‘Editor’s Choice’ Archives
E-Commerce
E-Commerce The Internet offers the opportunity to sell directly to customers in both the consumer market and the business-to-business market. This direct selling of goods and services has been labeled e-commerce. Many of the sites already mentioned in this chapter have a sales component— either as a primary or secondary goal. Many companies [...]
Consumer Safety
Consumer Safety Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) warned Americans that many “things” could kill as surely as people. Freedom to consume entails risks which have become hotly debated in the litigious ambience of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century where not only faulty products—flammable children’s pajamas, unsafe [...]
Commencement
Commencement American graduations, from preschool through Ivy League doctorates, represent highly ceremonial public rites of passage. Typical features include academic robes (modeled on European ones), processions of faculty and students, music, prayers based in civic Christianity and speeches; graduations are also accompanied by rounds of [...]
Caffeine
Caffeine A chemical that has stimulant and diuretic effects found in many drinks and foods, notably coffee, tea, colas, and chocolate. Caffeine is also an ingredient of some medications. Caffeine exerts its primary action by blocking adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a byproduct of metabolism whose function is to slow the activity of neurons. [...]
Ginseng
Ginseng A family of herbs used for a variety of medicinal purposes. There are several varieties of ginseng. Panax ginseng, also called Korean red ginseng and Asian ginseng, generally is considered the most potent. Siberian ginseng, sometimes known by its Latin name Eleutherococcus senticosus, is milder than P. ginseng, and American ginseng is [...]
Acupuncture
Acupuncture The centuries-old therapy foundation of TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE (TCM) in which practitioners insert fine needles into certain points on the body. From the perspective of Eastern medicine and TCM, acupuncture influences the flow of energy (called chi or qi) within the body. Each of the several thousand acupuncture points [...]
Lifestyle and Health
Lifestyle and Health The factors such as nutrition, diet, physical activity, cigarette smoking and other tobacco use, seatbelt use, alcohol and drug use, sun exposure, and sexual practices that influence health, disease, and quality of life. Some health experts estimate that lifestyle factors influence two-thirds of the health conditions that [...]
All About Depression
All About Depression A clinical condition in which feelings of profound sadness and hopelessness interfere with the activities of everyday life. Depression can be ACUTE (come on suddenly) or CHRONIC (extend over a long period of time or come and go over time). Depression is highly treatable. ANTIDEPRESSANT MEDICATIONS have become the mainstay [...]
Missing and Exploited Children
Missing and Exploited Children The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private nonprofit organization started in 1984 in the United States under a congressional mandate. Primarily funded by the U.S. Justice Department, NCMEC performs the duties of a central point of contact for parents, children, law enforcement [...]
Workplace Romance
Workplace Romance The workplace has become a common and natural place for romantic relationships to evolve. It is where most employees spend the majority of their waking hours, and those who work closely together often have a lot in common—they are likely to have similar interests, values, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, and job [...]
