary data (data that you collect at first hand), and this is what students concentrate on. Unfortunately, many dissertations do not include secondary data in their findings section although it is perfectly acceptable to do so, providing you have analysed it. It is always a good idea to use data collected by someone else if it exists – it may be on a much larger scale than you could hope to collect and could contribute to your findings considerably.

As secondary data has been collected for a different purpose to yours, you should treat it with care. The basic questions you should ask are:

Where has the data come from?
Does it cover the correct geographical location?
Is it current (not too out of date)?
If you are going to combine with other data are the data the same (for example, units, time, etc.)?
If you are going to compare with other data are you comparing like with like?

Thus you should make a detailed examination of the following:

Title (for example, the time period that the data refers to and the geographical coverage).
Units of the data.
Source (some secondary data is already secondary data).
Column and row headings, if presented in tabular form.
Definitions and abbreviations, for example, what does SIC stand for? For example, how is ‘small’ defined in the phrase ‘small hotel’? Is ‘small’ based on the number of rooms, value of sales, number of employees, profit, turnover, square metres of space, etc., and do different sources use the word ‘small’ in different ways? Even if the same unit of measurement is used, there still could be problems. For example, in Norway, firms with 200-499 employees are defined as ‘medium’, whereas in the USA firms with less than 500 employees are defined as ‘small’.

There are many sources of data and most people tend to underestimate the number of sources and the amount of data within each of these sources.

Sources can be classified as:

paper-based sources – books, journals, periodicals, abstracts, indexes, directories, research reports, conference papers, market reports, annual reports, internal records of organisations, newspapers and magazines
electronic sources– CD-ROMs, on-line databases, Internet, videos and broadcasts.

The main sources of qualitative and quantitative secondary data include the follwing:

Official or government sources.
Unofficial or general business sources.

The output of all publishers of non-official sources is included in the most comprehensive directory available:

Mort D. (1997) Sources of Unofficial UK Statistics 3rd Edition Aldershot: Gower

The guide lists 1,059 statistical titles and series published by 635 different organisations. It excludes one-off surveys or market reports.

The arrangement is alphabetical by organisation with details of titles produced and contacts for further information. It lists references to the following types of sources:

trade associations

trade and other journals

private research publishers

stockbroking firms

large company market reports

local authorities

professional bodies

academic institutions.

European Union (Community) sources.
International sources.
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- United Nations and related organisations.

Sources for the last two categories are many and varied. If your dissertation requires these sources you need to conduct a more thorough search of your library and perhaps seek the assistance of the librarian.

______________________________________________________

Source 2: http://oassis.gcal.ac.uk/rms/irm/sd.html

SOURCES & USES OF SECONDARY DATA

What Is Secondary Data?

Data may be described as Primary or Secondary

Primary data - collected by the researcher himself
Secondary data - collected by others to be "re-used" by the researcher

What Form Does Secondary Data Take?

Qualitative Sources
/ Sources for Qualitative Research:

Biographies - subjective interpretation involved
Diaries - more spontaneous, less distorted by memory lapses
Memoirs - benefit/problem of hindsight
Letters - reveal interactions
Newspapers - public interest & opinion
Novels & Literature In General - eg Atkinson's tribute to usefulness of Gordon's "Dr Novels"; McLelland's study of achievement motivation in different cultures via children's stories & folktales
Handbooks, Policy Statements, Planning Documents, Reports, Historical & Official Documents (Hansard, Royal Commission reports) etc. nb Marx's use of Factory Inspectors reports in developing his theories of the labour process

Quantitative Sources

Published Statistics:

National Government Sources

Demographic (Census, Vital Statistics, Cancer Registrations)
Administrative (by-product of Government)

Collected by Govt. Depts. overseen by ONS (eg. employment, prices, trade, finance)

Government Surveys (input to Government)

General Household Survey (GHS)
Family Expenditure Survey (FES)
Labour Force Survey (LFS)
Family Resources Survey (FRS)
Omnibus Survey

Local Government Sources

Planning Documents
Trends Documents (eg former Strathclyde Social Trends and Economic Trends)

Other Sources

Firms & Trade Associations eg Society of Motot Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT)
Market & Opinion Research eg Gallup, NOP, SCPR System 3
Trade Unions, TUC, STUC
Professional Bodies eg CIPFA (Chartered Instiute of Public Finance & Accountancy) provides a Statistical Information Service re Local Government Statistics
Political Parties
Voluntary & Charitable Bodies eg Low Pay Unit, SCF (Save the Children Fund), Rowntree Foundation
Academic & Research Institutes eg

Micro-Social Change Research Centre (MSRC) at Essex Uni
National Institute for Economic & Social Rsearch (NIESR)
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

International Sources

EU, OECD, World Bank, IMF

Non-Published / Electronic Sources

Data Archives eg the Data Archive At Essex

Data Sub-Setting Service On Tape, Disk, Postal Or Via Janet

On-Line Access To National Computing Centres

MIMAS (Manchester Information & Associated Services)
EDINA (Edinburgh)

International Sources on Internet & Web

Ways of Using Secondary Sources

Exploratory phase - getting ideas
Design Phase - definitions & sampling frames, question wording
Supplement to Main Research

- Re-Inforcement &/Or Comparison

Main Mode of Research

- Direct Data Collection Impossible
- Or Costly & Time Consuming

Limitations of Secondary Data

Collected For A Different Purpose
Problem of Definitions
Problem of Comparability Over Time
Lack of Awareness of Sources of Error/Bias
Has the Data Been "Massaged"?
What Do The Statistics Really Mean?

