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Topic: Discuss the impact of alcoholism abuse on youths
- Done by: Ke Xin (0607888E)
Introduction
What is alcoholism? It is the term that refers to a disease as known as alcohol dependence syndrome. It is the most severe stage of all the drinking problems which begins with binge drinking and alcohol abuse. Binge drinking usually refers to drinking five or more drinks at one time for men, and four or more drinks for women. Another definition of binge drinking means practically drink for the sake of getting drunk.
Alcohol is the drug of choice among youth. There are approximately 5000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking each year. There are many types of death caused by drinking intensively.
Regardless of all these death, drinking still continues to be widespread among adolescents according to nationwide surveys as well as studies in smaller populations. Research also shows that many of these adolescents start to drink at a very young age, average age as early as about 14 years old. People who started drinking at around the age of 15 years old will most likely to be dependent on alcohol at some point in their lives.
Summary of the Contents from the Resource
Alcoholism is considered a progressive disease which means that the effects and the symptoms of drinking alcohol become more and more severe as time goes by. People who take in alcohol may begin to show early signs of problem and then follow by showing symptoms of alcohol abuse. If they still continue drinking alcohol, they may show symptoms of alcoholism or alcohol dependence later.
Symptoms of Alcohol Abuse
Usually the main symptoms of alcohol abuse occurs when someone continues to drink after their drinking reaches a certain level which causes recurrent problems. Some of the problems are:
Symptoms of Alcohol Dependence
Medical professionals are able to determine how many of the major symptoms of alcohol dependence the drinker is experiencing. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the symptoms of alcohol dependence include:
Alcohol is the drug of choice among youth. Many youth choose to drink and binge on alcohol which cause them to face and experience the consequences of drinking too much. They are facing these consequences at too early an age, which as a result, alcoholism abuse on youth is a leading public health problem.
There are many different impacts of alcoholism abuse on youth in the world. Some of the young people under the age of 21 die as a results of alcohol abuse. These deaths include motor vehicle crashes, suicide, homicides, injuries and more.
According to the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study, when youth drink, they tend to drink intensively, often consuming about four to five drinks at one go. All these intensive drinking as known as binge drinking will also cause youth to engage in behaviors that harm themselves or others. They will more likely to engage in risky behaviors such as using other drugs, having sex with more than 5 partners as well as doing badly for studies in school.
Youth who drink drink heavily may put themselves at risk for a range of potential health problems. Alcohol will affect the long-term memory and learning skills of youth. It will also cause some degree of liver damage. Drinking at a young age may also upset the critical hormonal balance necessary for normal development of organs, muscles and bones.
Till today, alcohol is widely available and aggresively promoted throughout society. Many people still regards alcohol and drinking as a normal part of growing up. Even that is the case, underage drinking is still dangerous and not only to the drinker himself/herself, but also dangerous to the society. All these youth on alcoholism abuse might cause more alcohol-involved accidents in the future. People who start to drink at the early stage of their life run the risk of developing serious alcohol problems such as alcoholism in the later part of their life, and they are also at a greater risk of many consequences.
Resources Used
National Institute on Alcohol, Abuse and Alcoholism. (January 2006). "Underage Drinking" Retrieved May 22, 2008, from World Wide Web: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA67/AA67.htm
About.com: Alcoholism. (May 2007). "Youth Drinking - Risk Factors and Consequences". Retrieved May 22, 2008, from World Wide Web: http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa37.htm
Evaluation of the Resources
All in all, I think the two sources I have used are quite good and useful sources because they provide alot of useful information about alcoholism abuse. They gives details on why does youth take up intensive drinking and what are the impact and consequences they would have to face after that. One of the source also shows statistics of binge drinking, also known as alcoholism abuse of youth within a period of time. The information provided is rather accurate and trustable. I get to find lots of information regarding alcoholism such as what is alcoholism about and what are the syndromes and impacts of it. One of the sources does have search facility for users to search for the desired information using relevant keywords or phrases. The search results will be displayed all the available websites that contain information about the topic researched which helps to narrow down the user’s search area and enable them to find the information they want in a faster way.
Kamal - Impact of terrorism on world economy
Introduction
Terrorism often targeted to maximize fear and publicity. They plan attacks to cause destruction to people and the economy. Many innocent lives were lost caused by their uncivilized deeds. The threat are of terrorism has steadily increased since 1960s. With advances in technology, terrorist acts have become much more destructive and the perpetrators of those act more elusive.
