Wednesday, April 29, 2020

The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet Essay Example Essay Example

The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet Essay Example Paper The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet Essay Introduction â€Å"Here’s much to do with hate but more with love† This quotation from Romeo can in fact describe the whole play. The word â€Å"more† shows the power of love to overcome hatred. However, in Romeo and Juliet there are several different types of love demonstrated. For example, characters such as Mercutio can be seen using sexual innuendos and bawdy language. In the play, there is evidence of brotherly love, shown to Romeo by Benvolio; motherly love from the Nurse towards Juliet; and fatherly love shown by Friar Lawrence towards Romeo; a suitor who offers wealth and power, is shown in the character of Paris. On one hand there is Romeo and Juliet who show a very passionate and romantic form of love. Romeo and Juliets love is different from everyone elses thoughts. For them, marriage is completely based upon true love. Others, it may be for power, wealth and recognition.Romeo is one of the protagonists in the play. He comes across as a very romantic and mature tee nager who feels the in the deepest love for Juliet who he met at Lord Capulet’s party. â€Å"O she doth teach the torches to burn bright.† â€Å"What is her mother?† These are his words to Nurse and her answer reveals that his to see if only love has come from his only hate.But this is not the first time Romeo was â€Å"in love†.He loves Rosaline in the beginning of the play because that is what he thinks is the manly thing to do. But later he falls in love with Juliet. But once he has set his eyes on her, he completely forgets about Rosaline. Romeo presents Rosaline as having â€Å"wit† and being â€Å"strong†, as â€Å"she† will not be hit with Cupid’s arrow(Act 1 scene 1, lines 203-204), she lives unharmed(line 205) which means secure against his advances is rich in beauty.Mercutio’s attitude towards love is very sarcastic; it is uses bawdy humour and innuendo. Mercutio is always twisting words so that they become rud e. One innuendo he uses would be†An open-arse, thou pop’rin pear.† Mercutio is not at all a the person who would show any sign of affection, but a person who would joke about love and feelings. He mocks Romeo when he hears about Romeo’s love for Rosaline. Sampson, Gregory and the Nurse all use bawdy humour, but Mercutio is the wittiest. â€Å"this is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, making them women of good carriage. This is she-† He is constantly punning, this shows how he generally behaves. Mercutio does not provide much help to the love of Romeo and Juliet mainly because he doesn’t know about their secret love, but even if he did know he is the kind of character who would mock. He thinks that Romeo is wasting his time with Rosaline, and mocks him.At the beginning of Act 2 Scene 3, Friar Lawrence thinks that Romeo. He treats Romeo like a son, as Friar has known him since he was born.â € Young son, it argues a distemper’d head† which means that Romeo, a young man should be getting sleep and shouldn’t be disturbed†Ã¢â‚¬ But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain† meaning Romeo shoudn’t have any worries when going to sleep unlike an older man like Friar Lawrence that stay awake with worries.Friar Lawrence is happy when Romeo says â€Å"I have forgot that name† when he is asked about Rosaline. Young Romeo then tells Frair Lawrence that he is certain he loves Juliet. Friar Lawrence then goes to mock Romeo by saying†Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes† Friar Lawrence does not believe Romeo is really in love, but only cares about their appearance i.e. their looks. Friar Lawrence shows love in this scene towards Romeo by taking great interests in what he is doing, but also by doing the type of things a father would do. â€Å"The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness† T he Friar says this to Romeo suggesting that anticipation is more than what it turns out to be.Friar Lawrence marries the couple and tries to help them whenever possible. He wants the best for them and thinks that if they marry then possibly the feuding will end; â€Å"In one respect I’ll thy assistant be: for this may so happy prove, to turn your households’ rancour to pure love†The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet is a character who is treats Juliet as her own child. She has always been looking after Juliet since she was a baby. Even though Juliet’s real mother is Lady Capulet, she does not seem to be so interested in her. People only hired people like the Nurse if they were very wealthy and powerful. Juliet and the Nurse are closer to each other than Juliet and lady Capulet have ever been. The nurse has a blunt attitude towards love and sex, but s affectionate and loving woman who wants Juliet to be happy. In the beginning, the nurse aids Juliet’s love for Romeo but in the end she tries to persuade Juliet to marry Paris.Old Capulet has a certain type of love towards his daughter Juliet; he has never really bonded with her a lot. Capulet was saying just before how his daughter is really young to be married â€Å"and soon marr’d are those so early made† but Paris is arguing and saying that there are girls younger than Juliet that have got married. This means that Capulet, as a concerned father thinks those who get married too young could end up being hurt, and if Juliet does not choose Paris as the one she loves, he should love her anyway. I think he shows a caring side here because he is worried about the age of Juliet. He also says if Juliet picks Paris out as someone she loves then Capulet will agree. When the audience hear Lord Capulet in act 4, scene 5 and act 5 scene 4 they would be shocked because due to his sudden reaction when he hears that Juliet refuses to marry Paris. He is so angry that he can’t kee p his feelings in.Benvolio is Romeo’s cousin, and is also one of his closest relatives. He definitely shows a very caring character treating Romeo with respect, as if he was his brother. He is always advising Romeo what to do. â€Å"Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her, by giving liberty into mine eyes, examine other beautiesTybalt is part of the Capulet family and is very protective over what his family represent. He is willing to fight for his life, as we can see with an incident occurring with Romeo. When Tybalt realises that his most hated enemies are attending their party, he goes straight to the head of the house (Capulet) and complains he wants them to leave at once. â€Å"Tis he, that villain Romeo.† Capulet considers the ideas of Tybalt but realises that there will be an uproar and the party will most likely be spoilt. â€Å"Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone, ‘A bears him like a portly gentleman.†Paris is the man whom Capulet wants Juliet to marry. Paris explains his feelings for Juliet to Capulet. It seems that Paris does love Juliet because when Romeo kills him he asks to be put in her tomb, â€Å"If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.†In conclusion, the play of Romeo and Juliet, shows many different types of love. Romantic and true love compared with courtly unrequited love and the sexual love of Mercutio. It also compares the fatherly love of the Friar with that of Capulet and the motherly love of the nurse with that of Lady Capulet. Benvolio and Tybalt meanwhile illustrate brotherly love and the extreme love of the family name. In the play, it is less to do with love and more about wealth and family status. In act 5, scene 3, Romeo resolves to kill himself that night in Capulet’s monument. I think this is a brave decision, because it shows the depth of his love for Juliet. It is extremely romantic act â€Å"this love feel I, that feel no love in this.† The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet Essay Thank you for reading this Sample!

