Comparing two of the six IPCC scenarios Assignment

Comparing two of the six IPCC scenarios - Assignment Example With this regards it evident that the number one energy type, oil is declining at a faster rate. For example, The United States oil reserves have been declining since the year 1971. The demand for oil in most of the countries is increasing and most of the oil producing countries has already depleted their oil fields. Gas which is also produced in similar circumstance as oil is also limited. By the year 2100, most of the natural gas should have been depleted (Chefruka, 2009). Nuclear energy seems to one of the energy types that will not be fully depleted by 2100. The more nuclear power plant will be formed the more power people will be able to obtain. Since most of the energy forms would have been depleted by 2100, renewable energy will become the most used for of energy. By 2100, most of the population will be forced to use the renewable forms of energy like solar panels and wind power (Nakicenovic, 2001). The decline of human population by 2100 can be closely associated with the reduction of energy. It is correct to assume that the decline in the world energy supply will have profound effect on the population. If we carefully analyze this, we will find out that human being requires a significant amount on energy to sustain their quality of life. So, if this energy supply decline per capita, the quality of life will be affected. Based on the theory of demand and supply, when the energy sources become scarce, there price of oil will go high. The price of this commodity will force the populace to redirect money for other expenses to obtain this precious commodity. Their consumption will hit rock bottom and this will be disastrous. Statistics shows that over 5 billion out of 7 billion occupants live in countries where the energy per capita is under 1.5 toe per year (Nakicenovic, 2001). As the energy reserves continue to decline, these counties stand a high

(B&M) Managing Sustainability Reflective Log Essay

(B&M) Managing Sustainability Reflective Log - Essay Example Sustainability affects each level of human life starting from the local neighborhood to entire planet. Issues Affecting the Human Beings in Relation to the Planet â€Å"In the late 1960s, a second imperative emerged alongside human rights: sustainability† (Vischer, 2006, p.51). It is beyond to mention that the natural resources have certain limited availability and the human beings would have to respect the limits. There are certain issues which are facing the human beings. According to a news piece, the issues have emerged in various areas. Climate Change Global warming has put its increasing impact on the global environment and in turn has led to the emergence of various threatening issues for the human race. The greenhouses gases like Carbon-di-oxide have been responsible for the same and thus increasing the temperature of the planet (Oracle ThinkQuest, n.d.). According to UK prime minister, one of the most significant environmental issues, which have emerged as significant threats for the human race, is climate change leading to growing number of storms, drought, flood and loss of significant species. The depletion of ozone has resulted from the emission of the fluorocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons and some more hazardous gas releasing from industries like manufacturing and chemical factories. This has ultimately caused UV rays to enter in the atmosphere of the earth. Penetration of these rays may lead to severe carcinogenic reaction in human bodies (The Views Paper, 2009). Natural Resources With the enhancement in the life styles, energy consumption has increased with decline in the natural resources. The world is now facing with an increasing crisis for this earth to retain the sustainable supply of the resources. Resource sustainability is a significant requirement in today’s world. The petroleum products, coal and mineral resources have also been intensively exploited to certain greater extent. If the situation persists like this, after a sho rt span of time, all these resources are expected to be non-existent in the near future. Biodiversity Loss Despite of an increase in the conservation efforts the biodiversity state experiences a decline in turn most of the indicators. The significant pressure on the biodiversity has continued to grow considerably. Even, there is no or less indication displaying a considerable reduction in the declining rate in the biodiversity across the globe. The following are the indicators which have raised enough concerns among the researchers and scientists. Even a number of scientists think that the Earth is approaching to enter into the ‘sixth great extinction phase’ (Kirby, 2004). Figure 1: Indicators Displaying Biodiversity Loss (Source: Shah, 2010) Figure 2: Factors Affecting the Environmental Sustainability (Source: Kirby, 2004) The above figures show the increasing amount of population growth with growing usage of cars, consumption of water, paper and fertilizers. With the enhancement in the social lifestyles, there has been huge loss of rainforest, growing amount of carbon-di-oxide concentration. At the same time, the fisheries have been exploited heavily. The

Language and Music

Language and Music â€Å"Understanding music requires no recuperation[SKS1] of a fictional world, and no response to imaginary objects†¦.the meaning of music lies within it; it can be recovered only through an act of musical understanding, and not by an â€Å"assignment of values† of the kind provided by a semantic theory[SKS2]† (Roger Scruton) Music is an important aspect of everyday life: We can take it with us wherever we go and use it to set the scene or create a â€Å"soundtrack† to our lives. It has the power to influence our moods and emotions and can stir up feelings and old memories within the first few notes. Music is intertwined in all cultures and has been for as long as humans have had the ability to make it. It has been said that musical instruments and the production of music (in any form) predates the earliest evidence of writing. Music is everywhere. In order to understand music it is important to define what it is that makes something music. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of music is; â€Å"The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds to produce beauty of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, expressive content, etc.; musical composition, performance, analysis, etc., as a subject of study; the occupation or profession of musicians.† (Oxford University Press 2014) According to this definition, the basis of music is sound. Sound is defined as a sensation caused by a vibration of air particles. It cannot be seen by the naked eye and, at some frequencies, cannot be heard by the human ear. Music does not exist without sound as it is a product of various combinations of â€Å"vocal or instrumental sounds†. Everything that is considered â€Å"musical† is made from sound but not every sound is musical. Sounds exist whether we are listening to them or not. Many sounds are unintentional in that they are a necessary result of an action. They are not being created purposefully and are often just in the background of everyday life. Although we hear them, we do not have to listen or focus on them if we choose not to. Music, on the other hand, is an intentional object. It is purposefully created to be heard, we must focus on music and actively listen to it. Music is acousmatic. When we hear it we tend to detach the sound from its production an d focus on the sounds. This differs to the non-musical sounds we encounter everywhere. Music is a temporal occurrence but can only be discussed in spatial terms. Although there are specific terminologies related to music, there is no need to be an expert in order to enjoy a piece or discuss it with others. In order to properly