Saturday, November 9, 2019
Nelson Mandelaââ¬â¢s Leadership Essay
In a racially divided South Africa, Nelson Mandela emerged as a great leader. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) to lead a movement whose main goal is to eradicate apartheid. (Racial separation). He promoted peaceful protests to meet that goal; however, when the ruling party banned the ANC, he set a military wing within the ANC to take the resistance against the Apartheid to a new level where he had no choice other than using violence. His actions landed him in prison for nearly three decades. He led secret negotiations with the ruling party while he was in prison aimed at dismantling the apartheid policies. Such negotiations, which resulted in his release in 1990, went on years later to bring an end to Apartheid. In 1994, he became the first black president of South Africa, forming a multiethnic government to oversee the countryââ¬â¢s transition to a new era of democracy (1). In 1999, he decided to retire from politics, but has not retired yet from promoting peace and social justice in South Africa as well as around the world. So, Nelson Mandela stood out as a great leader due to his leadership styles, his charismatic leadership, ethical leadership and his leadership power. Leadership attitudes and styles of Nelson Mandela: Nelson Mandela developed ââ¬Å"a strong relationship-oriented behavior, which contributed to his participative leadership styleâ⬠(2). He learned from his guardian, when he was observing him presiding over tribal meetings, to listen to all sides of argument before venturing his opinion. It was his firsthand experience of how to lead from behind (9). He always remembers the regentââ¬â¢s axiom. He said:â⬠A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.â⬠(Long walk to freedom3). Mandelaââ¬â¢s leadership success is attributed to his use of consensus. He inspired his followers and gained their commitment to fight in the sake of abolishing apartheid when he was the leader of the ANC. He used the same participative leadership as president by forming a multiethnic government that includes the people who tortured him for 27 years. Throughout his battle against apartheid and helping to bring democracy to South Africa, Mandela adopted a democratic leadership style. According toà Johnson and Johnson (2006), ââ¬Å"Democratic leaders set policies through group discussion and decision, encouraging and helping group members to interact, requesting the cooperation of othersâ⬠(4). Mandela believed in the value of the democratic process, even though he did not always initially agree with the results. Some of his unsuccessful pursuits included when he tried during his imprisonment to have prisoners addressed more respectfully by guards, and later when he attempted to have the national voting age lowered to 14 (4). Charismatic leadership: Nelson Mandela influential power stems largely from his charismatic leadership characterized by a compelling vision for the future, his willingness to take a risk for the sake of the well-being of his country, and the sense of forgiveness he demonstrated towards his enemy. Nelson Mandela was a visionary leader who articulated an idealized vision of a future that is significantly better than the present. He envisioned a South Africa where apartheid would finally abolished and everyone should live without worrying to be discriminated against based on race or color. It was this vision of a free and democratic South Africa that sustained him through the darkest days in prison. The same vision has changed the governance in South Africa and made him the first black president of South Africa. Due to the same vision South Africa became the first African country to host the world soccer cup in 2010. He inspired people by his courage and passion. Mandela knew that the risk he was taking was enormous, and the consequences could be devastating to him as well to the well-being of his family. He took the risk of setting a military wing within the ANC to combat the oppressive regime knowing that he will be the first one that the ruling party would target After becoming a president in 1994, he decided to forgive the people who tortured him for nearly three decades. Through this act, he demonstrated the the kind of charismatic qualities he possessed. . Mandela acquired the respect and love of many citizens upon his release from prison, as it was inspiring to the nation that someone could ââ¬Å"emerge from such hardship and humiliation and talk of forgiveness and reconciliation with the enemies who causedâ⬠¦sufferingâ⬠(5). He used his servant leadership style to promote peace outside South Africa; he promoted reconciliation over retaliation to pave the way for progress and prosperity in the neighboring African countries. (6) Ethical leadership Mandela had strong ethical values through having a heart and soul of leadership by consistently promoting peaceful protests rather resorting to violence. From an early age, he was inspired to study law with the intention of defending black South Africans against the ruling partyââ¬â¢s unfair treatment. Nelson Mandela as a lawyer voluntarily represented many detainees under the ANC. (Denenberg, 1995). (7) Leadership power Specialized skills and knowledge gave Mandela expert power to be an influential figure. He graduated with law degree and huge political experiences gained when he was the leader of ANC. He utilized his knowledge to communicate with others prisoners who viewed him as a reference for any course of action within the prison such as hunger strike to get better living conditions.