Tuesday, May 15, 2007

poli sci 3

The Origin and Powers of Congress


The great compromise

---The congress has two separate chambers-----1, the house representatives 2, the senate .

---Bill(法案) can't become law unless it is passed in identical同样的 form by both chambers.

---The great compromise: the small states would receive equal representation in the senate, but the number of each state's representatives in the house would be based on population, and the house would have the sole right to originate发起 revenue税收 related legislation.

---Senate: 1) each state has two senators, senators has 6-year terms of office. 2) Terms are staggered 交错的, 1/3 of the senate is elected every two years. 3) senators should be chosen by the state legislatures立法机构 according to the Constitution. 4) in 17th amendment in 1913, senators are elected directly by popular vote.

---House: 1) people directly elect members of the house. 2) they serve 2-year terms 3) all house seats are up for election at the same time. 4) 435 members in the House. 5) each representative is elected from a particular congressional distric within his or her state, and each district only elect one representative.

---Reapportionment ( redistribution) :The Constitution provides for a national census every 10 years. Population shifts are handled by the redistribution of seats among the states after each census is taken. Recently gained seats because of population growth are Sunbelt, California, Texas and Florida. Lose Seats areas are Northeast and Midwest.


Duties of the House and Senate

---Similar legislative tasks for house and senate: toe declare war , raise an army and navy, borrow and coin money, regulate interstate commerce, create federal courts, establish rules for the naturalization of immigrants, and make laws.

---Difference in duty: 1) the house alone has the right to originate revenue bills, a right that apparently was coveted at the Constitutional convention.( in reality, it is limited, for it has to be passed by senate) 2) the House has the power of impeachment 弹劾 : the power to charge the president, vice president or other civil officers of the national government. The senate is empowered to act as a court to try impeachments, a 2/3 majority vote of the senators present is necessary for conviction 定罪. 3) Senate has the power to approve major presidential appointments ( such as to federal judgeships, ambassadorships, and cabinet posts ) and treaties with foreign nations. The president is empowered to make treaties, but he must submit them to the senate for a approval by a 2/3 majority.

Electing the Congress

The incumbency effect

Redistricting
---The way the house districts are redrawn by state legislatures after a census-based reapportionment. And it can be benefit the incumbents of one or bother parties.

---Gerrymendering ; altering district lines for partisan游击 advantage.

Name Recognition
---1) incumbent has the name recognition among voter by being members of Congress. The congressional press secretaries promote name recognition to get publicity for the activities and speeches of their bosses. The primary focus is seeking on the local media back in the home district where the voters are. 2) Franking privilege: the right to send mail free of charge. Mailings work to make constituents aware of their legislators' names, activities. 3) Individual website of legislators .

Casework
---Casework: legislators devote much of their office budget to casework because they assume that when they provide assistance to constituent, the constituent will be grateful .

Campaign financing
---House incumbents received 72.8% of all money to congressional races. Challengers received only 12.5 % of the contributions, with the remainder going to candidates in open race.
---open race: where there was no incumbent running for reelection.

Successful Challengers
---How? : the opposing party and PACs may target incumbents who seem vulnerable because of age, leack of seniority, a scandal, unfavorable redistricting.

---Senate challengers have a higher success rate than house challengers, because they are generally high quality candidates who enjoy high name recognition and can attract significant funds because they are regarded as credible candidates.

---The party controlling the white house always loes house seats in the midterm election, as voter take our their disappointments with the president on candidates from his party. They usually loses seats in the senate too.


Whom do we elect

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Interactionism

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Interactionism

1. Humans act towards things on the basis of meanings individuals have for them.
2. Meaning is created through interaction between people.
3. Meanings are modified through an interpretive process.