consider the meaning of music and define it, we apply semantic terminology and compare music to language. It is easy for us to break both language and music down into their smallest forms and compare the similarities between both although we may have an issue with the starting point of music as we would have to determine the smallest form, which could be a sound, a note or even a beat, depending on how a person views the creation of music and their knowledge of how music is formed. If we were to break language down to its smallest form and work our way up, so to speak, we could say that the smallest part of language is a phoneme. From there we can conclude that a phoneme then becomes a morpheme, a morpheme then becomes a phrase, which then becomes a clause, which then becomes a sentence, and so on and so forth. As a native speaker, we are able to create numerous combinations of words that can be understood by others who share our language. In order for things to be understood, it is said that there needs to be some form of common knowledge or common ground. It is also important that there is some context to what is being expressed so we can deduce meaning from what we are hearing/reading. If we break down music into its simplest form, we begin with sounds that are combined to make different pitches. These become phrases and sequences that are combined to create whole pieces of music. If we compare language and music on this level, we can see that the two share similarities in structure. When discussing the meaning of music itself, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, we must distinguish what we mean by music and the form it is in. If we are talking about written music, one must have at least a basic knowledge of musical notation in order to understand what they are reading. Music is the universal language.† Aphoristic as this phrase may be, it does relate something many people think about music: music is expressive. But if music is expressive, what, exactly, does music express? For that matter, how does music express? Is the content or manner of expression of music the same as the content or manner of expression of language? In answering questions such as these, we promote previously empty cultural aphorisms about music like the one presented earlier to the status of meaningful claims. David Lewis highlights two important features of language – language as an object and language as a practice. I will present a view of the nature of music held by Peter Kivy, comparing it to Lewis’ conception of language. I will then argue that by Kivy’s view of music, music is not a language, though it has more language-like properties than Kivy admits. To briefly take stock, we might highlight four general properties of language we should look for in the determination of whether or not something is a language: Syntax – Lewis’ grammar operations. Determine legitimate strings. Semantics – Lewis’ meaning. The meaning of a well-formed string is the situation it describes in a set of possible worlds. Truth Values – Derived from comparing the meaning of a sentence with our world. Conventional Activity – a population arbitrarily determines a language used by conventionally using the language to express truth. Peter Kivy endorses a formalist view of music. The formalist doctrine is that music is a type of sound structure. Generally, we think of a structure as something we can appreciate visually; the word usually evokes mental images of certain spatial relations of objects to other objects. But according to the formalist, sound structures are â€Å"temporal patterns of sound† (emphasis added). To put this in a vocabulary familiar to musicians, sound structures are just combination of types of sounds (such as pitches, percussion, etc.) that occur in some timeframe. Music has formal properties and sensuous properties: a piece of music’s formal properties differentiate it from other pieces of music; i.e. certain notes are played in a certain order, the piece is a certain speed, and there are certain rhythms. And music’s ‘sensuous properties’ boil down to the fact that – shocker – music is a heard medium: we hear and notice different aspects of s ound events when we experience music. Kivy’s view of music directly supports the inclusion of one of the important features of language in music’s nature. He says that music has a â€Å"special kind of order: the order of syntactical structure.† He says that this order is governed by rules (of a sort); these rules concern how different sounds should be combined in the production of a musical work. For example, it is a staple of the syntax of certain schools in western music that there should be a return to the tonic at the end of a musical phrase. This syntax differs for different genres of music, much like it does for different languages. Certain chords can be used in certain genres, and not in others – for example, you will see flat V chords used in chord progressions in jazz, but not most pre-modern forms of classical music. But I think we have reason to believe that the nature of musical syntax is very similar to the nature of linguistic syntax. First of all, I question the assertion that the rules of linguistic syntax are stricter than the rules of musical syntax. For example, take the English grammar rule that the first letter of the first word in a written sentence is capitalized. I think this easily qualifies as a syntactic rule of written English; however, prominent writers have violated it throughout history (E. E. Cummings is one obvious example), and people today often violate it when talking to one another through electronic media such as texting on the phone and messaging online. I think we still want to say that these people are using English – they are just temporarily disregarding a grammar rule of English, which is more of a regularity than a law. However, though some rules of linguistic syntax are not absolutely strict, I do think that there are rules which are inviolable. Lewisâ⠂¬â„¢ rule that there is a finite set of elementary constituents paired with meanings that we can use in the construction of sentences is of paramount importance when using a language. I can’t type out a random assortment of characters and expect that configuration to be an English sentence. Similarly, certain combinatorial grammar rules are absolute. And it seems to me that musical syntax has very similar characteristics to this conception of the characteristics of linguistic syntax. There are certain rules which can be bent; a piece of music can preserve its status as a piece of music in a certain genre regardless of whether it follows a specific syntactic ‘regularity’ of this kind. This is similar to syntactic rules like capitalization mentioned in the previous paragraph. Then there are certain rules which must be followed for a piece to be classified as a member of a certain genre – relate this to how a string must follow a certain instantiation of the grammar rules Lewis established to be characterized as a member of one language rather than another. Then there are certain rules any genre of music must follow to be music rather than mere noise. This is similar to syntactic rules any language must have; a language must follow the general rules Lewis gives us, in one form or another. We can also see that the activity of music is analogous to the activity of ‘language’ that Lewis describes. Music is not just an entity, but also a social activity concerning musicians and listeners, wherein musicians make certain noises and they expect their listeners to respond a certain way. And I see no reason why we wouldn’t say that this activity is in some way arbitrary, however limited that arbitrariness is by the hard-wiring of our brains to enjoy certain sounds. The parallels between music as ‘language’ do not stop there. Music shares the ability to infer something about the state of mind of a composer or musician