California, Gurse Books, 1983 Essays - Eating Disorders,

California, Gurse Books, 1983 The book I read was about the hard difficult task of overcoming this terrible eating disorder known as Bulimia. It is a secret addiction that dominates thoughts, severely undercuts self esteem, and threatens lives. Bulimia is a food obsession characterized by repeated overeating binges followed by purges of forced vomiting, prolonged fasting, and/or abusive laxatives, enemas and diuretics. A typical binge/purge cycle, who and why people become involved with bulimia, and the medical complications of bulimia, are all amazing factors that we should be able to recognize this deadly disease by, enabling us to suggest treatment. What is a typical binge? "Typical" depends entirely on the individual involved. The size and frequency can vary as well as the type of purge and the time between sessions. However, many bulimics follow the same pattern. They frequently start a binge while in the course of eating what is thought to be a "good" or "safe" meal or snack. They are very obsessive with what they eat; therefore, they usually find themselves feeling guilty about something they ate. This then leads to a craving of sweets and fried foods which leads them to believe they can eat anything they want, because after they purge, all the calories will be gone. In a typical binge, these sweets and fried foods are consumed in extremes. Bulimics always think it will be their last-ever binge. Following the binge-eating, bulimics will take the next step of purging, or vomiting up everything they had just taken in. Usually purging is postponed for about thirty minutes after drinking a large amount of water! . After the time passes, most proceed with self-induced vomiting, bringing everything up that is possible. Bulimics often have a feeling of weakness, dizziness, and headaches following this process. This is a fairly gruesome process, and many people wonder why and who would want to do this to themselves. Bulimia is generally considered to be a psychological and emotional disorder, but there are hypotheses that some bulimics are influenced by their heredity, or chemical imbalances in the body. The reason most people become bulimics is a complex mixture of childhood conflicts and culture pressures. Many bulimics find comfort and a way to release these pressures, take control and eat furiously for an hour, then turn back the clock by vomiting it all up. Our culture is obsessed with being thin to the extent of looking ill. Bulimic persons constantly compare their bodies-and lives in general- to those of other persons, and usually unfavorably, with further loss of self-esteem. The lives of bulimarexics are devoid of fun, humor, and genuine self-pleasure. A majority have lost sight of or, in some cases, never discovered the child within, that crazy, fun loving, exuberant part that permits us to reward ourselves for all we have accomplished. Bulimarexia can affect persons at ! any age, from the teens well into middle age. However, the majority of bulimics come from similar white, middle to upper-class backgrounds. Bulimics are often considered "ideal" children, are no longer among siblings, and do well in school. Bulimics also tend to be judgmental of themselves and others, have difficulty expressing emotions through language, fear criticism, and have an extremely low sense of self-esteem. They also tend to have a desire for perfection, a sense of loneliness and isolation, and an obsession of food as it relates to the body. Some of these persons feel that it is necessary to have two different personalities. One is the competent persons the outside world sees; and the other is the driven, out-of-control persons who will cheat, steal, or lie to satisfy her urge to binge. The medical complications of bulimia result from the hazards accompanying intentional malnutrition, binge eating, self-induced vomiting, cathartic drug abuse, and strenuous exercise. Excessive vomiting can cause death from cardiac arrest, kidney failure, impaired metabolism, or severe dehydration. Other serious side-effects include rotten teeth, digestive disorders, amenorrhea, malnourishment, anemia, infected glands, blisters on the throat, internal bleeding, hypoglycemia, icy hands and feet, and a ruptured stomach or esophagus. There are emotional side effects as well, including social isolation, fear, generalized anxiety, loneliness, and low-self esteem. These emotional problems are blanketed by obsessive thoughts about food, secret rituals, and gorge-purge

How to Use the Spanish Verb Quitar

How to Use the Spanish Verb Quitar With a basic meaning of to remove, the everyday Spanish verb quitar has a wider variety of meanings than the simple translation might suggest. Common translations, depending on the context, include to remove, to take away, to diminish, to eliminate, and to take off. Although it may have a distant etymological connection with the English word quiet, quitar doesnt have a related meaning, although it can be used to mean quit when used in a particular phrase as shown in the final entry below. Quitar Meaning ‘To Remove’ To remove is the simplest and most common meaning for quitar, and the other meanings overlap with it. Note how you can vary the translation considerably depending on the context. For example, while it is common in English to say you can remove your clothes, you can also take them off. But while you can remove a television from your room, you dont take it off, although you might take it out. Me quità © los zapatos y no sà © dà ³nde los dejà ©. (I took off my shoes and dont know where I left them.)Quiero que quites esos libros de mi casa. (I want you to take those books out of my house.)Con toda delicadeza y cuidado, Peter le quità ³ la astilla con su cuchillo. (Very delicately and carefully, Peter removed the sliver with his knife.)Un paciente necesita tomar la medicina por 7 a 10 dà ­as para quitar la infeccià ³n completamente. (A patient needs to take the medicine for seven to 10 days in order to completely get rid of the infection.) ¡Quà ­tate de mi camino! (Get out of my way! Literally, get yourself out of my path!) Quitar for ‘Take’ or ‘Take Away’ In some contexts, removal can suggest the taking of something. Where the taking is involuntary, quitar sometimes has the meaning of to rob. Robin Hood le quità ³ el dinero a los ricos. (Robin Hood stole money from the rich.)Le quitaron el record a Palermo. (They took the record away from Palermo.)El ladrà ³n me quità ³ todas mis pertenencias. (The thief robbed me of all my belongings.)El trabajo me quita muchas horas del dà ­a. (Work uses up many of my hours of the day.)La gente nos quitaba las bolsas de manzanas y melocotones de las manos. (The people took the bags of apples and peaches out of our hands.) Using Quitar With Reference to Feelings Quitar sometimes refers to the removal or elimination of emotions or feelings. Translations can vary with the feeling affected. Podemos disfrutar un sorbo que nos quitar la sed. (We can enjoy a sip that will quench our thirst.)Quiero quitar el dolor de muelas sin ir al dentista. (I want to end my dental pain without going to the dentist.)Las Tic Tacs tienen solo dos calorias cada una y te quitan el hambre. (Tic Tacs have only two calories apiece and take away your hunger.)Tenà ­amos un montà ³n de informes favorables que nos quitaron el miedo. (We had a mountain of good news that overcame our fear.)Los drogas me quitaron la felicidad de abrazar a mi hijo. (The drugs robbed me of the joy of hugging my son.) Quitar for Quitting The phrase quitarse de, which literally means to remove oneself from, can be used to mean to quit when followed by a noun or infinitive. Dejar is used more often for this purpose, however. Hoy es el dà ­a de quitarse de Facebook. (Today is the day to quit Facebook.)Recuerdo que se quità ³ de fumar por un problema de pulmà ³n. (I remember that she quit smoking because of a lung problem.) Grammar Tips for Quitar You may understand some of the sample sentences better if you have a strong understanding of indirect objects and reflexive pronouns, as quitar is often used with them. Possessive adjectives are also important to learn when el and la are used as the equivalent of words such as my and your.

