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Middlesex, gender and science

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Published in 2002, Middlesex novel is a dense book that incorporates various literary elements to appeal to the audience. The novel through the elaboration of different transitions generations of an American family tries to understand the hermaphrodite nature of the persona in the book. The novel presents the protagonist as an intersex raising the themes of gender that is developed through most part of the novel. The story of the novel is centered on hermaphroditism that is genetically inherited (Eugenides, 2003). Science in the novel plays an important role as the author takes us through the historical imaginations. In elaborating the main character’s gender crisis, the author successfully shows how scientific theories helps in understanding the contemporary world as characters are fond of using science to show the point of views on intersex and anatomy (Eugenides, 2003). This paper looks at the themes of gender and science as brought about in the book.

The introduction of the novel is very captivating phrase as one narrates how they were born twice “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974” (Eugenides, 2003). These words seem to be quite contradictory because as reader one gets to wonder how was one born twice. The novel follows three generation of Greek family that are from a Turkish town and the novel follows their life to an establishment in Detroit Greek Community. The narrator is Cal and his characteristics makes him special to be the narrator as he is born physically as a girl but hormonally he is a boy. His story is about the tale of his generation that includes his grandparents. The plot in itself is already about gender as gender is defined as the characteristics possessed by women and men and this may include gender roles, norm as well as relationship that exists between the men as well as the women in the society. He explores and tries to imagine the life of people like him that existed before science was a thing, when people did not understand biology thus how they viewed people born like him.

Eugenides in his novel Middlesex explores the aspect of gender roles where the family tradition seems to be more traditional and also tries to explore the fluidity of gender. Cal has been able to live several versions of himself since he came to earth as now he is 41-years-old. As a young person he was girl, worked frilly dresses, but as he begun to grow up he began questioning his sexuality. As an adolescent he also begun having attraction towards the female friends at that particular period and because of the strict gender definition in America he shies away from his true identity because he is unsure of how people may treat him or the consequences that may have to follow. One thing to note about Cal is that despite his male physique including body structure and him being masculine, he desires to become a heterosexual male although he lacks the male reproductive organs. From the text, he is clearly running from a life that he has run from for years but writing gives him a much clear picture about himself and he is in a position to mold history which enables him to form a phallus, giving him a clear sense of the gender which he establishes is neither masculine nor feminine.

The understanding of science in the book is essential in that the characters are all built around the major theme of a gender crisis. Science through the description of three generations helps to understand the root of the hermaphroditism nature of the protagonist, Cal (Eugenides, 2003). Through the book, science has been abused through the involvement of intimacy between members of the same family as well as secrets. The scientific theme of nature vs. nature arises with much explanation on how science is applied in the novel. The theme discusses on how gender identity of an individual and their character is neither solely to nature nor nurture. Science explains how Cal has both the XY chromosomes that are usually in male after she was examined. At her puberty stage, she had seen several changes that included the increase of muscles, as well as a large Adam Apple, are formed. Application of science prevails as it helps to explain the nature of Cal who at the beginning of the novel was born as a girl but gradually through changes at her puberty stage became a male. Science, however, identifies her condition as neither male nor female.

Science, as used by the author, helps in showing how the varying levels of hormones are formed in an individual explains how, testosterone, they are responsible for the molding of male genitalia. In most cases, the social construct of who is male or female is developed by the culture of the society that believes gender to be either male or female. The doctor characters in the book help in the usage of science as they scientifically determine the causes of deepening of voice and development muscles to be the presence of male chromosomes that are XY. Although Callie was born and raised as a female, she was sexually attracted to women and she knew that hence the reason for her getting away from her family and doctors in an effort to pursue her male identity (Eugenides, 2003). Doctor Peter, however, abuses science usage when he develops a notion and recommendation that the protagonist should keep her female identity thus planning for gender reassignment procedures.

The novel developed various theories such as the construction theory whereby the constructionists believe that the identity of gender is normally based on outer influences (Cossman, 2003). These influences are often the gender social construct of the community that sets various beliefs on how a male and female should be, behave and how they should conduct them. As Cal was raised feminine gender schema, she emerges to pursue the male identity that she knew she was attracted to other girls. This position of the novel negates the discussions that an individual’s traits are guided and influences by their environment. It rather suggests that the biological evolution of an individual has weight and impact in their gender identity may or may not be against their free will (Cossman, 2003).

The novel portrays the use of scientific theories as essential elements in understanding the contemporary world and various ways that we understand the world (Cossman, 2003). The characters in the novel were of the notion and believe that the outward view of the genitalia identifies one’s gender identity. This belief, however, was shattered with the transformation of Cal to being male, shifting the entire methodology and believe that was used to determine gender (Athanassakis, 2012). Cal’s renunciation of her female gender that she was raised up within her childhood is projected and portrayed as he embraced the male gender identity when she said: “I never felt out of place being a girl, I still don’t feel entirely at home among men either” (Lee, 2010).

The novel portrays both the development as well as the failure of genetics and science. We see that both the technology as well as the science seems to be working against the Stephanides, Desdemona who is seen as a person who is science savvy seems to be unable to predict the gender of Tessies and Milton children. The novel tries to portray the world we live in right now. Nowadays even before birth, people are often in a position to be able to identify the gender of their children. We see doctors seem to also fail science in the diagnosis of Cal as they utter an insensitive comment that “sex of rearing, rather than genetic determinants, plays a greater role in the establishment of gender identity” (Eugenides, 2003). Scientifically, it is not the upbringing that determines a child’s gender but rather it is the scientific composition including hormonal composition and for a doctor to thin this way, then they clearly were failing science. Eugenides also tries to portray a society that does not seem to be understanding at all, when Ca is trying to find where he fits in and uses the Webster dictionary to look at the term hermaphrodite, one of the synonyms that pops up is monster an indication of how people like him were being treated in totally different way and viewed differently by the society.

The gender conventions are often binary with the development of intersex that is developed genetically challenging the usual binary conceptual categories. The book shows how queer theory is generated with the protagonists being presented clearly to defy the usual odds of in the society that had labelled gender and sexuality to be defied as binary. Cal in the book is shown to transition from a girl to becoming a boy due to his masculine features and how he felt attracted to females (Lee, 2010). The odd theory as well as presented through the description of Cal’s body that seemed not to fit in either a male of a female dichotomy of genetics. This novel by Eugenides develops several debates that as well question the hetero and homosexuality binary definition.

Queer theorist believes that in order to understand the world and various forms in it one ought to learn of what is considered to be true and original. In most instances, true and original phrases and definitions are merely constructions of culture. Culture dictates the norms of society and develops guidance on what is morally right and what is wrong. The queer theory develops the notion that in order for the people to subvert from the traditional knowledge they ought to adopt the critical genealogy and develop identity categories critiques that engender naturalizes and immobilizes the contemporary judicial structures (Lee, 2010). In understanding the real-life and world situations, this theory helps in developing his argument that the world we exist in is limited by politics and the language we use. The theory suggested that for the world to be developed with normal life and counter the violent that is normative, the people ought to work from within these limitations to show that the perceived concepts of gender and sexuality, as well as the systems of belief, are not natural (Lee, 2010).

Understanding the plot of the novels aids in showing and understanding how science is addressed and applied in the possible development of options in gender. From the novel, the protagonist explains and describes his father’s scientific mania that overtook him to be a belief in progress that was infecting everyone at the time, 9. As developed by the main character this was in the spring of 1959 when his parents had decided to play God due to the “scientific truths” that were time appropriate (Eugenides, 2003). Before the second birth of Cal which as well as before the introduction of Dr Peter Luce, the author is shown to set up science for fail. The novel as from the beginning of the story portrays the use of science to be a construct; it shows science as nothing more of a cultural construct. The novel primes to show that as any other narratives developed historically, science as well is developed to serve certain means in the society (Lee, 2010). Dr Luce who is so confident about his theoretical view makes him conflict with science. He lies to Stephanides on Callie’s procedure and to him girls are just girls and boys are just boys with no confusion. If it was up to him to decide then he would have just left Cal as Callie. The doctor was willing to use hormones and surgery to ensure that Cal remained a girl.

After the second birth of Cal, the novel as well recognizes the similarly thin claims of what is referred to as scientific evidence. The novel through the narrator shows how Milton abuses science (Cohen, 2007). In that, he had convinced Tessie that they could choose to have a baby girl that was fully backed by hard scientific evidence. Popular science in the time had become a force that people used to conclude by. In this context, the narrator tells the story of how Milton turned to Uncle Pete for help to find the correct approach and method of making a baby girl. The qualifications of Uncle Pete in this scenario, however, are questionable. The misconception of Milt in the story is that he saw Uncle Pete to be a verifiable source merely because he Uncle Pete had studied something that concerned the body and he had subscribed to the scientific American (Cohen, 2007). These two facts had qualified him to be a verifiable source although he had not studied anything that included fetal medicine or gynecology.

