Diabetic Retinopathy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Diabetic Retinopathy - Essay Example Results from numerous clinical trials of laser photocoagulation and various other treatments and a good understanding of the pathogenesis would have a huge impact on blindness in the diabetic population. [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] The prevalence of retinopathy is strongly linked to the duration of diabetes. A stringent control of blood sugar levels delays the onset of diabetes. Vision loss with diabetic retinopathy may occur from several different mechanisms such as Macular oedema or ischemia which may impair central vision. Extensive studies have reported the cost effectiveness of screening for diabetic retinopathy as it saves vision at reduced costs. The cost of screening modalities depends largely on various factors such as trained professionals and accessibility of screening equipment. Current management of diabetic retinopathy includes systematic control of blood pressure and glucose levels, surgery including laser photocoagulation or pars plana vitrectomy; and currently developed pharmacologic interventions. Vitrectomy is capable of restoring useful vision to patients suffering from severe diabetic retinopathy and vitreous hemorrhage either with or without an accompanying traction retinal detachment. [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Systemic Control: Development and progression of diabetic retinopathyis delayed by glycemic control. Laser photocoagulation, which represents the only treatment modality in large, controlled, prospective randomized, clinical trials, shows limited efficacy. Currently, new pharmacologic modalities now being evaluated show promise, but should undergo rigorous prospective randomized clinical trial in order to gain widespread acceptance. Intensive therapy brought down the risk of developing diabetic retinopathy by 76% and reduced the risk of progression of already existing retinopathy by 54%. Maintaining a strict and systematic control of blood pressure and glucose has proven to be difficult for many patients with diabetes. A good number of them will still develop progressive retinopathy and would require either vitrectomy or laser photocoagulation [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Surgery: The latest in surgical techniques is the use of the "Pulse Electron Avalanche Knife" (PEAK-fc, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany) (British Journal of Ophthalmology 2007;91:949-954) which is a new pulsed electrosurgical device that helps in the precise "cold" traction- free tissue dissection. It is very useful in all complicated eye surgeries. For late stages of retinopathy, current laser or surgical treatments are applicable. It also includes proliferative diabetic retinopathy or sight-threatening ME. The study that was conducted proved that photocoagulation can reduce the risk of severe visual loss by about 50%. [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]In this process, laser photocoagulation leads to decreased oxygen levels by the retina due to the destruction of the photoreceptor. Anakinra, which is a drug used in arthritis has tested favorably for reducing blood sugar levels. Benfotiamine is a fat-soluble form of vitamin B1 has proved effective by reversing the damage done to the retina due to high blood sugar in the cells. Another surgical research is the

Desire2learn (D2L) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Desire2learn (D2L) - Essay Example Current data is converted according to the new system and transferred into the new database. This phase will further facilitate any additional feature is required by the user of the system (Anonymous, 2007). Even after intense analysis during system development and implementation there is a change of some feature might have been left out. The importance of these requests should be analyzed carefully to make any decisions to implement the changes instantly or to record them for future development. This activity will be performed occasionally to check the system in an operational environment. A representative from all the relevant departments will submit progress reports to discuss about the project status, problem reports (if required) and one technical specifications report after the end of the testing phase. The following reports must be submitted within the mentioned period: Staff in all of the departments are co-operating with the TUI team in order to transfer of data, information about data requirements, establishment of new policy procedures, application support, information about working procedures, etc. Steering Committee members should meet at the beginning of the project implementation and every quarter hereafter. This will assure that all stakeholders are agreed with the outcome of the project (Anonymous, 2007). As we all know that implementation is the key process of the analyzing phase of the software. Planners are assisted with planning software for the implementation of the projects. Project Desk planning software is an option to difficult planning tools. Project Desk reduces overfed unnecessary complications and entirely eliminates the requirements to install and manage hard to understand, implement and maintain project management tools.  Its benefits include cost effectiveness, team management, no specific hardware requirement, enhanced communication and free technical