Interactionism argues that people's selves are social products, but that these selves are also purposive and creative. People act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them, and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.
Interactionists focus on the subjective aspects of social life(micro level), rather than on objective social systems. One reason for this focus is that interactionists base their perspective on their image of humans, rather than on their image of society( as the functionalists do). For interactionists, human are pragmatic 实用的务实的 actors who continually must adjust their behavior to the actions of other actors. We can adjust to these actions only because we are able to interpret them, i.e. to denote them symbolically and threat the actions and those who perform them as symbolic objects. This process of adjustment is aided by our ability to imaginatively rehearse alternative lines of action before we act. The process is further aided by our ability to think about and to react to our own actions and even our selves as symbolic objects. Thusm the interactionist theorist ses humans as active, creative participants who construct their social world not as passive, conforming objects of socialization.

Social consists of organized and patterned interactions among individuals. thus, research by interactionists focues on easily observable face-to-face interactions rather than on macro-level structural relationships involving social institutions. Furthermore, this focus on interaction and the meaning of events to the participants in thos events shifts the attention of the interactionist away from stable norms and values toward more changeable, readjusting social processes. Thereas fur functionalists socialization creates stability in the social system, for interactionists negotiation among members of society creates temporary, socially constructed relations which remain in a constant flux, despite relative stabiity in the basic framework governing those relations.

These emphases on symbols, negotiated reality and the social construction of society lead to an interest in the roles people play.discusses roles dramaturgically, using an analogy to the theather with human social behavior seen as more or less well scripted and with humans as role -taking actors. Role-taking is a key mechanism of interaction, for it permits us to take the other's perspective, to see what our actions might mean to the other actors with whom we interact. At other times, interactionist emphasize the improvisational quality of roles, with human social behavior seen as poorly scripted and with human as role-making improvisers.

Ethonomethodology, raises the question of how people who are interacting with each other can create the illusion of a shared social order even when they don't understand each other fully and in fact have different points of view.



Interactionists tend to study social interaction through participant observation, rather than surveys and interviews. They argue that close contact and immersion in the everyday lives of the participants is necessary for understanding the meaning of actions, the definition of the situation itself, and the process by which actors construct the situation through their interaction. Given this close contact, interactionists could hardly remain free of value commitments, and in fact ,interactionists make explicit use of their values in choosing what to study but strive to be objective in the conduct of their research.

Core Assumptions and Statements

The theory consists of three core principles: meaning, language and thought. These core principles lead to conclusions about the creation of a person’s self and socialization into a larger community (Griffin, 1997).

Meaning states that humans act toward people and things according to the meanings that give to those people or things. Symbolic Interactionism holds the principal of meaning to be the central aspect of human behavior.

Language gives humans a means by which to negotiate meaning through symbols. Humans identify meaning in speech acts with others.

Thought modifies each individual’s interpretation of symbols. Thought is a mental conversation that requires different points of view.

With these three elements the concept of the self can be framed. People use ‘the looking-glass self’: they take the role of the other, imagining how we look to another person. The self is a function of language, without talk there would be no self concept. People are part of a community, where our generalized other is the sum total of responses and expectations that we pick up from the people around us. We naturally give more weight to the views of significant others.

Example

A boy (Jeremy) and a girl (Kim) broke up last year. When Jeremy received an email from Kim to go out he agreed and they went to a bar. Jeremy had a different kind of meaning though in comparison with Kim. Jeremy went out as friends, where Kim went out as with the meaning of ‘potential boyfriend’. Also in the communication the language was misunderstood. Kim wanted to have a romantic night, while Jeremy wanted to have a talk in a bar. This is also caused by the nonverbal element of emails. The third miscommunication is under thought. When Jeremy replied so fast Kim thought that they were going out to a romantic place. Jeremy went out just as ‘friends’. They both used an internal dialogue to interpret the situation and to make a perception of the evening.

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Conflict Theory

Conflict theory states that the society or organization functions so that each individual participant and its groups struggle to maximize their benefits, which contributes to social changes such as changes in politics and revolutions. The theory is mostly applied to explain conflict between social classes, proletarian versus bourgeoisie, and ideologies such as capitalism versus socialism.