with language (substituting ‘speaker’ for ‘composer or musician’). Playing a guitar solo in a minor pentatonic scale allows us to infer one (admittedly broad) set of things about the mind of the guitarist, while playing in the blues scale allows us to infer something else. And we often make the same inferences as many other listeners. These inferences might also be wrong – as they might be in the case of ‘language’. And Kivy’s view that these inferences are not ‘in the music’ doesn’t stop us from saying that we make these inferences; we can say that we respond ‘by convention’ to a certain sound structure in a certain way without saying that there is anything about the sound structure that makes us respond this way. So far, so good, for the view that music is a language. Nothing that I have said thus far about Kivy’s view of music has conflicted with the definition of language Lewis gave us. And although I haven’t gone into the nuts and bolts of correlating Lewis’ grammar rules with musical syntax, it’s not hard to see how a story could be told relating them – in every way but one: what could we say corresponds with the meanings described in rule one and two? Kivy qualifies his formalist definition of music: â€Å"absolute music is a sound structure without semantic or representational content†. This is a big problem for a proponent of the view that music is a language. One of the essential characteristics of language is its status as something which can communicate meaning; some might call this property the most important property of language. And on initial reflection, Kivy’s claim seems to hold a lot of weight. How could music talk about situations in the external world? A song might represent ‘victory’ or ‘striving’ or what-have-you in some obscure, abstract sort of way; but it certainly does not have the power to describe in the incredibly detailed, content-rich way a language can. Music could never have the power to express the meaning of such sentences as â€Å"My flight to Los Angeles was delayed because of poor conditions on the runway.† This is a crippling observation in particular for anyone who thinks that my method of deciding whether music is a language is valid – without sematic content, two of the four properties of language Lewis defined go down the tubes. The absence of semantic content in music obviously bars us from saying that music has semantics; and, because music is free of semantic content, truth values are gone as well, as truth values are products of comparing the meanings of sentences with the world. The avid supporter of the music-as-language project has two avenues open to them at this point. They might object to Kivy’s view the music is free of semantic content; or, they might object to the view of language – specifically, the view of semantics – that Lewis gives us. I’ll start with the objection to Kivy. An obvious route someone objecting to Kivy’s determination that music is free of semantic content might take is saying that it does have semantic content – and this content is emotion. Music represents emotions the same way language represents the situations its sentences describe. Maybe the ability of music to describe things in the world is much more limited than language, but its ability to describe emotions is even better than natural languages’ ability. Thus music should be described as ‘a language of the emotions’. Kivy has a response to this claim, but I find it to be unsatisfying. He says this assertion gets you â€Å"from enhanced formalism in letter and spirit to a musical semantics in letter, not spirit, and enhanced formalism, still, in spirit.† He thinks that music can say nothing interesting or significant about emotion, and somehow this yields the result that music does not have emotional semantics. But the ability to say something interesting about what it denotes is not what defines the semantics of language – it is the ability to say what it says that defines language. In other words, it is the ability of sentences to denote at all which makes them linguistic. If music can do this, then it has semantic content. The problem is, we are wrong to say that music denotes emotion in the first place. I think Kivy is right when he says that emotion is a â€Å"heard property of the music† . Music does not ‘represent’ sadness; it just is sad, the same way that an apple just is red. And the reason we perceive these emotions in music is due to the fact that music can formally resemble how humans look and act when they feel certain emotions. Unfortunately, I can offer no positive reasons to accept this conception of emotion in music other than emotions are certainly a part of music in some capacity, and this formulation of their relation to music is the least problematic one I know of. And perhaps I can pose some problems with representative views of music that serve my intuitions well: for one, many people think that to be a real language, every sentence in that language that denotes a state in the world can be translated to a sentence in another language. How might one go about translating something music ‘says’ to English? Attempts usually produce a clumsy, single-word emotional descriptor, which varies from person to person. Another thing people think stems from a representative medium is the presence of truth values. We can say of a linguistic proposition that it represents our world, or it represents a situation not in our world; propositions of the first type are true, and propositions of the second type are false. But what would we say about music corresponds with a state in the world? It seems a very odd practice to listen to a phrase in Beethoven’s Fifth and say of it that it is ‘true’ or ‘false’. On the other hand, the supporter of a music-as-language view might challenge the definition that Lewis provides of semantics. He might use music to help define language, as Andrew Bowie does in his book Music, Philosophy, and Modernity. He says â€Å"if people understand a piece of articulation – which is apparent in terms of its effects in social contexts on behavior, reactions, feelings, and so on – it must mean something.† Bowie equates language with Lewis’ ‘language’, the social activity, and discards the properties of ‘a language’. Because music is a social activity by which people effect specific changes on others’ behavior or feelings, music has meaning, and therefore is a language. But Bowie betrays his own cause when he tells us what follows from this new definition of language in a quote by Bjà ¸rn Ramberg: â€Å"’We can, if we like, interpret all types of things as speaking’†. This definition of language allows us to call all types of things language that push against our intuitions on the subject. Arriving late to a meeting is now language, because others’ thoughts are influenced to think worse of me for being tardy. Playing a sport with other people is now language, because their behavior is altered when they respond to my sporting actions. Maybe you want to call these things language, but I suspect the majority of people do not. It is important that a practice we choose to call language should have aspects of ‘a language’ and is used by the practice of ‘language’. This successfully delineates language from non-language. The presence of truly semantic content is one of the principle factors in deciding whether something is a language. Even though music seems to have every property of the practice Lewis identifies as ‘language’, it cannot be a language. Edit: took out a sentence that doesnt make sense without the rest of the paper. 1 [SKS1]the recovery or regaining of something. the recuperation of the avant-garde for art [SKS2]a theory which assigns semantic contents to expressions of a language. Approaches to semantics may be divided according to whether they assign propositions as the meanings of sentences and, if they do, what view they take of the nature of these propositions.