The case of nature vs. Culture is developed as from the beginning of the novel during the conception of Cal. This is developed through the moral dilemma of genetic and fetal selection through which Cal’s parents had struggled to for a long time to have a baby girl only for their regressive genes to work against them (Renneflott, 2011). This occurs when they gave birth to a girl who was although behaving like a boy. The development of this science argument is developed well in the novel with the author applying the use of foreshadowing that shows how the audience should anticipate the change in gender of the main character. Although Milton had gone through various troubles to search for a way to have a baby girl through the use of science, his mother had her own means of deciding the baby’s gender which is mainly through intuition (Lee, 2010).

According to the first persona narrative Desdemona, Milton’s Mother and her spoon had never been wrong and from the first paragraph, the reader definitely believes her as Cal will inevitably become a boy (Eugenides, 2003). She never gives up hr. faith and when 14 years later when Cal returns home as boy, she is happy that she was right all along. At the moment of Cal’s birth, his grandfather collapsed as the coffee cup overturned in the effort to read his fortunes on the ground becoming speechless. This according to Desmond and her never-failing spoon was a bad omen. Despite her beliefs, Callie had been born a girl. The narrator of the novel brings us to a story of many possible truths that are mixed with superstitions, mythology and science (Renneflott, 2011). Eugenides also looks at the conversation between faith and science using both Desdemona and Lefty. Lefty gets to suffer from strokes and she realizes that brain is nothing but just an organ ruling out the soul and the afterlife that he had acquired from religion, “he finally arrived at the cold-eyed conclusion … that the brain was just an organ like any other and that when it failed he would be no more” (Eugenides, 2003). This shows a transition from a religious belief to a more scientific approach on matters including health

The novels relate both science and gender in trying to build a theme around gender conformity. We live in a society where gender is no longer just two as now we have so many genders that people relate with. The science in the book that relates to gender is the issue of Disorder of Sex Development, a disorder that has seen some people being discriminated in the century we live in. When Eugenides was writing his book the issue of Disorder of Sex Development was not widely discussed but he was using his character to try and paint a picture to the society. For Cal’s case he was suffering from a deficiency of 5-alpha-reductase a factor that alters production of dihydrotestosterone a hormone necessary for development of the male genital hormones. Because of the absence of this hormone, Cal’s gene Talia appeared female. Reading through the book, the person I had in mind was Caster Semenya a female athlete who has been on the lime light for her masculine characteristics. She has won several races and some athletes have come out to question whether she deserves to run in female races because of her physique. This kind of treatment by the society illustrates why Cal was hesitant about his gender and he really had to go through so much before completely accepting who he really was and accept himself. It is such treatment by the society that lead people born like Cal to develop even depression as the society judges them and treats them differently yet it is not their fault but rather it all revolves around the genetics of a person. In a society where people look at a person’s genitalia thus determining if they are either female or male without really understanding science, those born with deficiency of dihdrotestosterone are likely to be raised as girl and such a person may eventually never be comfortable with themselves because all their physiques are actually masculine, the only thing that is feminine to them is their genitalia.

There are different ways of understanding the world that involves different views such as mythology, superstition and science. The novel uses the application of science to explain the various ideologies of intersects although at the beginning of the novel was set up to fail. Martin abuses science by verifying Uncle Pete merely because he had studied something to do with medicine and was registered with the scientific American. Uncle Pete as well decided to advise Cal on retaining her feminine identity while trying to schedule a gender rearrangement program. The novel develops a perception to the readers that although there are different views and truth approaches, one needs to carefully examine the information’s that we are often provided to develop our own interpretations that would develop our own truths as we continue to questions the sources of the information. The novel also opens up a discussion that should be held by the society especially on individuals born with masculine structures yet they have feminine genital and vice versa. With science in place it is important for people to be taught this and eliminate the ignorance that some people tend to have.

References

Athanassakis, Y. (2012). ‘The American girl I had once been’: Psychosomatic trauma and history in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. European Journal of American Culture, 30(3), 217-230.

Cohen, S. (2007). The Novel in a Time of Terror:” Middlesex”, History, and Contemporary American Fiction. Twentieth-Century Literature, 53(3), 371-393.

Cossman, B. (2003). Sexuality, queer theory, and feminism after Reading and rereading the sexual subject. MCgill lJ, 49, 847.

Eugenides, J. (2003). Middlesex. 2002. Toronto: Vintage Canada.

Lee, M. (2010). Why Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex Is So Inoffensive. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 51(1), 32-46.

Renneflott, L. (2011). Power and identity in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (Master’s thesis).

Midpoint Cumulative Summary

Trey Johnson

Georgia State University

My experiences in math haven’t always been the greatest. It’s the one subject that I’ve always struggled in and to this day still try to avoid. Since I’ve been in college I’ve taken business calculus three times in the last two years, THREE TIMES! And i still have yet to pass it. Is there such a thing as a math phobia? Because if so I definitely have it. Math would honestly be so easy if teachers would just show you the easiest and most simplified way of solving a problem and not fry our brains with so many different formulas for the same problem! I’ve honestly never gotten anything over a C in math since being in school. I’ve gotten more D’s than C’s and I think one F but you get the point. Me and math will never see eye to eye, and I’m okay with that. Less brain trauma on my end.

I have honestly never cared to be a teacher. I always believed that teachers don’t get paid enough to deal with what they deal with, like seriously. Kids are terrible people, our goal was to learn and make the teachers day harder than it needed to be, at least that’s what it felt like. I’ve gone to 6 different high schools and man the difference in education and what the teachers go through is insane. I went to school in south central LA all the way up until my sophomore year in high school. When I tell you teachers were not safe, I mean it. Teachers were getting bullied left and right. My eighth grade teacher got so fed up with our class he just never tried teaching us, he would literally just come to class and let us do whatever until the class was over because the students tortured him and never let him get any teaching out. We’d spit spit balls at each other, try to stick wet paper or tissue to the ceiling, play with our game boys or psp’s (PlayStation portable), we did everything you could possibly think We’d get away with because our teacher refused to teach. He didn’t refuse to teach because he was a terrible teacher, he just couldn’t get the chance to teach because of how terrible of students we all were. I’ve seen so many situations even in high school where the teachers were dang near bullied everyday to where they’d refuse to teach and wouldn’t care about what goes on in the class or students. The Los Angeles unified school district is a tough place to teach in, only the strong survive. The schools I’ve been to outside of Los Angeles were easier for the teachers, the students were far more obedient and wouldn’t dare to do the things they would do at my previous school. I just so happened to be the kid who always acted a fool through high school, nothing crazy just the class clown trying to always be funny.

I really can’t even think of any positive experiences in math or English. I feel like the only positive things I could possibly think of is the excitement I get when I actually understand something. I literally feel like a genius when I’m finally understanding this foreign language the teacher speaks. It’s like the best feeling, you get a math or science high and just excited to see what else you can do. The con of every high is there is always a downfall, that high runs out. It never fails every time I’m finally understanding something and then I get home to do my homework and the math problems are nothing like what I did in class. So then I just sit there staring at the problem like it’s going to blink first, mind beyond fried and then I come back to reality “I hate math”. Science is something else, there are so many good experiences I’ve had in science but that’s only if there is no math included. Once math gets involved just throw the whole subject away, I don’t want it. I absolutely hate chemistry, before I was a business marketing major my major was dental hygiene. I was taking chemistry over the winter break and this class was whooping my butt I didn’t understand anything that was going on. It was so bad that I dropped the class a couple weeks in and changed my major that same month, and now I am here prospering.

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Management and Organizational Behavior

As living organisms modern day organizations have increasingly proven to be very dynamic. This state of affairs can be attributed to the dynamic nature of the corporate environment. Seemingly, the complexity and occurrence of the challenges that the organizations are forced to grapple with has increased significantly. These have made the corporate environment to be not only volatile but also turbulent and unpredictable. The challenges that are experiences both in the external and internal environment are wide and varied. They impact on the functioning of the organizations and greatly influence the decisions that are made at different levels. Living organizations have thus been compelled to align their functional systems to the expectations of the flexible and dynamically interactive nature of the environments within which they operate. The unpredictable nature of the work environments has transformed organizations form being mechanistic to being flexible as well as interactive. It is against this background that this paper compares the military unit and symphony organizations.

Seemingly, both organizations are complex and operate in a systemic nature. In this regard, they comprise of different parts that constantly work together for the common good of the whole. According to Quenk and Kummerow (n.d), the overall performance of such organizations can be adversely affected whenever one part is affected or is missing. The subsystems of the two organizations share intricate and augmenting relationships that can not be easily broken. In particular, the military unit is a part of the economic system of the armed forces. According to Roelofs (nd), orchestra systems on the other hand comprise of innumerous subsystems that closely depend on each other for optimal functioning.

As living organisms, both organizations benefit significantly from the resources that are found in the external environment. In the symphony organization, the resources include human labor and information. Basically, this organization depends heavily on the environment for its growth, sustenance and survival. The military unit on the other depends heavily on the civilian personnel sourced from the society to cater for its needs (Fedorox, 2001). Just like a living organisms, the organizations process the resources that they get from the environment in a bid to filter from these the beneficial aspects. The negative aspects are released to the environment while the beneficial positive aspects are employed for enhancing the growth and sustainability of the respective organizations.

