s Republic - Gender Equality

Plato’s Republic was perhaps one of the more controversial pieces of writing from its time. In this book, Plato attempted to immortalize the ideals put forward by his teacher and mentor, Socrates the Sophist. Most of Socrates’ beliefs went against Athenian tradition and convention, and as such was subject to great disapproval from influential Athenian superiors. Essentially, Socrates disagreed with virtually every aspect of the way Athens was run. He had his own ideas about the way in which an ideal city should be run, and voiced his opinion on diverse topics of discussion including the role of Athenian women in society. On examination of Socrates’ discourse, as he put forward his viewpoint on a woman’s place in the ideal city in Plato’s Republic, it was glaringly obvious that his opinion would not be embraced open-heartedly by Athenian readers of that time. It was customary in ancient Greece that women’s activities were held completely separate from those of the men. In the time of Homer, women were seen as possessions, as was demonstrated throughout the Iliad, where they were awarded to men as prizes. Their status in society did not improve by very much in later years. In Thucydides’ account, one of the few mentions of women was made by Pericles, in his funeral oration, where he advocated that they should be â€Å"least talked of among the men, whether for good or for bad† (Thuc. 2.45). In essence, women lived in the shadows, unseen, and unheard, with their primary purpose being to bear heirs for their husbands. The proposition put forward in Plato’s Republic was in complete disagreement with this long-standing view of society’s females. The concept that women and men should be treated equally was totally foreign, and the presentation of this idea to any ancient Athenian male would have been immediately scorned. It would have been viewed as totally unacceptable, because this was simply not the way things were do... 's Republic - Gender Equality Free Essays on Plato\'s Republic - Gender Equality Plato’s Republic was perhaps one of the more controversial pieces of writing from its time. In this book, Plato attempted to immortalize the ideals put forward by his teacher and mentor, Socrates the Sophist. Most of Socrates’ beliefs went against Athenian tradition and convention, and as such was subject to great disapproval from influential Athenian superiors. Essentially, Socrates disagreed with virtually every aspect of the way Athens was run. He had his own ideas about the way in which an ideal city should be run, and voiced his opinion on diverse topics of discussion including the role of Athenian women in society. On examination of Socrates’ discourse, as he put forward his viewpoint on a woman’s place in the ideal city in Plato’s Republic, it was glaringly obvious that his opinion would not be embraced open-heartedly by Athenian readers of that time. It was customary in ancient Greece that women’s activities were held completely separate from those of the men. In the time of Homer, women were seen as possessions, as was demonstrated throughout the Iliad, where they were awarded to men as prizes. Their status in society did not improve by very much in later years. In Thucydides’ account, one of the few mentions of women was made by Pericles, in his funeral oration, where he advocated that they should be â€Å"least talked of among the men, whether for good or for bad† (Thuc. 2.45). In essence, women lived in the shadows, unseen, and unheard, with their primary purpose being to bear heirs for their husbands. The proposition put forward in Plato’s Republic was in complete disagreement with this long-standing view of society’s females. The concept that women and men should be treated equally was totally foreign, and the presentation of this idea to any ancient Athenian male would have been immediately scorned. It would have been viewed as totally unacceptable, because this was simply not the way things were do...

How to Demagnetize a Magnet

How to Demagnetize a Magnet A magnet forms when the magnetic dipoles in a material orient in the same general direction. Iron and manganese are two elements that can be made into magnets by aligning the magnetic dipoles in the metal, otherwise these metals are not inherently magnetic. Other types of magnets exist, such as neodymium iron boron (NdFeB), samarium cobalt (SmCo), ceramic (ferrite) magnets, and aluminum nickel cobalt (AlNiCo) magnets. These materials are called permanent magnets, but there are ways to demagnetize them. Basically, its a matter of randomizing the orientation of the magnetic dipole. Heres what you do: Key Takeaways: Demagnetization Demagnetization randomizes the orientation of magnetic dipoles.Demagnetization processes include heating past the Curie point, applying a strong magnetic field, applying alternating current, or hammering the metal.Demagnetization occurs naturally over time. The speed of the process depends on the material, the temperature, and other factors.While demagnetization may occur by accident, it is often performed intentionally when metal parts become magnetized or in order to destroy magnetic-encoded data. Demagnetize a Magnet by Heating or Hammering If you heat a magnet past the temperature called the Curie point, the energy will free the magnetic dipoles from their ordered orientation. The long-range order is destroyed and the material will have little to no magnetization. The temperature required to achieve the effect is a physical property of the particular material. You can get the same effect by repeatedly hammering a magnet, applying pressure, or dropping it on a hard surface. The physical disruption and vibration shake the order out of the material, demagnetizing it. Self Demagnetization Over time, most magnets naturally lose strength as long range ordering is reduced. Some magnets dont last very long, while natural demagnetization is an extremely slow process for others. If you store a bunch of magnets together or randomly rub magnets against each other, each will affect the other, changing the orientation of the magnetic dipoles and lessening the net magnetic field strength. A strong magnet can be used to demagnetize a weaker that has a lower coercive field. Apply AC Current One way to make a magnet is by applying an electrical field (electromagnet), so it makes sense you can use alternating current to remove magnetism, too. To do this, you pass AC current through a solenoid. Start with a higher current and slowly reduce it until its zero. Alternating current rapidly switches directions, changing the orientation of the electromagnetic field. The magnetic dipoles try to orient according to the field, but since its changing, they end up randomized. The core of the material may retain a slight magnetic field due to hysteresis. Note you cant use DC current to achieve the same effect because this type of current only flows in one direction. Applying DC might not increase the strength of a magnet like you might expect, because its unlikely youll run the current through the material in the exact same direction as the orientation of the magnetic dipoles. You will change the orientation of some of the dipoles, but probably not all of them, unless you apply a strong enough current. A Magnetizer Demagnetizer tool is a device you can purchase which applies a strong enough field to change or neutralize a magnetic field. The tool is useful for magnetizing or demagnetizing iron and steel tools, which tend to retain their state unless disturbed. Why You Would Want to Demagnetize a Magnet You may be wondering why youd want to ruin a perfectly good magnet. The answer is that sometimes magnetization is undesirable. For example, if you have a magnetic tape drive or other data storage device and wish to dispose of it, you dont want just anyone to be able to access the data. Demagnetization is one way to remove the data and improve security. There are many situations in which metallic objects become magnetic and cause problems. In some cases, the problem is that the metal now attracts other metals to it, while in other cases, the magnetic field itself presents issues. Examples of materials that are commonly demagnetized include flatware, engine components, tools (although some are intentionally magnetized, like screwdriver bits), metal parts following machining or welding, and metal molds.