The essences of conflict theory is best epitomized by the classic "pyramid structure" in which an elite dictates terms to the larger masses. All major institutions, laws, and traditions in the society are designed to support those who have traditionally been in power, or the groups that are perceived to be superior in the society according to this theory. This can also be expanded to include any society's "morality" and by extension their definition of deviance. Anything that challenges the control of the elite will likely be considered" deviant" or "morally reprehensible." The theory can be applied on both the macro level (like the US or Soviet Russia) or the micro level (a church organization or school club). In summary, conflict theory seeks to catalogues the ways in which those in power seek to stay in power.

The four primary assumptions of modern conflict theory:
1) Competition. Competition over scarce resources ( money, leisure, sexual partneers, and so on) is at the heart of all social relationship. Competition rather than consensus is characteristic of human relationships.
2) structural inequality. Inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups that benefit from any particular structure strive to see it maintained.
3) Revolution. Change occurs as a result of conflict between social class' competing interests rather than through adaptation. It if often abrupt and revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
4) War. Even war is a unifier of the societies involved, as well as war may set to an end to whole societies.

The central institution os capitalist society is private property, the system by which capital( money, machines, tools) is controlled by a small minority of the population. This leads to two opposed classes, the owners of capital and the workers, whose only property is their own labor time, which they have to sell to the capitalists.

Owners are seen as making profits by paying workers less than their work is worth, and thus, exploiting them.

Economic exploitation leads to political oppression, as owners make use of their economic power to gain control of the state and turn it into a servant of bourgeois economic interests. Police power, is used to enforce property rights and guarantee unfair contracts between capitalist and worker. Oppression also takes more subtle forms: religion serves capitalist interests by pacifying the population, intellectuals paid directly or indirectly by capitalists, spend their careers justifying and rationalizing the existing social and economic arrangements. Social institutions, serve to reproduce and perpetuate the economic class structure.

Conflict theory is based upon the view that the fundamental causes of crime are the social and economic forces operating within society. The criminal justice system and criminal law are thought to be operating on behalf of rich and powerful social elites, with resulting polices aimed at controlling the poor. The criminal justice establishment aims at imposing standard of morality and good behavior created by the powerful on the whole of society. Focus is on separating the powerful from who would steal from others and protecting themselves from physical attacks. In the process the legal rights of poor folks might be ignored. The middle class are also co-opted' they side with the elites rather the poor, thinking they might themselves rise to the top by supporting the status quo.

Thus, street crimes, even minor monetary ones are routinely punished quite severely, while large scale financial and business crimes are treated much more leniently. Theft of a television might receive a longer sentence than stealing millions through illegal business practices.

Like functionalism, conflict theory agree that society and culture influences individual behavior. The emphasis on the importance of structure and its influence on the individual does not, lead to stress consensus as the basis of social organisation. In fact, the reverse is true. Conflict stress the extent to which individuals, groups and classes within the society are in competition with each other for whatever people in society consider to be important or worthwhile.

1) it is desirable to convince people that their lack of power, influence, status, wealth and so forth is basically their own fault. If you can encourage people to compete against each other, them some will win and others will lose. If losers can be convinced that the competition is free and fair then their inability to achieve the good things in life can be rationalised as being their own individual fault. This is where cultural institutions such as religion, education and the media are important, since their role is to encourage people to see this way.
2) however, if for whatever reason people fail to be socialised completely into these values, then force is available to make them see the error of this ways. This is the least desirable socialisatione option, mainly because if you force someone to do something against their will you are setting up the conditions for conflict and resistance.
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Friday, January 19, 2007

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Functionalism

1) society is viewed as a system---a collection of interdependent parts, with a tendency toward equilibrium. 2) there are functional requirements that must be met in a society for its survival ( such as reproduction of the population). 3) phenomena are seen to exist because they serve a function.

Functionalism: the perspective of this is built upon twin emphases: 1) application of the scientific method to the objective social world 2) the use of an analogy between the individual organism and society.

