Java and Bluetooth Technologies

Java and Bluetooth Technologies CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Project Background Wireless technologies are becoming more and more popular around the world. Consumers appreciate the wireless lifestyle, relieving them of the well known â€Å"cable chaos† that tends to grow under their desk. Nowadays, the world would virtually stop if wireless communications suddenly became unavailable. Both our way of life and the global economy are highly dependent on the flow of information through wireless mediums like television and radio. Cell phones have become highly available during the last decade. Now virtually everyone owns a cell phone, making people available almost wherever they are. Many companies are highly dependent on their employees having cell phones, some companies have even decided not to employ stationary phone systems but instead use cell phones exclusively throughout the organization. New wireless technologies are introduced at an increasing rate. During the last few years the IEEE 802.11 technologies have started to spread rapidly, enabling consumer s to set up their own wireless networks. This constitutes an important change in how wireless communications are made available to consumers. Wireless networks are no longer provided by big corporations alone, they can just as well be implemented by individuals. Our society is becoming more and more dependent on wireless communications as new areas of use are introduced. The Bluetooth wireless technology is also spreading rapidly. The number of Bluetooth chipsets shipped per year has doubled from 2002 to a total of 69 million chipsets in 2003. The majority of these Bluetooth chipsets are used in mobile phones. An interesting aspect is that consumers are highly dependent on having a cell phone, and the Bluetooth technology is included in the majority of new cell phones. The Bluetooth technology will therefore spread because of the general need for cell phones. As an increasing number of useful Bluetooth applications become available, many consumers will already have Bluetooth devices and be ready to start using Bluetooth PANs (Personal Area Networks) where all their Bluetooth devices communicate with one another. The number of Java enabled mobile phones worldwide is over 250 million and the number of Java enabled mobile phones will continue to increase. Java enabled mobile phones have already been on the market for some years. Due to the very resource constrained mobile phones available a few years ago, Java applications were not very sophisticated and did not hit the mass-market the way many had hoped. As seen in the rest of the software and hardware industry, games play an important role in driving the development of both hardware and software forward. It is therefore interesting to see that a large market has emerged lately for Java games targeting mobile devices. Processing power, available memory, screen size, and screen resolution are increasing as new Java enabled mobile devices enter the market. Newly released Java applications are accordingly sophisticated, and will help to spread the Java technology usage even further. The Java APIs for Bluetooth Wireless Technology (JABWT) ties the Java technology and the Bluetooth technology together. JABWT is made available in some of the latest smart phones and will probably be available also in low-end cell phones in the future. One can easily imagine different scenarios where JABWT would be useful, e.g. the functionality of existing Java games is extended to support multi-player games using Bluetooth connectivity. Other interesting scenarios emerge as well, such as a consumer using a Java Bluetooth enabled mobile phone to pay for a soda by connecting to a Bluetooth enabled soda vending-machine. A good prediction is that JABWT will first find its use in multi-player Java games, making the Java and Bluetooth technologies well-known to consumers. Thereafter we will probably see other types of Java Bluetooth applications, such as small-amount payment applications. This thesis gives a broad overview of Java and Bluetooth technologies, and a mobile peer-to-peer application that allows users to share their files such as text, images music within a small Bluetooth network in a synchronized way. 1.2 Aim of the Project This project is designed to develop a personalized mobile file sharing system that allow users to share their resources without the aid of any central server. 1.3 Motivation of the Project With the availability of peer-to-peer mobile services operating on content sets, the need for a personalized file sharing Application rises. This project overcomes the requirements specified above by designing a personalized file sharing system that not only allows people to share files to the strangers in a mobile peer-to-peer mobile network, but also identifies the secure mobile devices in an â€Å"ad-hoc mobile social network† which allows people to share and personalize the file sharing experience with the strangers in the network. 1.4 Expected outcome of the project The Outcome of this project is to design a system that provides methods to share their files within the users in an adhoc network by identifying the secure mobile devices. The user not only shares there files with known entities but also has provisions to share the image, text and music files with unknown entities. 1.5. Introduction to Bluetooth Bluetooth is a wireless communication protocol. Bluetooth is an always-on, short-range radio hookup that resides on a microchip. We can use Bluetooth to communicate to other Bluetooth-enabled devices. It was initially developed by Swedish mobile phone maker Ericsson in 1994 as a way to let laptop computers make calls over a mobile phone. Since then, several thousand companies have signed on to make Bluetooth the low-power short-range wireless standard for a wide range of devices. Industry observers expect Bluetooth to be installed in billions of devices by 2005. The concept behind Bluetooth is to provide a universal short-range wireless capability. Using the 2.4 GHz band, available globally for unlicensed low-power uses, two Bluetooth devices within 10 m of each other can share up to 720 Kbps of capacity. Bluetooth is intended to support an open-ended list of applications, including data (such as schedules and telephone numbers), audio, graphics, and even video. For example, audio devices can include headsets, cordless and standard phones, home stereos, and digital MP3 players. Following are some examples of the capabilities that Bluetooth can provide consumers: Make calls from a wireless headset connected remotely to a cell phone; Eliminate cables linking computers to printers, keyboards, and the mouse; Hook up MP3 players wirelessly to other machines to download music; Set up home networks so that a couch potato can remotely monitor air conditioning, the oven, and childrens Internet surfing; Call home from a remote location to turn appliances on and off, set the alarm, and monitor activity. 