The Role of Estrogen in Sexual Differentiation :: Biology Essays Research Papers

The Role of Estrogen in Sexual Differentiation Most, if not all, species with two sexes exhibit sexually dimorphic behavior and physical characteristics. These dimorphisms can be attributed to differences in the brain, such as size or function of structure, and these brain structures can be affected by the hormones circulated throughout the organism. It has been held that the sexual dimorphisms rely only on the presence or absence of androgen, namely, testosterone, during the critical period of development for an organism; however, new research suggests that the presence of estrogen, specifically estradiol, has an active role in sexual differentiation. Several sexual dimorphic structures in the brain have been observed in laboratory experiments. The corpus callosum in male rats is much larger than that in female rats, and this size difference is uncorrelated with total brain weight. These findings led many to investigate the relationship between human male and female corpus callosa. A paper published by de Lacoste-Utamsing and Holloway stated that the splenium of the callosum is larger in women than in men, but their finding has since been challenged by several reports stating that there exists no sexual dimorphism. Analysis done from 1982-1994 reveals a small difference of corpus callosum size in favor of males, but it is hypothesized that age, handedness, overall brain size and weight, and incorrect statistics were not taken into account. (3) There has also been controversy in the research involving the brain region INAH-3 in humans. The heterosexual male INAH-3 is larger than that of heterosexual females; the INAH-3 in homosexual males is on the average smaller than that of heterosexual males and approximately the same size of heterosexual females. The general population has attempted to use this fact as an explanation of the biological basis of homosexuality, though the differences in structure may not be causally related to the sexual orientation of the man. Because we can only observe behaviors when doing experiments with lab animals, the data cannot firmly establish a basis for sexual orientation. The traditional view on sexual differentiation is that organizational effects from hormones which occur during neonatal development are the master plan for the organisms sex and corresponding behaviors and characteristics. Exposure to androgen, namely, testosterone, would result in a male organism, while exposure to neither androgen nor estrogen would result in the default sex: female. Characteristics resulting from organizational effects include formation of genitalia and traits such as aggression. The Role of Estrogen in Sexual Differentiation :: Biology Essays Research Papers The Role of Estrogen in Sexual Differentiation Most, if not all, species with two sexes exhibit sexually dimorphic behavior and physical characteristics. These dimorphisms can be attributed to differences in the brain, such as size or function of structure, and these brain structures can be affected by the hormones circulated throughout the organism. It has been held that the sexual dimorphisms rely only on the presence or absence of androgen, namely, testosterone, during the critical period of development for an organism; however, new research suggests that the presence of estrogen, specifically estradiol, has an active role in sexual differentiation. Several sexual dimorphic structures in the brain have been observed in laboratory experiments. The corpus callosum in male rats is much larger than that in female rats, and this size difference is uncorrelated with total brain weight. These findings led many to investigate the relationship between human male and female corpus callosa. A paper published by de Lacoste-Utamsing and Holloway stated that the splenium of the callosum is larger in women than in men, but their finding has since been challenged by several reports stating that there exists no sexual dimorphism. Analysis done from 1982-1994 reveals a small difference of corpus callosum size in favor of males, but it is hypothesized that age, handedness, overall brain size and weight, and incorrect statistics were not taken into account. (3) There has also been controversy in the research involving the brain region INAH-3 in humans. The heterosexual male INAH-3 is larger than that of heterosexual females; the INAH-3 in homosexual males is on the average smaller than that of heterosexual males and approximately the same size of heterosexual females. The general population has attempted to use this fact as an explanation of the biological basis of homosexuality, though the differences in structure may not be causally related to the sexual orientation of the man. Because we can only observe behaviors when doing experiments with lab animals, the data cannot firmly establish a basis for sexual orientation. The traditional view on sexual differentiation is that organizational effects from hormones which occur during neonatal development are the master plan for the organisms sex and corresponding behaviors and characteristics. Exposure to androgen, namely, testosterone, would result in a male organism, while exposure to neither androgen nor estrogen would result in the default sex: female. Characteristics resulting from organizational effects include formation of genitalia and traits such as aggression.

What Is the Effect of Lack of Sleep on College Students?