Eg. Health, Crime, Unemployment

Limitations of Survey Data

Representativeness
Validity of Responses

Limitations of Documents

Documents "Construct" As Well As Report Social Reality

How to Search & Use Secondary Sources?

Documents - Bibliographic Skills, Use of Keywords, Boolean Operators
Published Statistics

Guide to Official Statistics
Digests & Abstracts
Primary Publication

Electronic Sources

Biron
Gateways - SOSIG, BUBL
Search Engines - Infoseek, Alta Vista, Webcrawler etc.

The Evaluation Essay

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:33:00 +0000

source1: http://www.bestessays.com/evaluation_essay_guide.php

The aim of the evaluation essay is to give your opinion on the article, book or other material you have read and criticize it if you completely disagree with the mentioned above or only to some extent.

The main functions of your essay are:

To analyze the material you were given as a source;
To criticize the argument it presents;
To state your opinion or to contribute to the existing one and give necessary arguments and show that they are trustworthy.

Evaluation essay is an assignment that requires research, analysis and a lot of patience. If you are going to present an opinion that will be completely different from that stated in the material, you will need an adequate convincing proof. In the intro you explain the evaluation matter given in the source. Thus the intended reader will get the idea what you are going to evaluate.

Formulating your thesis statement, present various approaches to the problem.

The main body should provide analysis of the source and additional information to prepare the background for your judgement. Make sure that your statements are complete and convincing. Every point of disagreement should be supported by a coherent chain of evidence. It may be a good idea to establish a plan on how are you going to develop your ideas concerning the problem. Make a chain of facts you are going to include in your essay and develop each of them in a separate paragraph.

Conclusion should summarize and develop a good solution for the problem under discussion. It is the most significant part of your essay and be ready that it will be treated very sceptically. Make sure you have written powerful and strong conclusion to leave any shadow of doubts.

Make sure to proofread your essay for a couple of times. Along with searching for spelling, grammar and other types of mistakes, think over the plot itself:

Isn't it contradictory?
Is the topic fully covered?
Do the facts I give look trustworthy?
Do I sound convincing?
Is my language bright enough?
Does the essay I wrote correspond to the format I was given?
If I were an intended writer, would I be convinced with this essay?

After doing all the mentioned above, you can be sure that your essay is successfully written.

____________________________________________________

source2: http://www.customessay.org/2evaluation-essay.htm

An evaluation essay estimates an object, prompting the reader to accept the writer's point of view. Features of the evaluative essays are very similar to those of cause and effect essays, but no cause-effect relations are considered in evaluation essays. The evaluation technique is widely used for dwelling upon many processes and events: recent events, books, articles, movies, famous people and other.

In the first paragraph of the evaluation essay, the writer should provide the description of an evaluated object, carefully selecting the features he is willing to disclose. As stated above, the purpose of the evaluation essay is to persuade the reader that the writer's judgment is correct, and therefore each sentence should demonstrate the writer's competence. The writer should also provide brief historical information about the subject of evaluation in case he is going to evaluate a movie, book, canvas or any other subject with peculiar historical background (this may include the author's name, the history of creation, the date of publication, etc.). Further, the writer should express his opinion by formulating a definitive judgment in the form of a thesis statement. The following paragraphs should support and substantiate the formulated thesis refuting the possible counterarguments. However, profound argumentation should be left for an argumentative essay, while the evaluation essay should state the writer's estimation of an object in an authoritative manner.

The writer of an evaluation essay should be reasonable in his judgments, i.e. his estimations should be based upon some objective, universally recognized criteria. Each judgment should be supported by evidence (example, description, statistics, opinion of other individuals, etc.). In case the writer chooses to utilize comparisons in his evaluation, he has to be sure that the compared objects are equivalent. The writer should demonstrate an unbiased tone, though remembering the necessity to formulate his own opinion. The writing style should correspond to the object of evaluation.

HK Election 2007

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:14:00 +0000

Hong Kong Leader Wins Re-election by an Expected Wide Margin

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Donald Tsang celebrated after being re-elected by a wide margin as Hong Kong's chief executive.