(8) Also, Mandela inspired his followers by utilizing referent power, which was closely linked to his traits of trustworthiness and integrity. With his own lofty personality of charismatic leader, skills and knowledge, Mandela become a famous figure, which brought him a ââ¬Å"prestige powerâ⬠that he uses to promote social justice all over the world such as raising charities to overcome the poverty. Conclusion: Nelson Mandela lived up to his quotation when he said: ââ¬Å"it is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is a danger. Then people will appreciate your leadershipâ⬠. Itââ¬â¢s clear that Mandela stood in favor of involving his followers in the decision making process. He was always endeavored to listen to what each person has to say before he gives his opinion, which is often a consensus of what he heard in the conversation. Thatââ¬â¢s how he led from behind. He took the front and put his life as well as the life of his family at risk to free the black South African from the oppression of a white minority regime. Because he understood that unless that risk is taken, the unfair treatment against the native South African will continue forever. Works Cited 5- Bill Clinton & Archbishop Desmond TuTu, 2006, Mandela: The authorized portrait, Andrews Mcmeel Publishing, Kansas City 1-Denenberg, Barry. Nelson Mandela: No easy walk to freedom. New York: Scholastic Inc, 2005. Print. 6- Denenberg, Barry. Nelson Mandela: No easy walk to freedom. New York: Scholastic Inc, 2005. Print 3-Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, F.P. (2006). Joining together group theory and group skills (9th Ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. 8-le, thai. ââ¬Å"leadership style: Nelson Mandela Vs. Adolf Hitlerâ⬠. Articlecell. Articlecell,n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. 7-Mandela, N (1965) No Easy Walk to Freedom. Penguin Books Ltd, London, England. 2-ââ¬Å"Nelson Mandela ââ¬â Biographyâ⬠. Nobelprize.org. 27 Mar 2013 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1993/mandela-bio.html 4-Stengel, Richard. ââ¬Å"Mandela: His 8 Lessons of leadershipâ⬠.Time.com. ââ¬Å"N.p.â⬠09 July.2008.Web. 25 Mar. 2013.
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Visitor Management at the National Gallery â⬠Trafalgar Square, London The WritePass Journal
Visitor Management at the National Gallery ââ¬â Trafalgar Square, London Visitor Management at the National Gallery ââ¬â Trafalgar Square, London ). 3. Standards of Customer Care An essential element of the visitor management strategy for any British organization is agreeing to undertake certain standards of customer care through the advent of the National Code of Practice for Visitor Attractions where managers of these facilities agree to undertake certain standards with regards to high standards of customer case, courtesy, appropriate maintenance to ensure visitor safety, adequate visitor facilities, prompt enquiry response time and access for disabled persons or those with special needs (such as the visually or hearing impaired). Not only does this include customer care at the facility itself, but also in being able to access the facility through the use of adequate signage, welcome and access facilities. Therefore customer care is both a logistical and judgmental concern (Shackley, 1999). In addition to standard customer care which include adequate gallery staff members, availability of information and courtesy, the National Gallery places this access as a foremost concern of a visitors experience in the gallery and undertakes these standards of customer care in a number of different ways. In terms of external logistics, there is adequate signage from all the surrounding transport facilities, as well as the nearby attractions leading to easy directions from those attractions to the National Gallery. Arguably however, this is less of a concern since the gallery is itself in Trafalgar Square. The gallery offers special facilities for blind and partially sighted visitors through providing Braille information, descriptive folders, events particularly for these visitors and in the exhibitions themselves. The gallery further makes provisions for assistance dogs. For visitors with mobility disabilities, there is adequate access through the entire gallery, as well as nearby o ff-street parking and seating available throughout the entire gallery. For deaf and hearing impaired visitors there are British Sign Language interpretive discussions on the paintings, audio guides and in the case of exhibition videos and films, subtitles on all materials (NG Website, 2012). In this way therefore, the National Gallery ensures that these levels of customer care are adhered to. 4. Ensuring Visitor Satisfaction Ensuring visitor satisfaction is obviously the primary goal of a visitor management strategy and ensuring this is based on a complex set of factors for consideration of the management. Value for money and customer experience is essential to this, therefore ensuring that visitors feel that they are getting the most from the cost of their experience is essential. The National Gallery does not ask a standard entrance fee from