Bordetella pertussis :: Essays Papers

Bordetella pertussis "Whooping Cough" Encounter and Colonization Bordetella pertussis is a highly communicable agent and is transmitted person-to-person via airborne droplets or direct contact with discharges from the respiratory mucous membranes of an infected person. This small, gram-negative coccobacillus is non-motile, aerobic and fastidious. B. pertussis colonizes the respiratory tract including the mouth, nose, throat and beginning of the lungs of young children worldwide. The bacteria bind to ciliated cells in the respiratory mucosa by producing adhesions. Filamentous hemagglutinin on the cell surface and pertussis toxin (Ptx) both help the bacteria in binding. Filamentous hemagglutinin binds to the galactose residues on the glycolipid of the ciliated cells. Ptx, in its cell-bound form, binds to the glycolipid lactosylceramide, which is also found on the ciliated cells. Ptx binds to the surface of phagocytes as well, causing phagocytosis of the bacteria. This mechanism may lead to enhanced survival as an intracellular parasite. Adding to it s many purposes, Ptx deregulates the host cell adenylate cyclase activity. The A subunit of this AB toxin, affects the G protein responsible for inhibiting adenylate cyclase. This leads to an increase in cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) creating detrimental metabolic changes in the host cells. Additional Toxins Also contributing to the virulence of the bacteria are the exotoxins including invasive adenylate cyclase, tracheal cytotoxin, and lethal toxin. Invasive adenylate cyclase reduces local phagocytic activity as well as acting as a hemolysin. Tracheal toxin affects the ciliated respiratory epithelium by inhibiting the ciliary beating. This kills the cells and causes them to be eliminated from the mucosa. Tracheal toxin also stimulates the release of IL-1, which causes fever. Lastly, lethal toxin causes inflammation and local necrosis at infection sites. Because B. pertussis is a gram-negative bacteria, it possesses the endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS). However, its LPS is different from that of the other gram-negative bacteria, in that it is heterogeneous with an alternative form of the Lipid A, called Lipid X. Although not fully understood at the time, it seems that Lipid X has a greater capacity for virulence. Pathogenesis After an incubation period of five to ten days, or as long as 21 days, numerous symptoms can be observed. The symptoms come in two stages. The first stage consists of common cold symptoms such as sneezing, runny nose, low-grade fever, and a mild cough. It is during this time that the disease is most contagious, and it lasts from one to two weeks.

Local and National Provision for Swimming :: Papers

Local and National Provision for Swimming The sport I have chosen to analyse the Local and National provision for is swimming. I have competed in many "in-club" races and swam against several other clubs, this was through a continuous interest in swimming and sport as a whole. Every popular sport has to be provided for at different levels, from an absolute beginner, to international excellence. At each level, there are different coaching and training procedures, as well as the consideration of the disabled to cater for. This operation is run by the Amateur Swimming Association (A.S.A.), where rules are made official and provision is provided, which coaches and swimmers have to abide by. The A.S.A has a swimmer development program called Swim21. I quote from the website, "Swim21 provides a long overdue nationally recognised club development programme which provides clear pathways which swimmers can progress along. I'm sure the programme will go along way to helping us produce the champions of the future." The quote basically tells us that the A.S.A is very keen to produce talented swimmers into the future and do everything it can to achieve this. Swim21 also applies to disabled swimmers. At grass roots level the most important contributor to the access a young performer has to sport is usually from the school, and this is no different in swimming. As well as this many young children have available to them the opportunity of learning to swim at their local swimming facility. Henceforth, in general, once young swimmers have learned the basics, with a particular enjoyment for the sport, they have the choice to move onto competitive swimming by signing up to a club registered with the A.S.A within their area. The next stage to improving is to enter into a training program, suited for age and experience. Normally within a swimming club, there are teaching groups depending on the experience and skills they have, so that they can therefore train to become better, or train to perfect the skills the need to

Symbolism in Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace”