Integration of Focused Assessments and Review of Systems using QCPR at Research Paper

Integration of Focused Assessments and Review of Systems using QCPR at Trauma Hosiptal - Research Paper Example However, some of the organizations such Trauma hospitals have managed to improve their accuracy in recording patients’ records, delivery of accurate results from their diagnosis and backing-up their patients’ records that are used in any future reference on these patients in case any information regarding the patient is required. Therefore, it is advisable for all medical institutions to develop QCPR system within their organizations in order to enhanced patients’ recording process during medication that requires emergencies. II. Aims of the Study Over the years, medical institutions have faced pressure from their respective government and clients on the need towards the better provision of health care facilities and medications. This requires the organizations to adopt measures that would allow them to introduce a computerized system within their working premises for better service provision. Moreover, the introduction of computerized system would help in the re duction of costs and time consumption that has been experienced before (Mahoney 56). Therefore, the aim of this research paper is to identify various importance of the system using QCPR at Trauma Hospitals in enhancing the medication process especially in recording of patients while dealing with cases that requires emergency attentions. III. ... lped during the analysis of data as they were used to compare some of the information gathered during the research period, for accurate information to be produced. One of the documents that were found helpful while conducting this research is the journal article by Mahoney (92) bearing the title Transforming Health Information Management Through Technology. Through this document, it was easy to note how the implementation of computerized system within healthcare centers needs to be achieved, various importance of systems using QCPR within hospitals and some of the cautions that need to be taken care of in the implementation and use of the QCPR system (Mahoney 59). IV. Methodologies Need for the production of accurate information regarding the research study required that appropriate data collection methods were to be used (Mahoney 60). Therefore, after considering various data collection methods, interviews, use of questionnaires, observations and document analysis were used. Through observation, time taken for hospitals that uses QCPR were taken and compared to the one that have not yet developed computerized system within their organizations. Through the use of interviews, various patients and doctors were interviewed to gather information on the QCPR system as compared to the manual system and some of the challenges faced in the use of QCPR. While in dealing with document analysis, different documents used during the research period were analysis based on the information contain in them in order for synthesized information to be derived. A Diagram showing results of Questionnaire based on the selected Doctors and Patients Fig. 1 V. Data Analysis and Findings After ensuring that all the available data had been collected, all the information gathered was combined for

International marketing - Wedgwood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International marketing - Wedgwood - Essay Example The Russian economy grew at 6% and 8.1% in 2008 and 2007 respectively, and witnessed an average GDP growth rate of 7% over the last decade. By 2008, the country had a forex reserve of $600 billion. The country is also looking at entering the WTO or the World trade organisation. GDP stood at $1.757 trillion in the year 2008. (Russia, April 2009) Goldman Sachs has predicted that Russia along with Brazil, India and China would become larger in terms of size than the present US and European economic powers over the next forty years. According to the report the Russian economy would surpass the economies of Italy, France, UK and Germany by the years 2018, 2024, 2027 and 2028 respectively. It is also being claimed that by 2050 Russia will be the only country amongst the BRIC nations which would have per capita income equivalent or to big European economies. By 2050 Russia would also have the highest per capita income among the BRIC countries. (Dreaming With BRICs: The Path to 2050, 2003) ( Hult T., 2009). The country has also got a growing middle class which constituted 45% of the total population in 2003 (Senaeur B., and Goetz L., March 2003). Recent reports have also pointed out the positives and strengths of the retail sector in Russia. In a recent report Russia has been ranked 3rd in terms of the attractiveness of retail market and retail development opportunities within a group of 30 countries (A.T. Kearney Global Retail Development Index, 2008). Moreover about 39% of the population in the country is between the 15 to 39 age group. Carrefour and IKEA are just some of the global marquee name operating in Russia. Growing middle class with increasing disposable income and high rate of economic growth makes Russia an attractive retail destination for global majors and local companies as well. (A.T. Kearney Global Retail Development Index, 2008). Factors Affecting Entry Mode Decisions Internal factors: UK based Wedgwood is famous for its high end china tableware and other home d'cor stuff. It is looking at expanding into markets like Russia. Characteristics of desired mode:Low need of financial expenditure at the initial stage then increased chances of higher ROI at a later stage. Specific factors in context of Transaction: Russia is socio economically quite different from Western economies, owing to its communist past. So it won't be easy for Wedgwood to select the Licensee partner. External Factors: FDI policy in Russia has improved as the leaders across political dispensations have started welcoming FDI into the country (Minniti M. et. al, ). This is evident from the fact that total FDI over the period 2002 to 2006 increased 20 times over. It stood at $52 billion in the year 2007 (Souza L.V.D., April 2008). Recommended mode Academic literature provides various theories in context of choosing the mode of entry into a foreign market. Sequential iterative model of Young et al. (1989) the four factors which affect the entry mode by Hollensen (2007: 298) when

Modernisation, Modernity, and Modernism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Modernisation, Modernity, and Modernism - Essay Example Society would progress inevitably from barbarism to ever superior levels of development and civilization. The more modern states would be wealthier, the more freedom and higher standard of living their citizens will have. This was the standard view in the social sciences for many decades with its foremost advocate being Talcott Parsons. This theory stressed the importance of societies being open to change and saw as reactionary forces restricting development. Maintaining tradition for tradition's sake was thought to be harmful to progress and development. However, this approach has been heavily criticized, mainly because it conflated modernisation with westernisation. In this model, the modernization of a society required the destruction of the indigenous culture and its replacement by a more westernised one.4 Modernity denoted the idea that the present is discontinuous with the past, that through a process of social and cultural change, life in the present is basically distinct from the past life. This sense or idea as a world view contrasts with tradition, which is simply the sense that the present is continuous with the past, that the present in some way repeats the forms, behaviour, and events of the past.5 Modernity could include all of post-medieval European history, in the context of dividing history into three large epochs: Antiquity or Ancient history, the Middle Ages, and Modern. It is also applied specifically to the period beginning somewhere between 1870 and 1910, through the present, and even more specifically to the 1910-1960 period.6Modernity is often characterized by contrasting modern societies to premodern or postmodern ones. To an extent, it is reasonable to doubt the very possibility of a descriptive concept that can adequately capture diverse realities of societies o f various historical contexts, especially non-European ones, let alone a three-stage model of social evolution from premodernity to postmodernity.7 The Paradox of Modernity The 'crisis of modernity' is the sense that modernity is a problem, that traditional ways of life have been replaced with uncontainable change and insurmountable alternatives. The crisis itself is merely the sense that the present is a transitional point not focused on a clear goal in the future but simply changing through forces outside man's control.8 Modernization brought a series of seemingly undisputable benefits to people. Lower infant mortality rate, decreased death from starvation, eradication of some of the fatal diseases, more equal treatment of people with different backgrounds and incomes, and so on. To some, this is an indication of the potential of modernity, perhaps yet to be fully realised. In general, rational, scientific approach to problems and the pursuit of economic wealth seems still to many a reasonable way of understanding good social development.9 At the same time, there are a number of dark

