Nutrition Information on Food Labels †a Waste of Time and Money?

NUTRITION INFORMATION ON FOOD LABELS – A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY? Nutrition information on food labels is very useful and helpful for consumers; it is not a waste of time. In this essay I will write about the history of food labelling and later I will concentrate on consumers who should read food labels and those consumers who read the food labels. After that, I will focus on the importance and the advantages that information on food labels have. In the last part, I will write about problems that customers have when reading instructions on food labels. Food labels came legally to life in 1906. Everything started in the USA because the Food and Drug Act said that â€Å"food labelling is needed to protect consumers from economic harm to reducing consumer’s risk of chronic disease†. In 1993, the Nutrition Labelling and Education Act (NLEA) required mandatory food labelling on most products excluding coffee, spices, raw foods and take away foods. Regulations apply mostly to processed and packaged foods and require specific information on food labels like: name of the food, list of nutrients (fat, sodium, total carbohydrates, dietary fibre, proteins, vitamins A and C, some minerals, calories and Kilo calories), the name and address of the manufacturer, the place of origin, serving sizes, expiry date, nutrient content claims, health claims and information about Recommended Daily Intake (RDA) of nutrients while consuming 2000 calories. In the European Union, legislation on food labelling wants to protect, inform and help society to make knowledgeable choices. Every manufacturer should provide the required information to ensure that consumers will be satisfied when buying their products. Food labelling regulations help the consumer to buy safer food. People are more confident when choosing products if they know what a particular product consists of. Nowadays most of the nutritional labels are very advanced and show detailed information about each nutrient and ingredient. Consumers read the labels mostly to improve their intake in good nutrients (proteins, fibre, good fat, vitamins and minerals) and minimize intake of unhealthy nutrients (saturated fat, sodium, cholesterol) that a particular product contains. Those who experience cardiovascular problems, are overweight and obese or have type 2 Diabetes should read nutrition labels very carefully to avoid high intake of nutrients which are significant risk in causing or worsening the illness. Consumers who are allergic to certain foods use nutrition labels to find information about the ingredients that they must not to eat. The most common allergic foods are: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soybeans. Some of the above foods may cause instant death or digestive problems like celiac disease or lactose intolerance. Also, the elderly people should read the labels to meet their dietary requirements, which differ from other age groups. Pregnant women should control their Vitamin A intake derived from animal organs and increase their intake in folic acid. Vegetarian and vegan groups will find nutritional labels very useful particularly about the proteins and ingredients derived from animals. Another group of consumer reads information on food labels for personal reasons, for instance to exclude genetically modified foods or religious reasons. Research findings in different countries show that significant amounts of consumers use nutrition information on food labels. Surveys done in the United Kingdom have shown that 58% of those interviewed use nutrition labels. Those people recognize their diet as an important part in their lives. 17% use the labels for nutritional advice. Another study in America has shown that society is interested in nutrition food labels and use them while shopping or at home. The research showed that people with more than high school education are more likely to read the labels. In Canada consumers with small financial income, the elderly and less educated were less likely to use and understand nutrition labels. In Australia and New Zealand, 34% of consumers read the nutrition food labels. Significant groups of parents with young children usually use food labels to check the information about fat and sugar intake. Another advantage of nutrition information on food labels is that consumers look at the labels when buying unknown food products (for example from different parts of the world). It allows people to try exotic and extraordinary cuisines. Nutrition labels are guides to healthy eating and improving diet in beneficial nutrients. They help to avoid bad nutrients and remove bad products from our diets. For instance, manufacturers must inform on food labels that the product contains hydrogenated fat which is more harmful than animal fat. Nutrition food labels draw our attention to healthiness. In America, surveys demonstrated that consumers compare food products to purchase the ones with lower fat and sodium amounts. Information on food labels positively influences consumers that would like to prevent cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Those consumers choose low fat and low sugar products. There has been found a connection between reading the labels and losing weight. In other words, people are more aware of what they eat and make their decisions consciously. Scientists from two American Universities estimated that â€Å"the total monetary benefit of decrease in body weight was $63 to $ 166 billion over a 20-year period of the costs of the NLEA†. Food labels also help to reduce deficiency in certain nutrients. For example costumers who lack iron or fibre in their diet can easily choose food which is high in those nutrients while reading information on the back of the packaging. Legislation on food labels has brought another benefit for consumers. Manufacturers have to follow the rules and cannot wrongly label products. The Food Standards Agency in America is responsible to protect customers against dishonest manufacturers. Retailers must label their product appropriately and must describe it correctly. Labelling food is not only good for consumers but also for manufacturers. They recognized that the more information they show on the labels the better product will sell. It is a great deal for consumers who can find out more details about new products. There is a campaign running around the world called â€Å"5 a day†. With these words health organisations try to convince consumers to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables every day. Manufacturers and retailers in the UK joined the program and present the information on their food labels. The Information draws consumer awareness and helps them to realize that eating more fruits and vegetables will reduce the risk of certain diseases like cardiovascular disease. Apart from regular nutrition information on food labels on the back of the packaging, manufacturers present some coloured, highlighted instructions in the front of the packaging. This message is much easier for customers to understand than the directions from the back of the product. Usually the information shows the amount in grams per 1 serving and the percentage of daily intake of the nutrient (calories, fat, sugar, protein, sodium / salt). On the other hand, nutrition information on food labels needs some improvements. Food labels should all look the same and equally present the same list of nutrients with the same percentages and amounts. It will be easier for the consumer to memorise one kind of label. Unfortunately, every manufacturer labels their products differently. Consumers do not have time to spend hours in a food store. For example, a co-op retailer in the UK presents its own labels which describe â€Å"high, medium and low† to help consumers to choose healthier products and understand the label more. In fact, industry organisations see it as misleading information considering that these labels could be problematic to sell for example â€Å"fat† in food which is indeed very beneficial to maintain balanced diet. The next problem is that the consumers lack an understanding of the function of different nutrients presented on the labels. The European Heart Network found out that consumers widely read nutrition food labels but do not fully understand them. Often, amounts of nutrients require calculations and consumers do not have enough knowledge about the different nutrients that are important in their diets. The Public Health Nutrition journal informed that converting information from grams to grams per serving size caused difficulties. Nutrition labels should respond to consumer needs and give clear and simple instructions. In conclusion, nutrition information on food labels is not a waste of money. The idea of presenting this information is great because it helps customers to see what packaged food contains and choose the best product that suits them. The information on food labels gives instructions for people who are allergic and have food intolerances. It is also a guide for the consumer on how to start or maintain eating a balanced diet and how to avoid unhealthy and harmful nutrients. However, nutrition information on food labels still needs improvement to enable better public understanding and this is an area that needs to be addressed. References: 1. Angela Shine, Seamus O’Reily, Kathleen O’Sullivan (1997) â€Å"Consumer use of nutrition labels†. British Food Journal, Vol:99, Iss:8, p: 290-296 2. Carolyn D. Berdanier†¦ [et al. ], (2002), â€Å"Handbook of nutrition and food†, California, CRC Press. 3. European Public Health Alliance, (2005) â€Å"Food labelling in the EU: purposes, principles and challenges† URL: http://www. epha. org/a/2006 4. Food and Drug Administration, (2011) â€Å"Food allergies: What you need to know†, URL: http://www. fda. gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079311. htm 5. Food Standards Agency, 2010, â€Å"Understanding labelling rules, URL: http://www. food. gov. uk/foodlabelling/ull/ 6. Food Standards Australia, New Zealand (2011), â€Å"Labelling of food†. URL: http://www. foodstandards. gov. au/consumerinformation/labellingoffood/ 7. Gill Cowburn, Lynn Stockley (2005). â€Å"Consumer understanding and use of nutrition labelling: a systematic review†, Public Health Nutrition, vol:16. Pg: 695-708 8. Hawkes Corrina (2004), â€Å"Nutrition Labels and health claims: the global regulatory environment†, Geneva, World Health Organization. 9. Howard Moskowitz, Michele Reisner, Jonhn Ben Lawlor and Rosires Deliza, (2009), â€Å"Packaging Reasearch and Food Porduct Design and Development†, Iowa, Wiley-Blackwell A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Publication. 10. Labels and Labelling Data and Consultancy Services Ltd, (1984), â€Å"Guide to food labelling, Part 2 Claims and misleading descriptions† â€Å"Labels-Law and Legislation – England† 11. M. L. Neuhouser, A,R Kristal, R. E. Patterson (1999), â€Å"Use of food nutrition labels is associated with lower fat intake†Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Vol:99, issue 1, pg: 45-53. 12. National Health Service, 2009, â€Å"Buy healthier food†. URL: http://www. nhs. uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/readingfoodlabels. aspx 13. Nayga, R. M. , Lipinski, D. and Savur, N. (1998), Consumers' Use of Nutritional Labels While Food Shopping and At Home. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 32:  106–120. doi:  10. 1111/j. 1745-6606. 1998. tb00402. x 14. Stephen Havas, Jerianne Heimendinger (1995), â€Å"5 a day for better health-nine community research projects to increase fruit and vegetable consumption†, Public Health Reports, vol:110, issue:1, pg:68-79. 15. Variyam, Jayachandran N. and Cawley, John, Nutrition Labels and Obesity (January 2006). NBER Working Paper Series, Vol. w11956, pp. 16. Variyam, J. N. (2008), Do nutrition labels improve dietary outcomes?. Health Economics, 17:  695–708. doi:  10. 1002/hec. 1287 17. Vernal S. Packard, Jr (1976) â€Å"Processed Foods and the Consumer. Additives, Labelling, Standards and Nutrition†. Ontario, Burns ; MacEachern Limited.

