Why Some Sociologists Choose to Use Structured Interviews When Conducting Research free essay sample

Examine the reasons why some sociologists choose to use structured interviews when conducting research. There are three types of interviews; structured, unstructured and semi-structured interviews. The most commonly used types of interviews by sociologists are structured interviews and unstructured interviews. Structured interviews have various advantages, therefore, some sociologists, mainly Positivist sociologists, choose to use structured interviews when conducting research. Positivists are mainly interested in research methods that achieve their main goals of reliability, generalisability and representativeness, for this reason, they favour structured interviews as they achieve these goals. This is because structured interviews often have questions and answers that are standardised; they are reliable because they can be therefore replicated. Positivist sociologists also prefer to use structured interviews when conducting research because the pre-coded responses mean that quantitative data can be produced and so cause-and-effect relationships can be established. Also, structured interviews are representative and can therefore be generalised, because of the fact that they are often large-scale. We will write a custom essay sample on Why Some Sociologists Choose to Use Structured Interviews When Conducting Research or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page There are also practical advantages to using structured interviews. For an example, training interviewers is relatively easy and inexpensive as no specialist skills have to be taught as the questions tend to be very straightforward as they often close-ended, and do not require too much thought. Also, because skills taught are minimal, the process of training interviewers will not cost too much. Another practical advantage, is that structured interviews are relatively cheap and easy to administer, so large quantities of interviews can be carried out, meaning that are large-scale , so sociologists, especially Positivists’, can generalise data as the data found will be representative. Also, another practical advantage is that they are relatively straightforward to carry out, and factual information can be found out quickly and cheaply, such as a person’s age. A final practical advantage, adding to why sociologists may choose structured interviews, is that because the questions are close-ended, the results can be easily quantified and so structured interviews are very suitable for hypothesis testing. An ethical advantage is that informed consent can be found, if the interview is carried out on the children, informed consent can be provided by the parents. Another ethical advantage, dding to why sociologists choose structured interviews, is that interviewees may feel more relaxed about answering questions, because they should be told that they have the right not to answer any question they do not want to. Another advantage, is that although the numbers that can be studied using structured interviews are relatively lower than that of postal questionnaires, structured interviews generally have a higher response rate. For an example, in the case of Young and Willmott’s study, only 54 out of 987 people that they asked to interview, refused to be interviewed, possibly because it is easier to simply not complete and post back a questionnaire than to turn down an interview, because with interviews, the request for one is often face-to-face, and many people will prefer interviews because of the chance to talk to someone about particular issues that they feel strongly about and have opinions about. Response rates may also be fairly high with structured interviews, making the interviews more representative, because the interviewer may make several call backs to people who initially fail to respond to questions, and therefore, a better basis for generalisation, which is required for Positivists’ research, can be provided.

Different from, Different to, Different than

Different from, Different to, Different than Different from, Different to, Different than Different from, Different to, Different than By Maeve Maddox We all have our pet grammar peeves, usages that, when we hear them, affect us like the sound of a fingernail against a chalkboard. Ill bet Im not the only one who shudders to hear sentences like these: A boxer is different than a Doberman. This car is different to that one. Yet, are these usages really incorrect? According to the entry for different from, different to, different than at Bartleby.com, These three have been usage items for many years. All are Standard and have long been so (different to is limited to British English, however), but only different from seems never to meet objections. Elements of Style weighs in against different than: Here logic supports established usage: one thing differs from another, hence, different from. Or, other than, unlike. From H.W. Fowler comes this pronouncement: That different can only be followed by from and not by to is a superstition. He points out that writers of all ages have used different to. He does not mention the use of different than. It would seem, then, that any of the three is acceptable. Nevertheless, the concluding advice at Bartleby.com agrees with my own: for Formal and Oratorical levels: stick with different from. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Creative Writing 10150 Synonyms for â€Å"Idea†25 Idioms About Bread and Dessert