Also both organizations produce end products after processing the resources that they consume from the environment. They make efforts to ensure that the end products also benefit the environment in order to enhance sustainable co existence. In this regard, it is worth appreciating that the resources that the environment provides for them need to be replenished. This can only be attained if the respective organizations give back to the environment. Essentially, the relationship that they share needs to be mutually beneficial. Failure to give back to the environment can have adverse effect on its productivity and make it difficult for the organizations to sustain their livelihoods.

Seemingly, the military system seldom releases the negative aspects in the environment. This is because of its closed nature. In this regard, it absorbs personnel, trains them and uses them for its own benefit. In contrast, the orchestra organization absorbs personnel, financial resources and other forms of resources, processes them and provides products to the environment. This implies that it is more complex and interrelates closely with different facets of the environment. Although the military unit also interacts with the environment within which it is situated, its closed nature does not allow for direct feedback form the environment. The end products of its processes benefit the army which is closely related to it as opposed to the entire complex environment which it relates with too.

Compared to the military unit, the resources that the symphony organization depends on are diverse in nature. This can be attributed to the various subsystems that these organization has. Seemingly, the subsystems require different products and operate differently when contributing to the common good. Notably, this makes them to be more complex and to have more internal as well as external relationships in order to enhance its performance and general wellbeing. Since the operations of the military unit are limited, the resources that it depends on for its survival are limited. Furthermore, it does not need to establish various relationships with its environment or it to perform optimally. This is because the respective organization is highly specialized and would not require the contributions of diverse elements found in the environment within which it is located (Capra n.d).

Because of the innumerable internal and external relationships that the symphony organization has, it is in most instances compounded by incidences of bureaucracy. This is unlike the military unit that has fewer relationships. Although they are intricate and augmenting, its system of accountability is clearer than that of the complex symphony organization. In his research, Black (2003) posits that in dynamic environments, bureaucratic organizations are unlikely to perform well. In this consideration therefore, it can be argued that the military unit is more efficient than the symphony organization. To a great extent, the operations of the military unit are predictable and defined. This is because of the fact that it bases decision making on established values, codes and policies. The operations in the symphony organization are not predetermined because of the dynamic nature of the relative interrelationships. The military unit can therefore be considered to be more of a machine than a living organism.

Unlike the unit military, the symphony organization is more likely to produce another organization. This is because it is dynamic and constantly growing and developing. Apparently, its diverse nature allows it to grow and develop accordingly. This is unlike the military unit whose operations are determined and its possibility of integrating new ways of operations is limited. In addition, the fact that the internal relationships of the symphony organization are collaborative increases their ability to be productive.

In sum, living organizations are able to adapt and co exist in a harmonic manner with the environment because of their flexibility. As identified in the study, both organizations rely on their external environments for growth, sustenance and survival. For this reason, they make unprecedented efforts to relate peacefully with their external environment. They are comprised of internal interrelationships that basically deal with processing the resources they source from the environment. However, the symphony organization is open ended and more complex than the unit military. Seemingly, is has more life than the later whose processes and operations are pre-determined. Nonetheless, the unit military is more efficient in its operations than the symphony organization.

References

Black , L. (2003). Adult and Distance Education Management: An Application of the Metaphor ‘Organizations as Organisms’, Retrieved May 18, 2009, from HYPERLINK “http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/winter64/black64.htm” t “_blank” http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter64/black64.htm

Capra, F. (N.D.) Living Systems. The Light Party. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from HYPERLINK “http://www.lightparty.com/Visionary/LivingSystems.html” t “_blank” http://www.lightparty.com/Visionary/LivingSystems.html

Fedorov, G.S. (2001). The Military Unit as Part of the Armed Forces’ Economic System . Military Thought . July. Retrieved May 18, 2010, from HYPERLINK “http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/400163” t “_blank” http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/400163

Roelofs, L. (N.D.) Organizational Change: Open System Concepts. SymphonyOrchestra Institute. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from HYPERLINK “http://www.soi.org/reading/change/concepts.shtml” t “_blank” http://www.soi.org/reading/change/concepts.shtml

Quenk L. & Kummerow, J. (N.D.) Interpretive Report. CPP Inc. Retrieved December 1, 2010, from HYPERLINK “http://www.psychometrics.com/docs/mbti_st2_ir.pdf” t “_blank” http://www.psychometrics.com/docs/mbti_st2_ir.pdf

BSN355 Capstone Project Proposal Plan

What is the project question (PICOT)? In other words what are you ultimately trying to figure out? Address in P-I-C-O-T format first; then a narrative description.

How to prevent falls at a nursing home, nursing facility or a hospital unit.

What is the title of your project? Be specific and concise.

Fall prevention strategies in nursing practices

Who will benefit from your project?

The people that will benefit this paper are nurses and also the elderly patients.

Where are the people located that will benefit from your project?

They are located at a nursing facility or a hospital unit.

What date do you plan on implementing your project? If you plan to implement this in BSN485, please specify that here.

I plan to implement my project in at least 90 days from now. Collection of data is very important for this project.

How long will your project take? Clarify the difference as compared to the project timeframe in your PICOT question.

I will need at least 90 days to complete the project so I could collect the right data.

Budget requirements of your project (how much money will it take to implement your project)? Please note that this is a proposal; you will not fund this project.

Why did you decide to do this project?

I decided to do this project so I could share my knowledge to nursing facilities on how to prevent falls in nursing homes.

What do you need to help you complete this project? Examples may include supplies, Facility/Administration support, etc.

For me to complete this project in a very detailed manner, I would need to interview some nursing staff and residents on how to prevent falls and what is a effective way to prevent it.

Will your project have long-term effects? If so, what are they? If none. Why not?

The project will have a long term effect because hospital falls are very common with elderly patients specially if they are taking medications that has a lot of side effects.

Will the project be sustainable? If so, how will you sustain the project?

How will your project be evaluated?

The project will be sustainable by implementing and educating residents and staff.

Are there any risks associated with the project?

There are no risk associated with the project. It can be done in a safety manner.

Is there anything that may prevent your project from succeeding? If so, what?

No there is nothing that can prevent my project from succeeding.

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Abortion Controversy

The on-going controversy over abortion in US excites like no other topic for over two centuries. The issue continues to dominate the media and public, and; therefore, abortion has divided the country, society, families, religions and politics. This is evident with the emergence of two opposing groups (pro-choice and pro-life) with different ideologies. The controversy seems to arise from the struggle over whose deep-rooted morals and beliefs are good for society.

The pro-life strongly condemn the act of abortion, and they want abortion to be declared as an illegal act. Some pro-life organizations and groups include the Pro-Life Action League, National Right to Life and Prolife America. They view abortion as a vulnerability to their life morals and values. On the other hand, the pro-choice advocate for legalization of abortion i.e. women should have constitutional rights to have control over their body. They call for sexual awareness programs, access to contraceptives and trained doctors to provide abortion. The proponents like National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood and the national Abortion Federation are fighting against restrictions to abortion such as 24-hours waiting periods, mandatory parental notification, right of doctors to deny contraceptive and abstinence. They believe that such initiatives are spreading misleading, false and distorted information to the public (Hopely, Carr, Chon, Harari, & Chavez, 2006).

One of the major debates about abortion arises from the question of when life begins. The pro-life debate that the commencement of life is a biological fact, given their understanding that existence begins at the moment of conception; hence, the commencement of life is not a moral, personal or religious debate. Therefore, if the right to life, i.e. the right to live and develop naturally on earth, is to be taken as the key privilege of a human being, then abortion should be regarded as one way of violating this assumed right. Pro-choice on the other side, argue that the question of when life starts, is frequently undermined as a spiritual question. Hence, their position is not a moral judgment call but the right of a woman. Also, the proponents assume that the fetus is rather a potential person and not a person. Hence, its right should not be same to an actual person (Hopely, Carr, Chon, Harari, & Chavez, 2006).

About contraceptives, or sexual awareness, the pro-life believe that the most desirable and appropriate contraceptive is abstinence or family planning (least option). They believe contraceptive can accelerate juveniles’ desire for sex in the first place, resulting to early pregnancies. It is clear that pro-life followers are aware that contraceptives means are readily available and can lead to reduction in the abortion rate. Therefore, this implies that they reject the method on social and religious grounds. The position of the pro-choice is to legalize emergency contraceptive to ladies and non-surgical abortions. They believe this will transform abortion in US by making it more available and confidential. This is more fueled by the proposed HB 16, an act that will allow pharmacies to refuse to issue out emergency contraceptive like plan B. a pill bars egg fertilization, implantation in the Uterus or even ovulation. The drug can also reduce the chances of a lady becoming pregnant by 89% since it is a concentrated dose of birth control pill (Hopely, Carr, Chon, Harari, & Chavez, 2006).