Friday, March 20, 2020

Englands Motives of Colonizat essays

Englands Motives of Colonizat essays Christopher Columbus, considered one of the greatest explorers of all time. Like every other explorer, Columbus had many reasons for his exploration. However, it is made obvious by studying the history of Columbus' explorations that his main motive for exploration was greed. Columbus had the same desires as many explorers both before and after him. He yearned for gold. He wanted land. He wanted power. The whole purpose for his first voyage to what he thought was India, but turned out to be Central America, was to gain land for Spain. It took quite a bit of sweet talking from Columbus to get the money and ships needed for this voyage from Spain's Queen Isabella. But in the end, Columbus had the chance to reach a goal brought on by greed: to gain riches. Queen Isabella had the same motive. She wanted land for Spain, and that is the only reason that she ever gave him the money and ships The English, like other countries, voyaged to the Americas in search of riches. It wasn't until they got there that they realized that people already lived there. It was at that point that greed took over the English. The English did something, that by today's standards would be considered inhuman. They used a method of mass murder called extermination. They used whatever it took to kill the most Native Americans possible in the smallest amount of time. The English would not have done this had it not been for extreme greed. They wanted the land that the Native Americans had and they wanted it as soon as possible. This greed among the English did accomplish their task of taking land quickly, but it also accomplished the murder of thousands Although it doesn't seem obvious at first thought, new laws in Europe helped with the effort in nation building. With the new laws were the guidelines as to were the laws were in effect. Often, a new ...

