Monday, September 30, 2019

Forward the Foundation Chapter 19

17 The General had had a bad night and so, out of apprehension, had the colonel. They faced each other now-each at a loss. The General said, â€Å"Tell me again what this woman did.† Linn seemed to have a heavy weight on his shoulders. â€Å"She's The Tiger Woman. That's what they call her. She doesn't seem to be quite human, somehow. She's some sort of impossibly trained athlete, full of self-confidence, and, General, she's quite frightening.† â€Å"Did she frighten you? A single woman?† â€Å"Let me tell you exactly what she did and let me tell you a few other things about her. I don't know how true all the stories about her are, but what happened yesterday evening is true enough.† He told the story again and the General listened, puffing out his cheeks. â€Å"Bad,† he said. â€Å"What do we do?† â€Å"I think our course is plain before us. We want psychohistory-â€Å" â€Å"Yes, we do,† said the General. â€Å"Seldon told me something about taxation that-But never mind. That is beside the point at the moment. Go on.† Linn, who, in his troubled state of mind, had allowed a small fragment of impatience to show on his face, continued, â€Å"As I say, we want psychohistory without Seldon. He is, in any case, a used-up man. The more I study him, the more I see an elderly scholar who is living on his past deeds. He has had nearly thirty years to make a success of psychohistory and he has failed. Without him, with new men at the helm, psychohistory may advance more rapidly.† â€Å"Yes, I agree. Now what about the woman?† â€Å"Well, there you are. We haven't taken her into consideration because she has been careful to remain in the background. But I strongly suspect now that it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to remove Seldon quietly and without implicating the government, as long as the woman remains alive.† â€Å"Do you really believe that she will mangle you and me-if she thinks we have harmed her man?† said the General, his mouth twisting in contempt. â€Å"I really think she will and that she will start a rebellion as well. It will he exactly as she promised.† â€Å"You are turning into a coward.† â€Å"General, please. I am trying to be sensible. I'm not backing off. We must take care of this Tiger Woman.† He paused thoughtfully. â€Å"As a matter of fact, my sources have told me this and I admit to having paid far too little attention to the matter.† â€Å"And how do you think we can get rid of her?† Linn said, â€Å"I don't know.† Then, more slowly, â€Å"But someone else might.† 18 Seldon had had a bad night also, nor was the new day promising to be much better. There weren't too many times when Hari felt annoyed with Dors. But this time, he was very annoyed. He said, â€Å"What a foolish thing to do! Wasn't it enough that we were all staying at the Dome's Edge Hotel? That alone would have been sufficient to drive a paranoid ruler into thoughts of some sort of conspiracy.† â€Å"How? We were unarmed, Hari. It was a holiday affair, the final touch of your birthday celebration. We posed no threat.† â€Å"Yes, but then you carried out your invasion of the Palace grounds. It was unforgivable. You raced to the Palace to interfere with my session with the General, when I had specifically-and several times-made it plain that I didn't want you there. I had my own plans, you know.† Dors said, â€Å"Your desires and your orders and your plans all take second place to your safety. I was primarily concerned about that.† â€Å"I was in no danger.† â€Å"That is not something I can carelessly assume. There have been two attempts on your life. What makes you think there won't be a third?† â€Å"The two attempts were made when I was First Minister. I was probably worth killing then. Who would want to kill an elderly mathematician?† Dors said, â€Å"That's exactly what I want to find out and that's what I want to stop. I must begin by doing some questioning right here at the Project.† â€Å"No. You will simply be upsetting my people. Leave them alone.† â€Å"That's exactly what I can't do. Hari, my job is to protect you and for twenty-eight years I've been working at that. You cannot stop me now.† Something in the blaze of her eyes made it quite clear that, whatever Seldon's desires or orders might be, Dors intended to do as she pleased. Seldon's safety came first. 19 â€Å"May I interrupt you, Yugo?† â€Å"Of course, Dors,† said Yugo Amaryl with a large smile. â€Å"You are never an interruption. What can I do for you?† â€Å"I am trying to find out a few things, Yugo, and I wonder if you would humor me in this.† â€Å"If I can.† â€Å"You have something in the Project called the Prime Radiant. I hear it now and then. Hari speaks of it, so I imagine I know what it looks like when it is activated, but I have never actually seen it in operation. I would like to.† Amaryl looked uncomfortable. â€Å"Actually the Prime Radiant is just about the most closely guarded part of the Project and you aren't on the list of the members who have access.† â€Å"I know that, but we've known each other for twenty-eight years-â€Å" â€Å"And you're Hari's wife. I suppose we can stretch a point. We only have two full Prime Radiants. There's one in Hari's office and one here. Right there, in fact.† Dors looked at the squat black cube on the central desk. It looked utterly undistinguished. â€Å"Is that it?† â€Å"That's it. It stores the equations that describe the future.† â€Å"How do you get at those equations?† Amaryl moved a contact and at once the room darkened and then came to life in a variegated glow. All around Dors were symbols, arrows, mathematical signs of one sort or another. They seemed to be moving, spiraling, but when she focused her eyes on any particular portion, it seemed to be standing still. She said, â€Å"Is that the future, then?† â€Å"It may be,† said Amaryl, turning off the instrument. â€Å"I had it at full expansion so you could see the symbols. Without expansion, nothing is visible but patterns of light and dark.† â€Å"And by studying those equations, you are able to judge what the future holds in store for us?† â€Å"In theory.† The room was now back to its mundane appearance. â€Å"But there are two difficulties.† â€Å"Oh? What are they?† â€Å"To begin with, no human mind has created those equations directly. We have merely spent decades programming more powerful computers and they have devised and stored the equations, but, of course, we don't know if they are valid and have meaning. It depends entirely on how valid and meaningful the programming is in the first place.† â€Å"They could be all wrong, then?† â€Å"They could be.† Amaryl rubbed his eyes and Dors could not help thinking how old and tired he seemed to have grown in the last couple of years. He was younger than Hari by nearly a dozen years, but he seemed much older. â€Å"Of course,† Amaryl went on in a rather weary voice, â€Å"we hope that they aren't all wrong, but that's where the second difficulty comes in. Although Hari and I have been testing and modifying them for decades, we can never be sure what the equations mean. The computer has constructed them, so it is to be presumed they must mean something-but what? There are portions that we think we have worked out. In fact, right now, I'm working on what we call Section A-23, a particularly knotty system of relationships. We have not yet been able to match it with anything in the real Universe. Still, each year sees us further advanced and I look forward confidently to the establishment of psychohistory as a legitimate and useful technique for dealing with the future.† â€Å"How many people have access to these Prime Radiants?† â€Å"Every mathematician in the Project has access but not at will. There have to be applications and time allotted and the Prime Radiant has to be adjusted to the portion of the equations a mathematician wishes to refer to. It gets a little complicated when everyone wants to use the Prime Radiant at the same time. Right now, things are slow, possibly because we're still in the aftermath of Hari's birthday celebration.† â€Å"Is there any plan for constructing additional Prime Radiants?† Amaryl thrust out his lips. â€Å"Yes and no. It would be very helpful if we had a third, but someone would have to be in charge of it. It can't just be a community possession. I have suggested to Hari that Tamwile Elar-you know him, I think- â€Å" â€Å"Yes, I do.† â€Å"That Elar have a third Prime Radiant. His achaotic equations and the Electro-Clarifier he thought up make him clearly the third man in the Project after Hari and myself. Hari hesitates, however.† â€Å"Why? Do you know?