My Childhood Hero Essay

Every child has a hero, someone they look up to, someone who guides their thoughts and influences their life. My childhood hero was Belle from the fairytale, The Beauty and the Beast. As a child, I watched the movie end to end and read the book countless times, losing myself in her magical world so completely that I actually began to know the lines by heart. I never once got bored of it and frankly, right until today, Belle is still my inspiration. Though I first admired her for her outer beauty, I then began to look up to her for her inner beauty. She was portrayed as such a happy young woman, helpful and loving and with a warm smile for all. Her ability to be everyoneÂ’s friend, to sing such delightful songs always made me happy and feel like part of her world, not just an on-looker. I actually used to wish that Belle would come alive and be my friend. However, the main reason Belle became my hero was because of her sacrifice. Her willingness to let go of all she knew and loved to save her father has never ceased to impress me. This truly showed me the depth of her love for her father and taught me the value of family and parents. Besides depicting BelleÂ’s loving side, her sacrifice also gave me an insight to her courage. She braved the hound dogs in the mountains and continued with what she started out for, as a sacrifice to the beast who resided in a huge, deserted palace in the loneliest part of the mountains. It was through Belle that I learnt the importance of patience, endurance and perseverance. She had the courage to face the beast, to endure his fearful sight and to bear the brunt of his volatile temper just to save her fatherÂ’s life. Not only that, Belle was also able to see through physical countenances and fall in love with the ugly beast instead of shunning him away and marrying the handsome but shallow Gaston. To me, Belle was and still is someone I want to be. I always wished to grow up to be the way Belle was. I related to her through our common passion for books and loved her for who she was. Through BelleÂ’s final victory where the beast transformed back to a Prince and Gaston got defeated, she became my image of how the good and righteous always triumphs over the evil. The magic  within the tale and the “happily ever after” ending has given me a reason to belief in the unbelievable, to have faith and truly trust the existence of a greater power. The true love between the Beauty and the Beast is why I dream of my Prince charming finding me one day. BelleÂ’s heart of gold made her my childhood hero. Ten years have passed and unabashedly I confess that she is still my role model and I still do hope that I am able to be as admirable as her. Who says fairy tales are for kids?

The Chinese Three Gorges Programme Environmental Sciences Essay

Human world has put together great undertakings on this Earth of Earth, may it be building undertakings, IT related, direction based or sing any other field, work forces has excelled at every point and impression. To sort any set of activities as undertaking, one should foremost cognize what constitutes a Undertaking. Undertaking is a figure of activities targeted to accomplish a certain end, with the aid of limited resources, in a pre decided clip frame ( Kerzner, 1998 ) Many critics and experts have commented upon the sudden heaving of involvement in the filed of Project Management shown by the houses and particularly to the tallness that this rush has taken, that is beyond the boundaries of the conventional sectors of technology and different building related undertakings ( Sydow et al. , 2002 ) Just for case, have identified how immense and large organisations and companies are re-arranging into less interfering instead than being bureaucratic and seeking to go more ductile and lissome undertaking managing entities. Davies, Brady and Hobday ( 2006 ) suggested that houses and companies in all kind of concerns are reasoning that customary organizational formation and hierarchy, every bit good as subdivisions of runing units, trade divisions and units set up for continuing elevated degree of volume through arrangement of high quality goods and services and for deducing determinations in a relatively steady proficient and market state of affairs, are no longer sufficient. In the fast neutering and increasingly more unstable and obscure ambiance, today houses and concerns are happening that undertaking constitution of some kind is better suited to the type of probationary problems and gaps of opportunities that they have to manage. Others recommend that undertakings are acquiring liberally proportioned, more intricate and extended. Gradually more undertakings expand beyond the single administration or house. In add-on, there is cogent evidence of a more cosmopolitan dependance on undertakings, and besides that this widens beyond the confines of working life to a wider projectification of society The projectification of the public construct attempts to confine the colonization of a batch of note of life with undertaking associated doctrine, policy, methods and traffics, draw a bead oning to determine a new construct of undertaking clarity. ( Hodgson & A ; Cicmil, 2003. ) Undertaking of the Three Gorges Dam One of the greatest and successful undertakings handled and completed by the work forces on this Earth is Three Gorges Dam Project built on the Yangtze River in China. Sun Yatsen, a Chinese political leader foremost wished for building a H2O dike on the River of Yangtze in 1919 for the intent of power coevals, but the idea was put on clasp due to adverse political and economic fortunes. Major inundations resurrected the thought and the authorities adopted it in 1954 for inundation control. Therefore in the history of China Three Gorges Project has a polar topographic point. The undertaking produces electricity, gives protection against inundations, had increased the transportation paths which in bend had positive impact ; the undertaking has been of great talk and contentions at the same clip Some of the of import statistics of the Three Gorges Dam Project are given below Dimensions: 185 m ( 606 foot ) high and 1,983 m ( 6,500 foot ) wide Water Level Increase: The degree of H2O was intended to travel up in 2 stages ; by 2004 it will augment by 30 m to 125m ( 426 foot ) and by 2009 will raise another 50m to 175 m ( 575 foot ) Cost Estimate: In 1985, the sum estimated was predicted to relieve by 2 to 5 times, it was about 10 billion US dollars at that clip Financing: Beginnings of financess were different, some from Corporate Bond, others from loans from Bankss. Materials Used: It was record breakage, stuff used in Three Gorges Dam, that is 1.9 million dozenss or rolled steel, about lumber was 1.6 million and cement was 10.8 million dozenss. Construction Time period: 1993 – 2009 Land submerged: In a unsmooth figure there were 13 metropoliss, 657 mills. Towns that got submerged were 140 in figure and small towns were 1352 to be exact. Resettlement of Peoples: Resettlement was done in three phases, 1.3 million people around got relocated from twelvemonth 1997-2009. Energy Production: . It can cover around 11-15 % of Chinese population with around 84 billion KW hours produced every twelvemonth. ( Statistics collected from hypertext transfer protocol: //www.imperialtours.net/3gorges_dam.htm ) Timeline of the Three Gorges Dam Project The great undertaking of the Three Gorges Dam started its building in 1992 with the blessing of the missive of building. The chief building of the dike started in the twelvemonth 1999. As this undertaking took 17 ( 17 ) old ages to acquire finished, therefore the figure of of import events and phases in this undertaking are mentioned below in a simple chart signifier. Gantt chart could non hold accommodated itself on the word papers. Jan.25th, 1999 The major building model of the Dam started in a proper manner. Sep.15th, 2000 The waterproofing of the 22 underside holes for recreation for the discharge of inundation was done. Dec.31st, 2001 The deposition of the concrete in the three gorges Dam was about 4.0638 million M3 ( regular hexahedron ) which was besides a universe record. May 1st, 2002 The Cofferdam was demolished after its intent was fulfilled which was to let a path of Yangtze River to spurt into the base of the Three Gorges Dam which guarded the entry into the chief Three Gorges Dam Project. Oct.21st, 2002 The building of embankment for the inundation discharge was completed Nov. 6th, 2002 The successful building of the recreation tunnel for the flow in the River of Yangtze was completed. Nov. 7th, 2002 The Three Gorges Dam Project entered into the piecing stage because the universe s largest turbine generator was successfully installed into the right place. May 30th, 2003 The three gaps and mercantile establishments meant for the inundation discharge were opened. June 1st, 2003 Five staged Ship locks and two manner lanes were activated and started their map of hive awaying H2O. June 16th, 2003 The five staged ship locks and the two manner lane were put into test of pilotage. July 10th, 2003 Another set of Power coevals unit was installed along with the grids and its started bring forthing electricity. Aug. 18th, 2003 The 3rd set of power bring forthing unit was connected and started bring forthing power. Nov. 22nd, 2003 The chief and the no.1 power unit was installed and configured and started electricity coevals Jan. 9th, 2004 The undertaking of Three Gorges Dam entered into the 3rd stage of Construction during which the largest ship lifter, the right bank of the dike, the power station was built which were universe s largest. Apr. 30th, 2004 Another no. 7 power coevals unit was connected with the left side of Power station and started operation. July 8th, 2004 The five staged ship locks and the two manner lanes were officially opened after traveling through the test period of pilotage July 26th, 2004 Another set up of the power coevals unit, no. 11 was installed and brought to functional degree. Aug.24th, 2004 Another set up of the power coevals unit, no. 08 was installed and brought to functional degree. Dec.28th, 2004 The electricity power works which supplies to the Shanghai starts its operations in the metropolis of Yidu in state of Hubei. Sep.16th, 2005 In one twelvemonth in front to the building agenda in bring forthing electricity, the Fourteen ( 14 ) Machgrs connected to the dike through side bank starts its operations. Feb.10th, 2006 The execution of the glade work at the underside of the dike started. March 29th, 2006 The formal building period of the dike started May 20th, 2006 With the support of human resource and pecuniary aid, the Three Gorges Dam was fundamentally completed. Sep 25th, 2007 The H2O degree had risen to 512 pess about, had passed the recession because of inundation and enters 2007. Oct.29th, 2008 All the hydropower bring forthing workss were put into actions and generated powers which in sum were 26 units. The last one being the no. 15 unit was besides installed into the right bank of the dike. This was the last of the power units to be installed in the dike Aug.29th, 2009 The 3rd stage of the Three Gorges Dam Project was checked and accepted, that was to raise the H2O degree to 175 metres, at the ideal tallness. Sep.15th, 2009 The full usage of the dike being flood control, H2O path, and power coevals, all was brought to working phase. ( Three Gorges Dam Timeline ) Purposes and Aims of Three Gorges Project While analyzing the benefits that would be derived from the completion of some undertaking, particularly undertakings like building a big dike, it is of import that its societal impacts should besides be studied before manus. For comparing the wakes of the undertakings it s vitally of import that the former societal state of affairs should be known. And by ciphering the possible hazard of ruins, societal impacts could be measured. There can be positive effects excessively ; those will be counted as benefits. The major purposes targeted through this undertaking were: Flood control Flood control was the first motivation for the Three Gorges Dam program. Chinese files demonstrated that 200 plus major inundations, on norm about one per every ten old ages, happened between 185 BC and 1900 AD. Floods had an impact on the economic system every bit good, the loss which took topographic point due to monolithic impact on the markets. ( Ministry of Water Resources of Peoples Republic of China, 1994 ) . The storage capacity of the TGD, that is 39.3 billion M3s, over half that was 22.15 billion M3 was fixed and was supposed to be used for inundation control, which permitted China to decrease the impact of lay waste toing inundations from degrees predicted one time every ten old ages to those predicted one time a century ( www.irn.org, 2004 ) . Power Coevals The 2nd but non less of import factor which was the ground for the building of this undertaking of Three Gorges Dam was the monolithic power production. The power supply in China has seen major short of supply in past few old ages and hence one of the main grounds for which the completion of this undertaking was anticipated was 18.2 million KW end products, which besides made this Dam as the largest power production unit in this universe. This addition in the China s electric supply will give a encouragement to the lifting growing degree of China s economic system. And in approaching old ages it is predicted that China s power supply will augment more. ( Albert,1998 ) Increase in Navigation The 3rd ground towards which this undertaking targeted and achieved was the addition in the H2O paths. The Three Gorges Dam allowed the Pacific Ocean watercourse into Chongquing metropolis. This addition in the navigability affected the economic system in a positive mode, conveying new opportunities of occupations, callings in the countries where economical encouragement was needed. ( Albert, 1998 ) Handiness of fresh H2O Last but non least, handiness of fresh H2O to the indigens in the nearby country for the intent of irrigation and cultivation every bit good as for the imbibing intent. The wages that will be gained from the Three Gorges Dam Project are of import and will hold lasting, constructive impacts on the economic system of China. From an economic point of position, the Three Gorges Dam is a dramatic, utile enlargement pick that in add-on has the chance to assist society in footings of security, well-being, and overall value of life. ( Marta & A ; Jordi, 2006 ) The production of energy in itself was such a immense factor that all the negative points against the building of Three Gorges Dam were neglected but however critics raised their voices and made some issues related to environmental jeopardies, cultural heritage, and population relocations etc. some of the negative impacts caused by the three Gorges Dam are discussed below. Control & A ; Distribution System Other Dams Chemistry for Stability Power Grid Pollution Generator No and Type Problem Silt Electric Resource Surrounding Geography Concrete Granite Cement Structural REQS Base Layer Stability & A ; Tectonic Plate Movement Dam Structure Reservoir & A ; Dam Weight Water Resource Deluging Stabilize Concrete Remission Water Quality Flood Control Lift/Lock Navigation Other Dams Irrigation ( Figure 1 A relational web map of the physical constituents of the dike undertaking ) Negative impact of the Three Gorges Dam Project The World Commission on Dams in their study have clearly said that buildings of really big dikes have negative affects on the environment. In their study of World Commissions on Dam, they have discussed some of the common jeopardies like consequence on the wildlife in woods, emanation of unsafe gasses like nursery gas, bad impact on marine life, formation of wetlands and inauspicious affects on the quality of H2O due to the accretion of H2O from different dikes. ( Peter, 2008 ) Resettlements and Relocation of Population Another point of contention that took topographic point in the building of Three Gorges Dam is that whenever a Dam of such a magnitude is constructed, big relocation of population takes topographic point and same happen in the instance of Three Gorges Dam. In the start is was estimated that 1 million to 2 million of population has to be relocated, but the existent figure was ne'er confirmed, some say 1.2 million were to be shifted, though more than 1 million people were resettled during the building stage of the Dam. Another facet to the resettlement and relocation was the psychological and societal affect on the population who were to be relocated and hence a batch of community oriented critics were against this undertaking. ( Marta & A ; Jordi, 2006 ) Damage to the Landscape and Cultural Heritage Another factor which was raised as a inquiry in the affair of Three Gorges was the alteration in the natural landscape of that topographic point. The degree of reservoir had its impact on the archeological sites and the topographic points counted as antediluvian ruins. The disposal looking after the building of the Three Gorges Dam said they would seek to salvage the cultural heritage every bit much as possible. The Success-Failure Analysis of the Undertaking The Three Gorges Dam undertaking would be considered as a Success despite a batch of negative impact that it has caused because this undertaking achieved for what it set out as marks. The technology and the managerial section of the Three Gorges Dam were implementing a systematic attack in their Transporting out this undertaking. They all were known and good cognizant of the problems and jeopardies in building this big dike and make fulling it with H2O. Like any other large building undertaking will hold some cost and benefits to it, the Three Gorges Dam besides did hold some cost and benefits. ( Peter, 2008 ) The Iron Triangle To mensurate the success of this undertaking, the theoretical account of Iron Triangle will be used. Iron Triangle is the traditional and Orthodox manner of mensurating the success of any undertaking yet this is the most widely used theoretical account for this intent. The Fe trigon is besides referred to as the Project direction trigon. Like any other undertaking and like Fe trigon step, a undertaking has its ain restraints which can be clip, cost and range. ( Wikipedia ) The Fe trigon constitutes three success standards which are Cost, Time and Quality. Time Quality Cost ( Figure 2: The Iron Triangle ) Cost of the Three Gorges Dam Project The Undertaking cost was about 180 billion Yuan, which was about 12 % under budget which makes around 30 billion USD. The lessening in the cost of the undertaking was non due to the less disbursement ; instead it was due to the low rising prices rate in China. The resettlement of the population of the nearby countries of the dike cost around 68.557 billion Yuan, which has besides been included in this entire cost. Construction wise, this undertaking has non proved to be an expensive undertaking because the building cost incurred on this undertaking of Three Gorges Dam was 64.613 billion Yuans and the full return of the cost from the coevals of power is predicted in following 10 old ages. The approximative power coevals expected to be generated from this Three Gorged Dam is 1000 TW/h. ( Marta & A ; Jordi, 2006 ) The over all clip span that this undertaking took was 17 ( 17 ) old ages, but till eleventh ( 11th ) twelvemonth merely, funding were required because after that the undertaking became self sufficient and generated financess from the power supply of the few power units installed by so. So merely for fist 11 ( 11 ) old ages, financess were needed. Beginnings of Fundss The beginnings of financess included the Construction Fund of Three Gorges Dam, grosss from the Gezhouba Dam, loans taken and granted from the China Development Bank, and foreign commercial Bankss, bonds natured corporate, and net incomes before and after the start of the operational activities of the dike. The over all Directors utilized the financess allocated for the undertaking really good and completed the undertaking in the lesser sum than expected or was predicted. Time of the Three Gorges Project The clip span of the Three Gorges Dam was planned in these 17 Old ages, the complete break-up of the agenda was pre planned harmonizing to the old ages. They planned for the readying and the first phase building to be completed in five ( 5 ) old ages that is from 1993-1997, so 2nd phase of building was scheduled to acquire finished in six ( 6 ) old ages, from 1998-2003 which got its milepost on clip and entered into the 3rd stage of its building and completed that in six ( 6 ) old ages excessively till 2009 and came into functional. Previously the targeted twelvemonth to finish the undertaking was 2008 but so it was rescheduled and 2009 was decided and it git finished in 2009. ( Henry et al.. , 2004 ) Quality of the Three Gorges Project The quality of the undertaking was checked and approved at each measure, despite the big graduated table and the difficult proficient and societal confronts directed by the Three Gorges Dam, the applied scientists of China were able to suppress the obstructors at each phase of the undertaking. A batch unfavorable judgment was done on this undertaking of Three Gorges Dam and a batch inquiries were raised, but these unfavorable judgments did non travel in vain as at each phase and degree, the directors took actions against each affair and resolved the issue by taking steps against them and implementing the controlled program in the building. ( Henry et al.. , 2004 ) Until now there haven Ts been any studies of the slits or minor alterations in the substructure of the Three Gorges Dam, which shows that the dike has possible to bear the H2O degree which is maintained in it and was constructed for. Recommendations Whatever the graduated table or degree of the undertaking was, there is ever a infinite between flawlessness and the existent degree of work. In the undertaking of Three Gorges Dam, the decision makers have taken attention of the Time, Cost and quality but the conservationists who had issues sing the unsafe effects on the certain species of the fish found in the Yangtze river were put to hazard. There might hold been some possible manner to avoid that ecological devastation and the jeopardies caused in the environment. The cost of affects caused on the environment was excessively high. Therefore a batch of critics think that the undertaking of Three Gorges Dam from the start was a incorrect determination, nevertheless I would instead reason that despite that fact that it caused environmental devastation, it has given china a manner to turn out to the universe that they, with the biggest Dam in the universe are ready to go the 2nd biggest ace power in the this century. China is on its manner for its finish. Decision The celebrated and universe renowned Three Gorges Dam of China has quickly achieved its decision. This undertaking of Three Gorges dike, had a immense aggregation of peripheral developmental strategy along with it, comprised the main H2O supply enlargement in the past history of world. As happens with any other cardinal building programs that well changes or amends a watershed, this undertaking of the Three Gorges Dam had of import costs and payback. Among the most major wages were the production of energy without nursery gas releases, developments in pilotage, and possible lessening in inundation dangers. Among the most notable costs were immense supplantings of 1000000s of Chinese people to do path for the dike and H2O reservoir, farther environmental sordidness of the River of Yangtze s ecology and piscaries, a bead in deposit touching the Eastern China Sea, and a lifting hazard of new avalanche and reservoir persuaded seismicity. Over old ages, the overall benefits and net income s of the undertaking would go more obvious.