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: March 25, 2007
site from: New York Times

HONG KONG, Sunday, March 25 — Donald Tsang was re-elected Hong Kong’s chief executive by a wide margin on Sunday, following a campaign that drew unexpected interest as the first contested election for the territory’s top job since its return to China in 1997.

Mr. Tsang prevailed by a vote of 645 to 123 over Alan Leong, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association who was the first democracy advocate to obtain a place on the ballot here.

Only a small group of electors were allowed to cast votes in the election. Slightly more than half of them had been chosen in voting last December by roughly 200,000 of the city’s seven million residents, while the rest automatically became electors because they held positions in the local legislature, local business groups or the National People’s Congress in Beijing.

With strong back from Beijing’s leaders, Mr. Tsang’s re-election was never in doubt. The electors are mainly wealthy businesspeople and politicians with close ties to the mainland. Many of them arrived at the election site, a convention center next to the city’s outlying airport, in their chauffeured Rolls-Royces, Mercedes and BMWs.

Though most of Hong Kong’s people did not have a say in the outcome, the election still caught the public’s attention.

During the campaign Hong Kong held its first two debates pitting a leader of the territory against an opponent actively promoting democracy. The campaign grew sufficiently contentious that mainland authorities temporarily blocked signals from CNN even when Mr. Tsang articulated his position on eventual democracy here.

People in neighboring Guangdong Province can receive television signals from Hong Kong and have been expressing envy to Hong Kong television crews over this territory’s limited liberties.

“They say, why don’t we have the same thing for the election of our governors?” Mr. Tsang said in an interview Friday, adding that he did not have a position on whether this was good or bad.

In the interview, with five foreign correspondents, Mr. Tsang said he wanted to introduce a democracy plan in the next five years that would satisfy the 60 percent of Hong Kong’s people who consistently tell pollsters that they want a system of one person, one vote.

But he declined to provide any details. He tried and failed in 2005 to fashion a consensus that would satisfy democracy advocates without upsetting Beijing’s leaders, who worry about losing control here, and without antagonizing local business leaders, some of whom warn that greater democracy could lead to demands for the introduction of a minimum wage and greater welfare spending.

Stephen Lam, the secretary for constitutional affairs, announced Sunday that the government would issue a report "by the middle of this year" on possible approaches to universal suffrage and would then solicit public comments for several months. “We will reflect those views very faithfully to the central government in the hope that we can make progress in the next five years,” he said, referring to China’s national government in Beijing.

Michael DeGolyer, the director of the Hong Kong Transition Project, a group of academics studying the evolution of democratic liberties in Hong Kong, said Mr. Tsang’s comments over the past five months of the campaign showed a discernible shift toward more enthusiasm for addressing the question of greater democracy here.

Mr. Tsang was considered virtually certain to win because he had Beijing’s backing and was nominated by 641 of the 796 electors. Only 132 electors chose Mr. Leong.

With unemployment falling and the economy booming, polls by Hong Kong University and other groups suggest that if the public could vote, they would overwhelmingly choose Mr. Tsang, who has four decades of experience in public service. Mr. Leong is a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association who emerged as the pro-democracy candidate after better-known politicians decided that it was hopeless to run against Mr. Tsang.

The elections represent the first time that a secret ballot has been used to choose the next leader of Hong Kong.

Stanley Ho, an outspoken supporter of Mr. Tsang who controls many of the casinos in nearby Macao, caused controversy two weeks ago by saying there was a way to find out who cast which vote. Mr. Ho, an elector who arrived at the voting site in an immense silver Rolls-Royce with the license plate HK-1, later said that he had only meant to cite a local expression that every secret eventually becomes known.

Election officials have been issuing almost daily assurances ever since that ballots will be truly secret, with no photography allowed in the voting area and no serial numbers or other identifying marks on the ballots.

But as Margaret Ng, a pro-democracy lawmaker who is an elector and supported Mr. Leong, said on Friday, “It will leave some lurking doubt, so unless people have strong views, they will vote for Donald Tsang.”

In the end, there were 11 blank ballots and five ballots ruled invalid because they were unclearly marked.

Longtime democracy advocates in Hong Kong remain divided over the wisdom of participating in elections with rules that make it certain they will lose.

The two most prominent figures in the pro-democracy movement here — Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, and Anson Chan, a former second-ranking official in the Hong Kong government — declined to run this spring.

Invention: Brain decoder

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:10:00 +0000

13:09 26 March 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Brain decoder

One of the great challenges for neuroscientists is to understand the code the brain uses to send information along neurons. Researchers at Brown University on Rhode Island have now come up with a device that may help to tackle the mystery.

The machine works by measuring the signals produced by primary motor cortex – the part of the brain responsible for hand-eye co-ordination. A computer then attempts to reproduce this signal, which is used to stimulate the movement in a primate limb.

By minimising the difference between the original signal and the artificial one and by comparing the difference in the effects these two signals have on limb movement, the researchers hope to decrypt the neuronal code used by the brain to control muscle movement. The researchers say same signal-processing techniques could eventually be used to control artificial limbs, wheelchairs and even speech synthesisers.