1.5.1 Applications of Bluetooth Bluetooth is designed to operate in an environment of many users. Up to eight devices can communicate in a small network called a piconet. Ten of these piconets can coexist in the same coverage range of the Bluetooth radio. To provide security, each link is encoded and protected against eavesdropping and interference. Bluetooth provides support for three general application areas using short-range wireless connectivity: Data and voice access points Bluetooth facilitates real-time voice and data transmissions by providing effortless wireless connection of portable and stationary communications devices; Cable replacement Bluetooth eliminates the need for numerous, often proprietary cable attachments for connection of practically any kind of communications device. Connections are instant and are maintained even when devices are not within line of sight. The range of each radio is approximately 10 m, but can be extended to 100 m with an optional amplifier; Ad hoc networking A device equipped with a Bluetooth radio can establish instant connection to another Bluetooth radio as soon as it comes into range. 1.5.2 Protocol Architecture Bluetooth is defined as a layered protocol architecture consisting of core protocols, cable replacement and telephony control protocols, and adopted protocols. The core protocols form a five-layer stack consisting of the following elements: Radio Specifies details of the air interface, including frequency, the use of frequency hopping, modulation scheme, and transmit power. Baseband Concerned with connection establishment within a piconet, addressing, packet format, timing, and power control. Link manager protocol (LMP) Responsible for link setup between Bluetooth devices and ongoing link management. This includes security aspects such as authentication and encryption, plus the control and negotiation of baseband packet sizes. Logical link control and adaptation protocol (L2CAP) Adapts upper-layer protocols to the baseband layer. L2CAP provides both connectionless and connection-oriented services. Service discovery protocol (SDP) Device information, services, and the characteristics of the services can be queried to enable the establishment of a connection between two or more Bluetooth devices. RFCOMM is the cable replacement protocol included in the Bluetooth specification. RFCOMM presents a virtual serial port that is designed to make replacement of cable technologies as transparent as possible. Serial ports are one of the most common types of communications interfaces used with computing and communications devices. Hence, RFCOMM enables the replacement of serial port cables with the minimum of modification of existing devices. RFCOMM provides for binary data transport and emulates EIA-232 control signals over the Bluetooth base band layer. EIA-232 (formerly known as RS-232) is a widely used serial port interface standard. The adopted protocols are defined in specifications issued by other standards-making organizations and incorporated into the overall Bluetooth architecture. The Bluetooth strategy is to invent only necessary protocols and use existing standards whenever possible. These are the adopted protocols: PPP The point-to-point protocol is an Internet standard protocol for transporting IP datagrams over a point-to-point link; TCP/UDP/IP These are the foundation protocols of the TCP/IP protocol suite; OBEX The object exchange protocol is a session-level protocol developed by the Infrared Data Association (IrDA) for the exchange of objects. OBEX provides functionality similar to that of HTTP, but in a simpler fashion. It also provides a model for representing objects and operations. Examples of content formats transferred by OBEX are vCard and vCalendar, which provide the format of an electronic business card and personal calendar entries and scheduling information, respectively; WAE/WAP Bluetooth incorporates the wireless application environment and the wireless application protocol into its architecture. 1.5.3 Bluetooth Usage Models A number of usage models are defined in Bluetooth profile documents. In essence, a usage model is a set of protocols that implement a particular Bluetooth-based application. Each profile defines the protocols and protocol features supporting a particular usage model. Following are the highest-priority usage models: File transfer The file transfer usage model supports the transfer of directories, files, documents, images, and streaming media formats. This usage model also includes the capability to browse folders on a remote device; Internet bridge With this usage model, a PC is wirelessly connected to a mobile phone or cordless modem to provide dial-up networking and fax capabilities. For dial-up networking, AT commands are used to control the mobile phone or modem, and another protocol stack (such as PPP over RFCOMM) is used for data transfer. For fax transfer, the fax software operates directly over RFCOMM; LAN access This usage model enables devices on a piconet to access a LAN. Once connected, a device functions as if it were directly connected (wired) to the LAN; Synchronization This model provides a device-to-device synchronization of PIM (personal information management) information, such as phone book, calendar, message, and note information. IrMC (Ir mobile communications) is an IrDA protocol that provides client/server capability for transferring updated PIM information from one device to another; Three-in-one phone Telephone handsets that implement this usage model may act as a cordless phone connecting to a voice base station, as an intercom device for connecting to other telephones, and as a cellular phone; Headset The headset can act as a remote devices audio input and output interface. 