† â€Å"If Elar gets one, he is openly recognized as the third man, over the Head of other mathematicians who are older and who have more senior status in the Project. There might be some political difficulties, so to speak. I think that we can't waste time in worrying about internal politics, but Hari-Well, you know Hari.† â€Å"Yes, I know Hari. Suppose I tell you that Linn has seen the Prime Radiant.† â€Å"Linn?† â€Å"Colonel Hender Linn of the junta. Tennar's lackey.† â€Å"I doubt that very much, Dors.† â€Å"He has spoken of spiraling equations and I have just seen them produced by the Prime Radiant. I can't help but think he's been here and seen it working.† Amaryl shook his head, â€Å"I can't imagine anyone bringing a member of the junta into Hari's office-or mine.† â€Å"Tell me, who in the Project do you think is capable of working with the junta in this fashion?† â€Å"No one,† said Amaryl flatly and with clearly unlimited faith. â€Å"That would be unthinkable. Perhaps Linn never saw the Prime Radiant but was merely told about it.† â€Å"Who would tell him about it?† Amaryl thought a moment and said, â€Å"No one.† â€Å"Well now, you talked about internal politics a while ago in connection with the possibility of Elar having a third Prime Radiant. I suppose in a Project such as this one with hundreds of people, there are little feuds going on all the time-frictions-quarrels.† â€Å"Oh yes. Poor Hari talks to me about it every once in a while. He has to deal with them in one way or another and I can well imagine what a headache it must be for him.† â€Å"Are these feuds so bad that they interfere with the working of the Project?† â€Å"Not seriously.† â€Å"Are there any people who are more quarrelsome than others or any duo draw more resentment than others? In short, are there people you can get rid of and perhaps remove 90 percent of the friction at the cost of 5 or 6 percent of the personnel?† Amaryl raised his eyebrows. â€Å"It sounds like a good idea, but I don't know whom to get rid of. I don't really participate in all the minutiae of internal politics. There's no way of stopping it, so for my part, I merely avoid it.† â€Å"That's strange,† said Dors. â€Å"Aren't you in this way denying any credibility to psychohistory?† â€Å"In what way?† â€Å"How can you pretend to reach a point where you can predict and guide the future, when you cannot analyze and correct something as homegrown as personal frictions in the very Project that promises so much?† Amaryl chuckled softly. It was unusual, for he was not a man who was given to humor and laughter. â€Å"I'm sorry, Dors, but you picked on the one problem that we have solved, after a manner of speaking. Hari himself identified the equations that represented the difficulties of personal friction years ago and I myself then added the final touch last year. â€Å"I found that there were ways in which the equations could be changed so as to indicate a reduction in friction. In every such case, however, a reduction in friction here meant an increase in friction there. Never at any time was there a total decrease or, for that matter, a total increase in the friction within a closed group-that is, one in which no old members leave and no new members come in. What I proved, with the help of Elar's achaotic equations, was that this was true despite any conceivable action anyone could take. Hari calls it ‘the law of conservation of personal problems.' â€Å"It gave rise to the notion that social dynamics has its conservation laws as physics does and that, in fact, it is these laws that offer us the best possible tools for solving the truly troublesome aspects of psychohistory.† Dors said, â€Å"Rather impressive, but what if you end up finding that nothing at all can be changed, that everything that is bad is conserved, and that to save the Empire from destruction is merely to increase destruction of another kind?† â€Å"Actually some have suggested that, but I don't believe it.† â€Å"Very well. Back to reality. Is there anything in the frictional problems within the Project that threaten Hari? I mean, with physical harm.† â€Å"Harm Hari? Of course not. How can you suggest such a thing?† â€Å"Might there not be some who resent Hari, for being too arrogant, too pushy, too self-absorbed, too eager to grab all the credit? Or, if none of these things apply, might they not resent him simply because he has run the Project for so long a time?† â€Å"I never heard anyone say such a thing about Hari.† Dors seemed dissatisfied. â€Å"I doubt that anyone would say such things in your hearing, of course. But thank you, Yugo, for being so helpful and for giving me so much of your time.† Amaryl stared after her as she left. He felt vaguely troubled, but then returned to his work and let other matters drift away. 20 One way Hari Seldon had (out of not too many ways) for pulling away from his work for a time was to visit Raych's apartment, just outside the university grounds. To do this invariably filled him with love for his foster son. There were ample grounds. Raych had been good, capable, and loyal-but besides that was the strange quality Raych had of inspiring trust and love in others. Hari had observed it when Raych was a twelve-year-old street boy, who somehow pulled at his own and at Dors's heartstrings. He remembered how Raych had affected Rashelle, the onetime Mayor of Wye. Hari remembered how Joranum had trusted Raych, which led to his own destruction. Raych had even managed to win the heart of the beautiful Manella. Hari did not completely understand this particular quality that Raych embodied, but he enjoyed whatever contact he had with his foster son. He entered the apartment with his usual â€Å"All well here?† Raych put aside the holographic material he was working with and rose to greet him, â€Å"All well, Dad.† â€Å"I don't hear Wanda.† â€Å"For good reason. She's out shopping with her mother.† Seldon seated himself and looked good-humoredly at the chaos of reference material. â€Å"How's the book coming?† â€Å"It's doing fine. It's me who might not survive.† He sighed. â€Å"But for once, we'll get the straight poop on Dahl. Nobody's ever written a book devoted to that section, wouldja believe?† Seldon had always noted that, whenever Raych talked of his home sector, his Dahlite accent always strengthened. Raych said, â€Å"And how are you, Dad? Glad the festivities are over?† â€Å"Enormously. I hated just about every minute of it.† â€Å"Not so anyone could notice.† â€Å"Listen, I had to wear a mask of sorts. I didn't want to spoil the celebration for everyone else.† â€Å"You must have hated it when Mom chased after you onto the Palace grounds. Everyone I know has been talking about that.† â€Å"I certainly did hate it. Your mother, Raych, is the most wonderful person in the world, but she is very difficult to handle. She might have spoiled my plans.† â€Å"What plans are those, Dad?† Seldon settled back. It was always pleasant to speak to someone in whom he had total trust and who knew nothing about psychohistory. More than once he had bounced thoughts off Raych and had worked them out into more sensible forms than would have been the case if those same thoughts had been mulled over in his mind. He said, â€Å"Are we shielded?† â€Å"Always.† â€Å"Good. What I did was to set General Tennar thinking along curious lines.† â€Å"What lines?† â€Å"Well, I discussed taxation a bit and pointed out that, in the effort to make taxation rest evenly on the population, it grew more and more complex, unwieldy, and costly. The obvious implication was that the tax system must be simplified.† â€Å"That seems to make sense.† â€Å"Up to a point, but it is possible that, as a result of our little discussion, Tennar may oversimplify. You see, taxation loses effectiveness at both extremes. Overcomplicate it and people cannot understand it and pay for an overgrown and expensive tax organization. Oversimplify it and people consider it unfair and grow bitterly resentful. The simplest tax is a poll tax, in which every individual pays the same amount, but the unfairness of treating rich and poor alike in this way is too evident to overlook.† â€Å"And you didn't explain this to the General?† â€Å"Somehow, I didn't get a chance.† â€Å"Do you think the General will try a poll tax?† â€Å"I think he will plan one. If he does, the news is bound to leak out and that alone would suffice to set off riots and possibly upset the government.† â€Å"And you've done this on purpose, Dad?† â€Å"Of course.† Raych shook his head. â€Å"I don't quite understand you, Dad. In your personal life, you're as sweet and gentle as any person in the Empire. Yet you can deliberately set up a situation in which there will be riots, suppression, deaths. There'll be a lot of damage done, Dad. Have you thought of that?