Read the full brain decoder patent application.

Smarter grafts

When it comes to tissue grafts, culturing a patient's own cells greatly reduces the chances of rejection. Most cultures are random collections of cells but research shows that tissues are significantly healthier when grown as part of a network in which they make organised connections with each other.

Now the Tokyo Medical and Dental University says it has a way of encouraging cells to grow in specific patterns on a biodegradable substrate. Once implanted, the substrate need not be removed as is gradually broken down by the body, leaving the cultured cells in place.

The substrate has a photosensitive layer which, when exposed to light in the desired pattern, forms a bio-adhesive surface that cells can stick to. This layer also encourages the cells to grow in the desired pattern. The researchers say the technique can be used to create skin and blood vessels which should have a lower chance of rejection following implantation.

Read the full smarter grafts patent application.

Semi-solid pills

Doctors have experimented for several decades with biodegradable materials that deliver drugs to specific parts of the body. As the substance breaks down, any drugs mixed into the matrix leak into the body over a period of hours, days or months. However, getting the material into the body without surgery can be tricky.

Robert Langer, one of the world's leading biotechnologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, US, and Abraham Domb at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel, have come up with a potential fix.

The pair has developed a biodegradable polymer paste made of polyhydroxyalkanoic acid polyesters that become a semisolid mass when heated to body temperature. The paste is easy to prepare and can be injected into almost any site in the body where it then becomes semisolid. This can then be used to deliver almost any drug – from sedatives to antiviral agents – as it gradually breaks down.

Read the full semi-solid pills patent application.

For more than 30 years, New Scientist has trawled through the world's weird and wonderful patent applications, uncovering the most exciting, bizarre or even terrifying new ideas. Read previous Invention columns, including:

Auto-snug clothing, the 'suits you' cellphone, YouTube watermarks, hot lap prevention, edible RFID, covert iris scanner, personal TV censor, diamond-coated gadgets, computo-cooked perfection, Cellphone sunscreen, skateboard meets Segway, Taser gets tougher, razor light, wing-mirror cameras, body-wired headphones, rocket-repelling parachutes, tooth decay probe, laser healing, throwable game controllers, Microwave oven gun, Smart-card DVDs, Smart night scope, laser microphone, triple-standard DVD, ultimate body armour, Long-range stunner, tongue-o-vision, jellyfish injections, Flesh-burn sensor, fire-escape tubes, VoIP mangling, in-flight rearming, sense that fat, Designer speakers, throw-away parachutes, password-protected bullets, spinning touchdown, palmtop Feng Shui, Origami gadgets, mile-high showers, Hydrogen fuel balls, human cannonballs, the riot slimer, the bomb jammer, Apple's all-seeing screen, the TV-advert enforcer, the wing-sprouting drone, the drink-driver arm scanner, laser spark plugs, remote-controlled implants,the "I've been shot" gun, the snore zapper, the guitar phone, explosive-eating fungus, viper vision, exploding ink, the moody media player, the spy-diver killer, preventing in-flight interference, the inkjet-printer pen, sonic watermarks, the McDownload, hot-air plane, landmine arrows, soldiers obeying odours, coffee beer, wall-beating bugging, eyeball electronics, phone jolts, personal crash alarm, talking tooth, shark shocker, midnight call-foiler, burning bullets, a music lover's dream, magic wand for gamers, the phantom car, phone-bomb hijacking, shocking airport scans, old tyres to printer ink and eye-tracking displays.

FOSS1002 10%

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 05:03:00 +0000

Dear all,

Forgot to return yesterday your graded commentary on presentation outline 1. Apologies. Your grade is 78 (A). My comments are:

"A commentary that is written in the appropriate reviewing style. You have identified critical points that could have been further elaborated by presenters".

Regards, Maria

Good, got A on 10% lar~

Application for AIPE

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:28:00 +0000

Essay : Describe an economic or political problem facing your country and how you would solve it as a leader.

As for my beloved motherland, People’s Republic of China, one of the most urgent political problems, in my opinion, should be the integration of the party and the government administration. It is a problem left by the history and never be considered as a problem. If I were a leader, I would say, to solve the problem is not impossible, especially with previous experience from other countries.

First of all, the problem mentioned above needs further clarification. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) being the one and the only party who controls the power, it becomes inevitably that from the very beginning the whole government administration is based on the party and designed by the party. Based on the party means that the government officials are mainly party members, and designed by the party indicates that the benefit-receiver is the party, though it always emphasizes that it represents the majority of Chinese. With the ideology system of the party rooted in the government administration, the other superstructures of the country, including the law, the culture, the education, etc., are all affected. Thus, the development of the country becomes party-centered, and to some extent relies on the party. It is more or less similar to the traditional Chinese empirical system, which depends largely on the quality of the center of the country.