Hayley Hughes Professor Fowler English 1102 9 February 2013 Short Story Essay Guy de Maupassant’s short story â€Å"The Necklace† uses a diamond necklace to symbolize two different things. The first thing the necklace represents is that deceiving others will lead to one’s downfall. The necklace also symbolizes how the effects of greed can change a person. In the story, the reader sees the main character’s personal growth from beginning to end due to losing a diamond necklace.Mathilde Loisel’s life is turned upside down because she was materialistic, but by the end of the story Mathilde is wiser and more admirable. Mathilde changed in ways that could not have been possible had she not lost the necklace. The story opens with the beautiful Mathilde Loisel fantasizing about luxuries she and her husband cannot afford. When her husband comes home with an invitation to an exclusive party, she is upset because she does not have anything fancy to wear. Even after her husband gives her some money for a dress, she then complains about not having jewelry.Since she does not own any expensive jewlery, Mathilde goes to her friend Madame Forestier and borrows a diamond necklace. She absolutely loves the necklace and when she and her husband attend the party, everyone notices her and the necklace. After they return from the party, Mathilde is sees she has lost the necklace. However, instead of telling Madame Forestier that the necklace had been lost, Mathilde buys a replacement necklace worth 40,000 francs and gives that to her friend hoping she would not see the difference.She and her husband then spend the next ten years working to pay for the cost of the necklace only to find out that the original necklace had been a fake. Even though her hardship could have been avoided completely, Mathilde became a better person from of losing the necklace. The necklace is the main symbol in â€Å"The Necklace. † What is a symbol? According to Lite rature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, â€Å"a symbol is a substitute for the elements being signified,† (Roberts and Zweig, 382). The necklace could be considered a cultural symbol.A cultural symbol is universally recognized (Roberts and Zweig, 383). Out of all the jewelry Mathilde could have chosen, she chose the diamond necklace. Maupassant most likely chose a diamond necklace because people would recognize the gravity of the situation in the story; most people could understand the value of a diamond necklace as opposed to some of the other jewelry mentioned in the story, which makes the diamond necklace a cultural symbol. The necklace could also be considered a contextual symbol.Unlike a cultural symbol, a contextual symbol gets its meaning from the story (Roberts and Zweig, 383-384). In this story, the necklace represents the fact that appearances are not always what they seem and that the bitter truth of reality can lead to one’s downfall. Mathilde wants to wear a diamond necklace in order for people to think she is wealthier than she is. When she borrows it from Madame Forestier, who is wealthier than Mathilde, she has no reason to believe that the necklace is a fake.Because Mathilde thinks the diamonds as being real, she thinks that others will believe she is wealthy too. In deceiving others of her wealth, she essentially deceives herself. For example, when it is time for them to leave the party her husband gives her the shawl she brought; she does not want anyone to see her wearing the shawl because it reminded her that she was not wealthy and she did not want anyone to find out. She wants to live out this fantasy as long as she possibly can and runs outside with the shawl hoping no one will notice.When she loses the necklace, she is brought back to reality and must deal with the consequences. Instead of accepting her reality that she was not wealthy and being greedy, she set herself up for disaster. The necklace symbolizes gree d and how it can affect a person. In the beginning of the story, Mathilde is greedy. She pities herself for not being born into a wealthy family, claiming it was an â€Å"error of destiny,† (Maupassant, 200). She and her husband are most likely middle-class, but she is still unhappy with their financial status. Her husband, Mr. Loisel, is the exact opposite.He takes pleasure in the little things, even praising his wife’s beef stew while she daydreamed about the finest cuisines (Maupassant, 200). All he wants to do is please his wife, but Mathilde is never satisfied. It is because of her greed that she ends up borrowing the necklace in the first place. After losing the necklace and giving the replacement to her friend, not only had the Loisels’ lifestyle changed, but Mathilde also started to change. She had to do cleaning jobs to earn money, dressed in cheap clothes, and argued with food vendors about the price of their goods in order to save every penny.After th e ten years of hard labor, the story describes Mathilde as â€Å"the strong, hard, and rude woman of poor households,† (Maupassant, 204). Even though she still reminisced about the party, unlike before where she pitied herself for not being wealthy, now she contemplates what her life would be like had she not been so greedy in borrowing the necklace. She questions how something as small as a necklace could have such a big impact on her life saying â€Å"How little a thing it takes to destroy you or to save you,† (Maupassant, 204).The necklace both destroyed her and saved her. Even though she had to deal with ten long years of working to pay back the money, losing the necklace symbolizes Mathilde losing her greediness and gaining the knowledge that money does not lead to happiness. Works Cited Page De Maupassant, Guy. â€Å"The Necklace. † Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Roberts, Edgar V. , and Robert Zweig. 10th ed. Illinois: Pearson, 2012. 2 00-205. Print. Roberts, Edgar V. , and Robert Zweig. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 10th ed. Illinois: Pearson, 2012. Print.

