Thursday 25 August 2011
Study Hotel Management http://ping.fm/p4759 by distance education. Erik Verdonck from Indonesia directly attributes his Hotel Management studies with ACS to his career advancement. He says 'I needed a course covering the basics of hotel management to continue to the next level in my job and to be able to take on more responsibilities (and better pay). The contents of the course proved to be excellent for it and I have been promoted after receiving my certificate of attainment.'
Gardeners Beware - The Risk from Non-Indigenous Plants
Invasive non-native species are affecting the biodiversity of different countries. In the UK, the introduction of the grey squirrel has affected the population of our native red squirrel. What about plants though? The introduction of non-indigenous species of animals and plants, such as Japanese knotweed is thought to be having a significant impact on the British environment. Cabi (a scientific organisation) estimate that this is costing us £251 million in Scotland, £133 million in Wales and £1 billion to the British horticulture and agriculture industries.
Damaging species include rhododendron and giant hogweed.
Giant hogweed and Japanese knotweed are squeezing native plants from road verges, riverbanks and wild land in Scotland. Woodland habitats are being put at risk as a result of rhododendron infestation.
Native plants, such as the Scottish wild hyacinth is at increasing risk due to hybridisation from plant seeds escaping from gardens.
Exotic plants that are allowed to escaped into the wider environment can cause damage to the existing environments.
Whilst, most people would recognise that non-native plants can benefit the horticulture and agriculture of a country, the difficulties arise when the non-native species are planted in the wild and begin to spread into new habitats.
Tracey Jones
Tuesday 23 August 2011
Is the use of social networking to promote riots and social unrest a new thing?
Social Networking and The UK Riots
Over the last few weeks in the UK, we have seen media images of the riots in many of the major UK cities in England. One of the things that cause the most outrage was the “new” factor of social networking. Social networking sites such as twitter, facebook and blackberry messenger were used to encourage people to get involved in the riots. The social networking sites have enabled riots to be planned quickly. Presumably people who wouldn’t have known about when and where the riots were taking place otherwise.
So this is all a new thing isn’t it? Well, no actually it isn’t. Cyber networking is not a new phenomenon. This is the uses of blogs, emails, social networking sites and forums to organise riots or demonstrations.
Organisations known as New Social Movements or NSMs have been organising and coordinating activities such as riots and direct action via the internet for some time.
The G8 summit in Genoa, Italy in 2001 is a prime example of where cyber networking was used to inform people about demonstrations. The events started as a peaceful demonstration, but quickly became a violent riot. Over 200,000 demonstrated worldwide in different cities. Websites and forums such as the Genoa Social Forum were blamed for organising and encouraging the demonstration. Other social media, forums, websites and media outlets were raided by the police.
In Egypt, in January of this year, the internet and instant messaging services were disrupted as the government believed that dissidents were using the internet to provide political unrest. Texting services became slow or unavailable. And Facebook reported a substantial drop in visitors from Egypt.
So is the use of social networking to promote physical unrest a new thing this month?
Interested in the way that society and individuals interact? Learn more in our Social Psychology course.
http://www.acsedu.com/courses/social-psychology-i-815.aspx
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