Also, the pro-life proponents agree that women possess the right to control their own bodies; however, this does not substantiate the right to end a fetus’ life through abortion. They believe that there are several ways an expectant woman can deal with a problematic situation that do not necessarily resort to abortion. They assume the nine months of mental and physical burden required to raise a child to terms. Here, their reference bases on moral claims due to lack of evidence to why a lady should have a say over her body and not the right to decide whether she needs an abortion or not. On the other hand, the pro-choice followers not only champion for constitutional rights of a lady to have privacy, but also abortion primarily a struggle for a lady’s right to manage her body. They condemn unjustifiable government infringement in to women’s private and personal affairs. Their supportive evidence includes the comparison of the death-rates from legal abortion as least than from a shot of penicillin (Hopely, Carr, Chon, Harari, & Chavez, 2006).

Another controversy arises from pregnancy due to incest or rape. The pro-life argue that it is not good to turn this evil in to second crime (killing of a fetus). They also citing evidence from testimonies by mothers who decided not to abort the fetus and in the end, they transformed something horrible into something worth. Also, there are low statistics indicating cases of abortion due to incest or rape; hence, this can not justify the legalization of abortion. If abortion is to be removed, there will many cases of illegal abortion, unplanned families, and a population boom just to mention a few which can lead in to economic tragedy.

There are numerous articles with different topics about abortion. For instance, an article from “Take the red pill!” presents a story of a lady who was raped, during her teen age, by her father at 15. When her father learnt that she was pregnant, he forced her to abort the fetus. Her parent told her that abortion would solve the issues, when it was never truly a crisis in the first place. She argues that her baby and she were not given a choice, and the incident still haunts her (Kalasky, 2012). An article by “Adoption.com” (2012), provides reasons to why ladies choose to abort. They include failed contraceptive that lead to unplanned pregnancy, teens pregnancy, medical reasons i.e. when there are chances of birth defects abortion may be encouraged for the safety and wellbeing of the expectant mother, incest, rape and other forms of crimes. Lastly, another article from “AbortionFacts.com” has information about psychological and physical effects of abortion on the victims. Physical effects are excessive bleeding, infection (sterility), perforation of the Uterus, cervical injury among others. While psychological effects include a sense of relief, nervous disorder, sleep disturbance, sexual dysfunction i.e. loss of pleasure from intercourse, trauma and other serious psychiatric complications (Monahan, 2006).

New communication technologies like evolving mobile technology and online publishing software have accelerated the debate on abortion than traditional methods. Therefore, the public (recipients) is increasingly turning to online source of news, where they can post supplementary information to give context, respond online, and counterpoints about abortion. This has forced traditional news outlets to adopt open publishing features to their online versions. The media environment is now moving to a more inclusive model in which the public and audiences possess voices, from a broadcast method where few communicate to many. Despite the longtime debate between the two parties, the controversy over rights remains unsolved, and the emerging trends in media seem to escalate the issue rather than to offer the solution. The Medias run different and conflicting views on abortion, thereby leaving the public divided on the issue (AIMS, 2008).

From the discussion, it is evident that people beliefs are closely affected by social makers like race, religious, sex, age and affiliation. Controversies on abortion abases on social issues like unwanted kids, poverty, risks of illegal abortion, abuse and overpopulation. Hence, with the changing trends in media, expect the abortion controversy to worsen even more.

Adoption.com. (2012). Common Reasons People Choose Abortion. Retrieved from http://pregnancy.adoption.com/pregnant/common-reasons-people-choose-abortion.htmlAdvisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (AIMS). (2008). // engaging new media / / challenging old assumptions. Retrieved from http://app.mica.gov.sg/Data/0/AIMS%20Report%20%28Dec%2008%29%20-%20Engaging%20New%20Media,%20Challenging%20Old%20Assumptions.pdfHopely, E. Carr, A. Chon, S. Harari, F. & Chavez, J. (n.d). The Abortion Debate. Retrieved from http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jackson/social.issues/papers/AbortGrB.htmlKalasky, D. (2012). “Take the Red Pill.” Abortion: The Great Incest Cover-Up … A Young Mother’s Story. Retrieved from http://www.truthusa.org/articles/life/incest.htmMonahan, M. (2006). AbortionFacts.com: The After Effects of Abortion. Retrieved from http://www.abortionfacts.com/reardon/after_effects_of_abortion.asp

Reflective Essay

Introduction

Due to continuous improvements in information technology, electronic limit order books have become very popular as a trading channel in financial markets. No designated market maker steps in to provide liquidity in a pure order-driven market such as the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) (Ahn et al. 2001). The participants are individuals trading with limit orders or market orders. Market orders are filled at the best price determined by a previously submitted limit order, and limit orders specify a specific price that participants are willing to pay or accept and fill when that condition is met. The electronic limit order market is characterized by continuous trading, order book visualization, and sequential priority rules. In this market microstructure, traders submitting limit orders provide liquidity, which is in turn consumed by traders placing market orders (Bloomfield et al. 2005). In this paper, I use TRETS for order-driven market simulation trading. Firstly, I trade with market and limit orders separately and analyze the characteristics of both orders. Secondly, trading is performed using large market orders. Finally, I trade as a proprietary trader using both market and limit orders to analyze my trading behavior and trading results.

Trading simulation and analysis

First, I traded with market orders and limit orders separately. I plan to purchase 30 shares. VWAP is used as a benchmark to measure the performance of buy order execution, which is the volume-weighted average price. Traders usually expect the average purchase price to be lower than VWAP and the average sell price to be higher than VWAP during trade execution (Madhavan, 2002). Table 1 below shows the trading results with market orders. Although the task of buying 30 shares of stock was completed before the stock market closed, the results show that the loss of the trade is 1.85 and the average buy price is slightly higher than the VWAP.

Table 1 Trading Results with Market Orders

Time position price cost Profits/loss Average buy price VWAP

00:10.515 10 6.21 0.62 -1.85 6.219 6.2092

00:37.734 7 6.20 0.43 00:57.062 4 6.19 0.25 02:19.484 7 6.20 0.43 03:06.187 1 6.24 0.06 03:50.437 1 6.25 0.06 Table 2 and 3 below show the results of two trades with limit orders respectively. The average buy price of both simulated trades is lower than the VWAP.

Table 2 the First Trading Results with Limit Orders

Time position price cost Profits/loss Average buy price VWAP

02:00.063 1 5.78 0.06 -0.92 5.77 5.7975

02:10.063 7 5.78 0.40 03:20.031 5 5.76 0.29 04:30.109 3 5.76 0.17 Table 3 the Second Trading Results with Limit Orders

Time position price cost Profits/loss Average buy price VWAP

00:30.047 5 5.74 0.29 0.47 5.743 5.8000

01:30.219 5 5.74 0.29 01:40.047 3 5.74 0.17 02:10.062 2 5.74 0.11 04:11.359 1 5.79 0.06 The above results show that market orders can be executed immediately (Bae et al., 2003). However, limit orders do not have this feature. For example, I placed a limit order at 00:19.42, and this order was executed after two minutes. Second, the execution bid price of market order is higher than the limit order (Foucault et al., 2005). In the simulation, market orders are executed at 6.21, which is the best ask price, higher than the execution price of limit order (6.19). Third, limit orders carry both the risk of not being executed and of trading with better-informed traders (Handa and Schwartz, 1996). In my first trade with a limit order, I initially placed a limit order at 5.78.

However, after the limit order was executed, the price continued to fall, and the best bid and ask prices became 5.75 and 5.77, respectively. This indicates that the stock was already worth less than 5.78 which implies the risk of trading with better-informed traders. In my second demo trade, I placed a limit order at 5.74. However, the best buy price then rose to 5.78 and it did not fall back. My limit order at 5.74 was never executed. Fourth, although not all 30 shares were bought with limit orders, the limit orders performed better than market orders in terms of execution. This is also proved in the study of Harris and Hasbrouck (1996). Also, the results suggest that limit order traders benefit through mean reversion (Biais et al., 1995). In the second simulation, my limit order at 5.74 was executed and the price continued to fall, but then the price returned to its previous value and continued to rise.

Next, I traded with large market orders. I placed a 30-share market buy order which has a more significant effect on the price (Kyle’s, 1985). After a large market order is placed, the limit orders on the order book at 5.64, 5.65 and 5.66 are executed and the order book thinned. In the following period, an increasing number of sell limit orders are placed in the order book, while the price decreases and does not return to the initial level eventually. The average buy price for this trade was 5.649, slightly lower than 5.6589, but the final profit was -8.25. This indicates a greater loss than the trade that the 30 shares had been spread out.

Finally, I traded with both market and limit orders, and close positions before market close. The choice of market and limit orders is based on a trade-off between order price, execution probability, and selection risk (Harris, 1998). First, the size of the spread affects my trading choice. When the spread is small, I prefer to place a market order which can deplete liquidity and cause spreads to widen. I place a limit order when the spread was larger. For example, I place a buy limit order at 5.98 and a sell limit order at 6.02, if they are eventually executed, I get a profit of 0.04 per share. Second, my assessment of the execution probability also affects my trading. For example, when I found that many orders already existed at the best offer on the buy side of the order book, I believe that the probability of executing a limit order at that offer is low. Therefore, I prefer to place a market order or a limit order with a higher bid price. Finally, the remaining trading time affects my trading. I am more concerned about order execution than price. To close my position before the market closes, I usually ignore the price and choose a market order to trade all my remaining shares.