A response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A response - Essay Example According to Braun, Justin possessed innate superman’s powers. This is because he could sing, dance and play instruments flawlessly. (Widdicombe 1). As Beibers’ manager, he was able to re-live his childhood dream of becoming a different kind of a superhero (Widdicombe 1) . It is imperative to note that he took his time to study the careers of influential people such as David Geffen who at one point worked in William Morris mailrooms but become a co-founder of the Dream Works. Marketing in this context is the strategies to gain and maintain publicity, fame and success as realized by Beiber and his manager. Their success shows how good marketing can turn over the outcomes of a project. Anything that Justin touches receives a ‘Midas’ touch because it is received positively by the public. In essence, there is nothing negative about Beiber in the context of this industry. Braun has received widespread recognition since the time when he discovered Justin Beiber on YouTube (Widdicombe 1) through his efforts; he made the first successful YouTube superstar (Widdicombe 1). His online influence and off-line marketability are flawlessly entangled. His YouTube channel has close to three billion views, while on Twitter, he acquires a new follower each second. One tweet from Justin can drive his supporters into performing stunning feats (Widdicombe 1). This shows how strong marketing skills can influence the celebrity status of an artist. Beibers position has realized remarkable following that is capable of influencing the market trends of products such as perfumes or the awareness creation on major world issues. Today, his influence as a global brand eclipses his status as an artist. Nonetheless, he still was new songs that his fans are waiting for anxiously. Beibers unprecedented growth has also propelled Braun’s career as he has secured successful

Worldcom Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Worldcom - Article Example He managed his company indirectly and took the firm’s money to spend it on personal purchases which were extravagant in nature. The extravagant lifestyle left him in debt when the company started posting losses. The stock that he took a loan with from the company was the same stock he had used as security for the startup fee of the firm. This is one thing that he kept from the board of directors. He had taken a loan of $415 million and yet he had promised a $1 billion to the creditors, this became a major problem when he failed to meet the financial targets the following year. With the company losing its grip on the share of the market, the 2002 economic downfall of communication companies served as a major blow to the entity. On March of the same year, the SEC investigated the financials of WorldCom which was an economic giant at the time. They found improprieties that led to a 7% drop in the share of the market. This was attributed to the $415 million loan to Ebbers. The firm survived on merger reserves from there on, more inconsistencies were discovered on the reporting of revenues and altering of financial

Critically analyse and discuss whether an international organisation Essay

Critically analyse and discuss whether an international organisation should implement similar human resource management practices across the world or adapt them to suit local conditions - Essay Example 101). An organization with an international presence should endeavor to treat its workers in an impartially but in a culturally ideal way. This paper seeks to examine why it is important for an organization to adapt human resource practices that suit local practices (Aycan, 2005). The moment that an organization opens a branch in another part of the country, it adopts responsibilities that go beyond the primary functions of human resource management. An example of an organization that takes human resource management in the international context seriously is IBM. The company has over 400,000 thousand employees in various parts of the world, and it places a big emphasis on the functions of staffing, training, and employee’s development. IBM does not just deal merely with selecting the best employees to work in their various organizations internationally but they also factor in the needs of the entire family that will accompany the employee in the completely new cultural environment. In the past, IBM has had to reject numerous successful candidates simply because their families could not fit into their new environment (Gooderham & Ringdal, 2006). Over the years, IBM has been organizing training for its employees before they begin their international assig nments just a few months before they depart. The company is also deeply involved in organizing for visas for the employee and anyone else accompanying him. IBM also goes ahead to prepare the residence in the new environment as well as to guarantee health services and placement into schools for employee’s children. This deep involvement ensures that the employee settles in their new job quickly and hence productivity is guaranteed (Kiessling & Harvey, 2005, p. 40). The world has become more aggressive, unsure, and unstable than in any time in history. In order to succeed, many organizations have to fight for a position on the international playing field since