School Lunches Essay Example for Free

School Lunches Essay Studying at school takes much energy from millions of students all over the world. Pupils spend at school approximately 8 hours per day. Therefore many pupils have chronic illnesses, according to that 80 % of school leavers are limited in a profession choice. These problems arise due to malnutrition in school canteens. Consequently this problem worried minds of society. The aim of the report is to explore level of food which submit in Latvia and other camps of the world. â€Å"We can do a tremendous amount of good for kids across the country if we change school lunches,† says Chef Ann Cooper, the self proclaimed â€Å"renegade lunch lady†. Chef Ann Cooper is a celebrated author, chef, educator, and enduring advocate for better food for all children (Insite, 2010) It was established that one of the causes of various â€Å"school† diseases such as dental caries, stunting, disease of the gastrointenstinal tract as well as obesity occur due to the poor quality of food, which is provided by the school administrators, assert Hutton (2011). The author claims that students who chose eating lunch which was proposed by school tended to have excess weight in comparison with those students who chose taking lunch from home. Read more:  Essay About School Canteen   As a rule, students prefer eating fatty meals, for instance, burgers, french fries, chips, drinking sugary lemonades than fruits, vegetables and drinking still water. (Suddath, 2009) It means that the school administration should ban to sell fast food which contain high level of fats. Lucy Komisar is an investigative reporter and author of articles in â€Å"The New York Times† newspaper contend, that schools get food for lunches free of charge from the Agricultural Department and then some schools cook it on site but unfortunately majority schools prefer to turn these qualitative and fresh products into fried chicken nuggets, fruit pastries and others. It means that food loses the nutrition qualities after being processed. Many schools continue to exceed the standards for fat, saturated fat and sodium. (Komisar 2011) The author consider that it occurs because the school administration aspires to save money, because they not want to pay a salary to kitchen workers. Such situation occurs at present in United States of America. The problem of unhealthy food is actual not only in United States of America, but also in European countries. The statistic shows that an obesity epidemic reigns in Great Britain as well, because 25% of young people being classified as obese or overweight (Oliver 2012). Oliver (2012) believes that a school meal is vital for children`s health,  because it is one-third of a child’s daily nutritional intake. It is badly that parents of some children are too busy to cook for their children or they cook – ready meals, thus the only one possibility to eat nutritious meal for children is a school canteen, notes Oliver. Hence government should do everything to encourage children to make healthy choice, otherwise â€Å"children will continue to suffer† wrote author. Finally, compare existing situation in Latvia. The government of Latvia banned to sale in the school canteens and kindergartens unhealthy food and beverages such as: ships, coloured fizzy drinks, dye – containing chewing gums, report Leta (2006). The author state that instead of lemonades school canteen offers more healthier drinks, such as fruit or vegetable juices, water or milk. Milk and dairy products contain many valuable nutrients – calcium and protein, which should be acquired by an organism in childhood and adolescence, recommend doctors. Latvian reform of transformation school`s food, shows good results. The research shows that majority of pupils consider that the most healthier food is dairy products, soups and grain as well, ascertained the research participants. Pupils admitted that at their daily diet there are many vegetables and fruit, which helps them to restore energy (Leta, 2012). Thus the situation in Latvia is encouraging that our children will be healthy and the most cleverer in the world.

