Tuesday, January 29, 2013

How To Understand Cross-Cultural Analysis

Cross-cultural analysis could be a very perplexing field to understand with many different viewpoints, aims and concepts. The origins of cross-cultural analysis in the 19th century world of colonialism was strongly grounded in the concept of cultural evolution, which claimed that all societies progress through an identical series of distinct evolutionary stages.

The origin of the word culture comes from the Latin verb colere = "tend, guard, cultivate, till". This concept is a human construct rather than a product of nature. The use of the English word in the sense of "cultivation through education" is first recorded in 1510. The use of the word to mean "the intellectual side of civilization" is from 1805; that of "collective customs and achievements of a people" is from 1867. The term Culture shock was first used in 1940.

How do we define culture?

How To Understand Cross-Cultural Analysis

There are literally hundreds of different definitions as writers have attempted to provide the all-encompassing definition.

Culture consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, ceremonies and symbols. It has played a crucial role in human evolution, allowing human beings to adapt the environment to their own purposes rather than depend solely on natural selection to achieve adaptive success. Every human society has its own particular culture, or sociocultural system. (Adapted from source: Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Generally culture can be seen as consisting of three elements:

Values - Values are ideas that tell what in life is considered important. Norms - Norms consists of expectations of how people should behave in different situations. Artefacts - Things or material culture - reflects the culture's values and norms but are tangible and manufactured by man.

Origins and evolution of Cross-cultural analysis
The first cross-cultural analyzes done in the West, were by anthropologists like Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis H Morgan in the 19th century. Anthropology and Social Anthropology have come a long way since the belief in a gradual climb from stages of lower savagery to civilization, epitomized by Victorian England. Nowadays the concept of "culture" is in part a reaction against such earlier Western concepts and anthropologists argue that culture is "human nature," and that all people have a capacity to classify experiences, encode classifications symbolically and communicate such abstractions to others.

Typically anthropologists and social scientists tend to study people and human behavior among exotic tribes and cultures living in far off places rather than do field work among white-collared literate adults in modern cities. Advances in communication and technology and socio-political changes started transforming the modern workplace yet there were no guidelines based on research to help people interact with other people from other cultures. To address this gap arose the discipline of cross-cultural analysis or cross-cultural communication. The main theories of cross-cultural communication draw from the fields of anthropology, sociology, communication and psychology and are based on value differences among cultures. Edward T. Hall, Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars, Shalom Schwartz and Clifford Geertz are some of the major contributors in this field.

How the social sciences study and analyze culture

Cultural anthropologists focus on symbolic culture whereas archaeologists focus on material and tangible culture. Sociobiologists study instinctive behavior in trying to explain the similarities, rather than the differences between cultures. They believe that human behavior cannot be satisfactorily explained entirely by 'cultural', 'environmental' or 'ethnic' factors. Some sociobiologists try to understand the many aspects of culture in the light of the concept of the meme, first introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins suggests the existence of units of culture - memes - roughly analogous to genes in evolutionary biology. Although this view has gained some popular currency, other anthropologists generally reject it.

Different types of cross-cultural comparison methods

Nowadays there are many types of Cross-cultural comparisons. One method is comparison of case studies. Controlled comparison among variants of a common derivation is another form of comparison. Typically anthropologists and other social scientists favor the third type called Cross-cultural studies, which uses field data from many societies to examine the scope of human behaviour and to test hypotheses about human behavior and culture.

Controlled comparison examines similar characteristics of a few societies while cross-cultural studies uses a sufficiently large sample that statistical analysis can be made to show relationships or lack of relationships between certain traits in question. The anthropological method of holocultural analysis or worldwide cross-cultural analysis is designed to test or develop a proposition through the statistical analysis of data on a sample of ten or more non literate societies from three or more geographical regions of the world. In this approach, cultural traits are taken out of the context of the whole culture and are compared with cultural traits in widely diverse cultures to determine patterns of regularities and differences within the broad base of the study.

Aims of cross-cultural analysis

Cross-cultural communication or inter cultural communication looks at how people from different cultural backgrounds try to communicate. It also tries to produce some guidelines, which help people from different cultures to better communicate with each other.

Culture has an interpretative function for the members of a group, which share that particular culture. Although all members of a group or society might share their culture, expressions of culture-resultant behaviour are modified by the individuals' personality, upbringing and life-experience to a considerable degree. Cross-cultural analysis aims at harnessing this utilitarian function of culture as a tool for increasing human adaptation and improving communication.