Labelling theory

Labelling theory PROSPER MOTSI 07475594 SWK 1002 Outline labelling theory and consider its usefulness in understanding youth crime and anti-social behaviour in Britain today. Labelling theory is the act of naming, the deployment of language to confer and fix the meanings of behaviour and symbolic internationalism and phenomenology.Tannenbaum,(1938) defines labelling as the process of making the criminal by employing processes of tagging, defining ,identifying,segregating,describing,emphasising,making conscious and self conscious. Labelling theory claims that deviance and conformity results not so much from what people do but from how others respond to those actions, it highlights social responses to crime and deviance Macionis and Plummer, (2005).Deviant behaviour is therefore socially constructed. This essay will describe in full the labelling theory and comment on the importance of the theory to the deviant behaviour of the youth and the anti-social behaviour of the youth in Britain today. The labelling theory becomes dominant in the early 1960s and the late 1970s when it was used as a sociological theory of crime influential in challenging orthodox positivity criminology. The key people to this theory were Becker and Lement.The foundations of this view of deviance are said to have been first established by Lement, (1951) and were subsequently developed by Becker, (1963).As a matter of fact the labelling theory has subsequently become a dominant paradigm in the explanation of devience.The symbolic interaction perspective was extremely active in the early foundations of the labelling theory. The labelling theory is constituted by the assumption that deviant behaviour is to be seen not simply as the violation of a norm but as any behaviour which is successfully defined or labelled as deviant. Deviance is not the act itself but the response others give to that act which means deviance is in the eyes of the beholder. Actually the labelling theory was built on Becker, (1963 :9) statement that Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders-deviance is not a quality of the act of a person commits, but rather a consequences of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied. Deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label. The way out is a refusal to dramatize the evil. The labelling theory connects to great sociological ideas of Dukheim the symbolic interactionism and the conflict theory. The theory also draws from the idea of Thomas (1928) that when people define situations as real they become real in their consequences. Lement ,(1951-1972) distinguishes deviance into primary and secondary deviance in which he described primary deviance as those little reactions from others which have little effect on a persons self concept and secondary deviance as when people push a deviant person out of their social circles which leads the person to be embittered and seek the company of the people who condone his behaviour.Lement further argued that rather than seeing a crime as leading to control it may be more fruitful to see the process as one in which control agencies structured and even generated crime. Secondary deviance leads to what Goffman (1963) deviant career. This will subsequently leads to stigma which is a powerful negative social label that radically changes a persons self concept and social identity. A criminal prosecution is one way that an individual is labelled in a negative rather than in a positive way. Stigmatising people often leads to retrospective labelling which is the interpretation of someones past consistent with the present deviance Seheff; (1984).Retrospective labelling distorts a persons biography in a prejudicial way guided by stigma than any attempt to be fair. No social class stands apart from others as being either criminal or free from criminality. However according to various sociologists people with less stake in society and their own future typically exhibit less resistance to some kinds of devience.Labelling theory asks what happens to criminals after they have been labelled and suggests that crime may be highlighted by criminal sanctions thus sending one to prison may help to criminalise an individual further. Stigmatising young offenders may actually lead them into a criminal career. Howard S.Becker , (1963) one of the earlier interaction theorists claimed that social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. Furthermore the labelling theoretical approach to deviance concentrates on the social reaction to deviance committed by individuals as well as the interaction processes leading up to the labelling. The theory therefore suggests that criminology has been given too much attention to criminals as types of people and insufficient attention to the collection of social control responses. That therefore means the law, the police, the media and the public publications helps to give crime its shape. This is supported by the conflict theory which demonstrates how deviance reflects inequalities and power .This approach holds that the causes of crime may be linked to inequalities of class, race and gender and that who or what is labelled as deviant depends on the relative power of categories of people.Cicourels study on Juvenile justice in California, (1972) pointed out that police stereotypes result in black, white class youth being labelled criminal. The conflict theory links deviance to power in the form of the norms and the laws of most societies which bolster the interests of the rich and powerful. The labelling theory links deviance not to action but to the reaction of others .The concept of stigma, secondary deviance and deviant career demonstrates how people can incorporate the label of deviance into a lasting self-concept. Political leaders recognises that labelling was a political act for it made them aware on which rules to enforce, what behaviour is to regarded as deviant and which people labelled as outsiders may require political assistance Becker,(1963-7).Political leaders went on to produce a series of empirical studies concerning the origins of deviancy definitions through political actions in areas such as drugs legislation, temperance legislation ,delinquency definitions,homosexuality,prostitution and pornography. Becker, (1963) examines the possible effects upon an individual after being publicly labelled as deviant. A label is not neutral; it contains an evaluation of the person to whom it is applied. It will become a master label in the sense that it colours all the other statuses possessed by an individual. If one is labelled as a paedophile, criminal or homosexual it is difficult to reject such labels for those labels largely overrides their original status as parents, worker, neighbour and friend. Others view that person and respond to him or her in terms of the label and tend to assume that individual has the negative characteristics normally associated with such labels. Since an individuals self concept is largely derived from the responses of others they will tend to see themselves in terms of that label. This may produce a self fulfilling prophecy whereby the deviant identification becomes the controlling one. This links to the interactionist approach which emphasizes the importance of the meanings the various actors bring to and develops within the interaction situation. However the labelling theory has its weaknesses which includes Liazos,(1972) who noted that although the labelling theorists aims to humanise the deviant individual and show that he or she is no different than other individuals except perhaps in terms of opportunity. It however by the very emphasis on the deviant and his identity problems and subculture the opposite effect may have been achieved. He further suggested that while considering the more usual everyday types of deviance such as homosexuality, prostitution and juvenile delinquency the labelling theorists have totally ignored a more dangerous and malevolent types of deviance which he termed covert institutional violence. He pointed out that this type of violence leads to such things as poverty and exploitation for example the war in Vietnam, unjust tax laws, racism and sexism. It is questionable whether labelling theorists should even attempt to discuss forms of deviance such as this in the same way as more commonplace indiv idual crimes or whether the two should be kept totally separate being so different in subject matter. Akers, (1994) also criticized the labelling theory by pointing out that it fails to explain why people break the law while the majority conform explaining that people go about minding their own business and then wham-bad society comes along and stops them with a stigmatised label. The theory fails to explain why the moral entrepreneurs react in the manner described but rather blames society and portrays criminals as innocent victims which is not always the case. To counter for the negative effects of punitive measures to youth crime and anti-social behaviour the British government introduced the ASBO and ABC which means anti social behaviour orders and acceptable behaviours respectively.ASBO and ABC are recent developments in Britain which were designed to put a stop to anti-social behaviour by the individual on whom they are imposed.ASBO is a statutory creation and it carries legal force where as an ABC is an informal procedure though not without legal significance. Both types of interventions are aimed at stopping the problem behaviour rather than punishing the offender which may lead an individual into a deviant career. The ABC proved most effective as a means of encouraging young adults, children and parents to take responsibility for unacceptable behaviour. These measures are being used to improve the quality of life for local people by tackling behaviour such as harassment, graffiti, criminal damage and verbal abuse without criminalising the offender. The crime and disorder act (1998) contains the key elements of labours new youth justice system which saw the establishment of the youth justice and the restructuring of the non custodial penalties available to the youth court. The government believed that preventing offending promotes the welfare of the individual young offender and protects the public. The youth justice board oversees the youth offending teams which has a number of roles including assessing the risk and protective factors in a young persons life that relate to their offending behaviour to enable effective interventions to be implemented, providing support to young people who have been released from the custody into the community and early intervention and preventative work both in criminality and anti-social behaviour. To further reduce the effects of labelling the British government is tackling anti-social behaviour and its causes by tackling family problems, poor education attainment, unemployment, alcohol and drug misuse. The most successful interventions to be implemented where noted to be those that engage the individual in changing their own behaviour. This is being done ensuring that an individual understands the impact of their behaviour to the community whilst offering the necessary support to conform. Rather than labelling and criminalising an individual the British government came up with effective advice, councelling and support that enable people who behave anti- Socially to change their behaviour. Perpetrators young and adults have issues in their lives that require the help and support of professional, statutory or voluntary organisations. Issues like money management and debt, communication difficulties with the family, young people struggling within the educational or employment because of offending behaviour and victims of domestic violence can all benefit from available services in Britain today. This essay therefore concludes that labelling theory is enormously influential in directing attention towards the relative and somewhat arbitrary nature of dominant definitions of crime and criminality in Britain. It also critizes the criminal justice and the agencies of social control for it reflects on the consequences of our social reaction and advocates for changes in public policy on juvenile justice, restorative justice,de-institutionalisation   and communitarian approaches. The powerful insights of the labelling theory made the British authorities to rethink again on the tough on crime stance hence the introduction of new restorative measures which does not label or criminalise young offenders. The labelling theory is therefore quite useful in understanding that the rise in the yob culture, gang culture and hoody culture in Britain was a result of criminalising young offenders rather than addressing issues leading the young into crime and anti-social behaviour. Words  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2010 References Berker and Howard, S (1963) Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance, New York: free press Goffman, E (1963) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity, Prentice-hall Hall, S (1978) Policing the crisis, The Macmillan press LTD Haralambos, M and Holborn (1991) Sociology themes and perspectives, Collins education. Macionis, J and Plummer, K (2005) Sociology a global introduction, Pearson education limited. Taylor et al, (1973) the new criminology for a social theory of devience, Routledge 5

Racquetball :: essays research papers

Racquetball is played by two or four players. When played by two, it is called singles and when played by four, doubles. A non-tournament variation of the game that is played by three players is called cut-throat. Racquetball is a competitive game in which a strung racquet is used to serve and return the ball. The objective is to win each rally by serving or returning the ball so the opponent is unable to keep the ball in play. A rally is over when a player (or team in doubles) is unable to hit the ball before it touches the floor twice, is unable to return the ball in such a manner that it touches the front wall before it touches the floor, or when a hinder is called. Points are scored only by the serving side when it serves an irretrievable serve (an ace) or wins a rally. Losing the serve is called a sideout in singles. In doubles, when the first server loses the serve it is called a handout and when the second server loses the serve it is a sideout. A match is won by the first side winning two games. The first two games of a match are played to 15 points. If each side wins one game, a tiebreaker game is played to 11 points. The specifications for the standard four-wall racquetball court follow. (a) Dimensions. The dimensions shall be 20 feet wide, 40 feet long and 20 feet high, with a back wall at least 12 feet high. All surfaces shall be in play, with the exception of any gallery opening, surfaces designated as out-of-play for a valid reason (such as being of a very different material or not in alignment with the backwall), and designated court hinders. (b) Markings. Racquetball courts shall be marked with lines 1 1/2 inches wide as follows: 1. Short Line. The back edge of the short line is midway between, and is parallel with, the front and back walls. 2. Service Line. The front edge of the service line is parallel with, and five feet in front of, the back edge of the short line. 3. Service Zone. The service zone is the 5' x 20' area bounded by the bottom edges of the side walls and by the outer edges of the short line and the service line. 4. Service Boxes. The service boxes, used in doubles play, are located at each end of the service zone and are designated by lines parallel with the side walls.