Five ways of identifying a setting Essay

My essay will examine five ways of identifying a setting as inclusive. I work as a nanny in a sole charge role, in a family home. I work with a family of 3 children, one of the little girls has additional needs and she attends a special needs school. I will reflect on my life experiences and the course material within this essay and how this has influenced my understanding of inclusion. Inclusion is about feeling like you belong, being valued and feeling happy within the setting and the local community, regardless of social backgrounds, age and ability. The five criteria I have chosen are The name of the setting, social inclusion, the curriculum, setting funding, and the view of inclusion presented. I have chosen these criteria as I believe they can form the basis for a setting to be seen as inclusive. I believe that the name of the setting says a lot about what is taking place, if you are sending a child to a special unit attached to a school my view is that it should have the same name as the school. Social inclusion is important because everybody has the right to be treated the same, everybody should be interacted with and spoken to in a kind and friendly manner. I think its important that the same curriculum should be followed in all educational settings and then adapted as required for individual needs. It sets a baseline for the educational system so that essential fundamentals are met. I feel that the settings funding needs to be provided equally between main school and special units. I understand that special settings require additional equipment to support their children and needs to be taken into consideration. However, the amount of money spent for teachers should be the same. I think peoples own opinion on inclusion is important as everybody needs to work to the same guidelines in early years provision. If perspective parents are not presented with an adequate view of inclusion it could greatly effect their standpoint on certain settings. All of the five criteria are important to me when thinking about inclusion, and my own understanding of what inclusion involves. Part B Name of setting Pen green has its own name which is unique to the setting, where as Aspen 2 a special needs school has given the name as an addition to the main stream school. Aspen 2 used to be referred to as the mobile which wasnt seen as inclusive. Aspen 2 is now in the main stream school and has it owns unique unit. Deri View is a newly built primary school with a childrens centre attached the local community had a say in the design and structure of the  building. The school and childrens centre is in a poorly deprived part of Wales. Social inclusion Pen Green is a centre for under 5s and their families in Corby in Northamptonshire. Pen green shows social inclusion through its video clips. Pen Green has an open community, providing team building and meet and greet sessions. Pen Green focuses on the whole family, it allows children to progress from a very young age offering groups such as baby massage. The centre offers a wide range of groups and drop in classes, there are options to go to something everyday. Pen Green cares about all the children at the centre and gives them all equal chances at learning and play. Sheena Griffiths-baker a teacher at Pen green explains that we will being these observations to plan for him as an individual (E214,DVD2) which tells me that the setting is inclusive . Pen green offers classes for parents to learn GCSEs or computer courses, which has helped the parents to gain confidence and independence. At Aspen 2 the children all have additional needs they are included in some main stream school lessons. The Aspen 2 students are treated equally in main stream lessons they are given the same work load but are provided with learning support assistants (LSA) to help them to understand. The Aspen 2 students take part in P.E all together and its adapted to their needs. Deri View is a school with the Acorn Childrens Centre attached to it. The school offers primary aged teaching with the Acorn Centre ranging from pregnancy to 13 years old. The Acorn Centre works with the local community to provide children with a breakfast club. The centre offers adult learning and services for parents to use e.g. the crche for when they go to study at the centre. Maggie Teague the head teacher at Deri View comments 70 of our pupils parents were unemployed now that has gone down to between 30 and 40. I am certain the school has an impact, because of the number of parents who have started with us through family learning are now in employment (E214,DVD2). The curriculum The Pen Green centre offers a wide and varied curriculum staff members observe childrens patterns of learning and make action plans on the children to help with planning activities that are age and stage appropriate. The centre records videos of the children which is known as the PICLE involvement, this allows parents to view what their children have been doing at nursery and can link in with what the child is doing at home. Sheena Griffiths-baker explains about the PICLE group There are several PICLE groups, so there will be  morning afternoon and evening PICLE groups so it as available as possible to many parents, so during that time they watch of video of him, the worker discusses whats happening with the parent and then the parents reciprocates with there information of what is happening at home.(E214,DVD2) There are courses for parents to gain an education and learning together groups for adults. At Aspen 2 the local educational authority aims to develop and provide inclusion at the school. The children work to the same curriculum as the main stream school, the activities are adapted to the students needs. Sarah Wilmshurst a teacher at Aspen 2 comments I take the abilities of all children into consideration (E214, DVD2). Children are allowed to sit nearer to the front that allow for sight problems and hearing needs. Some of the children in Aspen 2 work on the gold curriculum which is part of the main stream school programme for children who are struggling. Aspen 2 children are included in sports days, music and art lessons. Richard and Sam two students talk about the Aspen 2 course programmes and that the students gain a course certificate at the end. A teaching assistant called Mary Fellows talks about how some of the children can not access the mainstream education, especially the PMLD students that she works with.(E214,DVD2) At the Deri View school and the Acorn Centre they work together to give the families the best support available, they provide respite care and work with health visitors and the local authority. The butterflies pre-school provided free childcare for children ages 2 and half to 5 years on five mornings a week. The Acorn Centre has credit union service that comes in to the centre to help parents and give advice. The children also have their own saving scheme available to them. Funding and recourses The Pen Green setting provides funding for childrens groups and adult learning courses to allow everybody to be given a chance to attend the services provided by the centre. Pen Green uses the European social fund. Deri View and the Acorn Centre work together with the welsh assembly to provide free breakfasts for children in the area, all children are included. The centre has access to the community fund. Aspen 2 is given money from the local authority to help with special equipment needed to teach the lessons. The PMLD group has bought equipment to make them inclusive. The course materials state that the mechanisms that local authorities use to distribute their resources can have an impact on the development of inclusive practices (E214, Unit 12, p.209)  Views of inclusion The community around Pen Green see that the centre is for parents, grandparents, males and females of all ages and cultures, it provides groups to suit the needs of everybody and the centre represents new schemes in the area. Pen green provides partnerships with local schools and the community. At Pen Green, Donna the Community Education Manager says Pen Greens unique as it grew out of a community and planned by the community (E214, DVD2.) Sure start is used within the centre sign language groups provide people to learn how to communicate with the deaf. The centre has been used for generations. The Aspen 2 setting is for children with serve learning difficulties. One to one LSA support teachers are provided to students. Main stream teachers provide hints on work sheets to allow the Aspen 2 children to be able to do the work. Lynne Mills a teaching assistant at Aspen 2 says in the last 8 years I have had to do a lot more training, (E214,DVD2) This is so that she has the skills provided to teach individual children. Deri View and the Acorn Centre work together and share joint management. The sure start centre is part of the Acorn Centre. The Acorn Centre provides a food co-op, midwifes and speak and language classes. There is a community bus that goes around the people who are unable to make it to the centre and has rhyme times and story sessions on board. The centre has a drop in area for parents where they can go to get a hot drink, have a chat or use the parents forums. Conclusion I feel that a setting needs to treat children, parents and adults as equals to allow the setting to be fully inclusive. All settings need to be offered the recourses needed and given funding to all departments justice. References The Open University, E214 Equality, participation and inclusion learning from each other views, 2011 The Open University, E214 Equality, participation and inclusion learning from each other, DVD 2, 2010

Discuss the reading. What did you think of the story Did it have any Essay

Discuss the reading. What did you think of the story Did it have any meaning in your life Is it still relevant today Things you didn't like - Essay Example He is not ready to accept his aging. The society, after all, celebrates youth and beauty and neglects the old and the ugly. Prufrock is also materialistic, because he is concerned of materialistic concerns, such as sophisticated dress and language. Urban decay is also described through images of â€Å"yellow fog† and â€Å"yellow smoke.† Yellow signifies the gangrene of materialistic modern living that destroys the environment and simplicity in people. The poem, in addition, uses repetition to express materialism. When Prufrock says â€Å"And indeed there will be time† several times, he is complaining of his boredom. It becomes palpable that he has no real social life and no permanent human relationships too, which indeed makes life boring. What I did not like about the poem is that it seems like it has been written by a schizophrenic person, because of the fragmented ideas that go circular. Prufrock does not focus on any idea and expands on it, because he gets easily distracted by different things or people. The poem demonstrates the mental decline of Prufrock and the citys urban decline. At the same time, it shows how materialism and vanity pervade in modern culture. A materialistic culture, hence, creates vain and superficial

Compare and Contrast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 4

Compare and Contrast - Essay Example Dieting is a very common method adopted for weight control. Most people go with this option because skipping meals apparently seems easier than doing physical workout. Besides, skipping meals has an obvious and quick effect on the body. The concept behind dieting is this; since the body does not get the required nutrients and nutrition, it uses stored energy in the body in the form of fat to self-address its needs. Consumption of this stored energy results in fat loss and accordingly, weight loss. Dieting has many different forms in addition to skipping of meals. These days, a lot of diet programs have evolved that are marketed over social media and the Internet. Some of these programs are based on the consumption of a special kind of tea or medicine while other programs suggest diet plans that can be followed by the interested people. The basic concept is to limit the consumption of fat and carbohydrate in meals, boost the metabolism, and burn the calories. Exercise is another very common method adopted for weight control. This method is based on physical workout. Exercise certainly appears to be more strenuous and physically demanding compared to dieting not only because it involves physical exertion and use of muscles, but also because results take longer to show up than they do in the case of dieting. The concept behind doing exercise is to burn off the calories stored in the body in the form of fat. As an individual runs, stored energy is consumed and fat burns off. Intensity and type of exercise can vary from one person to another depending upon the level of fitness desired, age, gender, and physical stature. Normally, young males do the most intense physical workouts compared to people of all other age-groups. People do exercises in a variety of ways. Some people go to gym regularly. Other people do walk, running, or jogging. People either go to the jogging tracks or use treadmills. While dieting apparently seems easier than doing exercise, in many cases , it might be more difficult and worse than exercising daily. Highly motivated people start doing dieting by missing meals, but as their hunger increases and the motivation starts to subside, they allow themselves to eat. Since they had not eaten for a long time as a result of skipping a meal, they end up eating more than they would have eaten otherwise combined in the two meals. So skipping meals essentially becomes only delaying meals only to end up eating more than usual. Dieting consumes stored energy as a result of which, the person looks very lazy and worn out. Skin becomes lose and the person looks aged and tired even if he/she manages to lose some weight with dieting. These are only some of the disadvantages of dieting. Many diet programs that have surfaced in the recent years are ineffective and their marketed products are actually bad for health. On the other hand, physical workout is a very good exercise routine with multiple advantages. Physical workout not just helps an individual lose weight, but it also makes the individual look fresh and young. Physical workout boosts body metabolism and increases the circulation of blood in all organs of the body. This has a clear and obvious beneficial effect on the functions of the body. Comparing the two options of weight control, exercise far exceeds dieting in effectiveness and advantages. However, neither of the two methods can be considered as alone effective and sufficient in