Cross-cultural management is seen as a discipline of international management focusing on cultural encounters, which aims to discover tools to handle cultural differences seen as sources of conflict or miscommunication.

How laypersons see culture

It is a daunting challenge to convey the findings of research and field work and discuss cross-cultural issues in diverse contexts such as corporate culture, workplace culture and inter cultural competency as laypeople tend to use the word 'culture' to refer to something refined, artistic and exclusive to a certain group of "artists" who function in a separate sphere than ordinary people in the workplace. Some typical allusions to culture:


Culture is the section in the newspaper where they review theatre, dance performances or write book reviews etc.

Culture is what parents teach their kids and grandparents teach their grandchildren.

"You don't have any culture," is what people say to you when you put your feet on the table at lunchtime or spit in front of guests.

"They just have a different culture," people say about those whose behaviour they don't understand but have to tolerate.

Different models of cross-cultural analysis

There are many models of cross-cultural analysis currently valid. The 'Iceberg' and the 'Onion' models are widely known. The popular 'Iceberg model' of culture developed by Selfridge and Sokolik, 1975 and W.L. French and C.H. Bell in 1979, identifies a visible area consisting of behaviour or clothing or symbols and artifacts of some form and a level of values or an invisible level.

Trying to define as complex a phenomenon as culture with just two layers proved quite a challenge and the 'Onion' model arose. Geert Hofstede (1991) proposed a set of four layers, each of which includes the lower level or is a result of the lower level. According to this view, 'culture' is like an onion that can be peeled, layer-by layer to reveal the content. Hofstede sees culture as "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another."

Cross-cultural analysis often plots 'dimensions' such as orientation to time, space, communication, competitiveness, power etc., as complimentary pairs of attributes and different cultures are positioned in a continuum between these.

Hofstede dimensions to distinguish between cultures

The five dimensions Hofstede uses to distinguish between national cultures are:

Power distance, which measures the extent to which members of society accept how power is distributed unequally in that society. Individualism tells how people look after themselves and their immediate family only in contrast with Collectivism, where people belong to in-groups (families, clans or organizations) who look after them in exchange for loyalty. The dominant values of Masculinity, focussing on achievement and material success are contrasted with those of Femininity, which focus on caring for others and quality of life. Uncertainty avoidance measures the extent to which people feel threatened by uncertainty and ambiguity and try to avoid these situations. Confucian dynamism. This Long-term versus Short-term Orientation measured the fostering of virtues related to the past, i.e., respect for tradition, importance of keeping face and thrift.

Trompenaars dimensions to distinguish between cultures
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997) adopt a similar onion-like model of culture. However, their model expands the core level of the very basic two-layered model, rather than the outer level. In their view, culture is made up of basic assumptions at the core level. These 'basic assumptions' are somewhat similar to 'values' in the Hofstede model.

Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner use seven dimensions for their model of culture:

Universalism vs Particularism (what is more important - rules or relationships?) Individualism vs Communitarianism (do we function in a group or as an individual?) Neutral vs Emotional (do we display our emotions or keep them in check?) Specific vs Diffuse (how far do we get involved?) Achievement vs Ascription (do we have to prove ourselves to gain status or is it given to us just because we are a part of a structure?) Attitude to Time Past- / present- / future-orientatedness
Sequential time vs Synchronic time(do we do things one at a time or several things at once?)

Criticism of current models
One of the weaknesses of cross-cultural analysis has been the inability to transcend the tendency to equalize culture with the concept of the nation state. A nation state is a political unit consisting of an autonomous state inhabited predominantly by a people sharing a common culture, history, and language or languages. In real life, cultures do not have strict physical boundaries and borders like nation states. Its expression and even core beliefs can assume many permutations and combinations as we move across distances.

There is some criticism in the field that this approach is out of phase with global business today, with transnational companies facing the challenges of the management of global knowledge networks and multicultural project teams, interacting and collaborating across boundaries using new communication technologies.

Some writers like Nigel Holden (2001) suggest an alternative approach, which acknowledges the growing complexity of inter- and intra-organizational connections and identities, and offers theoretical concepts to think about organizations and multiple cultures in a globalizing business context.