How Adultery Is Permissible

Erik Turley Paper #4 12/5/11 How Adultery is Permissible In Don Marquis’ â€Å"What’s Wrong with Adultery† he gives several examples of why adultery can be used or justified in a marriage. He brings up issues like one partner agreeing to a marriage contract but not fulfilling their side of the contract in the marriage. Another point he uses is one spouse not fulfilling the others desire in the â€Å"sex and love† department (213). Adultery is a sinful word for many; while some have justifications for the act. I believe that adultery is morally permissible in some cases. In the story Marquis talks about a married couple in a bad relationship.In many cases most people would get a divorce if their relationship broke down to an extent where they could no longer be around each other. But in some cases as Marquis said, that is not the best option for the married couple. Sometimes a married couple has younger children or even teenagers who would be dreadfully hur t if their parents split up. The married couple fears the worst for the kids and stays together for this reason. If they both agree that they cannot satisfy each other’s sexual desires, then what is wrong if they both agree to get that sexual happiness with someone else?If a woman knows and accepts that if her husband is a happier person if he does this, than I believe it is ok. An outside individual might scream this is wrong, but that third party is not in the contract between the married couple. If the couple mutually agrees that those actions would be the best for each one of them and even the best for their immediate family then I believe that adultery is morally permissible in this instance. In Marquis’ story he shows Richard Wasserstrom’s reasons on why adultery is impermissible (209). Marquis disagreed with Wasserstrom’s statement on how adultery is to inflict pain on the spouse.I also disagree with Wasserstrom because that is not the main reason people commit adultery. However, if the reason a spouse commits adultery is to make the other spouse jealous or to intentionally cause pain, then I do believe adultery is impermissible in that case. An example of this is what a younger generation might call these acts of a person as being â€Å"spiteful. † People do spiteful things to intentionally harm another person. I believe that committing adultery to make a spiteful act is very wrong and impermissible. However, adultery may be caused by hundreds of different circumstances.And like Marquis mentioned in almost all of those circumstances a person does not blatantly tell the other spouse of their doing, because they do not want to intentionally hurt the other spouse. If one side is not fulfilling the others needs then I believe adultery is permissible if the spouse is not intentionally trying to inflict pain on the other spouse. We live in a society where other people tell us their feelings on our own personal life. We let others opinions and maybe even decisions affect our lives to an extreme. The only person who really knows and feels what is going on within their relationship is the two spouses involved.They should be able to keep other people’s voices aside and make the best decision for not only themselves, but also for their kids (if any) that are involved. If divorce is not the best option for the spouses, than we should allow a spouse go to another person to fulfill their desire with â€Å"sex and love. † People may call a person who is sexually active with another person outside of their marriage selfish, but they really may be very unselfish trying to find a little happiness outside of their bad relationship. Word Count: 620

100 Awfully Good Examples of Oxymorons

100 Awfully Good Examples of Oxymorons An oxymoron  is a figure of speech, usually one or two words in which  seemingly  contradictory terms appear side by side. This contradiction is also known as a  paradox. Writers and poets have used it for centuries as a literary device to describe lifes inherent conflicts and incongruities. In speech, oxymorons can lend a sense of humor, irony, or sarcasm. Using Oxymorons The word oxymoron is itself oxymoronic, which is to say contradictory. The word is derived from two ancient Greek words oxys, which means sharp, and moronos, which means dull or stupid. Take this sentence, for example: This was a minor crisis and the only choice was to drop the product line. There are two oxymorons in this sentence: minor crisis and only choice. If youre learning English as a second language, you might be confused by these figures of speech. Read literally, they contradict themselves.  A crisis is defined as a time of serious difficulty or importance. By that measure, no crisis is unimportant or minor. Similarly, choice implies more than one option, which is contradicted by only, which implies the opposite. But once you become fluent in English, its easy to recognize such oxymorons for the figures of speech that they are. As the textbook author Richard Watson Todd said, The true beauty of oxymorons is that, unless we sit back and really think, we happily accept them as normal  English. Oxymorons have been used since the days of the ancient Greek poets, and William Shakespeare sprinkled them throughout his plays, poems, and sonnets. Oxymorons also feature in modern comedy and politics. The conservative political writer William Buckley, for instance, became famous for quotes like an intelligent liberal is an oxymoron. 100 Examples of Oxymorons Like other kinds of figurative language, oxymorons (or oxymora) are often found in literature. As shown by this list of 100 awfully good examples, oxymorons are also part of our everyday speech. Youll find common figures of speech, plus references to works of classic and pop culture. absent presence (from Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney)alone togetherawful goodbeggarly riches (from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne)bittersweetbrisk vacancy (from Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery)cheerful pessimistcivil warclearly misunderstoodcomfortable misery (from One Door Away From Heaven by Dean Koontz)conspicuous absencecool passioncrash landingcruel kindnessdarkness visible (from Paradise Lost by John Milton)deafening silencedeceptively honestdefinite maybedeliberate speeddevout atheistdull roareloquent silenceeven oddsexact estimateextinct lifefalsely true (from Lancelot and Elaine by Lord Tennyson)festive tranquilityfound missingfreezer burnfriendly takeovergenuine imitationgood griefgrowing smallerguest hosthistorical presenthumane slaughtericy hotidiot savantill healthimpossible solutionintense apathyjoyful sadnessjumbo shrimplarger halflascivious grace (from Sonnet 40 by William Shakespeare)lead balloonliquid marble (from Poetast er by Ben Jonson) living deadliving endliving sacrificesloosely sealedloud whisperloyal oppositionmagic realismmelancholy merriment (from Don Juan by Lord Byron)militant pacifistminor miraclenegative growthnegative incomeold newsone-man bandonly choiceopenly deceptiveopen secretoriginal copyoverbearingly modestpaper tableclothpaper towelpeaceful conquestplastic glassesplastic silverwarepoor healthpretty uglyproperly ridiculousrandom orderrecorded liveresident aliensad smilesame differencescalding coolness (from For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway)seriously funnyshrewd dumbnesssilent screamsmall crowdsoft rockThe Sound of Silence (song by Paul Simon)static flowsteel woolstudent teachersweet sorrow (from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)terribly goodtheoretical experiencetransparent night (from When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d by Walt Whitman)true fictionTrue Lies (movie directed by James Cameron)unbiased opinionunconscious awarenessupward fallwise foolworking vacation 1:15 5 Common Figures of Speech Explained

Rationalizing drug patent system - striking the balance between the pioneer drug manufacturers and the public interest The WritePass Journal