When considering trading performance, smaller spreads do not fully compensate for transaction costs. According to Table 4 below, although my buy and sell limit order were executed at 02:10.075, the round-trip profit of 0.02 per share could not compensate for the transaction cost of 0.11 per share, and the final profit was still negative.

Table 4 the Trading Results with Limit Orders and Market Orders

Open time Open price Close time Close price position cost profit

01:00.075 5.43 02:10.075 5.45 1 0.11 -0.09

01:20.095 5.43 02:10.075 5.45 7 0.76 -0.62

01:20.095 5.43 03:00.065 5.45 2 0.22 -0.18

01:29.465 5.43 04:24.594 5.45 1 0.11 -0.09

02:33.435 5.43 04:24.594 5.45 5 0.54 -0.39

Conclusion

Simulated trading with TRETS clarifies the trading strategies and related trading issues in order-driven markets. In this paper, I first made comparative analysis of trading performance of market and limit orders. It is important to note that although using limit orders did not achieve the target number of trades during the trading day, trading with limit orders suggests a better performance. I am usually an impatient trader in the trading process, and I often place aggressive orders to increase the probability of execution to reach my target trade size. There are certain limitations in this paper: First, it does not consider order cancellation, which has a significant impact on order trading (Peterson and Sirri, 2002). Second, due to the short simulation trading time, the number of stocks traded during the simulation trading day is not large. Also, the effect of order submission time on trading (Easley and O’Hara, 1992) was not analyzed. Finally, this paper does not analyze in detail the impact of short-term market volatility on order trading (Handa and Schwartz, 1996).

Critical Review on Liquidity Risk

Introduction

Liquidity is an important characteristic of financial markets and is often considered to have no clear or universally accepted definition. One of the widely accepted definitions is the ability to trade a large number of transactions rapidly at low cost with little impact on the price (Liu 2006). In financial markets, liquidity varies over time, which indicates that liquidity is risky, and Morris and Shin (2004) point out that the variability and uncertainty of liquidity are major challenges for financial liquidity users such as traders and investors. Liquidity indicators tend to decline extremely during market downturns (Chordia et al. 2001), such as the stock market crashes of 1987 and 1989, the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the LTCM crisis of 1998, which are considered to be systemic collapses of liquidity. In the research field, scholars have paid extensive attention to the relationship between liquidity and asset returns. To further enhance the understanding of the current state of liquidity risk research, this paper provides a systematic review of the studies on liquidity risk. This study first reviews the definitions of stock market liquidity and liquidity risk, and then this paper compares the literature on the level of liquidity and the relationship between liquidity risk and stock returns, respectively.

Definition

From a market perspective, liquidity is the presence of buy and sell prices always for investors who want to trade a small number of stocks immediately (Black, 1971). Kyle (1985) proposed three liquidity dimensions. Subsequently, Harris (1990) further enriched the liquidity measure dimensions by proposing the four dimensions of liquidity, namely immediacy, breadth, depth, and elasticity. The proposal of the four dimensions of liquidity has been widely accepted by the academic community.

Since liquidity has multiple dimensions, it is difficult to be measured by a single indicator. Previous studies have used multiple liquidity measures which include high frequency proxies such as quoted bid-ask spread, effective bid-ask spread, quote size, trading volume and trading frequency (Glosten and Harris, 1988; Brennan and Subrahmanyam, 1996; Chordia et al; Huberman and Halka, 2001, etc.) and low-frequency proxies such as Amihud illiquidity indicator (ILLIQ indicator) (Amihud, 2002).The liquidity of an asset is subject to constant changes in response to market environmental conditions. The risk arising from fluctuations in the liquidity of an asset or the risk arising from illiquidity or illiquidity of an asset is considered to be liquidity risk. And it is also defined as the risk arising from the cost of liquidation of assets in the process of liquidation.

Liquidity Risk and Returns

Early research focused on the impact of liquidity levels on stock returns, and most showed that liquidity impacts the stock returns significantly. The first to study this kind of relationship was Amihud and Mendelson (1986). They used bid-ask spreads to measure illiquidity. Their findings suggest that liquidity has a significant impact on stock returns, with higher spread assets generating higher expected returns. Since then, most studies have also found similar findings (such as Brennan & Subrahmanyam, 1996; Lam and Tam, 2011; Dinh, 2017). Their findings point to an impact of liquidity on stock returns.

However, some literature finds opposite findings. Eleswarapu and Reinganum (1993) extend the study of Amihud and Mendelson (1986) and show that the effect of liquidity on stock returns is significant only in January. Lischewski and Voronkova (2012) choose the Polish stock market as an emerging market for their study and there is no significant evidence that illiquidity affects expected stock returns. They suggest that this may be related to the specific structure of the Polish stock market. Evidence for the absence of a liquidity premium for stocks was likewise found in a study of frontier markets (Stereńcza et al., 2020). Therefore, it is important to consider alternative views.

In the study of liquidity premiums, the focus has gradually shifted from the liquidity of individual assets to the commonality of liquidity. Chordia et al. (2000) show that liquidity indicators co-vary with market and industry-wide liquidity. This co-influence remains important even after accounting for individual stock liquidity determinants. Since then, studies such as Hasbrouck and Seppi (2001), Brockman et al. (2009) and Chuliá et al. (2020) also support liquidity commonality. The fact that liquidity commonality is time-varying makes it difficult to disperse liquidity risk, which means that this common liquidity risk may become a priced risk factor.

Pastor and Stambaugh (2003) investigate the relationship between stock returns and asset prices. They construct a single variable that measures market illiquidity and find a significant relationship between sensitivity to liquidity fluctuations and expected stock returns. Sadka (2006) finds similar evidence through their study. Subsequently, Acharya and Pedersen (2005) constructed the Liquidity Adjusted Capital Asset Pricing Model (LCAPM) which is proved to explain the data better than the traditional CAPM model. However, there is the same pricing of market risk and liquidity risk in the LCAPM model. Liu (2006) extends the traditional CAPM model to construct a two-factor model that includes both market and liquidity factors.

Subsequently, several studies using LCAPM model (Acharya and Pedersen, 2005) have found supporting evidence (Lee, 2011; Kim and Lee, 2014; Grillini et al. 2019). However, studies of the pricing power of other liquidity risk-based models have been found differently. The liquidity factor is not priced in the U.S. equity market when the PS liquidity factor is incorporated into the asset pricing model (Momani, 2018). Further, there is also no evidence that Sadka’s (2006) liquidity factors based on price effects generate significant liquidity risk premiums. But this does not mean that liquidity risk can be ignored in asset pricing models, and Ma et al. (2021) found that LCAPM models perform well in explaining average asset returns.

In recent years an increasing number of studies have focused on emerging markets, but the related research literature has found different results. A part of the research finds that liquidity cointegration is priced in emerging markets (Lee, 2011; Ho and Chang, 2015; Silva Júnior and Machado, 2020). However, Moshirian, 2017) assert that while liquidity commonality is priced in developed markets, such results are not found in emerging markets.

Conclusion

Liquidity is vital to traders and the financial markets. This study may help researchers comprehend the present level of research on liquidity risk, notably the link between liquidity risk and stock returns. First, the paper defines stock market liquidity and liquidity risk. Liquidity is the capacity to trade huge volumes of transactions swiftly and cheaply. Second, this research examines the literature on liquidity and liquidity risk. Currently, most research shows that liquidity and liquidity risk effect stock returns. Several studies build asset pricing models based on liquidity risk to examine its pricing power. Several research have shown it to be a major price component. However, several disagreements in this subject field need additional investigation. First, liquidity risk-based asset pricing models are continually evolving. More research is required to construct complete asset pricing models that consider liquidity risk.

Reference

Acharya, V. V. and Pedersen, L. H. 2005. Asset pricing with liquidity risk. Journal of Financial Economics 77(2), pp. 375-410.

ADDIN EN.REFLIST Ahn, H. J., Bae, K. H. and Chan, K. 2001. Limit orders, depth, and volatility: Evidence from the stock exchange of Hong Kong. The Journal of Finance 56(2), pp. 767-788.

Amihud, Y. and Mendelson, H. 1986. Asset pricing and the bid-ask spread. Journal of Financial Economics 17(2), pp. 223-249.

Amihud, Y. 2002. Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects. Journal of financial markets 5(1), pp. 31-56.

Bae, K.-H., Jang, H. and Park, K. S. 2003. Traders’ choice between limit and market orders: evidence from NYSE stocks. Journal of financial markets 6(4), pp. 517-538.

Biais, B., Hillion, P. and Spatt, C. 1995. An empirical analysis of the limit order book and the order flow in the Paris Bourse. The Journal of Finance 50(5), pp. 1655-1689.

Bloomfield, R., O’hara, M. and Saar, G. 2005. The “make or take” decision in an electronic market: Evidence on the evolution of liquidity. Journal of Financial Economics 75(1), pp. 165-199.