In spite of all the shortcomings and criticisms faced by the Hofstede model, it is very much favoured by trainers and researchers. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it is a wonderful and easy to use tool to quantify cultural differences so that they can be discussed. Discussing and debating differences is after all the main method of training and learning. Secondly, Hofstede's research at IBM was conducted in the workplace, so Hofstede tools brings cross-cultural analysis closer to the business side of the workplace, away from anthropology, which is a matter for universities.

Bibliography and suggested reading:

Dawkins, Richard (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press French, W.L. and C.H. Bell (1979). Organization development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Hofstede, Geert "Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind", 1997 Holden, Nigel 2001, Cross-Cultural Management: A Knowledge Management Perspective, Financial Times Management

How To Understand Cross-Cultural Analysis
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Quotation adapted from The Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com

Rana Sinha is a cross-cultural trainer and author. He was born in India, studied and lived in many places and traveled in over 80 countries, acquiring cross-cultural knowledge and building an extensive network of professionals. He has spent many years developing and delivering Cross-cultural Training, Professional Communications skills, Personal Development and Management solutions to all types of organizations and businesses in many countries. He now lives in Helsinki, Finland and runs http://www.dot-connect.com, which specializes in human resource development as well as communication and management skills training with cross-cultural emphasis. Read his cross-cultural blog http://originalwavelength.blogspot.com

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Friday, January 25, 2013

The Devastating Effects of Water Pollution

The effects of water pollution to a body of water can be devastating to the environment, the people and animals that depend on that source of water. The effects of water pollution vary greatly depending on what type of pollutant is involved and how large the body of water is. The more severe effects of water pollution is caused due to garbage and chemicals being dumped either legally or ilegally into bodies water that are near major metropolises,

One of the most troubling and serious effects of water pollution is the death of the marine life that reside in the water ecosystems due to the depletion of oxygen. Fish, birds, and dolphins have been found dead on beaches, a casualty of the effects of water pollution. The effects of water pollution of this type adversly affects the food chain from the tiniest micro organisms'right up to humans. These people can be infected with many diseases such as hepatitis and others as a result of eating fish that have been poisoned from polluted waters. This also effect fishermen and their livelihood.

The resulting mess when trash and debris are thrown into bodies of water, can cause foul odors, as well as toxicity. Fertilizers and oil also causes trouble in bodies of water by choking out vegetation that is vital to a healthy water system leading to green slimy waters, dead fish and unpleasant smells. The quality of our daily life could also reflect the effects of water pollution.

The Devastating Effects of Water Pollution

Water is vital for so many aspects of daily living such as drinking, showering, washing clothes, and much more. When the water sources that are so heavily relied upon to maintain basic necessities are threatened by pollution it causes a lot of problems and trouble. It costs a lot of time, resources and money to treat a polluted water for reuse. The habits of the people all around the world is directly affected by the quality of the water.

The effects of water pollution are also felt keenly by those who live near the water and all who enjoy water recreations. Polluted rivers, streams, and lakes cause a decline in fish populations and limit activities that can be enjoyed in and around the water. A body of water can be a host for the E Coli bacteria when it's polluted with animal and human waste, which can adversely affect people and make them very sick. Overall the effects of water pollution is recreational, water can cost a lot of money and limit the enjoyment of the waters.

The Devastating Effects of Water Pollution
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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Health, Safety & Environmental (HSE) Management In Engineering Practice

COMPONENTS OF HSE MANAGEMENT
Health, Safety and Environmental management should be part of the engineering profession in a country for the purpose of
o duty of care
o economic reasons and
o legal reasons.

HSE management should therefore consider five broad phases:
* Specifications
* Design and implementation
* Installation and commissioning
* Operation and maintenance
* Changes after commissioning.
* Compliance with the standards requires four essential elements:
* Identification of safety functions required for the safe shutdown
* Assignment of a safety integrity level (SIL) for each safety function
* Use of the safety lifecycle for the engineering design and
* Verification of the SIL achieved for each safety function.