† Seldon leaned back in his chair and said sadly, â€Å"I think of nothing else, Raych. When I first began my work on psychohistory, it seemed a purely academic piece of research to me. It was something that could not he worked out at all, in all likelihood, and, if it was, it would not be something that could be practically applied. But the decades pass and we know more and more and then comes the terrible urge to apply it.† â€Å"So that people can die?† â€Å"No, so that fewer people can die. If our psychohistorical analyses are correct now, then the junta cannot survive for more than a few years and there are various alternative ways in which it can collapse. They will all he fairly bloody and desperate. This method-the taxation gimmick- should do it more smoothly and gently than any other if-I repeat-our analyses are correct.† â€Å"If they're not correct, what then?† â€Å"In that case, we don't know what might happen. Still, psychohistory must reach the point where it can be used and we've been searching for years for something in which we have worked out the consequences with a certain assuredness and can find those consequences tolerable as compared with alternatives. In a way, this taxation gimmick is the first great psychohistoric experiment.† â€Å"I must admit, it sounds like a simple one.† â€Å"It isn't. You have no idea how complex psychohistory is. Nothing is simple. The poll tax has been tried now and then throughout history. It is never popular and it invariably gives rise to resistance of one form or another, but it almost never results in the violent overthrow of a government. After all, the powers of governmental oppression may be too strong or there may be methods whereby the people can bring to bear their opposition in a peaceful manner and achieve redress. If a poll tax were invariably or even just sometimes fatal, then no government would ever try it. It is only because it isn't fatal that it is tried repeatedly. The situation on Trantor is, however, not exactly normal. There are certain instabilities that seem clear in psychohistorical analysis, which make it seem that resentment will be particularly strong and repression particularly weak.† Raych sounded dubious. â€Å"I hope it works, Dad, but don't you think that the General will say that he was working under psychohistorical advice and bring you down with him?† â€Å"I suppose he recorded our little session together, but if he publicizes that, it will show clearly that I urged him to wait till I could analyze the situation properly and prepare a report-and he refused to wait.† â€Å"And what does Mom think of all this?† Seldon said, â€Å"I haven't discussed it with her. She's off on another tangent altogether.† â€Å"Really?† â€Å"Yes. She's trying to sniff out some deep conspiracy in the Project-aimed at me! I imagine she thinks there are many people in the Project who would like to get rid of me.† Seldon sighed. â€Å"I'm one of them, I think. I would like to get rid of me as director of the Project and leave the gathering responsibilities of psychohistory to others.† Raych said, â€Å"What's bugging Mom is Wanda's dream. You know how Mom feels about protecting you. I'll bet even a dream about your dying would be enough to make her think of a murder conspiracy against you.† â€Å"I certainly hope there isn't one.† And at the idea of it both men laughed. 21 The small Electro-Clarification Laboratory was, for some reason, maintained at a temperature somewhat lower than normal and Dors Venabili wondered idly why that might be. She sat quietly, waiting for the one occupant of the lab to finish whatever it was she was doing. Dors eyed the woman carefully. Slim, with a long face. Not exactly attractive, with her thin lips and receding jawline, but a look of intelligence shone in her dark brown eyes. The glowing nameplate on her desk said: CINDA MONAY. She turned to Dors at last and said, â€Å"My apologies, Dr. Venabili, but there are some procedures that can't be interrupted even for the wife of the director.† â€Å"I would have been disappointed in you if you had neglected the procedure on my behalf. I have been told some excellent things about you.† â€Å"That's always nice to hear. Who's been praising me?† â€Å"Quite a few,† said Dors. â€Å"I gather that you are one of the most prominent nonmathematicians in the Project.† Monay winced. â€Å"There's a certain tendency to divide the rest of us from the aristocracy of mathematics. My own feeling is that, if I'm prominent, then I'm a prominent member of the Project. It makes no difference that I'm a nonmathematician.† â€Å"That certainly sounds reasonable to me. How long have you been with the Project?† â€Å"Two and a half years. Before that I was a graduate student in radiational physics at Streeling and, while I was doing that, I served a couple of years with the Project as an intern.† â€Å"You've done well at the Project, I understand.† â€Å"I've been promoted twice, Dr. Venabili.† â€Å"Have you encountered any difficulties here, Dr. Monay? Whatever you say will be held confidential.† â€Å"The work is difficult, of course, but if you mean, have I run into any social difficulties, the answer is no. At least not any more than one would expect in any large and complex project, I imagine.† â€Å"And by that you mean?† â€Å"Occasional spats and quarrels. We're all human.† â€Å"But nothing serious?† Monay shook her head. â€Å"Nothing serious.† â€Å"My understanding, Dr. Monay,† said Dors, â€Å"is that you have been responsible for the development of a device important to the use of the Prime Radiant. It makes it possible to cram much more information into the Prime Radiant.† Monay broke into a radiant smile. â€Å"Do you know about that? Yes, the Electro-Clarifier. After that was developed, Professor Seldon established this small laboratory and put me in charge of other work in that direction.† â€Å"I'm amazed that such an important advance did not bring you up into the higher echelons of the Project.† â€Å"Oh well,† said Monay, looking a trifle embarrassed. â€Å"I don't want to take all the credit. Actually my work was only that of a technician-a very skilled and creative technician, I like to think-but there you are.† â€Å"And who worked with you?† â€Å"Didn't you know? It was Tamwile Elar. He worked out the theory that made the device possible and I designed and built the actual instrument.† â€Å"Does that mean he took the credit, Dr. Monay?† â€Å"No no. You mustn't think that. Dr. Elar is not that kind of man. He gave me full credit for my share of the work. In fact, it was his idea to call the device by our names-both our names-but he couldn't.† â€Å"Why not?† â€Å"Well, that's Professor Seldon's rule, you know. All devices and equations are to be given functional names and not personal ones-to avoid resentment. So the device is just the Electro-Clarifier. When we're working together, however, he gives the device our names and, I tell you, Dr. Venabili, it sounds grand. Perhaps someday, all of the Project personnel will use the personal name. I hope so.† â€Å"I hope so, too,† said Dors politely. â€Å"You make Elar sound like a very decent individual.† â€Å"He is. He is,† said Monay earnestly. â€Å"He is a delight to work for. Right now, I'm working on a new version of the device, which is more powerful and which I don't quite understand. I mean, what it's to be used for. However, he's directing me there.† â€Å"And are you making progress?† â€Å"Indeed. In fact, I've given Dr. Elar a prototype, which he plans to test. If it works out, we can proceed further.† â€Å"It sounds good,† agreed Dors. â€Å"What do you think would happen if Professor Seldon were to resign as director of the Project? If he were to retire?† Monay looked surprised. â€Å"Is the professor planning to retire?† â€Å"Not that I know of. I'm presenting you with a hypothetical case. Suppose he retires. Who do you think would be a natural successor? I think from what you have said that you would favor Professor Elar as the new director.† â€Å"Yes, I would,† responded Monay after a trifling hesitation. â€Å"He's far and away the most brilliant of the new people and I think he could run the Project in the best possible way. Still, he's rather young. There are a considerable number of old fossils-well, you know what I mean-who would resent being passed over by a young squirt.† â€Å"Is there any old fossil you're thinking of in particular? Remember, this is confidential.† â€Å"Quite a few of them, but there's Dr. Amaryl. He's the heir apparent.† â€Å"Yes, I see what you mean.† Dors rose. â€Å"Well, thank you so much for your help. I'll let you return to your work now.† She left, thinking about the Electro-Clarifier. And about Amaryl.