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

What Is the ACT Out Of

What Is the ACT Out Of SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips You may have heard of this standardized test calledthe ACT. What's this test out of? What's the highest and lowest ACT score? And what score should you try to get? I'll answer allof these questions below. What Is the ACT Out Of? When you get your ACT score report, you'll see several numbers including your composite ACT score and your individual section scores (there are four sections: English, Math, Reading, and Science). The composite ACT score is the primary number that colleges look at.The composite ACT score is out of 36.Scores range from 1 to 36. Each section is also out of 36, with scores ranging from 1 to 36 in the individual sections. To give you a sense of the range of ACT scores in the US, I've assembled this chart with approximate national ACT percentiles: Percentile ACT Score 25th 16 50th 20 75th 24 Your final ACT composite score is calculated by average the 4 section scores and rounding to the nearest whole number. For further explanation, read How Do You Calculate ACT Score? What Score Should You Aim for in theRange? You don't necessarily need to aim for a perfect 36.You should choose your target score for the ACT based on what score will get you into your target schools. Find out what the average ACT score is for accepted students to your target schools by search â€Å"[College Name] ACT† in Google. You'll likely find the school’s 25th/75th percentile scores. What are these numbers? The 25th percentile ACT score means that 25% of admitted freshmen received a score at or below that number (75% of admitted students scored higher). The 75th percentile score means that 75% of admitted freshmen received a score at or below that number (25% of admitted students scored higher). Well, what should you aim for in the 25th/75th percentile range? You should aim for a score at or above the 75th percentile score to have the best chance of being admitted. For a more in-depth explanation of what your target ACT score should be, read What is a good ACT score? A bad ACT score? An excellent ACT score? What’s Next? Learn more about the ACT test format and prepare to rock the ACT: What is the ACT? A Complete Explanation of the Test The Ultimate Study Guide for ACT Science: Tips, Practice, and Strategies The Ultimate Prep Guide to ACT Reading: Strategies, Tips, and Practice The Ultimate Study Guide for ACT English: Tips, Rules, Practice, and Strategies Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points? Download our free guide to the top 5 strategies you need in your prep to improve your ACT score dramatically.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

The Internet Technology and Data Ownership Issue Assignment

The Internet Technology and Data Ownership Issue - Assignment Example The internet has become such a norm that the mere existence of man at a certain place without having been connected to the internet is though impossible. About (2011) defines the internet as: â€Å"The term  Internet  today refers to the global network of public computers running  Internet Protocol. The Internet supports the public  WWW  and many special-purpose client/server software systems. Internet technology also supports many private corporate  intranets  and private home  LANs.† (about, 2011) The human society has been transformed completely with the advent of the internet. Human life before it was devoid of the thought of staying virtually connected to innumerable individuals just by getting connected to a network w=of computers that was nothing more than an obscure network of corporate computers just about a quarter of a century back. Though it started off merely as a very small scale office network today the internet is the biggest network of connecte d computing devices from all over the world that has ever existed. This network is a massive den of information. This information may be related to just about anything and everything. It is an open network and the more users get connected to it via their connecting device the wider it becomes. The connecting devices may either be as small as a mobile phone and may even be as large as a super server computer. Any user can add just about any kind of information over the internet. Only information gathered from reliable resources is authentic and may be referred to others further on. Isao Hiroki mentions internet in his paper in the following words: â€Å"The virtual space of the internet permeates our daily lives and countless new services.† (Hiroki, 2003) For all students and inquisitive learners the internet is an ideal resource. This is because they can find out information regarding just about any of their topics from the internet. All they need to do id to search for the r equired topic by entering its’ prominent words in efficient search engines. These search engines dig throughout authentic (spyware free) web pages and bring out their links as a result. The user can then make use of the massive data retrieval that is at his disposal with the additive advantage of it being free of cost. Evan Charles Sveum (July 2010) mentions Computing and Internet Technology in the following words: â€Å"Computing and Internet technologies (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000) have changed the nature of work and occupations that would allow a person to earn a living.† (Sveum, 2010) The above statement narrates the fact that internet based jobs have been very popular among the public since internet technology has emerged. Besides that the availability of other jobs can also be checked via the internet as many vendors propagate the availability of jobs at their sites via it. Many people can now earn a living by earning over the internet in the form of e-busin ess, writing blogs etc. DQ2-Who owns the data? Privacy and/or security issues are inherent in large databases. Who owns the data about a particular person: medical, credit, personal, financial, consumer information, etc.? Support your position. The question referring to the ownership of data has been existent ever since the launch of databases. The dependence of man on computing machines for transactions related to monetary and personal details cannot be overlooked in this fast paced