visitors, however does ask a nominal amount for a comprehensive floor plan of the gallery, as well as for the special exhibits. This ensures that general visitors to the gallery have access to a sufficient proportion of the gallery and are experiencing high levels of visitor satisfaction without being excluded from the main attractions in the gallery. There are optional visitor guides, audio guides and descriptive folders available for further information, however the base information provided free of charge is sufficient to ensure visitor satisfaction. Avoiding bottlenecks and queues in the National Gallery is a particular point of concern and to the extent that the gallery has been able to avoid these, it has taken certain measures such as positioning the popular exhibits in larger rooms where there is more space for visitors to access the paintings, as well as placement within the rooms themselves. The gallery has ensured that these paintings are placed in a certain way so as to ensure more people can access them. These paintings are also not placed close together, to avoid crowding around one particular piece. In conjunction with this, high volumes of people present a security concern for visitors which is an important aspect of visitor management (Shackler, 1999) and to this extent the gallery has a state of the art security system with video surveillance of the whole gallery, as well as adequate security staff throughout and a staff member in every room of the gallery (NG Website, 2012). References National Gallery Website (2012) [online] Available on: www.nationalgallery.org.uk [Accessed 28 November 2012] Schmenner, R. (1995) Service Operations Management. Prentice Hall: NJ Shackley, M. (1999) Visitor Management in Leask, A. Yeoman, I. (eds) ââ¬ËHeritage Visitor Attractions: An Operations Management Perspectiveââ¬â¢ London: Thomson Learning
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Types and Examples of DNA Mutations
Types and Examples of DNA Mutations DNA mutations happen when there are changes in the nucleotide sequence that makes up the strand of DNA. This can be caused by random mistakes in DNA replication or even an environmental influence like UV rays or chemicals. The changes at the nucleotide level then influence the transcription and translation from gene to protein expression. Changing even just one nitrogen base in a sequence can change the amino acid that is expressed by that DNA codon which can lead to a completely different protein being expressed. These mutations range from being non-harmful all the way up to causing death. Point Mutations ALFRED PASIEKA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images A point mutation is usually the least harmful of the types of DNA mutations. It is the change of a single nitrogen base in a DNA sequence. Depending on the placement of that nitrogen base in the codon, it can cause no effect to the protein. Codons are a sequence of three nitrogen bases in a row that is read by messenger RNA during transcription and then that messenger RNA codon is translated into an amino acid that goes on to make a protein that will be expressed by the organism. Since there are only 20 amino acids and a total of 64 possible combinations of codons, some amino acids are coded for by more than one codon. Often, if the third nitrogen base in the codon is changed, it will not change the amino acid. This is called the wobble effect. If the point mutation occurs in the third nitrogen base in a codon, then it causes no effect on the amino acid or subsequent protein and the mutation does not change the organism. At most, a point mutation will cause a single amino acid in a protein to change. While this usually is not a deadly mutation, it can cause issues with that proteins folding pattern and the tertiary and quaternary structures of the protein. One example of a point mutation is sickle cell anemia. A point mutation caused a single nitrogen base in a codon for one amino acid in the protein called glutamic acid to instead code for the amino acid valine. This single small change causes a normally round red blood cell to instead be sickle-shaped. Frame Shift Mutations Frameshift mutations are much more serious and deadly than point mutations. Even though only one nitrogen base is affected just like in point mutations, this time the single base is either completely deleted or an extra one is inserted into the middle of a DNA sequence. This change in sequence causes the reading frame to shift, hence the name frameshift mutation. A reading frame shift changes the three letter long codon sequence for messenger RNA to transcribe and translate. Not only is that amino acid changed, all subsequent amino acids are changed. This significantly changes the protein and can cause severe problems and even possibly death. Insertions One type of frameshift mutation is called an insertion. Just as the name implies, an insertion occurs when a single nitrogen base is accidentally added in the middle of the sequence. This throws off the reading frame of the DNA and the wrong amino acid is translated. It also pushes the entire sequence down by one letter, changing all codons that come after the insertion and therefore completely altering the protein. Even though inserting a nitrogen base makes the overall sequence longer, that does not necessarily mean the amino acid chain length will increase. In