Rationalizing drug patent system - striking the balance between the pioneer drug manufacturers and the public interest Abstract: Rationalizing drug patent system striking the balance between the pioneer drug manufacturers and the public interest Abstract:1. Introduction2. Patent Protection for Drugs:2.1 Rationale2.2 Effects: Are generics at stake of malady of public health?3. Measures adopted to address the drug pricing problem4. WTO –TRIPS and Traditional Methods to the Address the Problem through Compulsory Licensure and Parallel Imports4.1 Misdirected innovation4.2 Me-too drugs4.3 â€Å"Deadweight losses†5. New Reward System for Pharmaceutical Innovation: Reward Contests as a Primer for Innovation5.1   The proposed reward system and its implementation: Generics a New stand5.2   Significances of the proposed system5.2.1 Better direction of research expenditures5.2.2 Elimination of â€Å"Deadweight Loss† (DWL)5.2.3 Efficient marketing5.3 Possible global implications of the proposed system6. Discussion and conclusionBibliographyRelated Abstract: Pharmaceuticals and drug markets functioning poorly because, system of patent does not effectively stimulate drug research and development. Instead, it is inducing large amounts of research into therapeutics with relatively low incremental therapeutic index, while providing inadequate incentives to innovate in some areas of great therapeutic value life saving drugs. As a result, patents lead to high prices which exclude many users from access to potentially life-saving drugs and anti-retroviral.In this essay, I supported to proposed novel reward system for pharmaceutical innovation, in which innovators are rewarded based on the incremental therapeutic outcomes of their innovation. This may align innovators’ incentives with social objectives i.e., public interest of affordable price of drugs and lead to the best possible allocation of RD investment. When rewards given directly to innovators, patents could be compulsorily licensed to enable competitive drug pricing, thus solving problems of drug access. Government expenditures on rewards could be largely derived through reduced expenditures on patented drugs, and pharmaceutical innovators could continue to earn a good return on their RD investments. 1. Introduction The patent system was designed to foster the research, development and cater the need of the society by using it for the public welfare. The members of the WTO have to follow the minimum standards of the intellectual property protection laid by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The WTO-TRIPS try to create a common platform for countries of different economic caliber to have a common trading platform. The idea is to provide all the essential products like drugs to be made available at an affordable price. In this assignment the first part deals with global efforts of international organizations and domestic legislations of developed nations to achieve the above purpose and the pharmaceutical lobby to curtail it. It also deals with the generic drugs and their availability .The latter part will also discuss the policy considerations, reforms and alternatives   to make the pharmaceutical patent system a more effective and strong structure by creating a striking balance between the interests of the brand drug pharmaceutical companies on one side and the public interest on the other side. 2. Patent Protection for Drugs: 2.1 Rationale General rationale for patent system comes in two forms. There is the argument of natural rights, where product (drugs) rights are seen as property rights owned to the companies that develop them. The protection is there to prevent other companies from free riding. The theoretical basis is strong, Consistent with Locke’s theory of labor and property rights, in an industry that is labor (intellectual labor) intensive, where generics can easily take the profit away from the companies that made the investment, the fruits of labor are entitled to strong property rights. The second and more pragmatic view is that such system enables pharmaceutical companies to recoup their investment in the RD of new drugs and therefore offers the right incentives for those manufactures to continue their innovation and investment. It is reasoned that such a policy will reap the maximum social benefits. The high cost of drug RD is real; United States has one of the most stringent FDA approval protocols, in order to ensure the safety and efficacy. The three clinical trials usually last between five and seven years. Less than one percent of all drugs make it to clinical trials and four percent of those make it to the market.[1] Therefore, the cost of one drug in the market also includes, and should include the RD costs for the several drugs that never made it to the market. U.S government in 1990 estimated that a new drug took ten to twelve years to come to market at a cost of $359M.[2] Such money and time commitment, it is argued, justifies the pharmaceutical companies’ need for a relatively long time of exclusive market monopoly to make some profits. 2.2 Effects: Are generics at stake of malady of public health? The generic medicine is what comes to market after the patent term expires.[3] Currently, this is the only legal way for consumers in most parts of the globe to get a medicine for a cheaper price. Because of the low price of generic medicines, they constitute only a small portion of the overall pharmaceutical revenue. In 1997, the dollar sales of branded drugs in the United States amounted to $71.8 billion, and 90% comes from brand name prescription drugs.[4]   Sooner the generic medicine comes into the market, greater the financial loss to the branded pharmaceutical companies. Therefore the RD pharmaceutical companies have employed a variety tactics to elongate their term of patent protection. At the same time, generic drugs are the saviors of some of the under developed nations in the world that are also burdened with the highest HIV infection rate. Without generic medicines coming to them sooner, the horrible situation there will get worse. 3. Measures adopted to address the drug pricing problem The issue of consumer access to generic drugs through the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984[5], (the Hatch-Waxman Act) was trying to do two things: it reduces the burden on generic drug companies in their effort to get FDA approval; and it compensates RD pharmaceutical companies for their time spent in the FDA approval process with more patent protection time. The Hatch-Waxman Act has not achieved its intended purpose, it has been reported that pharmaceutical companies have designed strategies to take unfair advantage of this act to maximize their profits. These strategies include applying for patents over a period of time that covers different aspects of a drug so that new patents become active as old patents expire.[6] It is extensively acknowledged that some patent legislation do serve remarkable public interest. The Orphan Drug Act[7] grants exclusivity to drugs that affect fewer than 200,000 people where pharmaceutical companies that develop them would otherwise not be able to realize a profit at all. The pediatric exclusivity clause of the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 also uses patent protection to promote overall social benefits.[8] Similarly, the European Parliament gave a fillip to the Bolar-type exception by its 16 April 1996 resolution which supported the measure, albeit in a much narrower sense.[9] Specifically, European Community Directive 2001/83/EC on medicinal products for human use, provides for the Bolar-type exemption provisions.[10] This exception is particular relevance to generic drug manufacturers who wish seeking regulatory approval for their products, modeled on patented pharmaceuticals that are in their twilight. 4. WTO –TRIPS and Traditional Methods to the Address the Problem through Compulsory Licensure and Parallel Imports The context of access to life saving medicines in developing countries, the WTO Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Doha Declaration on Public Health[11] provides for special provisions ranging from parallel import, government use, to compulsory licensing, to facilitate and improve access to affordable life-saving drugs.[12] However, it has been noted that Article 31bis, the arrowhead of the new amendment to TRIPS, that is especially ratified to facilitate access to essential drugs by developing countries that have limited or no manufacturing capacity, is encumbered with administrative barriers that could hamper its effectiveness. Furthermore, the proliferation of bilateral trade agreements requiring stronger intellectual property protection than TRIPS does, are generally perceived as obstacle to the implementation of TRIPS’ flexibilities by developing countries.[13] With essence, even with exceptions to pharmaceutical patent exclusivity, the current patent system is by no means, weak, and there is an ample evidence of a causal link between the current system of stronger patent protection and higher pharmaceutical prices.[14] One major concern is proliferation of patented research tools, which can potentially up the costs of pharmaceutical RD.[15] The ambiguous and perennially shrinking scope of research or experimental use exception offers little space for unfettered use of patented research tools.[16] This arguably informed the recent report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Health (CIPIH) of the World Health Organization, urging developing countries to, inter alia; devise appropriate national legal frameworks to facilitate access to affordable prescription drugs.[17] This essay also reiterates, inter alia, the virtues of the rewards system, and open source approaches to pharmaceutical RD, with a view to easing p atents’ stranglehold on pharmaceuticals.[18] Other major issues of Patent Monopoly System and Pharmaceuticals 4.1 Misdirected innovation Since prices in pharmaceutical markets do not necessarily satisfy value to consumers, profits are not expected to be proportional to the social value of an innovation. There are four types of problems which arise here, which are. First, the pricing of branded (pioneer) drugs may bear no particular relationship to social value. Second, â€Å"me-too† drugs may be able to yield large profits even though they offer little or no therapeutic advantage over prior existed therapies. Third, firms may find it very profitable to develop minor modifications to their own prior existing drugs, as a sort of ever greening strategy. Fourth, profits from RD and showing new uses for non-patented compounds will be small and may not support investing in clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy. 4.2 Me-too drugs Many commentators have been very critical of what appears to be an accelerating number of â€Å"me-too† drugs (also called â€Å"follow-on† drugs). Me-too drugs are products which largely duplicate the action of existing drug. For example, there are now many â€Å"statins† to help fight cholesterol, and, as some commentators have observed, it is not evident that there is much social benefit from so much variety.[19] Me-too drugs can be precious in providing therapeutic choice, and perhaps also benefits from competition; but they also may harm the returns available to the break-through drug in a class by capturing market share[20]. It is arguable that firms have devoted an excessive share of innovative research into developing me-too drugs, which have relatively little incremental therapeutic value, but which harms the returns available to the first drug in the market. 4.3 â€Å"Deadweight losses† The current implemented patent system also causes substantial welfare losses because consumers who would buy the product if it were priced at somewhere nearer production cost do not buy it at the monopoly price.[21] The welfare loss caused by this is called the â€Å"deadweight loss† (DWL) of monopoly pricing, since there is a pure loss to society when consumers do not obtain a product which they value more than the cost of manufacturing it.[22] Using highly aggregated data, claim that the scale of deadweight loss in the US drug market is on the order of $3bn- $30bn annually; the same authors estimate deadweight losses of $5bn on $8bn of sales, which indicates very large DWL for the market overall.[23]   Globally, the DWL is clear, because in many markets, drug insurance is unavailable and so consumers are more price-sensitive. The following section will briefly review the literature on the possible alternatives to the patent system, and how best to deploy them to mitigate the costs of patents. 5. New Reward System for Pharmaceutical Innovation: Reward Contests as a Primer for Innovation As seen above, the patent monopoly system doesn’t serve the pharmaceuticals market very well – it leads to misdirected innovation[24], to substantial deadweight losses[25], to counterfeit drugs[26], to price controls[27], and arguably to excessive marketing and unnecessary risks to patients. These features are not observed in other markets.[28] This suggests that there are two crucial requirements for an effective system of funding innovation in pharmaceuticals. First, the rewards for innovation in pharmaceuticals should be proportional to the social value of the innovation. Second, prices should be near average production cost, in order to minimize deadweight losses and counterfeit drugs, and to eliminate the need for price controls. The following section details a proposal for a system which meets these requirements. 5.1   The proposed reward system and its implementation: Generics a New stand Method for rewarding patented pharmaceuticals with payments or rewards paid out of a government-financed Pharmaceutical Innovation Fund (PIF). When a drug is approved for use in a country, it would be registered by a firm, normally by the owner of related patents required in the production of the drug.[29] PIF would make payments to registrants, and in exchange for such payments, registrants would be compelled to grant zero-priced licenses for all listed patents when used to make and sell the drug. The payments would be annual during the period in which the registrant’s drugs were patented. Rewards might also be paid for patented cost-reducing process innovations, and for court verdicts of invalidity or non-infringement which allowed for generic production without a compulsory license. The aim of this section is to outline how the fund should determine the reward for a given innovation. Each patented drug would given points reflecting gain in average therapeutic value less costs of treatment over that of the next best pre-existing treatment, for all units of the drug sold by the registrant and by other manufacturers in a given year. Drugs that improve health would get reward = Incremental value of QALY[30] Ãâ€" Dollar value of QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Years)[31]. This will be determined on the therapeutic value determinant of the drugs. Better the therapeutic value more the reward. This put simply means that the pleasure drug like Viagra would enjoy less reward than the life saving essential drug. Cost reducing innovations should be given the points that have been achieved by using the patented technology = Average price of the medicine set by all sellers using patented innovations – Average price not using the patented innovation Ãâ€" number of pills sold. This can be a parameter for the successful invention as the number of drugs sold will generate more revenue and this parameter can be used for determining successful invention. Registrant would get points for every sale of its drug, no matter who produced or sold the product, so that the reward is really for the innovation, clinical testing, and marketing of the product. In principal, the innovator need not produce/sell the drug, though it would have an incentive to market the drug so as to increase the volume of sales on which it could earn points. In many instances, drugs are given for a variety of different conditions, and so the therapeutic value, as well as the next best therapies, would be different for different conditions. This implies that it would be useful to obtain evidence from prescribing doctors on what conditions drugs were prescribed for, through random sampling of doctors.