If the history as well as the probable future of the problem to be discussed here, even 5000 words will not do. So I will directly go on to the next step: try to solve the problem as if I were the leader of China. As a matter of fact, there are two roads ahead: one is to maintain the system, until it collapses, and be the one who are to blame; or to be wiser, which means to separate the party and the government administration gradually. Being a huge country who takes more and more responsibilities in the world of globalization, revolution will never be a good idea. However, to make it a peaceful evolution, several steps can be carried out: to open the door of free press so as to diversify the ideological foundation; to encourage more non-party members to be the officials and to implant a suitable election system at the same time; to self-regulate the party in order to make the party stronger and healthier. In this way, when the separation is done, more operations on the superstructure can be carried out and more development can be expected, as shown in Poland’s case last century.

To summarize briefly, the integration of the party and the government administration is one of the political problems in China, and I would solve it in a peaceful evolution way if I were the leader.

World Vision China @ Guizhou

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:17:00 +0000

Reason for applying (Short Essay for the Scholarship Application)

I apply for World Vision because I believe that we fit each other.

When World Vision stands as a Christian relief based and development organization who works for the well being of all people, especially children, I hold the same value with her: Being one Christian, being one who commit to the poor, and being one responsible steward. When World Vision needs somebody who is open and mature, with good communication and interpersonal skills, I, having gone through many extra-curriculum activities and having played many leadership roles, am very confident that I am above the standard.

I gave up the chance of being a research assistant, with the easy job of reviewing some newspapers and making some summaries, and with the opportunity of staying at Hong Kong during the summer to enjoy life. What’s more, it is great efforts of negotiating with my parents for having them let me go to Guizhou, which is one of the most un-developed provinces in Mainland China. Intuitively I feel that the program is attracting me, by no means.

I am looking forward to be part of the hard life in the bottom social level of China, which is even out of imagination when I sit at 6^th Floor of Main Library on Pokfulam Road. As a young student at the start of my twenties, I am also afraid that in such a realistic world, the passion of devoting and care of surrounding will diminish. That’s why I have to catch the chance now, when there are not so many obstacles or temptations on my way to achieve the ideality.

Finally, with my social research experience and my love towards the mainland China, I do believe that I am qualified to complete the whole internship, while I can gain what I want, including more understanding about the political awareness in the village level as well as more social practice with communication with various kinds of people, and World Vision can get its mission done, successfully and meaningfully.

Course list: Semester 2, Year 1

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:30:00 +0000

[FOSS1002] Appreciating social research

One compulsory course for social science students, and lectured by several teachers from various department. With what I learnt from [PSYC1004] ‘Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Psychology’, I have no problem in understanding the technical terms, i.e. I have more energy for studying how the researches are conducted, and what are the defects of different kinds of research methods. That’s what bothered me ever since I started the research on Modernity!

[SOCI1002] Discovering society

A kind of introductory course of Sociology, but not the same as [SOCI1001], this course is more interesting and easy-understood. Luckily I have got some basic understanding of Sociology with what I learnt…or recited, to be honest... in Nanjing University. So I have no difficulty understanding some Sociological terms, but can put more efforts on deeper constructing of the theories, as well as the comparison.

However, I still cannot come up with a satisfactory answer when somebody asks me what the hell Sociology is. Orz.

[SOCI1003] Introduction to anthropology

Finally I crashed into a lecturer from mainland, and Dr. Yan studies the migrant workers as well. She is from UIUC… supposingly S.C. has heard of her? But it seems that she did not get a good name when she taught in the U.S. Anyway, I find her lecture acceptable, not very interesting, and not boring. The key is that she explains the terms well, maybe much better than some professors in Faculty of Art…according to some B.A. students.

Actually I studied Anthropology before, in NJU, but not very seriously…I dropped most of the lectures, anyway. I take the course under the aim of helping my Social Psychology studies in the future. Fortunately, I can tell when someone else asks me what the hell Anthropology is.

[PSYC1001] Introduction to psychology

My beloved psychology again~! And luckily this time, it’s a very very interesting professor from UCLA, who gets great praises from RateYourProfessors.com. And since he is on the more scientific road, I find this SECOND introductory course to me is very much different the previous one I had in NJU, which emphasized more from a social approach. Anyway, at the start of the semester, I have to study the structure of the human brain…scary, complicated, and exciting! It is just so mysterious and waiting there for people like Raine to solve the problem!

By the way, the assignments and exams of the course are sooooooooooo many that the tutor even designed a Table for DEADLINES for us…OMG.

[EUST1010] Introduction to European Studies

I take the course just because I don’t know what to take. And since I got quite lot information about European as well as the European Union, which is the main part of the course, from dear Mr.Zhu in high school, I have much faith in myself that I deal with the course without much effort. (God bless!) Anyway, it can also serve as another aspect of understanding cultural issues in my future studies.