TEN COUNSELING THEORY CONSTRUCTS Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

TEN COUNSELING THEORY CONSTRUCTS - Coursework Example The ego is on the other hand is concerned with realization of reality and it demands on someone and it is involved with reasoning. Superego is concerned with things being right or wrong. Since the personality has the id, ego and superego, it is the three that function in their own ways to result to functions of personality. The id controls ones desires and needs like the drive to eat or drink. Ego acts as the mediator of the others i.e. the id and the superego (Corey, 2008). It also mediates these two with the external world. The superego is responsible to decision making on what is right or wrong. Freud stated that a normal human being is as such on the average. He further stated that this person’s ego nears that of a psychotic in some instance or in a greater extent. He further asserted that anxiety reduction is responsible for normal traits. Freud asserted that mental illnesses develop from childhood and hugely caused by unconscious mind and motivation comes from anxiety reduction. He further said that behaviors in abnormality are exhibits of alternatives of repression. Corey (2008) states that the theory makes it clear that the human mind is dynamic and the behaviors that one exhibits if well looked into have a source that is traceable meaning that it is possible to change behavior. Freud has mentioned a number of techniques that can be used therapeutically or in Counseling. One is dream analysis where traumatic ones are referred to as routes to the unconscious. The other is Para praxes which is the slip of the pen or tongue when the unconscious interrupts the conscious mind shortly. The last is word association where the first word uttered randomly is used at a later therapeutic situation. The client needs to attend the sessions as required or agreed upon. The client is supposed to give honest information about the situation bothering them. Above all it is important for the client to give information of progress of the

Books Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Books - Essay Example Books define the character of the child. Research indicates that children who were introduced to reading at tender age are well mannered because books use different characters to define the implications of being ill mannered (Whitehead 38). During adolescent age, books are very important in informing the child about all changes that may occur during this period. Many children tend to be influenced by the peer pressure but books have been cited as one source of information on how such children can control their changes and feelings. This helps them to define their character and enable them to control the changes (Whitehead 18). In addition books helps the group spend their time wisely an aspect that prevents the group avoid vices such as drug abuse and early pregnancies. This ensures that they are able to achieve their dream careers. Morrow, Lesley M, Elizabeth Freitag, Linda B. Gambrell, and Lesley M. Morrow. Using Childrens Literature in Preschool to Develop Comprehension: Understanding and Enjoying Books. Newark, Del: International Reading Association,  2009.

Fundamentals of Business Law and Ethics Discussion Essay

Fundamentals of Business Law and Ethics Discussion - Essay Example Most questions assume that the home owner is in a condominium that must be governed by the Condominium Act. The main use of the Services by all the Members, is a subject to all the applicable local, national, state, and international rules and regulations as well as the required laws. The tagged reserves the right, and does not assume any duty, to monitor the Services to enforce this Agreement. While learning of all the violation of this Agreement. It is tagged at its sole discretion that is terminated in the access to and use of the Services that is required that one corrects such violation, or take any other required actions that Tagged the most appropriate and enforce the basic rights and pursue all the available remedies. For instance, this is a private and civil type of laws .Gun owners tend to make the legal purchases that are required to pass a federal background-check and in most countries must meet most of the standards that obtain and carry or provide permission such as age and training. Public and civil type of laws. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits most discrimination in hiring, and promoting, discharging, paying, fringe benefits, providing job training, classification, referral, and other aspects of employment, on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Minimum wage in Ohio increases by 15 cents an hour. Policy Matters Ohio, a non-partisan organization that studies Ohios economy, says the increase will boost the wages of more than 277,000 Ohio workers. Voters in Ohio approved a constitutional amendment in 2006 that calls for annual increases in the hourly wage. In 2011, Governor Kasich created CSI and placed it under my leadership, and since that time we have been moving forward to streamline Ohio’s business regulations and help make Ohio more business-friendly. This report highlights our efforts in 2013 to build on the accomplishments of CSI’s first two years, and is tied to the goals

Warwickshire Cricket Club Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Warwickshire Cricket Club - Assignment Example This meeting resulted in the formal establishment of the present Warwickshire County Cricket Club for the most significant reason that Birmingham cricket was growing apace. The Warwickshire County Cricket Club is amongst the eighteen major county clubs which form the English domestic cricket structure corresponding to the historic county of Warwickshire. It has a limited-overs team called as the Warwickshire Bears, and their kit-colors are blue and gold. It is resident in Edgbaston Cricket Ground in south Birmingham, which consistently is responsible for hosting Test and One Day International matches. In the early on, Warwickshire made use of the information from a range of databases to mass mail fans regarding the upcoming matches, news and offers. Many a times, there occurred duplication of the information or missing of the data. With such an inaccurate hold on the data, it was quite intricate for them to assemble market intelligence, and obtain a lucid demographic of their fan-base because each of the department would hold a distinct profile. As a result, the evaluation of true success of a marketing campaign was challenging enough to attain. The teams faced enormous problems in the IT, ticketing, sales, finance and marketing departments in order to efficaciously utilize the vast amount of lore stored in these databases. The formation of tailored-lists and attendee profiles was another time-depleting and cumbersome process. Jonathan Cockcroft who was the Marketing Manager at Warwickshire County Cricket Clu

Nursing theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Nursing theory - Essay Example process of the patient’s environment, socio-economic surroundings, and researching the available information to find ways to help the patient achieve optimal health again. The nursing educator, my chosen field of practice, is the greatest disseminator of the required information that helps student nurses correctly learn theories, utilize them in case studies, and to conduct appropriate research to find the right answers to the patient’s problems. The theory of social cognition and metacognition provides an excellent process in education by which students learn the concepts of theories through examining of one’s own cognition or understanding of concepts as relates to how they think and feel. This is achieved through role playing, case studies, and games that provide an educational informative outcome (Hadi, Hamid, Abbas, Eskander, & Sima, 2013). This provides a social cognition opportunity to play the patient (‘walk in his shoes’), the Human Patient Simulation, and to also have students examine what they experience (metacognition) in the other side of nurse role playing. The nursing environment today, allows for quick, in-depth research and analysis of cases from medical databases all over the world, including research studies that have found solutions to various health problems under various conditions, and with specific samples of the population (Alligood, 2014). Much of this information can be found through hospital computer access and through palm-held devices which, with the proper method of search parameters, can provide nurses with quick results and answers to the questions being asked during the search. Informatics is one field of nursing which has benefited nurses greatly, as nurse researchers assist in the latest methods of finding and recording information for others to access as well. In nursing education, the nursing educator provides the means and instruction to all nursing students to understand not only the nursing field in general,

A New Era for Newark Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A New Era for Newark - Essay Example Newark is a perfect example of a failed state but brought to life by an exemplary leader. Newark in New Jersey, fresh from riots in 1967, was transformed into a wonderful state by Mayor Booker. This article analyzes Mayor Booker, what made him a leader so extra ordinary that he managed to transform Newark into a successful state and how he managed to work with others with the main of transforming Newark. Newark was engulfed in violence and businesses were closed down. This effectively ensured that its economy was grounded as businesses are the main circulation of money in state. The social classes were dismantled which saw the middle class move away. Obviously, this would present quite a challenge for any leader mandated with reviving Newark. Even in the contemporary world today, it takes lots of effort from a lot of people to patch together a nation or sate that was torn apart by war. Fortunately, this was not the case for Newark for Brook was equal to the task. Lots of people were taken by surprise how the mayor managed to transform Newark. It takes a lot of leadership abilities to manage with Cory Booker managed. Four decades after the homicide, Newark is utterly different with a fresh economy. Brook admits that hard work is a key factor in making a prominent leader. It is his hard work that enabled him to effectively mobilize his team towards achieving better Newark. In essence, hard work is always necessary for one to make desire achievements, and just like anybody would do, Cory Brook was hard working, and his success is purely attributed to it. Brook s with his police officers till the wee hours of the morning. Besides this being a show of hard work, it also shows that he was a team leader. Leading by example is a character trait of any leader. In order to effectively mobilize a team, it is indispensable to first show an outstanding support for the specified agenda. By staying late with the police doing patrols, the police could easily be motivated even in the absence of the mayor. This show of solidarity with the patrolling police is among the qualities that are attributed to Cory Brook. Solidarity develops a feeling of togetherness within a particular group there fostering unity and motivation. In any case, Cory Brook is undoubtedly a transformational leader. This is in line with what he achieved with Newark. Indeed, it takes a transformational leader to accomplish what the mayor accomplished. Raising Newark from ashes is a true testimony to this fete. His lead by example philosophy alone speaks volume about his transformational abilities. However, some critics may argue that his decision to turn down President Barrack Obama’s appointment is a hint that Brook may be having a phobia for bigger duties. Naturally, a transformational leader should not be afraid of any tasks, however big they are, but he was still entitled to making his own independent decisions no matter what people though. Cory Brook would surely be a benefic iary of the development techniques. Development techniques are essential because they help leaders to become even better leader. Leadership is a development pattern in which people try to adopt their leadership style and abilities to suit the current dynamics of governance. As much as Brook was an exemplary mayor, it does not necessarily mean that he would properly fit in