Basic Laboratory Techniques Dilutions

Basic Laboratory Techniques Dilutions Dilution is a process of making a weaker or a less concentrated solution. Substances which are highly concentrated can be problematic to carry out tests. For instance, when a blood sample is placed on a slide it would be difficult to count cells due to overlapping. As a result dilutions are carried out so that the cells will be more spread. Moreover a large amount of reagent would be needed to react with a highly concentrated substance. This is inadequate since large amounts of reagent would be wasted. In addition it is impractical to use large volumes of substances example buffers. Generally a concentrated form is present and then the necessary dilutions are made for different tests. A manual of how the dilutions are made is typically present with the reagent. Adequate apparatus must be used for dilutions. Basically, there are two types of dilutions. One, where the final specific concentration only is significant and the other where both the final volume and concentration are significant. Dilution symbols are significant. 1/10 refers to 1ml sample with 9mls diluents for a total volume of 10mls. This is the same as 1+9. 1:10 refers to 1ml sample with 10mls diluents for a total volume of 11mls. This is the same as 1+10. Serial dilution is a method used to dilute a substance into solution stepwise with a constant dilution factor in each step. The dilution factor is the volume of stock / total volume. The first step in making a serial dilution is to take a known volume (example 1ml) of stock i.e. the original sample and place it into a known volume of water (example 9ml). This produces 10ml of dilute solution. The dilute solution has 1ml of original sample / 10ml. The technique used to make a single dilution is repeated using the previous dilute solution. At each step, 1ml of the previous dilution is added to 9ml of distilled water. This is repeated sequentially until the required dilution is achieved. The volumes of substances used vary accordingly. During dilutions it is essential to pipette the larger volume first and then the smaller volume. Diagram of how serial dilutions are made: Rule : Original concentration = New concentration Dilution factor Since the dilution-fold is the same in each step, the dilutions are a geometric series i.e a constant ratio. Example: 1/3, 1/9, 1/27, 1/81. Each dilution is a three-fold. A two-fold and a five-fold also exist where it is multiplied by 1/2 and 1/5 respectively. Serial dilutions are principal for several situations. In the lab there are a number of volumetric flasks however there is not a lot of 1000ml flasks. Hence serial dilutions are the only way to get the desired concentration. Serial dilutions are essentially used for calibration curves to ensure the accuracy of the measurements. This is useful since if a minor mistake is done, it is not noticed since the mistake will be repeated in all the dilutions and as a result there will be no effect. Furthermore serial dilutions are used for antibody titres. A test can be quantitative example the concentration of glucose in blood is 6 or qualitative if the test is positive or negative example when testing for the human immunodeficiency virus if it is present in the blood sample, the result is either positive or negative. However there is another test known as the semi-quantitative test where the result is neither numerical nor positive or negative. When serial dilutions are carried out, the resu lt can be that the antibody titre is positive up to 1/320. It shows that the patient is immune up to a certain limit. This is often used to monitor treatment. Six test-tubes were placed in a rack. To the first tube 500Â µl of water were added. To each of the remaining tubes 100Â µl of water were added. 20Â µl of solution B were added were transferred to tube 1 and mixed well. 100Â µl of tube one were transferred to tube 2 and mixed well. 100Â µl of the contents of tube 2 were transferred to tube 3, and the procedure was repeated for the remaining tubes. The dilution of the serum in tube 6 is 1/832 since the dilution of tube 1 is 20/520 = 1/26. The dilutions are 2-fold. As a result 1/26 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/832

Correcting Bodily Imperfections: O.T. vs. Optometry :: essays research papers fc

Ever since I arrived at this school freshman year, I have been encouraged by my parents to become an occupational therapist (OT). I am discontent with the descriptions of this career, but I may pursue that career for my parents despite my displeasure. Besides becoming an occupational therapist, I am also considering the profession of an optometrist since I am interested in helping people acquire perfect eyesight. Although the two careers optometry and occupational therapy are similar because of their relation to the field of science, optometry seems as if it is a more suitable career choice to fit my character.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Occupational therapists work in workout rooms in an environment that is well lighted and equipped with materials such as machines to help their patients (Occupational 277). These machines generate much noise in large rehabilitation centers. Therapists work in spacious rooms and are usually on their feet. At certain times, a therapist may confront emergencies where a patient is severely ill. Optometrists also work in well- lighted offices. The offices are furnished to their liking and have equipment used to examine eyes. These machines do not emit any noises, unlike those of occupational therapists. Optometrists work in quiet surroundings and are seldom faces with emergencies (Cosgrove 808). Occupational therapists have a very challenging job description. They must be able to help patients who are disabled. Occupational Therapists work to help individuals who do not function correctly such as people with permanent disabilities, the inability to function in a work environment, and even the mentally ill (Farr 385). Optometrists also help patients who have imperfections with their bodies; but unlike occupational therapists, optometrists work to correct vision problems by prescribing eyeglasses and contact lenses. They diagnose eye diseases and perform tests to determine the best method to correct vision problems. An optometrist also performs certain surgical procedures and will even counsel patients about their vision (Occupational 278).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The educational background needed for both careers include therapy and counseling and biology (Occupational 277). Other courses needed to become an occupational therapist are administration and management, clerical, economics and accounting, customer and personal service, personnel and human resources, and psychology. Occupational therapists must have at least a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy (Occupational 279). Optometrists also need to have completed chemistry, medicine, and dentistry, education and training, and foreign languages. A completed three years of preoptometric study at an accredited college or university is required to receive a Doctor of Optometry degree (Cosgrove 807).