Running head: WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF LACK OF SLEEP ON A COLLEGE STUDENT'S BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR Gilbert and Weaver (2010) examined the sleep quality with academic performance with university students, whether it is complete sleep deprivation or poor sleep quality. This study was to determine if lack of sleep or having poor sleep value in non-demoralized college students were related to the low academic routine. The author’s expectations were to find the relationship between the student’s environment and lifestyle with their sleep patterns and the force it has on their educational performance.Within the study the authors found that being able to have good sleep patterns and quality is a big key part for student to have a good GPA and being able to pass all their academics. Yet, a huge portion of college students do not get plenty or a fair amount of sleep. The authors also found in their study that students should be more considerate on the sleep value and sleep amount they should have. To the authors awareness, This is the first study to have found a relationship between poor sleep quality and lower academic performance using a large sample size and importantly, for non depressed students alone. Gilbert and Weaver, 2010). This study will provide my research with the important factors of sleep and education for a college student, in order to foresee the academic routine on the student’s foundation of sleep quality and quantity. Also it would provide my study with the question of whether our society should start regulating students to sleep enough to perform better, or instead let the students perform as they are doing. The author could not prove that poor sleep patterns resulted in a lower GPA for students, they only knew the important contributions that pointed to the conclusions of the study.Another limitation was that when the author performed the study, they only performed the study on freshman college students and not any higher level colle ge students. Lastly, they didn't check the University transcripts for the student’s grade point average; they relied on the student’s honesty. Mateika, Millrood, and Mitru (2002) examined the consequences of sleep on learning performance and the behavior that results from lack of sleep, in adolescents. The authors did the study to see the different options to help students re-establish and balance their normal sleep and everyday routine.The expectations of authors were to find a solution to help young adults in preventing the cause of their lack of sleep, whether it was from their parents, the school, work, or medical reasons. From all the different perspective views of the authors, they found that, the side effects that manifest was a consequence of sleep deprivation are independent†¦include inattention and poor performance in the classroom and emotional and behavioral changes. (Mateika, et. al. , 2002). With that, they looked at different changes they could make , like changing the time of when school starts, or looking if the students had sleep disorder.They found that parents and school should help increase the promotion of healthy sleep patterns for the importance of the sleep on school and work performance and behavior in the student. This study provides a different perspective of how to deal with sleep deprivation, instead of looking at the students sleep patterns and lifestyle and changing that, this study looks at how parents, or schools can be change the lack of sleep in order for students to perform better in their school and work environment.This provides my study with the mentality that students are mostly not to blame for their own lack of sleep, the blame can be from the amount of workload the students get from their teachers, the time they go to school and leave, the time they go to work and leave work, or even the amount of time not being able to sleep due to stress or insomnia. So all this gives me different perspectives to look at in order to solve the problem of the cause of sleeplessness.The only limitation in this study is that when looking at school workload being increased and the early time of class becomes a bit of a problem with the amount of sleep the student loses and gains. Cruess and Wells (2006) examined the results of sleeplessness on the consumption of food and food choices, which may have a lead problem to health in issues to those who have, sleep deprivation, The authors did this study to show the link between sleep and food intake within college students.They believe that students who sleep less would choose them food that is less healthy, because the students are less concerned of their weight and more dependent on their mood and expediency. The authors expect to see more evidence showing that stress hormones are related with the relationship between sleeping and eating, which in other words, increases in stress lead to more snacking and a decrease in the consumption of typical meal -type foods (Oliver and Wardle, 1999).In their study they found that what they expected to find in the beginning had happened, in which there was a difference in food intake, measured by how much calories was consumed after the night of the students incomplete lack of sleep. The study also presented that there was a huge difference in food consumption and calorie intake on partial sleepless night and a normal night of rest.This study provides my research with the behavior of food with the student, how sleep deprivation can affect a student’s choice in food, which is chosen by the mood of the student, their health, the price, the convince, the familiarity and the students appeal towards the food, in which it all goes back to whether they had a normal nights rest, or sleepless night. There are many limitations to this study, the main limitations was that this study was based mostly on self-report information, which means that it may or may not be accurate information in the stu dy.Another important limitation was that some of the participants in the study had recorded the start of their food and sleep records in their journals on different days, which made it hard to frame the time of the study accurately. Moreno, Louzada, and Pereira (2010) examined the role of ecological aspects in sleep duration among adolescents who have less technology and adolescents who have advance technology and how it changes the relationship of their sleep patterns.The authors performed this study to bring out an opportunity to look at natural and ecological influences on different characteristics that is related to sleep behaviors; the authors wanted to understand why adolescents who have electric lights, and other high advance resources have a higher level of sleep deprivation, while those who have less technology have enough sleep and are able to perform better. Their expectation for the study was that there would be an interaction between the natural and ecological factors i n the sleep cycle of the adolescents.The study help the authors find that the occurrence of electric lighting in home of the adolescent is a critical factor that is related to the duration of the sleep, which results in regular amount of sleep to irregular amount of sleep in adolescents. These results are important in my study, because it supports the ideas that adolescents having advanced technology, is important when determining whether it is a factor in knowing it results in sleep deprivation. Kopasz et. al. 2008) examined that adolescent to not sleep enough and have different sleep patterns every day, due to adolescents decrease in sleep duration on school days and increase in the weekends. The purpose of this study for the authors was to find the relation between adolescents sleep schedule, the environments of the student and daytime tasks, and to look at the results with the sleep records the adolescents kept. The expectations of this study were to find a difference between th e sleep patterns of during the week and the weekends, and the difference between the ages of the students and how late or early they slept.The authors found what they were expecting, there was a significant difference between week and weekend nights, and the older students slept about an hour less per night compared with the youngest. (Kopasz, 2008). They found as our age increases, are sleep duration decreases. This study is important to my research, because it shows a new perspective of the topic, where it gives evidence of how our generation grows, we lose more sleep because of the changes in education, in life events, and our society.This study shows how teenager are suffering the consequences of having sleep deprivation due to having to work and go to school, on top of family issues and the workload teachers give students. This is important to my study because the authors foretell that sleep deprivations in found adults is a global problem with severe consequences. The inconsis tencies in the body of research are that there is not much research or experiments in the relationship of sleep and the brain with a college student.There is much said about students behaviors with there is lack of sleep in their daily routines, but to know what happens, or what goes on in the brain, when it suffers from sleep deprivation will give my study a better perspective of the bigger picture. The gap that are in the body of this literature review is important, because it gives my study resources to look at and explore in which the other studies did not. My study will do research in both the brain and the behavior in all levels of non-depressed college students who have sleep deprivation and figure out what is the main cause of the students lack of sleep in their college lifestyle.References Gilbert, S. P. , and Weaver, C. C. (2010). Sleep Quality and Academic Performance in University Students: A Wake Up Call For College Psychologists. Journal Of College Student Psychotherap y, 24(4), 295-306. doi: 1080/87568225. 2010. 509245. Mateika J. H. , Millrood, D. L. , and Mitru, G. (2002) The Impact Of Sleep On Learning And Behavior In Adolescents. Teachers College Records, 104(4), 704-726. doi: 10. 1111/1467-9620. 00176. Cruess, D. G. , and Wells, T. T. (2006). Effects of Partial Sleep Deprivation On Food Consumption And Food Choice. Psychology & Health, 21(1), 79-86. doi: 10. 1080/1476820500102301. Oliver, G. and Wardle, J. (1999). Perceived Effects Of Stress On Food Choice. Physiology and Behavior, 66, 511-515. Moreno, C. C. , Louzada, F. , and Pereira, E. (2010). Not All Adolescents Are Sleep Deprived: A Study Of Rural Populations. Sleep And Biological Rhythms, 8(4), 267-273. doi: 10. 1111/j. 1479-8425. 2010. 00458. x. Kopasz, M. M. , Loessi, B. B. , Riemann, D. D. , Valerius, G. G. , Voderholzer, U. U. (2008). Are Adolescents Chronically Sleep-Deprived? An Investigation Of Sleep habits Of Adolescents In The Southwest Of Germany. Child: Care, Health, And De velopment, 34(5), 549-556. doi: 10. 1111/j. 1365-2214. 2008. 00845. x.