The emphasis on scientific methods leads to the assertion that one can study the social world in the same ways as one studies the physical world. Thus functionalists see the social world as "objectively real," as obserable with such techniques as social surveys and interviews.

The second emphasis, on the organic unity of society, leads functionalists to speculate about the needs which must be met for a social system to exist, as well as the ways in which social institutions satisfy those needs. A functionalists might argue, that every society will have a religion, because religious institutions have certain functions which contribute to the survival of the social system as a whole, just as the organs of the body have functions which are necessary for the body's survival.

The analogy between society and an organism focuses attention to the homeostatic nation of social systems: social systems work to maintain equilibrium and return to it after external shocks disturb the balance among social institutions. Such social equilibrium is achieved, most through socialization of members of the society into the basici values and norms of the society, so that consensus is reached. where socialization is insufficient for some reason to create conformity to culturally appropriate roles and socially supported norm, various social control mechanism exist to restore conformity or to segregate the nonconforming individuals from the rest of society. The social control mechanisms range from sanctions imposed informally-- sneering and gossip, --to the activities of certain formal organizations, like schools, prisons, and mental institutions.

Society is viewed as a system of interrelated parts, a change in any part affecting all the others. Within the boundaries of the system, feedback loops and exchanges among the parts ordinarily lead to homeostasis. Most changes are the results of natural growth or of evolution, but other changes occur when ourside forces impinge upon the system.

Functionalist analyses often focus on the individual, usually with the intent to show how individual actors as decision-makers, although some critics have suggested that functionalist theorists are, in effect, treating individuals either as puppets, whose decisions are a predictable result of their location in the social structure and of the norms and expectations they have internalized, or sometimes as virtual prisoners of the explicit social control techniques society imposes. In any case, functionalists have tended to be less concerned with the ways in which individuals can control their own destiny than with the ways in which the limits imposed by society make individual behavior scientifically predictable.

Robert Merton, 1) he distinguishes between manifest and laten functions: those which are recognized and intended by actors in the social system and hence may represent motives for their actions, and those which are unrecognized and, thus unintended by the actors. Second, he distinguishes between consequences which are positively functional for a society, those which are dysfunctional for the society, and those which are dysfunctional for the society, the those which are neither.
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Functionalism Explanation

Marxist's explanations of functionalism: the explain the presence of a social fact in terms of the function that state of society performs.
1) the legal system of a capitalist democratic society performs the function of maintaining the class distinctions within such a society.
2) the educational system performs the function of reproducing economic inequality.
3) liberal/democratic institutions perform the function of keeping bourgeois power relations static.
4) the welfare system performs the function of reproducing economic inequality (poverty traps)

Cohen
The relation between legal and political institutions, class structure and economic structure.
The legal system reinforces class structure which reinforces economic structure
Eg: Striking creates a prisoners dilemma
1) if everyone strikes the strike succeed and wages raised
2) if no one strikes wages will stay low.
3) if everyone else strikes and i don't i will get my wages and they won't. maybe they will be sacked.
1 is the best option but everyone reasons ( in the absences of any coercive mechanism for enforcing solidarity or assurance that no one will defect) according to 3. Thus everyone strikes and 2 is the result. wages stay low, the worst possible outcome.

The sharing information and the generation of trust, however transforms the dilemma into an assurance game in which 1 is the outcome. For this to occur there must be perfect information and trust. In this case, class solidarity performs the function of transformation, revolutionary leadership is the mechanism "through continued interaction the worker become bother concerned about and trusting of each other."

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Capitalism

Capitalism refers to an economic system in which the means of production are entirely privately owned and operated for profit and in which distribution, production and pricing of goods and services are determined by the operation of the free market.

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Positivism

According to Auguste Comte, society undergoes three different phases in its quest for the truth. There three phases are the theological ,the metaphysical and the positive phases.