Analysis Of “Here’s Herbie” Essay

This short story by Mike Feder, is about his own life as a discouraged teen in the 70’s society. When Mike was a young boy he was in a constant state of teenage depression, and one of the major reasons why, was his mother’s both mental and physical illness. This sickness of hers, made him sick as well, and it didn’t become any easier when his mother constantly reminded him, that he wasn’t wanted and that she wished she had never had children (p.62). This was just one of the many obstacles, that Mike had to face during his teenage years. Especially this factor is very clear to see in the story, since the narrator Mike, describes himself as a boy who was â€Å"possessed of great many psychosomatic complaints† (p. 62) We know in forehand that this is a true story, but when a narrator is writing about himself, it is very hard to determine if he is reliable or not, and to be honest I do not want to draw any conclusions since there could be solid argumentations for both parts. This story could easily be an exaggerated version of a childhood memory, but could also be an actual event. Some elements could indicate, that we have an unreliable author as for instance the long gab between the year he wrote the story and his age in the story, which we know by looking at the many passages of the story which reveals it as: â€Å"When I was a kid† or â€Å"When I was about fifteen† (both on p. 62) As a little wimp boy, Mike had a lot of fears, but on the top of the list was the long and adventurous trip to his allergist in Manhattan. He lived at the edge of the city, which meant, that there was a long way to his destination. The trip held a lot of terrors for Mike and he had â€Å"a department full of fears to play with† (p. 63). First of all he was quit afraid due to the violence in the train, but also other things as the powerful machines and the darkness of the underground frightened him. The funny thing is; as much as he hated the whole experience, he felt this kind of crazy excitement as soon as the train came rumbling and roaring into the station. Every single time he felt this adrenalin rush, which he love very much, and that made him forget about all his other fears. This could indicate that the theme in â€Å"Here’s Herbie† had something to do with the initiation of adulthood, since he is so passionate about this, that he forgets some of his childish  anxieties. This is obviously just one of the themes, where the main theme is growing up which in this case also contains being different. Mike liked to sit in the front of the train, because of two things, firstly because he felt â€Å"some sort of identification with the surge of power in the front† and then also because he could peek out of the front window. He wanted to stand up and look out of the window, but he could never seem to find any courage to do so. He speculated too much about what the others passengers might think of him, and the attention that position would draw. So he had to live with just glancing out of the window, from the corner of his eyes, every now and then. But this whole thing changed one day, because of one specific man named Herbie. Herbie was slump shouldered and had a nutty lopsided look on his face. He looked funny with his dim eyes and big hairy ears, but seemed careless anyways. This man just walked to the centre and started shouting: â€Å"Here’s Herbie! Here’s Herbie!† with absolutely no care in the world, and it was this kind of confidence Mike wanted to possess. Herbie then walked straight up to the front window of the train, with a plastic steering wheel and started â€Å"steering† the train, as if it was nothing. The one thing that Mike thought about doing every single time, Herbie did so abruptly. So despite Herbie’s shaggy appearance he actually achieved that one dream, that the narrator was embarrassed to fulfill. I think this was the point where Mike realized that he could never reach any of his own goals if he kept being afraid of what others might think of him. Experiencing Herbie just shouting into the void and pursuing his dream really got to him and changed him. (p. 67) This is a very simple goal, and is nowhere near something impossible, but no matter what the dream is or how big or small it is, the same rules apply. Nothing should stop you from pursuing your dreams, even if it’s just to look out of a train-window. This is why the message of this short story is so simple, yet so deep. It really applies to so many different occasions and almost everyone can relate to it. No matter if you want to be a president, or an artist or if your biggest dream is to try an awesome rollercoaster or climb Mount Everest, I really believe that nothing should keep you from doing what you want. Because at last Mike was so inspired by this odd man Herbie that he decided to look out  window, without thinking about the other passengers, and this really changed him. He might have gotten some pitiful stares or judgemental comments, but this was the first time in his life that he felt he was in command of it. So a lesson we can learn from this short story could be: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Research Paper on Feminism