Impact of Terrorism on world economy plays both the short term and long term. It affect many industries that contribute to the economy and the travel industry is most vulnerable.
Experts agrees that short term negative impact that terrorism brings to the travel industry is caused by psychological factors like lingering shock effects and fear of flying.
The long term impact of Terrorism on world economy is that there is always uncertainty of what will happen next and the length and outcome of the war on terrorism will further aggravate the situation.
Travel and Market
With the existence of terrorism, people tend to stay home where they feel most secure and tend to stay away from the troubled areas, therefore travel industry are affected thus affecting the world economy. People also have avoided for some time big metropolitan areas, air travel, cruise ships, major sports events and theme parks, perceived as likely terrorist targets.
One very good example is the Sept 11 attacks, Companies can be affected through this and when that happens, it creates a chain reaction of bad business and low productivity. People across the world had been more aware of terrorism as the impact it brings about is too drastic. The governments of many countries are taking security measures to protect their own country.
The impact of terrorism are which affected the U.S are the loss of property which amounted to tens of billions. Since then, there had been a dip in consumer spending as people stop buying and flying. Corporation’s investments decisions had been put on hold since. Unemployment rate in the U.S. had increased tremendously, even till now, there are not enough job being created to recover it. Also, there had been a large shortfall in the U.S. budget as money is needed for recovery of the country.
The incident is expected have different effect on the various travel segments.
Oil
Growth of the economies are based on the importing and exporting of oil and realize that in order for many businesses to operate, transportation is needed and in order to have transportation, there must be oil. This is why terrorists have turned to suicide bombings and other horrific measures to destroy oil supplies. Attacks on oil sources force the price of oil upward, increase erratic market behavior and gets the attention of oil dependent countries. This contributes to the destruction in the economy. Also with the increase in oil prices means an increase in shipping costs. Thus, the company makes less money, the stockholders suffer, and the market as a whole takes a hit.
Ethnic business
After the events of September 11 tragedy, the American public was looking for someone to take the blame and the group that was deemed responsible for the terrorist actions was slated as radical Muslims that were bent on destroying America’s way of life. This triggered an across the board reaction against all Muslims. Muslims in America suddenly felt themselves being alienated from their communities and as a result, Muslim businesses suffered. Some American’s believed that all Muslims were in some way linked to the events of 9/11 and responded by boycotting or protesting against Muslim businesses. Therefore Muslim business owners and workers serve faces difficulties.
Source taken from:
http://www.m-travel.com/news/2001/09/terrorism_impac.html
http://www.terrormarketeffect.com/index.shtml
Evaluation of Resource
The website have been very useful feeding me with information needed for the topic. It has helped me widen my knowledge about the negatives impact of terrorism on the world economy. It detailed out on how each factor contributed to one another leading to the fall of the economy. The purpose of the resource is also very clear. it summarize out each point clearly. i must say the points given are all relevant and stress out clearly the negative impact of terrorism to the world economy.
Loke Hui Mun (0607667C)- Discuss the impact of drugs abuse on youths
Introduction
Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. Use of drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm, both strongly depending on local jurisdiction.
Here are the common categories of drugs of abuse:
An estimated 4.7% of the global population aged 15 to 64, or 185 million people, consume illicit drugs annually. In US, there are about 3000 adolescents smoke their first cigarette each day and about 1/3 of them become addictive smokers.
An example of drug abuse, a cough syrup is meant to be a medication for cough but by having a lot of cough syrup may lead a youth to become "high".
The dangerous effects of drug use in youths
There are many dangerous effects of drug use in adolescents. Some of the effects are:
The symptoms and warning signs of drug abuse
Different kind of drugs have different kind of signs that indicate a person is intoxicated or "high" and here are a few:
The causes and risk factors of teen drug use
Family risk factors such as low parent supervision or communication, family conflicts, inconsistent or severe parental discipline, and family history of alcohol or drug abuse may cause teenagers to engage in drugs. Individual risk factors include any history of physical or sexual victimization, learning or emotional problems, difficulty managing impulses, emotional instability, thrill-seeking behaviors, and perceiving the risk of using drugs to be low.
The symptoms of drug abuse in youths
Some of the most common symptoms of drug abuse in youths include lying, making excuses, breaking curfew, staying in their room, becoming verbally or physically abusive toward others, having items in their possession that are connected to drug use (paraphernalia), the smell of drugs (for example, solvent smell of inhalants, marijuana smell) on them, mood swings, stealing, and changes in friends. Examples of paraphernalia include matches, rolling papers, and pipes for drugs that are smoked, multiple pill bottles for substances that are in pill form, mirrors for drugs that are snorted, and needles, syringes, and items that can be used as tourniquets for drugs that are injected.