3.0 ENGINEERING CODE OF PRACTICE
The engineering code of practice takes into consideration the following:
* Public safety: Giving priority to the safety and well-being of the community and having regard to this principle in assessing obligations to the clients, employers and colleagues.
* Risk Management: Taking reasonable steps to minimize the risk of loss of lives, injuries or suffering.
* Workplace and construction site: Minimizing potential dangers involved in the construction and manufacture of engineering products and processes.
* Public/Community well-being
* Communication
* Conflicts of interest
* Confidentiality

Health, Safety & Environmental (HSE) Management In Engineering Practice

The privilege of practicing engineering is entrusted to those qualified and who have the responsibility for applying engineering skills, scientific knowledge and ingenuity for the advancement of human welfare and quality of life. Fundamental principles of conduct of engineers include truth, honesty and trustworthiness in their service to the society, honourable and ethical practice showing fairness, courtesy and good faith towards clients, colleagues and others. Engineers take societal, cultural, economic, environmental and safety aspects into consideration and strive for the efficient use of the world's resources to meet long term human needs.

4.0 SAFE ENGINEERING DESIGNS
Safety is a concern in virtually all engineering design processes. Engineers should understand safety in the context of engineering design and what it means to say that a design is safe against human injuries.

Current design methods prioritize economic considerations over environmental ones. In some cases, economic considerations also serve environmental goals. For instance, the minimization of materials used in a structure means resources are saved. If they are saved at the expense of the length of the operating life of a product, then, economic considerations conflict with environmental interests which demand that products be made as durable as possible because of the need to minimize resource usage and waste generation in the long term.

Safety is the antonym of risk. So, a design is safe to the extent that it reduces risk. Safe design aims at minimizing risk in the standard sense of this term.

A safe design is the combination of all those procedures and principles that are used by engineers to make designed objects safe against accidents leading to human death or injuries, long term health effects, damage to the environment or malfunctioning in general.

Several design strategies used to achieve safety in operations of potentially dangerous technology are:
* inherently safe design
* safety factors
* negative feedback (self-shutdown) and
* multiple independent safety barriers.

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) is the most common method of assessing safety but safe designs are used to reduce risks in the standard (probabilistic) sense but is inadequate. Safe design strategies are used to reduce estimated probabilities of injuries or reducing uncertainties not only risks. They are used to cope with hazards and eventualities that cannot be assigned meaningful probabilities.

5.0 DESIGN PRINCIPLES IN ENGINEERING
There are four (4) main design principles in Engineering practice.

(a) Inherently safe design:
This minimizes the inherent dangers in the process as far as possible. Potential hazards are excluded rather than enclosed or coped with. For instance, dangerous substances are replaced by less dangerous ones and fire proof materials are used rather than inflammable ones.

(b) Safety Factors
Construction should be strong enough to resist load and disturbances exceeding those that are intended. A common way to obtain such safety reserves is to employ explicitly chosen numerical safety factors are employed. If a safety factor of two (2) is employed when building a bridge, then the bridge is calculated to resist twice the maximal load to which it will be exposed to in practice.

(c) Negative feedback mechanisms
This is introduced to achieve a self-shutdown in case of device failure or when the operator looses control. Examples are safety valves that let out steam when the pressure is too high in a steam boiler and the dead man's hole that stops the train when the driver falls asleep. One of the most important safety measures in the nuclear industry is to ensure that reactors close down automatically in critical situations.

(d) Multiple Independent Safety Barriers
Safety barriers are arranged in chains, so that each barrier is independent of its predecessors (if the first fails, the second is still intact). The first barriers prevent accidents; the second barriers limit the consequences of an accident and rescue services as the last resort.

Safety factors and multiple safety barriers deal with uncertainties as well as risks. But currently, Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) is used but does not deal with uncertainties. Probabilistic calculations can support but will not supplant the Engineers' ethically responsible judgment (environment, health and safety culture).

Safety engineering principles also include education of operators, maintenance of equipment and installations and incidence reporting are examples of safety practices of general importance.

6.0 HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
The Engineering profession is expected to be the harbinger of Health, Safety & Environmental management by virtue of the complexity of the output of the profession and their impacts on the lives of the general populace. How have we carried this along in our professional practices?

Seven (7) bad engineering practices have been identified:
* Believing that if something is not specifically stated, either "shall do" or "shall not do" in the standards, an engineer does not need to worry about it.
* Thinking that meeting the minimum requirements means the process is safe and complies with the standard.
* Ignoring the importance of good engineering practice.
* Designing systems that meet economic requirements but not safety protection requirements.
* Neglecting human factors (errors in calculations etc)
* Focusing on capital cost and not on lifecycle costs.
* Focusing only on the safety integrity level (SIL) and not on prevention.