[32] 5.2   Significances of the proposed system The potential significance of the proposal are immense, including making drugs more widely accessible, eliminating over pricing, improving the direction of research spending, and marketing incentives more efficient. 5.2.1 Better direction of research expenditures This proposed system would make the incentives to innovate proportional in a meaningful way to social value, since the award given to the drug registrant would be appropriate with the net benefit created by the drug. This would increase the incentives to find new drugs with large incremental therapeutic value, and decrease the incentives to find new products which offered little extra benefit. (And with fewer me-too products, and less incentive to advertise them, profits of pioneer innovators would be even higher.) And it could become profitable to demonstrate the therapeutic value of old, unpatented compounds for new uses, if rewards were paid to patentees who had shown the therapeutic value of the patented use of the drug 5.2.2 Elimination of â€Å"Deadweight Loss† (DWL) Prices of drugs under this proposal would fall to approximately the average cost of production. Based on experience with medicines facing generic competition today, this implies that patented drug prices would decrease by on average 50% to 80%. This would obviously be beneficial for consumers, with total savings in the US of on the order of $100bn annually. Global, savings might be on the order of $200bn. Much of this saving would be used up in paying for rewards. Aside from the reduction in total expense to consumers, there would be a welfare gain from increased consumption of lower-priced medicines. Deadweight loss (DWL) from the current patent system is certainly immense in pharmaceutical markets. The efficiency gains from reducing drug prices to approximately the average cost of production could easily be over $100bn, and the gains in terms of saved lives would likely be very good in number. 5.2.3 Efficient marketing The proposed system of rewards would not prevent marketing by the drug registrant. Indeed, promotions which prolonged demand could be profitable, since the registrant obtains points for more sales, based on the average net benefit. However, the effect of this marketing would be wholly profitable: marketing with increased sales such that the net benefit was negative would decrease the reward obtained. So manufacturers would have an incentive to promote the drug to obtain the largest number of consumers with a positive net profit. However, the amount of promotional activity would be declined under this proposal because there would be lesser copycat drugs competing to attract a restricted number of prescriptions. 5.3 Possible global implications of the proposed system This system is ideal for enabling wide international access to life saving drugs, while eliminating ineffective parallel imports between nations having different prices. Innovator could be resident anywhere; and with prices equal to the average cost of production, even developing nations would be well served. However, if not all states adopted this model, then one could expect substantial parallel imports into the non-adopting states. The asymmetries could lead to some problems of coordination between adopting and non-adopting nations with respect to pharmaceutical trade and commerce. But the system if adopted by many nations could be designed to allow for small contributions in developing nations, basically by assigning them a small dollar value for each QALY. 6. Discussion and conclusion The proposal outlined in this essay presents an effective method of rewarding pharmaceutical innovation which yields two major benefits. First, it aligns private research incentives with social objectives i.e. as much focused issues of high drug prices by rewarding innovations based on their assessed therapeutic value. This is an improvement over the ordinary implementation of the current monopoly patent system, which cannot be efficient in bringing out pharmaceutical innovation given that pharmaceutical markets are extraordinarily dysfunctional. The proposed system can therefore be used to increase the rate of drug development cycle. Second, it allows for medicines to be priced at near the average cost of production, enabling widespread access to life saving drugs. It is possible to achieve both of these goals without increased government expenditures on drugs, since governments are already large buyers of high-priced medicines. The proposed system is not intended to be an assault o n the pharmaceutical industry: on the contrary, it continues to offer healthy benefits to pharmaceutical manufacturers which successfully bring valuable, innovative drugs to market, while removing the spectre of poorly-conceived, arbitrary price controls and satisfying the public interest. These significances suggest that this system deserves serious investigation. Bibliography STATUTES Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 US, (the Hatch-Waxman Act) The Orphan Drug Act of US Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 Food Drug Cosmetic Act  §525-528 European Community Directive 2001/83/EC, Article 10 (1), (a), (i), (ii), (iii) OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, at wto.org/English/thwto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindec_trips_e.htm Oxfam, â€Å"Fatal Side Effects: Medicine Patents Under the Microscope.† In Brigitte Granville, ed., The Economics of Essential Medicines, (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002). Report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights, (Geneva: WHO Press, 2006), at 175-188. Carlos Maria Correa, â€Å"Implications of bilateral free trade agreements on access to medicines,† Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol. 84, No. 5 (2006). John H. Baton, â€Å"Research-tool patents: issues for health in the developing world,† Bulletin of the World Health Organization vol. 80, No. 2 (2002). The Gale Group, Intellectual Property Rules: A Delicate Balancing Act for Drug Development, 23 Chain Drug Rev. RX13 2001. BOOKS Peter Drahos and Ruth Mayne, Global Intellectual Property Rights: Knowledge, Access and Development, eds., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) JOURNALS Angell, Marcia, â€Å"The Pharmaceutical Industry: To whom is it Accountable?† (2000), 342:1902-1904, New England Journal of Med Elyse Tanouye Robert Langreth, ‘Times Up: with Patents Expiring on Big Prescriptions, Drug Industry Quakes’, (Aug 12, 1997) The Wall Street Journal. Frederick M. Abbott and Jerome H. Reichman, â€Å"The Doha Round’s Public Health Legacy: Strategies for the Production and Diffusion of Patented Medicines under the Amended TRIPS Provisions,† (December 2007), vol. 10, No. 4, JIEL. George Foster, ‘Opposing Forces in a Revolution in International Patent Protection: the U.S. and India in the Uruguay Round and Its Aftermath’, (1998) 3 UCLA J. Int’l L For. Aff. Lara Glasgow, ‘Stretching the Limits of Intellectual Property Rights: Has the Pharmaceutical Industry Gone Too Far?’ (2001) 41 J.L.Tech. Tao Huang, â€Å"The Experimental Purpose Doctrine and Biomedical Research,† (2004), vol. 11 Michigan Telecom Tech L Review.       [1] Elyse Tanouye Robert Langreth, ‘Times Up: with Patents Expiring on Big Prescriptions, Drug Industry Quakes’, (Aug 12, 1997), The Wall Street Journal. [2] George Foster, Opposing Forces in a Revolution in International Patent Protection: the U.S. and India in the Uruguay Round and Its Aftermath, (1998), 3 UCLA J. Int’l L For. Aff. 283. [3] This is the stage when the drugs that are almost equivalent in substance and efficacy to the original drugs can be sold for a fraction of the original price. [4] The Gale Group, Intellectual Property Rules: A Delicate Balancing Act for Drug Development, 23 Chain Drug Rev. RX13 2001. [5] See Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-417, 98 Stat. 1585. Codified as 35 USC. [6] Lara Glasgow, Stretching the Limits of Intellectual Property Rights: Has the Pharmaceutical Industry Gone Too Far?, (2001), 41 J.L.Tech, 227.( For example, Bristol-Myers secured a new patent that was closely related to its original patent on the anti-cancer drug Taxol months before its original patent expired in 1997) [7]  §360aa-360ee (Food Drug Cosmetic Act  §525-528); An   example of this system working is that Merck, Sharp Dome, Inc. is developing drugs to treat Wilson’s disease, where only about one hundred Americans can potentially benefit from such a drug. Without proper patent protection, such development would not have taken place in the first place and people who suffer from the disease would be the ones to lose. [8] There an exclusive period of six months following a patent term is offered to pioneer companies to conduct clinical investigations to determine safe and effective doses for children. [9] Paragraph 17 of the European Parliament 1996 Resolution provides as follows: â€Å"Measures should be introduced which enable pharmaceutical companies to begin, in advance of patent or supplementary protection certificate (SPC) expiry, such laboratory experiments and regulatory preparations as may be required only for the registration of generic pharmaceuticals developed in the EU, to be available on the market immediately, but only after the expiry of a patent or SPC for a proprietary product.† [10] See Article 10 (1), (a), (i), (ii), (iii), Directive 2001/83/EC on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use, (as amended). [11] See Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, at wto.org/English/thwto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindec_trips_e.htm (accessed on May 20, 2011). [12] See Frederick M. Abbott and Jerome H. Reichman, â€Å"The Doha Round’s Public Health Legacy: Strategies for the Production and Diffusion of Patented Medicines under the Amended TRIPS Provisions,† (December 2007), vol. 10, No. 4, Journal of International Economic Law, at 929-957. [13] See for example, Carlos Maria Correa, â€Å"Implications of bilateral free trade agreements on access to medicines,† (2006), vol. 84, No. 5, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, at 399-404. [14] See Oxfam, â€Å"Fatal Side Effects: Medicine Patents Under the Microscope.† In Brigitte Granville, ed., The Economics of Essential Medicines, (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002) at 81-99, (noting that patented drugs are more expensive than off-patent drugs); Kumariah Balasubramaniam, â€Å"Access to Medicines: Patents, Prices and Public Policy – Consumer Perspectives.† In Peter Drahos and Ruth Mayne, Global Intellectual Property Rights: Knowledge, Access and Development, eds., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) at 90-107. [15] See John H. Baton, â€Å"Research-tool patents: issues for health in the developing world,† (2002) vol. 80, No. 2, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, at 121-125. [16] See for example, Tao Huang, â€Å"The Experimental Purpose Doctrine and Biomedical Research,† (2004), Vol. 11, Michigan Telecommunication Technology Law Review, at 97-115. [17] See Report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights, (Geneva: WHO Press, 2006), at 175-188. [18] Id [19] Angell, Marcia, â€Å"The Pharmaceutical Industry: To whom is it Accountable?† New England Journal of Medicine, 2000, 342:1902-1904. p. 90) argues that many me-too drugs are never tested at equivalent doses to show that there are significant differences in outcomes for some patients, and claims that â€Å"the idea that patients respond differently to me-too drugs is merely an untested – and self-serving – hypothesis.† [20] DiMasi J and C Paquette, â€Å"The Economics of Follow-on Drug Research and Development Trends in Entry Rates and the Timing of Development† Pharmaco-economics 22 (Suppl. 2), 2004: 1-14. [21] Avorn, Jerry, Powerful medicines. (New York, 2004): Knopf. p. 262(discusses how deadweight losses can occur even when there is full insurance. Insurers may be unwilling to cover certain medicines, such as osteoporosis drugs, whose benefits mainly appear only after some years.); the patent system as now implemented also causes substantial welfare losses because consumers who would buy the product if it were priced at somewhere nearer production cost do not buy it at the monopoly price. The welfare loss caused by this is called by economists the â€Å"deadweight loss† (DWL) of monopoly pricing. [22] Guell R. and M. Fischbaum, â€Å"Toward allocative efficiency in the prescription drug industry.† Milbank Quarterly, 1995, 73: 213-229. [23] Douglas and Guell (2004) use US and Canadian data to argue that the DWL in the US market for a large number of drugs is at least 25% of sales. [24] It is well known that monopoly exploitation of innovations under the patent system can reduce the benefits or â€Å"surplus† available to society from an innovation. [25] Supra note 21. [26] A recent statement of the US Assistant Attorney General in a vaccine price-gouging case claimed that an â€Å"exorbitant market price †¦ may increase the incentive for counterfeiters to manufacture fake, ineffective, and potentially unsafe† drugs. (Statement of Interest of the United States, in Office of the Florida Attorney General v. ASAP Meds, Inc., Broward County Circuit Court, October 22, 2004.) [27] Supra note 20 [28] For example, in automobile markets, consumers are relatively competent to assess product quality and to make informed decisions about purchasing based on prices, quality, and their own budgets. Automobile makers therefore have incentives to develop differentiated products which respond to consumers’ demands. Deadweight losses are relatively small in automobile markets because prices are close to the average cost of production, counterfeits are relatively rare, and price controls are not used. [29] It is possible that a registrant might not own all the required patents, in which case registration would require the registrant to obtain a license to the patents from the patentee. [30] Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) is a measure of disease burden, including both the quality and the quantity of life lived. It is used in assessing the value for money of a medical intervention. The QALY is based on the number of years of life that would be added by the intervention. Each year in perfect health is assigned the value of 1.0 down to a value of 0.0 for death. If the extra years would not be lived in full health, for example if the patient would lose a limb, or be blind or have to use a wheelchair, then the extra life-years are given a value between 0 and 1 to account for this. In a worst possible health state it will be from 0 to negative value. [31] Drugs which advance health should be given points reflecting the gain in average therapeutic value less costs of treatment over that of the next best pre-existing treatment. It will determine the net benefit of a drug, and then compare it to the net benefit of the next most effective pre-existing therapy, and award points based on the improvement. These points would be awarded to the registrant for each year in which the registrant’s patents would, in the absence of compulsory licensing, be sufficient to prevent other firms from producing bio-equivalent products. [32] This would be particularly important for some drugs which have extensive off-label uses (uses for which the FDA has not approved the product). There are claims that up to half of all prescriptions are written for off-label uses. â€Å"How Drug Directory Helps Raise Tab for Medicaid and Insurers†, Wall Street Journal Oct. 23, 2003. IMS Health already conducts in the US a survey of this sort entitled the â€Å"National Disease and Therapeutic Index.†