On the black hill family and identity Essay

The fact that they remained bachelors, despite Lewis’ desperate longing for a woman in his life, is also the work of Mary, who, knowing that Benjamin will never want to marry, made Lewis promise â€Å"never to marry unless Benjamin did too†. Lewis is identified by his love of aviation and longing for adventure, but he is tied down by family obligations. He is aware that his life would be different if not for the inescapable bond binding him to Benjamin, stating â€Å"Sometimes, I lie awake and wonder what’d happen if him weren’t there†¦ Then I’d have had my own life, like? Had kids? † Ironically, it is his family that sets him ‘free’ in the end and satisfies his desire for an heir and an adventure. This comes in the form of Kevin Redpath, the twins’ long lost nephew, who comes back to inherit the farm and also give Lewis an opportunity to do what he had always desired, to fly an aeroplane. These â€Å"ten magnificent minutes† completes the missing part of Lewis’ identity, and â€Å"all the frustrations of his cramped and frugal life now counted for nothing†. No other family is described in such detail as the Joneses, but their neighbours, the Watkinses from ‘The Rock’ also shows how a family-style group affects the identities of the individuals in the family. The Watkins family is a rather complicated family, for Tom and Aggie Watkins can not have kids of their own and hence resort to adoption. The Watkinses show that despite having no biological ties, the family environment can also affect the characters and lives of individuals. The Watkins family is a typical poor low-class Welsh family, and the adopted children consist of Jim, Ethel, Sarah, Lizzie and Brennie hence turn out to be uneducated children, â€Å"If anyone said, ‘He was raised at The Rock’ , or ‘She was reared at The Rock’, you knew for sure the child was illegitimate or loony. † This shows that the family environment plays a big part in who they are, and how other people view them. In the end, Sarah, Lizzie and Brennie all marry off and escape from The Rock. Lizzie â€Å"pretended The Rock did not exist†, and while Sarah still kept an eye on The Rock, â€Å"her one great fear was of lapsing into poverty†, clearly a fear born out of her experience of childhood poverty. Lizzie and Sarah are examples of the opposite way which family can affect children; instead of falling into the patterns of the family themselves, the children choose to escape and fear these patterns. This opposing respond to family pattern is also evident in David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter, where Jim Saddler fears of inheriting his father’s ‘savagery’ and tries to keep it â€Å"at arm’s length†. On the other hand, Jim’s biological children seem to inherit his traits. For example, Ethel’s son Alfie was identified as Jim’s son for â€Å"the lad had Jim’s carroty hair and cauliflower ears†. Alfie also â€Å"grew up simple†, the result of inheriting the combination of both Jim and Ethel’s mental disabilities. As the novel progresses, Jim has another child, this time Mrs. Musker’s. His daughter Meg is even more like him; she grows up to share his love for animals, mistrust of outsiders. She even speaks like him, and clings to The Rock with fierce determination and optimism. Like the twins, Meg’s identity is shaped greatly by her parent, and she continues his way of life even after his death. The Bickerton family is one of the more minor families in On the Black Hill. A high-class English family, the Bickertons owned the Lurkenhope estate and hence was possibly the most powerful family in the village. In contrast to the Watkinses, the family environment of the Bickertons is wealthy, refined, and educated, and hence the children of Colonel and Mrs. Bickerton, Reggie, Nancy and Isobel, are naturally identified as figures of the higher class. As a result, Reggie grows up to be an arrogant and overly-confident young man and went â€Å"to war with a head full of chilvaric notions of duty to caste and country†. These â€Å"chilvaric notions† are most likely the influence of Colonel Bickerton, who has been persuading all young men to fight for their country. Even after coming home crippled, he â€Å"made light of his injuries with upper-class stoicism† and his high-handed treatment of Rosie Fifield shows that his arrogance hasn’t changed. On the other hand, his sister Nancy Bickerton shows traits of Mrs. Bickertons; like the way her mother seeks companionship in Mary, Nancy is bored by the gentry and finds great pleasure in the twins’ visits. Even the way she offers tea to the twin reflects her mother’s; â€Å"China or Indian? † Nancy is hence another example of an identity shaped by her parent and upbringing. Thus the identity-shaping forces of family are quite evident in the families of On the Black Hill. These are clearly portrayed through the characters of the Joneses twins Lewis and Benjamin, whose identities and lives are clearly shaped by their order of birth, their roles in the farm and the house, the traits they inherit from their parents, their upbringing, as well as their bond to each other. Their way of living even after the death of Amos and Mary reveal how the impact of these family dynamics can last forever, also portrayed through the way Meg or Nancy each inherit their parents’ traits and behaviours. On the other hand, these impacts can also have an opposite effect, as shown by Lizzie and Sarah in the way they try to fight against the Watkinses’ family pattern of poverty-stricken lives by leaving The Rock. Through On the Black Hill, Chatwin patently demonstrates the relationship between one’s identity and family, reinforcing the notion that our families make us who we are today. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Marketing Sop Example Essay

