Essay on Women in Science and Technology

Essay on Women in Science and Technology Essay on Women in Science and Technology Essay on Women in Science and TechnologyThe era of globalization and rapid technological development has changed people’s lives dramatically. Science and technology play an extremely important role in the contemporary society. Government in developed and developing countries recognize the importance of the development of ST sphere. The roles of men and women have changed dramatically in the contemporary society.   Women have got more freedom to express themselves and take active part in the development of technologies, despite the fact that there are still problems in this sphere.   As stated in the report   by the United Nations(2011) called   Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation, : â€Å"There is also need for recognition of the importance of applying a â€Å"gender lens† to STI for development. Indeed, STI policies and programmes will not be effective, equitable and sustainable unless the gender lens is applied so as to reflect the ai ms, concerns, situation and abilities of both women and men† (11). People realize the gender equality is one of the components of healthy society and true development is impossible without it.   Only understanding of contribution women can make to the development of science and technology can bring positive impact on the development of this sphere.At the present moment all over the world, with small exceptions, women take an active social role and demonstrate their abilities in a lot of spheres. Nowadays women are active in good production industry, natural-resources management, educational sphere, community management. Women occupy different positions in these spheres and professions in the spheres mentioned above are mostly considered to be female ones . Big percentage of women work in the medical industry, as well. In the developing countries women are also often involved in agricultural sphere and take part in the production of food, selling it and farming.   In additi on, most of women have additional burden, such as home work and care about the members of the family.  Despite the growing temps of technological development and   popularity of feminism, women   do not still possess equal position in the society.   â€Å"Although women and girls make up approximately 50 per cent of the global population, they have access to much less than half of the resources in terms of technology, financing, land, training and education, and information† (Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation, 12). A lot specialists believe that true progress and development are not possible without women’s active participation in these processes.   The gender lens would be an essential contribution to the development of STI sphere and would enable people to meet the global changes.   â€Å"UNESCO figures reveal that in 121 countries with available data, women comprise 29 percent of   researchers but there were big disparities among regions. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, 46 percent of researchers are female and Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela have achieved gender parity. In Asia, women constitute only 18 percent of researchers overall. India and Japan have 13 percent female researchers and South Korea has 15 percent. In Africa women comprised about 33 percent of researchers† (UNESCO 2009). These numbers show that women’s participation in STI is very low.   Even in the countries with comparatively high rates, women’s participation does not make even 50 per cent.   These results show that gender inequality still exists in this sphere and it is necessary to pay scrupulous attention to this problem. The Baltic countries show the best results in this sphere. Women’s engagement in STI is comparatively high and is often higher than 50 percents. Among such countries are Lithuania (68.3  %), Estonia, Estonia (63.9%),   Bulgaria (63.8  %), and Latvia (63.2  %) (Human Resources in Science and Technology). The experience of these countries can become a valuable help for other countries which want to establish gender equality in the sphere of science and technology.The history shows a lot of examples of great input made by women to the development of STI. It is hard to overestimate the role of women in the development of different sphere. Scientific and industrial field, as well as other technological industries are influenced and dominated by men. Despite the fact that there are women who have played an important role in the development of STI industry, their names are rarely mentioned.   For example, Ada Byron King, the daughter of the famous Lord Byron, became the first computer programmer. She also was a prominent mathematician. Unfortunately, her name is rarely mentioned in the history of the development of the computer industry and when people speak about this sphere they remember the names of famous male specialis ts. Earlier history also contains data about the famous female specialists in science and technology, but their names are even less remembered than Ada Byron King’s name. Hypatia, a Egyptian mathematician who lived in 400s made great contribution to the development of science. Maria Gaetana Agnesi made a great contribution to the science by her work in differential calculus in 1700s. Sofia Kovalevskaya worked in 1800s in Russia. Her contribution to the development of astronomy and mathematics is hard to overestimate. From recent history, it is worth to mention Grace Hopper, a PhD in mathematics. She became one of leaders on the field of software development and made a great contribution to the development of new programming techniques. â€Å"A true visionary, Dr. Hopper received many awards for her work, including ironically the Data Processing Management Associations Man-of-the-Year award† (Abrams). Grace Hopper became the first to recognize possible profits people could have from the use of computers and she did a lot to put her ideas into practice. She realized that making the computers easier in use would increase their popularity among ordinary people. In this way she made her contribution to the computer revolution and made computers more available.   