fact, it could seriously shorten the amino acid chain. If the insertion causes a shift in the codons to create a stop signal, a protein may never be made. Otherwise, an incorrect protein will be made. If the protein that has been changed was essential for life, then most likely the organism will die. Deletions The other type of frameshift mutation is called a deletion. This happens when a nitrogen base is taken out of the sequence. Again, this causes the entire reading frame to change. It changes the codon and will also affect all amino acids that are coded for after the deletion. Nonsense and stop codons may also appear in the wrong places, much like an insertion. DNA Mutation Analogy Much like reading text, the DNA sequence is read by messenger RNA to produce a story or an amino acid chain that will be used to make a protein. Since each codon is 3 letters long, lets see what happens when a mutation occurs in a sentence that uses only three letter words. THE RED CAT ATE THE RAT. If there was a point mutation, the sentence would change to: THC RED CAT ATE THE RAT. The e in the word the mutated into the letter c. While the first word in the sentence is no longer the same, the rest of the words still make sense and are what they are supposed to be. If an insertion were to mutate the above sentence, then it might read: THE CRE DCA TAT ETH ERA T. The insertion of the letter c after the word the completely changes the rest of the sentence. Not only is the second word no longer readable, neither are any words after it. The entire sentence has changed into nonsense. A deletion would do something similar to the sentence: THE EDC ATA TET HER AT. In the example above, the r that should have come after the word the has been deleted. Again, it changes the entire sentence. Even though in this example, some of the subsequent words are readable, the meaning of the sentence has completely changed. This shows that even if codons are changed into something that isnt nonsense, it still completely changes the protein into something that is no longer functional.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
How was picture production affected by the rise of the city of Edo Essay
How was picture production affected by the rise of the city of Edo - Essay Example Edo culture saw the living side by side of both the rich and poor in Japanese society. This gave rise to a different point view in interpreting nature which with the combination of the principles taught in Zen Buddhism gave rise to the aesthetic values which characterized Japanese art. These values of suggestion, irregularity, simplicity and perishability, as Donald Keene identified them. Suggestion or yugen is the characteristic wherein the artist suggests a hint of nature. There is no idealization of the subject but connotes a suggestion of what it is in relation to what it truly is. The artwork gives an indication of reality and does not capture the subject in its real form. Zen Buddhism influence is reflected in Japanese aesthetics through austerity and simplicity in presentation. Perishability captures the very essence of life and nature, showing the impermanence and sadness that pervades its reality. All these elements are brought to together to constitute the Japanese measure of aesthetics in all its art forms, from painting, literature, architecture, pottery, to wood block prints. Even the tea ceremony as a Buddhist ritual is influenced by the tenets of these aesthetic building blocks which form Japanese culture. Edo culture had a great influence in the development and adoption of these aesthetic cornerstones. A great fire suffered by the city brought about the popularity of wood print blocks or ukiyo-e. Ukiyo-e in general is the stylized school in Japanese painting especially prints using colored wood blocks. Ukiyo-e gained popularity as an affordable means of acquiring art, especially among the middle class population of Edo. The Ukiyo-e style was described as a ââ¬Å"floating worldâ⬠because it describes the instability of common peopleââ¬â¢s lives. It often portrayed ordinary people, actors, courtesans, vendors, and the like. A woodblock print by Kuryosai Isoda depict a ââ¬Å"kamuroâ⬠or courtesan in the middle of two other
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Environmental Values Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words
Environmental Values - Essay Example in 1974 drew inspiration from the feminist movements in which feminist activists rebelled against the traditional oppression of women by domineering men. In many countries, even developed countries, women are the weaker gender and without voice and are forced to accept the exploitation by men. Ecofeminism attempts to relate these events to the fact that nature and environment is exploited by men in the same way and nature attempts to meekly accept this racism, species segregation and exploitation. To a certain extent the main complaints and philosophy of the movement is indeed true and the arguments put forth by the movement is relevant. Man is the traditional defiler of all things and it is true that the major corporate positions in the world and in trade and industrial bodies are filled with men. Therefore, it would be men who constantly attempt to find new ways to exploit powerless nature, which cannot speak aloud. Later arguments of the Ecofeminism are at fault and