Life Style Inventory Essay

As I look at my results from the Life Style Inventory my primary thinking style that I scored the highest in was the affiliative style at 83%. As I looked deeper at this style it fit me to a tee. I have always been warm and sincere because I always try to see the best in other people. My interpersonal relations with peers and subordinates alike have allowed me to be trusted and liked by others. This has helped me to be both diplomatic and tactful in my decisions as a manager. My genuine concern for people and ability to accept change easily has placed me in a leadership position many times just because I am able to listen and feel that people are more important than things. Next we will be looking at my backup personal thinking style and I had a two way tie between Self- Actualization and Humanistic- Encouraging at 75%. In the Humanistic-Encouragement thinking style I love to teach and enjoy sharing knowledge with others. I am very supportive of others and encourage others to strive for excellence and to think for themselves. As a good listener I am supportive of others and always willing to take time with people. Now with Self-Actualization I am a creative thinker and can communicate easily and very aware of my own feelings. I tend to be optimistic and realistic with my judgments and I have a high level of personal integrity. As I look at these three thinking styles I completely agree with them as my strengths. I have always been the equalizer and the manager called upon to best deal with conflict. I value my employees, focus upon perceptions, and know their needs. Honor and Integrity direct my morale fiber and I hold respect as being the most important element that people need in their lives. These styles are all important for training and developing a strong working team and have made me valued as a good leader and well thought of by my peers. When I at look at any of these thinking styles that may be limiting me I would have to turn towards Approval. I feel that I can be overly trusting too fast and too agreeable with others opinions. Whether you are overly seeking approval or accepting others values too much this style can work against you and be called being too generous to a fault. I feel that I would like to have better control upon being overly sympathetic with people. I have the ability to give people too many chances to improve or correct their behavior when in all actuality it would have been better to have cut our losses after the first counseling session failed. Giving an employee a fair chance is fine but when I go too far it can appear like favoritism or special treatment. If the employees know that you are overly sympathetic they will also play to this weakness to get out of the hot seat. The team likes you and shows approval on the surface but really they do not respect you and view you as a push over. I sometimes fight this behavior because there is a fine line between the perception of not caring and being not sympathetic enough and being overly sympathetic to a fault. I always know that you cannot please everyone as a good leader and some may even oppose you, but if upper management sees you as being too soft and overly sympathetic then you are not taking care of the business. Impact on Management Style: Planning When I think of my primary and back up styles of thinking I can see the affiliative style having me motivate my team through using praise and friendliness. This can help me in the planning phase by getting valuable input from my team through building trust and meaningful relationships that are reciprocated. This helps us to feel like a team and make informed decisions from data collected by our team and helps us to build a sound plan of action. Through self-actualization I would use my sound judgment and optimistic and realistic nature to set solid goals. When making company plans my humanistic-encouragement style would have me utilize my knowledge of the company’s needs and the teams needs to make good plans. Being a good listener also makes planning a lot easier. Organizing With my ability to develop and teach others and listening to my team while easily adapting to change I am able to better organize my team by setting SMART goals and using my communication skills to keep my team well informed. By thinking outside of the box and using my creative and original thinking skills I will be able to keep all of my team on the same page with our eye on the target of success. Leading My primary and backup styles give me an excellent leadership skillset in that I listen and set own goals, but I also understand how people feel and make sound judgments. My genuine concern for others and communication skills not only give me great leadership skills but my ability to use my intuition to read people allows for proactive decisions to be made. Perhaps it is my ability to be diplomatic and tactful and see the best in others that allows for me to be respected and well thought of as a leader. Controlling Some people use intimidation and threats to control their team but giving them respect and a sense of ownership of their job allows my coaching and development style to allow peer pressure to control our team. The ability to set common goals and encourage our team to think for themselves, gives ownership and control through respect, honor, and integrity. Never asking my team to do what I am not willing to do myself and giving them the resources and tools needed to be successful keeps the respect and lines of communication open. Genesis of Personal Style: If I was to critically evaluate what has contributed the most to my personal styles it would have to be my family and growing up in the restaurant business. Always being in the public eye and dealing with guests face to face gave me a comfort at an early age of being in front of people and taking the time to listen and enjoy people. I was in the entertainment business and learned how to set goals and run a business by watching the controllable costs and giving quality service so that our guests would return. I developed understanding, humility, confidence, and personal integrity from my family. Growing up in my community and having great friends and families really made a big difference with being sincere, warm, and open. It was sports and Boy Scouts that offered discipline, commitment, and goals to my life. From my relationships built in high school and the Navy to the relationships built in business I continue to learn and strive to improve my styles to compliment my ability to lea d. Conclusion and Reflection: As I look at my Constructive skills I see how my developments of Affiliative, Humanistic-Encouragement, and Self-Actualization styles have all contributed to my ability to be a good leader. My intuitive ability to read behavior and develop teams is second nature to me and my ability to listen and be real to my team has earned me their respect. Now my Passive and Defensive styles show me that dependent and conventional may be an area to watch out for but I felt that approval was the area that concerned me the most. Specifically it may be too easy to become overly sympathetic and this could lead to being overly generous to a fault. Looking at my Aggressive and Defensive Styles I look at oppositional and competitive styles and giving me the ability to question everything and always inspect everything before making a decision, be the best at what we do, and set the benchmark of our industry. I feel that the LSI shows us our strengths and opportunities and while we are always striving to improve our behaviors we must look at our beliefs in why we find our behavior acceptable and seek to make changes here, because in order to improve one’s behavior we must change our beliefs first. I feel that I would like to improve upon being less sympathetic and watch my procrastination by setting clear boundaries a staying to the specific rules. It is important for me not to put things off for tomorrow if I can do it today. I also would like to not get overly involved in team members personal issues that are affecting their work. This exercise helped me to look closely at how other styles can overshadow the positives of other styles and be counterproductive. This has helped me because as I see that several of my styles help me to be a good leader but now I have a better understanding on what other styles can limit my constructive styles ie, if I have a high affiliative and a high power style then I would desire to have close friendships but try to control and dominate these friendships which will result in a negative relationship. Overall this has been a great tool for my future in management and beter understanding my thinking and behavior process.

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Speech 100 level class Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

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I'm not sure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

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Corporate Goverance and Code of Ethics - Article Example This essay will focus on the role of corporate governance in creation and adoption of the corporate code of ethics. It is factual that the quality of management in an organization is determined by the effectiveness of its system of corporate governance. Proper corporate governance should aim at bringing onboard honest and competent employees. Besides, it should be geared towards instituting a framework that will ensure adequate employees compensation so that they are motivated to give their best to the company. Corporate governance together with codes of ethics plays a crucial role in the success of a business because it shapes the way the company is viewed by the stakeholders. This article shall focus on the factors that influence the creation and adoption of the corporate code of ethics by a firm as well as those that determine its effectiveness. Some of these factors include the effects of the board diversity, board stock ownership and the constituent of the board directors on the creation of the corporate code of ethics. High profile scandals that involve corporate officers have in the recent years led to an increased attention on the subject of corporate governance. Research reveals that board of directors plays a significant role in establishing the code of ethics in a firm. Thus, it is necessary for an organization to engage the services of the directors that have the competence of planning and overseeing the corporate code of ethics. Studies show that researchers, government regulators, and practitioners are all in agreement that independent directors are more suitable than the insiders in championing the interests of the shareholders and other stakeholders because in most cases they possess vast experience and it is also presumed that the may make the board be more independent. In addition, they tend to have a higher degree of awareness on their moral and legal commitment.