Government Enforced Cyber Security, a Public Good? Essay

We all know that cyber security is something of great importance to anyone trying to protect their network assets, customer assets, and personal assets. The list of possible risks associated with neglecting to practice good cyber security are endless, and the dangers lurking out in cyber space too numerous to imagine anyone who is controlling any type of company network to ignore; but the question here is whether or not the government should become the cyber security enforcer not only within in its own government sector but also within the private sector as well as a public good. Before we get into the discussion of whether or not the government should play this role, I believe we should have a short discussion on what â€Å"public good† actually means. Generally speaking â€Å"public good† is a loose term used to justify some kind of action one is taking, by saying that it is in the best interest of the general population to do so. The implications behind the use of the term â€Å"public good† is that #1 the action is beneficial to a majority of the population; and #2 that the majority of the population is either too ignorant, or incapable for some reason of performing the action for themselves. The use of the term is also handy because it is non-specific as to WHO is actually benefiting from the actions; is it the general consumer, the small businesses, big businesses, the government, a special interest group, all of the above, none of the above, Who? Who is actually benefiting from the act? By using the term the â€Å"public good† one does not have to account for who is actually benefiting. Nor do they have to identify who might be harmed or negatively affected by the action either. Additionally by using the term that it is for the â€Å"public good†, by default the concept of how much will it cost, and who is going to pay for it, is seemingly automatically a non-concern. So by the very nature of the term for â€Å"the public good† the user of said term has attempted to write themselves a blank check, quantifying and justifying any and all actions they mean to implement and enforce. The term â€Å"public good† has been used by various entities throughout history to accomplish some of the most horrendous crimes against their people, and to extort unimaginable amounts of wealth and goods from their populations. Anytime the term â€Å"public good† is used to ask for justification for an action from any entity it should be immediately critically examined with a very find tooth comb to find what the motivations for such a kind gesture might be, as well as analyzed by a staunch accountant to find out where the money is, and where it leads in the proposition. The term â€Å"public good† more than any other term I can think of, is more often than not the very term used to lead more sheep to their own quiet slaughter then any war cr y ever has. It should always be approached with skeptism and caution when used, especially in conjunction with the word government. Is Enforcement of Cyber Security a Public Good? Should the enforcement of cyber security be considered a â€Å"public good†? This is a very difficult question to answer. In theory, on the surface, enforcement of cyber security seems like it might be a very viable public service. As viable as other protections offered as a public good such as the services of military and police protections. But then you begin to look a little deeper into the subject and you realize that enforcement of cyber security protections has many more layers then the enforcement of physical protections such as military and police. In order to enforce cyber security an entity would have to do much more than simply provide, train, and fund forces to patrol the physical areas that are in danger. Enforcing cyber security is much more akin to forcing a draft of military service on the general population and forcing them to pay for their own room, board, training and service expenses while they are in the military to boot. In order to enforce cyber security you must force each person who has any interaction with the cyber world, into becoming a cyber security guard, whether they wish to be one or not. Additionally you force any entity whether it’s a multi-billion dollar corporation, a single person running a business out of their basement, or a member of the general population at large trying to access the internet, into funding not only the physical equipment and software required to be a good cyber security guard, but the endless training and education expenses associated with it as well. It would be like an entity not only suggesting that people should have locks on their doors, but enforcing it with requirements for double steel enforced 12 inch wide doors with a minimum 3 locks on it. One of which had to be specialty ciphers lock, and penalizing those that do not have said door, by taking away their entire house. This â€Å"public good† if done the way it would be required to be done to actually be minimally effective, has now become a universal burden just like taxes, who’s only community quality would be the unified contempt the â€Å"public† would have for its enforcing entity and enforcement policies; very much like the contempt the general public has for the IRS. This all being said, I think it safe to say that calling the mandatory enforcement of cyber security a â€Å"public good† is about as accurate as calling the mandatory taxes we pay a â€Å"public good†. Most people when left to speak of their own analysis as to whether or not taxes are really something that is good for the majority of the public would tend to beg to differ. Should government enforce cyber security in the private sector? The government of the United States has many roles. Some of these are roles it was intended to have by the Founding Fathers, as written into the Constitution, and most others were assumed, inherited, given, or seized by some means still unknown to me. One of the proper roles of the government is to provide protection to its citizens by the creation and enforcement of laws that protect the people, ie..Murder is a crime punishable by death; and the creation of protection entities/forces such as police, fire, and military, to physically patrol the areas our citizens inhabit to protect the lives, and property that they own, which is inclusive of the land they occupy as a nation. These concepts were pretty cut and dry, although our congress still found a way to somehow muddy them; but until recently with the invention of the internet and cyber space it was pretty easy to tell where the borders of our nation ended and another’s began, and what constituted a criminal action against a nother person’s being or property. At least the common man could tell these things, lawyers, judges and politicians can be excluded from that statement. In cyberspace, there are no boundaries. The line of what to protect and what is outside the realm of required government protection is very gray. Therefore the government up until now has restricted its enforcement of cyber security to its own government networks. This level of