Environmental Science Notes Essay Example for Free

Environmental Science Notes Essay 1. Green revolution: intro of scientifically bred or selected varieties of grain that can greatly increase crop yields. 2. Things that cause seasons on earth: earth tilted on axis, sun distribution 3. Large scale hydroelectric projects around the world: 3 gorges dam, dams going on in india 4. Age distribution diagrams: ZPG=looks like a building that doesn’t change, bottom same as top. Slow growth=base a bit longer than top but not quite a pyramid. Rapid growth=WIDE base, narrow top, like a pyramid 5. Waste water treatment process: get water, drain out sludge, have sludge area, water goes through process to get more sludge out, water gets aerated, water gets filtered with Cl to remove bacteria. 6. Human pop on earth: 6.8 billion. US pop: 300 million. Most populated countries: china, india, US 7. Soil horizons: O,A,B,C. O is organic material and leaf litter and such. A is top soil and humus. B is parent material. C is bedrock, solid rock 8. Rule of 70: 70/percent=time it will take to double population 9. Replacement level fertility: reproducing enough babies to replace yourself(in developed countries, it’s 2.1, but in developing, it’s 2.5 because of infant mortality) 10. Waste created by nuclear power plants: radioactive waste in solid liquid or gas state 11. Biggest threats to biodiversity: HIPPO, habitat loss, invasive species, population growth, pollution, and overexploitation 12. Integrated pest management: people come in and solve your pest problem without using harmful chemicals or pesticides. Situations are situation specific and take a longer time to solve. 13. Aquaculture: trapping fish in a coast, or netted fenced area of water to use for produce and food or commercial use 14. Demographic transition model: preindustrial, transitional, industrial, postindustrial. Pre- high birth and death rates. Trans- high birth rates and low death rates. Ind- lower birth rates, and same death rates. Post- birth and death rates equal 15. Photosynthesis: CO2+H2OO2+C6H12O6. Needs solar energy 16. Half life: radioactive decay of how long it takes for half of material to decay 17. Tragedy of the commons: when a renewable available to everyone resource is depleted 18. Population growth rate equation: (births-deaths)/10 19. Genetic engineering: getting genes from one organism and putting them in other organisms to get desired trait 20. 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics: 1st states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. 2nd states that as energy is changed and moves up trophic levels, it decreases 21. Where is coal located around world: US in mountainous areas, Russia, china, and Australia 22. Denitrification: ammonium to N gas. Assimilation: when plants and animals turn nitrates into amino acids and proteins. Ammonification: nitrates to ammonium. Nitrification: N gas to nitrates and nitrites. Nitrogen fixation: Nitrogen to nitrogen gas that is ready to go to nitrites 23. Montreal protocol: when they noticed that ozone was disappearing, they banned chlorofluorocarbons in industries and anything else in 1987 24. Antarctic treaty of 1961: countries could only use Antarctica for peaceful matters 25. Pop growth curves: irruptive- overshootdieback. Cyclic: predator and prey’s pop patterns change together. Logistic: exponential to carrying capacity then moves around the carrying patterns a little. 26. Carrying capacity: biotic potential + environmental resistance, what population the environment can withstand What I kind of know 1. Cons of mining: removes 90% of nonfuel mineral and rock recourses, 60% of coal used in US destroys forests, contaminates streams and groundwater, leaves highly erodible hills of rubble, susceptible to chemical weathering, slow vegetation regrowth, damages and buries streams below, toxic wastewater, produces air pollution 2. Ways to reduce soil erosion: terracing (growing food on slopes), no till farming, windbreaks of trees, strip cropping, contour farming 3. Cause of fluctuation of CO2 levels during a year: amount of trees, photosynthetic activity, burning fossil fuels, trash, power generation and transport 4. Surface mining: to remove mineral deposits found fairly close to the earth’s surface, removing soil, subsoil and other strata. 5. Types of irrigation: drip-delivers small amts of water onto crop roots (best). Flood-delivers more water than needed for a crop to grow. Centro pivotal- spray attachments water crops 6. Consequences of global temperature increase: melting ice and snow, less sunlight reflected back into space, rising sea levels, changing ocean currents, more acidic seas, change in precipitation and weather extremes, and disrupting ecosystems, more radiation 7. Pros and cons of dams: pros-cheap electricity, reduces downstream flooding, provide year round water for irrigation. Cons: displace people, disrupt aquatic systems, and prevent fish to swim upstream and get caught in it and die 8. Ozone layer function: filter out most of sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation 9. Cause of stratospheric ozone loss: chlorofluorocarbons use, ODCs, halons, hydrobromofluorocarbons, methyl bromide, HCl, carbochluorides, methyl chloroform, n-propyl bromide, hexachlorobutadicine. 10. Ways to reduce atmospheric CO2: cut fossil fuel use, shift from coal to natural gas, improve energy efficiency, shift to renewable energy resources, transfer energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to developing contries, reduce deforestation, use sustainable agriculture and forestry, reduce poverty, slow population growth 11. Season when ozone hole is most noticeable: October, Antarctic spring (winter) 12. DDT, mercury: pesticides that are toxic to humans and are very persistent and a lot of the time they go to the wrong species and they disrupt the ecosystem. They are broad spectrum pesticides. 13. P cycle: P circulates through water, earth’s crust, and living things, it is the most limiting because it does not become gaseous. C cycle: C circulated through earth’s air, water, soil, and living things and it depends on photosynthesis and respiration. N cycle: bacteria helps recycle N through the earth’s air, water, soil and living organisms (N fixationnitrificationassimilationammonificationdenitrificationN fixation). Water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, percolation 14. Importance of genetic diversity: resistance to mass extinctions, monocultures, and inbreeding 15. Biomes, locations, reasons for why they are located in certain areas: 1. Gasification: agricultural wastes, including wood wastes any of various processes by which coal is turned into low, medium or high BTU gases 2. Cogeneration: production of 2 useful forms of energy, such as high temp heat or steam and electricity, from the same fuel source 3. Cultural eutrophication: human activities that greatly accelerate the input of plant nutrients to a lake (mostly NO3 and phosphate). 4. Sand: low porosity and high permeability. Clay: low permeability and high porosity. Porosity is the volume of pore space. Silt has low to average porosity and average permeability. Permeability is the ability of water to flow through the soil 5. Incinerating trash: burning trash, boiling water to make steam for heating water of space for producing electricity. Cons: expensive to build, costs more than short distance hauling to landfills, difficult to site because of citizen opposition, some air pollution, older poorly managed facilities can release large amts of air pollution, output approach that encourages waste production, competes with recycling for burnable materials like newspaper. Pros: reduces trash volumes, less need for landfills, low water pollution, concentrates hazardous substances into ash for burial or use as landfill cover, sale of energy reduces cost, modern controls reduce air pollution, some facilities recover and sell metals. 6. Sun angle, fewer daylight hours, tropospheric length has not enough solar radiation to reach the surface, high Albeao and less water vapor causes polar areas to get really cold. 7. Integrated waste management: variety of strategies for waste reduction and management to deal with our produced solid wasted reduce, reuse and recycle 8. Layers of atmosphere: troposphere is closest to earth’s surface and contains 90% of mass of entire atmosphere. Stratosphere has the ozone layer that absorbs UV rays from sun and protects life on earth. Mesosphere is the coldest layer of the atmosphere. The mesopause is the boundary between mesosphere and thermosphere. Thermosphere is the last layer of atmosphere and it is warmer than mesosphere and has a little O2 and has a layer of ionized gases 9. Waste created by coal power plants: heat to troposphere, CO2 and air pollution 10. Pros and cons of coal power: pros- ample supply, high net energy, low cost, well developed mining and combustion technology, air pollution can be reduced with improved technologies. Cons: severe land disturbance, air pollution, water pollution, high land use, severe threats to human health, high CO2 emissions, radioactive particles and toxi mercury into air 11. Pros and cons of nuclear power: pros- large fuel supply, low envir. Impact, emits 1/6 as much CO2 as coal, moderate land use and disruption and water pollution, and Low risk of accidents. Cons- expensive, low net energy yield, catastrophic accidents, no solution for radioactive waste storage, terrorist attacks, weapons 12. Source of radon: some soil and rock 13. Tropospheric ozone: air pollutant, bad ozone because it can damage living tissue and break down certain materials 14. Acid rain: caused by coal burning power plants, ore smelters and industrial plants that use tall smokestacks to emit SO2 and NO2 into troposphere. Consequences: 2-14 day persistence, ruins sensitive soil, worsens respiratory disease, attacks metallic and stone, decreases atmospheric visibility, kills fish, depletes soil of vital plant nutrients and harms crops and plants. Solutions: improving energy efficiency, reduce coal use, increase natural gas use and renewable energy resourcs, burn low sulfur coal, remove SO2 and NO2 from smokestack gases, remove NO2 from motor vehicular exhaust, tax emissions of SO2, add lime to neutralize acidified lakes and add phosphate fertilizer to neutralize acidified lakes. pH of rain: 5.6 or less. Problem in eastern US. 15. Greenhouse gases and their sources: water vapor, CO2, CH4, NO2, O3. Sources are burning fossil fuels, electricity production, transportation, industry, commercial and residential, agriculture, land use and forestry. 16. LD-50: median lethal dose of a toxin, radiation or pathogen is dose required to kill  ½ the members of a tested pop after specified test duration 17. Radon: Rn-222 is a natural occurring gas that is colorless and odorless and radioactive found in some soil and rock, seeps into homes and buildings and can cause lung cancer. Lichen can indicate it 18. Clean water act: attempt to control efforts of pollution of country’s surface waters. Standards for allowed levels of key water pollutants and requires polluters to get permits limiting how much of various pollutants can discharge into aquatic systems 19. Clean air act: causes lakes to be acidic. Made to prevent smog and prevent more air pollution disasters, air pollutant regulations for key pollutants 20. How carbon is removed from the atmosphere: remove from smokestack and vehicle emissions, store by planting trees, sequester deep underground, sequester in soil by using no till conservation and taking cropland out of production, sequester CO2 deep in ocean, repair leaky gas pipelines and facilities, use animal feeds that reduce methane emissions by belching cows. 21. UN conference of the human environment: expanding understanding of envir. Issues, gathering and evaluation envir. Data, develop and monitor international envir. Treaties, provide grants and loans for sustainable econ. Devel. And reducing poverty, help more than 1—nations develop envir. Laws and institutions 22. Reclamation of disturbed lands: process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds or lake. Stabilized against the hazards of water and wind erosion 23. RCRA: resource conservation and recovery act regulates hazardous waste produced in the US passed in 1976 amended in 1984. Goal to prevent unsafe and il legal disposal of hazardous wastes on the land. 24. Uranium-235: isotope of uranium making up about .72% of the natural uranium sustains fission chain reaction 25. Biomagnifications: increase in concentration of DDT, PCBs, and other slowly degradable far soluble chemicals in organisms at successively higher trophic levels of a food chain or web. 26. Efficiency of an incandescent lightbulb (5%), photosynthesis (1%), coal power (33%) 27. Fecal coliform bacteria: various strains of E. Coli to detect the presence of infectious agents in water 28. Consequences of SO2, lead, O3 in troposphere, and particulates: SO2- breathing problems, visibility reduction and aggravation of asthma, damages crops, trees, soils, and lake aquatic life, corrodes metals and damages paint, paper, and leather and stone on buildings. O3- coughing, breathing problems, reduces resistance to colds and pneumonia, irritates eyes, nose, and throat, aggravates asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease and damages plants, rubber in tires, fabrics and paints. Particulates- irritate the nose and throat, damage lungs, aggravate asthma and bronchitis, shortens life. Lead- mutations, reproductive problems, cancer, nervous system damage, mental retardation and digestive and other health problems, reduce visibility and corrode metals and discolor clothes and paints. 29. CERCLA: requires parties responsible for creating a hazardous waste site to be responsible for its cleanup 30. NAFTA: goal to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between US, Canada and Mexico to eliminate tariffs on more than  ½ of Mexico’s exports to the US. Try to pressure countries to improve envir. Protection mechanism 31. Electrostatic precipitators: to remove particulates, after they are in smokestack gas, it gives them a negative charge, they are attracted to a positively charged precipitator wall and fall off the wall into a collector, they maintain and remove 99% of particulate, but use a lot of electricity and do not remove hazardous ultrafine particles and produce a toxic dust that must be disposed of safely. 32. Alternatives to chlorine in waste water treatment: microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ion exchange