Representation Of Consciousness In To The Lighthouse English Literature Essay

Representation Of Consciousness In To The Lighthouse English Literature Essay This paper examines the view that consciousness is a key theme in To the Lighthouse  [1]  and is used to explore the nature of reality both as it relates to the subjective world of individuals and the objective world that society agrees on. Further, that Mr and Mrs Ramsay appear to represent the two aspects, Mr Ramsay objective and Mrs Ramsay subjective and that Lily Briscoes character is used to resolve the question of how one person can make sense of these apparently conflicting internal and external views of reality. In a sense, the end of the book when Lily has her vision could be read as her solving Mr Ramsays life work into subject and object and the nature of reality. (p.26) In many ways Woolfs style is stream of consciousness; lots of thoughts presented without clear distinctions between them or who is having them. Sometimes we see the characters through their own eyes, sometimes one character is thinking about another one, and sometimes the author appears to be making her own comment on a character without being absolutely sure of her facts about them. We see how internal struggles impact outward actions and affect the way characters perceive each other. Woolf uses her authorial voice in the way she frames and selects certain aspects of her characters that she would like us to see and not others. If a stream of consciousness technique had been used throughout however, this would not have been so obvious. As Ayers puts it: To the Lighthouse presents the consciousness of various characters in an idiom which sometimes is borrowed from the minds and voices of the characters, and at other times is cast in a narrative voice which is independent of the character(s) even while it narrates according to their thought and knowledge. This means there is still an authorial voice present  [3]   She selectively dips in and out of her characters thoughts, into the mind of another character, and back again. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the lines separating narrator and author, and narrator and character, are, in most cases, very obscure. In some instances, therefore, it is vital to see, to feel, the various ways the author places the narrator, since the position the reader feels will often establish for him the narrators location in the setting; and this not only firmly identifies him but also clarifies his relationship to the action.  [4]   All her characters speak in the same idiom, they can not really be differentiated by the words they use. They are not thinking off the top of their heads; their thoughts are articulated in a highly formulated prose. Mr Ramsay is characterised by the omniscient narrator in terms of rational facts and outward reality: What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all his own childrenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (p.4) Later on in the first section the same argument about whether it will be fine enough to go to the Lighthouse tomorrow is continued, but this time we are taken into the consciousness of Mr Ramsay and see that his view of reality is, after all, coloured by passion. But it is a passion for the absolute as it affects his family. He wants their internal reality to match the external world: The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of womens minds enraged himà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and now she flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. (p.36) More is revealed about how him, however, when we are shown Mrs Ramsays perceptions. Mrs Ramsay is depicted as the opposite of her husband, relying on her feelings and intuition to unite people  [5]  : To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other peoples feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency. (p.37) Three consciousnesses are used in this example to show that reality is not just what is out there in the physical world, but that there is also an inner reality of feeling, which cannot be separated from external pressures. In each example above, the sense of reality shifts slightly, as does the readers perception of each characters consciousness. This sense of shifts in consciousness and reality is set up from the first page: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator as his mother spoke with heavenly bliss. It was fringed with joyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦though he appeared the image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦so that his mother, watching himà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦imagined him all red and ermine on the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of public affairs. (pp.3-4) The omniscient narrator shows us James sitting on the floor, dips into his consciousness to tell us how he is feeling, goes back out again to describe what he looks like then goes into his mothers imagination as she looks at him. Auerbach  [6]  calls this the multipersonal representation of consciousness and Nussbaum  [7]  tells us the reader isà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦constantly made aware of the richness of consciousness, and of the tremendous gap between what we are in and to ourselves, and the part of the self that enters the interpersonal world. None of the characters are shown to the reader with absolute clarity, as seen through a photographers lens, but as perceived by human consciousness; glimpses caught and revelations made. Woolf is trying to show life as it is lived. Not as a neatly packaged event with well understood motives and defined beginnings and endings, but as a series of perceptions and small moments of understanding which constantly shift over time according to the influence of those people around us. Characters are shown trying to deal with the conflict between their own internal reality, their consciousness or state of being, and the external reality, the real world with its expectations of how things are, as generated by society and the way nature is real independent of any human force on it. James thinks things that a six year old boy would not actually be thinking. Woolf takes James simple hate of his father thwarting him and uses highly stylised and metaphorical language comprised of grammatically precise sentences  [8]  to explain how he feels about his father