John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham

The idea of utilitarianism has been advocated by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Both thinkers base their theories of morality upon the Greatest Happiness Principle, or the principle of Utility. This principle is one that views actions as right and moral to the extent that they promote pleasure and exclude pain. It sees rightness and wrongness as existing on a continuum, upon which neither is necessarily exclusive of the other.Therefore, society’s maximization of utility consists in the achievement of the highest possible concentration of pleasure while minimizing the amount of pain deriving from any action or law. Jeremy Bentham described the total pleasure to be derived from an action as something that could be computed through tallying its intensity, duration, and the speed with which the pleasure occurs after the act is performed. This computation would also include the likelihood of the pleasure to avoid harm or pain.Bentham also advocated a principle of utility that presents a balance between self interest (or enlightened self interest) and altruism. In contrast to this, John Stuart Mill’s theory of utilitarianism introduced methods that would make altruism more likely to produce the greatest good than Bentham’s self-interested utilitarianism. As demonstrated earlier, Mill’s own version of utilitarianism is very similar to that of Jeremy Bentham. Yet, it does offer some very significant differences. One of the problems that utilitarianism faces is based on one of its minor premises.While it might be possible to agree that actions should be performed based on their ability to secure the greatest happiness for the largest number of people, uncertainty often arises when one attempts to locate the action that actually contains this merit. This is where Mill’s principle of utility deviates from Bentham’s. While Bentham, as stated above, advocated the idea of the quantification of happiness, Mill’s theory op erates under the explicit assumption that quantification of pleasures is not always possible.According to Mill, the differences between some pleasures are differences in kind and not of degree. Therefore, in several cases, qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) judgments have to be made between and among different pleasures. In such cases, Mill argues that only a person familiar with both types of pleasures would be qualified to pass judgment and declare one of higher value than another. This deviation from Bentham’s basic theory of utilitarianism allows Mill further leeway to introduce a major difference between the base pleasures of the body and the higher intellectual pleasures of the mind.These intellectual pleasures are ones that will allow for an altruistic type of utilitarianism. This type of utilitarianism has the ability to sacrifice the pleasure of the primary individual, when it has been determined that the sacrifice will lead to pleasure for a larger group of pe rsons. In slight contrast to this, Bentham’s utilitarianism espouses the theory of enlightened self interest, which places the primary individual on the same level as all other individuals.While Bentham’s theory is not a completely self-interested theory, the theory of utility proposed by Mill gives the individual more freedom and opportunity to make choices that are of benefit to others rather than himself. Primarily, Mill distinguishes between the types of behaviors that would promote such actions and actually gives more weight to the type of intellectual pleasure that may be derived from them. Therefore, the total happiness gained from self-sacrifice according to Bentham would amount to the aggregation of the bodily pleasures given to others by the primary person’s sacrifice.According to Mill, however, the pleasure gained from that scenario would be even greater than computed by Bentham, as it would also consist of the greater intellectual pleasure gained by the person who acts sacrificially. It can therefore be concluded that Mill’s version of utilitarianism presents altruism as a method of accruing more happiness than that presented by Bentham’s version—which advocates enlightened self interest. Reference Author’s Last Name. First Initial. (Year of publication). Morality and the human predicament. City of Publication: Publisher.