Evaluation of the resource
I find that the quality (information) of the website gives me an in-depth knowledge about drug abuse on youths. Practically, the website provides all or everything that I need to find out about drug abuse on youths. Furthermore, the website gives me a better understanding by providing more than what I am required to know, such as the statistics on teenage drug use, the dangerous effects and more. I looked through many websites on drug abuse on youths and I find that this is the best website of all. The other websites do not provide as much details as this website does. On top of that, I can find more about other kinds of information such as the alcoholism abuse on youths, what is Ecstasy, Morphine, Heroin, etc. I can use the website to search for the information that I want to know and I believe that the information is reliable and comprehensive as well.
Source - http://www.medicinenet.com/teen_drug_abuse/article.htm
Discuss the Development of AIDS Research
- Done by Evelyn 0609396G
Introduction
Based on the AIDS Research (amfAR) website, the statistics shown there is a total of 33.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS right now. There is an astounding number of 2.1 million HIV/AIDS carrier whom are under the age of 15. Just last year, 2007, it has been estimated that 2.5 million people are infected with HIV. Even though they have not been full blown to AIDS, 420,000 of them were under the age of 15. This is definitely an awakening figure that we must now knowledge, people contract HIV/AIDS and die from it.
Summary of the contents from the resource
AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. It is a disease in which the body's immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off infections, known as "opportunistic infections" and other illnesses that take advantage of this weakened immune system.
At the moment, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that there are 40 million people living with HIV or AIDS worldwide. However, most of them do not know that they carry HIV and may be spreading the virus to other. Since the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS has killed more than 25 million people worldwide. Now, AIDS has replaced Malaria and Tuberculosis as the world's deadliest infectious disease among adults and is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. Sad to say, there is still no cure to this deadly disease yet. The only way they can prolong their lifespan will be a lifetime consumption of medication and having treatments to slow down the process.
People living with and managing HIV/AIDS disease requires a thorough understanding of the treatments that are available to them. It also demands that drug companies develop new and more effective HIV drugs throughclincial trials and research. In which, scientists have developed drugs that block HIV from reproducing at different stages of its life cycle. So far there are four different classes of drugs in the market:
The above drugs are always used in combinations known as HAART which stands for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy. HAART attacks HIV at different points using different drugs (usually from different classes). This is the best way to reduce the amount of HIV in the patient's bloody (viral load). Ultimately, the treatment goals is to get the viral load as low as feasible for as long as feasible, to preserve or regain he/she immune system function by increasing CD4 cells and improve carriers' quality of life and reduce illness and death.
However, in the recent years, a new treatment has surfaced. This new treatment for HIV infection is made by Merck & Co, the first integrase inhibitor aimed at preventing replication of the virus has been approved by U.S. regulators. It has been said that the integrase inhibitor seems "very safe, compared to other agents. It is very potent in terms of HIV suppression, " said Dr. Homayoon Khanlou, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Chief of Medicine, who was involved in the clinical testing. Isentress was approved based on 24 weeks testing, in combination with other antiretroviral drugs, in about 700 patients with highly resistant HIV. The company promised to study the drug for at least 5 years to monitor any side effects that might not have shown up in its initial clinical trails.
No matter what treatments we have invented, HIV/AIDS is still an uncurable disease and is still continuing to spread worldwide. In order to significantly minimize the spread of this disease, we still have to continue to create awareness to all countries.
Evaluation of the resource
The coverage of the website ranges from understanding the basics of HIV/AIDS, treatment & trials currently used for the patients, upcoming diseases & conditions which might caused by HIV/AIDS, learning how to live well, women’s center- cater to the female for more related women information and even a ‘Did You Know?’ column for the latest HIV/AIDS news. The website is also highly comprehensive as it covers almost all aspects. It allows me to navigate the website without much difficulties and with sufficient information listed, it makes reading very much easier.
Some of the subject areas and materials covered are the basics of HIV/AIDS, treatments & trials which the market is using right now, possible diseases & conditions that HIV/AIDS carrier might be faced with, articles on how to live well in terms of Health, Housing, Insurance and Benefits, Legal Issues, Travel and Work, and a page dedicated to only the women contracted with HIV/AIDS with articles on Birth Control Options, Dating and HIV, HIV and Disclosure, etc.