disrupting his relationship with his mother. he hated him for the exaltation and sublimity of his gesturesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦but most of all he hated the twang and twitter of his fathers emotion which, vibrating round them, disturbed the perfect simplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother. (p.42) In this case, James consciousness is not hazy at all; it is sharp and focused, but the language used forces the reader to the conclusion that this perception is given to him by the narrator for her own purposes, to heighten the tension and create an atmosphere of instant hatred. That it does not accurately describe the words that a boy of James age would use does not necessarily mean that it is not truthful, that it does not accurately convey his feelings. That the voice of the narrator is mixed with James highlights the difficulty of reconciling an internal reality with an external codified and recognised one. This constant shifting in narrative voices also highlights the difficulties of ever knowing all of another person, which Love has presented as a problem: The difficulty with the Ramsays, in short, is this: People who seem to know one another do not truly know one another. They have a certain tense harmony and union, but even as they are united, they are discordant within themselves and with one another. Knowledge is unknowing; harmony contains disharmony  [9]   But much of what Woolf seems to be saying with her characters is that they do not actually know themselves fully. Just as there is no one reality, no meaning of life, there is no one unwavering internal core of self knowledge and belief; it is constantly changing with external influences. Even when Lily Briscoe has her vision it is acknowledged as fleeting, as a small part of life: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision. (p.242) Lily could be read as a combination of both Mr and Mrs Ramsay as she wants to get beyond her inner reality, typified by Mrs Ramsay and represent it through her art, in an outward way. This is what Mr Ramsay does, although he uses words rather than art and does not have to struggle in the same way that Lily does to give herself permission to paint. His internal struggle is more of the nature of knowing he is not quite the Great Man he would like to be, but he does know that it is his right to be one, whereas Lily feels that the mere act of painting and expecting to be taken seriously as an artist is something she has to fight for, she is aware of her own inadequacy, her insignificance. (p.22) Ayers sees To the Lighthouse as having a pessimistic conclusion because Lilys painting is destined to be confined to a future attic  [10]  but it could also be interpreted as being positive on the individual scale as Lily does have her vision; she comes to an understanding of life and her place in it that does not depend on being shown in an art gallery of the (male) establishment. So there is more than a [tentative suggestion of] the importance of art in transfiguring the moment  [11]  because that transfiguration takes place on an individual basis. Lily has achieved her own personal unity in the face of opposing, controlling forces and expectations such as Mr Ramsays greatness and his demands for sympathy, George Tansleys remembered women cant paint, cant write (p.184) and Mrs Ramsays reverence for men and her role as the familys emotional centre. In that moment she reconciled the internal and external, the subjective and objective. Woolf it seems is saying that it is only on this fleeting moment-to-moment basis that life can be understood but that these moments build on top of each other to provide fresh versions of reality, which can in turn be renegotiated and perceived.

The Collapse of the Greenland Norse Essay -- european history

In Jared Diamond’s novel 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed' he discusses many civilizations that moved away from their homelands, grew in population, and then either failed or succeeded in their new environments. Throughout this essay I will attempt to explain the Collapse of the Greenland Norse, one of the many societies to rise and fall. The Greenland Norse faced multiple challenges including economical, agricultural, and unfriendly neighbors. Alongside Greenland other North Atlantic islands faced geographical challenges that lead to some of their falls as well. Yet, first I will discuss why the Norse left Scandinavia in search of new terrain. Similarly to other expansions the Norse, also known as Vikings, expansion was most likely caused by what’s commonly known as â€Å"push/pull† triggers. â€Å"Push† means that the population pressure lead to a lack of opportunities in their homeland while â€Å"pull† represents good opportunities and empty areas to colonize elsewhere (Collapse pg. 185). Another reason for their sudden expansion is autocatalytic process. For the Norse two very distinct events set of this type of process: one was that in A.D. 793 a raid took place in Lindisfarne Monastery yielding a rich haul of booty that lead to even larger yields in following years and the second reason being the discovery of the unpopulated Faeroe Islands lead to the finding of larger, more distant islands (Collapse pg. 186). Even though the islands looked promising the Norse soon found out otherwise as the geographical environments posed many problems. For instance, Orkneys which lays in the Gulf Stream was perhaps their most successful island as it enjoyed mild climates and allowed for great agricultural production, but on... ...the Norse (Collapse pg. 255). Furthermore, the Inuit was able to outlive the Norse due to their advanced fishing skills that the Norse refused to learn from their neighbors largely in part to religion. In the end though it was the Norse’s decision to refrain from eating fish, ringed seals, and whales that potentially could have saved them from collapse (Collapse pg. 274). Even though the Greenland Norse only survived for four hundred and fifty years they weren’t necessarily failures. After all their unique European society was able to survive longer than we’ve been able to survive here in America (Collapse pg. 276). If we, American’s, don’t learn from others past are we doomed to follow in their footsteps? In my opinion, the answer is yes, but hopefully we’ll be able to turn the tides before its too late and we fall into collapse like so many other societies.