1.5.4 Advantages Bluetooth has a lot to offer with an increasingly difficult market place. Bluetooth helps to bring with it the promise of freedom from the cables and simplicity in networking that has yet to be matched by LAN (Local Area Network). In the key marketplace, of wireless and handheld devices, the closest competitor to Bluetooth is infrared. Infrared holds many key features, although the line of sight it provides doesnt go through walls or through obstacles like that of the Bluetooth technology. Unlike infrared, Bluetooth isnt a line of sight and it provides ranges of up to 100 meters. Bluetooth is also low power and low processing with an overhead protocol. What this means, is that its ideal for integration into small battery powered devices. To put it short, the applications with Bluetooth are virtually endless. Disadvantages Bluetooth has several positive features and one would be extremely hard pressed to find downsides when given the current competition. The only real downsides are the data rate and security. Infrared can have data rates of up to 4 MBps, which provides very fast rates for data transfer, while Bluetooth only offers 1 MBps. For this very reason, infrared has yet to be dispensed with completely and is considered by many to be the complimentary technology to that of Bluetooth. Infrared has inherent security due to its line of sight. The greater range and radio frequency (RF) of Bluetooth makAe it much more open to interception and attack. For this reason, security is a very key aspect to the Bluetooth specification. Although there are very few disadvantages, Bluetooth still remains the best for short range wireless technology. Those who have tried it love it, and they know for a fact that Bluetooth will be around for years to come. 1.5.5 Chat In a Bluetooth Chat application, well develop a JABWT-based chat room application, called Chat, for mobile devices that must support the J2ME MIDP 1.0 profile. Users who have a JABWT-capable device can use this application to chat with their nearby friends in an IRC fashion. It searches and joins any existing chat room within the Bluetooth effective range, or creates a new chat room in the nearby Bluetooth range. We use the words chat room to represent a virtual chat room thats formed by a network of Chat applications. Users can start messaging with each other within the same virtual chat room when theres more than one party connected to each other. If one user sends a message over the air, all parties of the chat room will receive the message. Users can join and leave the chat room at anytime. For our convenience we assumes like Theres only one chat room that exists within effective Bluetooth range. There is no security imposed when joining a chat room. Users run one instance of Chat on a device at any given time. Before we dig into the source code, lets look at some of the Bluetooth application design issues. JABWT does a good job of providing a familiar API to J2ME developers for accessing Bluetooth facilities. JABWT is integrated with the J2ME Generic Connection Framework. As a result, Bluetooth network programming is very similar to a stream-based connection model. Like many other network protocols, the Bluetooth connection model employs a client/server architecture. Our Chat application, on the other hand, operates in a peer-to-peer manner. Each running instance of Chat (or a node) can serve as a client and a server at the same time. It behaves as a client when Chat starts up; it searches and connects to existing running Chat devices. Once connected, it makes itself available for future clients to connect to. In such cases, it serves as a server for future client connections. To logically represent an active Chat node, we use the concept of endpoint to encapsulate all the connectivity attributes of a node. An endpoint represents a unique message delivery destination and source regardless of whether it is a server or a client. A Bluetooth connection differs from a regular socket connection by its unique device and service discovery processes. Bluetooth applications typically start the device discovery process to identify connectable devices, which is followed by a service discovery process to obtain a reference (URL) to suitable services. To hide these complexities from the Graphical User Interface (GUI) elements, a network layer is introduced to serve as a faà §ade to the Bluetooth API. This design is comparable to the Model-Viewer-Controller model where the Viewer component is decoupled from the Model component. The GUI can access Bluetooth connectivity via a simplified interface, which does all the discovery and connection establishment behind the scenes. This network layer also provides the functionality to send messages to and receive messages from other endpoints. A call back interface is in place to report any network activity back to the GUI. The Bluetooth Network is explain below. The communication channel between each connected Chat endpoint is a structured data stream connection. We put together a simple protocol to coordinate the activity between each endpoint. This protocol includes the following features: Initial handshake: Each point must handshake with each other when the connection is first established. This ensures that the connecting device is a Chat node rather than a mistakenly connected application. During the handshake, we also exchange the screen names of the users Delivery of text message: Each sent text message is delivered to all endpoints connected to the Chat network. Termination handshake: If the user quits the chat room gracefully, a termination token is sent to all the other endpoints to indicate its intention. We can clean up the necessary network and runtime resources associated with the leaving endpoint upon receiving this token. However, if the user walks away from effective range and becomes inaccessible, a termination token is not sent. Other active endpoints will discover the leaving party is inaccessible when the connections are lost, and they will clean up the resources. 1.5.5.1 Implementation Consideration The NetLayer class, which implements the Chat networking layer, does most of the Bluetooth-related work and provides the following functionality: Initializes the Bluetooth stack Registers Chat services to the Bluetooth device Searches for nearby devices Searches for Chat services on nearby devices Establishes endpoint connectivity for found Chat services Manages the life cycle of all endpoints The Bluetooth stack can be initialized by calling LocalDevice. getLocalDevice(). LocalDevice is a singleton that uniquely represents the underlying Bluetooth device implementation. You can use the LocalDevice instance to gain access to other Bluetooth features including: Discovery agent (via getDiscoveryAgent()) Bluetooth physical network address (via getBluetoothAddress()) SDDB (via getRecord() and updateRecord()) The Chat NetLayers initial work is to create and register a Chat service to a local device. A Bluetooth service is an entry point for other Bluetooth clients to access available functionalities. Since each Chat endpoint can serve as a server, it must register its service in order to make this server available to other Chat clients. JABWT utilizes the MIDP Generic Connection Framework to instantiate a server connection. A Chat application needs to instantiate a Serial Port Profile connection, basically a stream-based connection that allows two Chat applications to exchange data using Java input and output streams. A Chat server connection is created. After a server connection is created, the service is not yet available to external clients (it is not discoverable). What has happened is that JABWT created a corresponding ServiceRecord for this service. A ServiceRecord is a collection of attributes