Monday, February 3, 2020

Individual Report - Fast Food Case Context Essay - 1

Individual Report - Fast Food Case Context - Essay Example 2. The Economic Environment The Chinese Foodservices industry is currently valued at $366.9 billion USD and is expected to grow to nearly $500 billion USD by 2015 (New Zealand Trade & Enterprise 2012). Full service restaurants maintain approximately 75 percent market share in China, whilst fast food concepts maintain 25 percent market share in this industry. A recent study further revealed that approximately 50 percent of all Chinese consumers prefer eating in restaurant environments over that of home-cooked products, representing a potential market of a half billion consumers geographically dispersed throughout the country (Ganster 2006). This preference for external restaurant dining is fuelled by rising consumer incomes which have increased by nine percent in urban regions and 12 percent in rural areas (Censky 2012). There are ample market opportunities in China based largely on social trends of restaurant consumption that are favourable for launching a new fast food brand with su fficient incomes to consume under a moderately-priced business model. By 2020, it is estimated that total, national seafood consumption volumes in China will be at 35.9 kg/capita, fuelled by a strong consumer demand for seafood (Redfern Associates 2010). Market expansion into China will further require access to appropriate capital and credit to ensure adequate asset procurement and structuring of operations. In 2012, the country’s fiscal leadership injected nearly 58 billion USD into the economic system to stabilise currency exchange rates and fuel new corporate borrowing in the financial sector (Safe Trading 2013). This has opened avenues for support in foreign direct investment and improved the dynamics by which financial lenders evaluate loan generation to fuel economic growth through business development. However, there is a risk as it relates to the economic environment in China. As a product of the recession begun in 2008 that impacted international economies, Chinaâ⠂¬â„¢s efforts to stabilise the exchange rate led to rapid inflation in the food sector that has raised pricing along the foods supply chain (Ho 2011). Though inflationary costs provide opportunities to increase revenues by nearly 17 percent in the foods industry by superimposing higher pricing models to offset procurement costs, rising costs in a very complicated foods supply chain pose risks in a country where consumers are notoriously price-sensitive (Vangpeng 2012). Price-sensitive buyers represent the ability of consumer target groups to impose pricing transparency and leverage pricing demands. 3. Political Considerations Fortunately for the fish and chips brand, progressive changes to a more capitalistic model of government are providing new support for both domestic and foreign business development. Influence of the World Trade Organization has opened new distribution channels with much less stringent regulations and imposition of import/export tariffs that promote better int ernational trade (Areddy 2009). For the business desiring to establish a supply chain network utilising foreign seafood product farmers and distributors, rather than domestic suppliers, the government provides ample support in legislation to remove economic barriers that can complicate cost control. At the same time, the domestic supply chain for aquatic foods products is complicated and widely dispersed, but

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Increase in cigarette tax would reduce the cigarette consumption