Comparative negligence of a child Essay Example for Free

Comparative negligence of a child Essay Sowhat do you think about this defense? Do you think its viable? Are there other things to consider?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Unfortunately, it is a viable defense.   At least there are legal precedents and provisions for contributory negligence.   But i always that defense was mostly used in business to business contract disputes.   I thought it worked this way: if company A hires company B to do, say, a financial audit.   If company A doesn’t give B all of its records, and then sues them for giving the wrong audit position, then company contributed to the wrongdoing by NOT giving company B the records it needed. Also, considering that this is a 7 year old, the question becomes what 7 year old is beyond negligence.   As adults we have a higher responsibility than children.   I would say that only adults can truly be guilty of contributory negligence.   The main thing to consider is that the driver was drunk.   What could any 7 year old (or 17 or 70 year old) do to ward off a drunk driver.   If he lost control due to his drunkeness there was nothing that child could have done except stay in the house.   And that is unreasonable.   No jury should award in their favor or against the defendant. Pre-Judgment versus Post-Judgment Interest (Response Question) Make sense?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The interest makes sense.   What doesn’t make sense is that there is no precedent or clarification on how the interest is actually calculated.   That is where a good lawyer comes in.   He/she would have to specify how they want it done in the initial lawsuit.   I think that interest on awarded damages gives the recipient an opportunity to be compensated for the time it takes to complete the suit and transfer the money. After 4 years the interest really isn’t pocket money, it is just adjusting the award for inflation.   The other thing interest does is allow you to get more money than would normally be allowed in a particular type of lawsuit.   I think that courts should make uniform rules for the interest rate that can be awarded on specific cases, and set rules on how it will be calculated to prevent further bickering between the parties, and further appeals over the interest that has to be paid.

Microphase Separation of Miktoarm Star Copolymers

Microphase Separation of Miktoarm Star Copolymers Abstract: Miktoarm star shaped copolymers have attracted much attention due to their unique shape and intriguing properties compared to the linear block copolymers, including compact structure, higher critical micelle concentration, lower viscosity, efficient synthetic routes and wide range of morphologies. The different synthetic routes such as anionic polymerization and controlled radical polymerization have made it possible to synthesis diverse molecular architecture of copolymer and these diverse architectured copolymers give numerous morphologies. For example, Archimedean tiling patterns and cylindrical microdomains at symmetric volume fraction for miktoarm star copolymers, which have not been reported for linear block copolymers. This paper summarizes the morphology and microphase separation of miktoarm star copolymers with nonlinear architecture. Introduction: Block copolymers have attracted considerable attention because of their morphologies and nanophase structures such as spheres, cylinders, bicontinuous, and lamellae. These morphologies show due to the interacting repulsive force between the components, which particularly affected by the phase separation, which strongly depends on volume fraction of the blocks, the degree of polymerization, entropy variation with molecular weight, the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter, and the molecular architecture of the block copolymers.1–4 All of these nanostructure have been widely used in various field such as optoelectronics, microelectronics, and nanotechnology for various applications such as templates, nanoreactors, membranes, optical materials, and data storage media.5–15 6–8 In particular, in the field of pharmaceutical, vesicles of miktoarm star shaped copolymer have been used as drug delivery vehicles. In comparison to any other linear block copolymers, star shaped or miktoarm star shaped copolymers show diverse morphology and physical properties due to their different molecular architecture. For instance, unimolecular micelles of star copolymers displayed much higher stablility than the micelles of linear block copolymers because in the star shaped copolymer the arms are covalently connected to the central core. These highly stable micelles of star shaped copolymer have been using to synthesis monodisperse colloidal nanocrystal. 19-22 In the linear diblock copolymers (AB) and linear triblock terpolymers (ABC), the morphologies or microphase structure are mostly governed by the volume fraction of one of the blocks (fA, fB = 1- fA) and one interaction parameter (χAB), and two volume fraction parameters (fA, fB, fC = 1- fA fB) and three interaction parameters (χAB, χBC, χCA), respectively. For example, spherical or cylindrical microdomains are only observed at asymmetric volume fractions, while lamellar microdomains are shown at symmetric volume fractions in diblock copolymers. However, nonlinear or mitoarm star shaped copolymers showed cylindrical microdomains even at symmetric volume fraction due to the molecular architecture. Miktoarm star copolymers (sometimes called asymmetric star copolymers, heteroarm star copolymer or simply miktoarm copolymer) are star shaped copolymer, consist of heteroarms covalently joined to a central core with different chemical compositions or molecular weights For example, AmBn miktoarm star copolymer where, m arms of A homopolymer and n arms of B homopolymer are linked to a central core, while in the star-shaped copolymers homoarms with identical chemical compositions are covalently joined to a central core. For instance, (A-b-B)n star-shaped copolymer where, n arms of A-b-B diblock copolymer are connected to a central core. Here the first written A block represents the inner block (core) and B block is the outer block (shell) of star shaped copolymer, as shown in Fig: 1. Fig: 1 Schematic architectures of (a) miktoarm star copolymers (AmBn) and (b) star-shaped copolymers ((A-b-B)n). Miktoarm star shaped copolymers morphologies and their characterization: The effect of molecular architecture on miktoarm star shaped copolymers morphologies has been extensively investigated theoretically and experimentally. Theoretical investigation: In 1996, Milner 36 first reported theoretical phase diagram of AnBn miktoarm star shaped copolymers at the strong segregation limit. The morphology and microphase separation are determined by the competition between reduction of interfacial tension and the increase in stretching free energy as the copolymer blocks stretch away from the interface. Fig 2: Phase diagram of AnBn miktoarm star shaped copolymers at the strong segregation limit as a function of volume fraction of the B monomer (φB), with increasing asymmetric parameter ÃŽ µ = (nA/nB)(lA/lB)1/2, where nA, nB are the numbers of A and B blocks, and lA, lB are characteristic lengths of A and B, respectively. In 1997, Floudas 37 calculated spinodal curves for the series of ABn miktoarm star shaped copolymers based on mean field theory. The results of the lower number of the series are plotted in Fig 3. The plot indicates that the critical value of the χNt (Nt = Na + nNb) of ABn miktoarm star copolymers is higher than that of diblock copolymers. Therefore, the microphase separation for ABn miktoarm copolymers becomes more difficult. It also indicates that the maximum critical value of χNt appears at n=3 (for AB3 miktoarm copolymers). Fig 3: (a) The spinodal curves (χNt vs. fA) for diblock and ABn miktoarm star copolymers with three different values of n (2, 3, and 4). (b) Critical values of χNt plotted as a function of the number of arms of the B block. In 2004, Grason and Kamien38 have calculated phase diagrams of AmBn miktoarm star copolymers for m = 1 with n = 2, 3, 4, and 5 using self consistent field theory (SCFT), but they did not consider the perforated lamellar (PL) and Fddd (O70, orthorhombic and single-network structure) phases. Later, in 2012, Matsen39 calculated the phase diagram for AB2 miktoarm star copolymer and found perforated lamellae (PL) and Fddd (O70), phases near gyroid phase (Fig 4). Fig 4: Theoretical phase diagram of AB2 miktoarm star copolymers with PL and Fddd phases. Experimental investigation: ABC Miktoarm Star Terpolymer: Matsushita and coworkers74–76 have investigated microphase separation of AxByCz miktoarm star terpolymers. For that they classified the molecular architecture into different series like I1.0S1.0Px1, I1.0SyP2.0, and I1.0S1.8Px2 where I = polyisoprene, S = polystyrene and P = poly (2-vinylpyridine) and 0.2≠¤ x ≠¤ 10, 1.1≠¤ x ≠¤ 2.7 and 3.2≠¤ x2 ≠¤ 53. In all the TEM images and morphologies, I domain represented by black, S domain by white and P domain by gray color. Fig. 5 compares TEM images for the series, I1.0S1.0Px1. In figure 2(a) for the sample, I1.0S1.0P0.2, spheres of the highly minor component P are sandwiched with lamellae of two major components, I and S, which is called spheres sandwiched with lamellae. Figure 2(b) is a tiling structure as a cross-sectional view of a cylindrical structure from the sample, I1.0S1.0P0.7. This is one of the 12 Archimedean tiling structures. Figure 2(c) is a lamellar structure for the sample I1.0S1.0P3.0, where one of the lamellae is composed of other lamellae, which is called lamellae-in-lamella structure. Figure 2(d) for the sample I1.0S1.0P10 shows cylinders composed of alternating columnar I and S discs, the cylinders being packed hexagonally in a P matrix: this pattern is called a lamellae-in-cylinder structure. Fig 5: Various morphologies of the type I1.0S1.0Px1. X1 values are (a) 0.2, (b) 0.7, (c) 3 and (d) 10. Fig. 6 compares the TEM images of structures series, I1.0SyP2.0, where two Archimedean tilings, (4.6.12) and (4.8.8) can be recognized easily in figure 6(a) for I1.0S1.3P2.0 and in figure 6(c) for I1.0S2.3P2.0 while another (3.3.4.3.4) tiling is seen in figure 6(b) for (I1.0S2.7P2.0) where the I (dark) and S (bright) domains are opposite to Fig 5(a) because of the composition difference. Fig 6: Tiling structures for I1.0SyP2.0. (a) I1.0S1.3P2.0 (b) I1.0S2.3P2.0 and (c) I1.0S2.7P2.0 Fig 7(a) is the SAXS diffraction image for I1.0S2.3P2.0, in this pattern there are 12 diffraction spots in the lower q region, four of which belong to {20} and the other eight to {21}. From careful data analyses, it shows that this pattern is corresponded to the Archimedean tiling (3.3.4.3.4) (Fig 7(b)). Fig 7: (a) SAXS diffraction image for I1.0S2.3P2.0. and (b) the corresponding real-space image. The TEM images for the series, I1.0S1.8Px2 are reported in Fig 8, where Fig 8(a) for the sample, I1.0S1.8P3.2, shows I and S domains form gyroid membrane in the P domain. Figure 8(b) for I1.0S1.8P6.4 and 8(c) for I1.0S1.8P53 show cylinder-in-lamella and hierarchical structure, respectively. Fig 8: TEM images for (a) I1.0S1.8P3.2 (b) I1.0S1.8P3.2 and (c) I1.0S1.8P3.2 Fig 9 summarizes microphase separation observed for IxSyPz miktoarm star terpolymers with different volume ratios between the arms. Fig 9: Kaleidoscopic morphologies from the IxSyPz miktoarm star shaped block terpolymer system. (a) Lamellae-in-sphere, (b) lamellae-in-cylinder, (c) cylinder-in-lamella, (d) hyperbolic tiling, (e) zinc blende, (f) sphere-sandwiched-with-lamella, (g) Archimedean tiling and (h) lamellae-in-lamella.