that describes our service, and these attributes are searchable by clients. We can use localDevice.getRecord( server ) to retrieve the newly created ServiceRecord. You may notice that the ServiceRecord is not empty at this point; it is already populated with some default values that are assigned by the JABWT implementation based on the connection string and the implementation configuration when we perform Connector.open(). The server.acceptAndOpen() method notifies the Bluetooth implementation that the application is ready to accept incoming connections and make the service available. This also instructs the underlying implementation to store the ServiceRecord object in the SDDB, which occurs when server.acceptAndOpen() is first invoked. Notice that only the attributes stored in the SDDB can be seen and queried by other Bluetooth clients. Any subsequent change to the ServiceRecord must be reflected in the SDDB by using localDevice.updateRecord(). Now our Chat application is ready to accept a connection. But what if your friends are already chatting prior to the start of your Chat? If there is an existing chat room available, Chat should join the existing network by searching for other Chat services on each individual device and connecting to their services. Three steps must be taken to perform this action. Search for an available device. For each available device, search for available and matching services. For each available and matching service, connect to the service and perform the initial handshake. DiscoveryAgent, another singleton in JABWT, can help us find other devices and services. There are two other options for retrieving connectable devices, a cached devices list and a pre known devices list. Cached devices are remote devices that have been discovered in a previous inquiry. Pre known are remote devices that are preconfigured in BCC. In our example, we choose to ignore both cached and pre known devices. We want to retrieve the most up-to-date list of active Chat devices at the moment Chat is launched. Therefore, our Chat application always initiates a new search for all surrounding devices. Devices can be searchable in two modes, General Inquiry Access Code (GIAC) and Limited Inquiry Access Code (LIAC). When a device is set to GIAC, it basically means I want to be discovered all the time. Devices that provide public and permanent services fall into this category. Printers and fax machines are examples of GIAC devices. On the other hand, LIAC discovery mode means I want to be discovered for a short period of time, as requested by my user. Devices that provide on-demand connectivity will fall into this category. Examples are multiple player game consoles, mobile modems, and our Chat program. The device discovery and service discovery processes are performed in an asynchronous manner. A Bluetooth application must provide a callback object for the JABWT implementation to notify when devices or services are found. This callback object implements the DiscoveryListener interface. When a device is found, the deviceDiscovered() method is invoked. We do some basic filtering to narrow down the candidate devices for our Chat application and ignore other unrelated devices. When all candidate devices are discovered, the device search is completed and the searchCompleted() method is invoked. We initiate the service discovery process using DiscoveryAgent .searchServices(). This is where the ServiceRecord attributes become useful. ServiceRecord is not only a description of the services, but also a query of constraints during service discovery. The second parameter of searchServices() allows us to specify which attributes and values the services must have in order for us to discover them. We can provide the UUID for the service that we registered earlier and it narrows down the exact matching candidate services on a remote device. This mechanism not only improves the performance of the discovery process, but also reduces the possibility of conflict. Once the desired service (Chat service) is found, we can retrieve the corresponding connection URL and establish the physical connection. To further validate that the connected service is indeed a Chat service, we immediately perform a handshake with the other party by sending a handshake signal (SIGNAL_HANDSHAKE) and exchanging the user screen name. Receiving parties must respond with an acknowledgment (SIGNAL_HANDSHAKE_ACK) to confirm the request.. To logically represent all the parties in the chat room, we introduce class EndPoint. From the application-level perspective, an endpoint encapsulates information for each actively connected Chat user and device. Chat uses EndPoint to identify which user to send a message to, and from which user a message is received. This abstraction allows us to hide the JABWT complexity from the GUI application. Endpoints are created when a connection is established between two Chat devices. Once created, we attach a reading thread and sending thread to the endpoint to manage the traffic between two endpoints. From this point on, two endpoints exchange user-entered messages (using SIGNAL_MESSAGE) until a termination signal is received. Implementation of this protocol can be found in the Reader and Sender classes. When a user exits Chat, the application sends the last message a termination token (SIGNAL_TERMINATE) to all connected parties. This token signals that the endpoint is no longer active. All receiving parties must return an acknowledgment (SIGNAL_TERMINATE_ACK) and remove the leaving endpoint from the active endpoint list. An endpoint can also be removed when the connectivity is dropped, which suggests the user has left the chat room without an explicit exit command (possibly due to a users walking away from the Bluetooth effective range). Our GUI, based on the MIDP LCDUI API, provides a simple interface to send and receive messages. All received messages from all connected users are displayed sequentially on the screen, which creates a virtual chat room environment. When there are more messages to display than can fit onto one screen, older messages will roll off the upper edge. In this example application, users are not able to scroll back to see the past messages. Pressing the Write command takes users to a message-editing mode. Pressing the Send command sends the currently entered message to the chat room; all other connected users are able to see the message. To quit the chat room, pressing the Exit command sends a termination token to all other parties. 