Increase in cigarette tax would reduce the cigarette consumption 5.0 Introduction The results of our analysis demonstrate that increase in cigarette tax would reduce the cigarette consumption or quit smoking among lower income smokers and heavily addicted smokers, thus it upheld the hypotheses four and five. However, the tax factor does not prove to be significantly related on younger smokers, female smokers and less educated smokers. Chapter 5 includes a summary description of descriptive and inferential analyses and discussion of major findings that validate our research objective and hypotheses. Next section provides the implications of our study toward the society. Following section will discuss several limitations that are apparent during the progress of the study, as well as to provide some recommendations for future research. Then, an overall conclusion of our entire study is presented at the end of this chapter. 5.1 Summary of Statistical Analysis The demographic profiles of respondents are analyzed when the data are collected. Smokers are categorized by different races, gender, smoking degree, education and age and the data is presented in pie charts. Besides, the central tendencies statistic of the variables is also calculated in the analysis. Cross tabulation tables are presented to show responses of each subgroup. Statistical method used in the inferential analysis is multinomial logistic regression. This statistical method presented the predictability relationship between the dependent and independent variables in the form of odd ratio [i.e. Exp(B)]. When the significant level is less than 0.05, the alternative hypothesis is accepted. In this research, alternative hypothesis for age, gender, and education level are rejected as these factor do not affect the likelihood of the responses towards cigarette tax. The alternative hypothesis for smoking degree and income level are accepted as the significant level is less than 0.05. Therefore, smoking degree and income level are more likely to predict a certain type of responses from the smokers. Multivariate analysis is also performed by inputting all independent variables as covariate factors in the SPSS program. Multivariate analysis is to ensure the relationship is not significantly affected by other independent variables. 5.2 Discussion of Major Finding Table 5.1: Summary of the Inferential Analysiss Results Hypothesis Result H1: Younger smokers are more likely to quit smoking than older smokers given cigarette tax increase. Rejected H2: Male smokers are more likely to give no response to cigarette tax increase than female smokers. Rejected H3: Highly educated smokers are more likely to quit smoking than less educated smokers given cigarette tax increase. Rejected H4: Lower income smokers are more likely to cut cost than higher income smokers given cigarette tax increase. Accepted H5: Heavy smokers are more likely to give no response to cigarettes tax increase than light smokers. Accepted Source: Developed for the research According to rational addiction theory in terms of the variable age, rational young smokers should be more likely to quit smoking given that their longer life remaining compared to older smokers and their comparatively lower income. Younger smokers who might develop lung cancer right now would lose much more (time) compared to an 80 years old smoker with lung cancer. Our empirical research does not confirmed this because we had shown that younger smokers are not more likely to quit/cut smoking than adult smokers. Past studies by Lewit and Coate (1982) and Sylvain (2007) also contradicted the result we had. The possible reason leading to this result might include the small number of young smokers in our sample. The alternative explanation is that since we perform our data collection in urban areas, young smokers tend to be more affluent, therefore they are not affected by increase in tax. Interestingly, Decicca, Kenkel and Mathios (2008) stated that since most smoking initiation start s during youth, therefore, the existing young smokers who quit/cut smoking due to taxes could be higher. The study also finds that gender is not a factor in determining the decision to cut/quit smoking given cigarette tax increase. However, rational addiction theory predicts female is more likely to cut down cigarette consumption due to traditionally being poorer than male. This contradiction happened because, we suspect, the income gap between the genders is fast closing. Therefore, any tax increase will not significantly create any reduced consumption of cigarettes among the women. Our finding is in line with the mixed results of previous literature. Chaloupka (1990) discovered that men are more likely to quit/cut smoking while Stehr (2007) found that women are more likely to quit/cut smoking. We find that education has little impact on the decision of smokers in response to cigarette tax increase. According to rational addiction theory, smokers with less education incur much cost than highly educated smokers for smoking because they have generally lower income. Our findings did not support rational addiction theory. Previous research by Madden (2007) partly supported our finding, he found that highly educated smokers are less responsive to cigarette tax. However, Tansels (1993) findings in Turkey (a middle income country) partly supported our conclusion. He found a positive and significant relationship between education and cigarette tax elasticity meaning that the higher the education, the higher the sensitivity towards cigarette tax a smoker will be. The reason behind is that highly educated smokers also tend to cut down smoking when taxed are raised, not because of the money issue, but because they are fearful of the health consequences. They have utilized the tax incr ease as the opportunity to go cold turkey. Therefore, when both higher education and lower education smokers choose to smoke less, none is more likely than the other. Lower income smokers are more likely to cut cost than richer smokers because the cost of continuing the habit of smoking is higher. Each RM increase in cigarette price will affect their quality of life, even creating shortages of money for childrens education, food and other daily expenses compounded to the future. This result conforms to previous research done by Biener et al. (1998) which says that poor smokers are 3 times as likely to either switch to cheaper brands of cigarettes or reduce consumption. Townsend et al. (1994) findings also brings forth similar conclusion. As expected, heavy smokers are more likely to give no response towards cigarettes tax increase than light smokers. Adjacent complementarity explains that within a certain time frame, the more a smoker smokes now, the more he would like to smoke in the future. Unless the pain of higher cigarette price is more than the pain of giving up the smoking addiction, smokers will tend to continue to smoke in the future. Previous research done by Lee (2008) does not conform to our findings. Lee et al. (2004) whose result shows that heavy smokers increase smoking consumption when tax is increased supported our result. Overall, the article that Biener et al. (1998) produced matches our results almost entirely. Other studies that contradict our result normally utilized national cigarette sales data. Therefore, their studies are not entirely comparable to our individualistic survey-based study. 