Environmental Issues for the Amazon and Murray River

Environmental Issues for the Amazon and Murray River Environmental Change Management  Rivers Rachel Cunningham All life on earth depends on water. Trees and plants need water to grow, and water helps shape the earth and its islands, continents and countries. About 71% of the earth is covered in water by oceans, rivers and lakes. Almost all river water comes from rain or melted snow. Rivers are large streams of water flowing downwards to the sea along channels they have cut. Some rivers flow into lakes and some join other rivers. A river ends when it flows into another river, ocean or lake. When a smaller river flows into a larger one, the smaller one is called a tributary. This is commonly referred to as the mouth. Commonly, rivers start (the start is known as headwaters) as small streams on high grounds, gradually increasing in volume. Rivers have played an important part in the development of civilisation. Rivers are one of the main ways in which rainwater returns to the sea in the water cycle. On their way to the sea, rivers help shape the land through erosion. A river is the main part of a river system, which also includes smaller streams that supply water to the river. The second largest river in the world is called the Amazon River, located in South America. The Amazon is 6,436 kilometres long, and carries more water than any other river in the world. The chief river of Australia, the Murray, flows 2,589 kilometres from the Snowy Mountains to the Great Australian Bight at the entrance to the Indian Ocean. It rises near Mount Kosciuszko in south-eastern New South Wales and flows north-westward to form the border between Victoria and New South Wales. Rivers can be influenced by human actions, sometimes with a positive result and sometimes with a negative result. In both the Murray and the Amazon, humans have cleared the land surrounding the river, constructed dams and weirs and created a hazardous environment for many animal species neighbouring this environment. Pollution is also a major cause for some of the environmental issues that these rivers face. Indigenous people in the Murray and Amazon regions have cared for and maintained the rivers over a long period of time. They have achieved this by taking from the river what it can sustain and by not polluting it excessively. The greatest river of South America, the Amazon, is the worlds largest river in water volume and the area of its drainage basin, together with its tributaries the river drains an area of 7,050,000 square kilometres—roughly one third of the continent. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean at a rate of about 220,000 cubic meters per second. The Amazon region is covered by dense tropical rainforest. This has one of the highest rates of rainfall in the world. Agriculture only has a potential on 2% of the floodplain, and the whole Amazon basin supports a population of only four million, of whom 75 000 are native Indians. The Murray River is the longest permanently flowing river in Australia. It is an important source for irrigation and industry. The Murray River system includes the Darling, Lachlan, and Murrumbidgee rivers, and it drains an area larger then that of France and Spain combined. The Murray rises in the Australian Alps near the eastern boundary between Victoria and New South Wales. It then crosses eastern South Australia and flows into Encounter Bay, south of Adelaide. The Murray River is 2,589 kilometres long. Along the Murray, wheat, sheep and cattle are a main source of income for farmers. However, this is becoming a problem because chemical run off from the crops pollute the river. In the Amazon, subsistence farming, practised since before the Portuguese settlers arrived in Brazil in the 16th century, remained the major money making activity until the 19th century. Indigenous groups such as the Yanomamo and Kayapo have been living in the Amazon for thousands of years. The first human settlements in the Amazon had populations’ approx 35,000 years ago. Since that time, Amazon people have developed lifestyles that are well incorporated with the benefits and restrictions of rainforests and the Amazon River. Normally, daily meals included wildlife found close to rivers, such as fish, turtles, capybara and crocodiles. Until recently, blowguns, arrows tipped with poison and spears were an everyday tool used to hunt down the wildlife for the daily meals. Unfortunately, these prehistoric weapons have been replaced with guns. The guns cause more damage to the river because they are more accurate, and they kill quicker. Hunter-gatherer groups were once generally nomadic, living in small temporary settlements for 4-5 years until all natural resources had diminished. Due to land colonisation by non-indigenous people, many local (indigenous) groups were forced into inactive lifestyles causing them to become peasants. This started to degrade the river bec ause they weren’t using it in a traditional way. Such changes not only destroyed traditional lifestyles but also caused the local peopleto lose control over their territory and for the river to lose many of its traditional protections. Whilst the new settlers treated the river without concern for its well being. There are many environmental issues along the Murray. Many of these problems are caused by drought. Some of the problems are so serious that despite two years of rain (2000 – 2002), areas of the river are yet to recover. The Murray mouth closed in 2002, only the second time recorded in history. This was because of the lack of water in the basin. In April 2009 in the Lower Lakes region, 20,000 hectares of acid sulphate soils were exposed and fresh water levels fell dramatically, to more than one metre below sea level. Ecosystems were also affected by this, because of the increase in salinity and exposure of acid sulphate. It also threatened the water supplies for people and livestock. Low water levels also caused some sections of the riverbank to dry out, crack, and eventually give way. There were more than 160 incidents of river bank collapse along the Murray. Many turtles were affected by the rising salt table, and became sick, and finally died.[1] The salinity problem in the Murray serves as a predicament for all Australians. Salinity is an issue when an excessive quantity of salt in the water and soil causes problems with the use of water and land. Due to land logging, land reproduction and land colonisation, the salt table of the Murray is rising. Water stored in the dams and weirs is mainly used for irrigation, causing the salination problem. Some salt flows naturally into the Murray – Darling, but irrigation, land clearing, dams and weirs have all forced increased amounts of salt up from deep underground. Unfortunately, most of this salt eventually ends up in the rivers which increases the river’s salt content. Every year, three million tonnes of salt flow down the Murray River. Another issue that the Murray faces is stagnentation. Parts of the river, especially the lower Murray, are now more like a series of still lakes rather than a flowing river, resulting in some significant changes. The water is cloudier and contains less oxygen, encouraging the growth of algae and making it difficult for some fish species to survive. The Sand and silt are slowly building up on the river beds behind the dams. Because of the build-up of sand and silt, the fish cannot move from one part of the river to another or from oceans to lakes. This disturbs the food chain by creating over population of some species and lack of others. The major environmental issue for the Amazon River is deforestation, in the greater Amazon basin. The main sources of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest are human settlement and development of the land. In nine years from 1991 – 2000, the total area of Amazon rainforest cleared rose from 415,000 to 587,000 square kilometres. Most of this lost forest has been replaced with pastures for cattle. Because of this, the salt table has risen dramatically. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest can be recognised by many different factors. The rainforest is mainly seen as a resource for cattle pasture, hardwoods, housing space, farming space, roads and medicines. The deforestation rate in the Amazon region increased from 1990 to 2003 by 70%. As a result of deforestation, the river effectively dies. The tree roots are no longer present to hold the bank in, therefore the rivers walls collapse. As a consequence of this, the silt builds up. This causes the river to flow slower. Since approximately 2005, inhabitants along the Amazon have become aware of the need to conserve the river. This has led to conversation with governments regarding management of the river. Before Europeans arrived, the land surrounding the Murray was occupied by Australian aborigines. The Murray River has been home to the Aboriginal people for thousands of years. This river was commonly known to the indigenous as Milewa or Tongala. The land surrounding, and the river have always been imperative to the indigenous. Near the river, there were once many swamps and billabongs. These were flooded each spring when the melting of the winter snow in the spring, flowed into the Murray. Indigenous people caught much of their food using nets and dams. The nets were for catching fish, animals and birds. They made them from fibres of rushes that grew beside the creeks. The rushes were chewed and then twisted by rubbing them on the thigh. Aborigines also caught fish by making dams across the narrow creeks. First they pushed the stakes into the creek bed. Then they wove branches through the row of stakes. At flood time the fish swam into the shallow creeks and billabongs. As the flood waters went down, thousands (not the 10’s of 1000’s like the fisherman of today) of fish were trapped behind the dams. Women gathered all the plant food. They dug for bulrush roots and rushes and collected pigface berries. The indigenous also ate bulrush roots with every mean, just as white people ate bread. In the river the women caught crayfish and yabbies and spent much of their time diving for mussels. They carried the food back to the camp in net bags and baskets. The riv er itself can replenish itself after this sort of gathering. However, the river cannot replenish itself after a bulldozer digs out plants by their roots. Fish and shellfish were the main food of the indigenous people. Men did the hunting with spears or nets as well as dams. Flocks of ducks, pelicans, black swans and other water birds trapped in the nets that they strung across the creeks. They made stronger nets and staked them out between trees. These were catching emus and kangaroos. The cords of these nets were as thick as your finger. To hide from animals they hinted, men made screens of branches woven with grass. They would creep up on the emus and kangaroos until they were close enough to speak to them. The men also made rods to snare waterbirds. For camouflage they put braches through the reeds. They snared them around the neck one by one. The current environmental issues that the Murray and the Amazon face are primarily caused by modern man. Some of the issues that the Murray faces include rising salt table, water pollution and decreased water flow. The Amazon also faces a major concern deforestation. These environmental factors have only surfaced since the areas have developed. Indigenous people were conservative and only took from the land what it could sustain. We can learn from these traditions and ensure that rivers remain a sustainable environment in the future. Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest, {Online accessed 13 February 2014} URL:http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_of_the_Amazon_Rainforest Impacts of Deforestation on the Amazon, {Online accessed 26 February 2014} URL:http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-andblogs/news/impacts-of-deforestation-on-the-Amazon The Achuar of Peru, {Online accessed 13 February 2014} URL:http://www.amazonwatch.org/work/achuar Murray River Aboriginals {Online accessed 26 February 2014} URL:http://www.murrayriver.com.au/about-the-murray/indigenous-culture/ [1] URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_of_the_Murray_River