The theological phase of man is based on whole-hearted belief in all things with reference to God. God, he says, had reigned supreme over human existence pre-Enlightenment. Man's place in society was governed by his association with the divine presences and with the church that governed all. The theological phase deals with mankind accepting the doctrines of the church and not questioning th world. It deal with the restrictions put in place by the religious organization at them time and the total acceptance of any "fact" placed forth for society to believe.

The metaphysical phase of man , as the time since the Enlightenment, a time steeped in logical rationalism, to the time right after the French Revolution. This second phase states that the universal rights of man are mot important. The central idea is that man is born with certain rights, that should not and cannot be taken away, which must be respected. With this in mind democracies and dictators rose and fell in attempt to maintain the innate rights of man.

The positivism: the central idea is the idea that individual rights are more important than the rule of any one person. Comte stated the idea that man is able to govern himself is what makes this innately different from the rest. There is no higher power governing the masses and the intrigue of any one person that the idea that he can achieve anything based on his individual free will and authority.
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Thursday, January 18, 2007

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Urbanization

Economic effects: The most striking change accompanying urbanization is the rapid change in the prevailing character of local livelihoods as agriculture or more traditional local services and small scale industry give way to modern industry and urban and related commerce, with the city drawing on the resources of an ever-widerning area for its own sustenance and goods to be traded or processed into manufactures.

Industrialization

A process of social and economic change from pre-industrial (an economy where the amount of capital accumulated per capita is low) to an industrial state. This is closely intertwined with technological innovation, particularly the development of energy production and metallurgy.

Most pre-industrial economies, the majority of the population were focued on producing what they need to survive. Majority of people became the labour force in arigculture. However, producing food and products don't make profits. It is the trade and commerce make all the money off the production. -------Increasing trade and commercialisation happened everywhere in industrial regions.

Social Structure

The term social strcture, refers to entities or groups in definite relation to each other, to relatively enduring patterns or behaviour and relationship within social system, or to social institutions and norms becoming embedded into social systems in such a way that they shape the behaviour of actors within those social systems.

The notion of the social structure as relationships between different entities or groups or as enduring and relatively stable patterns of relationship emphasises the idea that society is grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meaning or purposes.

The notion of structure as embedded institutions or norms that shape the actions of social agents as structural determination may accur as the actions of people and organisations are guided partially by the underlying structures in the system.

so: 1) the relationship of definite entinities or groups to each other
2) as enduring patterns of behaviour by participants in a social system in relation to each other and
3) as institutionalised norms or cognitive frameworks that structure the actions of actors in the social system.

Monday, July 24, 2006

heart

III Result

A Heart Sound: The two of my first sounds seemed a bit stronger and louder that two of the second sounds.

B Blood Pressure

1. Systolic/Diastolic after 5 minutes rest: 120mmHg / 80mmHg. Pulse rate: 73 beats/min. Pulse pressure: 40mmHg

2. Systolic/Diastolic sitting: 120mmHg / 80mmHg. Pulse rate: 68beats/min. Pulse pressure: 40mmHg

3. Systolic/Diastolic after standing: 130mmHg / 90mmHg. Pulse rate: 75 beats/min Pulse pressure: 40mmHg

4. % change :

a Resting to sitting: systolic=0 diastolic= 0

b Resting to sitting: systolic=8.3% diastolic= 12.5%

Calculation: %change = ------------------------------------X 100

C EKG

IV Summary

  1. In the heart sounds experiment, two of my first sounds located at tricuspid area and mitral area seemed a bit stronger and louder that two of my second sounds which located at aortic area and pulmonary area.
  2. In the blood pressure experiment, after 5 minutes rest, my systolic pressure is 120mmHg and diastolic pressure80mmHg. Both the systolic and diastolic pressure of the sitting position remains the same after given a 5-minute rest. Blood pressure was increased after I changed position to standing. Percentage change from resting to sitting for both systolic and diastolic pressure is 0. Systolic pressure changed 8.3% from resting to standing. Diastolic pressure changed 12.5%.
  3. I have a normal consistent EKG. Each P wave is followed by a QRS. And there is T wave after a QRS.