Literature Review Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Literature Review - Assignment Example After Chandra’s mother (Lillian) is bedridden, the difficult job of caring for her falls on her shoulders. She does this challenging work and the mother eventually dies in dignity. In traditional South African culture, caring for the sick fell on the wider members of the community and not just immediate relatives (Clark, 2008). This film portrays the breakdown of traditional African values in townships and their consequences for immediate relatives especially in trying moments. The film also dwells on the issue of belief in witchcraft. Traditionally, some African cultures always attributed any sickness or medical condition to black magic (Clark, 2008). Lillian is sent to a witchdoctor in the hope that the connotations she will get from the traditional doctor will heal her. Visiting the traditional doctor is a cheaper alternative to the expensive conventional treatment that is not affordable. Overall, the film shows how poverty leads to desperate

Japan waste pollution Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Japan waste pollution - Research Paper Example Japan has been focused on economic development and has primarily given importance to its re-establishment in the global scenario. When we consider the economic and industrial grown, Japan has taken large strides after the World War II in an effort to become a sustainable nation, indulging in industrialization and modernization of all facilities. However, waste pollution became an issue that required to be addressed with the lapse of time. As far as agriculture is concerned, the night soil which used to be disposed into rivers were not much of a problem earlier, but became a threat after the introduction of chemical fertilizers and such. Eventually, the effects of pollution became evident and the people of Japan, who had moved to the cities, began to see the effects of pollution. The development in waste pollution treatment, including the sewerage facilities has always been slow until recent years. Now people have realized the importance of waste pollution treatment. In the past, Japan has suffered considerable loss as a result of waste pollution, including copper poisoning and cadmium poisoning through water sources, Sulphur di-oxide and Nitrogen di-oxide pollution through air. Another important form of poisoning that affected the people was arsenic poisoning which was caused by the arsenic dust from the mines, causing breathing illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis. With the increase in the number of waste pollution issues, the government decided to make some drastic changes, making strict efforts to curb pollution.

Australia in the Asia Pacific Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Australia in the Asia Pacific - Essay Example This, along with democratic institutions, cultural diversity and a record of constructive international engagement, underpins Australian participation in world affairs. Key components of Australia's security strategy include a strong national defense capability; the alliance relationship with the United States; bilateral defense and security relationships with Asia Pacific countries; and multilateral security links, especially through the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum. Australia is closely engaged in international counter-terrorism efforts both regionally and around the world." According to the World Bank, the East Asia Pacific region consists of more than 20 countries and the region is home to more than 2 billion of the earth's people. The countries included in this region are; Cambodia, China, Fiji, Indonesia, Kiribati, Korea, the People's Democratic Republic of Lao (Lao PDR), Malaysia, Marshall Islands, FS Micronesia, Mongolia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Vietnam. (http://www.worldbank.org) One of the main reasons why Australia needs to focus on the South Asian Pacific region is that it is a lucrative potential market for our country. "Close engagement with Asia is an imperative for Australia, and bilateral political, security and people-to-people links between Australia and many Asian countries are strong and sophisticated. Extensive two-way trade and investment and the development of comprehensive bilateral free trade agreements characterize economic relations with a number of countries in Asia. Japan and China are Australia's largest and third-largest export destinations respectively." (http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/australia_foreign_trade_policy.html) As with all the rest of the world; Australia likes to maintain close-knit relations with Pacific Asia. The following map helps to determine the layout of the South Asian region on the world map.Source: http://www.lexisnexis.com Source: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEASTASIAPACIFIC/Images/eap-map.jpg In the 2006 opening address to the Energy Security in Asia Pacific Policy Forum, Australian Treasurer, the Honorable Peter Costello MP stated the following statistics, "Australia has 8 per cent of the world's total reserves of coal. It has been the world's largest exporter of coal since 1986. In 2004, Australia accounted for 55 per cent of total world exports of metallurgical coal and 20 per cent of total world exports of thermal coal. It has 2 per cent of the world's natural gas reserves. Since 1989, it has emerged as one of the world's largest exporters of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). Australian firms have become known as noteworthy long-term suppliers of LNG to China. Australia's Northwest Shelf endeavor has been chosen by China to be the sole provider of LNG. The agreement will worth between $A20 and $A25 billion in export revenue for Australia. This is Australia's largest solitary export deal. Australia has 40 per cent of the world's proven reserves of uranium and is the world's second largest uranium