1.5 Literature Survey There are a number of related research projects related to the music sharing. Their similarities and differences from our project are described as follows. tunA [TUNA, 2004], researched by Media Lab Europe is probably the closest relative of our system. It explored the possibilities of a system which enables people to share their music and to communicate with others nearby while they are on the go. tunA focuses on synchronized music sharing while our system focuses on personalized music sharing. Soundpryer [SOUNDPRYER, 2002], made by the Mobility Studio of the Interactive Institute in Sweden which focuses on a shared music experience between nearby cars and focuses on personal mobile music uses in urban settings. Unlike our system, Soundpryer does not include tight synchronization of that shared audio as part of their concept and implementation, and users do not choose which cars they are connected to. Sotto Voce [SottoVoice, 2002], a Xerox PARC project, is an electronic guidebook which attempts to promote a shared activity between museum visitors by allowing them to ‘eavesdrop on the descriptive audio passages that another is listening to. The system is a ‘hack in that no content is streamed all devices have identical local content. Bubbles [Bubbles, 2003], a Telenor RD project, is a mobile audio player that allows users to exchange audio files with nearby peers. It functions much like a mobile file trading application: Users swap files over HTTP but there is no infrastructure to join the audio experience among those users. Push!music [PUSH, 2005], a software developed on PDAs, which focuses on the concept of ‘media ecology, using agents to make songs migrate from one device to another in accordance to users music consumption habits. The methodology in â€Å"A peer to peer network file sharing system in mobile phones† is going to focus on mobile file sharing system. The mobile file sharing system allows users to share their resources like images, text, audio files without any aid of the central server. This system not only allows people to share their files to stranger but also identified the mobile devices in the mobile social network. CHAPTER II OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM 2.1 System Preliminary Design The Wireless Service subsystem will let mobile phones communicate with each other when they are in range. Since the devices use Bluetooth protocol which is a radio communications system, so they do not have to be in line of sight of each other, and can even be in other rooms, as long as the received transmission is powerful enough. There are three types of power class dependent with different ranges: 1 metre, 10 metres, 100 metres. The model that the Wireless Service subsystem uses for communication is a Client-Host architecture illustrated in figure. The role of a Host can communicate with up to 7 devices playing the role of a Client using Wireless Service Subsystem. The Host refers to Tune-in Host subsystem and Client refers to Tune-in Client subsystem. This network with a group of up to 8 devices (1 Host + 7 Clients) is called a piconet. A piconet is an ad-hoc computer network of devices using Bluetooth technology protocols to allow one host device to interconnect with up to seven active client devices (because a three-bit MAC address is used). Up to 255 further Client devices can be deactivated, or parked, which the Host device can bring into active status at any time. At any given time, data can be transferred between the Host and one Client, but the Host switches rapidly from Client to Client in a round-robin fashion. To set up a connection, a Client can would perform an inquiry to find any available device

The Sexist Prejudices Affecting Women in the House on Mango Street

The Sexist Prejudices Affecting Women in The House on Mango Street In my essay I am going to write about the Mexican gender based prejudices and stereotypes which affect the women of Esperanza’s neighborhood in Sandra Cisneros’s novel The House on Mango Street. I would like to point out the lives of the main women characters and their dealing with the prejudices in everyday occasions.Futhermore, I want to talk about Esperanza and her attitude towards the surrounding situation and also mention the historical background of the problem. From my point of view, the fact that the women come from the Mexican community has essentially influenced their lives. It has actually predetermined them in a way that the women are not able to set free for the rest of their lives. During the novel the reader gets to know some of the Mexican prejudices in relation to women which all the female characters have to face.The sexist prejudice is clear from having read few lines of the novel wher e Esperanza, the narrator, explains the meaning of her name with the connection to the Chinese signs of the zodiac, â€Å"I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don’t like their women strong† (Cisneros 10). This tells the reader one important fact. The Mexicans are proprietary towards their women and wives and they tries to take over the women’s lives. It is very difficult for the women coming from the Mexican community to live their own life themselves and to be independent of their social background.This observation is confirmed by Elizabeth Coonrod Martinez in her work on the relationships of women with men in the novels based on this phenomenon, â€Å"women characters do not initiate events in their own lives; instead they endure poverty and racism from the society at large and oppression under the men in their lives. They do not get to choose their spouses, and when they do pick a boyfriend, and get pregnant, they are conside red bad girls. They do not have choice-before or after marriage† (131). The author of the book gives a notion what the status of women in the Mexican community in the novel is.They are supposed to stay at home, preferably, â€Å"behind a rolling pin† (Cisneros 31). Moreover, many of the women are locked at home or cannot leave the house without their spouses’ permission. This fact is obvious at many times in the novel. At first, when Esperanza talks about her great-grandmother, she describes her as a woman that had spent all her life on her elbows by the window. At this point, where Esperanza describes her great-grand mother, she also says something about herself, â€Å"I don’t want to inherit her place by the window† (Cisneros 11).Later, this fact is emphasized by the story of the woman called Rafaela, whose fulfilment of the life is to sit by the window. As the narrator reports, â€Å"Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out t he window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at† (Cisneros 79). The women are regarded as the property of their husbands or their fathers, never independent. In my oppinion, the situation is even made worse by the fact that the protagonists are living in the United States.The women maybe would have accepted this role if they had lived in Mexico, where they would not see any difference in other women’s lives. That is impossible for them now, to fit in the community rules that are expected to be obeyed. Instead, some women pretend to be a part of the