India is said to be the growing economical superpower, which will open a huge opportunity in the Management of Science and Business at the same time making a rational decision of where to land after getting higher education. What kind of a higher education will enhance my knowledge, skill and capabilities to the best? To place myself according to the growing economy of India and to gain the maximum out of it I came to a decision of doing MBA in UK. As UK has always been a good source of in providing world class education, I am eager do my MBA from London School of Business and Finance in UK. I was always been supported by my family for doing something big. They provoked me in dreaming big. My career was taking shape when I was about to complete my Bachelors degree in Commerce. I was always interested in this field. I took a decision of doing MBA in Finance and Marketing. My short-term goal is to place myself as an efficient manager of a renowned organization where I can give a better shape to my skills and capabilities and to be in a process of continuous learning. However, my long-term goal is to set up a firm of my own, where I can put all the innovative ideas that I have. Before that I will have to prepare my self for being efficient in implementing those ideas, which is, indeed, not easy. When it comes of doing MBA in UK it always makes me feel proud. Doing MBA from there will not only provide me with lots of experience but I will also give an international exposure which will be a big plus point for attaining my career goals. It will help me learning things in a diverse environment. It will have positive impact on my life and values. MBA in UK is the best and it gives exposures to new avenues. I am looking forward to join London School of Business and finance (LSBF) and it will be great getting the degree from University of Wales from UK.

Friday, September 27, 2019

Individual Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Individual Project - Essay Example Some other communication responsibilities entail conflict resolution, employee motivation and speaking to the public on behalf of the company Managers have to ensure they have qualified staff to perform their duties. They schedule training programs and orientation and always carry out continuous assessment to identify training needs. They work with every employee to create career objectives and plans to achieve them It is the sole responsibility of a manager to ensure the success of the organization. Managers are hired to run daily operations, maintain quality control, coach employees and make sure that company’s products and services meet the needs of the customers. Managers review the company’s financial, production and budgetary goals to ensure the success of the organization Ethics forms everything we do in day to day activities. As a manager, you continuously make decisions through the prism of your ethics and values. Ethical dilemma involves situations where it becomes difficult to ascertain whether a conduct is regarded as right or wrong. Project Management Institute (PMI) provides guidelines to be followed before making a decision. As for the case where a manager is faced with a dilemma of whether to expose the information to his friend, the following guidelines should be followed to determine whether the decision to be made is right or wrong. An organization exists in various types of environment ranging from political, economic, social, legal and technological environment. These are forces that are outside control of an organization and can cause some potential threats to the performance of an organization. Managers should therefore understand that any change in the global environment can create opportunities for them to strengthen the organization. On the other hand, managers should also understand that such changes may pose a threat to the organization if not properly handled This is the process where an organization measures

Individual analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Individual analysis - Essay Example Working on my weaknesses and drawbacks would be another key goal that I would like to set for enabling me to achieve my desired career objectives within the speculated time period (DeVol, Shen, Bedroussian and Zhang, 2013). The first goal that I would set in the process of achieving my desired career is to gain an entry level position in a reputed company that works in the investment banking domain. From there on, I would like to keep on learning new skills and enhancing my efficiency in the related area to ensure that I reach a higher position in the company. Moving up the management and corporate ladder can only be done by enforcing suitable discipline and motivation in my daily job role. Thus, the short term career goals would be to enhance my skills and capabilities, the medium term goal would be to look for a proper job in the investment banking sector and the long term goal would be to create a strong position for myself in the company that I would work in (Breannan, 2013). The current competencies and skills that I already possess are strong knowledge in finance and financial management. Also, my background of commerce studies is likely to help me in understanding the basic requirements related to investment banking in any company. I am good at crunching numbers, have sufficient interest in the domain of finance and investment and also possess much relevant knowledge of the banking industry through my college projects and internship experiences. Additionally, the fact that I have sufficient leadership skills, motivational skills and the ability to work in a group makes me a team player as well as a motivator (Schreuder, 2006). This can help me to gain entry into a company and subsequently create an influential position for myself in the same. I am also bestowed with good communication skills, fluency in multiple languages and public speaking, all of which I think would be useful for me at different phases of my career. While I am