Safety is an essential ethical requirement in engineering practice. Strategies for safe design are used not only to reduce estimated probabilities of injuries but also to cope with hazards and eventualities that cannot be assigned meaningful probabilities. Designers have an ethical responsibility to make constructions that are safe for future use. Safety is concerned with avoiding certain classes of events that are morally right to avoid.

In engineering design, safety consideration always includes safety against unintended human death or injuries that occur as a result of the unintended use of the designed object for:
* Prevention of damage to the environment
* Prevention of long term health effects

For example, if a bridge collapses, the engineers who designed it are held responsible.

Building designers and builders must obey construction safety in the use of Scaffolds, tool nets, tool boxes, mechanical lifts and manual lifts under safe procedures, use of personal protective equipments (PPEs) on sites (boots/helmets), clear passages and road-ways, construction tapes to cordon off work areas etc. Most engineers have neglected this aspect, thus, playing with the lives of the generality of the populace.

What engineers do have lasting influences on safety and define our level of Environment, Health and Safety culture.

7.0 ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS IN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
Ethical obligations are necessary in order for engineers to carry out their profession. Without the obligation of confidentiality, clients could not trust engineers with commercially sensitive information. Without these information, engineers could not do their jobs. The moral obligations of our profession can be understood as duties which are necessary.

There are five (5) fundamental values necessary for the ethical obligations:
* Protection of lives and safeguarding of people.
* Professionalism, integrity and competence
* Commitment to community/public well-being
* Sustainable management and care for the environment
* Sustaining engineering knowledge

8.0 ENGINEERING PRACTICE REQUIREMENTS
* Engineers shall hold paramount the Health, Safety and Environment/welfare of the public in the practice of their profession.
* Engineers shall practice only in their areas or field of competence, in a careful and diligent manner and in conformance with standards, laws, codes, rules and regulations applicable to engineering practice.
* Engineers shall examine the societal and environmental impact of their actions and projects, including the use and conservation of resources and energy in order to make informed recommendations and decisions..
* Engineers should declare their interests clearly.
* Engineers shall sign and take responsibility for all engineering works which they prepared or directly supervised. Engineers may sign works prepared by others only with their consent and after sufficient review and verification.
* Engineers shall act as faithful agents for their employers or clients and maintain confidentiality, avoid conflicts of interest whenever possible and disclose unavoidable conflicts.
* Engineers professional concerns must be made known to the client and the consequences of engineering decisions or judgments.
* Engineers should reject any public works, engineering decisions or practice that endanger the HSE of the public.
* Engineers shall commit to life-long learning, strive to advance the body of engineering knowledge and should encourage other engineers to do likewise.
* Engineers shall promote responsibility, commitment and ethics both in the education and practice phases of engineering. They should enhance society's awareness of engineer's responsibilities to the public and encourage the communication of these principles of ethical conduct among engineers.

9.0 HSE SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT
This is about the long term survival of humanity. It recognizes that decisions made today must enable both those in the present as well as people of the foreseeable future to make effective choices about their quality of life.

Failure to identify risks to safety and the inability to address or control these risks can result in massive costs, both human and economic. The multidisciplinary nature of safety engineering means that a very broad array of professionals are actively involved in accident prevention or safety engineering.

A critical fault endangers or few people. A catastrophic fault endangers, harms or kills a significant number of people. Engineer's errors or inability to incorporate the HSE management in his practice spells catastrophic.

10.0 THE WAY FORWARD
Everyone must strengthen his or her understanding of HSE awareness by making safety a priority. Also, cost effective solutions in order to gain the biggest return on investment should be developed.

Engineers take early design of a system, analyze it to find what faults can occur and then propose safety requirements in design specifications upfront and changes to existing systems to make the system safer.

If significant safety problems are discovered late in the design process, correcting them can e very expensive. This type of error has the potential to waste large sums of money.

* At all times, take all reasonable care to ensure that your work and the consequences of your work cause no unacceptable risk to safety.
* Take all reasonable steps to make your management/client and those to whom they have a duty of care aware of the risks you identify.
* Make anyone overruling or neglecting your professional advice formally aware of the consequent risks.
* It is critical for engineers to maintain a deep and broad understanding of the many technical and professional practice issues that they will inevitably encounter in their role as employees of public owners. This is achieved through appropriate education, training, experience, license, professional engineering practice and continuing professional development.