traditional society on the one hand, but on the other, they are more American than Mexican. This is the case of Sally, a young Mexican girl from the community of Chicanos, with a strict father and brought up in a very strict, religious and tradionally Mexican family. Sally who must obey her father and accept his way of life and who wants to be an American.For a clearer explanation, her behaviour is described as follows, â€Å"and why do you always have to go straight home after school? You become a different Sally. You pull your skirt straight, you rub the blue paint off your eyelids. You don’t laugh, Sally. You look at our feet and walk fast to the house you can’t come out from† (Cisneros 82). This girl struggles with two different worlds but unfortunatelly, the vicious one for her wins. She becomes a part of the sad community of women who are locked at home and their only release is in their dreams.Sally’s fate is deteriorated due to the relationship with her father, who strikes her because she is a girl and her father wants to take over her life, â€Å"until the way Sally tells it, he just went crazy, he just forgot he was her father between the buckle and the belt. You’re not my daughter, you’re not my daughter. And then he broke into his hands† (Cisneros 93). The story a bout Sally is a typical example of the struggle. At the end, Sally gets married and her life turns out to be the same sad story. The narrator comments on this, â€Å"Except he [husband] won’t let her talk on the telephone.And he doesn’t let her look out the window. And he doesn’t like her friends, so nobody gets to visit her unless he is working. She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission† (Cisneros 102). Sally, like the rest of the women characters, ends up in this kind of relationship with her husband, even if she had the opportunity to escape from her fate, because if she had been more determined in her struggle, she would have succeed. The narration about Sally is important in the novel because it shows Esperanzas’ feelings towards the sexist and racial prejudices she lives in.Esperanza, as the narrator, gives the personal outlook on the women from her surroundings. Esperanza is the exception of all the women ch aracters in the novel. She is aware of the poor situation and even of a poorer shift from it. â€Å"Esperanza is handicapped by her Hispanic background and the family’s modest financial means† (Szadziuk 115). She observes the world around her and feels lonely in her feelings, nobody shares her thoughts, her ideas. She feels like the trees down the street and as she admits, â€Å"four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city† (Cisneros 74).Like a struggling tree, Esperanza copes with obstacles that would suppress her, and her inner strength will help her reach towards a better life. This young girl is the only women in the novel who is deeply determined to change her life, to set free and to be on her own. She might seem naive in her way of achieving it, â€Å"Not a flat. Not an appartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own† (Cisneros 108). Nevertheless, the escape from it will n ot be as easy as thought at first. Once is Esperanza told by her friend, â€Å"when you leave you must remember to come back for the others.A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t forget who you are† (Cisneros 105). The circle is closed and fulfilled. Even if Esperanza escapes, she will not be free of her background. In comparison with other women characters in the novel, Esperanza has the support of her family, especially the support of her mother who encourages her and her siblings to be determined and to be strong in gaining their dream. The mother’s support is based on her own life and unhappines, â€Å"shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down.You want to know why I quit school? Because I didn’t have nice clothes. No clothes, but I had brains† (Cisneros 91). Mother who suffered from discrimination is now resolved to protect her children from having a similar experience. Unfortunate lly, Esperanza experiences some oppression anyway and she describes it, â€Å"Those who do not any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake† (Cisneros 28). Little Esperanza learns about a hardship very early in her life.She does not understand it at first but afterwards she fully realizes what means the arrogant voice of nun who asks her where she lives. Esperanza, unaware of anything, points to her house. Just later she realizes how important for her is to escape from this social oppression and racial discrimination and longs for her own house, a house she would not be ashamed of, a house she could point to when someone aks where she lives. Futhermore, the women characters and all Mexican immigrants living in the United States in general suffer from a particular feature typical of the immigrant community.Their poor situation is mad e worse by it. That is the homesickness. This is very difficult to explain because in this case it has a historical connection to 1848 when the former Mexican lands became American property and millions of Mexican citizens suddenly lived on American territory. For an illustration of this event: Chicanos and Chicanas have always been in New Mexico, Texas, California, Colorado, Illinois and other North American states. The Gonzalezes, the Dominguezes, the Garcias, the Fernandezes have lived in these states ever since they can remember.Their great, great grandmother had a house in San Antonio, or in San Diego, or in Sante Fe, long before 1836 and 1848 when these territories became American. (Poniatowska 39) From the citation of Elena Poniatowska it is obvious that the Mexicans are not initially responsible for the problems of the Mexican community in the United States nowadays. They miss their native country so they try to compensate the sorrow for living more culturally orthodox life abroad. In the novel, the problem of homesickness is portrayed mainly in the story of Mamacita, a mother of one of the inhabitants of Mango Street.Even if she is not a one of the descendants of the immigrant family but actually a Mexican citizen, Mamacita comes to Mango Street to live with her son, who sees his future in reaching the American dream. As she does not speak English, the difference between the Mexican and the American culture is much more visible. Mamacita represents the old, initial kind of immigrants, who long for going back to their native country whereas her son presents the young, Americanized population of the Mexican community. Two different worlds which can never be united.The reader learns more about it through the eyes of Esperanza, as she reports, â€Å"She sits all day by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull† (Cisneros 77). Mamacita is unwilling to adjust a nd wants to go back to her native Mexico even if life can