The choices a woman has for contraception - and whether contraception is even available - depends on what country she lives in. These things are different in different countries. In the United Kingdom, one out of every 4 women aged 16–49 were using the Pill as at 2006 (either the combined pill or progestogen only pill ("minipill")). compared to only 1% of women in Japan.
Local culture and habits may also affect whether or not people use the Pill.
In some countries, women do not really have a choice because only one kind of contraception is available. In some countries (like Algeria, Morocco, and Zimbabwe), the Pill is the most common method offered by national family planning programs. In other countries, like India, national family planning programs only offer female sterilization (a surgery which makes a woman unable to ever have children again). Other countries, like Egypt and Vietnam, only offer the IUD, intrauterine device.
There are two major kinds of oral contraceptive pills. The first kind has both estrogen and progesterone in it. The other only has progesterone (these are called progesterone-only pills, or POPs). The pills do not actually have natural hormones in them. Instead, they have other chemical substances that are mostly the same as the hormones, but have been made in a laboratory.
Some women can only take one kind of COCP. For example, estrogen stops the breast from producing milk. Because of this, women who are breastfeeding should not take pills that have estrogen in them. There are also some other types of women who should not be given estrogen. These women should only use progesterone-only pills.
While there are just two major kinds of birth control pills (COCPs and POPs), there are many different brands or versions of each kind of pill. Every brand of COCP will have the same hormones (estrogen and progesterone) in it. However, each brand has a different amount of hormones in it. Also, some brands change the amount of hormones given from week to week.
There are two ways to measure how well COCPs work. (Most forms of birth control are also measured in these two ways.):
To show how well the Pill works, scientists figure out rates of effectiveness (for perfect use and for actual/typical use). These rates show how many women are kept from getting pregnant by the Pill. Rates of effectiveness usually look at how well the Pill works during the first year that women are using the Pill. Most often, the Pearl Index is used to calculate effectiveness rates. However, some studies use decrement tables.
The typical use pregnancy rate for women taking COCPs measures how many women get pregnant while taking COCPs. All women are not equally likely to get pregnant while taking COCPs. Different groups of women have different typical use pregnancy rates. Overall, between 2% and 8% of women taking COCPs get pregnant every year. If COCPs are used perfectly, only 0.3% become pregnant each year.
There are a few reasons why women do not use the Pill perfectly. Because of these things, typical use effectiveness is lower than perfect use effectiveness.
COCPs can prevent pregnancy if the first pill is taken no later than 5 days after a woman starts menstruating. If the treatment is started at any other time in the menstrual cycle, COCPs cannot safely prevent pregnancy for the first 7 days of use. During this time, a woman needs to use other types of contraception in order to prevent pregnancy. When active pills have been taken for 7 days, COCPs can work well to prevent pregnancy. COCPs should be taken at about the same time every day.
Certain things can make COCPs not work as well:
Some other medicines can interact with COCPs and make them not work as well. These medicines can also cause breakthrough bleeding (where a woman bleeds between her periods). Some of these medicines are:
The traditional medicinal herb St. John's Wort also seems to make COCPs not work as well. This is because of the way St. John's Wort affects the liver.
The Pill can be used for other things besides contraception. There are many medical conditions that are caused by problems with hormone levels. Because the Pill has hormones in it, it can treat these conditions. Some of these conditions are:
If a woman's menstrual cycle is not regular, the Pill can make the woman menstruate on a regular schedule. The Pill can also be used to treat certain problems that cause bleeding from the uterus.
Women who use combined oral contraceptives are less likely to get cancer of the ovaries. If a woman takes Pill for five years, her risk for getting ovarian cancer is cut in half. Women taking the Pill are also only half as likely to get endometrial cancer than women who have never taken the Pill. The longer a woman uses the Pill, the more her risk of getting endometrial cancer drops. However, women who take the Pill have a higher risk of getting breast cancer and cervical cancer.
Synchronization (computer science)
In computer science, synchronization refers to one of two different but related concepts: synchronization of processes, and synchronization of data.
Process synchronization is commonly used to implement Data synchronization.
Client-server
In Computer science, client-server is a software architecture model consisting of two parts, client systems and server systems, both communicating over a computer network or on the same computer. A client-server application is a distributed system made up of both client and server software. Client server application provide a better way to share the workload.The client process always initiates a connection to the server, while the server process always waits for requests from any client.
When both the client process and server process are running on the same computer, this is called a single seat setup.
Another type of related software architecture is known as peer-to-peer, because each host or application instance can simultaneously act as both a client and a server (unlike centralized servers of the client-server model) and because each has equivalent responsibilities and status. Peer-to-peer architectures are often abbreviated using the acronym P2P.
The client-server relationship describes the relation between the client and how it makes a service request to the server, and how the server can accept these requests, process them, and return the requested information to the client. The interaction between client and server is often described using sequence diagrams. Sequence diagrams are standardized in the Unified Modeling Language.
Both client-server and P2P architectures are in wide usage today.
The basic type of client-server software architecture employs only two types of hosts: clients and servers. This type of architecture is sometimes referred to as two-tier. The two-tier architecture means that the client acts as one tier and server process acts as the other tier.
The client-server software architecture has become one of the basic models of network computing. Many types of applications have been written using the client-server model. Standard networked functions such as E-mail exchange, web access and database access, are based on the client-server model. For example, a web browser is a client program at the user computer that may access information at any web server in the world.
Mainstream
Mainstream is a term that usually refers to the common current of thought held by the majority, meaning that "mainstream" things are those that are currently popular with "most" people. It is most often applied in the arts (i.e., music, literature, and performance). This includes:
The mainstream includes all popular culture, usually by mass media. An example of the opposite of the mainstream is counterculture. The term is sometimes used as a negative term. In the United States, Protestant with a mix of conservative, moderate, and liberal theologies are sometimes referred to as "mainstream."