their views on technology are not acceptable to me. It must be noted that when man does exploit forests and pollutes the waters, the beneficiaries are also women who make up the wives, daughters, sisters, mothers and other relatives of men. By tacitly accepting the cutting down of forests and gathering wood for firewood, women are also equally responsible for this defilement. Ecofeminism concepts also want to do away with technology and move towards primitivism where small communities would grow food in the natural way. This is not possible in the modern age as we need technology to produce food for the billions of people and both men and women have to find jobs and earn a living. So this philosophy is not acceptable. Schlosberg (1999) argues Pluralism or more specifically environmental pluralism places the right to exist for all things in nature, man, animals, plants and other inanimate entities such as water, air and earth that makes the environment. Then comes the concept of cost benefit
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Motivation Concepts in Criminl Justice Communities Research Paper
Motivation Concepts in Criminl Justice Communities - Research Paper Example As a result, managers should be aware that one of their main functions at the workplace is to motivate workers for them to be able to increase their efficiency and efforts towards the accomplishment of organizational goals. Despite the benefits of motivation in the workplace, motivating workers have never been easy to some organizations. This is attributed to the fact that not all employees are motivated by the same factors. For instance, one employee can be motivated by simply increasing the benefits to workers while others will require more things to be done such as offering job securities. Therefore, managers should understand well what motivates his or her workers and employ the right tools for the success of an organization. Significance of motivation at workplace Motivation plays a big role at the workplace. Gail (2010) notes that for an organization to accomplish its objectives and meet its short and long-term objectives, then workers must be motivated. This is because a motiv ated employee works hard towards the attainment of the organizationââ¬â¢s objective, which is very important. In addition, motivation increases an employeeââ¬â¢s efficiency and productivity, which is important for an organizationââ¬â¢s overall performance (Gail, 2010). ... A happy employee will certainly work hard thereby ensuring organizational goals are achieved. It also reduces instances of absenteeism at the workplace that may affect the company. Research indicates that most companies that perform well have high levels of motivations their workers. In addition, motivation reduces labor turnover within an organization because it makes employees feel comfortable working for the organization. This is because motivation makes employees feel attached to the organization they work for (Mork, 2010). Further, motivation reduces incidences of labor unrest among employees. Research has established that organizations, which motivate their workers, do not experience labor unrest among its employees, which is certainly very important since this help build the reputation of an organization. Motivation is also important because it defines whether an organization will be successful or fail. This is because a demoralized employee may not see the need to working tow ards achievement of organizational goals, which will certainly result in low productivity or labor unrest. Therefore, managers should strive to ensure that workers are motivated all the time for greater productivity and success (Mork, 2010). Workplace motivation techniques Managers can use a variety of techniques to motivate their workers. Recognition is one of the tolls that can be used by managers to motivate workers (Ray, 2010). Recognition here refers to acknowledging a job well done by an employee. In fact, it cost absolutely nothing to recognize an employee. However, an employee who feels appreciated will be motivated to work extra hard towards achievement of organizational objectives. Secondly, employees can also be motivated by offering promotion and leadership opportunities.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Discrimination Against Obese People Health And Social Care Essay
Discrimination Against Obese People Health And Social Care Essay Obesity discrimination has a great impact on health care. The healthcare may be more critical of obese individuals. Some primary care physicians may be less attentive to treating obesity than other ailments as well. Overweight individuals seem to pick up on the negative feelings: studies show obese individuals tend to delay going to the doctor even for routine visits. There is no exception for radiographer the impact of obesity. To improve the image quality a certain amount of radiation is needed to go through the body in obese patient. And that is higher than normal doses of radiation in order to obtain X-ray images. Also obesity has impact on the surgical options for obese patients, the anatomy and imaging of gastric bypass surgery, and how to recognize and treat surgical complications of bariatric surgery. Obese patients need to purchase larger wheelchairs, larger beds and even larger diagnostic imaging machines. 