11.0 CONCLUSION
The engineering practice like the construction industry is the agent of social and economic development, the barometer of economic activities and a very large employer of labour in Nigeria. It accounts for over 60% of the total capital investment. It is the largest employer of labour (think of all the electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical and computer jobs in industries).

Health, Safety and environment, which is concerned with life and property must be taken serious in this profession. Safety procedures are necessary to prevent accidents, diseases and harmful effects on the health of the public at large arising from the activities in the industry on site and its environs or off site.

Good HSE management is visible in a country through the quality of the professional ethics of the professionals, engineers inclusive and the level of her health values and the state of her environment, that is, her level of cleanliness (personal hygiene and public sanitation).

It can only be developed through personal commitment, willingness and self-sacrifice because of the long and short run benefits therein. HSE management habit starts with safety consciousness. Safety consciousness dwells with each and every one of us and should be taken along to our professional practices.

People should recognize that their health and well-being are related to the quality of their environment and should apply thoughtful principles to attempt to improve the quality of their environment.

As Engineers, we should lead others in being safety conscious at all times and refraining from doing anything that may result to accident. We should apply safety measures to all our daily activities and take our safety and that of others around us as our responsibilities especially in our practices.

Finally, as Engineers we should pursue sustainable Health, Safety & environmental management and make it part and parcel of our engineering practice today for the continued relevance of our profession tomorrow. It is only when this is done that our professional ethics will be meaningful knowing fully well that the products of our professional practices have great impact on the lives of the entire citizens of this country.

Health, Safety & Environmental management habit is therefore not only necessary and but remains a vital ingredient of our professional ethics in engineering practice in Nigeria and elsewhere and this must be sustained always by all.

Health, Safety & Environmental (HSE) Management In Engineering Practice
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Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Truth About Stage 4 Cancer Life Expectancy

There's no doubt that stage 4 cancer is one of the most horrible things that can happen to anyone, however, there have been contradictory articles regarding the life expectancy of a cancer at such an advanced stage. As a result, this article has been written to spell out, for once and for all, the facts about this issue.

Before I begin, let's get one thing straight. People who are suffering from any type of stage 4 cancer have very low 5-year survival rates. This is unfortunately a fact of life as the human race has still not come up with a cure for cancer. Despite this, you should never lose hope as there have been people who survived a stage 4 cancer and lived to tell the tale. It is highly recommended that you read their tales and draw strength and inspiration from them.

I will now go through a concise analysis of the life expectancy of 3 types of cancer.

The Truth About Stage 4 Cancer Life Expectancy

Lung Cancer

Statistics show that people with stage 4 lung cancer have a 32% chance of living for one year while only 2% live longer than 5 years. This shouldn't be a cause for concern as that 2% means that there is still hope that you can enjoy many more years with your loved ones.

Colon Cancer

Unfortunately, there have been very few cases of people who have lived more than 5 years with stage 4 of this disease. However, with improvements in chemotherapy you can control the symptoms and prolong the life of a sufferer which could mean so much for them and their loved ones.

Bone Cancer

The good news about stage 4 bone cancer is that the 5-year survival rate is between 19 and 49 percent. That may seem encouraging but keep in mind that it depends on whether the cancer is benign or malignant.

Don't ever forget that your chances of beating cancer or increasing stage 4 cancer life expectancy is strongly dependent on your determination and attitude throughout.

The Truth About Stage 4 Cancer Life Expectancy
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Martin Sejas is a guest writer of [http://www.Stage4CancerSite.com/] a website dedicated to giving individuals crucial yet sound information on stage 4 cancer life expectancy [http://www.Stage4CancerSite.com/]. Visit our site for information on other important issues related to cancer.

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Monday, January 14, 2013

What Are The Causes And Effects Of Skin Cancer

Like all cancers, skin cancer is caused when the cells are exposed to some external environmental condition. This causes the cells, or more specifically the genes in the cell to mutate and become known as a oncogene. An oncogene promotes tumor growth. In many cases of cancer it is not always clear what the environmental condition or conditions may be. In fact, it may not be just one condition that promotes cancer growth but a multitude of them making it harder to prevent the development of the disease. In the case of skin cancer, the environmental condition is thought to be exposure to ultraviolet radiation. And the most common source of ultraviolet radiation that most people are exposed to is sunlight.