[YPSY0004] Christianity and society (C&V)

One of the broadening course, quite interesting. Different lecturers, various discussions, and not much burdens. Get to learn more about my belief, as well as how non-Christians look at us.

[CUND0001] Practical Chinese language course (in Putonghua) (Chinese)

I don’t know why it is compulsory, anyway.

[FINE1001] Introduction to western art

I just sit in to enjoy the lecture. The lecturer has a strong education background, and a nice voice, and great experience in teaching the course. It is a great pleasure to sit at the back of the classroom, watch the pictures on the wall, and listen to her explanations. I love art, since childhood. How great it is to have art course even in the university!

[GE2006-25] 爱情自作业II

Well, it is not the content but the lecturer attracts me…She is a graduate from Stanford, which I fan!

[GE2006-31] 香港四讲

Chen Guanzhong（陈冠中）will be the lecture, and he is the one who gets some real understanding of HK, I suppose. But I wonder whether this course will be as good as Reading China last semester.

[GE2006-41] 民间记者工作室

Some other aspects of looking at the city.

[GE2006-27] Sketching HK

Some lectures, combined with some outings. Hope I can learn more about the city after finishing the course.

[GE2006-33] 天堂与地狱：香港艺术的城市观察

The local art is not as bad as I imagined…anyway.

At last but not least…I still have certificate French… with which I struggled a lot, and haven’t attend lecture for quite a long time…If I can get a French roommate maybe I will be more motivated!! Or…maybe I should learn Japanese instead so as to have more communication with my roomy? Anyway, who knows~

From NYT

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:09:00 +0000

<Women, Hear Them Roar, With Moments Too Large to Ignore>

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

Sunday, January 21, 2007; 12:22 AM

Nancy Pelosi -- first female speaker of the House! Hillary Rodham Clinton -- first woman who maybe, kinda, has a chance of getting elected U.S. president! We haven't been so excited since . . . well, since Katie Couric became the first female solo anchor of a major American network evening newscast! Let's look back at some of our sister pioneers.

Dawn of Time: Eve, first woman to hear, "I told you so."

35 B.C.: Livia, wife of Augustus, first Roman woman allowed to handle her own money.

1872: Victoria Woodhull, first woman to run for president of the United States.

1899: Martha Place, first woman to die in the electric chair.

1901: Annie Edson Taylor, first person to survive trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1903: Marie Curie, first woman to win a Nobel Prize in physics.{+1}

1910s: Madame C.J. Walker, first African American female self-made millionaire.

1916: Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to Congress.

1928: Janet Gaynor, first woman to win an Oscar, Best Actress.{+2}

1936: Wallis Warfield Simpson, Time's first female Man of the Year.

1952: Christine Jorgensen, first woman with an unassailable reason to shop for new clothes.{+3}

1958: Coya Knutson, first female member of Congress whose relationship wrecked her career, or vice versa.{+4}

1964: Margaret Chase Smith, first woman to have her name placed in nomination for president at a major party convention.{+5}

1969: Golda Meir, Israel, world's first female prime minister.

1970: Diane Crump, first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby.

1974: Isabel Peron, Argentina, world's first female president.

1977: Michelle Triola, first to successfully sue for "palimony."{+6}

1978: Janice Dickinson, world's first female supermodel.{+7}

1980: Sherry Lansing, first female head of a major movie studio.

1981: Sandra Day O'Connor, first female Supreme Court justice.

1997: Madeleine Albright, first female secretary of state.

2006: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia, first woman elected head of an African nation, and Michelle Bachelet, first female president of Chile.{+8}

{+1} Dies before she can say "nyah, nyah" to Larry Summers.

{+2} Eighty years later, "separate but equal" still reigns in showbiz awards.

{+3} After ex-GI George Jorgensen got the world's first (highly publicized) sex change.

{+4} An opponent enlisted her drunk husband to write a "Coya, come home" letter. She lost, she went home to Minnesota, she divorced him.

{+5} She lost.

{+6} Won thousands from tough-guy actor Lee Marvin, her longtime live-in boyfriend, after he dumped her.

{+7} Or so she insists in every TV appearance.

{+8} That's right, and in the U.S. we're still waiting.

The Political Compass

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:15:00 +0000

My results:

Economic Left/Right: -5.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.72

Hv a try @ http://www.politicalcompass.org

ECEN1901 Academic English for Social Sciences

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:06:00 +0000

The Lecturer

Lowana Philips: Very responsible and strict! It is said that she is the most harsh teacher in ECEN who never gives A, neither A+ or A-. But this saying will end…because I got an A- for my paper~!

The Course

Mainly two parts: Academic writing and presentation skills

Writing starts from critical reading… that’s the first time I learnt to examine the author’s background before I get down to read the paper! Then APA style is introduced. I have learnt it in NJU so it was quite easy for me, especially with the help of Endnote. The essay draft will be corrected by the teacher carefully, and I nearly want to rewrite it after I got the draft back with red remarks everywhere! The problem is on the organization, which I think the teacher did not emphasis clearly. So I borrowed some writing guide books and turn the draft to the first academic paper I had in HKU. Not very satisfactory, but I am sure that I learnt a lot from the writing, especially the structure.