This case illustrates not only women’s ability to achieve high results in the sphere of science and technologies. It also demonstrates the way female brain works. In contrast to men, who think about complicated schemas and complex technologies, women take into account the sphere of application and use technology more available for people. â€Å"Recent research has found that men are seduced by the technology itself. They tend to get into the faster-race-car syndrome, bragging about the size of their discs or the speed of their microprocessors. Women tend to take a more practical approach. They generally think that machines are meant to be used, and dont really care about whats insi de the box. They just want it to work, and to get things done† (Abrams).In the interesting study performed by the Center for Children and Technology specialists tried to find the difference between male and female approaches to technological advances. The participants of the experiment, both – men and women – were asked to described the perfect machine of the future. Results showed that machines proposed by men were designed in order to get their owners to expand control and to become more powerful. The machines designed by women had an intention to help people and to make their life easier.These differences in approaches to technological innovations show basic difference between male and female approaches in life. Men want to expand their influence and women are ready to adapt technologies and make their use easier and more comfortable for people. That is the reason men are more likely to invent new things and women are more likely to improve things which alread y exist. This division does not make men superior to women nor vice versa. It means that men and women possess different types of knowledge and skills and best results can be achieved in their combination. Until present moment women were underestimated in the computer industry. Little female IT specialists took part in the development of the hardware and software. â€Å"On the business side, a recent US Department of Labor study reports that women are not successfully moving beyond mid-management boundaries in this industry in fact, theres been only a 3% gain in the past 10 years â€Å" (Abrams).   Women are not presented in major CEOs and in the biggest companies which produce computers.The National Assessments on Gender and STI report states that women still have worse access to information and technologies in comparison to men.   Women’s role in the technological development is still badly defined. Technological resources are scantly used to support women’s ac tivities and occupation. In addition, the percentage of women in science and technology is very low (Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society).   â€Å"Women remain severely under-represented in engineering, physics and computer science - less than 30% in most countries – while the numbers of women working in these fields are also declining† (Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society).   In addition, women have less access to different resources, which would help them to take leadership position and have active influence on social processes. Women usually have lower access to finances, property, education and technology. This is very true from the developing countries, but in the   developed counties this tendency is also actual.   This can be explained by several reasons. Generally, women who try to enter technology profession experience same difficulties as women trying to enter other fields.   These difficulties include gender prejudgments, lack of female role models, difficulties in brining into line professional and personal responsibilities.     Gender prejudgments assume common belief that women have less talents and inclinations when it comes to technologies and science.  Ã‚   In addition, economic status and political power also play an important role in female parity in science and technology. Men occupy high position in the society and politics and have access to the distribution of resources. They influence the distribution of social roles, as well, and, naturally, they try to save status quo with male dominance in different spheres, and science and technology are not an exception. What is notable, women in the countries with good health care and childcare have more chances to enter the sphere of science and technology. In addition, countries where gender equality is considered to be the necessary component of the healthy society women also have more chances for normal self-expression in different fields.  Ã‚   Gende r equality usually assumes â€Å"the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men† (OSAGI, 2001).   This equality should result in â€Å"equal conditions for realizing their full human rights and for contributing to, and benefiting from, economic, social, cultural and political development† (ILO, 2007). This equality assumes not only shared duties, but also equal access to resources and participation in their distribution.   Nowadays, access to property is not enough for the equality .In the era of information, access to information can be even more important than access to property. Property distribution is important but it will not resolve the problem completely till women do not have equal access to information and technological resources.The problems with gender inequality and lack of professional opportunities for women in STI sphere are especially evident in the developing countries. There are different steps which may help to resolve the problem. Informational policy is very important. Giving men and women necessary information concerning the problem can help to resolve it. Education should become another strong factor which influences the distribution of social roles and positions. It is necessary to make sure that women in the developing countries have equal with men access to quality education.   Boys and girls have usually equal access to primary and secondary education, but the situation changes when it comes to higher education. Some changes in the curriculum would be useful to help girls and women to get more information about the STI sphere and create necessary conditions for their further employment in this sphere. In a lot of developing countries women have less access to higher education and it is necessary to   put all possible effort to change the situation for better. As mentioned above, good healthcare and mother care become those factors which help to create better career opportunities for women . So, the development of healthcare and mother care systems will also contribute to the creating of better career opportunities for women.Better informing and collecting precise statistics data can also make a contribution to the development of gender equality in science and technology. Information and statistical data will show areas where the problems still exist and specialists will have an opportunity to pay more attention to these spheres. After distinguishing problematic zones, it will be possible to find out possible reasons of low female participation and think about possible means to resolve these problems.   Popularization of the women who make an important contribution to STI would also help to reduce the gender gap in this sphere.   Mass media can help to pursue this goal.Women play an important role in a lot of spheres in   the contemporary society. They make great contribution to the development and improvement of life in a lot of spheres. Unfortunately, science and technology are the spheres where women do not have equal possibilities with men. There are a lot of possible explanations of this inequality, but gender bios, prejudices and unequal distribution of resources are among the main ones. Gender inequality in STI is more common in the developing countries. There are different ways to deal with the problem. Proper monitoring, proper informing and creating necessary work conditions should improve the situation in this field.   Gender equality and normal work conditions for both, men and women are the characteristics of any normal society and it is necessary to pay attention to the problem of gender inequality in science and technology because this can be beneficial for the development of these spheres.