1b.Reading the background of Obesity, and how people are becoming Obese, will help me to gain a close understand of how obese people feeling about themselves and how discrimination effects obese people. It will help me to see the obese people as an illness not blame them because of their weight. As a Radiography student I should deal with all patients equally. If those issues above has impact on health care provider, it is also has psychological impact on obese patient. 2a. In this annotated bibliography I would like to convey to the reader, that obesity always is not individual fault, there may be other factor such as medical condition and disease which make people obese. By discrimination obese people we may put their self-esteem and social interaction down. I would also like to convey to the reader how I have researched my chosen topic, how I changed my search each time to get the appropriate articles required. 2b.The title for my Annotated Bibliography would be `Stigma and discrimination against obese people`. 3a. The first search I carried out was a Google search. I carried out a different search using Google Scholar online to find journal articles for critiquing. I used Birmingham City University web site. From the main library website, I clicked on electronic resources A to Z. CINAHL plus with Full Text and MEDLINE was my databases to find a peer reviewed articles. 3b. First I was looking to a Google search to have a background reading of my topic. So I put obesity in search box and I had About 39,500,000 results. Then I modified my search by adding obesity and discrimination, I got about 4,570,000 results and from there I had my relevant titles. Again I modified my search again by entering additional search terms `in Radiology`, which I got About 1,650,000 results and I had two of my supporting sources from there. Then I searched in Google Scholar I Put obesity and Discrimination from 2000 to 2011and from there I find two articles of my key sources. I carried out a different search using Google Scholar online to find journal articles for critiquing. Then I went to Birmingham city university website and I clicked on electronic resources A to Z.I start with Cinhal plus with full text. I logged in and in search box put obesity as a key word, then I ticked the full text and peer review to find my articles. These are good sources because they are peer reviewed articles. Then I clicked search, I had 4515 results. In first result I found one of my supporting sources. Again I modified my search by adding discrimination on search box. And I got 2483 results. I linked them with and, so I got 38 results. From there I got three key sources which I will critique them and it is relevant to my topic. To find more articles I changed my databases to Medline and I did same steps for my articles. When I liked ob esity and discrimination with and, I had 279 results. Again I had two key sources and one supporting sources for my assignment. I chose which articles were most useful by looking at the date they were published and whether the information contained is still relevant to todays situation. I also tried to find sources from a variety of locations but found some unhelpful. And I ended my search. 4a. Two articles critiquing: Development and Psychometric Testing of the Nurses Attitudes Towards Obesity and Obese Patients (NATOOPS) Scale Lorraine Watson, Kathleen Oberle, Danielle Deutscher Research in Nursing and Health, 2008, 31, 586 593 Being fat in todays world: a qualitative study of the lived experiences of people with obesity in Australia. Samantha L. Thomas PhD, Jim Hyde PhD, Asuntha Karunaratne BMedSci (Hons), Dilinie Herbert MBioMedSci (Part 1) and Paul A. Komesaroff MB BS FRACP PhD 2008 The Authors, Journal Compilation, 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Health Expectations, 11, pp. 321 330 Introduction The above two articles are of two studies to look into the obesity stigmatisation in two different aspects. In the first article, the attitudes of the health care professionals, and on this occasion nurses, towards obese individuals have been studied using psychometric analysis. The second article is about a study designed to look into how obese individuals feel in themselves about public perception and discrimination based upon their body weight, which is more like looking into the original side of the argument and that is to find out when, how and why such stigmatisation has developed. Critique There is no doubt that obesity stigma does exist just like other forms of discrimination in the society based upon race, ethnic origin and having an underlying illness such as HIV. The authors of the first article have started well by talking about the basic principles and reviewing a lot of literatures about similar previous studies with regards to health care professionals attitudes towards their obese patients. The method was good with a considerable number of professional nurses participated in it and, in my opinion, the NATOOPS did cover the psychological aspects of nurse-patient relationship. The results were identical to most of the previous studies and the study simply confirmed the previous ideology that negative attitudes towards obese individuals even among health care professionals do exist. However, when there is a problem there must be a solution, and whilst the authors have nicely highlighted and confirmed this problem amongst