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Management Skills in Adult Nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Management Skills in Adult Nursing - Essay Example According to the discussion more specific themes on discharge planning, communication, and handover shall be incorporated into the text. The critical and analytical aspects of this discussion shall flow from the reflective process, with an evaluation of the specific actions based on standards of the practice. Description of incident The scenario under evaluation involves the discharge of Patient X, a 65 year old male patient who recently underwent hip hemiarthroplasty surgery. During the discharge planning process, there were several orders which the uathor was not sure how to implement. One of the discharge orders indicated that he needed to refer the patient to the rehabilitation ward for physiotherapy and occupational therapy, and that he needed to refer the patient to a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist, and arrange future schedules for therapy. Discharge orders also indicated that he needed to recommend an appropriate health and diet plan for the patient. Health and diet plans for elderly patients, especially those who have recently suffered hip fractures must be established because these elderly patients are prone to possible re-injury. Sometimes, where no appropriate safety measures are put in place, falls may happen again. The goal of nurses would be to prevent any re-injuries and to ensure that the patients are equipped with the right tools to manage their condition. There were two major challenges I had to overcome carrying out the discharge orders.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Liberty is the true path to morality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Liberty is the true path to morality - Essay Example This in itself can lead to deeper and more profound questions and analyses'. As society's collective morality can be influenced by a variety of factors, some of which could be considered arbitrary and fleeting. Examples of such factors could be the media and those with strong political influence. By allowing the state to enforce morality, a number of questions must be answered. First and foremost, in what manner do these moral laws relate to the Constitution and the right of individual freedom People have free will and the right to choose for themselves, to choose their own morality and ethics and their own way of life, as long as no one is harmed. Another question to address is the reasoning that the morals that are being enforced by law based upon Those writing law can consciously or unconsciously provide their own interpretation of morality in the legal doctrine. Milsted writes, "Democracy represents the people in the middle. The government represents the immoral as well as the moral. Thus, we can expect the government to be more moral than half the population and more immoral that the other half "(Milsted). It also should not be forgotten that law is not magic. Moral norm, which becomes a part of law, needs to be provided into the real life. Practice has shown that perso nal morality laws are general ineffective and can have very unpleasant sequels. "The war on drugs has led to higher crime, broken families, increased poverty, the clogging of the court system, the funding of international terrorism and higher taxes. Furthermore, the laws against prostitution have led to an increase in the abuse of women and the spread of deadly sexually transmitted diseases" (Milsted 2005). Lord Devlin in an essay entitled, Introduction... Practice has shown that personal morality laws are general ineffective and can have very unpleasant sequels.   â€Å"The war on drugs has led to higher crime, broken families, increased poverty, the clogging of the court system, the funding of international terrorism and higher taxes.   Furthermore, the laws against prostitution have led to an increase in the abuse of women and the spread of deadly sexually transmitted diseases† (Milsted 2005).     Lord Devlin in an essay entitled, Introduction to Law and Morality, is quoted as saying that a society requires a public morality.   â€Å"A society is created by a sort of community of ideas, not only political ideas but ideas about the way the members of the society should behave and govern their lives† (2001).   The institution of marriage was used as an example of this, in that a society has to choose whether they will govern themselves by the rules of monogamy or polygamy, as the society can not have both.   Lord Devlin takes this example even further by stating that the institution of marriage would be damaged by morally accepting adultery, but that this is not a crime and should not be, yet the public and government should be compelled to protect itself and its valued institutions, such as marriage.   A look at paternalism allows for a greater analysis of the role that morality should have within the legal system.   Paternalism is the institution of laws that are meant to keep individuals from harming themselves, i.e., the use of drugs, gun laws, euthanasia, etc.  

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Acctg discussion Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Acctg discussion - Case Study Example The ethical issue for Jim is whether the increase that he is calling for is due to a specific and truly justifiable reason(s). Secondly there is the issue that this budget is used in the allocation of bonuses and capital improvements. His calling for the increase in the budget may be so as to unfairly place him at a position to get more money for these two items. This is despite the fact that he might not be rightfully entitled to them. The two factors together bring with them an ethical dilemma seeing that he stands to profit personally by the higher bonuses that would be paid to him by headquarters. Also that he would have a larger budget according him the increased option of taking on additional risk, which may not be possible with the original budget The first point of consideration is if these numbers have been inflated for the wrong reasons. Discovery of this by headquarters may lead to him losing his job. Secondly the headquarters may instigate investigations into the hotel’s books for the period during his tenure to make a determination as to how long this has been going on. This is so as to ensure that all the previous budget numbers were above board. There is also the possibility of budget cuts and allocations from headquarters that may actually affect the hotels operation for the coming year. If these figures are actually justifiable on the other hand, there may be increased scrutiny of the hotel just to ensure that the budgeted items are accounted for in the new financial year. If this directive came from the bank manager then Jim has two options. On the one end being the controller he has the ability to counter check the managers directives so as to make a determination of whether these are true claims or not. Secondly he may engage with the manager to discuss the basic ethical concerns that the issue raises

Monday, September 23, 2019

Implementation of effective youth justice practice Essay

Implementation of effective youth justice practice - Essay Example lunteer or a current youth justice worker is afforded the appropriate and up-to-date knowledge and skills that will make effective youth justice within his/her easy grasp. Foundation Degree arms the youth justice worker with the necessary expertise to effectively carry out their two-pronged primary functions of supporting the youth who have offended or are prone to offending and at the same ensuring that they do not offend or reoffend. This expertise includes putting into application a variety of strategies and approaches that the worker has learned in the course of the study. The knowledge and expertise that one gains from the course is not, however, focused merely on dealing with problem youths but also includes developing the worker’s personal capacity for a reflective kind of approach in his/her work. The youth justice worker is trained to develop a discerning and critical attitude towards his/her work as well as ensure that the same is fundamentally ethical, sound and based on correct and accurate knowledge. This is done by gaining a through and extensive knowledge of the England and Wales youth justice system and the immediate application of this knowledge not only to one’s work as a volunteer or professional but also within the context of a multi-agency setting. The several approaches and strategies in dealing with youth offenders afford the worker with the privilege to exercise a critical and analytical approach to determine the best fit for each case. This precludes a mechanical and routine application of knowledge and skills but ra ther persistently challenges the worker to constantly exercise discriminatory and analytical approach to his/her work. The facility to constantly exercise the wisdom and skills to determine the best option for every case can only contribute to the personal and professional growth of the worker. As the worker handles more and more cases of youth offenders, his/her analytical skills become more developed and his/her

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Post Colonial World Essay Example for Free

Post Colonial World Essay Colonialism has been a large factor in the development of the world, particularly in the past three centuries, from the 18th to the 20th century. Colonialism has been so important because it was so widespread. With large historical empires like those of Great Britain and France reaching out and colonizing nations from India to the continent of Africa in hopes of being able to gain access to the natural resources found there, colonialism was to effect almost every nation in one way or another. While colonialism did open up the world to greater trade and disbursement of many aspects of another culture to Europeans and, eventually, to Americans, the colonizing of these countries created difficulties and problems in the colonized nations. The fact is that the post-colonial world is nothing but a product of the colonial period and colonialism creates a whole new set of problems that do not go away even after the colonizing nation has pulled out; in fact, more problems develop.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Colonialism was a major aspect of modern world history as it really did transform the world. The remnants of this can still be felt today. In Africa, many African nations have French or English as their official language, as in the Ivory Coast or South Africa, because of the lasting effects of colonialism. In England, remnants of their colonialism of India are still felt in things as small as a love of Indian cooking, and in India the memories of children being forced to learn at English schools are still remembered. The lasting effects go much deeper, however, than simpler a transference of a nation’s vibrant culture, or the adoption of an official language. Post-colonialism, in its essence, is the philosophy that many problems arise from colonizing a nation, not the least of which is the loss of a national identity and, perhaps even more unsettling, is the fact that when a empiric power pulls out of a colonized nation, leaving them alone to fight for themselves and create their own way, sometimes centuries after overtaking them, the colonized nation is lost and goes through a period of war and infighting to try and find their place in the world as their own nation, and not a puppet nation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The many wars, uprising, and political instabilities found in post-colonial nations like India and many countries in Africa are directly related to the Colonial period. An example of this can be found in South Africa where long after the British had colonized the country the remnants of their civilization was left behind. Apartheid, in its ugliest form, was left behind and the way that the white people in South Africa treated the black people in their own homeland has been widely publicized, interpreted and studied in historical studies. Even today some tensions exist in South Africa and they are still trying to maintain their own national identity in the light of post-colonialism. This can be seen in nations around the world who have been colonized.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The colonial period was a time of large powerful empires and nations that did not have the means or the military might to defend themselves from being colonized. The countries that were colonized during this period faced problems that they had never faced before, including a lack of a national identity and having to deal with the fall out when their colonizing power pulled out. Much of the difficulties of the post-colonial period trace their roots back to the colonial period and most particularly to the ruling nation that took over their nation and changed their way of life.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Analysis of Cloud Storage In Robotic Environment