The Great Gatsby Movie Adaptations

'The Great Gatsby' Movie Adaptations The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the great novels in American literature, but into which formats (and multimedia) forms have the novel been adapted? The answer is several. In all, there are six film versions of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 1926 - The Great Gatsby Distributed by: Paramount PicturesReleased: Nov. 21, 1926Directed by: Herbert BrenonProduced by: Jesse L. Lasky and Adolph ZukorSilent movie, based on a stage adaptation written by Owen Davis. Also written by Becky Gardiner and Elizabeth MeehanStarring: Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson, and William Powell.No copies of the entire film are known to exist, but the National Archives has a trailer for the film. 1949 - The Great Gatsby Distributed by: Paramount PicturesDirected by: Elliott NugentProduced by: Richard MaibaumStarring: Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, Barry Sullivan, Shelley Winters, and Howard Da SilvaWriters: Richard Maibaum and Cyril Hume (also the stage adaptation by Owen Davis)Music by: Robert Emmett DolanCinematography: John F. SeitzEditing by: Ellsworth Hoagland 1974 - The Great Gatsby Distributed by: Newdon Productions and Paramount PicturesRelease date: March 29, 1974Directed by: Jack Clayton (In MemoirsTennessee Williams wrote: It seems to me that quite a few of my stories, as well as my one acts, would provide interesting and profitable material for the contemporary cinema, if committed to ... such cinematic masters of direction as Jack Clayton, who made of The Great Gatsby a film that even surpassed, I think, the novel by Scott Fitzgerald.)Starring: Sam Waterston, Mia Farrow, Robert Redford, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black.Screenplay by: Francis Ford Coppola 2000 - The Great Gatsby Directed by Robert MarkowitzMade-for-TV movie.Starring: Toby Stephens, Paul Rudd, and Mira Sorvino. 2002 - G Directed by: Christopher Scott CherotModernizedStarring: Richard T. Jones, Blair Underwood, and Chenoa Maxwell 2013 - The Great Gatsby Directed by: Baz LuhrmannRelease date: May 10, 2013Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire.

A)Show that, compared to perfect competition, monopolies reduce output Essay

A)Show that, compared to perfect competition, monopolies reduce output and increase price. Does this mean that monopolies are always against the public interest - Essay Example It looks for a price on the market demand curve that will maximize its profits- both in the short run and the long run. Unlike the perfect competition, the monopolists marginal revenue from each unit is not constant (Samuelson, 2010). The table below shows that the demand increases as the price decreases-the basic downward sloping demand curve. However, the marginal revenue decreases as each unit of output is increased. Therefore, the monopolist raises the price and restricts output to maximize its returns (Samuelson, 2010). Similarly, the monopolist will produce the number of units when its marginal cost is equal to the marginal revenue. This signifies that the there will be always be more demand than there will be supply to maximize the profits. (Samuelson, 2010) Monopolies act against the public interest at large because they are productively inefficient, cause a welfare loss and earn exorbitant profits. Similarly, they control the price as well as the output to a certain extent; thereby injuring the public at large. However, there are arguments that monopolies help achieve economies of scale and help reduce per unit cost and maintain a high level of innovation to keep the demand curve stable. (Snook, 2013) Snook, A. Is the Existence of Monopoly Against the Public Interest. Retrieved from http://www.courseworkbank.info/courseworkbank.info.php?f=R0NFIEEgLSBMZXZlbC9FY29ub21pY3MvSXMgdGhlIGV4aXN0ZW5jZSBvZiBhIG1vbm9wb2x5IGFnYWluc3QgVGhlIHB1YmxpYyBpbnRlcmVzdC5wZGY on March 24,