nurses, they have failed to provide answers and means to change such attitudes. They have given a lot of details in identifying the problem, but have only briefly towards the end suggested how to tackle the issue and how to educate our nurses not to stigmatise based upon body weight. In my opinion, they should have made more suggestions to rectify problematic attitudes and behaviours. The second article is covering the other side of the argument; in other words, peoples real life experience to make a case that obesity stigmatisation does exist. It is a good qualitative study with a clever way to attract random obese individuals to participate through newspaper advertisement. The method, data collection and the data analysis was pretty good. The number of participants was satisfactory, though could have been higher. The quotes from the individuals were prime examples of how this section of society is victimised in different aspects of life including employment, education, health care and general public services such as transport. They describe a clear blame culture by professionals, policy makers and media. It is worth mentioning the fact that the opt-in nature of this study makes it biased towards the participants. Those chose to take part and to be interviewed for the study were generally the ones with bad experience. Personally, I feel that random selection would have been much better to reflect the true nature of how obese people in the community feel about themselves and how society treats them. Conclusion To sum it up, there is no question that society treats obese individuals unfairly and there are quite a few studies to confirm this fact. Health care professionals such as nurses are no exception, but we need to find ways to educate them and to change this mentality in order to improve the quality of health care given to everyone without discrimination. The qualitative study of the obese peoples real life experience is a good one but there is a self-selection bias within the sample as admitted by the authors themselves. More random and bigger studies are needed in this field I believe. 5a.and 5b Key Sources: Brownell, K. D .and, Puhl,R.(2003), Stigma and Discrimination in Weight Management and Obesity, The Permanente Journal, Vol 7, No. 3, online Available from: http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/sum03/stigma.pdf,[Accessed 17/03/2011] It covers the three common areas of weight-based discrimination which are education, health care and employment. Puhl, R. and Brownell, K. D. (2001), Bias, Discrimination and Obesity, Obesity Research, Vol 9, No. 12, online Available from: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v9/n12/full/oby2001108a.html?referer=www.clickfind.com.au,[Accessed 26/02/2011] Puhl, R. M and Chelsea Heuer, A. (2010), Obesity Stigma: Important considerations for public health, American Journal of Public Health, Vol 100, No. 6, June 2010 online Available from:http://www.yaleruddcenter.org/resources/upload/docs/what/bias/ObesityStigmaPublicHealth_AJPH_6.10.pdf, [Accessed 16/02/2011] This article gives particular attention to the health issues surrounding obese individuals and they compared their public discrimination to similar socially disregarded group such as HIV patients as in this article. Thomas, S. L. Hyde, J. Karunaratne, A. Herbert, D. and Komesaroff, P. A. (2008), Being fat in todays world: a qualitative study of the lived experiences of people with obesity in Australia, Journal Compilation, 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Health Expectations, 11, pp. 321 330 online available from:http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11hid=105sid=da2c22ec-6030-42bb-b61d-59f07cc7ed8d%40sessionmgr114,[Accessed 22/03/2011] Watson, L. Oberle, K. and Deutscher, D.(2008), Development and Psychometric Testing of the Nurses Attitudes Towards Obesity and Obese Patients (NATOOPS) Scale, Research in Nursing and Health, 2008, 31, 586 593 ,online Available from:http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11hid=105sid=da2c22ec-6030-42bb-b61d-59f07cc7ed8d%40sessionmgr114[Accessed 25/03/2011] Supporting Sources: Hunte, H.E, and Williams, D.R.(2009),American Journal of Public Health, The Association Between Perceived Discrimination and Obesity in a Population-Based Multiracial and Multiethnic Adult Sample, Vol 99, No. 7,online Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11hid=105sid=da2c22ec-6030-42bb-b61d-59f07cc7ed8d%40sessionmgr114, [Accessed 26/03/2011] This is more like a research study, and it mainly focuses on the psychological stress caused by discrimination based upon race, ethnic origin and other factors leading to obesity, rather than the other way round. Reynolds A, (2011), Obesity and Medical Imaging Challenges, Radiologic Technology, Vol.82 (3): 219-42, online Available at http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=10hid=105sid=da2c22ec-6030-42bb-b61d-59f07cc7ed8d%40sessionmgr114,[accessed 30/03/2011] Yanch, J. C. , Behrman, R.H. , Hendricks, M.J. , McCall J. H. ,(2009), Increased Radiation Dose to Overweight and Obese Patients from Radiographic Examinations, online Available from: http://radiology.rsna.org/content/252/1/128.full,[Accessed 24/02/2011] This article explains and compares radiation dose to obese patient in compare with normal patient.
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