Brachytherapy in Treating Cervical Cancer-Free-Samples for Students

Brachytherapy is a form of cancer treatment where radioactive pounds sealed in a wire, pellet or capsule is introduced into the body with the help of a catheter in order to damage the DNA of the cancer cells. It has a wide spread of application in the treatment of prostate cancer and cervical cancer. The benefits of brachytherapy are that it allows an augmented dose of radiation in a limited area unlike the other types of the radiation treatments. It actually helps to lessen the damage to the surrounding tissues due to radiation. The last two papers are about improving the image guided brachytherapy techniques in the treatment of cervical cancers. Two of my chosen papers are related to the same, as IGBT helps in a more accurate treatment and lesions that are too large for applying the other treatment techniques.   Significant improvements have occurred in the last three decades due to the use of the 3-D image guided procedures. Incorporation of the transrectal US in the image guide d brachytherapy have been found to be effective in centers that have do not access to MRI. The monly used method in the treatment of the cervical cancer is the Manchester Point A system. But the 2-D X ray image shows no contract of the soft tissues. Image guided brachytherapy helps to target the desired tissue.   There had been increasing evidence of the benefits of the image guided brachytherapy in cervical cancer, which is the main rationale behind the chosen papers. The objective of this paper is to give an overview of the gynecologic brachytherapy, with a focus on the recent advancements and their implications on the cervical cancer in women. The paper describes about the evaluation and the staging of the patient, According to this paper the initial stages of evaluation includes the cervical biopsy of the hystopathological diagnosis. According to the FIGO r mendations, patients with who would be receiving the radiation treatment should have a planning of the CT stimulation before the initiation of the EBRT. The paper also brings about a parison between the high dose rate brachytherapy and low dose rate brachytherapy. Previously LDR was used exclusively for treating the cancer by using a cesium -137 isotope. Since 2000s, the utilization of the HDR has increased considerably. The HDR employs a remote after loading technology allowing a small iridium source connected to the end of a cable that is robotically driven via the multiple channels ceasing at the dwell positions for different span of time.   The article also refers to a third type of treatment that is monly not used in the US known as the pulse dose rate (PDR) brachtherapy. The paper also gives an account of the choices, by which cervical brachytherapy can be performed, namely the intracavitary, interstitial, or a binatory approach. A cohort study was done in order to measure the clinical ou es of the image guided brachytherapy. The study pared the 2D versus the 3D IGBT . In the patients treated with both the EBRT plus chemother apy followed by a brachytherapy could show a local relapse free survival 74 % of the selected patients. Similar improvement was found in another study containing patients from Vienna. It can be understood from the paper that brachytherapy can improve the local control, reduce the toxicity and improve the overall survival rate of cervical cancer in women. The study of the paper also enables one to understand that the disadvantage of brachytherapy is that, it is invasive. The randomized control study involving 2D planning and 3D planning in selected patients showed better results in patients being treated with image guided brachtherapy. The paper also gave an account of the appropriate treatment target volume, the appropriate dose and the fractionation scheme. Although the progression from the 2D- 3D based imaging and the treatment planning for the cervical cancer has increased the overall survival of the women. Further data from the 3-D based treatment is required associated with the decrease in the toxicity of the technique. The previous paper focused on the effectiveness of overall brachytherapy in cervical cancer, but this article will aim to focus on the advantages of using imaging brachytherapy over conventional methods of brachytherapy.   The paper involves a retrospective analysis of the ou es in patient suffering from stage IB-IVA cervical cancer treated with primary radiation therapy. The ou e measures were the relapse free survival of the patient, distant metastasis, pelvic control and other adverse events related to the treatment. 126 patients have been analyzed out of which 43 patients have been treated with CBT between the years 2000-2007, and 83 patients have been treated with IGBT between the years 2007- 2012. The conventional bracgytherapy involved the application of the low dose brachytherapy and high dose rate brachytherapy was used after 2005. The standard brachytherapy applicators used were intracavatary ovoids and tandem.   From 2011, interstitial needles can be introduced in to t he ovoids for optimizing the dose distribution around the neoplasia. All the records of the adverse events were recorded if prompted by the signs and the symptoms.   