Sunday, February 16, 2020

Bioethical Research on Stem Cells Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Bioethical Research on Stem Cells - Essay Example Bioethics is a study that deals with all the ethical questions raised due to biological and medical researches and advancements and attempts to answer those questions and satisfy the masses. It also deals with the effect of these biological and medical advancements on the correlation of these fields with other social aspects of life like religion, politics and other social sciences. It talks about the responsibility of the government, the religious leaders, the sociologists and other social figures in regulating and taking notice of any controversial and/or disputed biological or medical issue prevailing in the society. It strives to provide proper arguments and debates to satisfy the concerned and to provide evidence for the importance of the said issue as well as to prove the relevance and unavoidability of the process to make sure that the end result and the eventual achievement is worth the sacrifice.1 Bioethics not only deals with issues related to humans, human rights and research on human issues but also emphasizes on the importance of animal rights and issues related to these non-human species. The examples of the issues related to animals are many, the prime issue being animal testing. This basically concerns the correlation of Bioethics with the animal rights foundations etc and emphasizes on the fact that animals are living beings that cannot be used just like a thing to be tested upon. The bioethical argument to that, however, would be that these tests on animals are conducted to make sure that the complex medicines, remedies and surgical procedures for solving critical health problems related to humans are working efficiently and cause no harm to human life.2 The issues that Bioethics deals with range very widely. It deals with the relationship and effects of biological, especially medical researches with the social issues prevailing in the society, however, these issues can range from being totally based on social grounds like the issue of suicide to being based on complex medicinal grounds like genetics and their effects and influences on the society and people living in it. Having said this, let's observe how vast the bioethical issues can be. Some of the common issues that Bioethics deals with would be: Suicide Infertility Genetic Modification and Gene therapy Cloning (Human and Animal) Abortion Euthanasia (Human as well as Animal) Animal Rights Human Testing Animal Testing Stem cell Research Parthenogenesis Genetic Engineering, etc Recently, the research on stem cells is being questioned on the bioethical grounds quite a lot. First, let's look at what stem cells are and what their function actually is. Stem cells are those cells that have the ability to renew or rejuvenate themselves through mitotic divisions and can transform into differentiated specialized cells of a large variety, however, the extent to which a stem cell can differentiate into a more specialized form varies greatly from one stem cell to another. These stem cells are found in almost all multicellular organisms (organisms having many cells and differentiated cell types for different bodily functions), however, when talking about

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Foreign-Languages Instruction in Chinese and British Higher Education Essay

Foreign-Languages Instruction in Chinese and British Higher Education - Essay Example In the 1980s, Bob Adamson and Heidi Ross had experienced teaching English in China. The latter viewed foreign languages instruction in China as modernisation’s indicator, a phenomenon that was complicated and demanding (Potts 2003). As stated by Ross (1992), â€Å"Foreign language teaching in China has both reflected and complicated the competing political, economic and cultural imperatives secondary schools have been expected to mediate† (p. 240). The conflict between an ‘international interdependence’ and a ‘highly-cultured, public-spirited and well-disciplined socialist civilisation’ (Ross 1992, 243) that was invoked by modernisation was shown in the opposition between natural and teacher-directed use of foreign languages. As expressively articulated by Ross (1992), educators opposed and attempted to deal with these demands:Like Beijing opera stars who spend three years in the wings to perform three minutes on stage, the foreign language tea cher’s fulfilment as a professional comes from moments when carefully constructed lessons are masterfully delivered. Relinquishing the metaphor of teaching and learning as perfect performance requires that secondary school teachers accept the learning process as an unpredictable, socially-constructed activity. That they are grappling with this challenge is clearly reflected in the growing trend to ‘psychologise’ secondary school foreign language teaching policy and practice (Ross 1992, 244-245).  Ã‚     Higher education instructors in China revealed.... years in the wings to perform three minutes on stage, the foreign language teacher’s fulfilment as a professional comes from moments when carefully constructed lessons are masterfully delivered. Relinquishing the metaphor of teaching and learning as perfect performance requires that secondary school teachers accept the learning process as an unpredictable, socially-constructed activity. That they are grappling with this challenge is clearly reflected in the growing trend to ‘psychologise’ secondary school foreign language teaching policy and practice (Ross 1992, 244-245). Higher education instructors in China revealed that one of the problems they face was the absence of opportunity to instigate a reformed educational practice. Their students as well as their selves encountered the same pressures (Hall 2000). It was difficult to deviate from entrenched cultural beliefs and traditional methods. In the 1980s, talking about the prevalent use of the ‘New Concept English’ (Ross 1992, 248), Ross stated that educators are resolute that this rooting in ‘fundamentals’ through representation and reiteration results in ingenious performance later on. There were several educators who were able to provide an ideal performance and cultivate natural language by their pupils yet this was seldom (McLaren & Torres 1999). Higher education teachers would be anxious that, due to the inadequacy of their own language skills and time, they would fail to correct mistakes if pupils continued on a spontaneous task. Instead of feeling limited by pressures for compliance in teaching, educators in higher education reveal that an expanded syllabus from which there is slight departure recognises all the strong points of educators and balances the learning context of every student