V Conclusion.

  1. The first hear sound is caused by turbulence when the closure of the atrioventricular valves, mitral and tricuspid happened at the beginning of ventricular contraction. The second sound is caused by turbulence when the aortic valves and pulmonic valve close at the end of ventricular systole.
  2. Blood is carried from the heart to all parts of your body in vessels called arteries. Blood pressure is the force of the blood pushing against the walls of the arteries. Each time the heart beats (about 60-70 times a minute at rest), it pumps out blood into the arteries. Blood pressure is always given as these two numbers, the systolic and diastolic pressures. Systolic pressure is the highest pressure in the measured artery. It is an indication of force of heart contraction. Diastolic pressure is the lowest pressure in the measured artery. It is an indication of the condition of the artery. Pulse pressure is the difference between systolic and diastolic. (systolic minus diastolic pressure)
  3. EKG or ECG – is a test that measures the electrical activity of the heartbeat. With each beat, an electrical impulse (or “wave”) travels through the heart. This wave causes the muscle to squeeze and pump blood from the heart.

VII Food for Thought

1. If you were going to design a medication which would relieve high blood pressure, what are some possible physiological methods of action that you might exploit?

· Beta blockers

· ACE inhibitors

· Angiotensin receptor blockers

· Calcium channel blockers

· Diuretics

· Alpha blockers

2. What changes in pulse rate as determined as the radial artery would occur in there was a sudden occurrence of :

a. ventricular fibrillation becomes quick but weak.

b. partial A-V block becomes slower

c. complete A-V block becomes very slow.

3. What are some of the changes which might occur with exercise in :

a. heart rate: will increase

b. blood pressure: will increase but even out gradually

c. cardiac output: will increase

d. coronary artery diameter: will increase

e. number of cross bridges attaching to actin molecules in the ventricular myocardium: more cross bridges attaches to actin now.

4. Before a physiology exam the student’s heart is beating quickly. Explain the mechanism of the increased rate and what mechanisms are involves when the heart rate returns to normal?

Stress stimulate and epinephrine from the adrenal medulla open the HCN channels of the pacemaker cells, including a faster rate of diastolic depolarization. This causes action potentials to be produced more rapidly, resulting in a faster cardiac rate.

Exercise will help the heart rate to back to normal. Ach released by vagus nerve endings, binds to receptors and caused the opening of separate K+ channels in the membrane. The outward diffusion of K+ partially counters the inward diffusion of Na+ through the HCN channels, producing a slower cardiac heart rate which can bring the faster rate back to normal.

5. Upon placing the stethoscope in the fifth intercostals space as close to the sternum as possible, a rushing sound is heard. Explain this pathology.

This may due to the bruit which is usually occurs in a middle aged or older person. It is the unusual sound that blood makes when it rushes past an obstruction in an artery when the sound is observed with a stethoscope. It associated with stroke and carotid artery disease.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

IV Summary

In the hematocrit test, my blood cell ratio to total blood volume is 40%. Average of males in the class is 45.5%. Average of females in the class is 41%. I am below average hematocrit ratio.

My blood type is A+. 8 people in the class are type A blood. 4 people are type B. 2 people are type AB and 3 people type O. 15 people in the class has Rh positive. There are only two persons showed Rh negative result.

V Conclusion
Hematocrit: this is the percent of the blood that is red blood cells. It is a ratio. It tells if there are enough red blood cells in your blood. The hematocrit is usually done by placing the blood in a tube and spinning the tube in a centrifuge. This separates the solid parts of the blood from the liquid plasma. When heparinized blood (heparin is an anticoagulant) is centrifuged, the red blood cells become packed at the bottom of the tube, while the plasma is left at the top as a clear liquid. The ratio of the volume of packed red cells to the total blood volume is called the hematocrit. Generally speaking, males have higher red blood cell percentage than females.