Special Education Needs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Special Education Needs - Essay Example Special Education Needs (SEN) refers to that extra or different wants of children will have due to the fact that such experience unusual learning difficulties something which lead to such children to experience difficulties not only in learning but also having an equal access to education, training and even work opportunity. Besides, language difficulties such children experience, numerous challenges, difficulties in cognitive process, and behavioural difficulties as well as psychomotor difficulties. The inclusion debate has also been concerned with the continuity dilemma for children with special needs given the fact that most children with special education needs find it hard to fit in the higher education levels as a lot of government help has in the past been given to the primary level (Audit Commission, 1992). This imbalance has created a different kind of treatment for children with special education at primary school level and different treatment when such children graduate into higher levels of education. This has been a challenge and has been fronted as a main argument by the proponents of the inclusion debate who argue that inclusion will put the children with special education need at an advantage in that if they are integrated into mainstream classes, as opposed to specialist schools, they will advance their chances of performing well at higher levels of education (Copeland, 1991). Children with special education needs are more likely to miss opportunities of higher education, as there are no sufficient numbers of higher-level education institutions, which offer specialised education (Brown, 1994). Therefore most children with special education end up getting admission to mainstream universities and colleges where special treatment is not high compared to the primary level of education. There is a need to include or integrate children into mainstream classes early enough so as to prepare such children to fit normally in mainstream colleges and universities. Children who attend specialist schools are more likely to take a long time to fit into the mainstream colleges and universities than children with special education who attended mainstream schools early in life (Allen, 1994). Specialist schools have been negatively viewed as being associated with the disadvantaged, the less fortunate, the mentally ill, the deaf and such negative labelling which can affect the self-esteem of children with special education needs. Therefore specialists' schools meet the immediate needs of the children at primary school level but do not prepare the children for challenges associated with higher levels of education. The other challenge for those children who attend specialist school is that the children may get used to specialised treatment due to the availability of special equipment and specialised staff. This is lacking in most institutions at higher levels of education and such children are more likely to experience problems in future when trying to change and fit into a mainstream class. The debate surrounding special education needs has been surrounded by controversies in agreeing to what constitutes of special needs, what to be included and what not to include. This has led to debate on whether some conditions such as dyslexia were