Brennan, M. J. and Subrahmanyam, A. 1996. Market microstructure and asset pricing: On the compensation for illiquidity in stock returns. Journal of Financial Economics 41(3), pp. 441-464.

Brockman, P., Chung, D. Y. and Pérignon, C. 2009. Commonality in liquidity: A global perspective. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 44(4), pp. 851-882.

Cao, C., Hansch, O. and Wang, X. 2009. The information content of an open limit‐order book. Journal of Futures Markets: Futures, Options, and Other Derivative Products 29(1), pp. 16-41.

Chordia, T., Roll, R. and Subrahmanyam, A. 2000. Commonality in liquidity. Journal of Financial Economics 56(1), pp. 3-28.

Chordia, T., Roll, R. and Subrahmanyam, A. 2001. Market liquidity and trading activity. The Journal of Finance 56(2), pp. 501-530.

Chuliá, H., Koser, C. and Uribe, J. M. 2020. Uncovering the time-varying relationship between commonality in liquidity and volatility. International Review of Financial Analysis 69, p. 101466.

Dinh, M. T. H. 2017. The returns, risk and liquidity relationship in high frequency trading: Evidence from the Oslo stock market. Research in International Business and Finance 39, pp. 30-40.

Eleswarapu, V. R. and Reinganum, M. R. 1993. The seasonal behavior of the liquidity premium in asset pricing. Journal of Financial Economics 34(3), pp. 373-386.

Fong, K. Y., Holden, C. W. and Trzcinka, C. A. 2017. What are the best liquidity proxies for global research? Review of Finance 21(4), pp. 1355-1401.

Glosten, L. R. and Harris, L. E. 1988. Estimating the components of the bid/ask spread. Journal of Financial Economics 21(1), pp. 123-142.

Grillini, S., Ozkan, A., Sharma, A. and Al Janabi, M. A. 2019. Pricing of time-varying illiquidity within the Eurozone: Evidence using a Markov switching liquidity-adjusted capital asset pricing model. International Review of Financial Analysis 64, pp. 145-158.

Handa, P. and Schwartz, R. A. 1996. Limit order trading. The Journal of Finance 51(5), pp. 1835-1861.

Harris, L. 1990. Liquidity, trading rules and electronic trading systems. (No. 91-8)

Harris, L. and Hasbrouck, J. 1996. Market vs. limit orders: the SuperDOT evidence on order submission strategy. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 31(2), pp. 213-231.

Harris, L. 1998. Optimal dynamic order submission strategies in some stylized trading problems. Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments 7(2), pp. 1-76.

Hasbrouck, J. and Seppi, D. J. 2001. Common factors in prices, order flows, and liquidity. Journal of Financial Economics 59(3), pp. 383-411.

Ho, T.-w. and Chang, S.-H. 2015. The pricing of liquidity risk on the Shanghai stock market. International Review of Economics & Finance 38, pp. 112-130.

Huberman, G. and Halka, D. 2001. Systematic liquidity. Journal of Financial Research 24(2), pp. 161-178.

Kyle, A. S. 1985. Continuous auctions and insider trading. Econometrica: Journal of the econometric society, pp. 1315-1335.

Lee, K.-H. 2011. The world price of liquidity risk. Journal of Financial Economics 99(1), pp. 136-161.

Liu, W. 2006. A liquidity-augmented capital asset pricing model. Journal of Financial Economics 82(3), pp. 631-671.

Ma, X., Zhang, X. and Liu, W. 2021. Further tests of asset pricing models: Liquidity risk matters. Economic Modelling 95, pp. 255-273.

Momani, M. Q. 2018. Revisiting Pastor–Stambaugh liquidity factor. Economics Letters 163, pp. 190-192.

Moshirian, F., Qian, X., Wee, C. K. G. and Zhang, B. 2017. The determinants and pricing of liquidity commonality around the world. Journal of financial markets 33, pp. 22-41.

Pástor, Ľ. and Stambaugh, R. F. 2003. Liquidity risk and expected stock returns. Journal of Political economy 111(3), pp. 642-685.

Peterson, M. and Sirri, E. 2002. Order submission strategy and the curious case of marketable limit orders. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 37(2), pp. 221-241.

Sadka, R. 2006. Momentum and post-earnings-announcement drift anomalies: The role of liquidity risk. Journal of Financial Economics 80(2), pp. 309-349.

Stereńczak, S., Zaremba, A. and Umar, Z. 2020. Is there an illiquidity premium in frontier markets? Emerging Markets Review 42, p. 100673.

Sueshige, T., Kanazawa, K., Takayasu, H., & Takayasu, M. (2018). Ecology of trading strategies in a forex market for limit and market orders. PloS one, 13(12), e0208332.

Abortion Dilemma

Name

Institution

Abortion Dilemma

The abortion dilemma is one of the most sensitive and contentious issues in the moral, political, religious and cultural frameworks (West, 1999). The debate has dates has a very long history, and to-date, is still heavily debated across the globe; both in legality and morality terms. Some of the never ending questions include: Are there any legal and/or moral rights for the foetus? Is the justification of abortion morally? Is the foetus a human being, and therefore, need protection? What does it take to be a human being?

This debate is dominated by two camps with opposing views concerning abortion. They include the pro-life activists and the pro-choice with extreme conservative and extreme liberal views on abortion, respectively. The pro-life activists believe that the development of a unicellular zygote marks the beginning of a personhood of a human being. Therefore, as per the religion stand, abortion should remain illegal by virtue of the “imago dei” of human being; otherwise, it would be a homicide. On the other hand, the pro-choice activists through McDonagh argue abortion is a right for women so as to defend themselves “against the non-consensual invasion, appropriation, and use of her physical body by an unwelcomed foetus” (West, 1999).

The pro-life activists seem advantaged by defining human personhood from the very start of life. However, it may sound insane to refer a zygote as a human being. The abortionists view maybe also right because their major claim is reinforced by a popular philosophical usage of concept “personhood.” Yes, the offspring is more developed than the unicellular zygote. However, this does not imply that the pro-choice definition faces no hurdles. There is no morally relevant difference between a just-born baby and a foetus ten minutes prior to birth. This article will attempt to analyse the controversy surrounding abortion in utilitarian terms, and then contrast utilitarian against deontologists view on abortion (Ngwenya, 2013).

The utilitarianism can be an efficient way of handling the abortion controversy in the current world. Utilitarian believe that humans’ major aim is to achieve the greatest possible pleasure. Utility evades the aforementioned problems since it does not share the hypotheses. Utilitarianism argues that the abortion rights should be measured by their usefulness to the society. Therefore, this article presents analysis based on the pain and pleasure amount in cases where abortion is legal and illegal.

Many individuals would expect the argument to centre on foetus’ interest since it may be destined for a happy future life, and also abortion itself is agonizing, especially if carried-out in late-stages of the pregnancy. However, these are shoddy considerations because: any pain that can arise in the process of abortion can be prevented through a timely abortion or the use of painless approaches. Hence, the overall pain experienced by the foetus cannot offer a solid reason against abortion; only the ugly exercise of it. If one assumes the foetus’ future life comprises of a feasible balance of happiness over pain, then a crucial consideration arises against abortion (Ngwenya, 2013).

Secondly, this paper considers parents and family members if adoption exists as an alternative to abortion. Some researchers claim that having a baby, even in instances where pregnancy is intentional, might reduce the happiness in a relationship. Once again, this claim is insignificant; hence, no need to consider it. According to utilitarian theory, the wrongness or rightness of abortion do not depend either on the effects of abortion on the agent or the victims but lies on the less direct consequences of the overall society. The abortion controversy, assuming the existence “rights” and guilty conscience of “baby murders,” becomes desirability of either decreasing or increasing population (Utilitarian.org, 2000).

If there is a population size that is below the optimal number, it is obvious that the utility will advocates for new birth above this number. In this instance, utility provides positive duties. If the utilitarian agree that the baby’s future happiness, coupled with a calculated value of the consequences on others is in such way that utility opposes abortion, directly s/he implies that utility advocates for population increase. In utility terms, the authentic act of abortion is not a principally important one (Utilitarian.org, 2000).

In this analysis, the dominant issue is the comparative consequences on the overall society. First, nurturing a child in a contemporary developed country is very expensive in monetary terms. Secondly, the world faces an increasing pressure on the environment and other terrible inequalities; and hence people should not focus on the growing population (Poglitsh, 2012).

In case a utilitarian finds out that she is unexpectedly pregnant, then she has to abort because the utility opposes her reproduction. While if the utility is in favour of her pregnancy, means that should have been attempting to get pregnant; hence, it should not be a surprise (Utilitarian.org, 2000).

Deontology theory, on the other hand, claims that every human being has certain duties. While utilitarian is much concerned with the consequences, deontology focuses on ethical truths and norms that are universally acceptable by everyone. In other words, certain actions are immoral irrespective of their consequences. Consider, for example, a pregnant lady who in the course of her pregnancy develops health complications and the only way-out is either to abort, or she dies. Automatically, a utilitarian will advise the lady to abortion since it produces the highest happiness; however, a deontologist will advise her not to have an abortion because murdering an innocent foetus is wrong as per the universal moral truth.