An Analysis on the Process of Adjudication

An Analysis on the Process of Adjudication Law is a â€Å"strange compound which is brewed daily in the caldron of the Courts† Hon. Benjamin N Cardozo[1]. The work of deciding cases goes on every day in hundreds of courts throughout the land. Any judge, one might suppose, would find it easy to describe the process which he had followed a thousand times and more. Benjamin Cardozo begins his Judicial Process with these words which with lyrical lucidity show what goes on in a court. It is deciding cases. To a layman, adjudication presents a picture of a court where a judge presides, listens to arguments of rival parties through their counsels and in the end, renders a decision which holds a person liable or acquits him of the charges that were labelled against him. To a lawman who is not untutored in the craft, adjudication means something more. When courts decide cases, they perform two distinct, though interrelated, functions. First, they settle the controversy between the parties: they determine what the facts were and apply the appropriate rules to those facts. This is the function commonly known as adjudication[2].While performing their second function, courts decide what the appropriate rules are and how they fit in a particular case. Deciding what rules are applicable often requires the courts to reformulate and modify the scope of existing rules. The second function is sometimes referred to as judicial lawmaking[3]. While adjudicating cases, a judge may be faced with a question of law or a question of fact or a mixed question of law and fact. Besides, he may come across a case which the existing law does not cover, that is the question to be decided by the court was unforeseen by the legislature while enacting the law. Tools available to a judge while deciding a question generally include the statutory provisions, pr ecedent laid down by an earlier court, and the certain overarching principles like that of natural justice and equality. Judicial function performed by the judges requires them at times to use their discretions and rely on certain -principles that lie extraneous to the realm of the enacted law. This is one aspect of adjudication that has stirred much jurisprudential waters over a long period. Questions invariably asked have been: whether judges only declare the law; whether they only interpret the law; whether they only discover the law or whether they make law also. There are two aspects of judicial function that come to fore: The first-which can be traced back to at least Hale and Blackstone-is that judges merely find and declare the law rather than create it. Thus, judges are, allegedly, not a source of law†.[4] The second aspect of judicial juristic techniques that receives much publicised attention is the doctrine of precedent.[5] The function of adjudication subsumes certain intricately intertwined issues. The tool of interpretation plays an important role in adjudicatory process. It may be said that Adjudication is interpretation[6], given the fact that Adjudication is the process by which a judge comes to understand and express the meaning of an authoritative legal text and the values embodied in that text.[7] Interpretation, whether it be in the law or literary domains, is neither a wholly discretionary nor a wholly mechanical activity. It is a dynamic interaction between reader and text, and meaning the product of that interaction.[8]To recover an old and familiar idea, namely, that adjudication is a form of interpretation would build bridges between law and the humanities and suggest a unity among mans many intellectual endeavours. A proper regard for the distinctive social Function of adjudication, and for the conditions that limit the legitimate exercise of the judicial power, will require care in identifying the kinds of texts to be construed and the rules that govern the interpretive process; the judge is to read the legal text, not morality or public opinion, not, if you will, the moral or social texts. But the essential unity between law and the humanities would persist and the judges vision would be enlarged.[9]The words and phrases are symbols that stimulate a mental reference to referents.[10]And it becomes relevant given the fact that the problem of interpretation is a problem of words and their effectiveness as a medium of expression to communicate a particular thought. One of the important aspects on interpretation is to find the intention of the members of the legislature whose creation, that is the enactment, outlives them. Salmond says that the true duty of the judicature is to act upon the true intention of the Legislature-the mens or se ntentia legis. However, the way this duty is to be performed becomes tedious in that judges have only the barren words to confront with and to find the intention of the legislature. The question of interpretation also brings forth the question: do judges make law while interpreting the law? Does the finding of intention amount only to discovery of law or does it mean creation of law? Interpretation often is instrumental in the birth of new precedents, and there have been arguments put forth that say precedents are clearest examples of judicial law making. Dworkinian thesis of how judges decide cases avers that judges merely discover law; they do not make law. However, it has been argued that when judges discover legislative intent, they in fact invent it instead of discovering it[11]. The growing complexities of modern day life throw new challenges and problems in myriad manifestation before the judges, who at times may be tempted to cross the restraints of written words of law, besides being confronted with question of morality and needs of justice. There may surface a problem which the law when enacted could not foresee. Or the law relating to a particular issue is shrouded in ambiguity. Many a time, a judge may have to trace that golden thread from the labyrinth of legalese and factual matrix that will help him reach the desired goal of rendering justice. Often, it is very difficult to do so. The process of adjudication requires a judge to be attentive and aware of the several factors which at times may have a telling impact upon the rights of people, besides jeopardising the cherished goal of doing justice. Performance of judicial function is an onerous task given the kind of responsibility a judge has to shoulder within the constitutional and statutory constraints that hedge him or her from all sides, though leeway for creativity does exist given the tools of interpretation a judge is armed with.13 Innovation comes to the rescue of judge when confronted with a novel case that demands that the judge acts in a way that justice is done: The discussion and deliberation that follow in the coming chapters focus on some of the key aspects of adjudication primarily that of Dworkins, and an effort is made to critically analyse the various facets of Dworkins theory of adjudication before reaching a conclusion in the light of criticisms levelled against them. 3.2  ADJUDICATION vis-a-vis SEPARATION OF POWERS Within the realm of law, adjudication enjoys a place of prominence. Primarily the task of the courts is to adjudicate upon the issues that arise in disputes between parties which may be an individual, at times, state, and on occasions both the state and individuals. In the modem era, the role of the judges has become more complex and it is now a far cry when compared with the role a judge had to play eons ago. The evolution of the society and the legal system has entrusted the judges with newer powers and functions. Now their area of operation is not confined to decide questions that arise between individuals as Geoffrey Rivlin reminds that First, where there is any dispute about constitutional law, the judges must decide what the law is. Their most important role, however, is to act as an independent check on the power of the executive. Only the courts have the authority to stop any individual or body of persons from exceeding their powers, or making improper use of their powers. Th is is known as preventing an abuse of power. When we speak of judges, it means the entire hierarchy of judges who operate in different courts. The problems arising before the courts and decisions to be rendered are different in nature depending upon the courts. The factors that influence the outcome of an adjudicatory process vary greatly, and so do the decisions of the court. Be that as it may, there are a score of issues that need to be dealt with when we consider the process of adjudication. 3.3  DISPUTE REVIEW BOARD/DISPUTE ADJUDICATION BOARD This method of international dispute resolution, first tried successfully in the 1980s in Central America, is now regularly used in respect of large international construction and infrastructure contracts. These contracts provide for the appointment of a panel of experts, generally construction practitioners (engineers, lawyers, economists), either at the time of signature or in the course of the execution of the contract. For example, contracts relating to the construction of the Vasco Da Gama bridge, over the River Tagus in Portugal, provided for the appointment of two panels (technical and financial) of three experts each. For the Channel Tunnel, between France and the United Kingdom, the designation of apanel of three experts and two alternates was provided for in contracts. Members of the .dispute review board/dispute adjudication board (DRB/DAB) are appointed by the parties in the same way as an arbitral tribunal is constituted, with one major difference. The panel is generally appointed at the very beginning of the project and for its whole duration, whereas arbitrators are appointed only in the context of a dispute. Each party nominates its experts and the two appointed experts designate the third that is, unless the parties have agreed on a different appointment mechanism. A one-member DRB/DAB may also be appointed DRB/DABs typically follow a project from beginning to end (through site visits, study of monthly reports, exchanges of correspondence, miscellaneous reports, etc.), This-is so that they are able, upon the request of a contracting party; to react promptly and knowledgeably and, if necessary, to issue an opinion, recommendation or decision in written form. DRB/DAB experts are usually paid monthly or, for on-site interventions, by the hour. The DRB/DAB may intervene in either a flexible or a more formal manner. In the former, it acts as an advisory body. A party or several parties may, by a simple and informal request, ask for a preliminary written opinion. This opinion is considered provisional in that it does not bind either the parties or the DRB. In the latter, the DRB/DAB plays a more formal role, insofar as it issues either a decision or a recommendation, on a procedure that enables each of the parties to express its ideas fully. Once the panel of experts has handed down its opinion, decision or recommendation, each of the parties indicates, generally within a fixed time limit, whether or not it accepts the decision or recommendation. If the decision is not accepted, recourse to the jurisdictional procedure (before a State court or an arbitral tribunal) remains possible. 3.4  DWORKIN’S THEORY OF ADJUDICATION The courts are the capitals of laws empire, and judges are its princes, but not its seers and prophets. Dworkin, Laws Empire, 407(1986) Introduction In laws empire, judges enjoy a prominent position. They are entrusted with the task of adjudication, which affects the lives of people in ways both seen and unseen. Rights of people who approach the apostle of justice stand to lose or gain depending upon how the judge presiding over the court views a case. Importance of judges in legal arena is reflected in Dworkins writing when he begins his Laws Empire with these words: It matters how judges decide cases. It matters most to people unlucky or litigious or wicked or saintly enough to find themselves in court.[12] The difference between dignity and ruin may turn on a single argument that might not have struck another judge so forcefully, or even the same judge on another day[13]. A single nod of a judge may rob a person of his liberty or protect his liberty. It may mean life or death for a person.[14] The role played by judges assumes more importance today. Given the fact that they perform one of the tedious tasks in a society, it becomes desirable to see and analyse how they do what they do. In view of the foregone discussion in the previous chapter that touched upon the vexed question of what is law and the myriad facets of adjudication that are crucial to the understanding of how law operates in laws empire, the theory of adjudication as developed by Dworkin assumes due importance, especially given the parallels that are perceptible in the time that preceded Dworkins theory. One such parallel can be seen in Blackstones declaratory theory that dealt with the famous account of judging which holds that judges find (or declare), rather than make, law. In the introduction to the Commentaries, Blackstone states that the judges job is to determine the law not according to his own private judgment, but according to the known laws and customs of the land; the judge is not delegated to pronounce a new law, but to maintain and expound the old one. 3.4.1  ADJUDICATION: DWORKIN’S APPROACH To Dworkin, law is an interpretive concept†. By making this claim, he tries to distinguish his philosophy from what he calls semantic theories of law, which refer to positivist theories, like that of John Austin and Herbert Hart. According to him, these theories suppose that that law has a meaning which is shared by lawyers and others. This shared meaning consists of rules for using the word law. These rules, in turn, tie law in positivist theories to historical facts, such as the enactment of a statute or the decision of a case. Dworkin suggests that disagreement about the law, under positivist theories, would invoke legal argument in adjudication only about the historical fact made relevant by the shared meaning of law. He considered three theories of law-conventionalism, pragmatism and law as integrity in Laws Empire. Only the last of these is interpretive, but each, he argues, is compatible with his interpretive theory of meaning, which he describes as the view that the doc trinal concept of law is an interpretive concept. 3.4.2  ADJUDICATION OF HARD CASES The theory of hard cases provided by positivism, according to Dworkin, envisages that when a particular law suit cannot be brought under a clear rule of law, laid down by some institution in advance, then judge has discretion to decide the case either way. He says the opinion of the judge seems to assume that one or the other party had a pre-existing right to win the suit, but idea only is a fiction. In reality, he has legislated new legal rights, and then applied them retrospectively to the case at hand.[15] Dworkin tries to provide an alternative method of adjudication which he calls naturalism. It is noteworthy how he builds up his theory of adjudication in the following manner:[16] I shall start by giving the picture of adjudication I want to defend a name, and it is a name which accepts the crude characterization. I shall call this picture naturalism. According to naturalism, judges should decide hard cases by interpreting the political structure of their community in the following, perhaps special way: by trying to find the best justification they can find, in principles of political morality, for the structure as a whole, from the most profound constitutional rules and arguments to the details of, for example, the private law of tort or contract. Prior to elaborating further on the methodology adopted by Dworkin, it will serve some purpose to see how he disagrees with the general understanding of how judges go about doing what they actually do. He believes that the common story about the way judges function is misleading, and misses certain notable points. He finds a further level of subordination in such a story which goes unnoticed. It is expected that when make law, they will act not only as a deputy to the legislature but also as a deputy legislature. However, Dworkin reasons:[17] They will make law in response to evidence and arguments of the same character as would move the superior institution if it were acting on its own. This is deeper level of subordination, because it makes any understanding of what judges do in hard cases parasitic on a prior understanding of what legislators do all the time. According to him, this subordination is both conceptual and political. He believes that judges are not deputy legislators, and they should not be as well. It is misleading to assume that they are legislating when judges go beyond the political decisions which have been made already by someone else. He argues that such an assumption misses the fundamental distinction between arguments of principle and arguments of policy. It is noticeable, Dworkin argues that the distinct outline here is an improvement upon the distinction between principle and the policy that he made under chapter two of Taking Rights Seriously, one of the virtues among others being that this formulation â€Å"prevent the collapse of the distinction under the artificial assumption described before[18]. It should be pointed out here that both the arguments justify political decisions; it is only the way they justify such decisions that differs. Arguments of policy justify a political decision by showing that the decision advances or protects some collective goal of the community as a whole[19] whereas the arguments of principle justify a political decision by showing that the decision respects or secures some individual or group right.[20]The justification of legislative program of any complexity, says Dworkin, will require both sorts of arguments. According to him, a program that is chiefly a matter of policy may require strands of principle to justify it[21]. Sometimes, it may so happen that a program which is generated by policy may be qualified by principle and vice versa. In a hard case where no settled rule dictates a decision either way, then, Dworkin says, it might seem proper that a proper decision could be generated by either policy or principle.[22]He cites the case of Spartan Steel Alloys Ltd. V. Martin Co. f02. In this case, the employees of the defendant company had broken the electric cable which belonged to a company which supplied power to the plaintiffs factory, which was shut down during the period the cable was repaired. Whether to allow recovery for economic loss following negligent damage to someone else’s property was the question to be decided before the court. Here, there are two ways open before the court. Dworkin says â€Å"It might have proceeded to its decision by asking whether a firm in the position of the plaintiff had a right to recovery, which is a matter of principle, or whether it would be economically wise to distribute liability for accidents in the was plaintiff suggested, which is matter of policy. Dworkin lays down his thesis: Judicial decisions in civil cases, even in hard cases like Spartan Steel, characteristically are and should be generated by principle not policy. 1 [1] Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature Of The Judicial Process, 10 (1921) [2] James L. Houghtling, The Dynamics of Law 13(1963) [3] Ibid [4] Rajeev Dhavan et. al. (ed), Judges and the Judicial Power 1 2 (1985) [5] Ibid. [6] Owen M. Fiss, Objectivity and Interpretation, 34 Stan. L. Rev. 739. [7] Ibid [8] Ibid. Fiss says, It is an activity that affords a proper recognition of both the subjective and objective dimensions of human experience; and for that reason, has emerged in recent decades as an attractive method for studying all social activity. The idea of a written text, the standard object of legal or literary interpretation, has been expanded to embrace social action and situations, which are sometimes called text-analogues. [9] Ibid. Indeed, interpretation is defined as the process by which the meaning of a text is understood and expressed, and the acts of understanding and expression necessarily entail strong personal elements. At the same time, the freedom of the interpreter is not absolute. The interpreter is not free to assign any meaning he wishes to the text. He is disciplined by a set of rules that specify the relevance and weight to be assigned to the material (e.g., words, history, intention, consequence), as well as by those that define basic concepts and that established the procedural circumstances under which the interpretation must occur. Id. at 744. [10] G Williams, Language and the Law, 61 LQR 73. [11] For a detailed analysis see, Chapters 4 and 5. Also see, Upendra Baxi, On How Not to Judge the Judges: Notes towards Evaluation of the Judicial Process, 25 JILl 210 (1983). [12] Ronald Dworkin, Laws Empire 1(2002, Indian Reprint) [13] Ibid. [14] Dworkin says, People often stand to gain or lose more by one judges nod than they could by any general act of Congress or Parliament. Ibid [15] Supra note 70 at 81 [16] Ronald Dworkin, Natural Law Revisited, 34 University of Florida Law Review 165 at 165- 166(1982). Suppose the question arises for the first time, for example, whether and in what circumstances careless drivers are liable, not only for physical injuries to those whom they run down, but also for any emotional damage suffered by relatives of the victim who are watching. According to naturalism, judges should then ask the following questions of the history (including the contemporary history) of their political structure. Does the best possible justification of that history suppose a principle according to which people who are injured emotionally in this way have a right to recover damages in court? If so, what, more precisely, is that principle? Does it entail, for example, that only immediate relatives of the person physically injured have that right? Or only relatives on the scene of the accident, who might themselves have suffered physical damage? Ibid. [17] Supra note 70 at 82 [18] Ibid [19] Ib.id. F~r example, The argument in favour of a subsidy for aircraft manufacturers, that the subsidy WIll protect defense, is an argument of policy. Ibid. [20] Ibid. For instance, The argume~t in favour of anti-discrimination statutes, that a minority has a nght to equal respect and concern, IS an argument of principle. Ibid. [21] Ibid. [22] Supra note 70 at 83. Emphasis added.