Analysis of Cloud Storage In Robotic Environment Cloud Computing: Analysis of Cloud Storage In Robotic Environment Tushar Gupta Sunil Yadav Abstract— Cloud is a well-designed data storage model concerned with the storage of information on the web. Such storage has greatly revolutionized the robotic environment for learning purpose. This paper provides an overview of how databases in cloud deliberate to store knowledge fabricated by both robots and human in a robot-readable open format that will support existing as well as forthcoming robots learn faster. These robots will pick up the aggregate knowledge which will be accumulated in the cloud storage so as to perform a set of tasks including navigation, task information like how to pick up an object as well as object-recognition data such as digital models of real-world objects, to simultaneously confine itself in the unknown environment and to construct a map of the environment without having any knowledge in advance. Keywords—cloud, storage, robotics, robobrain, rapyuta I. Introduction From decades, it has been noticed that robots are mainly empowered with programming embedded in a chip but a small defect could result into malfunctioning of the whole unit and hence affect learning ability of robots. As such certain mechanism is required that will provide guarantee in terms of reliability, security and robustness. Due to great processing power of cloud it paved the way as an appropriate utility in Robotic Environment. Cloud robotics is one such step taken towards, that has evolved idea of leveraging the Internet for robots, and offers extraordinary opportunities for robot learning. Instead of using the World Wide Web for rapid communication or faster reckoning, a key factor is allowed for robots to generate and collaboratively update shared knowledge repositories. Such knowledge bases will power robots to deal with the intricacies of human environments and offer a simple yet powerful way for life-long robot learning. [1] The objective of the European-Commission-fund ed initiative is to evolve proof-of-concept demonstrations that show the way that cloud repositories like RoboEarth’s databases can greatly prompt robot learning and how they may finally allow robots to act well beyond their preprogrammed behaviors. As many AI Researchers are putting effort in establishing a database in cloud which they called â€Å"RoboBrain† that will house all the information which robots have learned till now and help them further their knowledge by sharing that knowledge. On the developer’s hand, they will have access to RoboBrain’s massive database, free of charge and wirelessly. [2] Aditya Jami, from Cornell, who depicted the database for RoboBrain said this about it: â€Å"The RoboBrain will look like a gigantic, branching graph with abilities for multi-dimensional queries.† By sharingparameters, data, files and everythingelse robots have gathered till now, their developers will access and automates the robot’s grasp ing of their ambiances, including speech and voice recognition, grasping, navigating and perception of different objects. Year 2010 was firstly marked as the self-drivingcarscame in our lives which afterwards tracked by RoboEarth (a system that allow the robots to distribute their knowledge wirelessly between each other). II. Literature Review A. Cloud Robotics Cloud Robotics is a specialized application of cloud computing that deals with the study of robots and their environment. Since with the help of cloud all the data will get stored on the web which in turn has greatly boosted the ability of robots to perform all workings by sharing experience with each other in order to provide a precise response. Due to connection with cloud network it is easier for robots to collaborate with other objects, machines and human beings. At the same time, internet has highly augmented the capabilities of robots by providing service on demand and offloads computation. Cloud robotics has greatly overcome the problem of network robotics due to their resource, information and communication constraints. With the arrival of cloud robotics expenditure of maintenance and updates and requirement of custom middleware has solved up to a great extent. Fig 1: Driven by advances in mobile communication technologies, lots of robotics applications can be executed in the cloud environment[3]. Robots are able to perform some computationally heavy tasks such as mapping, planning and probabilistic interference through the accessibility of huge computational infrastructure. RoboEarth is one such attempt that offers a cloud based infrastructure, which can help a robot to send some data to cloud and get the data back from the cloud in some other form. RoboEarth is a kind of database that stores the knowledge generated by either humans or robot but in a machine readable format. RoboEarth knowledge base is supposed to consist of a variety of data including task knowledge (e.g. manipulation strategies, action recipes etc.), several software components, maps for navigation (e.g. world models and location of objects), model that aids in recognition of different objects.(e.g. object models, images). Rapyuta which is also considered as the RoboEarth cloud engine is highly responsible for powerful computations to the robots. It is implemented as Platform-as-a-Service which is open sour ce designed to suit robotics application. It enables the robots to unburden heavy computation to protect cloud’s computing environment with marginal configuration. Rapyuta is considered to provide efficient access to the bandwidth which in turn provides access to the repository of knowledge on cloud enabling robots to learn skills and share experience with other robots. The components of the cloud robotics are so well structured and interconnected that they provide the environment for the deployment of large robotic teams. B. Software Components RoboEarth system is powered with the cloud infrastructure which in turn supported by RoboEarth databases and RoboEarth cloud engine (Rapyuta) in addition with several software components. Such software components are responsible to interact with the RoboEarth database in order to enquiry and accumulate data and can be installed for their execution in cloud engine or locally on the robot. In certain scenario these components can also be used independently. Fig 3: A simple architecture diagram of the integrated RoboEarth system can be used during thefinal demonstrator [4]. Rapyuta: Rapyuta is a framework which is an open source framework for having utility in cloud robotics. The figure below give a simple outlook of the Rapyuta framework: Each robot attached to the Rapyuta is having a reliable computing environment (rectangular boxes) enhancing their efficiency to move their heavy computation in the cloud. Computing environment are interconnected in a well-structured way and have a high bandwidth connectivity to the repository of knowledge as shown in the figure by stacked circular disks. Fig 2: Rapyuta: A Cloud Robotics Framework [5] RoboEarth DB: The Apache Hadoop based WWW- style database used to store essential data for the robots. KnowRob: It is a system involved in the processing of knowledge that groups reasoning methods and knowledge representation with several techniques for acquiring the knowledge in the physical system. It also serves as a framework that gathers knowledge through the various sources and is used in RoboEarth as a local knowledge base for robots. Object Adapter: These are the set of ROS packages that enables both robots and users to build up a small cloud model from an object using a marker pattern, so that the resulting model can be stored in the RoboEarth’s repository of knowledge, and allow downloading the object models later and used them for detecting objects. WIRE: The WIRE stack allows generating and maintaining one stable world state gauze based on object detections. It is highly involved in the