Even with sufficient information listed, the website does have some pointers to further the information that enhances the coverage of the website. One example from the website, at the Women’s Center page, there are several articles listed for me to read however, on the right hand column, there is still another column of related topics links which I can go to.
Information is superbly well presented and arranged in a manner whereby reading is at ease. With clear, consistent and logical information presented and arranged, it makes researching easy too. On the left hand column, there is a small space dedicated to a search facility which readers can search on the topic/information they are looking for. The search features allow readers to do normal search and advance search including their selection of section to choose from. This enables the readers to get to information they want at a quicker time too.
Overall, I have very good impression of the quality of the website. The layout, colour combination and alignment are of good proportion. It gives a very clean and not messy feeling which can improve easy reading. I would gladly introduce this website to whoever that is interested in this topic.
Resource used:
Health Information for Women with HIV and AIDS from The Well Project. (July 2003). "What is HIV?". Retrieved May 20, 2008, from World Wide Web:
http://www.thewellproject.org/en_US/HIV_The_Basics/What_is_HIV.jsp
Jack Wu Tzu Hsien 0604370G-Discuss the developments in cancer research
Cancer is one of the most common and fatal diseases in the world where a lot of research has been carried out such as compare applications of the various cancer treatments. Curing cancer has greatly improved compared with olden days when it was impossible to have cure for cancer as they proclaimed. Starting in the mid-1990s, the emphasis in clinical cancer research shifted towards therapies derived from biotechnology research, such as immunotherapy and gene therapy.
Summary
Cancer grows out of normal cells in the body. Normal cells multiply when the body needs them, and die when the body doesn't. Cancer appears to occur when the growth of cells in the body is out of control and cells divide too rapidly. It can also occur when cells “forget” how to die.
There are many different kinds of cancers. Cancer can develop in almost any organ or tissue, such as the lung, colon, breast, skin, bones, or nerve tissue.
There are multiple causes of cancers, including:
Some other types of cancers include:
Some cancers may not have any symptoms at all. In some cancers, such as gallbladder cancer, symptoms often are not present until the disease has reached an advanced stage.
However, the following symptoms are common with most cancers:
A cancer diagnosis is difficult to cope with. It is important, however, through discussing the type, size, and location of the cancer with your doctor upon diagnosis will help the doctor to give the most appropriate treament for the particular cancer.
Treatment
Treatment also varies based on the type of cancer and its stage. The stage of a cancer refers to how much it has grown and whether the tumor has spread from its original location.
I think the resource is trustworthy and reliable as they are resources that even many professors would like to use them as references to support their researches regarding to development on cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_research
- Done by: Ke Xin (0607888E)
Introduction
What is alcoholism? It is the term that refers to a disease as known as alcohol dependence syndrome. It is the most severe stage of all the drinking problems which begins with binge drinking and alcohol abuse. Binge drinking usually refers to drinking five or more drinks at one time for men, and four or more drinks for women. Another definition of binge drinking means practically drink for the sake of getting drunk.
Alcohol is the drug of choice among youth. There are approximately 5000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking each year. There are many types of death caused by drinking intensively.
Regardless of all these death, drinking still continues to be widespread among adolescents according to nationwide surveys as well as studies in smaller populations. Research also shows that many of these adolescents start to drink at a very young age, average age as early as about 14 years old. People who started drinking at around the age of 15 years old will most likely to be dependent on alcohol at some point in their lives.
Summary of the Contents from the Resource
Alcoholism is considered a progressive disease which means that the effects and the symptoms of drinking alcohol become more and more severe as time goes by. People who take in alcohol may begin to show early signs of problem and then follow by showing symptoms of alcohol abuse. If they still continue drinking alcohol, they may show symptoms of alcoholism or alcohol dependence later.
Symptoms of Alcohol Abuse
Usually the main symptoms of alcohol abuse occurs when someone continues to drink after their drinking reaches a certain level which causes recurrent problems. Some of the problems are:
- Missing of work
- Drive when they are drunk
- Do not bear responsible for things they have done
- Get into trouble with the law
Symptoms of Alcohol Dependence
Medical professionals are able to determine how many of the major symptoms of alcohol dependence the drinker is experiencing. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the symptoms of alcohol dependence include:
- Drinkers tend to reduce or eliminates important or work-related activities
- They will start to consume larger amounts of alcohol over a longer period of time
- They will fail to cut down or control the amount of alcohol intake
- They will continue to drink even though they know they are facing physical or psychological problems
- They need to spend an abnormal amount of time to recover from the effects of alcohol
- They will experience symptoms such as nausea, sweating, shaking or aniet if they stop consuming alcohol for a short period of time.