Challenges of Marketing to Children

Challenges of Marketing to Children Creating outstanding products and programs to win marketplace is not an easy job. Specialists in marketing have to develop comprehensive research plans, carry out market researches, analyze the data collected and finally come up with marketing plans that target specific consumer segments. Finding out about human psychology, their preferences, choices and appeals are not only difficult but at times disappointingly inaccurate. Yet marketers today consider themselves experts in such endeavours, and are capable of achieving the almost impossible marketing objectives.   As if these aspects of marketing are not difficult enough, in modern-day marketing field there is a niche in which the marketers have to deal with children. The most difficult task is perhaps the determination of the choices and preferences of these fickle individuals who are still developing, absorbing the environment and learning to become like their adult counterparts. The task of marketing to children is not only daunting but also critical for many businesses such as Nike, Microsoft, Johnson Johnson, Disney, Pepsi, Sega, Kellogs and Mattel to name a few. These companies go through extensive research and consultancy to get to the untapped market of child consumers. One such example is evident in Dan S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher’s (1998) Youth Market Systems.  According to the authors the development of outstanding products and programs to win childrens marketplace is entirely different from the rest of the market segments. For this purpose they invent a marketing process called Youth Market Systems. The System ensures marketers consider all aspects of marketing to children or teens for any category of goods or services that companies want to sell. There Isa great need for a system of analysis and interpretation as the authors feel that information pertaining to cognitive, emotional and social needs of age groups could transform the programs or product features that target them. Acuff and Reihers (1998) strategy merely opens a window to the world of advertising to children. As one investigates the categories of products and services that are available to young children, one also tend to develop the consistent belief that children are a separate kind of consumer group and must be treated differently, from advertising to the designing of products. All these efforts no doubt are valid and justified in their own place and position, however a niggling thought crosses the mind when one observes the various approaches and efforts that marketers adopt to reach out to the vulnerable youth consumer segment. There are reasons for these tactics. Acuff and Reiher record approximately $1 billion annual gross revenue for Mattel Incorporated that sells Barbies. There are others such as Garfield, He-Man, Cabbage Patch Kids, Power Rangers, LEGO, GI Joes and a myriad of upcoming products invading the market with the sole purpose to tap on these young consumers who are bound by childish emotions and penchant for toys and games. Schemes and strategies are being devised to win over these young consumers for highs takes amounting to billions of pounds. What is more, advertising and marketing to children does not only involve the youngsters but their parents also. For example the Youth Market System identifies parents, grand parents and other close family members as the most influential on children’s purchasing decision. Exploring this group is critical because they are the ones who have control over the wallet and it is on them that children are dependent. The complexity in children marketing therefore lies in attracting both the youngsters and appealing to the parents. A winning formula must be developed to attract both the parents and children. The complexity of this formula makes success rate low which induces marketers to resort to all kinds of schemes and strategies to achieve their desired target, including crossing the line of ethics especially in the field of advertising of children related products (Acuff and Reiher 1998). Scholars and parents alike feel that there are no avenues that advertisers and businesses will not exploit to reach to the young consumers. Exploitations through mental, moral and physical developments of children are common. The strategies to target children involve creation of wants to satisfy the impulse rather than actual needs. For example consoles such as Mattels Hot Wheels, and Barbie’s fashion collections are not really required by children but wants created by advertisers and marketing campaigns. Long term needs satisfaction has been replaced by short term needs. They are not the only ones exploited. Their parents are also plagued with different kinds of created needs for their children such as the well being; status symbol; and their selfish need to have their child preoccupied with the multitude of products and free them from child responsibilities. These aspects portray not only the ugly but also the unethicalsides of the world of advertising. How true are these aspects and towhat extent do advertisers reach to capture their target consumers? Dothey cross the borders of ethics or not to maximise gains from avulnerable consumer market? And what, if anything, should be done tocontrol and ultimately restrict the freedom of advertising aimed atchildren are some of the areas that the following research willendeavour to enumerate. Children have become the key target for many advertisers. Childrenare vulnerable, easy to exploit consumers and they perceive things asadvertisers want them to perceive, or so many of us believe. Despitethe fact that children are nowadays smart and knowledgeable of themarketplace nevertheless for many marketers they are relatively easy totarget due to the sheer size of the childrens consumer market.Advertisers thrive by earning billions of pounds with the backing andfunding of the profit seeking organizations that hire them. Thesecompanies are not only producing goods that appeal to the children butthey are also exploiting their parents. The dual targeting approachmakes this market segment attractive as well as representative of highyield for investment. For example in many regions of the worldincluding the US, Europe and Japan, companies are investing billions sothat they can capture and tap the youth market segment but at the sametime they are also reaping billions in return. Adver tisers andmarketers are entrusted with the task to achieve sales targets bygenerating desired actions from the segment. The wide appeal hasmotivated many professionals to enter and adopt whatever means andmeasures to achieve their targets. Ethical implications surpasses but afew in the field of advertising that target children. For these reasonsthe authority, lobbyists and parents are demonstrating their concernsregarding the impact of media and advertising on children. Thefollowing literature review will first outline why and how children aretargeted, followed by a review of the kind of ethical implicationsadvertising and the media has on children. This will be followed by anexploration of the measures that are being taken to counteract theproblem, if any. Advertising to children has not been an issue until recently withthe boom of the media. More and more parents are concerned about thelegal controls that the authority levy on advertising criteria as mostare concerned about the kind of tactics advertisers are using toinfluence children for the sake of maximizing their profits. Forexample Bejot and Doittau (2004) note that pornography, cigarette andtobacco related, alcohol and other products prohibited for children arebeing promoted on television freely without restriction. Advertisementmessages for these adult related products are tailored for adultconsumption but due to the appeal of mass viewership and the higherprofits, the advertisements are aired during children televisionprimetime. As a result the advertisements expose children to contentsthat are not meant for them. Had that been the only case then the issueof advertisement would not have been so controversial. Research suggest that children between the ages of 6 and 14 years oldwatch about 25 hours of television per week in the US and they areexposed to 20,000 commercials in a   year (Moore and Lutz 2000).Children at this age are vulnerable because they are developing a senseto comprehend and evaluate messages in the environment. Stimulatedmessages on television not only have a harmful impact but they are alsodetrimental in persuading children to develop wants for products thatare not meant for them. According to Moore and Lutz (2000) Beyondadvertisements, children gain marketplace information from the productsthey encounter, advice from friends and relatives, and their ownconsumption experiences. Through consumption, children learn whatproducts are good and bad, whether advertising claims are truthful,what brands they prefer, and even products that convey social meaningsapart from their functional properties. For children the experiencesthat heighten their importance in their social cir cle and the adultworld have the most meaning. They do not have the ability to counteractor check on the viability or the authenticity of the message initiallywhen they are young as they are dependent on adults for explanatoryinformation accessible only through print media. By the time childrengrow to the teenage level the functionality of literacy diminishes tobe replaced by their desire and need to fit in their social life.Without consideration for product usefulness or content, childrendevelop wants for products beyond their pockets and reach. Similarly, children are also exposed to advertisements for fashionproducts that are actually designed for adult consumers but they areoften condensed to tailor to the younger audience with the purpose toinclude the young consumers in the marketing campaigns. For this reasonchildren develop receptivity for fashion products without the requiredinformation for decision making.   Moore and Lutz (2000) recognize theimportance of childrens advertising and its impact on young audienceby revealing that children are receptive to advertising demonstrated inexperiments of relation between ads and products. They write: Research investigating childrens receptivity to televisionadvertising has studied what children understand, under whatcircumstances they are persuaded, and how their responses evolve asthey mature (e.g. Macklin 1987; Roedder 1981). Drawing extensively oninformation processing and stage models, researchers have gainedsubstantial insight into the development of childrens cognitive skillsand their deployment during ad processing. (Moore and Lutz 2000). Their research indicates that children are at a stage where they aredeveloping cognitive abilities. Advertisers vie on this susceptibledevelopmental stage by targeting the limited processors of childrenthat have not yet acquired efficient information processing strategies,a fact that may be reflected in their inability to distinguish betweencentral and peripheral content in message learning. (Moore and Lutz2000). They further this idea by writing that at the stage of ages 8and 12 children are susceptible to information that are stimulated andthat target the vulnerability of the strategic processors.   Because atthis age group children tend to spontaneously employ efficientinformation storage and retrieval strategies. They organize andretrieve information based on available information and stimulus. Unless their knowledge of advertising is expressly activated by such acue, these children tend not to think critically or generatecounterarguments spontaneously. They may also neglect to differentiatebetween central and peripheral content when learning new information.When there is an appropriate cue in their environment, however, theyare likely to retrieve and use relevant information. (Moore and Lutz2000). Therefore children may develop recognition mechanism on how advertisingshould be viewed but that is dependent on external factors likeparental guide, government policies or other mediating channels.Evidence suggests that there is substantial amount of influence on thisage group when they are not guided in the preliminary stages inunderstanding the intent of advertisements. Research reveals thatsignificant guidelines must be levied before children rationale anddeliberate on the content of advertisements shown on television.Advertising is thus implicitly accorded substantial power to shapechildrens thinking until they acquire sufficient cognitive andattitudinal defences. (Moore and Lutz 2000). Other than the cognitive development impressions on children,advertising also influence them to take actions. In a study by Smithand Swinyard (1982) on consumer behaviour and response towards producttrials offer through advertisements suggests that because consumersknow that advertisers wish to present their brands in a favourablelight, they react to ads by partially discounting claims and formingtentatively held brand beliefs and attitudes. In contrast whenconsumers have direct usage experience, they form stronger, moreconfidently held brand beliefs and attitudes. This phenomenon has beenobserved in a number of studies with adults and may be consistent withthe case of children. The same expectations is held with regard tochildren advertising as researchers are of the opinion that with age,the capacity to form brand opinions tend to be more among olderchildren. For example children of age groups 10 and 12, and 12 and 14year olds tend to tell the truth and more likely to be scepticalt owards the institution of advertising rather than blindly acceptadvertisement claims. According to Michel Bejot and Barbara Doittau (2004) childrenadvertising are dynamic and highly appealing. The authors are of theopinion that children are the key target for advertisers because brandpreferences in this age group remain unchanged for a long time.Children remain loyal to the brands they are used to yet at the sametime they have growing pockets to afford more expensive items as theygrow older. The above aspects indicate that children though are smart andknowledgeable to sceptically evaluate and experiment with productsthrough advertisement claims they are also aware of the fact that theseadvertisers claim may not be true. At this point it is arguable tonote that some school of thoughts separate the vulnerable youngstersfrom the smart young consumers who have the cognitive ability tocritically examine the advertisement claims and disregard them if notproven true. According to Robertson and Rossiter (1974) if ads presentinformation different from a childs actual experien ce, confusion mayresult and trust in advertising may be determined. Conversely, otherssuggest that until children actually experience discrepancies betweenproducts as advertised and as consumed, they are unable to fullycomprehend advertisings persuasive intent. For this reason Moore andLutz (2000) claim that advertising use frames for product trials knownas transformational advertising in which adult consumers are drawntowards the products prior to advertising exposures by asking them toparticipate in the process of experimenting and interacting with theproduct with the view to interpret, evaluate and subsequently formtheir experience impressions. The expectancy or discrepancy frame setsare formed for comparison of later product trials which help indetermining discrepancies or consistencies of product qualities. Mooreand Lutz (2000) present the testing paradigm to show that rationalconsumers are clever in testing advertising claims of productperformances. Testing paradigm enable the m the opportunity to evaluateand form opinions. Children, on the other hand do not have the samereaction or taste for distinguishing discrepancy in the same manner. On the other hand Siegler (1996) believes that advertising and producttrials have different effects on childrens capacity to integratemultiple sources of information for consideration. Young children tendto engage in one-dimensional thinking pattern and rely on multipledimensions for a given task. Integration is imperative for childrenbecause they are dependent on this integration processing ofinformation for forming perceptual domains and consumer behaviour. Whenyounger children are presented with information it is encoded andstored in the recesses of the mind, and whenever needed retrieve it forevaluation. Information integration is basically combining newinformation presented in the media with the old information, andcomparing the two. Disparate media information result in discrepancy inexperience. This in turn results in loss of trust in advertisementmessages. Not all children however are wise enough to discriminate information.Moore and Lutz (2000) believe that age differences differentiateexpectations and credibility of advertising. They write Youngerchildren have been found to hold more positive attitudes aboutadvertising, to be more likely to believe its claims, and to be lesslikely to understand its essential purpose. Thus, among youngerchildren advertisings credibility is not likely to arise as a concern,and they are likely to perceive both advertising and a product trialexperience as believable sources of information. (Moore and Lutz2000). Clearly, this statement identifies with the fact that youngerchildren are more susceptible to advertising and they are prone to takeactions without critical evaluation. For older children advertisers maynot integrate strong expectations about a brand and instead focus onthe stronger results to generate confidence in product usage (Fazio1986). Alternatively there are groups of advertisers who vie on the physicalhabits of children. For example one of the most invidious techniques isto use junk food in advertising for children. The use of celebrities toendorse these foods without any consideration for balanced diet orfitness is common in the industry. In the UK the BBC which is fundedby licence and tax payers, received around 32 million pounds in 2001for franchising its Tweenies characters to McDonalds the FoodCommission found that the Tweenies products were high in junkelements. Despite this fact the UK government continues to allowbrands such as Cadburys to market its products and launch campaignsthat have negative effects on the physical health of children. Theseefforts are designed to generate more profits and not the publicinterest. They are aware of the fact that the lack of exercise coupledwith high calorie food result in obesity and other related diseases inchildren. The rate of obesity has doubled in the past 10 ye ars from 8.5percent to 15 percent among children under 16 years (The Lancet 2003).Yet advertisements continue to infiltrate the media and other channelswith the objective to vie on children. Children have long been recognized as the target market for manycompanies due to its economic potential. Recent estimates by Moore(2004) indicate that children and associated markets account for 24billion dollars of direct spending and it has an additional 500 billiondollars influence over family purchases. Children are considered to bepotential gold mines for campaigners and advertisers alike. Televisionchannels and the print media as well as companies are constantlyengaged in complex product placements, sales promotions, packagingdesign, public relations, and in-school marketing activities with theview to reach out to children and their parents. Given the timechildren spend in front of the television, on the Internet and mediagadgets, marketers realize that children form a huge consumer base fortoys, breakfast cereals, candy and snacks etc. For this purpose thereare more and more commercials on television to induce buying preferenceand action. TV commercials especially are being de veloped to inducechildren to purchase and participate in programs promoting cars,fashion, cell phones and other such adult related products. Accordingto Moore (2004) At the root of the childrens advertising debate isthe question of childrens unique vulnerabilities. Concerns about youngchildren range from their inability to resist specific selling effortsto a fear that without benefit of well-developed critical thinkingskills they may learn undesirable social values such as materialism†(Macklin, 1986 qt. Moore 2004). Her view is also affirmed by Acuff andReiher (1998) who indicate through their study that children aresusceptible to advertisements because of the extensive measures andstrategies adopted by the advertisers. Their study reveals thatmarketers devise winning formulas to gain the confidence of children bysending out messages that winning children are those who are associatedwith certain brands. These may be Barbie, He-Man, Teletubbies orSpider-Man. Identification and association are the keys to the winningformula. The success rate of the winning formula depends on how deep an impactthe product or brand has through the advertisements. These aredeveloped based on the knowledge of the development of the mind of thegrowing consumers. The product leverage mix is formed based onqualities that are demanded by children such as characteristics of ahero, power of a character and/or qualities of the product. The productleverage matrix is a comprehensive model formed for analyzing the needsand wants of the young consumers and a guide to allow marketers to havea look at the bigger