The presentation… luckily got some nice group mates and we did it not bad. Actually I got an A for my presentation with little preparation! Thank HFLS for the 6-years training!

What’s more, I got a truly friend in this class J

The Paper

This essay aims at discovering how Hong Kong’s press freedom has been influenced by the sovereignty handover in 1997. It focuses on the changes of the media, especially self-censorship, which occurred after the historic crossroad. Meanwhile, what is discussed are the causes, in terms of politics, economics, culture, etc, as long as they are possibly related to this historical event.

SOWK1003 Introduction to Social Welfare

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:05:00 +0000

The Lecturer

Dr. Yeung: http://www.yeungsum.org.hk/resume.asp

He is to retire in the summer of 2007, which means that this is the last academic year of his teaching. I am so lucky to be one of his students!

The Course and seminar

It is an introductory course on the basic concepts and functions of social welfare. It covers an analysis of the major types of social welfare services in HK. Besides lectures, there are 4 agency visits in the semester, which is quite a precious opportunity and experience for a non-local student like me. (By the way, it seems that I am the only non-local student in this class…But the Social Work students are so kind that I did not feel isolated at all.)

The course outline is listed below:

Introduction – Welfare concepts and the development of social welfare in HK
Social problems and human needs
Social justice and social welfare
Poverty and social security
Visit: Poverty and related groups
Rehabilitation services (I write my paper on it)
Visit: Rehabilitation (I write my report on it)
Family services, children and youth services (I dropped this lecture…)
Visit: Elderly/ Family services
Elderly services
Visit: Community/ advocacy projects/ Welfare panel
Community services (I lead the seminar on it)

The Seminar is a combination of presentation and discussion. Usually there is 35 minutes of presentation by two of the classmates, and another 15 minutes for discussion. The two heated discussion during this semester I can remember, one is on welfare system in HK and another is on the rationality of prostitution. Quite interesting~! The problem is also that it is quite focused on the local issues, both the course and the seminar.

The Exam

Since the essay questions are quite similar every year, so actually I only prepared for 3 questions, and did the exam quite successfully. However, to make clear about the 3 questions, for each I read about 10 books and 5~6 government reports, as well 5~6 websites. Very time-consuming!

The Paper

I write the paper on rehabilitation to mentally-handicapped. But I think this is the worst paper I did this semester, because I did it in a hurry, and I didn’t argue it carefully.

The paper discussed to what extent community services can help to rehabilitate the mentally handicapped, especially on the achievement of equal opportunities. The paper suggested the responsibilities to be divided like this: the government be a supporter and promoter, the community organize and practice, while the family apply psychological or individual comforts to the mentally handicapped. With cases, it is supported that this kind of division is practical and reasonable. To fulfill this kind of responsibility, the paper used the case of one sheltered workshop to approach the problem of unemployment, and after the case study, the macro approach on the problem of social non-acceptance, one of the most severe problems towards equal opportunity was delivered. Based on the experiences over the world, the paper gave some suggestions to Hong Kong. In a word, despite many obstacles, the community service in Hong Kong is doing quite well in achieving equal opportunity for the mentally handicapped.

The reference list:

⑴,⑷,⒅ : Hong Kong Government, (November 2006), Rehabilitation.

⑶,⑻: “Rehabilitation Social Work” in New Social Work, edited by N. Chow, 1998 (in Chinese), 1998 Chapter 14

⑸,⒇ : Social Welfare Department, Hong Kong, The Five Year Plan For Social Welfare Development in Hong Kong, Review 1998, Chapter 8

⑵,⑹, ⑺, ⑽, ⑾,⑿,⒃ : The United Nations General Assembly, (1982), World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons, from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/diswpa00.htm

⑼ Ponto, J. M. (1998), A family's worst nightmare when treatment is rejected, from http://www2.jsonline.com/alive/suicide/fam.asp

⒀⒆ http://www.mhahk.org.hk/

⒂: ILO, International Labour Organisation, from http://www.ilo.org/

⒄: Wikipedia, (2006), Employment in Hong Kong, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_in_Hong_Kong

FOSS1003 Masters in Social Thought

yolandahku@gmail.com (YoL) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:01:00 +0000

FOSS1003 Masters in Social Thought

The Lecturers

Dr. C.K Law: http://web.hku.hk/~hrnwlck – SWSA
Miss Irene L.K. Tong – PPA
Dr. C.H. Ng – SY
Dr. G.HK. Blowers – PY
This team of teachers is very diverse and strong. It will be a pity to miss any of the lectures!

The Course

It is an introductory course covering outstanding master thinkers in different social scientific disciplines. Selected ideas are distributed and usually quite conceptual. It is 100% coursework, which means lots of readings!