Alcohol is the drug of choice among youth. Many youth choose to drink and binge on alcohol which cause them to face and experience the consequences of drinking too much. They are facing these consequences at too early an age, which as a result, alcoholism abuse on youth is a leading public health problem.
There are many different impacts of alcoholism abuse on youth in the world. Some of the young people under the age of 21 die as a results of alcohol abuse. These deaths include motor vehicle crashes, suicide, homicides, injuries and more.
According to the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study, when youth drink, they tend to drink intensively, often consuming about four to five drinks at one go. All these intensive drinking as known as binge drinking will also cause youth to engage in behaviors that harm themselves or others. They will more likely to engage in risky behaviors such as using other drugs, having sex with more than 5 partners as well as doing badly for studies in school.
Youth who drink drink heavily may put themselves at risk for a range of potential health problems. Alcohol will affect the long-term memory and learning skills of youth. It will also cause some degree of liver damage. Drinking at a young age may also upset the critical hormonal balance necessary for normal development of organs, muscles and bones.
Till today, alcohol is widely available and aggresively promoted throughout society. Many people still regards alcohol and drinking as a normal part of growing up. Even that is the case, underage drinking is still dangerous and not only to the drinker himself/herself, but also dangerous to the society. All these youth on alcoholism abuse might cause more alcohol-involved accidents in the future. People who start to drink at the early stage of their life run the risk of developing serious alcohol problems such as alcoholism in the later part of their life, and they are also at a greater risk of many consequences.
Resources Used
National Institute on Alcohol, Abuse and Alcoholism. (January 2006). "Underage Drinking" Retrieved May 22, 2008, from World Wide Web: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA67/AA67.htm
About.com: Alcoholism. (May 2007). "Youth Drinking - Risk Factors and Consequences". Retrieved May 22, 2008, from World Wide Web: http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa37.htm
Evaluation of the Resources
All in all, I think the two sources I have used are quite good and useful sources because they provide alot of useful information about alcoholism abuse. They gives details on why does youth take up intensive drinking and what are the impact and consequences they would have to face after that. One of the source also shows statistics of binge drinking, also known as alcoholism abuse of youth within a period of time. The information provided is rather accurate and trustable. I get to find lots of information regarding alcoholism such as what is alcoholism about and what are the syndromes and impacts of it. One of the sources does have search facility for users to search for the desired information using relevant keywords or phrases. The search results will be displayed all the available websites that contain information about the topic researched which helps to narrow down the user’s search area and enable them to find the information they want in a faster way.
Kamal - Impact of terrorism on world economy
Introduction
Terrorism often targeted to maximize fear and publicity. They plan attacks to cause destruction to people and the economy. Many innocent lives were lost caused by their uncivilized deeds. The threat are of terrorism has steadily increased since 1960s. With advances in technology, terrorist acts have become much more destructive and the perpetrators of those act more elusive.
Impact of Terrorism on world economy plays both the short term and long term. It affect many industries that contribute to the economy and the travel industry is most vulnerable.
Experts agrees that short term negative impact that terrorism brings to the travel industry is caused by psychological factors like lingering shock effects and fear of flying.
The long term impact of Terrorism on world economy is that there is always uncertainty of what will happen next and the length and outcome of the war on terrorism will further aggravate the situation.
Travel and Market
With the existence of terrorism, people tend to stay home where they feel most secure and tend to stay away from the troubled areas, therefore travel industry are affected thus affecting the world economy. People also have avoided for some time big metropolitan areas, air travel, cruise ships, major sports events and theme parks, perceived as likely terrorist targets.
One very good example is the Sept 11 attacks, Companies can be affected through this and when that happens, it creates a chain reaction of bad business and low productivity. People across the world had been more aware of terrorism as the impact it brings about is too drastic. The governments of many countries are taking security measures to protect their own country.
The impact of terrorism are which affected the U.S are the loss of property which amounted to tens of billions. Since then, there had been a dip in consumer spending as people stop buying and flying. Corporation’s investments decisions had been put on hold since. Unemployment rate in the U.S. had increased tremendously, even till now, there are not enough job being created to recover it. Also, there had been a large shortfall in the U.S. budget as money is needed for recovery of the country.
The incident is expected have different effect on the various travel segments.
- Hospitality: Hotels in fly-in and major business travel areas will be affected to a greater extent compared to hotels that rely on drive-in customers and resorts in vacation areas. Hotels in the affected areas already report "ridiculously high" cancellations.