picture. Once the matrix is determined the medium, concept, content, context,process, characters or personality, and attitude or style areestablished. Elements to be noted include: What is the psychologicalpoint of view of the target audience? What are the visual and verbalcontents that will be used for the product? How marketers will form thecontext of the advertisements for the target audience and the kind ofprocesses that will be involved to create an interface for interactionwith the potential consumers? Character association or the use ofpersonality to denote product quality is also common in the designingof the matrix etc. (Acuff and Reiher 1998). The marketers are also aware that young children are intelligentindividuals who exercise their developing cognitive abilities byassociating qualities with certain images. For example Bugs Bunny is aclever rabbit or Kellogg’s Pop Tarts are fruity flavoured etc. They areable to associate as well as distinguish between products andcharacteristics of the products. Identifying the points of differencefrom the children’s perspectives is critical but not impossible. Acuffand Reiher (1998) also note that these are assumptions that adults makeregarding the preferences of children such as teens wanting moreenergy; identifying with hero athletes; wanting great taste or newproduct names. Yet at the same time they also warn the marketers that: more often than not these assumptions are left unexamined as toveracity and strength. Its an important practice to check assumptions:check what the leverage actually is, and its relative power versus whathas been assumed. More often than not, adults make erroneousassumptions about what kids perceive to be important and powerfulbecause adults are looking at their product or program through adulteyes. It is critical to get at the actual leverage rather than theassumed leverage. With the above hypothetical Enerjuice example inmind, adults may be surprised when testing directly with kids focusgroups reveals that the new products blue colour is its most powerfulpoint of leverage and that the majority of kids tested dislike the newname. (Acuff and Reiher 1998). The basic premise in such a condition is that marketers need to ensurethey give promises and fulfil them too thereby gaining competitiveadvantage. This kind of positioning helps them to organize andcategorize products in the mind of the targeted consumers. In the endhowever, the marketers must realize that it is the bigger picture thatneeds to be satisfied that is product leverage matrix. At the centreof the matrix are the crucial elements that should not be neglectedsuch as gender, stage, age, structure, dimension, style and pastexperience. The consumers are at the end of this list and are the mostpowerful deciding factor that can make or break their products. Theyconclude that Successful products and programs are those that satisfytheir needs and wants in the short term (impulse) or in the long term.While a colourful and involving Trix cereal package with a maze on theback provides for short-term needs satisfaction, Mattels Hot Wheelscars year after year continue to provide young boys with something theyneed and want small, easily manipulability, colourful minicars thatare fun and involving to play cars with (Vroom! Vroom!) And toaccumulate and collect. (Acuff and Reiher 1998). Children advertising have attracted legal, scholars and parentalattention. Proponents of the children targeted marketing andadvertising argue that the financial backing that children programs aregetting derive from sponsors who make programs on television possible.Advertising to children are therefore motivated by profitability.Furthermore they also argue that these sponsors target a separate nichemarket of children of age group 12 and 14. Advertising provides themwith product information and does not really provide stimulus aschildren in this age group are more like adults with their specificideologies, attitudes and behaviours where preferences of products andservices are concerned. They have been exposed to persuasive messagesfor a long time and can distinguish persuasive messages from empoweringones. Thus they are product and advertising savvy. On the other hand opponents such as parents and consumer protectiongroups argue that advertising directed at children are not onlyunethical but they are also manipulative stimulants that promoteconsumerism in children from a very young age. Advertisements createwants and poor nutritional habits that induce children to pesterparents for products that are harmful for them (Berlger 1999). Theiropinions have been affirmed by Acuff and Reiher (1997) who suggest thatpreschool children at two and three years old tend to identify withfrequently seen images and therefore would be attracted towardsspokes-character in advertising and marketing. The desire to see thesecharacters and related products they see on television, packaging andpromotions induce demand for the same among children. According to DelVecchio (1998, p. 225), The objective is to select an effective pieceof advertising that will break through clutter, communicate the name ofthe brand, its key feature and benefit, and do so in a cool way thatwill elicit a childs request. Those advertisers are successful whosuccessfully use innovation, meticulous marketing, planning and massiveexposures in their key characters according to Schneider (1989). The ethical dilemma enters the scenario when one refers to the degreeand extent of the use of stimuli. Research indicates thatspokes-characters use role play and features that would relate animatedwith human characters and thereby influence childrens attitudes(Chebat et al 1992). The issues surrounding the use of advertisingcharacters to children stem from the fact that the characters arecommoditized without consideration for its impact on the children.Without regulations, advertisers tend to deviate from the conventionaluse of these characters. They treat children and adult related productsalike. That is perhaps the reason why Cross (2002) indicates that therehas been a rise in restrictions on tobacco advertising during the 1990sto curb tobacco companies from targeting children by the use ofspokes-characters in their advertising and marketing campaigns. In this context advertisements have a deep ethical impact on thecognitive and development of growing children and the authority needsto recognize this fact. According to Roedder (1981) children arevulnerable and fail to utilize cognitive plans for storing andretrieving information. The categorization of processing deficienciesstem from the childs inability to use the actual strategies and aidsfor storing information in the memory. Limited processing capabilitiesin young age group especially induce children to learn throughmemorization and are not capable of using tools for separating,segregating and processing information according to utility. Insteadthey use information incidentally. Television uses fast pace visualgraphics and audiovisual medium to influence preschoolers and aroundthat age group. The effects become consistent when children areregularly exposed to these audiovisual images so that they becomeimprinted on the minds of the young children (Alwitt et al 1980).Animation a nd other stimulus have double impact on the informationprocessors of children. As children become receptive to advertisementsor images that are regularly shown they come to recognize it in theirdaily experiences. Once the images are imprinted in the targeted group’s mind it is easyto generate brand recognition through triggering keys which may be inthe form of visual or audio effects. Spokes-characters such cartooncharacters have this essential effects on the children. Studies havefound that young children often discriminate between products on asimple heuristic of whether one particular quality (which may includebrand name or character) is present or not (Rust and Hyatt 1991 qt.Neeley and Schumann 2004). Another aspect of advertisements is that children tend to associatewith the characters and brand that they prefer. Instilling a brand inchildren’s minds is easy when spokes-characters are used to define thequalities of the products. For example in Bahns (1996) study four andfive year olds proved to be receptive to product characteristics byinferring spokes-characters. Bahn gives the example of cereal boxes.Boxes with cartoons are associated with sugary and sweet cereal meantfor kids while those that do not have cartoons are bland and notsweet, and are meant for adults. This logic for cereal preferences andchoices indicate that advertisements with their logos, characters andcartoons all have a great impact on the minds of young children in thisage group. While Bahns example seem harmless whereby advertisers are merely usingthe characteristics and qualities of products to appeal to the youngconsumers, Fischer et als (1991) example raises ethical dilemma. Intheir study the researchers asked children ages three to six toidentify logo brands with the appropriate product. They observe thatchildren tend to associate the Old Joe character with cigarettes. Thisassociation has been developed through the inference of the Cameladvertisements that uses Old Joe a cartoon character for brandpersonalization. Hence, the researchers conclude that regardless of theintentions of advertisers and marketers, the effects of advertising onchildren are inevitable. Yet there are arguments against this view by psychologists such asPiaget (1929). This group of individuals are of the view thatpreoperational children between ages two and seven do not reallyprocess information logically or abstractly. They rely on processingstrategies such as â€Å"transductive† to connect between thoughts andreasoning and therefore not susceptible to the underlying qualities.They may understand simple expressions of but have difficulty inassociating it with product differentiation. Consequently Neeley andSchumann (2004) write: While research findings show that young children can exhibit highlevels of character/product recognition, association, and affect, thechallenge arises when we assume that these early responses lead toproduct preference, intention, and choice. Recognition, association,and affect are manifestations of simpler cognitive processing abilitiesthan preference, intention, and choice, and research supports thenotion that these simple abilities would be present in children asyoung as two or three years old. More advanced cognitive abilities arerequired for the later behavioural stages of preference, intention, andchoice because these responses require a child to position one item(e.g., brand/product) relative to others, something that a child maynot be able to d Challenges of Marketing to Children Challenges of Marketing to Children Creating outstanding products and programs to win marketplace is not an easy job. Specialists in marketing have to develop comprehensive research plans, carry out market researches, analyze the data collected and finally come up with marketing plans that target specific consumer segments. Finding out about human psychology, their preferences, choices and appeals are not only difficult but at times disappointingly inaccurate. Yet marketers today consider themselves experts in such endeavours, and are capable of achieving the almost impossible marketing objectives.   As if these aspects of marketing are not difficult enough, in modern-day marketing field there is a niche in which the marketers have to deal with children. The most difficult task is perhaps the determination of the choices and preferences of these fickle individuals who are still developing, absorbing the environment and learning to become like their adult counterparts. The task of marketing to children is not only daunting but also critical for many businesses such as Nike, Microsoft, Johnson Johnson, Disney, Pepsi, Sega, Kellogs and Mattel to name a few. These companies go through extensive research and consultancy to get to the untapped market of child consumers. One such example is evident in Dan S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher’s (1998) Youth Market Systems.  According to the authors the development of outstanding products and programs to win childrens marketplace is entirely different from the rest of the market segments. For this purpose they invent a marketing process called Youth Market Systems. The System ensures marketers consider all aspects of marketing to children or teens for any category of goods or services that companies want to sell. There Isa great need for a system of analysis and interpretation as the authors feel that information pertaining to cognitive, emotional and social needs of age groups could transform the programs or product features that target them. Acuff and Reihers (1998) strategy merely opens a window to the world of advertising to children. As one investigates the categories of products and services that are available to young children, one also tend to develop the consistent belief that children are a separate kind of consumer group and must be treated differently, from advertising to the designing of products. All these efforts no doubt are valid and justified in their own place and position, however a niggling thought crosses the mind when one observes the various approaches and efforts that marketers adopt to reach out to the vulnerable youth consumer segment. There are reasons for these tactics. Acuff and Reiher record approximately $1 billion annual gross revenue for Mattel Incorporated that sells Barbies. There are others such as Garfield, He-Man, Cabbage Patch Kids, Power Rangers, LEGO, GI Joes and a myriad of upcoming products invading the market with the sole purpose to tap on these young consumers who are bound by childish emotions and penchant for toys and games. Schemes and strategies are being devised to win over these young consumers for highs takes amounting to billions of pounds. What is more, advertising and marketing to children does not only involve the youngsters but their parents also. For example the Youth Market System identifies parents, grand parents and other close family members as the most influential on children’s purchasing decision. Exploring this group is critical because they are the ones who have control over the wallet and it is on them that children are dependent. The complexity in children marketing therefore lies in attracting both the youngsters and appealing to the parents. A winning formula must be developed to attract both the parents and children. The complexity of this formula makes success rate low which induces marketers to resort to all kinds of schemes and strategies to achieve their desired target, including crossing the line of ethics especially in the field of advertising of children related products (Acuff and Reiher 1998). Scholars and parents alike feel that there are no avenues that advertisers and businesses will not exploit to reach to the young consumers. Exploitations through mental, moral and physical developments of children are common. The strategies to target children involve creation of wants to satisfy the impulse rather than actual needs. For example consoles such as Mattels Hot Wheels, and Barbie’s fashion collections are not really required by children but wants created by advertisers and marketing campaigns. Long term needs satisfaction has been replaced by short term needs. They are not the only ones exploited. Their parents are also plagued with different kinds of created needs for their children such as the well being; status symbol; and their selfish need to have their child preoccupied with the multitude of products and free them from child responsibilities. These aspects portray not only the ugly but also the unethicalsides of the world of advertising. How true are these aspects and towhat extent do advertisers reach to capture their target consumers? Dothey cross the borders of ethics or not to maximise gains from avulnerable consumer market? And what, if anything, should be done tocontrol and ultimately restrict the freedom of advertising aimed atchildren are some of the areas that the following research willendeavour to enumerate. Children have become the key target for many advertisers. Childrenare vulnerable, easy to exploit consumers and they perceive things asadvertisers want them to perceive, or so many of us believe. Despitethe fact that children are nowadays smart and knowledgeable of themarketplace nevertheless for many marketers they are relatively easy totarget due to the sheer size of the childrens consumer market.Advertisers thrive by earning billions of pounds with the backing andfunding of the profit seeking organizations that hire them. Thesecompanies are not only producing goods that appeal to the children butthey are also exploiting their parents. The dual targeting approachmakes this market segment attractive as well as representative of highyield for investment. For example in many regions of the worldincluding the US, Europe and Japan, companies are investing billions sothat they can capture and tap the youth market segment but at the sametime they are also reaping billions in return. Adver tisers andmarketers are entrusted with the task to achieve sales targets bygenerating desired actions from the segment. The wide appeal hasmotivated many professionals to enter and adopt whatever means andmeasures to achieve their targets. Ethical implications surpasses but afew in the field of advertising that target children. For these reasonsthe authority, lobbyists and parents are demonstrating their concernsregarding the impact of media and advertising on children. Thefollowing literature review will first outline why and how children aretargeted, followed by a review of the kind of ethical implicationsadvertising and the media has on children. This will be followed by anexploration of the measures that are being taken to counteract theproblem, if any. Advertising to children has not been an issue until recently withthe boom of the media. More and more parents are concerned about thelegal controls that the authority levy on advertising criteria as mostare concerned about the kind of tactics advertisers are using toinfluence children for the sake of maximizing their profits. Forexample Bejot and Doittau (2004) note that pornography, cigarette andtobacco related, alcohol and other products prohibited for children arebeing promoted on television freely without restriction. Advertisementmessages for these adult related products are tailored for adultconsumption but due to the appeal of mass viewership and the higherprofits, the advertisements are aired during children televisionprimetime. As a result the advertisements expose children to contentsthat are not meant for them. Had that been the only case then the issueof advertisement would not have been so controversial. Research suggest that children between the ages of 6 and 14 years oldwatch about 25 hours of television per week in the US and they areexposed to 20,000 commercials in a   year (Moore and Lutz 2000).Children at this age are vulnerable because they are developing a senseto comprehend and evaluate messages in the environment. Stimulatedmessages on television not only have a harmful impact but they are alsodetrimental in persuading children to develop wants for products thatare not meant for them. According to Moore and Lutz (2000) Beyondadvertisements, children gain marketplace information from the productsthey encounter, advice from friends and relatives, and their ownconsumption experiences. Through consumption, children learn whatproducts are good and bad, whether advertising claims are truthful,what brands they prefer, and even products that convey social meaningsapart from their functional properties. For children the experiencesthat heighten their importance in their social cir cle and the adultworld have the most meaning. They do not have the ability to counteractor check on the viability or the authenticity of the message initiallywhen they are young as they are dependent on adults for explanatoryinformation accessible only through print media. By the time childrengrow to the teenage level the functionality of literacy diminishes tobe replaced by their desire and need to fit in their social life.Without consideration for product usefulness or content, childrendevelop wants for products beyond their pockets and reach. Similarly, children are also exposed to advertisements for fashionproducts that are actually designed for adult consumers but they areoften condensed to tailor to the younger audience with the purpose toinclude the young consumers in the marketing campaigns. For this reasonchildren develop receptivity for fashion products without the requiredinformation for decision making.   Moore and Lutz (2000) recognize theimportance of childrens advertising and its impact on young audienceby revealing that children are receptive to advertising demonstrated inexperiments of relation between ads and products. They write: Research investigating childrens receptivity to televisionadvertising has studied what children understand, under whatcircumstances they are persuaded, and how their responses evolve asthey mature (e.g. Macklin 1987; Roedder 1981). Drawing extensively oninformation processing and stage models, researchers have gainedsubstantial insight into the development of childrens cognitive skillsand their deployment during ad processing. (Moore and Lutz 2000). Their research indicates that children are at a stage where they aredeveloping cognitive abilities. Advertisers vie on this susceptibledevelopmental stage by targeting the limited processors of childrenthat have not yet acquired efficient information processing strategies,a fact that may be reflected in their inability to distinguish betweencentral and peripheral content in message learning. (Moore and Lutz2000). They further this idea by writing that at the stage of ages 8and 12 children are susceptible to information that are stimulated andthat target the vulnerability of the strategic processors.   