According to utilitarian, existence of a “universal moral truth” is not logic: it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish. To them, the happiness and suffering of any doings are easily determined. Hence, people should stop basing on such unstructured and ambiguous moral truth, and instead embrace more concrete ways of ascertaining ethics of a given action (Physicsisphirst, 2004).

On the other hand, Deontologists view outcomes as illusory i.e. it is impossible foretell the consequences of an individual’s acts with total certainty. The only way for assurance is for one to gauge whether his/her actions are ethical or do not base on the categorical imperative. Deontologists also believe that each human being is individually responsible for his/her own actions and not actions of others. Therefore, the pregnant lady is responsible to either her decision to have an abortion or not. Lastly, deontologists accuse the utilitarian of entrusting perilous moral relativisms by allowing individuals to validate dreadful deeds in the name that its effects are beneficial (Physicsisphirst, 2004).

In conclusion, for one to think that the wrongness or the rightness of abortion is an issue that can be ascertained by considering the consequences on the parties, i.e. parents, foetus and doctors, who get directly involved in the action can be such a precarious short-sighted and naïve move.

Reference

Ngwenya, Z. (2013). Abortion is Intrinsically Evil. Times of Swaziland, November, 9. Retrieved from http://www.times.co.sz/letters/93067-abortion-is-intrinsically-evil.html.Physicsisphirst. (2004). Utilitarianism vs. Deontology. Physics forum, March, 3. Retrieved from http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=15622.Poglitsh, R. (2012).Letters to the Times of Swaziland. Times of Swaziland, November, 25. Retrieved from http://letterstothetos.blogspot.com/.Utilitarian.org. (2000). Abortion. Retrieved from http://www.utilitarian.org/abortion.html.West, R. (1999). Liberalism and abortion. Georgetown Law Journal, 87(6), 2117-2147. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/231486885?accountid=87314.

Management at WorldCom

Introduction:

World com is one of the world leading public relations management companies. It’s an independent partnership of firms that seek to manage the aspects of public relations for their clients that constitutes both national and international companies. WorldCom was established in 1988 and has been able to succeed in its pursuits to offer quality services in the area of public relations management and counseling by developing networks for assisting companies to venture into global businesses without any challenges. On the basis of the above information, this paper will address the following questions with regards to WorldCom case.

Evaluate the planning function of management.

Planning is one of the critical functions that the management of any firm is expected to undertake. This is due to the fact that organizations exist for a specific purpose and hence the people responsible for realization of such purposes must put up structures to achieve. Planning basically entails providing details of the future course of action within an organization so that set objectives can be achieved. Planning therefore describes how all the available resources in the organization will be combined to achieve specific goals. In the planning process the managers also consider all factors that may affect the realization of the organization goals and crafts corrective measures. WorldCom is one of the major providers of intelligence information to enable organizations come up with accurate plans and assess the situations that may affect the business operations. Planning may follow the following processes: The organization will first set the objectives and the key issues to be achieved. The second step will be gathering the information and all resources that will be required in the achievements of the set goals. The third stage normally involves the identification of different objectives that matches the current resources with a view of formulating alternative courses of action. The last stage in planning is the creation of derivative plans that are used in the achievement of the objectives. WorldCom as a company will be vital in the information gathering and setting of the alternatives. This is due to the huge network that enables it to gather valuable information for any organization. It also has experts who are able to assist businesses make the right choices in business strategies.

Influence that legal issues, ethics and corporate social responsibility have had on the company.

Legal, ethical and social responsibility is issues that any company has to contend with in its operations. Legal issues relates to factors that affect the company and the internal and external stakeholders as well as the structure of the business in operations. As mentioned earlier, WorldCom is a partnership kind of business and hence all the members that make up the business have to establish rules and regulations affect their relationships. These laws must be constituted according to partnership laws. One of the key issues that could affect world com is the issue of sharing profits and liabilities. This could be a major challenge for the business especially as more and more member firms joins the partnership’s accounting procedures and processes to record the financial operations of the company can be a major challenge since World com draws its membership from different countries with different accounting policies and procedures. This makes it difficult to consolidate the financial accounting and may lead to legal problems within the company.

Ethical issues in business relates to the ability of all stakeholders to operate within the acceptable standards and remain honest in its dealings with other stakeholders. Ethical issues may include relationship with competitiors, the general public shareholders and the government. Businesses are under obligation to honor and accurately report accurate issues to the above stakeholders. WorldCom was affected by the issues of corporate governance and violation of the rules governing business and poor implementation of accounting policies that led to huge losses of the company. The firm also suffered from managers who lacked integrity and could steal from the shareholders through unjustified loans. All these are ethical issues that can bring down a company. Social responsibility is also another key component of connecting with the community where the company operates and hence businesses are compelled to participate in community activities and also assist in solving community problems. The social responsibility activities must however be done within the management capability and each activity must be properly accounted for. In the case of WorldCom, the management concentrated too much on social responsibility to acquire the sympathy of the public despite the concerns by the accounting department on the impact of such expenditures. This clearly demonstrates that organization must clearly balance social responsibility with their economic strategies in the planning process.(Moberg,2010).

Factors that influence the company’s strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning.

Planning in organizations may take different forms like strategic or long term plans, tactical plans, operational and contingency plans. Strategic plans are long term organizational plans that seeks to achieve great benefits to the organisatiion.Tactical plans are strategic plans that have been broken down to achieve specific areas within the wider strategy. Operational plans are short term plans by middle level managers to achieve daily objectives of the business and contingency plans are alternative plans that can be adopted in case of adverse results of other plans. Although these plans differ the factors that influence them are similar. The following factors will influence all these types of plans within an organization.

Budget/available financial resources:

The execution of any plans will mostly depend on the organizations financial capability hence its important to consider the available funds. This will allow organizations to fully implement plans derive the maximum benefits from such plans. Strategic plans may lead to heavy losses if the organization lacks the necessary funds to complete them. Operational plans will normally require constant cash flows within an organization.

Ethical issues:

All plans within the organization must be guided by acceptable ethical practices. Its however worth noting that managers decisions will always make part of the plans and hence they need to exhibit high levels of ethics so that they make correct decisions.unthical decisions by the management leads to poor planning and could put organizations into problems with stakeholders. WorldCom management decided to award themselves unjustified loans which really affected the financial position of the company and led to heavy losses (Olsen,2006)

Role of management:

The other factor that affects these plans is the role and responsibility that is put of the management of the company. Managers are essentially the responsibility of creating value for the shareholders and other stakeholders of the business and hence all the plans must be aligned towards the achievement of their responsibilities as indicated in the company mission and vision (Olsen,2006)

References:

Moberg,D. (2010). “WorldCom” scu.edu.Retrieved May 23,2011.From

HYPERLINK “http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/worldcom.html” http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/worldcom.html

Olsen, E. (2006). Strategic Planning for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ. : Wiley.

Microservice Deployment

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Microservice Deployment

Slide 1: Introduction

According to Jamshidi, 2018 microservices is a software development technique that arranges applications as a collection of coupled services that are loosely packed. In the architecture of the microservices, services are designed to be fine-grained while protocols are lightweight (Jamshidi, 2018). Ideally, microservices are independent pieces of business functionality that have clear interfaces and can implement layered architecture using its internal components. For this reason, microservices are not part of the monolithic application. The adoption of this software development technique is high in cloud applications, light weight container deployment applications and serverless computing. Fowler points out that as a result of a high number of services in microservices, decentralized delivery and DevOps with holistic monitoring are vital for effective development, maintenance and operations of the applications (Fowler, 2014).

Slide 2: Microservices Deployment Patterns

Microservice deployment is a vital role in a microservice architecture. In most cases, the deployment of microservices is dependent on some key elements. These elements include the ability to deploy or un-deploy independently of other microservices, ability to scale at each microservices level, ability to build and deploy microservices quickly and failure of a single microservice must not affect other services. These requirements are not found in monolithic architecture, where the failure of a single microservice causes the entire system to fail (Thönes, 2015). There are four main microservice deployment patterns; Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern, Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern, Service Instance per Container Pattern and Serverless deployment.

Slide 3: Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern

In this type of deployment pattern, one or more hosts are provided to allow execution or multiple services on each host. Notably, the provided hosts are either physical or virtual (Murugesan, 2017). This deployment pattern is the oldest.

Slide 4: Variants of Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern

Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern has two common variants. They include each service instance is a process or process groups and multiple service instance are executed in the same process or process groups (Murugesan, 2017). An example of each service instance is a process involves deployment of a .NET service instance as a web application in Internet Information Service (IIS). In the case of multiple service instances being executed on the same process is when several .NET service instances are deployed as web applications on an IIS.

Slide 5. Benefits of Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern

One of the key benefits of using Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern is resource usage where multiple instance share server and the operating system. Other benefits include fast service instance deployment and fast service startup due to lack of overhead (Brown, 2016).