Research Paper on Feminism Introduction A feminism critique of science and technology springs out from the Foucauldian insights of the intimate relations between knowledge and power. Knowing the world is, through naming it, a way to control it, and it has real effects of oppression and control. Representations work on the represented, and thus, epistemology not only to an extent determines ontology, but by the same token it is a tool to change a world of inequalities. A feminist critique seeks both to unveil actual structures of inequality, such as underrepresentation of women in important and world-shaping  discourses of science and technology, and to criticise the culture of it, or the ideology, that invests it with meaning and hides power relationships. It is a project of criticising both the underrepresentation of women in science and technology, and the more or less dubious rationalisations and naturalisations of science and of womens place in it (see Kember 1996). Science and technology are extremely central areas for the production and use of contemporary knowledge. Both being matters of knowledge, they are social, cultural and historical entities, and not neutral or separate spheres from the rest of society. Feminist critics have called for a new and better successor science (Stanley Wise 1990), to replace what is seen as an essentially old, masculine, logo- and phallocentric one, and they have tried to say something about what this science should be. However, traps of essentialising the feminine have been lurking, in effect continuing the older preconceptions of essential qualities of woman. Alternative and non-essentialistic conceptualisations of the relations across boundaries of machine and body, human and animal were in the beginning not very sophisticatedly explored by feminists of the 70s and 80s. Via an increasing awareness to unpack problematic categories of `women and `technology, a more recent (80s and 90s ) direction of a postmodern bending of boundaries and shifting subject positions was explored by radical, post-modern scientists or feminists. Theorists such as Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti have tried to open up for a nomadic and embodied localised and contextualised definition of women and female experience, nevertheless keeping a political agenda for social change. I will reflect on their contributions to feminist criticism of science and technology after an outline of some criticisms that preceeded them. Feminism critique of science and technology Women have been underrepresented in what is criticised as being an masculine endavour, a dominating and totalising science. Western epistemology and its oppositions between mind / body, rational thought / emotion, culture / nature, man / woman, modern / traditional are hierarchically structured to evaluate the terms to the left as superior and there to control the ones on the right. Judy Wajcman (1991) delineates a history of feminist critiques of science and technology, and notes that since science, technology and medicine provide us with our icons of progress, we revere the rational over the emotional and judge scientific and technological development as an index of societys advancement. However, this century has ruptured our securities as to whether science endowes society with solutions or is itself the reason for destruction and crisis. A concern about gender, science and technology continues the scepticism, but is fairly recent. Early critique from the 60s and 70s questioned the meagre access of women to scientific institutions and revealed structural barriers that hindered their participation. They also turned their attention to questions of how science had been abused by men to suppress women, for instance by providing scientific support for biological sex roles. In this view, science produced knowledge consistently smothered in male bias, but could quite possibly be put to better uses in the right hands. In these case, the motive was getting more women into science and the unfulfilment were seen to lie in women themselves and how their motivations were wrongfully shaped by expectations to feminine `natural interests. Science itself was not the problem. A similar essentially value-free science was seen as a possibility for radicals in the 60s and 70s, but continuing Marxist analysis revealed how the neutral ideal of science was itself a piece of ideology shaped by history and power, being as much a figment of ideology as were the essentialisms that placed women as `unfit to do sober, scientific work. In the 80s, seeing science as patriarchal rose from problematisations of science within feminism itself. Whether science and technology was inherently masculine, or essentially neutral but male biased, it resulted in an inherent patriarchality and made feminists ask the question of how a science apparetly so deeply involved in distinctively masculine projects can possibly be used for emancipatory ends (Harding, ref. in Wajcman 1991:5). In each case, what followed were attempts to find out what a better science would be either an entirely new and feminist one or one cleansed of its male bias. In order not to just put more biological women into a masculine, power-driven and authoritiative science, science itself had got to be changed. Re-examining the scientific revolution and arguing that the emerging science wsa fundamentally based on the masculine projects of reason and objectivity, the dichotomies between culture and nature, mind and body, objectivity and subjectivity and public and private were seen as hierarchically evaluated and gendered in that the latter part were systematically associated with the feminine. (Wajcman 1991:5) Feminists have argued for a feminisation of science, for a new successor science to replace the old masculinist one. The problem comes when one argues against dominating, oppressive and exclusive ideologies of women-not-in-technology, and at the same time tries to ground a new and bett er science on perceived `feminist values, as opposed to the `bad masculine ones. The pitfalls of a continuation of dichotomies and essentialism are still there. Eco-feminists celebrated conventional qualities of the feminine of holism, care, empathy and being in tune with nature, and a psychoanalytically informed critique would posit that childhood separation put in men essential cognitive characteristics of establishing masculine power and identity through rigid control and separation between self and other thus shaping science into an objectifying power game. Haraways critique of feminism against origin stories Donna Haraway (1991) criticises feminism for continuing a just as totalising project of taxonomy of its own history and of women, as the ones conventionally conducted by Western science. She identifies traditions of `Western science and politics as being the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture, and writes that her Cyborg Manifesto is an effort to contribute to socialist-feminist culture and theory in a postmodernist, non-naturalist mode [] imagining a world without gender. (1991:150) She is deconstructive and radical in her criticisms of Western capitalism as well as of certain versions of feminism put forward by some feminists. They are both caught up in a dualistic world-view, where one either is or isnt, for instance, `woman, `black, or `human, and she points out that feminists have constituted themselves as totalities; how else could the `Western author incorporate its others? (160) A polyvocality, of feminisms and of women, disappeared into attempts to establish genealogies of essences. All such quests for essence are articuations of West ern humanisms inclination to origin myths, where an original state of balance, fullness and unity was disrupted. A project of changing the world would in this vein be to search to reestablish the unity and posit essential shared but subject to evolution or disruption features between people. Haraway blames both Marxism and psychoanalysis of positing such stories of initial bliss and following rupture. We can draw the parallel further to colonial and anthropological divisions between the West and the Rest, or modern and traditional society, where the project was ordering a messy world of the First Encounter through representation of the other. Walter Benjamins concerns with mimesis, alterity and modernity is, writes Michael Taussig, fully congruent with [] the (Euroamerican) culture of modernity as a sudden rejuxtaposition of the very old with the very new. (Taussig 1993:20). A dualistic world-view, where `traditional society sometimes seen as a lost Arcadia, sometimes as a savage earlier stage of evolution is in opposition to modernity, as staticness is opposed to change.Destroying the other simultaneously with conquering them is the colonialist legacy and goes together with the anthropologys world of a withering mosaic of tribes. Whether one sees modernity and Western science and technology as disrupting the world as breach of a unity between nature and humans or as the pinnacle of knowledge and the appliance of rational thought to lift the world from savagery and magic into Enlightenment and well-being for all what is common is a dualistic world view positing origin stories and which through hierarchy, control and difference subjugates nature and other Others. Feminist criticism have deconstructed the museums of scientific knowledge and the veils of naturalisations of womens subordination.The structures of what meaning is given to `feminine and `masculine change through time, history and discourse, and science and technology cannot be seen to be in any way set apart from sociological power structures and semiotic meaning processes. It is not so that power or economic structures determine meaning processes they influence one another, yet frequently cooperate to create ideology and underwrite hegemony. Getting out of ideology, of dichotomies that have shaped knowledge of the world and thus the world itself, doesnt happen quickly or painlessly. Difficulties with getting away from essentialising a feminine identity, thus continuing connotations real and symbolic to subjugation, illustrates this general point. However, there is still a feminist project. Defining femininity based on hierarchy or one shared experience of being `woman spurring a pan-global identity is out of place, but further unwrapping of the concepts of `man, `woman and `technology entails a beginning and a need for relativisation and localisation of definition and experience. The next step, reconstruction of a common feminine identity on which to base political struggle, have often stranded. Because in these attempts to recasts epistemology, they are out of touch with an ontological reality of different experiences, of a multiplicity of subjects who as a rule dont subscribe to just one identity and one identity fully. As Wajcman concludes (with Harding) there is no `woman to whose social experience the feminist empiricist and standpoint approaches can appeal; there are instead the `fractured identities of women' (1991:11). The fractured identities come from social experience of gender as well as of class, race and culture. That the Western / humanist / Enlightenment ways of viewing, dividing and ruling the world now should be well out of place, is illustrated in a delineation of the ontology of our contemporary world system, what Donna Haraway terms the informatics of domination (1991:161). A movement from an organic, industrial society or the White Capitalist Patriarchy to a polymorphous information system entails fundamental changes. Boundary-keeping absolute dualisms have been replaced by boundary-transgressing, relative positions in information systems. Science and technology lie behind blurrings of boundaries; biology and evolutionary theory questions the rigid division between human and animal. Information processing and reproductive technologies brings organism and machine, the physical and non-physical closer. These are deadly machines, because they are about the simulation of consciuosness. A crucial feature of biologics and communications sciences in the informatics of