Because atthis age group children tend to spontaneously employ efficientinformation storage and retrieval strategies. They organize andretrieve information based on available information and stimulus. Unless their knowledge of advertising is expressly activated by such acue, these children tend not to think critically or generatecounterarguments spontaneously. They may also neglect to differentiatebetween central and peripheral content when learning new information.When there is an appropriate cue in their environment, however, theyare likely to retrieve and use relevant information. (Moore and Lutz2000). Therefore children may develop recognition mechanism on how advertisingshould be viewed but that is dependent on external factors likeparental guide, government policies or other mediating channels.Evidence suggests that there is substantial amount of influence on thisage group when they are not guided in the preliminary stages inunderstanding the intent of advertisements. Research reveals thatsignificant guidelines must be levied before children rationale anddeliberate on the content of advertisements shown on television.Advertising is thus implicitly accorded substantial power to shapechildrens thinking until they acquire sufficient cognitive andattitudinal defences. (Moore and Lutz 2000). Other than the cognitive development impressions on children,advertising also influence them to take actions. In a study by Smithand Swinyard (1982) on consumer behaviour and response towards producttrials offer through advertisements suggests that because consumersknow that advertisers wish to present their brands in a favourablelight, they react to ads by partially discounting claims and formingtentatively held brand beliefs and attitudes. In contrast whenconsumers have direct usage experience, they form stronger, moreconfidently held brand beliefs and attitudes. This phenomenon has beenobserved in a number of studies with adults and may be consistent withthe case of children. The same expectations is held with regard tochildren advertising as researchers are of the opinion that with age,the capacity to form brand opinions tend to be more among olderchildren. For example children of age groups 10 and 12, and 12 and 14year olds tend to tell the truth and more likely to be scepticalt owards the institution of advertising rather than blindly acceptadvertisement claims. According to Michel Bejot and Barbara Doittau (2004) childrenadvertising are dynamic and highly appealing. The authors are of theopinion that children are the key target for advertisers because brandpreferences in this age group remain unchanged for a long time.Children remain loyal to the brands they are used to yet at the sametime they have growing pockets to afford more expensive items as theygrow older. The above aspects indicate that children though are smart andknowledgeable to sceptically evaluate and experiment with productsthrough advertisement claims they are also aware of the fact that theseadvertisers claim may not be true. At this point it is arguable tonote that some school of thoughts separate the vulnerable youngstersfrom the smart young consumers who have the cognitive ability tocritically examine the advertisement claims and disregard them if notproven true. According to Robertson and Rossiter (1974) if ads presentinformation different from a childs actual experien ce, confusion mayresult and trust in advertising may be determined. Conversely, otherssuggest that until children actually experience discrepancies betweenproducts as advertised and as consumed, they are unable to fullycomprehend advertisings persuasive intent. For this reason Moore andLutz (2000) claim that advertising use frames for product trials knownas transformational advertising in which adult consumers are drawntowards the products prior to advertising exposures by asking them toparticipate in the process of experimenting and interacting with theproduct with the view to interpret, evaluate and subsequently formtheir experience impressions. The expectancy or discrepancy frame setsare formed for comparison of later product trials which help indetermining discrepancies or consistencies of product qualities. Mooreand Lutz (2000) present the testing paradigm to show that rationalconsumers are clever in testing advertising claims of productperformances. Testing paradigm enable the m the opportunity to evaluateand form opinions. Children, on the other hand do not have the samereaction or taste for distinguishing discrepancy in the same manner. On the other hand Siegler (1996) believes that advertising and producttrials have different effects on childrens capacity to integratemultiple sources of information for consideration. Young children tendto engage in one-dimensional thinking pattern and rely on multipledimensions for a given task. Integration is imperative for childrenbecause they are dependent on this integration processing ofinformation for forming perceptual domains and consumer behaviour. Whenyounger children are presented with information it is encoded andstored in the recesses of the mind, and whenever needed retrieve it forevaluation. Information integration is basically combining newinformation presented in the media with the old information, andcomparing the two. Disparate media information result in discrepancy inexperience. This in turn results in loss of trust in advertisementmessages. Not all children however are wise enough to discriminate information.Moore and Lutz (2000) believe that age differences differentiateexpectations and credibility of advertising. They write Youngerchildren have been found to hold more positive attitudes aboutadvertising, to be more likely to believe its claims, and to be lesslikely to understand its essential purpose. Thus, among youngerchildren advertisings credibility is not likely to arise as a concern,and they are likely to perceive both advertising and a product trialexperience as believable sources of information. (Moore and Lutz2000). Clearly, this statement identifies with the fact that youngerchildren are more susceptible to advertising and they are prone to takeactions without critical evaluation. For older children advertisers maynot integrate strong expectations about a brand and instead focus onthe stronger results to generate confidence in product usage (Fazio1986). Alternatively there are groups of advertisers who vie on the physicalhabits of children. For example one of the most invidious techniques isto use junk food in advertising for children. The use of celebrities toendorse these foods without any consideration for balanced diet orfitness is common in the industry. In the UK the BBC which is fundedby licence and tax payers, received around 32 million pounds in 2001for franchising its Tweenies characters to McDonalds the FoodCommission found that the Tweenies products were high in junkelements. Despite this fact the UK government continues to allowbrands such as Cadburys to market its products and launch campaignsthat have negative effects on the physical health of children. Theseefforts are designed to generate more profits and not the publicinterest. They are aware of the fact that the lack of exercise coupledwith high calorie food result in obesity and other related diseases inchildren. The rate of obesity has doubled in the past 10 ye ars from 8.5percent to 15 percent among children under 16 years (The Lancet 2003).Yet advertisements continue to infiltrate the media and other channelswith the objective to vie on children. Children have long been recognized as the target market for manycompanies due to its economic potential. Recent estimates by Moore(2004) indicate that children and associated markets account for 24billion dollars of direct spending and it has an additional 500 billiondollars influence over family purchases. Children are considered to bepotential gold mines for campaigners and advertisers alike. Televisionchannels and the print media as well as companies are constantlyengaged in complex product placements, sales promotions, packagingdesign, public relations, and in-school marketing activities with theview to reach out to children and their parents. Given the timechildren spend in front of the television, on the Internet and mediagadgets, marketers realize that children form a huge consumer base fortoys, breakfast cereals, candy and snacks etc. For this purpose thereare more and more commercials on television to induce buying preferenceand action. TV commercials especially are being de veloped to inducechildren to purchase and participate in programs promoting cars,fashion, cell phones and other such adult related products. Accordingto Moore (2004) At the root of the childrens advertising debate isthe question of childrens unique vulnerabilities. Concerns about youngchildren range from their inability to resist specific selling effortsto a fear that without benefit of well-developed critical thinkingskills they may learn undesirable social values such as materialism†(Macklin, 1986 qt. Moore 2004). Her view is also affirmed by Acuff andReiher (1998) who indicate through their study that children aresusceptible to advertisements because of the extensive measures andstrategies adopted by the advertisers. Their study reveals thatmarketers devise winning formulas to gain the confidence of children bysending out messages that winning children are those who are associatedwith certain brands. These may be Barbie, He-Man, Teletubbies orSpider-Man. Identification and association are the keys to the winningformula. The success rate of the winning formula depends on how deep an impactthe product or brand has through the advertisements. These aredeveloped based on the knowledge of the development of the mind of thegrowing consumers. The product leverage mix is formed based onqualities that are demanded by children such as characteristics of ahero, power of a character and/or qualities of the product. The productleverage matrix is a comprehensive model formed for analyzing the needsand wants of the young consumers and a guide to allow marketers to havea look at the bigger picture. Once the matrix is determined the medium, concept, content, context,process, characters or personality, and attitude or style areestablished. Elements to be noted include: What is the psychologicalpoint of view of the target audience? What are the visual and verbalcontents that will be used for the product? How marketers will form thecontext of the advertisements for the target audience and the kind ofprocesses that will be involved to create an interface for interactionwith the potential consumers? Character association or the use ofpersonality to denote product quality is also common in the designingof the matrix etc. (Acuff and Reiher 1998). The marketers are also aware that young children are intelligentindividuals who exercise their developing cognitive abilities byassociating qualities with certain images. For example Bugs Bunny is aclever rabbit or Kellogg’s Pop Tarts are fruity flavoured etc. They areable to associate as well as distinguish between products andcharacteristics of the products. Identifying the points of differencefrom the children’s perspectives is critical but not impossible. Acuffand Reiher (1998) also note that these are assumptions that adults makeregarding the preferences of children such as teens wanting moreenergy; identifying with hero athletes; wanting great taste or newproduct names. Yet at the same time they also warn the marketers that: more often than not these assumptions are left unexamined as toveracity and strength. Its an important practice to check assumptions:check what the leverage actually is, and its relative power versus whathas been assumed. More often than not, adults make erroneousassumptions about what kids perceive to be important and powerfulbecause adults are looking at their product or program through adulteyes. It is critical to get at the actual leverage rather than theassumed leverage. With the above hypothetical Enerjuice example inmind, adults may be surprised when testing directly with kids focusgroups reveals that the new products blue colour is its most powerfulpoint of leverage and that the majority of kids tested dislike the newname. (Acuff and Reiher 1998). The basic premise in such a condition is that marketers need to ensurethey give promises and fulfil them too thereby gaining competitiveadvantage. This kind of positioning helps them to organize andcategorize products in the mind of the targeted consumers. In the endhowever, the marketers must realize that it is the bigger picture thatneeds to be satisfied that is product leverage matrix. At the centreof the matrix are the crucial elements that should not be neglectedsuch as gender, stage, age, structure, dimension, style and pastexperience. The consumers are at the end of this list and are the mostpowerful deciding factor that can make or break their products. Theyconclude that Successful products and programs are those that satisfytheir needs and wants in the short term (impulse) or in the long term.While a colourful and involving Trix cereal package with a maze on theback provides for short-term needs satisfaction, Mattels Hot Wheelscars year after year continue to provide young boys with something theyneed and want small, easily manipulability, colourful minicars thatare fun and involving to play cars with (Vroom! Vroom!) And toaccumulate and collect. (Acuff and Reiher 1998). Children advertising have attracted legal, scholars and parentalattention. Proponents of the children targeted marketing andadvertising argue that the financial backing that children programs aregetting derive from sponsors who make programs on television possible.Advertising to children are therefore motivated by profitability.Furthermore they also argue that these sponsors target a separate nichemarket of children of age group 12 and 14. Advertising provides themwith product information and does not really provide stimulus aschildren in this age group are more like adults with their specificideologies, attitudes and behaviours where preferences of products andservices are concerned. They have been exposed to persuasive messagesfor a long time and can distinguish persuasive messages from empoweringones. Thus they are product and advertising savvy. On the other hand opponents such as parents and consumer protectiongroups argue that advertising directed at children are not onlyunethical but they are also manipulative stimulants that promoteconsumerism in children from a very young age. Advertisements createwants and poor nutritional habits that induce children to pesterparents for products that are harmful for them (Berlger 1999). Theiropinions have been affirmed by Acuff and Reiher (1997) who suggest thatpreschool children at two and three years old tend to identify withfrequently seen images and therefore would be attracted towardsspokes-character in advertising and marketing. The desire to see thesecharacters and related products they see on television, packaging andpromotions induce demand for the same among children. According to DelVecchio (1998, p. 225), The objective is to select an effective pieceof advertising that will break through clutter, communicate the name ofthe brand, its key feature and benefit, and do so in a cool way thatwill elicit a childs request. Those advertisers are successful whosuccessfully use innovation, meticulous marketing, planning and massiveexposures in their key characters according to Schneider (1989). The ethical dilemma enters the scenario when one refers to the degreeand extent of the use of stimuli. Research indicates thatspokes-characters use role play and features that would relate animatedwith human characters and thereby influence childrens attitudes(Chebat et al 1992). The issues surrounding the use of advertisingcharacters to children stem from the fact that the characters arecommoditized without consideration for its impact on the children.Without regulations, advertisers tend to deviate from the conventionaluse of these characters. They treat children and adult related productsalike. That is perhaps the reason why Cross (2002) indicates that therehas been a rise in restrictions on tobacco advertising during the 1990sto curb tobacco companies from targeting children by the use ofspokes-characters in their advertising and marketing campaigns. In this context advertisements have a deep ethical impact on thecognitive and development of growing children and the authority needsto recognize this fact. According to Roedder (1981) children arevulnerable and fail to utilize cognitive plans for storing andretrieving information. The categorization of processing deficienciesstem from the childs inability to use the actual strategies and aidsfor storing information in the memory. Limited processing capabilitiesin young age group especially induce children to learn throughmemorization and are not capable of using tools for separating,segregating and processing information according to utility. Insteadthey use information incidentally. Television uses fast pace visualgraphics and audiovisual medium to influence preschoolers and aroundthat age group. The effects become consistent when children areregularly exposed to these audiovisual images so that they becomeimprinted on the minds of the young children (Alwitt et al 1980).Animation a nd other stimulus have double impact on the informationprocessors of children. As children become receptive to advertisementsor images that are regularly shown they come to recognize it in theirdaily experiences. Once the images are imprinted in the targeted group’s mind it is easyto generate brand recognition through triggering keys which may be inthe form of visual or audio effects. Spokes-characters such cartooncharacters have this essential effects on the children. Studies havefound that young children often discriminate between products on asimple heuristic of whether one particular quality (which may includebrand name or character) is present or not (Rust and Hyatt 1991 qt.Neeley and Schumann 2004). Another aspect of advertisements is that children tend to associatewith the characters and brand that they prefer. Instilling a brand inchildren’s minds is easy when spokes-characters are used to define thequalities of the products. For example in Bahns (1996) study four andfive year olds proved to be receptive to product characteristics byinferring spokes-characters. Bahn gives the example of cereal boxes.Boxes with cartoons are associated with sugary and sweet cereal meantfor kids while those that do not have cartoons are bland and notsweet, and are meant for adults. This logic for cereal preferences andchoices indicate that advertisements with their logos, characters andcartoons all have a great impact on the minds of young children in thisage group. While Bahns example seem harmless whereby advertisers are merely usingthe characteristics and qualities of products to appeal to the youngconsumers, Fischer et als (1991) example raises ethical dilemma. Intheir study the researchers asked children ages three to six toidentify logo brands with the appropriate product. They observe thatchildren tend to associate the Old Joe character with cigarettes. Thisassociation has been developed through the inference of the Cameladvertisements that uses Old Joe a cartoon character for brandpersonalization. Hence, the researchers conclude that regardless of theintentions of advertisers and marketers, the effects of advertising onchildren are inevitable. Yet there are arguments against this view by psychologists such asPiaget (1929). This group of individuals are of the view thatpreoperational children between ages two and seven do not reallyprocess information logically or abstractly. They rely on processingstrategies such as â€Å"transductive† to connect between thoughts andreasoning and therefore not susceptible to the underlying qualities.They may understand simple expressions of but have difficulty inassociating it with product differentiation. Consequently Neeley andSchumann (2004) write: While research findings show that young children can exhibit highlevels of character/product recognition, association, and affect, thechallenge arises when we assume that these early responses lead toproduct preference, intention, and choice. Recognition, association,and affect are manifestations of simpler cognitive processing abilitiesthan preference, intention, and choice, and research supports thenotion that these simple abilities would be present in children asyoung as two or three years old. More advanced cognitive abilities arerequired for the later behavioural stages of preference, intention, andchoice because these responses require a child to position one item(e.g., brand/product) relative to others, something that a child maynot be able to d