- International Leisure Travel: It will have immediate negative effect, since September and October are very popular months for international travel, especially among senior citizens who are more prone to security anxiety. Tour operators already report massive cancellations, especially for September and for U.S. incoming travel.
- Domestic leisure travel in the active November - December period like family reunions, shopping will also be affected, though to a lesser degree. This is because people may choose shorter trips, drive-in instead of fly-in destinations, same-day-return instead of overnight trips.
- Leisure travel to "Winter sun" destinations in the November-February peak season, especially to domestic destinations (e.g. Florida) or neighboring destinations (Mexico, Caribbean) will not see major declines due to the traditional perceptions that such destinations are not a "terrorist priority".
Oil
Growth of the economies are based on the importing and exporting of oil and realize that in order for many businesses to operate, transportation is needed and in order to have transportation, there must be oil. This is why terrorists have turned to suicide bombings and other horrific measures to destroy oil supplies. Attacks on oil sources force the price of oil upward, increase erratic market behavior and gets the attention of oil dependent countries. This contributes to the destruction in the economy. Also with the increase in oil prices means an increase in shipping costs. Thus, the company makes less money, the stockholders suffer, and the market as a whole takes a hit.
Ethnic business
After the events of September 11 tragedy, the American public was looking for someone to take the blame and the group that was deemed responsible for the terrorist actions was slated as radical Muslims that were bent on destroying America’s way of life. This triggered an across the board reaction against all Muslims. Muslims in America suddenly felt themselves being alienated from their communities and as a result, Muslim businesses suffered. Some American’s believed that all Muslims were in some way linked to the events of 9/11 and responded by boycotting or protesting against Muslim businesses. Therefore Muslim business owners and workers serve faces difficulties.
Source taken from:
http://www.m-travel.com/news/2001/09/terrorism_impac.html
http://www.terrormarketeffect.com/index.shtml
Evaluation of Resource
The website have been very useful feeding me with information needed for the topic. It has helped me widen my knowledge about the negatives impact of terrorism on the world economy. It detailed out on how each factor contributed to one another leading to the fall of the economy. The purpose of the resource is also very clear. it summarize out each point clearly. i must say the points given are all relevant and stress out clearly the negative impact of terrorism to the world economy.
Loke Hui Mun (0607667C)- Discuss the impact of drugs abuse on youths
Introduction
Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. Use of drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm, both strongly depending on local jurisdiction.
Here are the common categories of drugs of abuse:
- Tobacco products
- Cannabinoids
- Cold medications
- Inhalants
- Depressants
- Stimulants
- Narcotics
- Hallucinogens
- Dissociative anesthetics
- Club drugs
- Others
An estimated 4.7% of the global population aged 15 to 64, or 185 million people, consume illicit drugs annually. In US, there are about 3000 adolescents smoke their first cigarette each day and about 1/3 of them become addictive smokers.
An example of drug abuse, a cough syrup is meant to be a medication for cough but by having a lot of cough syrup may lead a youth to become "high".
The dangerous effects of drug use in youths
There are many dangerous effects of drug use in adolescents. Some of the effects are:
- Any kind of drugs can decrease the youths' ability to pay attention
- The younger a person is when they consume drugs, the more likely they are to get into drug abuse when trying to quit
- Youths are more likely to get into sexual activity if they use drugs
- Drugs can cause anxiety, depression, mood swings, or hallucinations
The symptoms and warning signs of drug abuse
Different kind of drugs have different kind of signs that indicate a person is intoxicated or "high" and here are a few:
- Tobacco products: smell of tobacco, irritability, discolored fingertips, lips or teeth
- Cannabinoids: red eyes, tired, hungry, not motivated, very happy, paranoia
- Cold medications: tired, fast or slow heart rate
- Inhalants: running nose, smell of gasoline or other solvent, confuse or irritability
- Depressants: tired, lowered inhibitions, poor coordination, slow heart rate or blood pressure, dizziness, coma or even death in overdose
- Stimulants: fast heart rate or blood pressure, irritability, very happy, less need for sleep, paranoia, seizures
- Narcotics: experience less pain, very happy, tired, slow or stop breathing, coma and even death in overdose
- Hallucinogens: having trouble to sleep, blurred perceptions, paranoia
- Dissociative anesthetics: higher blood pressure and heart rate, loss of memory, giddy and vomitting, irritability, aggressiveness
- Club drugs: eating a lot of sweets, loving everyone and having a happy mood
The causes and risk factors of teen drug use
Family risk factors such as low parent supervision or communication, family conflicts, inconsistent or severe parental discipline, and family history of alcohol or drug abuse may cause teenagers to engage in drugs. Individual risk factors include any history of physical or sexual victimization, learning or emotional problems, difficulty managing impulses, emotional instability, thrill-seeking behaviors, and perceiving the risk of using drugs to be low.