Exposing Child Abuse and Neglect Essay -- Violence Against Children

In 2012 it was reported that over five million children were abused and neglected in the United States. More than five children die each day as a result of abuse and neglect. (Prevent Child Abuse America). There are many factors that cause child abuse and neglect. The parent factor states that parents who have been abused physically, sexually, or emotionally or were neglected, as children will do the same to their children. Stress plays a major role in the parent factor. Overly stressed parents often take their frustrations out on their children. Alcohol and drug abuse also play a major role in the parent factor. Another factor is the child factor. It states that some children are more vulnerable to abuse or neglect than others from parents or guardians due to their age, size, emotional stability, as well as their social development. A third factor is the family factor states that the situations that occur in the family can increase the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. That was the case with young Dave from the above passage. Because his mother no longer got the attention she needed from his father she began to take out her anger and frustrations on him. Finally, the environmental factor states abuse and neglect is often caused by a combination of the previous three factors (U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources). When dealing with the issue of child abuse and neglect several questions are often raised: when does disciplining a child turn into child abuse, what happens to these children that survive the abuse and neglect, and is there a solution to stopping child abuse?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Whenever the issue of child abuse and neglect is raised, the statement is often made that I have the right to discipline my child however I see fit. Parents often feel that disciplining their children is a right that they have. My mother would often tell me, â€Å"I brought you into this world and I sure will take you out.† Now days the government tells the children that if their parent or guardian put their hands on them the children have the right to call the police on the parents. This leads to the question when is it okay and how do I discipline my child? Children should only be disciplined to let them know that their actions or behavior in a certain situation was not acceptable. There are many ways to discipline a child. One way is to put the child in time out wh... ... of abuse has made you pay. I never knew how you felt; Your self-esteem so low. I only knew you crept away, And never let your feelings show. I never knew what I could do; That I could help somehow. That all you needed was a friend; Just someone to be your pal. But now I know that I can help; I can make a difference, too. I’ll shout with you, and All the rest can’t say, â€Å"I never knew.† (Pelzer 175). Child abuse and neglect is greatly affecting the lives of young children. It is a dangerous epidemic that seems to be growing by the day. Work Cited Landau, Elaine. Child Abuse: An American Epidemic. New Jersey: Silver Burdett Press, Inc. 1984 Prevent Child Abuse America. Child Abuse and Neglect Statistics. 2014. http://www.menweb.org/throop/abuse/studies/child-ma.html Pelzer, Dave. A Child Called â€Å"It†. California: Health Communications, Inc. 1995. U.S. Department of Heath and Human Resources. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2014 http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/focus-areas/child-abuse-neglect Walker, C. Eugene, Bonner, Barbara L., and Kaufman, Keith L. The Physically and Sexually Abused Child Evaluation and Treatment. New York: Pergamon Books, Inc. 1988.

Life In Ancient Greece :: essays research papers

‘What it was like to be poor, unemployed and homeless in 1930s USA.’ For an American to go without food for more than a day to us seems unimaginable. The country that so many see as the world leader today, has not always been as strong though. Less than 70 years ago many poor, homeless and unemployed Americans were starving to death. What they went through could be compared to some of the less well off nations today. To begin to understand the plight of the poor, homeless and unemployed American of the depression I will place an average Melbourne family into that situation. To begin with, take away the house. Banks reclaimed a large number of houses of those who could not keep up the repayments. If this is a lucky family they may have a car to sleep in. Usually this car is a battered old Ford or Chevy; the car doesn’t go very well. That doesn’t matter though because they probably can’t afford petrol anyway. The family will then have to beg for food for dinner. If they are too proud to beg they will try to sell apples or other items on the sidewalls, if they still have nothing to eat they will queue for many hours in bread lines organised by the city charities. This family will most likely live from their car or move into one of the Hoovervilles. In this Hooverville they will live like many other families, in a house made from packing cases and corrugated iron. Disease is rife here and few are able to get medical help. There is however no shortage of water. When it rains it comes under the walls and through the roof drenching everything inside. News travels slowly amongst the poor, most people hear what is going on in the world by word of mouth. Or by reading a week old paper that they are using to stop their roof leaking. During the winters it is bitterly cold. Children search through junkyards for old cars, which might have a little bit of oil in them. If they are lucky they will be warm for the night. Men have to work extremely hard. That is if they have a job. Unemployment is high; 12 to 15 million are without jobs. Men walk all day in search of work. If they are lucky they might find some. The pay is bad and the conditions are bad, but they don’t complain.

Exploring Research Methodologies: Positivism and Interpretivism Essay

Exploring Research Methodologies: Positivism and Interpretivism Before a researcher can initiate a research project, they face the confusion and the range of theoretical perspectives, methodologies, methods, and the philosophical basis that encompasses them all. This seemingly meticulous structure for the research process is in fact aimed toward providing the researcher with a ‘scaffolding’, or a direction which they can go on to develop themselves to coincide with their particular research purposes. (Crotty, 1998) Once a researcher has developed a research question they are seeking to answer, they must consider what methodologies and methods they will employ in the research; what theoretical perspective lies behind the methodology; and what epistemology informs this theoretical perspective. (Crotty, 1998) Before continuing it is important to explain these key terms: Epistemology is ‘the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge, which seeks to inform us how we can know the world.’ (Jary and Jary: Dictionary of Sociology, 1991) In the context of social research, epistemology is the form of proof one requires to justify a claim to knowledge about the social world. This will have a salient impact on the kind of data one can collect in order to validate their arguments concerning the social world (methodology), as well as the methods one considers in collecting valid data (methods). A researcher’s choice of methods will be conditioned by theoretical perspectives, the way one sees the social world. (Livesey) Researchers of social science use a wide variety of research methods to gain and enhance knowledge and theory. The different types of research methodologies, quantitative and qualitative, are associated with the epistemological and theoretical perspectives the researcher wishes to adopt. This choice the researcher makes determines the way in which research should be conducted. This paper will discuss, critically analyse and compare the epistemological and theoretical perspectives of two research methodologies used for social research: positivism and interpretivism. The various research methods used within the frameworks of each of these will then be discussed. Positivism There are two main types of epistemologies: positivist and anti-positivist. â€Å"Positivist research is an approach which combines a deductive approach w... ... 12.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Love, T. (1998). Value Role in Computer-assisted Designing. Western Australia: Dept of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. 13.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Neuman, L.W. (2000). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Sydney: Allyn and Bacon. 14.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Orlikowski, W. J. & Baroudi, J. J. (1991). Studying Information Technology in Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions. Information Systems Research, pg 1-28. 15.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Pawson, R. & Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic Evaluation. London: Sage. 16.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sarantakos, S. (1998). Social Research. Melbourne: Macmillan. 17.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sharma, B.A.V., Ravindra Prasad, D. & Satyanarayana. (1984). Research Methods in Social Sciences. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd. 18.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Silverman, D. (2000). Doing Qualitative Research. London: Sage. 19.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Vrasidas, C. (2001). Interpretivism and Symbolic Interactionism: â€Å"Making the Familiar Strange and Interesting Again† in Educational Technology Research. In Heinecke, W. & Willis, J. (Ed.), Research Methods in Educational Technology. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. 20.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Wainwright, S. P. (2000). For Bourdieu in Realist Social Science. London.