However, some people can be exposed to sunlight more than others and never appear to develop skin cancers. It seems that some people are more sensitive to the ultraviolet radiation than others (although too much exposure to the sun will result in skin cancer for most people eventually). This is true and is based on the amount of melanin in the body. Melanin is the body's natural defense against the sun. It turns the skin brown as a way prevent it from burning. This is the tan that many people cultivate.

People with low amounts of melanin will have paler skin. The skin will most likely turn red rather than brown and will burn before it tans (if it tans at all) depending on the melanin level. This is fair common knowledge to most people. Indeed, people with pale or blue eyes and fair hair are in the same category. They are likely to burn in the sun and this suggests that they have been exposed to too much ultraviolet radiation.

What Are The Causes And Effects Of Skin Cancer

Even if you do not fit this genetic makeup, you are still susceptible to skin cancer if your family has a history of developing the disease.

The effects of skin cancer can vary. Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer. It will often look like a mark on the skin that could be brown or red. It may be raised from the skin or flat to begin with. It generally doesn't spread and is considered to be a benign cancer. It can appear anywhere on the body but mainly on areas that are directly exposed to the sunlight.

Squamous cell carcinoma is another form of skin cancer that is normally found on parts of the body that are exposed to sunlight. Again, it does not always spread from the original location but is more likely to spread than basal cell. If it does spread it will normally only spread to surrounding cells. So if it is on the surface of the skin you will notice a mark that is brown or red that starts to get larger over time.

Melanoma are the third type of skin cancer. They are the most serious and rarest form of skin cancer. They can appear anywhere on the body and are not uncommon in parts of the body that are not normally exposed to the sun, like the feet. They could take the form of a brown spot that gets larger or simply a lump under the skin.

A Melanoma can be malignant, meaning that they will continue to grow in a random fashion at an uncontrolled rate. This becomes a problem when the melanoma becomes invasive. This means it will interfere with surrounding tissues and organs to the extent that it destroys them or stops them functioning properly.

Depending on where the cancer spreads or metastasizes this can be extremely hard to treat and potentially life threatening.

Limiting your exposure to sunlight and other forms of ultraviolet radiation is the best preventative care you can take. Getting your skin checked out from time to time by your doctor is also a good idea. This is especially good advice if you notice any new or unusual moles or spots on your skin. Or if these lesions appear to have changed in any way.

What Are The Causes And Effects Of Skin Cancer
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For information on the symptoms of skin cancer and more details on the types of skin cancer that can develop, visit http://symptomsofskincancer.net

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Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Importance of Environmental Sustainability

Environment sustainability is extremely important, to establish a safe environment for the future. The ozone layer is slowly decreasing, and as it continues to deplete the more scientists will worry about the increase on natural disasters, like heat waves, flash floods, severe hurricanes, etc. We rely too much on crude oil, and the oil spill on the Golf of Mexico has a negative impact to the sea life of the area. Consequently, it is very important that we try to look at other renewable sources of energy, to keep man made damage to the environment at a minimum.

There is more than just one way to ensure that we maintain our environment and that it continues for the future. Such as reducing carbon footprints and emission, and reusing as many items as we can. (Such as recycling) We should all use eco-friendly items, not only at home, but also in the workplace. However there is much more to sustainability that just recycling and using eco products. Are there any strategic, economic, or environmental decisions that are being made, to make sure that all of our resources are being used efficiently? Are there any health and safety issues when using these resources? There should be policies in the economy that amplify sustainability, and not the other way around. Green technology is the way to go and any advancement in technology should not block sustainability.

In today's world people have to pay a premium to get things such as organic food, solar panels, etc. compared to the much cheaper GM foods. Going green is definitely not cheap. Even though the green products are expensive, they are also hard to find for some consumers. Cooperation from the government is needed to ensure that the green products are made available to everyone and at an affordable price. It takes a great effort to get green products. They are found online to department stores.

The Importance of Environmental Sustainability

Going green is more of a lifestyle choice to those who want to do so. More people will need to get involved and go green in the future to make sure that our environment is sustainable.

The Importance of Environmental Sustainability
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For more opinions on current environmental issues please visit http://www.the-environment-blog.blogspot.com/

Who am I? http://the-environment-blog.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-am-i.html

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