5.3 Implications of the Study Whether cigarette tax effectively achieves the governments goal in reducing cigarette consumption is a significant issue that needs to be carefully considered from time to time in order to better determine the direction of future policies. Hence, identifying the effect of tax increases on cigarette consumption is an essential part for regulating proper governmental policies on the tobacco use. Generally, the progressive increase in cigarette tax rates may provide a powerful contribution toward the governments taxation policy which would boost the governments income tax revenue, as well as to improve economic efficiency of the country. In our study, we found that highly addicted and high income smokers do not respond to cigarette tax well. They still purchase same quantity of cigarettes. Therefore, government should devise a method of targeting cigarette taxes towards these groups of smokers to maximize tax revenue. According to Tsai et al. (2003), portions of extra revenue which was derived from the cigarette tax would be earmarked to the governments effort for implementing tobacco control program against the tobacco use such as anti-smoking media-campaigns. Still, other portion of the cigarette tax revenues would dedicate into funding healthcare for under-insured population, lung cancer research and other health related activities. Apart from that, our study also contributes to public health by identifying that education does not play a significant role in reducing consumption of cigarette due to taxes. This implies that our education system is not emphasizing the danger and health hazard of smoking. This, however, agrees with the rational addiction theory because highly educated people are likely to be wealthy. Therefore, they do not suffer as much because of tax increase. In contrast, wealthy people also suffer more because of health problems because they have much to enjoy in life (holidays, entertainment, longer life etc.) compared to low income smokers. Therefore, in devising a public health policy, our study implies that we should educate people on the danger of smoking while at the same time increasing cigarette tax so that in the end, the rich and the poor both smoke less. During the process of conceptual foundation, our research has contributed extensive amount of empirical evidence that have reviewed the relationships between various demographic and smoking degree factors and the response to cigarette tax increase. Through our study, we can better understand the effects of taxation on cigarette consumption which will result in different consumption patterns. For instance, smokers may cut cost either by reducing the number of cigarette they smoke or change to a cheaper brand, choose to quit smoking, or maintain their original level of consumption. According to the fundamental law of economics which specified that as the price of a product rises, the quantity demanded for that product would fall. However, we found that there is an exception to this most basic law of economics because of the nature of rational addiction. Since we viewed the cigarettes smoking as an addictive behaviour, therefore it could be expected that increasing cigarette tax would h ave smaller effect than normal product in reducing peoples consumption of cigarettes. Alternatively, increasing cigarette taxes too high and the government would risk creating a black market or the emergent of smuggled cigarette. 5.4 Limitations of the Study Limitation of this survey-based research is that smokers may not always do what they say they would do in the questionnaire. They may choose to answer quit smoking, cut cost in the questionnaire but may act to smoke next week, next month or some other dates. On the other hand, they may answer no response to cigarette tax but choose to quit smoking the next day. However, they are not necessarily been telling lies. It is just that future behavior is hard to predict even for smokers themselves especially those who are highly addicted to cigarettes. Warner (1978) had showed that self-reported consumption in questionnaire significantly underestimate the actual sales data taken at the national level. Apart from that, the small numbers of samples of young smokers age 11 and below may not be sufficient to produce any strong evidence for that age group. The reason for such low numbers is that it is illegal for them to smoke in Malaysia. Besides, retailers are not permitted to sell cigarettes to minors age 18 and below. Besides, comparably smaller numbers of female smokers compared to male smokers may have distorted the results. Female smokers are historically and nationally lower than male smokers. Therefore, each female smokers responses to cigarettes tax have larger impact per person to the end result as compared to individual male smoker. Wasserman, Manning, Newhouse and Winkler (1991) had observed that using individual level data may incorporate ecological bias into the study. There may be other variables affecting the tobacco use that are not incorporated into the determinant. Example might include, family size, social statuses of smokers and profession (e.g. doctors may possibly smoke less). Another example would be the existence of societal culture that disapproves the habit of smoking. The respondent going through the survey questionnaire cannot choose to answer the questionnaire in any other way than was included in the choices of answers. The smoker only can fill in their answer according to the objective answers set by the researcher beforehand and all the answer categories are based on nominal or ordinal. If the questionnaire is asking about question such as how would you response to a RM1 increase in cigarette price and the respondent wish to answer that he would quit for 1 month and only continue smoking if his income has increase accordingly, it is not possible. These will result in inaccurate result as the researcher has already set the chooseable answers, namely to quit smoking, cutting cost and choose not to respond. Another limitation of the research is that it does not consider smuggled cigarettes and cigarettes sold in tax free zone. Tsai et al. (2003) and Lee and Chen (2006) had proved in their studies that smokers tend to purchased smuggled cigarettes to avoid the high cost of legal cigarettes in Taiwan. Respondent who purchase tax-exempted cigarettes from these two sources may not be hurt by the tax and therefore our result will be biased towards No Response. Moreover, although we know that the main effect of rising price of cigarette due to tax would reduce smokers cigarette consumption but we do not know whether it is cigarette tax that has actually play an important role on the demand of cigarette. Perhaps the reason for reducing cigarette consumption may be due to some issues other than taxation policy such as concern over the health consequences of cigarette smoking since they know that smoking will lead to lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc. Another issue that could influence on the demand of cigarette may be the tobacco control policy, for example advertising restrictions or ban on smoking in public places, as well as