The Ethical dilemma

The ethical dilemma presented In the case study examines If you would allow an Innocent person to be charged with offense he did not commit. You have been asked to keep quiet by a friend, someone you have known for years. Although you are positive that your friends did not commit the act, you are sure there is an innocent person wrongfully accused. I believe that it is my duty to be honest and tell the truth about the situation. According to Morehouse (2013) ethics is concerned with the kind of values and morals an individual or a society finds desirable or appropriate.My motives for my decision are strictly based on my personal values and morals and not the relationship. Justification and reasoning Each relationship that we have whether personal or professional creates a human action. Whether these actions are directly or indirectly, they form some sort of obligation. The case study presented identified that I am friends of someone within my command who has asked me to withhold info rmation while the relationship with the accused is displeasing.Whether it is a moral obligation or the duties and right to aspect the rights of people, the obligation in the relationship are affected by our conduct. If I decided to keep the information to myself, I may be seen as loyal. However, my obligation would be respect the innocent when making a moral judgment. The values that I possess have a bearing to the relationships. These values are a moral obligation for the truth. The relationship has no relevance for my moral action. Ethical frameworks Addressing ethical issues from an awareness of the theoretical framework may increase a leader's moral development (Savannah et al. 1981; Goldberg, 1969). In order to comprehend the reason behind ethical motives, you must understand the ethical framework that guides these behaviors. The two ethical theories that deal with the behaviors are Teleological, which represent consequences and Deontological with represents duty. Teleological deals with a person's conduct producing desirable consequences. Deontological focuses on the actions of the leader and his obligations to do the right thing. Teleological or deontological frameworks do not take Into account the rights of individuals.