be harder and poorer there. Esperanza continues, â€Å"Ay, she says, she is sad. Oh he says, Not again. Cuando, cuando, cuando? She asks. Ay, caray! We are are home. This is home. Here I am and here I stay. Speak English.Speak English. Christ† (Cisneros 78). Mamacita and her son are examples of eternal fight for the unity of two different worlds which can never link up the gap between each other. In conlusion, the racial, gender based and social prejudices in the Mexican community in the novel are very essential. In every story the reader may see the stereotypes which affect the protagonists. Each of them deals with it differently but with the same result. They are not able to set themselves free from their social background and their origin pursues them all their life.Nonetheless, some of the women characters chose this way of living from their own choice, voluntarily. Specifically, the words of Elena Poniatowska poin t this out, â€Å"To say that Mexico abandoned its people would not be false, because Mexico abandons all poor Mexicans. The poor choose the American dream and the American way of life on the other side of the border, because they don’t see a future for themselves in their own country† (Poniatowska 41). Whether the immigrants have chosen to live on the margin of society in the foreign country of own accord or not, their cultural heritage follows them all the time.Works Cited Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage, 1984. Martinez, Elizabeth Coonrod. â€Å"Crossing Gender Borders: Sexual Relations and Chicana Artistic Identity. † Melus 27. 1 (2002): 131-50. < http://lion. chadwyck. co. uk> Poniatowska, Elena. â€Å"Mexicanas and Chicanas. † Melus 21. 3 (1996): 35-42. Szadziuk, Maria. â€Å"Culture as Transition: Becoming a Woman in Bi-Ethnic Space. † Mosaic 32. 3 (1999): 109-30. < http://lion. chadwyck. co. uk>

European Studies Essays – Welfare State and the European Nations

Welfare State and the European Statesâ€Å"The phrase ‘welfare state’ was foremost used in the late thirtiess, to separate between the policies of the democracies and the war province of European dictators† ( Spicker, 2003 ) . From the late 19th century, characteristics of a public assistance province began emerge in parts of Western Europe. The first European state to set in topographic point a public assistance province was Germany in 1883. The so Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck introduced a compulsory national accident and illness insurance jurisprudence. The insurance was financed by province subsidy ( Spicker ) . A public assistance province is â€Å"a province where more than one half of all authorities outgos are devoted to societal policy, as opposed to the economic system, the armed forces, jurisprudence and order, substructure and other traditional maps of the state† ( Spicker, 2003 ) . Judt ( 2006 ) defines a public assistance province as a province which is chiefly concerned with distributing public assistance to its citizens. Such provinces spend the bigger proportion of their public outgos on public assistance. Get aid with your essay from our adept essay authors†¦ Harmonizing to Gough ( 2006 ) , welfare provinces in Europe were established during the Second World War. Their chief intent was to undertake the five evil giants that were confronting most of Europe at that clip. These immoralities included: Poverty: Because of the war, many people were ill, idle or widowed hence were hapless. Diseases: Despite many people being ill, they could non afford to seek intervention. Ignorance: At that clip, school-leaving age was 11. Most kids were forced to drop out of schools because they could non afford to pay fees. Sordidness: Majority of the population lived in hapless lodging installations ( slums ) because council houses were unequal. Idleness: As a consequence of the war, most people lost their occupations and became unemployed. The public assistance province was hence established to guarantee that kids stayed in school ; free medical intervention for all was introduced ; new council houses were built and more towns established to supply better lodging installations to the slum inhabitants and more industries were started to assist cut down the unemployment rate. There are several aims of a public assistance province. Equitable distribution of wealth and resources: Welfare provinces used progressive method of revenue enhancement aggregation whereby people with higher incomes paid more revenue enhancements and those with lower incomes paid less revenue enhancement. This method of revenue enhancement helped in reallocation of public money and shifting of resources from the resource-rich parts to resource-poor parts. This was effectual in accomplishing regional balance and in contracting the spread between the rich and the hapless ( Spicker, 2003 ) . Income and criterion of populating care: Peoples can temporarily or for good be rendered incapable participating in the labour market. This can be due to old age, or illness. This usually consequences in loss of income for themselves and their households. But in a public assistance province, income care was assured whether or non person was working. This was usually â€Å"achieved through a assortment of public insurance strategies, † ( Judt, 2006 ) . These included tax write-offs from an employee’s wage, parts made by the employers and the province. These tax write-offs and parts were deposited into an insurance fund from which persons were entitled to certain benefits, depending on the degree and the figure of parts made. These â€Å"insurance strategies covered unemployment, ill wage and old age pensions, † ( Gough, 2006 ) . Helping the deprived groups: public assistance provinces started plans to help those groups that were considered worse-off than others. Gough ( 2006 ) says that: For case, European states have taken specific steps to battle rural poorness ; support households with kids ; supply for re-training and early retirement in industrial job parts ; help particularly those with structural employment job ( the long-run and older unemployed ; youth unemployment ) . Provision of a public safety cyberspace was another aim of public assistance provinces. Welfare States ensured that each single enjoyed â€Å"a minimum degree of nice human being if no other resources are available, † ( Gough, 2006 ) . In the pre-industrial epoch proviso for such persons was chiefly done by â€Å"local charities, communities, nobleness oblige, and the churches †¦ on a much smaller scale† ( Gough ) . Most Welfare States used their public assistance policy as a signifier of economic administration. Harmonizing to Gough ( 2006 ) , â€Å"the economic systems of Continental Europe, frequently called organized market economic systems, are characterized by a more marked function for the authorities in the economic system †¦.