The symptoms of drug abuse in youths
Some of the most common symptoms of drug abuse in youths include lying, making excuses, breaking curfew, staying in their room, becoming verbally or physically abusive toward others, having items in their possession that are connected to drug use (paraphernalia), the smell of drugs (for example, solvent smell of inhalants, marijuana smell) on them, mood swings, stealing, and changes in friends. Examples of paraphernalia include matches, rolling papers, and pipes for drugs that are smoked, multiple pill bottles for substances that are in pill form, mirrors for drugs that are snorted, and needles, syringes, and items that can be used as tourniquets for drugs that are injected.
Evaluation of the resource
I find that the quality (information) of the website gives me an in-depth knowledge about drug abuse on youths. Practically, the website provides all or everything that I need to find out about drug abuse on youths. Furthermore, the website gives me a better understanding by providing more than what I am required to know, such as the statistics on teenage drug use, the dangerous effects and more. I looked through many websites on drug abuse on youths and I find that this is the best website of all. The other websites do not provide as much details as this website does. On top of that, I can find more about other kinds of information such as the alcoholism abuse on youths, what is Ecstasy, Morphine, Heroin, etc. I can use the website to search for the information that I want to know and I believe that the information is reliable and comprehensive as well.
Source - http://www.medicinenet.com/teen_drug_abuse/article.htm
Discuss the Development of AIDS Research
- Done by Evelyn 0609396G
Introduction
Based on the AIDS Research (amfAR) website, the statistics shown there is a total of 33.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS right now. There is an astounding number of 2.1 million HIV/AIDS carrier whom are under the age of 15. Just last year, 2007, it has been estimated that 2.5 million people are infected with HIV. Even though they have not been full blown to AIDS, 420,000 of them were under the age of 15. This is definitely an awakening figure that we must now knowledge, people contract HIV/AIDS and die from it.
Summary of the contents from the resource
AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. It is a disease in which the body's immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off infections, known as "opportunistic infections" and other illnesses that take advantage of this weakened immune system.
At the moment, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that there are 40 million people living with HIV or AIDS worldwide. However, most of them do not know that they carry HIV and may be spreading the virus to other. Since the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS has killed more than 25 million people worldwide. Now, AIDS has replaced Malaria and Tuberculosis as the world's deadliest infectious disease among adults and is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. Sad to say, there is still no cure to this deadly disease yet. The only way they can prolong their lifespan will be a lifetime consumption of medication and having treatments to slow down the process.
People living with and managing HIV/AIDS disease requires a thorough understanding of the treatments that are available to them. It also demands that drug companies develop new and more effective HIV drugs throughclincial trials and research. In which, scientists have developed drugs that block HIV from reproducing at different stages of its life cycle. So far there are four different classes of drugs in the market:
- Fusion inhibitors
- Nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors ("nukes" or NRITS)
- Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors ("non-nukes" or NNRTIs)
- Protease inhibitors (PIs)
The above drugs are always used in combinations known as HAART which stands for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy. HAART attacks HIV at different points using different drugs (usually from different classes). This is the best way to reduce the amount of HIV in the patient's bloody (viral load). Ultimately, the treatment goals is to get the viral load as low as feasible for as long as feasible, to preserve or regain he/she immune system function by increasing CD4 cells and improve carriers' quality of life and reduce illness and death.
However, in the recent years, a new treatment has surfaced. This new treatment for HIV infection is made by Merck & Co, the first integrase inhibitor aimed at preventing replication of the virus has been approved by U.S. regulators. It has been said that the integrase inhibitor seems "very safe, compared to other agents. It is very potent in terms of HIV suppression, " said Dr. Homayoon Khanlou, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Chief of Medicine, who was involved in the clinical testing. Isentress was approved based on 24 weeks testing, in combination with other antiretroviral drugs, in about 700 patients with highly resistant HIV. The company promised to study the drug for at least 5 years to monitor any side effects that might not have shown up in its initial clinical trails.
No matter what treatments we have invented, HIV/AIDS is still an uncurable disease and is still continuing to spread worldwide. In order to significantly minimize the spread of this disease, we still have to continue to create awareness to all countries.