Day After Tomorrow

FTER Hollywood cinema and climate change: The Day After Tomorrow. Ingram, David. In Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations, Devine, Maureen and Christa Grewe-Volpp (eds. ) (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008). Climate change, like many other environmental problems, is slow to develop, not amenable to simple or fast solutions, and caused by factors that are both invisible and complex (Adam 17).Making a narrative film about climate change therefore does not fit easily into the commercial formulae of mainstream Hollywood, which favour human-interest stories in which individual protagonists undergo a moral transformation before they resolve their problems through heroic action in the final act. Can such classical narratives mediate an issue as complex as climate change without being not only inadequate, but even dangerous, lulling their audience into a false sense of security about our ability to deal with such problems?Ecocritic Richard Kerridge observes that a British journalist responded to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 by framing it within the familiar narrative of the Second World War, with its emphasis on ‘a successful outcome and a narrative closure'. For Kerridge, such narrative strategies may be an overly reassuring way of representing environmental threats, and reveal therefore that the ‘real, material ecological crisis' is ‘also a cultural crisis, a crisis of representation' (Kerridge 4).Yet, as Jim Collins argues, ‘mass-mediated cultures', including those of popular Hollywood cinema, are characterised by ‘semiotic complexities of meaning production', which leave even popular, generic texts open to multiple interpretations (Collins 17). Film theorist Stephen Prince describes a Hollywood movie as a ‘polysemous, multivalent set of images, characters, and narrative situations', which therefore constitute what he calls an ‘ideological agglomeration', rather than a single, coherent ideological position (Prince 40).This polysemy may arise from the Hollywood industry's commercial intention to maximize profits by appealing to as wide and diverse an audience as possible by making movies which, ideologically speaking, seek to have it all ways at once. One consequence is that, when we theorize about the effects popular movies may or may not have on public awareness of environmental issues, those effects are more complex, and less deterministic, than is often assumed is some academic film theories.This essay will explore the range of meanings generated by The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which frames the issue of anthropogenic climate change within the familiar genres of the disaster and science fiction movie. Ideological analysis of the film, combined with a study of its audience reception, suggests that even a classical Hollywood narrative can generate a degree of ideological ambiguity which makes it open to various interpretations, both liberal and conservative. Th e ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow derives in part from the way its narrative mixes the modes of realism, fantasy and melodrama.A realist film will attempt to correspond to what we understand as reality, mainly through the optical realism of its mise-en-scene and the sense of psychological plausibility produced by both its script and the performance of its actors. Melodrama, on the other hand, will simplify character and heighten action and emotion beyond the everyday. Hollywood movies tend to work by moving between these two modes of representation. Some genres, such as science fiction and horror, also move between realism and fantasy, a mode which exceeds realist plausibility by creating a totally fictive and impossible diegetic world.As a science fiction movie, then, The Day After Tomorrow deliberately blurs the distinction between realism and fantasy. The narrative begins from a scientifically plausible premise: the melting of the Artic ice-cap, caused by anthropo genic global warming, cools the North Atlantic Current, colloquially known as the ‘Gulf Stream', and thereby affects the weather in the Northern hemisphere. The movie then extrapolates from this premise beyond even the worst-case scenarios proposed by climate scientists.The switching off of the thermohaline current generates a global superstorm, as a result of which an ice sheet covers Scotland and a tsunami floods Manhattan. The movie's literary source, it is worth noting, was The Coming Global Superstorm (1999), by Art Bell and Whitely Streiber, whose television talk show on the paranormal suggests an interest in the ‘parascientific'; that is, in speculation beyond what is provable or falsifiable by scientific method. When interpreted literally, that is, as realism, The Day After Tomorrow clearly violates notions of scientific plausibility.The basic climatology in the movie is inaccurate: hurricanes can only form over large bodies of warm water, not the cold seas found in high latitudes, where polar lows are the main storm systems. The movie also distorts the science of climate change, mainly by accelerating the time frame within which its effects take place, and by making them much worse than predicted. Any slowdown in the thermohaline current would take a period of years, at least, and probably centuries, rather than the days featured in the film.Moreover, even if the North Atlantic Current did switch off, average temperatures would still be likely to rise, rather than fall, because of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere (Henson 112-5). The film's central narrative, in which government paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) walks in sub-zero temperatures all the way from north of Philadelphia to the New York Public Library, to rescue his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhall) who is sheltering there, is thus impossible: neither would survive such low temperatures.For helicopters to freeze in mid-air, temperatures would not only be too cold for snow, but also too cold for human survival. Burning books in a library would be insufficient to keep people alive. Such implausibilities are worth pointing out, not because cinema audiences necessarily take what they see as scientific truth, but because science fiction often provides an opportunity to learn some real science. Indeed, as we will see later in this essay, environmental groups used the release of the movie as a ‘teachable moment' on the science of climate change (Leiserowitz 6).The two-disc DVD edition of the movie includes a documentary on the science of climate change; screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff commented on its release that, although ‘our primary concern' in making the film ‘was entertainment rather than education. On the DVD, there's room for both'. Acknowledging that the time frame he created for the movie was accelerated for fictional purposes, and that the ‘superfreeze' was ‘purely a cinematic device', he added that ‘t he political, agricultural and societal consequences of a sudden change in the ocean currents would still be catastrophic' (Nachmanoff 1).To dismiss The Day After Tomorrow purely for its scientific inaccuracies, then, clearly misses the point of the movie, which is to use realist elements of climate science as a starting point for melodrama and fantasy, so that it can dwell on the spectacle of extreme weather, appropriate for a blockbuster disaster movie, and also invite the audience's emotional engagement with the human-interest story that becomes the main focus of narrative. It is to these elements in the film that we will now turn.As a ‘natural disaster' melodrama, the film works on an opposition between nature and civilization, and invites an ambiguous identification on the part of the viewer: in Hollywood terms, we are invited to ‘root for' both nature and civilization at various points in the narrative, although the values of civilization eventually become the domi nant ones. Before that happens, however, the scenes of extreme weather make the experience of environmental apocalypse strangely attractive. As Maurice Yacowar observes, the natural disaster movie ‘dramatizes people's helplessness against the forces of nature' (Yacowar 218).The set pieces of extreme weather in The Day After Tomorrow reveal the sublime power of wild nature: violent, chaotic, powerful beyond human control, and therefore exciting and seductive. Environmentalist Paul Hawken writes that the concept of doomsday ‘has always had a perverse appeal, waking us from our humdrum existence to the allure of a future harrowing drama' (Hawken 204). As Stephen Keane points out, although disaster movies regularly feature television news reports commenting on the events that are taking place, they do not go on ‘to make the critical point that we are all electronic voyeurs' (Keane 84).The Day After Tomorrow follows this pattern. The audience's complicity in seeking cin ematic thrills in the scenarios of mass death and destruction caused by the weather is encouraged, rather than questioned, by the movie itself. Indeed, such thrills are the raison d'etre of its genre. Yet the aesthetics of the sublime have always been based on vicariousness; if we take pleasure in the destructive forces of nature, it is from the safe distance of our movie seats, where we are in the position of voyeurs, rather than of victims.This construction of victimhood in the disaster movie depends on narrative alignment: when people die, we do not dwell on them, nor on the bereaved people they leave behind. Typical of the disaster genre, the focus of nature's destructiveness in The Day After Tomorrow is the city. Hollywood disaster movies, writes Geoff King, share with millennial groups ‘a certain delirious investment in the destruction of the metropolis' (King 158). When a series of tornadoes attack Los Angeles, the mise-en-scene focuses on familiar landmarks: the Hollyw ood sign, the Capitol Records building, and a billboard advertising the model Angelyne.Screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff observes on the DVD commentary that preview audiences greeted the moment where the Angelyne sign flattens the television reporter with cheers and applause (Emmerich). The sense of retribution is difficult to avoid: perhaps there is poetic justice in the media figure, parasitical on other people's suffering, finding his nemesis in Angelyne, the model and aspiring actress who paid to advertise herself on her own billboards, and thus became for some emblematic of the meretricious values of the city.As Mike Davis observes, Los Angeles is often given special treatment in apocalyptic narratives. ‘No other city,' he writes, ‘seems to excite such dark rapture'. Unlike other cities, the destruction of Los Angeles ‘is often depicted as, or at least secretly experienced as, a victory for civilization' (Davis 277). Geoff King draws upon Mikhail Bakhtin's notio n of the ‘carnivalesque' to account for such moments of ‘licensed enjoyment of destruction', based on an ‘overturning of cultural norms' (King 162). But the destruction is too cruel, as well as unfocussed and generalised, to be simply an anti-authoritarian gesture.As Susan Sontag noted, science fiction films provide a ‘morally acceptable fantasy where one can give outlet to cruel or at least amoral feelings' (Sontag 215). Freud's notion of the ‘death wish' thus better captures the dark side of such fantasies. For Freud, such aggressions were natural drives that need to be controlled; art provides catharsis for such anti-social instincts. Patricia Mellencamp draws on Freud to argue that American television is both ‘shock and therapy; it both produces and discharges anxiety' (Mellencamp 246).The disaster movie works in a similar way, mobilising and exploiting our negative drives and emotions. But are there unconscious meanings specific to the natura l disaster movie? One reading of such movies is as ‘revenge of nature' narratives, which enact a fantasy of nature getting its own back for its mistreatment at the hands of human beings. Psychoanalyst Karl Figlio draws on the theories of Melanie Klein to argue that scientific thinking itself is an act of repressive violence towards Nature. ‘Nature killed,' he writes, ‘is nature in a vengeful mood, a primitive retaliatory phantasy that fuels apocalyptic forebodings.The more scientific the culture, the more it is at the mercy of irrational fears, and the more it is dependent on scientific protection from them' (Figlio 72). He cites Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an ‘extreme example of scientific mapping that calls forth revenge from nature' (75). According to this reading, then, when we watch nature getting its revenge, we as viewers are able to purge our guilt about its degradation. However, as Yacowar notes, the moral attitude of the typical disaster movie is ambiguous. Poetic justice in disaster films,' he writes, ‘derives from the assumption that there is some relationship between a person's due and his or her doom'. However, this notion breaks down when the ‘good die with the evil' (Yacowar 232). The Day After Tomorrow works according to these generic expectations, with Nature at times appearing amoral in its destructiveness, and at other times, a force of moral retribution and punishment. The arrogant businessmen who bribe the bus driver, and the corruptible bus driver himself, get their comeuppance when they drown in the tidal wave that engulfs Manhattan.Jeffrey Nachmanoff reveals in the DVD commentary that, in an early draft of the script, the businessman had been negotiating an insider deal with the Japanese businessman killed by the hailstorm in Tokyo (Emmerich). In the final version, the latter lies to his wife on his cell phone moments before his death. The ethical critique in these scenes fits into the ideological agenda of many disaster films. As King writes, such films ‘include an element of criticism of capitalism, but this is a gesture that for the most part leaves its core values largely intact.A few ‘excesses' are singled out, such as the greedy cost-cutting that undermines the integrity of the eponymous star of The Towering Inferno, leaving the remainder mostly untouched' (King 153). In The Day After Tomorrow, then, greedy, self-interested individuals are punished. Yet innocent people also die in the movie, including the climate scientists who freeze to death in Scotland, led by the avuncular Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), and Jack's friend Frank (Jay O. Sanders), who falls to his death through the roof of a building, after cutting his own rope to prevent his friends from endangering their lives in trying to rescue him.These are figures of heroic sacrifice, also central to the disaster genre, because they bring out the redemptive aspects of the apocalypse. The film does not stat e clearly where the British royal family stand in this hierarchy of innocence and guilt: what is clear, is that death by climate change is no respecter of class privilege and wealth. The disaster movie, then, is about which values are the key to survival. The rescue of the innocent, French-speaking African family is thus crucial in einforcing the movie's ethical hierarchy based on racial, national and gender differences: they are saved by the white American woman (Laura), who in turn is saved by the white American male (Sam), thereby enacting in miniature two important themes in the movie. The most important of these is the narrative of male heroism and redemption. Melodrama, writes Linda Williams, is about a ‘retrieval and staging of innocence' (Williams 7). In this film, the melodramatic plot of father rescuing son makes the moral point that hard-working fathers need to take a more active role in bringing up their sons.The movie implies that, although millions of people may be dead, if one American family can be saved, then at least some good has come out of the eco-apocalypse. This message is more liberal, or at least not as unambiguously patriarchal, as in earlier disaster movies. In keeping with Stephen Prince's notion of ideological agglomeration, mentioned earlier, although Jack's wife is a doctor, she ends up playing the role of surrogate mother to a seven-year old boy with cancer, separated from his parents by the storm.The movie can thus be interpreted as either liberal (she is a doctor) or conservative (she is placed in the stereotypical female role of nurturer). The