† Unlike in other provinces, the different economic sectors were normally in harmoniousness instead than in competition with each other. This contributed to the overall economic organisation and stableness, and is the ground why such economic systems were frequently labeled ‘organized market economies.’ Welfare provinces put up policies aimed at poorness obliteration. Such plans included Medicaid and Aid to Families with Dependent Children ( AFDC ) . However, such plans were non popular among the bulk of the population because they merely served the marginalized people who comprised a smaller proportion of the population. The creative activity and development of the public assistance province followed different forms in each of the European states. The work forces behind the European public assistance province shared Keynes’s position which he voiced before his decease in 1946. Keynes said that â€Å"after the World War II, there would be a craving for societal and personal security in Europe. And there was. The public assistance province was constructed chiefly as a security revolution instead than a societal revolution, † ( Judt, 2006 ) The German public assistance system was based on the three chief rules. The first 1 was â€Å"subsidiarity.† This rule holds that â€Å"services should be decentralized or independently managed† ( Spicker, 2003 ) . The function of the province was limited merely to countries which could non be covered by other agencies like military services. In Germany, high income earners were non covered by the chief societal insurance system ; they were left to do their ain determinations. Economic development was another rule environing the German public assistance system. Provision of societal services was based on this rule. This was clearly apparent in â€Å"the close relationship of services to people’s place in the labour market. Social benefits were earnings-related, and those without work records found that they were non covered for of import contingencies† ( Spicker, 2003 ) . Additionally, the state’s disbursement on public assistance had to be straight related to the rule of economic development and growing. Welfare province in Germany was originally established by Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck who introduced the rule of ‘corporatist structure’ . Harmonizing to Spicker, 2003: This rule was developed by Bismarck on the footing of bing common assistance associations, and remained the footing for societal protection later. Social insurance, which covered the costs of wellness, some societal attention and much of the income care system, was managed by a system of independent financess. The Gallic system of public assistance was regarded as the most generous public assistance system. It involved proviso of a broad scope of societal services, rendering it really complex and expensive to keep it. In France, the public assistance system was â€Å"based on the rule of solidarity, † which was declared in the first article of the Gallic Code of Social Security ( Spicker, 2003 ) . However, the term â€Å"solidarity† was equivocal and was used in different fortunes to intend different things. To some people, solidarity referred to cooperative common support whereby people who benefited from national public assistance strategies were expected to lend on an equal footing. To others, solidarity meant mutualist relationships, â€Å"common action, common duty and shared risks† ( Spicker, 2003 ) . The Swedish Welfare System was viewed as an ideal signifier of public assistance province. The system offered institutional attention in that it offered â€Å"a cosmopolitan minimum† ( Judt, 2006 ) . Like all public assistance provinces, the Swedish authorities offered benefits to the unemployed, the ill people, and retired citizens. However, for a long clip this public assistance system was non efficaciously practiced because as Judt ( 2006 ) says, â€Å"the Swedish population had a strong tradition of entrepreneurship and difficult work and continued to work hard even though they now had the option to populate off government.† However, with clip, people adapted to the public assistance system. The public assistance province of the United Kingdom was established by William Beveridge in 1942. The purpose of the province was to control the societal jobs that British citizens were confronting due to the effects of the Second World War. The authorities took the duty of supplying for its people. This policy resulted in high authorities outgo and an addition in the state’s cardinal duties. In add-on to the proviso of the basic services ( instruction, wellness, lodging and employment ) the province besides increased â€Å"regulation of industry nutrient and redistributive taxation† ( Gough, 2006 ) . Most Welfare States did non last long because of assorted grounds. The first major ground was the nature of revenue enhancement and the salary construction. In most public assistance provinces, the societal benefits and wages for the low-skilled workers were among the highest in the universe, whereas those for the high-skilled workers were lower comparison to those of other states. Additionally, the high-skilled workers paid much higher revenue enhancements than the low–skilled workers. This attracted more low-skilled workers into these provinces, going a load to the Welfare State. The issue of in-migration besides led to the prostration of the public assistance province. Because of the societal benefits a public assistance province offered, it attracted people from the low income states. Fjordman ( 2006 ) notes that â€Å"†¦ they experienced †¦ decomposition with the debut of mass in-migration of individuals who did non hold the cultural background necessary to continue the public assistance state.† Last, the nature of the services that a public assistance province provided contributed to its prostration. Education and wellness services particularly are â€Å"ones on which people wish to pass more money as they become richer. Old age and retirement pensions imply that the authorities would hold to pass more as the population ages† ( Fjordman, 2006 ) . Because of this, the ratio of public disbursement to Gross Domestic Product was high and it became practically impossible to run into all the societal demands of its citizens. Mentions Fjordman, C.The Welfare State: The Root of Europe’s Problems. The Brussels Journal. 2006, March 08 Gough, I.European Welfare States: Explanations and Lessons for Developing States. University of Bath hypertext transfer protocol: //64.233.169.104/search? Judt, T.The Future of Decadent Europe. The Globalist. 2006, June 02. Spicker, P. The Welfare State.Centre for Public Policy and Management: Robert Gordon University hypertext transfer protocol: //www2.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/introduction/wstate.htm

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