All humans can be typed for the ABO blood group. There are four principal types: A, B, AB, and O. There are two antigens and two antibodies that are mostly responsible for the ABO types. The specific combination of these four components determines an individual's type in most cases. People with type A blood will have the A antigen on the surface of their red cells (as shown in the table below). As a result, anti-A antibodies will not be produced by them because they would cause the destruction of their own blood. However, if B type blood is injected into their systems, anti-B antibodies in their plasma will recognize it as alien and burst or agglutinate the introduced red cells in order to cleanse the blood of alien protein.Individuals with type O blood do not produce ABO antigens. Therefore, their blood normally will not be rejected when it is given to others with different ABO types. As a result, type O people are universal donors for transfusions, but they can receive only type O blood themselves. Those who have type AB blood do not make any ABO antibodies. Their blood does not discriminate against any other ABO type. Consequently, they are universal receivers for transfusions, but their blood will be agglutinated when given to people with every other type because they produce both kinds of antigens.

If an individual's blood sample is agglutinated by the anti-A antibody, but not the anti-B antibody, it means that the A antigen is present but not the B antigen. Therefore, the blood type is A.


The Rh system was named after rhesus monkeys, since they were initially used in the research to make the antiserum for typing blood samples. If the antiserum agglutinates one's red cells, the person is Rh+. If it doesn't, the person is Rh-. Despite its actual genetic complexity, the inheritance of this trait usually can be predicted by a simple conceptual model in which there are two alleles, D and d. Individuals who are homozygous dominant (DD) or heterozygous (Dd) are Rh+. Those who are homozygous recessive (dd) are Rh- (i.e., they do not have the key Rh antigens).


1. What are some of the factors that might account for some of the variations seen in the results of different class members?

Different sex shows different hematocrit ratio.

2. How do the values obtained fro erythrocyte count, hematocrit, and hemoglobin concentration relate to the oxygen carry capcity of the blood.


The more erythrocytes in a person's body, the more oxygen capacity that pereson has. The bigger the hematocrit test number, the more percentage of red blood cells presented in the body. More red blood cells have more hemoglobin which can bind and carry oxygen. Thus, if hemoglobin concentration is high, they can carry more oxygen as comparing to a low hemoglobin concentration blood.

3. What are the relative advantage of a red blood cell count as compared to a determination of hematocrit? Disadvantages?

A red blood cell count (RBC) is ordered to check whether the number of red cells in the blood is abnormally high or abnormally low. You can get relative absolute number of the cell to check if there is an abnormal value presented in a patient. In hematocrit, the value is only a percentage which might be precise enough to make a diagnosis.

The disadvantage is that counting cells doesnot tell you much about their quality. The values try to describe the red cell population. If you know the red cell count and you know how much volume these cells take up (Hct), then by dividing the hematocrit by the red cell count will give you the average (or mean) cell volume. Similarly, if you know the total weight of hemoglobin and the red count, then you can find out the average or mean weight of hemoglobin in each cell. And, if you know the weight of hemoglobin and the volume of blood that is red cells, you can determine what percentage of an average red cell is taken up by hemoglobin. The benefit of these indices is that you can quickly narrow down the potential causes of anemia; the disadvantage is that these number assume a similar population of cells.

4. Explain the mechanism which accounts for one blood type being considered as a universal donor.

If you belong to the blood group 0, you have neither A or B antigens on the surface of your red blood cells but you have both A and B antibodies in your blood plasma. That is the reason type 0 is often called universal donor.

5. Propose one or more mechanisms to explain how the new anti-coagulant you are developing works.

Hepain is a biological substance, usually made from pig intestines. It works by activating antithrombin III, which blocks thrombin from clotting blood.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Exam 3

Chapter 19

calorie: the amount of energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Kilocalorie: the amount of energy needed to increase the temperature of 1kg of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Two way to obtain energy
  1. directly from ATP
  2. Indirectly from cellular respiration of glucose, fatty acids, ketone bodies, amino acids and other organic molecules-------these molecules are from food, but they can also be obtained from the glycogen, fat, and protein stored in the body.