second important theme in the movie is the United States' self-appointed role as global protector-policeman. The rescue narrative trumpets the frontier values of male physical heroism, strong leadership and individualism, encapsulated by the iconic image of the torch of the Statue of Liberty emerging from the waves of the tsunami that engulfs Manhattan.However, America's role in w orld politics is also questioned by a more liberal discourse in the movie, when American refugees are forced to flee illegally into Mexico, in an ironic reversal of the real politics on the national border. This ironic reversal is itself made ambiguous, though, when later the United States government writes off all Third World debt, but in return, wins the right for its citizens to live as ‘guests' in those countries. It should be noted that not all Hollywood movies with environmental themes are as individualistic in their proposed solutions as The Day After Tomorrow.Some have endorsed more collective forms of action, even in narratives led by strong individuals: an image of placard-waving protestors recurs in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Fly Away Home (1996) as a sign of collective resistance. Ultimately, The Day After Tomorrow prefers American notions of liberal individualism, which it turns into universal values by identifying them with human civilization as a whole. Indeed, civilization, rather than wild nature, becomes the real object of audience identification by the end.The choice of the New York Public Library as the place of sanctuary and rescue is significant in this respect. One of the survivors makes sure he preserves the Gutenberg Bible from burning, not because he believes in God, he says, but because, as the first book ever printed, it represents ‘the dawn of the age of reason'. ‘If Western civilization is finished', he adds, ‘I'm going to save at least one little piece of it'. Ultimately, then, the movie celebrates reason and science as the values most central to Western civilization. Unusually for a Hollywood disaster movie, scientists are neither evil nor incompetent.As Yacowar notes, specialists in disaster movies, including scientists, ‘are almost never able to control the forces loose against them'. The genre thus serves ‘the mystery that dwarfs science' (Yacowar 228). This is also true of The Day After Tomorrow, in that the scientists are unable to contain the devastating effects of climate change once they have begun. ‘Ultimately,' writes ecocritic Sylvia Mayer, ‘the movie makes the point that the most advanced and dedicated scientific work is still powerless against the forces of nature once they are unleashed' (Mayer 111).Nevertheless, the scientists are the heroes of the movie. Their advice on the risks of climate change was ignored by the politicians until it was too late. As the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration angrily tells the Vice-President: ‘You didn't want to heat about the science when it would have made a difference'. The scientists' computer models prove correct: in the movie, unlike in real life, climate science provides the clear, certain and unambiguous knowledge necessary for survival.Moreover, advanced technology is ultimately a force for good. Jack is able to locate his son in the Public Library un der the frozen wastes of Manhattan because of his friend's portable satellite navigation system (which, of course, would not work in such a massive storm). He is also seen driving a hybrid Toyota Prius earlier in the film. Reason, science and technology thus win the day. However, as Sylvia Mayer also notes, the movie stops short of simplistically advocating a technological fix for environmental problems as complex as climate change (Mayer 117).The values of civilization finally triumph over the destructive forces of wild nature when the pack of wolves, which escaped from Central Park Zoo earlier in the movie, return to attack Sam and his friends when they are searching for medicine and food. That the wolves are computer-generated special effects only adds an extra layer of irony to the triumph of civilization and benign technology in the movie. Indeed, the movie itself can be seen as a paean to the imaginative power of Computer Generated Imaging.In Eco Media (2005), Sean Cubitt argu es that The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2002-3) can be read as a celebration of the computer technologies from which it was made, which are an artisanal mode of production that demonstrates a creative place for technology within ‘green' thinking. There is an ‘increasing belief', he suggests, ‘that through the development of highly technologised creative industries, it is possible to devise a mode of economic development that does not compromise the land' (Cubitt 10). The thematic resolution of The Day After Tomorrow is ambiguous, however.The ending of the movie follows the recurrent pattern of the genre identified by Geoff King, in which ‘the possibility of apocalyptic destruction is confronted and depicted with a potentially horrifying special effects/spectacular ‘reality', only to be withdrawn or limited in its extent' (King 145). Typically, then, destruction is extensive, but total apocalypse is prevented at the last moment. The superstorm passes, the reby confirming Jack's earlier opinion that the storms will last ‘until the imbalance that created them is corrected' by ‘a global realignment'.Gazing at a beautiful, calm Earth, an astronaut in the International Space Station comments that he has ‘never seen the air so clear'. In Winston Wheeler Dixon's phrase, this could be the ‘exit point for the viewer' that disaster movies invariably provide (Dixon 133); the moment where the audience is let off the hook with a simplistic, evasive solution to the seemingly intractable problem explored in the rest of the movie. To return to the question posed at the start of this essay, does such an ending merely encourage evasion, denial and complacency in regard to issues such as anthropogenic climate change?Dixon argues that contemporary American cinema serves those who ‘wish to toy with the themes of destruction', from movies about atomic apocalypse to those that flirt with Nazism. This cinematic ‘cult of d eath', he concludes, is ‘the ultimate recreation' for an exhausted, media-saturated culture, a cult which ‘remains remote, carefully contained within a box of homicidal and genocidal dreams' (Dixon 139). But the ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow, as well as its audience reception, suggests that the process of interpretation is more open and varied than this.From an environmentalist perspective, the melodramatic ending of the film is ambiguous. No matter what human beings do, it appears, the Earth will heal itself. According to this reading, the message of the movie is that, because the storm eventually passes, we don't need to worry. This message resembles the right-wing appropriation of the Gaia hypothesis; that is, the idea, proposed by the British chemist James Lovelock, that the Earth as a whole is a self-regulating system in a natural state of homeostatic balance.In his 1999 book Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists, Peter Hube r used the concept of Gaia to justify a conservative manifesto that called for the dismantling of existing environmental regulations. The ‘most efficient way to control' pollutants such as greenhouses gases, he argued, ‘is not to worry about them at all. Let them be. Leave them to Gaia' (Huber 128). The notion of Gaia, we should note, is not the sole property of New Age environmentalists or deep ecologists.According to this interpretation, the movie appears to endorse the idea that humanity, through a combination of ingenuity, courage and chance, can survive whatever Nature may throw at us, an argument used by conservatives like Huber to justify a non-interventionist approach to environmental issues. It is a mistake, however, to assume that the final moments of a movie, when narrative closure is achieved, dictate its overall meaning. An analogy may be drawn here with the critical analysis of the role of women in film noir.As Janey Place argues of the female characters in films such as Double Indemnity (1946), ‘it is not their inevitable demise we remember but rather their strong, dangerous, and above all, exciting sexuality' (Place 48). In a similar way, the most memorable images in The Day After Tomorrow are probably the scenes of extreme weather. The main advertising image for the movie showed the shot of the hand of the Statue of Liberty held above the storm surge: an image of survival which at least includes a sense of struggle, rather than the calm, reposeful Earth revealed at the close of the film.Indeed, the above interpretation of the film as conservative is contradicted by its more explicit message, which advocated liberal political reform in the election year of 2004. Early in the film, Vice-President Becker, played by an actor who bears an obvious resemblance to Dick Cheney, refuses to listen to the advice of scientists on global warming, arguing that to take action would harm the American economy. In another reference to George W. Bush's presidency, we are told that the administration in the movie has also refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.At the end of the movie, Becker, now President, appears on television to apologise to the nation out of a newfound sense of humility: ‘For years we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet's natural resources without consequence. We were wrong. I was wrong'. Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole movie, the President's public apology confirms the words of the African-American homeless man earlier in the film, who refers to people with their ‘cars and their exhausts, and they're just polluting the atmosphere'.The disaster has been a wake-up call for America, and the new start will allow for the changes in lifestyle necessary for a more sustainable future. The government will also change its attitude to the Third World from one of arrogance to gratitude. In these moments, th e movie works as a secular form of jeremiad; ‘secular' because the environmental catastrophe is not seen as punishment from God, but as human-created. Opie and Elliott argue that both ‘implementational and evocative strategies' are necessary in successful jeremiads, and cite Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) as a powerful exemplar (Opie and Elliott 35).The Day After Tomorrow also uses both pathos and rational argument to convince its audience of the need to take steps to avoid environmental catastrophe. Critical speculation on the effectiveness or otherwise of making a disaster movie about global warming can draw on the conclusions of an empirical study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research of the reception of the movie in Germany. This found that the movie did not appear to reinforce feelings of fatalism in its audience. Less than 10% of the sample agreed with the statement, ‘There's nothing we can do anyway', whereas 82% preferred, ‘We hav e to stop climate change'. Reusswig). Indeed, the Potsdam study makes hopeful reading for environmentalists. It found that the publicity surrounding the film triggered a new interest in climate change, and raised some issues previously unfamiliar to audiences, such as the role of oceans in global warming. A similar study of reception in the United States concluded that the film ‘led moviegoers to have higher levels of concern and worry about global warming, to estimate various impacts on the United States as more likely, and to shift their conceptual understanding of the climate system toward a threshold model.Further, the movie encouraged watchers to engage in personal, political, and social action to address climate change and to elevate global warming as a national priority'. However, whether such changes constituted merely a ‘momentary blip' in public perceptions remained to be seen (Leiserowitz 7). These empirical studies are important because they show that audienc e reception is a more complex and variable process than it is sometimes taken for in film theory. According to some versions of psychoanalytic ‘subject positioning' theory, Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow tend to render spectators passive.Under the influence of Bertolt Brecht's theories of narrative, film academics such Colin McCabe and Steven Heath argued that only modernist or avant-garde narrative techniques can produce a more active (even revolutionary) film spectator. As the 1992 textbook New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics puts it, psychoanalytic film theory ‘sees the viewer not as a person, a flesh-and-blood individual, but as an artificial construct, produced and activated by the cinematic apparatus' (Stam 147). In his book The Crisis of Political Modernism (1999), D.N. Rodowick exposes the flaws in such thinking. The politics of political modernism, he writes, assume ‘an intrinsic and intractable relation between texts and their spectators, reg ardless of the historical or social context of that relation' (Rodowick 34). But film viewers are flesh-and-blood individuals, and when they are treated as such by film theorists and researchers, the phenomenon of film reception becomes more complex and nuanced, and less deterministic and stereotyped, than that imagined by subject positioning theory.Empirical audience research shows that we do not all watch the same movie in the same way, and that audience responses are complexly determined by a long list of variables, such as nation, region, locality, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and, last but certainly not least, individual temperament. When we look at the public reception of The Day After Tomorrow, then, it is clear that different interest groups appropriated the movie in different ways.Both sides of the public debate about climate change interpreted the movie within a realist framework, either positively or negatively, and produced selective readings in order to fur ther their own agendas. Patrick Michaels, one of the minority of scientists who stills rejects the idea of human-created climate change, pointed out the scientific flaws in the movie, and damned Hollywood for irresponsibly playing into the hands of liberal environmentalists by exaggerating the threat of global warming (Michaels 1).Liberal-left environmental campaigners also understood that the movie's foundation in science was flawed. However, they found its scientific exaggerations and inaccuracies less important than what they saw as its realistic portrayal of the American government's denial of the scientific evidence for global warming. As former Vice-President Al Gore put it, ‘there are two sets of fiction to deal with. One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming' (Mooney 1). Gore joined with the liberal Internet advocacy organization MoveOn. rg, which used the movie's release as an opportunity to organize a national advocacy ca mpaign on climate change. Senators McCain and Lieberman also used the movie to promote the reintroduction of their Climate Stewardship Act in Congress (Nisbet 1). Greenpeace endorsed the ‘underlying premise' of the film, that ‘extreme weather events are already on the rise, and global warming can be expected to make them more frequent and more severe'. It summed up its response to the movie with the line: ‘Fear is justified' (Greenpeace 1-2).The use of this movie to encourage environmental debate suggests that it is perhaps only if Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow are people's sole, or even main, source of information on the environment that we should worry. As Sylvia Mayer argues, Hollywood environmentalist movies ‘have the potential to contribute to the development of an ‘environmentally informed sense of self' that is characterised by an awareness of environmental threats, by the wish to gain more effective knowledge about them and by a d isposition to participate actively in efforts to remedy the problem' (Mayer 107).In this respect, a classical, Hollywood-style narrative does not necessarily inculcate or reinforce a feeling a complacency or denial it its audience. In any case, no narrative can be as complex as the reality to which it refers; all art is a process of simplifying, selecting and giving shape to reality. 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