The results concluded that cervical cancer survival rates have increased with the introduction of IGBT. The application of the MRI based adaptive IGBT technique was found to be useful for the patients with stage IB-IVA cervical cancer. The overall survival rate was found to improve from 51% to 83% with the shift from conventional brachytherapy to imaging brachytherapy. The study confirmed that there had been a significant decrease in the distant metastasis in the group treated with IGBT. The pelvic control rates were also found to be improved in the IGBT group. Data obtained from the patient’s record found that the IGBT patients were more likely to plete the chemotherapy faster than the patients’ receiving the conventional brachytherapy. The use of IGBT in the primary chemo radiation of the cervical cancer is superior to the CBT and should be considered as the new standard of care. It can be known from the paper that there is a requirement of improvement of the nodal and the PAN tumor control, using the PET-CT and the lessening of the adverse events in both the standard and the adaptive IMRT. A 3D MRI based image guided brachytherapy have been found to reduce the toxicity as discussed in the previous paper. The objectives of the paper were realistic. One of the limitations of the paper is that the sample population of the cohort was not large. Although there are several studies that have actually provided the evidences of imaging brachytherapy. Brachytherapy is an essential ponent for the treatment of the cervical cancers that have progressed locally. It allows the dose of the tumor to be amplified sparing the nearby tissues. Image guided brachytherapy have found to lessen the local recurrence. The article focuses on how the 3D conformal brachytherapy can be used in a hospital setting and how the brachytherapy services can be improved. The radiological studies operative parameters and patient workflow and intensive therapy planning can pose challenge to the clinical resources. The paper also discuses about the translational research opportunities in the field of brachytherapy. One of the concerns is that some proportion of the tumor will display biological resistance to the radiations and even to brachytherapy. The objective of the paper was to find new advancement in the field of imaging-brachytherapy. Hence the paper had been appropriate in stating the recent advancements in the radiotherapy techniques like the intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and the stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). This research paper also enables one to understand the demerits of the therapy, such as IMRT had been unsuccessful in achieving the target volume doses unlike that of the image guided brachytherapy. The paper informs that IGBT is more time consuming and requires individual planning and contouring. Additional resources such as MRI/CT scans and the patible applicators are required. The cost of setting up an IGBT is about 10-15 % more than that of the conventional procedures of brachytherapy. In a clinical setting with IGBT facilities there should be provisions for an intrauterine brachytherapy applicator as most of the patients will be having an intact uterus, which will require the placement of an intrauterine tube. It can be understood from all the three papers that image guided brachytherapy makes 3D models by using the cross sectional image. It should be mentioned that the points of similarities between the three papers were much more than the differences as all the three papers focused on the advancements in the field of brachytherapy in treating cervical cancers and the advantage of using image dependant brachytherapy over the conventional treatment of the brachytherapy. The difference between the three papers is that the last two papers focused more on the improvements in the image guided brachytherapy. The last papers exclusively mentioned the advancements rather than just paring with the conventional standards. Various retrospective studies and the cohort studies described in the three papers have showed better survival rates in patients with cervical cancer. Among the three papers my choice of paper was the first one as it had elaborately stated the difference between the new techniques and the old ones such as the difference between the HDR brachytherapy and the LDR brachytherapy, the selection of the applicator. It further gives information about the intracavity brachytherapy, interstitial brachytherapy. An appropriate treatment planning was mentioned. This assignment has not only aided us to know about the different image guided brachytherapy techniques but have also informed us with the procedures undertaken in brachytherapy Banerjee, R., & Kamrava, M. (2014). Brachytherapy in the treatment of cervical cancer: a review. International journal of women's health, 6, 555.   Otter, S., Franklin, A., Ajaz, M., & Stewart, A. (2016). Improving the efficiency of image guided brachytherapy in cervical cancer. Journal of Contemporary Brachytherapy, 8(6), 557–565. https://doi.org/10.5114/jcb.2016.64452 Rijkmans, E. C., Nout, R. A., Rutten, I. H. H. M., Ketelaars, M., Neelis, K. J., Laman, M. S., ... & Creutzberg, C. L. (2014). Improved survival of patients with cervical cancer treated with image-guided brachytherapy pared with conventional brachytherapy. Gynecologic oncology, 135(2), 231-238

Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention Research Paper - 1

Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention - Research Paper Example Despite optimistic dreams, harmony was shattered in the early 1990s with the explosion of ethnic conflict and humanitarian tragedies on the grandest scale.   While ethnic conflict and humanitarian crises have existed since the dawn of time, for the first time ever images of extreme bloodshed, violence, and even genocide were broadcast into the millions of people around the world, from New York to New Delhi and from London to Lagos. Images of children being slaughtered, women being raped and people brutalized were beamed into the living rooms of concerned citizens all over the world, for all to see. For the first time, the public was confronted, on a near daily basis, with images of mass carnage, violence, and humanitarian crisis. People pressed their congressmen, parliamentarians and state representatives to act and, in varying degrees, a groundswell calling for a decisive role for governments in ending these humanitarian crises and conflicts emerged. Although some wanted direct military action, often French, British or American, in ending a particular conflict, most governments have traditionally favored other instruments of diplomacy: p olitical pressure, economic sanctions and imposed a settlement through international bodies such as the United Nations. As Carleton, & Stohl have emphatically demonstrated, a foreign policy rhetoric may be politically salient but not always political possible.  The purpose of this report is to provide an analysis of the human rights issue of genocide and humanitarian intervention.   With the aim of providing a thorough and concise overview of an incredibly timely issue, the following will explore arguments by two major scholars in the field regarding this important human rights issue.  

Toyota Motor Corporation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Toyota Motor Corporation - Essay Example The satisfaction with the existing quality offered has made these organizations try and improve the product quality by way of incorporating various quality management techniques in the production process (James, Rowland-Jones and O’Brien, 2009). As a result, researchers over the years have introduced a wide range of competing perspectives, each different from the other in terms of analytical frameworks and various terminologies. However, the foundation of each theory is the same; establishing a relationship between product quality and pricing strategy of the organization. The five important approaches towards quality management are as follows: Transcendent Approach: According to this view, quality of a product is associated with its innate excellence. It is universally acceptable and an absolute concept that deals with uncompromising standards and high levels of achievement. Nonetheless, proponents of the transcendent view are of the opinion that quality is an un-measurable concept and is better defined as the recognition of the product through experience or repeat usage of the consumers (Slack, Chambers and Johnson, 2004; Arnheiter and Harren, 2006). Product based Approach: The product based definition regards quality as a measurable and precise concept. The differences in quality of a product can be attributed to that in quantity of the ingredients used in its production, thereby resulting in faulty attributes of the output. For example, a high-quality rug or mattress would have a larger number of knots per square inch. Hence, this approach gives a hierarchical or vertical dimension to quality by providing ranks to goods based on their number of favorable attributes. This approach has been incorporated in the theoretical models of economics (Namkung and Jang, 2007). The two corollaries of this approach are; firstly, the higher cost is incurred while attaining higher quality as quality reflects the number of favorable ingredients used in the process of production.