domination is their t ranslation of the world into a problem of coding (164), parallel to the general trends of world economic systems who depend on uninterrupted circulation of information. This radical rearrangement in world-wide social relations tied to science and technology entails that if it ever was possible to define the world and gain knowledge about it in dualistic and positive terms before, it certainly isnt now. In this system, connections and affinity takes over the roles of belonging and identity, and are both necessary and possible; The consequences of the informatics of domination on the home, workplace, market, public arena, the body itself dispersing and interfaced in myriad ways makes potent oppositional movements difficult to imagine and essential for survival (163) As a fresh, clean slate unmarred by culture and history is not available, how can existing cultural signifiers of femininity, of technology be put to use, not essentialising, but still focus on womens subjectivity and feminist politics? For Haraway, the figure of the cyborg provides a fiction to illustrate and put to strategic use in this process of survival. Cyborgs are wary of holism b ut needy for connection (151). An ironic political myth Donna Haraways cyborg, the figuration set up in A Cyborg Manifesto is first of all ontologically grounded: By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. (150) A cyborg being a cybernetic organism, an interface of machine and organism, and we cannot separate ourselves from technology or science that produces it. Moreover, our ontological cyborg-ness gives us our politics. The cyborg is a fiction, an image, of humanness in a world where boundaries are broken, and the metaphor for a world of non-bounded entities, where shifting identities rise from positions in the matrices of economies, biologies and epistemologies. It is a fiction which is both imaginary and materially real. The informatics of domination is the life-world of the cyborg, and this world system is frighteningly feminising (making extremely vulnerable) work and people. Haraway sees the cybernetic system of informatics of domination as a massive intensificaion of social and cultural insecurity and impoverishment (172), without positing Marxist dualisms of base and superstructure. She thereby escapes a rigid understanding of domination and false consciuosness and can go on to look for subtler connections, emerging pleasures and experiences. The dualistic world-view mentioned before, incorporating Enlightenment science as well as Marxism, focus on modernity as loss or break from an earlier s tage of harmony, or savagery. It has serious problems saying anything about postmodernist experience other as further fragmentation, and is not the theoretical framework to articulate emerging meanings of contemporary practices. Haraway spots the lack of sufficiently subtle connections for collectively building effective theories of experience (173), but still sees hope if we are able to learn from our fusions and boundary-transgressions instead of just being made vulnerable by them. Western capitalism, science and technology have produced an illigitemate offspring, the cyborg. Being the typical entity of the informatics of domination, it embodies difference and transgressions and inhabits a possibility f or strategic, political use. Communications technologies and biotechnologies are crucial tools defining our bodies (164) and they hover somewhere between tools to embody new social relations for women and as myths enforcing essentialised meanings. Haraway, being a scientist hersel f, does not see science in itself as inherently or essentially masculine. The boundaries are permeable, the knowledge is constructed and technology are really social relations, and therein lies the possibility to navigate structures of knowledge to seize the tools that marked women as other (175). Bricolage seizing the tools Cyborgs were created in a complex scientific-technological industry of military and medical science, serving as interfaces to enhance control, vision and violence. Seizing these tools, using the image of cyborgs, means working against the science that conceives itself of making objective tools to work on the world to create disembodied knowledge and instrumental technology. Structures and idioms of oppression and dominance have produced the elements of cyborg imagery, but they can be put to alternative use. I would like to parallel this with the opposition between Claude Levi-Strauss ideal types Ingenieur and the Bricoleur. Levi-Strauss (1972) treated science and bricolage as being two different but parallel modes of acquiring knowledge, that is, epistemologies. The ingenieur is the one who makes new knowledge out of `nothing. His tools and concepts are transparent means to an end, removed from the concrete world, and they are not bound up in previous practice or attached with meaning. Of course, contrary to what western science would like to think of itself, the bricoleur can be spotted as well. He builds on old meanings and of structures of power he is creating knowledge out of fragments of meaning already found in the world. Bricolage was identified with magic and myth, and the bricoleur is adept in a large number of diverse tasks, even though the repertoire of tools is limited to whatever is at hand. They are finite and heterogenous and bears no relation to the current project. In discussing Haraways cyborg, it should be clear that meanings are given to gender, work and difference through the praxis of the social relations of technology in the informatics of domination. Mythical thought is a kind of intellectual `bricolage, writes Levi- Strauss, and Haraways cyborg is a myth about identity and boundaries made up of the remnants of industrial society and the continued capitalism of the informatics of domination. Levi-Strauss pinned the difference down to being compliant with literate societies versus pre-literate ones. The literate, scientific Western side is reflected in Haraways discussion of the writing and the name as being masculine and phallocentric. (175) Origin stories are phallocentric, but the cyborg writing is different. In a world where the boundary between the `primitive and the `civilized no longer holds, cyborg writing is not about searching for the perfect name of the singular work. To seize the tools that marked women as other to gain back a power to survival is the basis for cyborg writing, not original innocence. (175) Western science has been based on the ideology of the rational ingenieur who creates anew, while overlooking the continuities, the guesswork, the axioms of mathematical rules and discriminatory gender differences, overlooking the bricoleur in it who thrives on connotation, ideology and culture. Feminism critique of science and technology has helped revealing and debunking these structures, because they are dubious in their foundation and have excluded women from production of knowledge and technology. Assessing western science as cultural bricolage has been deconstructing its knowledge, in feminist and other critiques. However, stating that bricolage takes place, is not necessary to call for an abandonment of science altogether on the reason that it fails to live up to its objectivist claims. A bricolage does not result in pure relativism or subjectivity from lack of being objective, it is objective in its being intersubjective. In using the cyborg imagery in order to construct a n ew feminist science, we are not trying to search out a new monistically objective science, but using `whatever is at hand politically, ironically and pragmatically to create a new epistemology that values different experiences. If science has produced disembodied knowledge, or at least certainly told the story of objectivity and neutrality to itself, a new and feminist science is still possible according to Haraway. This is, as I have tried to show, grounded in old tools as well as contemporary experiences of fluid identities and contingencies. The cyborg is ironic and produces no monistic truth. Because it is a hybrid, it embodies difference, and the notion of partial perspectives provides a new basis of scientific objectivity, and this objectivity is enhanced, not weakened, by multiple standpoints and partial views. Sarah Kember (1996) points out that embodied knowledge incorporates experience, desires and politics of the self, and therefore cannot make universalist truth claims. It can tell of others standpoints as well as ones own, and recognise a multiplicity of equally valid feminist standpoints . They are put to the task of undermining existing epistemological structures and scientific hierarchical separations. Experiences of whom are named as `black, `lesbians, `old are embodied and can be told. Even though we try to avoid essentialising categories and names for peoples identities or differences it is quite possible to take these categories and names (`black, `woman) as a starting point, with the connotations they already have. They will include their own transgressions and contestations around labelling, escaping, meaning, identity and lack of identity, and become stories others can hear and share, and accept as some of many possible and equally valid feminisms and femininities. There i s no drive in cyborgs to produce total theory (181) but experience of boundaries, their construction and deconstruction. Donna Haraway argues against origin myths, dreams of original wholeness and future oneness. Cyborg politics is about revelling in boundary stories and transgressions, thus reversing and displacing the hierarchical dualisms of naturalised identities. Haraway stresses the cyborg subject position as partial, ironic and faithful to blasphemy. Cyborgs are always on the move, always embodying difference differently, and the only thing it takes for granted is irony. Irony mocks power and the dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. (1991:181) Science and technology have pushed their projects to the limits, revealing the blurred boundaries of mind and machine. She takes inspiration from the anthropologist Mary Douglas, who explores the connections between bodily boundaries and social boundaries. Body imagery provides idioms for a world view, and is thus a political language and a narration of society itself. She is Durkheimian in that the rituals and boundary-myths are all, really, about society and its perpetuation and wholeness. Bodily inscribed notions of pollution, purity and danger is at stake in the maintenance of social boundaries, and in primitive society as well as in our own, bodily functions are socially treated; women are separated in menstrual huts, or they are being subjected to controlled choices surrounding conception and childbirth. The cyborg embraces the possibilities inherent in the breakdown of clean distinctions between organism and machine, and finds pleasure in these potent and taboo fusions. Science and technology needs to be positively recast not written off and the boundary-transgression involves being (in) the machine in opposition to what earth mothers and technophobic feminists think; machines can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves. We dont need organic holism (Haraway 1991:178). The imagery of implants and oneness with the machine is motivated by a political need to reconcile women with science. Science is not going to go away, and it is useful in that it still can provide objective views of the world they give accounts of the world that can check arbitrary power (Penley Ross 1991:2). About longing for enchantment and unity Why introduce the image of the cyborg? As Judith Squires (1996) has pointed out, Haraways feminist critique is really sufficient without it; one can reject the homogenising strategies of grand narratvies and challenge the universal pretensions of modernist thought [] one can explore the possibilities of flexible, transitory identities without ever making recourse to cyborg imagery. (Squires 1996:206) She identifies the lure of the cyborg image as feeding the old will to transcend the bodily nature of the female and exist purely in the cerebral realm