Slide 6: Drawbacks of Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern

Multiple Service Instances per Host Pattern has various drawbacks. They include lack of isolation of service instance not unless each service runs in a separate process. Other drawbacks include, technical knowledge requirements are high, no isolation of multiple instances in the same process and complexity of the process makes the deployment pattern riskier (Brown, 2016).

Slide 7: Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern

This is the first specialization of service instance per host pattern. In this, the services are packaged as virtual machine images (Murugesan, 2017). A good example of a VM image is the Amazon EC2 AMI. In this pattern, each service instance, for example, EC2 instance is a product of a launch from the VM image such as Amazon EC2 AMI.

Slide 8: Benefits of Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern

One of the key benefits of using Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern is that service instances run in complete isolation with a fixed memory, thus no resource sharing. Other benefits include one is able to take advantage of cloud infrastructure to provide autoscaling and load balancing features (Brown, 2016). Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern also keeps all implementation and technical details encapsulated.

Slide 9: Drawbacks of Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern

A key downside aspect of using Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern is that it is less efficient in terms of resource use. Each service instance has its own operating system, which is an overhead for the entire pattern. Other drawbacks include due to the large size of the build, deploying a new service is usually slow (Brown, 2016). Service Instance per Virtual Machine Pattern is also time-consuming and labour-intensive as it requires one person to be responsible for the building and maintenance.

Slide 10: Service Instance per Container Pattern

Service Instance per Container Pattern is a lightweight deployment pattern. In this, each service instance runs in its own distinct container. Containers are deemed to be portable and resource controlled operating environment which is visualized at the operating system rather than IT resources layers (Murugesan, 2017). A container is an environment in which one or more processes can be executed simultaneously. It allows one to limit the container memory and CPU resources as well as input-output limiting.

Slide 11: Benefits of Service Instance per Container Pattern

Service Instance per Container Pattern allows for isolation of service instance isolation, easy resource monitoring per container as well as encapsulates the technology used in the implementation process. Ideally, since the patterns uses a container management API, service management API is also provided for in the same platform (Brown, 2016). Other benefits include easy building since it is lightweight technology.

Slide 12: Drawbacks of Benefits of Service Instance per Container Pattern

While Service Instance per Container Pattern proves to be beneficial, it has various drawbacks. One of the key drawbacks is that the technology is not as mature as VM technology. Ideally, since containers share the OS kernel, the level of security is low compared to that of VM technology (Brown, 2016). Other drawbacks include the deployment of containers is done on per-VM priced infrastructure.

Slide 13: Serverless deployment

This an advanced deployment pattern. It allows one to explicitly focus on application development without concern of the IT infrastructure. In this, services must be stateless since technologies used may run a separate instance for each request, and they must be quick to start and written in supported languages (Brown, 2016). Common technologies in this pattern include AWS Lambda, Azure Functions and Google Cloud Functions.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 Brown, K. &. (2016). Implementation patterns for microservices architectures. Proceedings of the 23rd Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, (pp. 1-35).

Fowler, M. (2014, August 28). Microservice prerequisites. Retrieved from martinfowler.com: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/MicroservicePrerequisites.html

Jamshidi, P. P. (2018). Microservices: The journey so far and challenges ahead. IEEE Software, 35(3), 24-35.

Murugesan, V. (2017). Microservices deployment cookbook. Packt Publishing Ltd.

Thönes, J. (2015). Microservices. IEEE software, 32(1), 116-116.

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Professor

Course

Date

Pit Bulls: Friend or Foe

The controversy concerning the Pit Bull has for a long time been a source of debate in present society. The breeding of the pit bull is a result of the interference of man due to the crossbreeding of two dogs. The mixture of the terrier and the bull dog was appropriate for the creation of the perfect fighting dog. The use of the pit bull in the world wars, dog baiting and hunting are practices reflective of the previous culture. The introduction of a globalised way of thinking saw the change from a radical lifestyle to the respect of all forms of life. At the centre of this argument was the treatment of the dogs by human beings. This was marked by the creation of organizations that rallied in the better treatment of the dogs. The end of the wars, the ban of dog baiting and the switch of hunting to an industrialize way of life saw the reduction of the significance of breeding the dog. Investors in pit-bull breeding had to find alternative ways of marketing their product to their customers. One of the strategies involves domesticating the dog as an indoor pet as opposed to an aggressive animal. This decision has however led to a new controversy which questions the validity of domesticating the dog in relation to the safety of human beings. This has created the formation of two extreme sides that either oppose or propose the domestication of the dog. Coming up with a middle ground position is thus ideal in that it weighs both arguments and comes up with a compromise of both notions (Rollin, p. 333).

Domesticating the Pit-bull

A large percentage of the population has stated their stance on the issue of pit-bull rearing. Supporters of this notion state that pit-bull can live the same domesticated lifestyle as their peers. Domesticating a pit-bull involves treating the dog in a less aggressive manner so that it can acquire a more sensitive side. Owners of pit-bulls mention that they have managed to control the temper of the dogs when around people. Pit-bulls are associated with fighting vigorously to the extent of killing their victims. This occurs when they are provoked by member of the surrounding environment. Statistics have shown that the dogs have on several instances lost their tempers due to slight provocation (Rollin, p. 189). This has in turn led to the introduction of laws that monitor the society’s ownership and breeding of the dog. Supporters of the domestication on several occasions justify the behavior of the dog. Some of the excuses place the blame on pit-bull owners who enjoy the aggressive nature of the dog. Experts argue that dogs with aggressive pasts such as the German shepherds and the Rottweiler’s have managed to shed of this image. This gives hope that pit-bulls can also live a life that does not identify with the vicious character it is associated with. Most owners domesticate their dogs to maintain their aggression for protective purposes. This in turn endangers the lives of people who are exposed to the animal on a regular basis. Pit bulls should be distanced from human beings when they reach the age of fifteen years. This is credited to their uncontrollable tantrums that place the life of the owner at risk (Stahlkuppe, p. 213).

Opposition of the domestication of the pit-bull

The domestication of the pit-bull continues to meet an enormous amount of resistance from the opposite side of the argument. Several organizations have been formed to outlaw the breeding of the dog. Their premise is based on the number of lives that have been lost due to the attack by the dogs. Statistics show that pit-bulls are responsible for 71% of the dog bites. This is a relatively large number of attacks for one breed. Owners place the blame of the behavior of the pit-bull on their past. Pit-bulls were bred to meet the aggressive characteristics that they display to date. Despite this, their behavior towards people in close contact to them should not pay the price for this character. Opposes of the breeding and domestication of the pit-bulls continue to deny the claims of their possible control. One of the most affected areas in the country is the California bay area. This location is infamous for the routine breeding and raising of a large percentage of pit-bull. The presence of the breed in this area is responsible for the unsafely of the people in the bay. Some of the extreme cases have seen the maiming of victims who were in close contact to the dog. Most cases record that the victims did not provoke the dog in any war or form. The following statistics display that a high number of pit-bull owners do not take into consideration the safety of their neighbors. This has led to the protest on the legalization of the breeding and ownership of the dog. Protesters do not believe that there is a difference between the carefully trained pit-bull and the neglected ones. The main aim of their cause is to completely eradicate the existence of the breed from the society (Palika, p. 302).

Personal position from a middle ground point of view

The analysis of the two extremes reveals the positions of the supporters of both sides. One side displays its complete backing of the breeding and domestication of the pit-bull. The opposing side on the other hand showcases that disadvantages that come with the trade. Both sides have carefully laid out arguments that argue in their favor. The middle ground is thus ideal in that it provides a compromise of the two sides. It is evident that the human beings are responsible for the inbreeding of the pit-bull. The main motivation was to create a fighter that would meet the demands of the customers at that period. The pit-bull does not know an alternative way of life. They are thus subject to the inhumane actions of selfish human beings. Despite this, progress is being made by associations of pit-bull owners. These groups recognize the danger that comes with the domestication of the dog. They however insist that pit-bulls can coexist peacefully with man if they are well trained and carefully monitored. Extensive research has been done to control the aggressive nature of the dog. This has seen the improvement of the attitude towards pit-bull and pit-bull owners. It is possible for both sides to come to a compromise so as to remove the stigma that comes with the mention of the fierce breed (Kruuk, and Brown, 290).

Works cited

Foster, Ken. The Dogs Who Found Me: What I’ve Learned from Pets Who Were Left Behind. Guilford, Conn: Lyons Press, 2006. Print.

Kruuk, Hans, and Diana E. Brown. Hunter and Hunted: The Relationship between Carnivores and People. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002. Print.

Palika, Liz. American Pit Bull Terrier: Your Happy Healthy Pet. Hoboken, N.J: Howell Book House, 2006. Print.

Rollin, Bernard E. An Introduction to Veterinary Medical Ethics: Theory and Cases. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Print.

Stahlkuppe, Joe. American Pit Bull Terriers/american Staffordshire Terriers: Everything About Purchase, Housing, Care, Nutrition, and Health Care. Hauppage, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 2010. Print.