Metabolic rate: the total rate of body metabolism.

How to measure the metabolic rate?

  1. the amount of heat generated by the body
  2. the amount of oxygen consumed by the body per minute.

What influence the metabolic rate?

  1. body composistion. the ratio of lean to fat tissue in the body is the biggest factor in determing metabolic rate. ----"percent body fat." the lower your percent body fat, the higher your ratio of lean to fat tissue, and the higher the metabolic rate.
  2. Activity level: exercise temporaryily boosts metabolic rate. The longer and harder you exercise, the greater the temporary boost.
  3. Diet: eating temporarily raise metabolism By eating small portions of healthy food throughout the day can keep raising metabolism and burn more calories than sticking to the three meals.
  4. Age: the older the slower the metabolic rate sue to the loss of muscle mass and the change in fat to lean ratio.
  5. Thyroid hormone: helps regulate metabolic rate. hypothroid has reduced metabolic rate. and hyperthroid has increased metabolic rate.
  6. Genetics: genetic predispostion affect metabolic rate.

Why body temperature can determine metabolic rate?

  1. temperature itself influences the rate of chemical reactions
  2. the hypothalamus contains temperature control center, and temperature-sensive cells that act as sensors for changes in the body temperature. In response to the deviation from the set point for body temperature, the control areas of the hypothalamus can direct physiological response that help to correct the deviation and maintain a constant body temperature--thus influence the total metabolic rate.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) ---- the metabolic rate of an awake, relaxed person 12 to 14 hours after eating and at a comfortable temperature.

  • the release of energy in this state is sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs, such as the brain, skin, muscles, liver, sex organs.
  • BMR decreases with age and with the loss of lean body mass. increased with increased cardiovascular exercise and muscle mass.
  • An accurate BMR measurement requires that the person's sympathetic nervous system is not stimulated.
  • BMR is measure by gass analysis through direct or indirect calorimetry.

Fators that affect BMR

  1. Primarily by age, sex and body surface area.
  2. Strongly influenced by the level of thyroid secretion. person with hyperthroidism has abnormal high BMR, hypothroidism has low BMR
  3. also affected by genetic inheritance, obesity have low BMR.

What is weight loss and weight gain?

  • Weight is lost when the caloric value of the food ingested is less than the amount required in cell respiration over a period of time. it can be achieved by dieting clone or in combination with an excerise to raise the metabolic rate.
  • Weight is gained when the caloris intake is greater than the energy expenditures, excess calories are stored primarily as fat. Carbodyhrates, protein, or fat can all be converted to fat by the metabolic pathways.
  • When the subject were mainted at 10% less than their usual weight, their metabolic rate decreased, and when they were mained at 10% greater than their usual body weight, the metabolic rate increased.

What is anabolism and catabolism?

  1. anabolism is the metabolic pathway that create building blocks and compounds from simple presursors. Eg. glycogenesis, glucogeogenesis, peotein synthesis. C cycle, carbon fixation.
  2. Catabolism: is the metabolic process that breaks down molecules into smaller units.

Turnover rate: of a molecule is the rate at which it is broken down and resynthesized.

  • average daily turnover for carbohydrate is 250 g/day but the average daily dietary requirement for carbohydrate is less than150 gram / day. The average turn over rate for protein is 150 g/ day, 35d/day of protein needed in the diet.
  • the minimal amounts of dietary protein and fat required to meet the turnover rte are adequate only if they supply sufficient amounts of the essential amino acids and fatty acids.

Essential amino acids and essential fatty acids

  1. 9 essential amino acids are: lysine, tryptophan, phenylalanine, threonine, valine, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, histidine.
  2. 2 essential fatty acids: linoleic acid, linolenic acid.