of individual autonomy. If Haraway herself never lost sight of the nitty-gritty of lived social relations (Squires 1996:207), her ungendered unconsciuos-less cyborg may be, as a myth and an image, too ephemeral to separate itself from an interpretation of a bodyless mind. The cyborgian transgression of boundaries entails both both pleasure and responsibility in their constructions, but it may seem that the construction that takes place n ext to deconstruction, and the political responsibility following affinities by choice could be overlooked. Separating good and bad cyborgs is essential to Haraways political project; cyborgs that mock and check power are good, and the military-medical ones are bad. But these boundaries are, ironically, themselves blurred. The cyborg as it is found in medicine and military technology and in popular culture (e.g personalities of science fiction such as Terminator, Robocop and the like) are quite different from Haraways ideals, and give rise to speculation. One is the fetishistic use of body- or vision-enhancing technology, reinforcing a hierarchical relationship between self and other (Kember 1996:240), and intensifying the old opposition between mind and matter. For cyberpunks, it is a matter of getting out of the meat, the complete opposite to embodiment of female experience. The breakdown of boundaries is at issue here as well, but results in a pleasurable reinforcement of them instead of transgressing them to redefine difference. That [the simultaneity of] the breakdown of clean distinc tions between organism and machine and similar distinctions structure in the Western self [] cracks the matrices of domination and opens geometric possibilities (Haraway 1991:174), that is somewhat inherent contradictions and paradoxes in the informatics of domination, give rise to speculations of a feminine revenge of technology on human patriarchy. Associations of the female to the technological matrix (which is the word for the webs of interconnected pieces of information technology as well as having the etymologies of `mother and `womb (Springer 1991:306)) and a natural force is known from ecofeminism as well as industrialisms linking of women to machines capable of vast, uncontrollable destruction (Springer 1991). `Old, industrial age paradoxes of fear and love for technology are analogue to the paradoxical status of the image of the cyborg in the information age, and the object of the thrill and the fears has shifted from huge, thrusting machines to sleek microchips and the th rill of control over information [and] the thrill of escape from the confines of the body. As such, cyborg imagery serves to reinforce patriarchy, and as Claudia Springer goes on to note in an essay critical of the masculinist phantasies and the pleasure of the interface, uncertainty is a central characteristic of postmodernism and the essence of the cyborg. But [] patriarchy continues to uphold gender difference. (Springer 1991:310) Haraways political myth is apparently still waiting to become reality. There is a danger in the production of myths and ideals, navigating in popular and scientific culture to put existing signifiers in new relations. That problem is of course that the project fails, in that old meanings that structures old social relations persist. The evoking of an elusive concept, urging it to be employed without giving any strict recipies is of course a great asset, and provides goods to think with. Being a Manifesto, Haraways article throws out new idea(l)s, and avoiding gendering her cyborg, or providing it with an unconscious, she escapes a couple of essentialisms of `women and identity. The paradoxical nature of the cyborg is, as Constance Penley puts it a suggestive and productive one, but she and Andrew Ross, in an interview with Donna Haraway (1991) wonder how a philosophy of partialism can become beat mainstream sciences promise for completion and become popular for people who want to resolve a sense of loss or absence in their lives. Popular culture seems t o be more about looking for identity and wholeness than what vanguard theorists see as contingencies. Haraway still rejects holisms as denying mortality and a deadly fantasy (PenleyRoss 1991:16), but considers the question perhaps to be related to ones of psychoanalysis which she in her Manifesto excluded from the image of the cyborg. However, in retrospective, she reconsiders the limitations of both the ungenderedness and the absence of an unconscious from her cyborg. She admits that a resistance towards psychoanalysis perhaps made the unconscious disappear when it was really the Oedipal stories about split subjects she wanted to avoid. An unconscious may account for a lived subjectivity and would add to the genderless cyborg a differentiation on the basis of sexuality, which could add a bit more `meat, as it were, on the ideal cyborg. As Jaqueline Rose points out, the feminine unconscious is not a given original harmonious state then ruptured and split it is a constant `failure endlessly repeated and relived moment by moment throughout our individual histories. Coupling feminism and psychoanalysis, she holds that feminisms affinity with psychoanalysis rests above all with this recognition that there is a resistance to identity at the very heart of psychic life (Rose 1986:91). While Haraway resists the Oedipal stories because their persuasive power and their stories are all to familiar and the narratives of the unconscious much too conservative, muych too heterosexual, much to familial, much too exclusive (PenleyRoss 1991:9), she would be open for more localised and alternative Oedipal stories. Braidotti the nomad Rosi Braidotti takes inspiration from Haraways cyborg in developing her own `nomadic subject as another feminist figuration, but in contrast to Haraways cyborg, the nomad is equipped with gender and an unconscious. Her nomadic consciousness is one feminists should cultivate, and it develops the notion of a corporeal materiality by emphasizing the embodied and therefore sexually differentiated structure of the speaking subject. (Braidotti 1994:3) Braidotti thus adds body and sexuality to the cyborg, and in stressing that the nomadic project allows for internal contradicyiton and attempts to negotiate between unconscious structures of desire and consciuos political choices, she equips it with a psychoanalytic unconsious, which consequently lets the nomadic thinking take in consideration of the pain involved in processes of change and transformation (1994:31). Change is desired, and to slowly transform representations, her method is to repeat them, to mime them. She evokes Levi-Strauss bricolage as an ideal method, also providing a way to transdisciplinarity crossing the borders of phallocentric, monistic sciences. Her bricolage steals notions and concepts lying around from earlier contexts, and deliberately uses them outside those contexts. The mimesis involved in the reworking of established representation will expose them and consume them from within. The mimesis is a praxis of as if, based on the subversive potential of repetitions. Michael Taussig evokes the mimesis as a kind of sympathetic magic defined in the late 19th century by James Frazer in his huge ethnological synthesis The Golden Bough and captured in the notion that In some way or another one can protect oneself from the spirits by portraying them (Taussig 1993:1). A need to set up a discontinuity, grab and hold, and then to scrutinise and reactivate a strange culture in ones own terms is the anthropological Western mimetic project. As explained by Michael Taussig, mimesis is a double process of reification-and-fetishization (Taussig 1993:13), of copying a unique existence and bring it in contact with ones own body, and [t]he ability to mime, and mime well [] is the capacity to Other (1993:19). For Braidotti, the project is to Other back because the copy is not just a copy, but reveals and displays connections and details never seen before, as in the photograph, it is a power tool. It is also a project of positive mimesis, of recreation and new co nstruction of positive feminist nomadic figurations. The knowledge / power relation is still at work in Braidottis mimetic ventures; in the chapter Mothers, Monsters and Machines (1994), she states her nomadic style is best suited to make adequate representations of female experience. To mime representations without regard for disciplinary boundaries, she conjures up a history of intersecting historic conceptualisations of women, and treats them as discourses, not definite objects. The normative and controlling association of female difference with negative, monstrous, deviant distance is analysed, and Braidotti thus uncovers ideologies of essentialism, the ascriptions of womens monstrosity out of lack, displacement; as sign of the in between areas, of the indefinite, the ambiguous (1994:83). Evoking machines, Braidotti shows that the conceptualisations of negative female otherness were embedded in scientific, political and discursive field of technology, and adding biotechnology, t odays links between the mother, the monster and the machine becomes obvious. Thus, she has traced historical roots to contemporary manipulation of life and mechanizing of the matenal function and images of the feminine in relation to reproductive and bio-technology. Conclusion Feminist critiques of science and technology have struggled with old essentialist concepts of womanhood. References to nature and sexuality are never unproblematic as they are always embedded and made by social relations of power and work. The task has been shown to be to go to work on epistemology, through deconstructing ideologies of gender and technology. Hopes for a feminist successor science have been problematic, in that science itself has been held by many to embody patriarchial ideas of power and monolithic knowledge. Even though a common experience of woman has not been defined, a common sense of marginalisation and of not being happy about the ascribed categories of identity lies behind any attempt to reconstruct feminism and science. Haraways cyborg is a good tool to think with, in that it stresses radical irony and faithlessness in established scientific projects that can be seen to threaten the survival of humans (as well as animals). It is grounded on a hope for a bette r science, not one that produces more knowledge, more data, but one which uncovers power structures awaiting a genderless society. As such, it is problematic and Utopian. Genderless cyborgs are not real cyborgs, but ideals. Braidottis additions of sexuality and the unconscious can in addition to writing similar revealing stories as the cyborg ones, account for lived experiences of subjectivity, of sexuality, of bodies and of the double desire and fear of change. Both represent blueprints for more stories situated, `thick, speculative, ethnographic or autobiographic accounts that ironically and non-essentially can rework representations of women. The figurations of cyborgs and nomadic subjects are often vague and cannot be discovered without a context of cultural discourse of technology and womanhood. Some, such as Haraway and Braidotti excel on mapping them out, but finding concrete embodiments of a sort of ideal cyborg is rather hard. The issue is not about making perfect heroes, but illuminating aspects of subjective experience of being a woman (or something differently gendered or othered) in a technological society. Social relations of science and technology form knowledge about the world and they also provide metaphors and reference points for drawing out a postmodern map of categories, sex and difference. Laurie Anderson is mentioned both by Kember as a nomad who is perhaps as close to being a cyborg as anyone[243] and by Braidotti as a great example of effective parodic nomadic style, in the as-if mode. Her incorporation of high technology into subjective stories about attempts to gain control and backfiring, being a humorous prankster reversing situations and people as well as telling stories of loss, her deceptively simple performances and texts embodies one way of telling cyborg stories.

McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819

McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819 The court case known as McCulloch v. Maryland of March 6, 1819, was a seminal Supreme Court Case that affirmed the right of implied powers, that there were powers that the federal government had that were not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, but were implied by it. In addition, the Supreme Court found that states are not allowed to make laws that would interfere with congressional laws that are allowed by the Constitution.   Fast Facts: McCulloch v. Maryland Case Argued: February 23- March 3, 1819Decision Issued:  March 6, 1819Petitioner: James W. McCulloch,Respondent: State of MarylandKey Questions: Did Congress have the authority to charter the bank, and by imposing taxes on the bank, was the State of Maryland acting outside of the Constitution?Unanimous Decision: Justices Marshall, Washington, Johnson, Livingston, Duvall, and StoryRuling: The Court held that Congress had the power to incorporate a bank and that the State of Maryland could not tax instruments of the national government employed in the execution of constitutional powers. Background In April 1816, Congress created a law that allowed for the creation of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1817, a branch of this national bank was opened in Baltimore, Maryland. The state along with many others questioned whether the national government had the authority to create such a bank within the states boundaries.  The state of Maryland had a desire to limit the  powers of the federal government. The General Assembly of Maryland passed a law on February 11, 1818, which placed a  tax on all notes the originated with banks chartered outside of the state. According to the act, ...it shall not be lawful for the said branch, office of discount and deposit, or office of pay and receipt to issue notes, in any manner, of any other denomination than five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, five hundred, and one thousand dollars, and no note shall be issued except upon stamped paper. This stamped paper included the tax for each denomination. In addition, the Act said that the President, cashier, each of the directors and officers .... offending against the provisions aforesaid shall forfeit a sum of $500 for each and every offense....   The Second Bank of the United States, a federal entity, was really the intended target of this attack. James McCulloch, the head cashier of the Baltimore branch of the bank, refused to pay the tax. A lawsuit was filed against the State of Maryland by John James, and Daniel Webster signed on to lead the defense. The state lost the original case and it was sent to the Maryland Court of Appeals. Supreme Court The Maryland Court of Appeals held that since the US Constitution did not specifically allow the federal government to create banks, then it was not unconstitutional. The court case then went before the  Supreme Court. In 1819, the Supreme Court was headed by Chief Justice John Marshall. The court decided that the Second Bank of the United States was necessary and proper for the federal government to exercise its duties.   Therefore, the US National Bank was a constitutional entity, and the state of Maryland could not tax its activities. In addition, Marshall also looked at whether states retained sovereignty. The argument was made that since it was the people and not the states who ratified the Constitution, state sovereignty was not damaged by the finding of this case.   Significance This landmark case declared that the United States government had implied powers as well as those specifically listed in the Constitution. As long as what is passed is not forbidden by the Constitution, it is allowed if it helps the federal government fulfill its powers as stated in the Constitution. The decision provided the avenue for the federal government to expand or evolve its powers to meet an ever-changing world.

The Impact of the New Technology and Social Isolation Assignment

The Impact of the New Technology and Social Isolation - Assignment Example However, I disagree with this position because I believe that these technologies promote isolation among individuals, promote de-socialization among the youth and promote the development of cyber friends with little or no social ties and bonds. In this paper, I will explore some of the research literature available in providing evidence for the existing controversial debates surrounding the new technological developments and my position regarding their impacts. Promoters of the new technology argue that it has immense benefits to the growth and development of the society in terms of promoting socialization and human connectedness. Amichai-Hamburgera & Hayat (2011) explores the impact of the new technology on the social lives its users. Through an analysis of a representative sample of 22,002 internet users across 13 countries, they were able to analyze the social implication of the internet and its related information communication technologies. Their study indicates that the internet has a strong impact on the users and their relationships. The study established a positive correlation between the internet use and social interactions implying that the internet significantly enhances the social lives of its users. Another key benefit commonly cited by promoters of the new technology is that it promotes the cognitive development and socialization skills among the youth and adolescents. According to Shapiro(2013), the new technology, especiall y video gaming played in the cooperative multiplayer mode encourages children and youth to play in groups. He argues that through this interaction, children are able to develop strong bonds and teams with their partners both within and outside the gaming context thus leading to improved socialization and interaction. Although many argue that the advent of the new technology is beneficial to the society, I believe that it has serious negative impacts on the children, youth and adolescents in  terms of socialization and personal development. According to Fallahi(2011), the growth of the internet and its related information technologies have negative effects on the attitudes and behaviors of children and adolescents.  

Are some cultures inherently incompatible to democracy Essay

Are some cultures inherently incompatible to democracy - Essay Example However, there was a substantial drawback after Mussolini took power in Italy, and this led to reversal of gains made towards democracy. The number of democratic states reduced significantly in the world to 12 (Huntington, 1993). This was revived after allies won the World War II. This led to a second wave of democratization with 36 countries being governed democratically (Huntington, 1993). Likewise, there was a reverse wave, and the number of democracies came back to 30 (Huntington, 1993). Currently, the third wave is in operation. There are crucial factors that have contributed to the occurrence and timing of third wave move to democracy. Firstly, it is caused by the deepening legitimacy problem of authoritarian regimes in a world where democratic principles are widely accepted. Many people depended on the success of such regimes, but they have been recently faced by the inability to achieve and present economic support. Secondly, the economic success of the 1960 prompted the deve lopment of urban middle class in the majority of the countries. Thirdly, there was a modification of catholic ideologies from the maintenance of the status quo and condemnation of authoritarianism (Huntington, 1993). Fourth, there was external pressure mainly from European Community, the United States, and the Soviet Union (Owen 2002). Lastly, protest has played a key role for subsequent efforts at democratization (Ranker, L. et al. 2007). T