Lena Horne Essay -- Essays Papers

Lena Horne Lena Horne was born on June 30, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were Teddy and Edna Scottron Horne. After her father left her at the age of two in order to pursue his gambling career; her mother leaving soon after that to pursue her acting career; she went to live with her grandparents. Through her grandparents influence she became involved with organizations like the NAACP, at an early age. In 1924 she went back to live with her mother, traveling and being schooled all over the state until she was fourteen. At the age of fourteen she decided to drop out of school and go to work. Because she was talented and light skinned it was not hard for her to find a job. She became a chorus girl in Harlem’s Cotton Club where blacks entertained a strictly all white crowd. At that time she was making about $25 a week. It was here that Lena got to meet and observe now famous artists such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Ethal Waters, and Billie Holiday. At the age of nineteen she met and married Louis Jones. Together they had two children Gail and Teddy (who later died in 1970 from kidney failure). While trying to get used to raising a family and having a career, she received a call from an agent, who had seen her at the Cotton Club, about a part in a movie. Her controlling husband allowed her to be in â€Å"The Duke is Tops† and also the musical revue â€Å"Blackbirds of 1939." When she finally got up the courage to leave Louis, he deiced to take her son away from her. She lost custody of Teddy when the divorce was final and has always regretted not fighting harder for her son. After her divorce she began singing with Noble Sissie’s Society Orchestra. Through out their tour she had to endure harsh racism having to sleep in tenement boarding houses, the bus and even once in circus grounds. Soon after that, she toured with Charlie Barnet’s Outfit and became the first African American to tour with an all white band. She was their feature singer and considers this to be the beginning of her success. Lena decided to head out to Hollywood and see what she could do out there. She began singing in the Trocadero Club where she met one of the most influential people in her life: Billy Strayhom. Billy Strayhom was the chief music-writer for Duke Ellington. Lena has always felt that she and he were soul mates, d... ...becoming the first Africa American to tour with an all white band and also the first African American women to sign a long-term contract with a major film studio. She was also an accomplished jazz singer. Recording songs such as: â€Å"The Lady and Her Music† and â€Å"The Best Things in Life Are Free.† Lena was a strong advocate of equal rights. he was a member of the NAACP, the National Council of Negro women and the Urban League. I think that she is a great pioneer of equal rights because she did it on her own terms and was not as forceful as some of the other advocates. She achieved equal rights and respect because of her grace, elegance and talent. Bibliography Magazines: Lena Town & Country, September ‘95, Vol. 149 issue 5184, page 128. Author: Jonathan Schwartz The Lady Lived The Blues Biography, February ‘98, Vol. 2 issue 2, page 62 Author: Beverly Lauderdale Lena Horne, Timeless as Ever Billboard, June ‘98, Vol. 110 issue 25, page 36 Author: Philip Booth Web Pages: www.amctv.com/behind/stars/horne.html www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006Q62/afrciangenesis www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/6424

Journal of Consumer Behavior Essay

Consumer complaints and recovery through guaranteeing self-service technology NICHOLA ROBERTSON1*, LISA MCQUILKEN1 and JAY KANDAMPULLY2 1 Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia 2 Ohio State University, 266 Campbell Hall, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA ABSTRACT Self-service technologies are shaping the future of consumer behaviour, yet consumers often experience service failure in this context. This conceptual paper focuses on self-service technology failure and recovery. A consumer perspective is taken. Recovering from self-service technology failure is fraught with difficulty, mainly because of the absence of service personnel. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical framework and associated research propositions in respect to the positive role that service guarantees can play in the context of self-service technology failure and recovery. It contributes to the consumer behaviour domain by unifying the theory pertaining to consumer complaint behaviour, service recovery, specifically consumers’ perceptions of justice, and service guarantees, which are set in a distinctive self-service technology context. It is advanced that service guarantees, specifically multiple attribute-specific guarantees, are associated with consumer voice complaints following self-service technology failure, which is contingent on the attribution of blame in the light of consumers’ production role. Service guarantees are argued to be associated with consumers’ perceptions of just recovery in the selfservice technology context when they promise to fix the problem, compensate only when the problem cannot be remedied, offer a choice of compensation that is contingent on failure severity, afford ease of invocation and collection, and provide a personalised response to failures. Previous classifications of SSTs are used to highlight the applicability of guarantees for different types of SSTs. Managerial implications based on the theoretical framework are presented, along with future research directions. Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION The growing application of technology in services has  transformed the way that organisations interact with consumers (Liljander et al., 2006). Self-service technologies (SSTs) are technological interfaces that enable consumers to generate benefits for themselves, without the presence of the organisation’s personnel (Meuter et al., 2000). They enable consumers to take an active role in the production of their service experience. As SSTs are a major force shaping consumer behaviour (Beatson et al., 2006), the implications for both consumers and organisations need to be considered. The failure of SSTs is commonplace (Forbes, 2008; Robertson and Shaw, 2009). SST failure, or consumers’ perception that one or more aspects of SST delivery have not met their expectations, is attributed to poor service and failing technology (Meuter et al., 2000). Failures are inevitable with all services, especially SSTs that introduce new types of failures, such as consumer failures (Forbes, 2008; Meuter et al., 2000). However, SST recovery, e.g., fixing the problem and providing compensation, is generally reported to be poor (Forbes, 2008). While consumers demand a superior response to SST failure, complaints are largely ineffectively handled in this context (Collier and Bienstock, 2006). This is despite the fact that SST failure intensifies the need for recovery because consumers are often remote from service personnel (Collier and Bienstock, 2006). SST providers have ignored consumers, denied responsibility for failure, blamed consumers for the problem, *Correspondence to: Nichola Robertson, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia. E-mail: nichola.robertson@deakin.edu.au  and provided a generic complaint response (Forbes, 2008; Holloway and Beatty, 2003). Unsurprisingly, consumers might not bother voicing because they believe that it will be useless (Holloway and Beatty, 2003; Snellman and Vihtkari, 2003). If consumers are dissatisfied with an SST encounter and service recovery is perceived to be inept, they will switch and/or spread negative word of mouth and/or mouse (Collier and Bienstock, 2006; Dong et al., 2008; Harris et al., 2006a). In the interpersonal service context, it has been argued, albeit rarely, that service guarantees, or explicit promises made by organisations to deliver a certain level of service to satisfy consumers and to remunerate them if the service fails (Hogreve and Gremler, 2009), are an effective recovery tool (Bjà ¶rlin-Lidà ©n and Skà ¥là ©n,  2003; Kashyap, 2001; McColl et al., 2005). In a recovery encounter, service guarantees have been found to provide benefits, such as reducing consumer dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth, and switching (Wirtz, 1998). We argue that in the context of SST failure, service guarantees could act as a surrogate for service personnel who, in the interpersonal service context, encourage consumer complaints and facilitate recovery. Following our extensive review of service guarantees employed in the SST context, it was revealed that guarantees are uncommon in practice for non-Internet SSTs, such as kiosks and interactive voice response (IVR). However, in the Internet context, they appear to be more widespread. For example, guarantees are often used in the context of online banking, where online security, in particular, is guaranteed. They are also prevalent in the hotel context, typically in the form of online price matching guarantees. Therefore, the ‘real-life’ examples of SST guarantees provided throughout this paper are skewed toward Internet SSTs. However, in  N. Robertson et al. guarantees also have the ability to enhance consumers’ perceptions of fairness following failure. SST guarantees indicate justice in a context that is mostly devoid of interpersonal and other external cues, thereby encouraging consumer voice, facilitating service recovery, and, ultimately, retaining the organ isation’s reputation and its consumers. Our paper contributes to the consumer behaviour domain by adding to the underdeveloped literature on consumer complaints, consumer recovery perceptions, and service guarantees in the SST context, in addition to bringing these independent streams of literature together. As SST recovery in practice is reported to be deficient from the consumer perspective, further exploration of this topic is warranted. The remainder of this paper justifies a conceptual framework that describes how guarantees applied to different types of SSTs can encourage consumers to voice following failure and enable organisations to provide