anti-smoking media campaigns could induce smokers to quit/cut smoking as well. Besides that, law policy also plays a major effect on cigarette consumption which limit smoking in public place and restrictions on youth under 18 years old to purchase the tobacco products. Since there are a lot of other issues than t axation in affecting their smoking behaviour, therefore it is recommended that future research in those issues need to be conducted to verify its actual effects. The final limitation of our study is that we seek our respondent mainly in the Klang Valley area. Therefore, it may not truly represent the whole population in Malaysia. We know that Klang Valley populations are urban dwellers and the result may deviate a little if we include smokers from rural areas. Urban dwellers normally had higher education level and higher income level compared to non-urban dwellers. However, since majority of the smokers live in the city and most of the tax revenue collected comes from them, it is acceptable to neglect smokers from rural areas. All limitations are acknowledged but they do not detract from the significance of finding but merely provides platforms for future research. 5.5 Recommendations for Future Research As we use cross-sectional method in our research, we highly recommend future research on this topic conducted in the longitudinal method. Future researchers can conduct the research on the change of cigarette tax in Malaysia in the time period of few years or longer. It is similar to the way conducted by Hamilton, Levinton, Pierre, Grimard (1997) and Hanewinkel and Isensee (2007) in their studies. Based on our knowledge and finding, Malaysia has not conducted the research on this topic by this method. By conducting the study in longitudinal method, the result will be more accurate and reliable because this method can overcome the limitation of cross-sectional method as discussed in the first paragraph of limitation. Actually, there are even little research on the topic cigarette taxes itself in Malaysia. More research on this topic is highly recommended because the consumption behavior of Malaysian smokers may be different from overseas smokers. Many researches on the cigarette consumption were focused either on the effect of cigarette tax/price to the cigarette consumption such as Lee (2008) or the effect of anti-smoking campaign/health information on the cigarette consumption such as Warner (1977) and Lee and Chen (2008). Future researchers should find ways to integrate and study both the effect of cigarette tax and anti-smoking campaigns together on the cigarette consumption. This is because cigarette tax and health information do affect the cigarette consumption at the same time. The only difference between them is whether price or health information plays in a bigger role on the change of cigarette consumption. By studying the effect of cigarette tax and health information together on the cigarette consumption, the result can be more reliable and usable for government to implement its tobacco policy effectively and efficiently. Besides that, researchers can examine the fairness principle on the tobacco policy in Malaysia. Many researchers such Gospodinov and Ian Irvine (2009)) and Warner et al. (1995) had discussed the issues of fairness principle in the tobacco policy in their studies. One of the arguments is the tax imposed is unfair to lower income group. Lower income group often will consume lower priced or smuggled cigarettes when cigarette tax is increased as proved by Evans and Farrelly (1998), Farrelly, Nimsch, Hyland and Cummings (2004), and Tsai et al. (2003). Often, lower priced or smuggled cigarettes contain higher tar and nicotine substance. The consumers health will be more affected by smoking these types of cigarettes. Moreover, future research can focus on whether tax should be imposed based on the quantity of nicotine and tar instead of quantity of cigarette in Malaysia. The impacts of implementing tax based on quantity of nicotine and tar need to be researched and determined. Youth is the most valuable assets for the country. Future research can focus on the access of youth to cigarette or exposure to smoking environment/ habits in Malaysia. This type of research can provide important data and information to our country and the world since the younger generation of smokers has increased many folds throughout the world during the past century. More effective tobacco control program to the youth can be implemented based on the data and information. In addition, future research can focus on what is the optimal tax rate for cigarette in Malaysia and its impacts. 5.6 Conclusion Smoking has been a prevalent epidemic in the modern world. It remains one of the top killers of human on the 21st century. Fortunately, excise taxes on cigarettes continue to be our last line of defense against smoking and many countries including Malaysia has been increasing taxes on cigarettes for many years. In the beginning of our research, we had set out to answer the questions. We want to know given the socio-economic factors and addictions degree, whether it will affect the likely responses of fellow smokers following a significant increase in cigarettes tax. The principles of rational addiction theory predict that lower income, younger, low education, female and lightly addicted smokers are more likely to respond towards cutting down on smoking consumption and quitting altogether given a tax increase. Conducting a self-administered questionnaire survey in Klang survey with samples of 300 smokers, we have found out the following results. Gender, education and age do not affect the likely responses of fellow smokers. The reasons might be caused by relatively small samples, closing gaps of income between genders and tendency of highly educated smokers to cut down smoking due to health reasons. However, research found that low income smokers are more likely to cut cost. Highly addicted smokers are more likely to maintain same level of consumption. Both income and addiction factors is accurately predicted by the theory and previous research. Our research has wide implications. They include helping government devise better taxation policy, public health policy and smoking awareness campaigns. Besides, we have also contributed significant empirical data towards rational addiction theory. Limitations of this research includes incongruence between smokers actions and smokers intended action and ecological bias. Small samples for certain age group and the availability of smuggled cigarettes are among the limitations. Therefore, we highly recommend that future longitudinal research on cigarette taxation be conducted in Malaysia. Besides, research on the differential effect of taxation vs. anti-smoking campaign, fairness of cigarette taxation and access of youth towards cigarette can be conducted to supplement this research area. Overall, our research has been a success. Although the hardship we have encountered during the data collection process and data analysis process is painful, it is worth it and has paid off to the team. We hope that the result that we had produced is truly helpful to other researchers as well as to the society as a whole.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Hall High/Low Communication