The strategy of international business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

The strategy of international business - Essay Example The concept of liberalization involves the easing of trade regulations and relaxing any restrictions related to overseas trading. The government often intervenes with the trading policies of nation and makes necessary changes on the grounds of economic, political and social policies. Such intervention is mostly taken by the government to improve the national economy and to facilitate free trade (Danbolt, 2004). This paper is focused on the liberalization and how it has impacted the domestic firms by increasing the competition in the industry. It also discusses about different ways in which the domestic firms can face the competitiveness posed by the global firms. In several cases, in order for an industry to be fully liberalized, it takes several years to complete the process or in some cases may take decades. The liberalization virtually shortens the national boundaries and enables free trade between nations. This as a result allows several private firms from overseas locations to expand their business in the host countries which in turn helps the government to earn revenue through taxes paid by the foreign companies. Moreover, entry of foreign firms also increases the employment condition of the host economy along with infrastructure of the nation in certain cases. Liberalization in the UK allowed privatization of several sectors such as oil and energy sector, telecommunication, etc. The privatization has facilitated to reduce the monopoly business that was being conducted without the presence of any competition. Liberalization also allows the firm to improve the product and service quality and engage in innovative products. Liberalization creates a competitive environment and as WTO (2001) stated that competition is necessary to ensure that the firms are trying to achieve competitive advantage and in the process generates higher value for the

Victoria Climbies Death and Trial Essay Example for Free

Victoria Climbies Death and Trial Essay Victoria Climbies life was short and tragic. Her murder prompted the largest review of child protection arrangements in the UK. Find out more about the story. The Climbie trial Carl Manning and Marie Therese Kouao are charged with the murder of Victoria Climbie. During police interviews both claim that Victoria was possessed. November 2000: The trial opens with the prosecution making it clear that the blame lay not only with Kouao and Manning in the dock but child protection authorities who had been blindingly incompetent. Manning denies murder but pleads guilty to child cruelty and manslaughter. Kouao denies all charges. 12 January 2001: Almost a year after Victoria Climbies death, Manning and Kouao are found guilty of her murder. Sentencing both of them to life imprisonment, Judge Richard Hawkins says: What Anna endured was truly unimaginable. She died at both your hands, a lonely drawn out death. A police diagram of injuries on Victorias body Regular contact Reporting to a workshop into the inquiry in London into Victorias death Mr Davies was due to say: Crisis management is the day-to-day reality of staff working in social services and they are being stretched beyond the limit.†There is no doubt in my mind that these factors played a key part in the case of Victoria Climbie and I fear that unless urgent action is taken, it is only a matter of time before another child is murdered. Victoria was killed despite regular contact with four local authorities, two police child protection teams, two hospitals and social workers. A Unison survey on typical working conditions in social services teams backs Mr Owens assertions. Six out of 10 social workers said that even if all of the many vacant posts in the profession were filled there would still not be enough staff. An overwhelming majority of 96% said case loads were too heavy, while 88% said new staff were thrown in at the deep end. More than nine out of ten reported acute levels of stress and staff burn-out, while a similar number said they had to take work home. The survey was sent to the 120 Unison local authority branches with members in social services children and  families teams, and 53 replies were received. Kouao systematically abused Victoria It is only a matter of time before there is a repeat of the Victoria Climbie murder, public service union Unison has warned. It said a chronic shortage of skilled staff and funding has left social workers stretched beyond the limit†. The unions national officer for social workers, Owen Davies, is expected to call on the government and local authorities to face up to their responsibilities†. Eight-year-old Victoria died in February 2000 with 128 injuries on her body inflicted by her great-aunt Marie Therese Kouao and Kouaos boyfriend, Carl Manning.