Evaluation of the resource
The coverage of the website ranges from understanding the basics of HIV/AIDS, treatment & trials currently used for the patients, upcoming diseases & conditions which might caused by HIV/AIDS, learning how to live well, women’s center- cater to the female for more related women information and even a ‘Did You Know?’ column for the latest HIV/AIDS news. The website is also highly comprehensive as it covers almost all aspects. It allows me to navigate the website without much difficulties and with sufficient information listed, it makes reading very much easier.
Some of the subject areas and materials covered are the basics of HIV/AIDS, treatments & trials which the market is using right now, possible diseases & conditions that HIV/AIDS carrier might be faced with, articles on how to live well in terms of Health, Housing, Insurance and Benefits, Legal Issues, Travel and Work, and a page dedicated to only the women contracted with HIV/AIDS with articles on Birth Control Options, Dating and HIV, HIV and Disclosure, etc.
Even with sufficient information listed, the website does have some pointers to further the information that enhances the coverage of the website. One example from the website, at the Women’s Center page, there are several articles listed for me to read however, on the right hand column, there is still another column of related topics links which I can go to.
Information is superbly well presented and arranged in a manner whereby reading is at ease. With clear, consistent and logical information presented and arranged, it makes researching easy too. On the left hand column, there is a small space dedicated to a search facility which readers can search on the topic/information they are looking for. The search features allow readers to do normal search and advance search including their selection of section to choose from. This enables the readers to get to information they want at a quicker time too.
Overall, I have very good impression of the quality of the website. The layout, colour combination and alignment are of good proportion. It gives a very clean and not messy feeling which can improve easy reading. I would gladly introduce this website to whoever that is interested in this topic.
Resource used:
Health Information for Women with HIV and AIDS from The Well Project. (July 2003). "What is HIV?". Retrieved May 20, 2008, from World Wide Web:
http://www.thewellproject.org/en_US/HIV_The_Basics/What_is_HIV.jsp
Jack Wu Tzu Hsien 0604370G-Discuss the developments in cancer research
Cancer is one of the most common and fatal diseases in the world where a lot of research has been carried out such as compare applications of the various cancer treatments. Curing cancer has greatly improved compared with olden days when it was impossible to have cure for cancer as they proclaimed. Starting in the mid-1990s, the emphasis in clinical cancer research shifted towards therapies derived from biotechnology research, such as immunotherapy and gene therapy.
Summary
Cancer grows out of normal cells in the body. Normal cells multiply when the body needs them, and die when the body doesn't. Cancer appears to occur when the growth of cells in the body is out of control and cells divide too rapidly. It can also occur when cells “forget” how to die.
There are many different kinds of cancers. Cancer can develop in almost any organ or tissue, such as the lung, colon, breast, skin, bones, or nerve tissue.
There are multiple causes of cancers, including:
- Radiation
- Sunlight
- Tobacco
- Certain viruses
- Benzene
- Certain poisonous mushrooms and aflatoxins (a poison produced by organisms that can grow on peanut plants)
Some other types of cancers include:
- Brain cancer
- Cervical cancer
- Uterine cancer
- Liver cancer
- Leukemia
- Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Kidney cancer
- Ovarian cancer
- Skin cancer
- Testicular cancer
- Thyroid cancer
Some cancers may not have any symptoms at all. In some cancers, such as gallbladder cancer, symptoms often are not present until the disease has reached an advanced stage.
However, the following symptoms are common with most cancers:
- Fever
- Chills
- Night sweats
- Weight loss
- Loss of appetite
- Fatigue
- Malaise
- Complete blood count (CBC)
- Blood chemistries
- Biopsy of the tumor
- Bone marrow biopsy (for lymphoma or leukemia)
- Chest x-ray
A cancer diagnosis is difficult to cope with. It is important, however, through discussing the type, size, and location of the cancer with your doctor upon diagnosis will help the doctor to give the most appropriate treament for the particular cancer.
Treatment
Treatment also varies based on the type of cancer and its stage. The stage of a cancer refers to how much it has grown and whether the tumor has spread from its original location.
- If the cancer is confined to one location and has not spread, the goal for treatment would be surgery and cure. This is often the case with skin cancers.
- If the tumor has spread to local lymph nodes only, sometimes these can also be removed.
- If all of the cancer cannot be removed with surgery, the options for treatment include radiation, chemotherapy, or both. Some cancers require a combination of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
I think the resource is trustworthy and reliable as they are resources that even many professors would like to use them as references to support their researches regarding to development on cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_research
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, May 30 2008, 5:39 AM EDT
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