Hall High/Low Context Communication In this essay I’d like to  express my opinion about Hall’s Context Communication. In general, in today's business relations, it's a small world after all. As more companies turn towards global markets, professionals are finding themselves in foreign locales, wheeling and dealing like never before. However, the key to effective communication between countries is an understanding of each other's culture, especially a working knowledge of how each society conveys meaning.First used by author Edward Hall, the expressions â€Å"high context† and â€Å"low context† are labels denoting inherent cultural differences between societies. High-context and low-context communication refers to how much speakers rely on things other than words to convey meaning. Hall states that in communication, individuals face many more sensory cues than they are able to fully process. In each culture, members have been supplied with specific †Å"filters† that allow them to focus only on what society has deemed important.In general, cultures that favor low-context communication will pay more attention to the literal meanings of words than to the context surrounding them. When individuals from high-context and low-context cultures collaborate, there are often difficulties that occur during the exchange of information. These problems can be separated into differences concerning â€Å"direction†, â€Å"quantity† and â€Å"quality. For example, employees from high-context cultures like China and France share very specific and extensive information with their â€Å"in-group members† (good friends, families, close coworkers, etc). In comparison, low-context cultures like the United States and Germany prefer to limit communication to smaller, more select groups of people, sharing only that information which is necessary. And now I’d like to speak in detail about the main features of each kind of Context Communication. High-Context CommunicationHall: â€Å"Most of the information is either in the physical context or initialized in the person. † * Knowledge is situational, relational * Less is verbally explicit or written or formally expressed * More internalized understandings of what is communicated (ex: â€Å"in-jokes†) * Often used in long term, well-established relationships * Decisions and activities focus around personal face-to-face communication, often around a central, authoritative figure * Strong awareness of who is accepted/belongs vs. outsiders† Low Context Communication Hall: â€Å"The mass of information is vested in the explicit code [message]. † * Rule oriented * More knowledge is public, external, and accessible. * Shorter duration of communications * Knowledge is transferable * Task-centered. Decisions and activities focus around what needs to be done and the division of responsibilities. To draw the conclusion, once can say tha t communication is everything, so make sure you know not only  what  to say, but also  how  to say it!