The Entertainment Value of a Buffy the Vampire Episode :: Buffy Vampire Slayer Essays

In this essay I ultimately want to address the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More with Feeling" (season 6, episode 7). However, I do not want to look at this episode in isolation from the remainder of the Buffy franchise but rather argue that it exemplifies a certain entertainment strategy that courses through the Buffyverse. Now it seems to me that entertainment is either too often denigrated as a specific ideological formation that produces negative effects of audience passivity as against more overtly challenging texts, or, alternatively, entertainment is celebrated within a postmodern theoretical framework that views the multiplicity of pleasures afforded as inherently productive and even oppositional. Alternatively I want to concentrate on entertainment for entertainment's sake which is to say as a dialectical operation that in Fredric Jameson's terms intermingles wish fulfilment and repression by arousing radical fantasies in order to contain them (Jameson, 1990: 25). In order to analyse this mechanism I will concentrate less on consumers and ideology (that assumes unilateral transmission) and more on fans and affect (that inscribes a dialectical procedure into reception). What seems to me to be of specific interest therefore is the manner in which Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon and the other writers/directors working on Buffy for Twentieth Century Fox target affect and fans by constructing scenarios that feed into and exceed audience expectation. I will argue that his formula culminates in the episode "Once More With Feeling" that ventures beyond Jameson's dialectical formula in that it appears to wilfully play with wish fulfilment/invocation that both figuratively and literally run the risk of arousing utopian fantasies that cannot be contained. Before turning to the musical episode in particular I believe our exposition would benefit from a brief survey of critical approaches to the Buffyverse. The critical material on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in print at least (see here the Slayage online journal), is expanding but currently somewhat limited. However, as a general rule two tendencies emerge. The first is to treat some self-contained aspect of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as an ideological work. Such analyses concentrate upon the encoded more or less implicitly pre-determined messages that the text transmits. Certainly some ideological responses are definitely triggered by Buffy and I will briefly make reference to two critical examples. Brian Wall and Michael Zyrd adopt a Marxist master frame of analysis to determine the world historical content of Buffy.

Library Management System Essay

Our Library Management System is the application software that is developed to make a record of Book purchasing, book searching, book issuing and rent, book returned, catalogs, stock creation, all other fine books, popular and bestsellers and other Library related works. The scope of this software application is to generate the automatic process of manual handling of Library records and to handle the stock as well as book issues related information. The aim of the project is to make the manual handling of Library system into computerized system. The user can get the information regarding the important reviews and immediate search of records. Our Library Management System is a data processing system used to perform routine Library activities. In this system, the library management becomes more efficient and easier to handle with its reliable system components. Library system was developed in order to make computerized the borrowing and returning of books, return books, and add books, search books and special tools. With Library Management System, it can trace desired items  electronically without going through shelves. Library Management System supports other administrative tasks such as inventory and data processing. Our Library management system needs a flash drive that will be used as access of the student to borrow books. Every registered student who wants to borrow book is required to plug-in a flash drive during the registration. The file â€Å"Account.txt† will be created after the registration containing the registered borrower’s code and full name. The Administrator/Librarian has full access which is level 1 with this system while the staff cannot edit accounts and settings which is level 2; they are only in assign with the transaction. Library management system records every transaction in computerized system so that problem such as record file missing won’t happen. This system has records of the list of the users with access level; the users must have their User ID, Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial, Username, Password and Access Level. It has also records of a list of available books with the book number, description, Category and Stock Available. It keeps also the record of the borrowed books with the borrowed code, type of transaction, list of books, quantity and date and time in it. It has also the records of the borrowers with their borrower code, last name, first name, middle initial, and course in it. It has also the borrowers log history with the borrower code, type of transaction, and date and time. The information to be printed on the printer are the Registered Users, Book Record, Borrower per day, Penalty Slip and Borrowed and Returned Books. It also records the User Log History which contains the User ID, Full Name, Remark, and date and time. Our Library Management System has only three trials for log in. Our system also validates all inputs. Penalty for late in returning of books is 5 pesos per day and 50 pesos after 5 days. This system has a user-friendly interface to create an easy to understand environment and it uses consistent background and foreground color. All the forms in our system appear at the center of the screen. It can detect a flash drive automatically once it is connected and indicate a status. It performs adding, editing, deleting and searching of records. Our system is also reliable in computing penalty. It performs text to speech and SMS notification. It can also update the number of books and back-up files and  records.