just recovery for consumers. We close with theoretical contributions, managerial implications, and an agenda for  future research. developing our propositions, we apply the SST classification schemes developed by Dabholkar (1994) and Meuter et al. (2000) in respect to technology type, purpose, and location. These schemes will be used to highlight the SST contexts that best fit the application of guarantees, which is beyond Internet SSTs. There are two key types of guarantees commonly offered in interpersonal services, unconditional and attributespecific, that also appear to be relevant in the SST setting. An unconditional guarantee covers the core service offering, and consumers are free to invoke it whenever they are dissatisfied (Wirtz et al., 2000). The attribute-specific guarantee is narrower in breadth, covering either a single or multiple service attributes (Van Looy et al., 2003). It is directed to areas within an organisation where consumers perceive that the guarantee adds value (Hart et al., 1992). The attribute-specific guarantee is the type most common in interpersonal services (Van Looy et al., 2003 ). Our review revealed that this also applies to SSTs. For example, Hertz car rental offers its consumers online check-in for rentals. It guarantees that online check-in enables consumers to pick up a rental vehicle within 10 minutes or less. If it fails to fulfil this specific promise, consumers are credited $50. In another example, match.com, an online dating service, guarantees via its ‘Make Love Happen Guarantee’, that if consumers do not find someone special in six months of using its site, it will provide them with six months free service. In the interpersonal service context, consumers have been found to prefer attribute-specific guarantees when they consider invoking the guarantee, ‘. . . probably for their clarity and manifest nature’ (McDougall et al., 1998: 289). We further argue that in the SST context, generally devoid of service personnel and, therefore, with reduced opportunities for consumer monitoring, the clarity of an attribute-specific guara ntee is less likely to attract consumer abuse (McCollough and Gremler, 2004). Therefore, we advocate and assume for the remainder of this paper an attribute-specific guarantee. This can cover multiple SST attributes, which is referred to as a multiple attribute-specific guarantee. For example, BestPrintingOnline.com, an online printing service, guarantees both the quality of its product and on-time  delivery. This type of guarantee provides consumers with the opportunity to complain about several SST problems via guarantee invocation (Bjà ¶rlin-Lidà ©n and Skà ¥là ©n, 2003). In the context of service recovery, the examination of service guarantees has been scarce, and the use of service guarantees in the SST context has not been examined before. This is confirmed by Hogreve and Gremler (2009) in their review of the past 20years of service guarantee research. To begin to address these gaps, our paper conceptualises the role of service guarantees in the SST failure and recovery context from the consumer perspective. We consider different types of SSTs in developing our propositions. We argue that SST guarantees encourage consumers to voice their complaints via guarantee invocation in the absence of service personnel. In line with the call for research examining the justice dimensions (i.e., distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) of service recovery in the SST context (Forbes et al., 2005), we propose that SST Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The conceptual framework proposed (see Figure 1) is grounded in the theory pertaining to service guarantees, consumer voice, attribution theory, and justice theory. In justifying the framework, the distinctive characteristics of the SST context were considered, including the requirement of consumer co-production that is independent of service personnel, a lack of interpersonal interaction with service personnel, and consumers being obliged to interface and interact with technology (Robertson and Shaw, 2009). When studying SSTs, it is important to distinguish meaningfully between their types (Meuter et al., 2000). In terms of categorising SSTs, two key classification schemes can be drawn. The most cited classification scheme is that proposed by Dabholkar (1994). Her classification scheme considers the following variables: (i) who delivers the service (degree and level of consumer participation); (ii) where the service is delivered (location of the SST, i.e. remote, such as IVR or onsite, such as kiosks); and (iii) how the service is delivered (technology type, i.e. Internet and non-Internet, such as kiosks and IVR). More recently, Meuter et al. (2000) proposed a similar classification of SSTs. As per Dabholkar’s (1994) scheme, they included the different types of technologies that organisations use to interface with consumers (i.e.,  Internet and non-Internet) and the purpose of the technology from the viewpoint of consumers, that is, what consumers accomplish from using the technology (i.e., transactions and/or customer service).