June Yip proposes post colonialism to evaluate Taiwanese films Essay Example for Free

June Yip proposes post colonialism to evaluate Taiwanese films Essay June Yip analyzes Taiwan in the book Envisioning Taiwan as a new breed of country in the postcolonial era which has least interest in the idea of nation-state, maintaining it’s very local faces as well as open to international influences with much surprise. Yip takes a look at Taiwan’s post-national territory status through its fiction and cinema movement concentrating her attention to filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien. (Winterton) Taiwan has a long history of colonialism and suppression, but the multinational capitalism, mass migration, the arrival of new electronic media; all these encouraged a postmodern culture and have questioned the traditional limit as well as made the notion of nation irrelevant. June Yip emphasizes the hybrid nature of identity as fallout of postmodernism, is vastly reflected in the present form of Taiwanese films. The earlier versions were more conventional and guarded the theme of nationhood. She points in her book Hou’s films present a picture â€Å"the island as an increasingly complex and hybrid social space, an ever-changing formation†. (Yip, 230) Yip focuses that Taiwanese New Cinema, emerged in the 1980’s and its patrons are fascinated with displaying the socio-historical qualities of modern Taiwan’s experience and also to form a sense of Taiwanese cultural identity with centralizing on the search for nationhood in their works. They represent the tough transition period of Taiwan’s history through which the island came to the global order and try to depict the same in their films with â€Å"a quest for an understanding of a modern Taiwanese experience† and rising questions from present and future. (Yip, 10) Yip also presents the grim picture of Taiwan’s history where under various regimes; either Japanese or Chinese, the linguistic medium of films was strictly regulated by the ruling authorities. Most of these languages were foreign to the locals while the local medium was eclipsed. So, in modern Taiwanese cinema, a global touch could be felt where characters easily switch from Taiwanese to Mandarin to Japanese to English, showcasing a multicultural effect. (Yip, 6) Yip clarifies that Taiwan’s cultural awareness took time to surface itself on cinema due to its colonial Hanover. As there is a strong link between cinema and the idea of nationhood but in the later half of the 20th century the cinema carried a huge responsibility of nation building as being a visual medium. Government was always involved in making of Taiwanese films but in 1990’s it felt the need to loose the belts as to get back commercial as well as critical acclaim. Most of the film personalities have grown the age of rigidity, so when they started working they tries their best to free themselves from the knuckles and criticized the government under its banner itself as well as displayed the new experiences with global changes. The films Three Times and Puppetmaster have shown the changes of post colonialism. Three Times is a film consisting of three episodes based in three periods of Taiwanese history showcasing the problems of the turbulent times in the history, urge for freedom and also the confusion prevailing in a contemporary city. The Puppet master recollects the life of a puppeteer spanning during the period of Japanese occupation of the island and portraying the sorry state of the Taiwanese people and their hardships and also depicts the loss of tradition under suppression and western influence. Both the films in their respective themes lament sufferings of the history and urge to come out of the rigid circumstances supporting Yip’s thesis. (Schumann) While The Wedding Banquet is a drama with humorous touch where personal relationships, based on generation and cultural conflicts within individuals of slender theme rather matching the concept of analysis of Yip of Taiwanese cinema.

The Moors Last Sigh: Wickedly Comic Essay example -- Moors Last Sigh

Hopping in a careful, calculated manner across four generations of a rich and demented Indian family, Salman Rushdie's cynical novel The Moor's Last Sigh laughs mischievously at the world and shivers from its evils. Weaving a tale of murder and suicide, of atheism and asceticism, of affection and adultery, Rushdie's exquisitely crafted storytelling explains the "fall from grace of a high-born crossbreed," namely our narrator Moraes Zogoiby, also known as "Moor." At the centerpiece of this odd and captivating tale stand the embers of Moor's family: a complex web including a ridiculed political activist, a shrew, a homosexual husband, an artist, and a Jewish underworld gangster, among others. Moor's sisters lead lives as abnormal and doomed as their family history would predispose them towards: Ina, a washed-up model, dies in the throes of insanity; Minnie takes holy orders, predicting a great plague washing over Bombay and envisioning talking rats; Mynah, a lesbian, hopelessly infatuated with Moor's lover, dies in an industrial "accident" that m y~be~her~ father's doing. Such is ...