protection is the proper responsibility of the government, because it is protecting its networks in the interest of national security. The department responsible for the protection of its citizens as well as national security is the Department of Defense. The past 15 years with the explosion of Information Systems the DOD has found that its workload and responsibilities have increased dramatically with the government use of Information Technology systems. In the past 5 years alone the cyber security workload on the DOD has more than doubled. Although the U.S. DOD is probably the most secure and efficient government entity in the world, it is far from ideal on levels of security, and it lacks the manpower and r esources to keep up with its own demands of cyber security implementations. I have worked in the DOD for over 10 years now, and can tell you first hand that security incidences occur daily, and the security risks to our government networks is a constant ebb and flow of action/reaction. Rarely does the department get a chance, have the time, or the resources to be pro-active instead of re-active. Ultimately as well, with the very best security technologies in place, even the government must remain dependant on the human elements to protect the networks, and information. The Wiki-Leaks internet postings are a perfect example of that dependency gone badly. It may or may not have been a technical mis-security that allowed that government employee access to all that sensitive data, but it was ultimately several human failures that allowed for that information to be posted on the internet. The failure of the trusted government employee to keep the information he was entrusted with secret, and the failure of how many internet web site owners to work at protecting sensitive national data of the country some of them were actual citizens of. The idea that the current DOD could even enforce cyber security in the private sector is not only laughable, but also an extremely menacing and terrifying concept. The government enforcement of cyber security in the private sector, â€Å"for the public good† of course†¦would be nothing more than a ruse to cover its real aim; which would be regulation of the internet, or to put it bluntly the control of the last totally unregulated vestige of free speech. Besides the obvious issue of lack of integrity behind its intentions there are numerous reasons why the U.S. Government should stay out of the business of regulating the enforcement of cyber security in the private sector. The government, as stated above does not actually have the time, or the resources to manage or enforce any other security implementations outside of itself. †¢ The government already spends most of its time in reactive mode on the security frontier; trying to find additional time to analyze or validate the security set ups of private sector companies as well would be near impossible. †¢ The government does not have the money. Funding for such things as IT equipment hardware and software upgrades is already spread extremely thin. Many times government offices and system are running on hardware and software that are years behind the current releases due to replacement funding issues. †¢ The government lacks the technical expertise in its ranks to be able to support or even audit / validate the security implementations in private businesses. Over 80% of the technical workforce working on government systems are contract workers, hired in because of the lack of security/tec hnical expertise in the government employee workforce. The government does not have within its scope the right to enforce cyber security implementation within the private sector. †¢ The government scope as outlined by the constitution is to protect its citizens against foreign attack on its own sovereign soil, as well as to protect its citizens from physical attacks and destruction of their private property within the boundaries of its nation. There are no boundaries to cyber space; therefore when a citizen of the U.S. chooses to enter into the boundary less area known as cyberspace, they are choosing to inhabit an area that is outside the scope of their countries ability to protect them. They do this at their own risk. If these same citizens left the safety of the U.S. and put themselves willingly into the middle of Egypt right now, they are taking their chances full well knowing that they are willingly giving up the safety and protection of the U.S. If they are taken captive, the U.S. will attempt to negotiate for their release, but it cannot, and will not guarantee it. If it can secure their release or do anything at all for them, it will, but many ti mes it can do nothing so far outside its jurisdiction; just ask Nicholas Berger, the American beheaded in Iraq several years ago. †¢ The government’s responsibility to provide protections to its citizens is a provision of protections that are within reason. Although the government provides police, fire, medical and military services to their citizens; I for one do not have my own personal police officer, or doctor escorting and to attend to me in case I should run into a mugger on the street or get a sniffle in the middle of the night. The services provided are broad, sweeping, and for the use of the general population to both reduce and deter its own population from being criminals as well as to protect and serve its own population. Cyberspace is not its own population. †¢ The government was never given authority to regulate business, in any way, shape, or form; not for the â€Å"public good† or for its own expansion. Not in the name of protections for its people, and not with its intent to create legal monopolies, or cater to interest groups. Regulation of any business interests, including the enforcement of cyber security on business networks is outside of what the government is supposed to doing, and a conflict of interest to the type of government that was originally established for the country which was a democracy. The government does not have the flexibility to efficiently enforce, and manage the cyber Security regulations and compliancy of the private sector, and in trying to do so, would only hinder the progress of the cyber security technologies industries, and protections implemented by the private sector. †¢ Cyber Security is a MOVING target. The government is a lethargic beast. Government bureaucracy consumes easily 60% of all the time, money and resources spent by the government. Time being the biggest issue on this point. Cyber security in order to be the most effective has to be able to be tweaked, re-configured, and updated as fast as your average cyber criminal can re-invent ways to penetrate. The higher value the data is that you work with as a company, the quicker and more flexible you must be to maintain a secure network status. An individual with little valuable data on their system does not need to be all that concerned with the security posture of their system. Not all systems, businesses, and networks can be considered the same, and each ones security posture is going to be based on the value of what they are trying to