Architecural Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Architecural Theory - Essay Example One is the external world, while the other is the hypothetical or internal world of our thoughts, imaginings, and interpretations, the world of psychology. The internal world houses our conceptions of the external, molded by notions handed down or across generations persuading or convincing; it is the realm of our rehearsals, associations, ideals, expectations, and hopes for it. This paper attempts to analyze a single architectural theory. Within the discipline of architecture, theory is a disclosure that describes the practice and production of architecture and identifies challenges to it. Theory overlaps with but differs from architectural history, which is descriptive of past work, and from criticism, a narrow activity of judgment and interpretation of specific existing works relative to the critic’s or architect’s stated standards (Johnson 9). Theory is different from these activities because it poses substitute remedies grounded on observations of the existing cond ition of the discipline, or presents new thought paradigms for approaching the issues (Ots and Alfano 17). It is tentative, anticipatory, and catalytic character makes theoretical activity different from history and criticism. Theory operates on different levels of abstraction, evaluating the architectural profession, its intentions, and its cultural relevance at large. Theory deals with architecture’s aspirations as well as its accomplishments (Johnson 11). Theory can be characterized by several attitudes towards the preservation of its subject matter: for the most part of it is prescriptive, proscriptive, affirmative, or critical. All of these differ from a natural, descriptive position. Prescriptive theory offers new or revived solutions for specific problems (Bertens 22). This theory functions by establishing new norms for practice. It, thus, promotes positive standards and sometimes even a design method. This type can be critical or affirmative of the status quo. The ton e in either instance is often polemical. Almost similar to the prescriptive theory is the proscriptive theory. However, it differs in the sense that the standards state what is to be avoided in the design. Good architecture or urbanism in proscriptive terms is defined by the absence of negative attitudes. Functional zoning is an example of proscriptive theory (Ballantyne 15). Broader than descriptive and prescriptive writing, critical theory evaluates the built world and its relationships to the society it serves. This kind of polemical writing often has an expressed political or ethical orientation and intends to stimulate change. Among many possible orientations, critical theory can be ideologically based in Marxism or feminism (Hays 36). A typical example of critical theory is an architect and theorist Kenneth Frampton’s critical regionalism, which proposes resistance to the homogenization of the visual environment through the particularities of mediated, local building tr aditions. Critical theory is speculative, questioning, and sometimes utopian (White 24). Throughout history, one can identify recurring architectural themes that demand resolution, both conceptually and physically. Physical questions are resolved tectonically, while conceptual or intellectual questions are problematized in the manner of philosophy (Ots and Alfano 31). Perennial theoretical questions include the origins and limits of architecture, the relationship of architecture to