Masters covered are listed below:

Karl Marx/ Mao Tse Tung/ Edward W. Said/ A. Giddens/ feminists/ J.S. Mill/ Erich Fromm/ Sigmund Freud/ Emile Durkheim/ Max Weber

The Tutorials and Forums

Only 4 TT in this semester, but each needs 5~6 hours of preparation. At least I need so much time, but obviously many of the group mates didn’t prepare carefully. So the discussion was always stuck.

The 4 topics are:

Using a Marxist perspective, could you critique the education system in Hong Kong (or the one that you’re familiar with)? In your view, is the education system conducive to nurturing intellectuals in the Saidian sense?

Oh my God… I forgot how I made my critique. But certainly, in the TT, we came to the conclusion that both education system in HK and mainland failed to nurture real intellectuals. To my surprise the HK students considers there is no independent and critical intellectuals in HK. But before I came here, I did think that the intellectuals in HK are much more independent and critical than those in mainland, because they are much freer!

Will feminist scholars and Giddens agree that gender relations are becoming more intimate and equal in the families in Hong Kong? Please comment on their views.

Through the preparation I learnt a lot about the female situation in HK, especially the problem of family violence. But unfortunately make no sense of feminist and Giddens!

1) Should corporal punishment within the family be prohibited by law? What would Mill say and would you agree with him?

2) How did Fromm envision freedom? How was his understanding applicable to

(a) The marketplace and

(b) Religion?

Do you agree with his views?

This is one of the most memorable TT and the most inspiring one. At the same time, the most difficult one, I think. During the preparation, I got very much excited, for Mill and Fromm’s ideas are sooooooooooooo cool and fabulous! I strongly recommend one of Li Qiang’s speeches on Mill’s theory of freedom. Li is the head director of the Department of Sociology in Tsinghua University.

a) If Durkheim is to study suicide-by-charcoal-burning in Hong Kong, how would he proceed? What explanations would he suggest?

b) Do you think university education (curriculum, ways of thinking, etc.) in Hong Kong reinforces what Weber called the ‘instrumental-rational’ value orientation, at the expense of other value orientations?

I am not very well-prepared, thus gained little from it.

There are 2 student-led forums, one is debate and another is group presentation. The two themes are:

The role of intellectuals in the 21^st century
Is life in the 21^st century better than life in the 19^th century?

I can hardly understand the debate, actually. And the group presentation is prepared in a rush…not successful.

The Assignment and Paper

The topic I chose for the mid-term assignment is:

Construct a dialogue among Marx (or Mao), Said and yourself on what functions social science education should perform in the contemporary world and what it should look like.

My reference list for it:

Fu, Z. Y. (1991). The Sociology of Political Science in the People’s Republic of China, The Development of Political Science, London, New York: Routledge

Mao, Z. D. (1996). Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, Beijing: Foreign Language Press

Said, E.W. (1993) Representations of the Intellectual, New York: Pantheon Books

Actually this is the first academic assignment I had in HKU, and did it snail-paced. Finally got an A-, which is not bad.

The topic for my paper is:
To what extent should secondary school students be subjected to education that is mainly founded on one specific religion? Discuss this with reference to Mill's and Fromm's ideas.

As mentioned before, I was very much inspired by Mill’s and Fromm’s ideas, so I took the chance to further understand them. And because I am a Christian, I want to take a look at the Christian background secondary schools in HK, which is another way for me to learn more about this city.

Since there is strong argument on promoting Christianity or not, the paper suggests accepting the religion as an impersonal existence, in order to carry on a whole-person education with the rationale of developing teenager’s ability to love and to think rationally. Mill’s idea of liberty and Fromm’s concept of authority are borrowed to enhance the argument. During the discussion, the role of religious education is given emphasis. The advice given in the paper has been partly supported by some practices, but whether it really works and how to make it better needs further discussion.

Reference list of this paper:

Fromm, E. (1960). Let man prevail: A Socialist manifesto and program. New York: The Call Association.

Fromm, E. (1966). Escape from Freedom. New York: Avon Books.

Fromm, E. (1990). Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. New York: Owl Books.

Ha, Y. H. (1987). 教會學校從事公民教育之我見. In Wong, D. D. Y. & Ng, P. T. M. (Ed.) Citizenship and Civic Education ——from the perspective of Christian faith and practice. Hong Kong: The Pastoral Programme

Lee, G. C. (2006). 教育统筹局局长就《施政报告》致谢议案致辞. from http://sc.info.gov.hk/gb/www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200610/26/P200610260223.htm

Mill, J. S. (1912). On liberty; Representative government; The subjection of women: three essays London: Oxford University Press.

Mill, J. S. (1970). Three essays on religion. New York: AMS Press.

Ng, P. T. M. (2004). From Religious Education to Life Education. Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council ltd.

Ng, P. T. M. (1996). 學校宗教教育的新路向. Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council ltd.