protect. All cannot and should not be regulated the same. †¢ Creating any type of tiered regulation for cyber security enforcement will add layer s of bureaucracy and therefore delays in actual implementation. Once again being counterproductive to the enforcement in the first place. Who is going to pay for the government to take on this further endeavor? I don’t know about you but I pay enough in taxes for useless programs, counterproductive government measures, misrepresented & abused government powers, and generally overall government meddling in the private sector, both businesses and personal. Even if they charge the businesses for their â€Å"services† the cost will ultimately end up on the general population. This is where the cost always ends up; and this will be no exception. What is the point of the government enforcing cyber security regulating the portion of the internet that runs through the U.S. internet gateways and DNS servers, when it has absolutely no control, or jurisdiction to control anything outside of it. All you would be doing is creating a black market for â€Å"foreign† internet feeds; creating yet another flourishing criminal market. Does â€Å"prohibition† – the very act that gave the organized mob their greatest power and fastest wealth windfall, or the more modern â€Å"war on drugs† that is only serving to create some of the most vicious cartel wars seen, why†¦ because the attempt to regulate and control it only serves to make it an even more profitable illegal industry. Shouldn’t the government stay focused on where it should be focused? Especially since IT has the largest network, with the most valuable and sensitive data in the country on it. Protection of this data actually falls within the scope and responsibility of the government, in the interest of national security. The data on its network actually does have life and death consequences to people. Very few other enterprises process data with such importance and consequence. So shouldn’t the government worry about its own house and worry about maintaining it; instead of trying to regulate the private industry which is not only outside of their scope of responsibility, but is also a project with so much less importance then their own. It seems insane to wish them to focus on anything other than their own networks, and data. The one exception would be for them to have a level of standards required of any business network that was allowed to connect directly to them. I am happy to report, these are relatively few. What would be the impact of government enforced cyber security in the private sector? There would be numerous impacts to the private sector if government tried to enforce cyber security regulations. Many I can name right now, and numerous I am sure would be unexpected results. †¢ The price for such regulation would ultimately fall on the average citizen to bear. †¢ The price for such regulation would drive numerous smaller companies unable to bear the cost (and also processing information not much worth hacking) out of business. †¢ The overall security posture for the private sector as a whole would be reduced- business that needed increased security then government standards would even out with businesses needing very little security carrying all kinds of security they don’t need. †¢ The rights of a business and the people to use their own judgment to decide the amount of security needed on their enterprises is once again diminished, and compromised, as well as them to suffer the consequences of misjudgments nullified. Building dependency on the government for critical thinking and analytical skills as well as basic survival skills is continued. †¢ A flourishing and profitable black market for â€Å"non-regulated† internet feeds is created. †¢ The integrity of the biased lean of the information being â€Å"regulated† through to the general population is immediately under question; resulting in further distrust of the regulating entity†¦ie government. †¢ Overall to both the businesses being regulated and the businesses that produce technology instruments and devices the impact would be negative. Should private industry have the responsibility to protect national security? Private industry has a duty to protect national security when it’s a situation that is a direct action to do so. For example, a company that processes government information has a duty to protect that information. A company that sells porcelain dolls has no responsibility to protect the national security. Just as they would not load up their employees with camouflage and weapons and send them out to a base to somewhere to â€Å"assist† the troops for a day every week, they don’t have a duty or responsibility to practice cyber security out on the internet like some kind of mercenary. It is good business sense for them to practice some level of cyber security that is appropriate to the sensitivity and value of the data they process but that is an act of self interest; and a show of good business intelligence. Not only does private industry not have a responsibility to protect the national interest by practicing cyber security, but once again should protect their own interests and leave the national interest to the appropriate experts. Only companies that process government information, or connect to government systems should be attempting to apply cyber security in the name of national interest. Those are the only people who have that duty and the only people properly schooled in the expertise to do so, and should have an interest to. Any other business or entity should remain concerned with their own business interests, or be brought under suspect for spying or espionage; they have no business being concerned with the national defense and should stay out of it. References: Tuutti , C. (2010, September 13). Cyber experts: espionage, apts, malware among most dangerous cyber threats. Retrieved from http://www.thenewnewinternet.com/2010/09 /13/cyber-experts-espionage-apts-malware-among-most-dangerous-cyber-threats/ Stenbit, John.P. Department of Defense, Command, Control Communications and Intelligence. (2003). Information assurance implementation (8500.2). Washington, DC: DISA. Bavisi, J. (2010, July 26). Biggest national security threat: cyber attack. Retrieved from http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2010/07/26/biggest-national-security-threat-cyber-attack/ Dhamankar, Dausin, Eisenbarth, King, Kandek, Ullrich, Skoudis, Lee, R., M.,M.,J.,W.,J.,E.,R. (2009, September 09). The top cyber security risks. Retrieved from http://www.sans.org/top-cyber-security-risks/ Aitoro, J. (2010, August 17). Employees still pose biggest security threat, survey finds. Retrieved from http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100817_1347.php Bishop, M., & Irvine, C. (2010). Call in the cyber national guard! IEEE Computer and Privacy, 8(1), Retrieved from http://www.computer.org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/portal/web/csdl/abs/html/mags/sp/2010/01/msp2010010056.htm Clarke, R.A. (2010). Cyber war: the next threat to national security and what to do about it. New York, NY: Ecco.