data association problem by retaining multiple hypotheses and facilitates following of various object attributes. C2TAM: C2TAM implements a system called visual SLAM which is dependent upon a distributed framework where the storage and expensive map optimization is allocated on an external server, whereas a light camera tracking client executes on the local machine. The robot onboard computers are released from a burden of calculation, the only additional requirement being an internet connection. III. Application of cloud storage in robotics Cloud Based Robotics has proved to have a number of applications and advantages over the traditional networked based robotics. Cloud storage provides a shared knowledge database by which the robots can easily share their information with each other and can aligned them to work collaboratively in order to achieve a common task. Cloud robotics offloads the computing tasks to the cloud which involves heavy computation. Moreover cloud robotics is cheaper, easier to maintain hardware and lighter which results in the long battery life. CPU hardware upgrades are undetectable and hassle free. Cloud Robotics involves skilled and well maintained database. Reusable library of capability or etiquette that map to perceived tasks requirements/complex situations. Data mining keep the history of all cloud which enable robots. Due to these advantages, cloud robotics had a wide range of potential applications in the computation-intensive or data-intensive tasks in the areas of health care, intelligent transportation, environment monitoring, smart home, entertainment, education and defense. In this section, we discuss the opportunity and challenges that cloud robotics bring to traditional robotic applications. Specifically we focus upon three robotic applications: Robotic Surgery, Defense and navigation. A. Robotic Surgery Consider a scenario where a situation demands instant operation of a patient but the problem is doctor is not available. Then to tackle with that situation Robots can help because they can capture the useful knowledge from the cloud regarding the operation tips as mentioned by the other robots who previously have tackled with the same situation who is currently present somewhere else. In this way the whole operation can be executed in a safe and reliable manner. B. Defense Cloud robotics has a huge application in defense where they can sense the area which has the maximum probability of finding enemy by selecting the appropriate map from cloud storage at appropriate time. Cloud storage can be fed with updated maps from time to time with the help of satellites. As such human life can be saved by using robots in place of them at the time of world war or any war happening in the country. C. Navigation Robotic Navigation involves a robot identifying its own position with respect to a certain reference by choosing an appropriate path from there to reach the desired destination from all possible paths available. Such activity involves a collection of tasks such as localization, path planning and mapping. Two types of approaches are available: mapless and map based approach [13]. Mapless approaches are based on the observation and perception of the sensors used in navigation. Due to the limited onboard resources, these approaches usually suffer from reliability issues. Map based robotic navigation is comparatively better then mapless if the map is available. It can either use an unknown map or build a map during navigation. On the other hand building maps requires too much computation and storage requirements. However, if the area is large process of creating map requires access to vast amount of data which is a challenging task. Cloud robotics highly aids cloud based navigation by fa cilitating the following two properties: In addition to provide vast storage space to store the large amount of map data, cloud also provide processing power to facilitate the construction and searching of the map quickly. Secondly, commercially available maps (e.g. Google maps, bing maps) can also be leveraged to develop consistent, active, and high range independent navigation solutions. IV. shortcomings of cloud storage in robotics One of the key issues regarding cloud robotics is threaten to cloud storage which is highly vulnerable to malicious attacks. Moreover the wireless network over which the robot communicates with cloud in order to exchange information can be challenged at any instant of time. As certain security mechanism needs to be provided that will result in the increasing overhead of the overall system. As discussed, previously that a developer has an access over the cloud. In the same manner if an intruder gets access to the cloud somehow then it might be possible the same intruder will replace the existing information in cloud with some other malicious information that will result in the malfunctioning of robots that proves to be highly destructive. Several other limitations of cloud robotics:- 1. As discussed in section II cloud supports the software part of the robot and it doesn’t have to deal with the hardware structure of the robots. So, it offload the hassle and costs of IT management. 2. Cloud robotics relies heavily on the cloud which in turn depends upon internet connection. So, if internet service will get affected from frequent outages or slow speed it fails to help the robots to continue their frequent communication in order to share knowledge from knowledge repository present on the cloud. 3. It is a hard fact to digest that robotics is lacking emotions. Such thing results in a huge impact on the people because of their adjustment with the machinery robots because there is high probability of thinking mismatch between them. Consider havoc where the people are suffering from the local environment conditions. As such if certain robotic team is send there for the rescue operation for their safety it is very hard for the humans to believe upon them. V. Possible Solutions And Future Scope Instead of fetching knowledge every time to perform an operation from cloud. A robot must be able to remember the already done tasks in order to tackle the same situation next time but at faster rate with greater efficiency. Robots can be taught to handle many different tasks through the installation of robotic apps. Very soon, these robots will enhance the real-time by connecting to the cloud and downloading apps from there [9]. An app store for robots – Downloading apps from the app store is one the biggest reality behind smartphones success. In the same way Robot Apps can be used to control the robot and imparting intelligence in them. Some Apps allow you to generate predefined-programmed movement sequences, while others are used for remote control, whereas software development platforms are used to make more sophisticated autonomous control systems. VI. ConClusion We have discussed a scenario where future robotics will rely heavily on cloud storage that will enhance their capability and functionality in terms of learning and sharing information in order to work collaboratively to achieve some goal which was limited earlier due to limited programming. Cloud storage also enabled the developers due to their accessibility to the cloud to control and coordinate the robot activities at any point where the situation demands that may not be favorable to nature. Cloud storage also supports some real time applications like Health Care, Intelligent transportation, Rescue Operation, Assembling of different parts in production of vehicles etc. Cloud Storage in some cases proves to be inadequate due to poor transfer rate and harmful due to security threats on cloud due to wireless networking access technique which could be easily challenged at any time resulting in a huge destruction. References M . Waibel , â€Å"Analysis: Robot learning in the cloud Covic â€Å"RoboBrain† Will Use Cloud to Teach Robots, Available: http://robohub.org/analysis-robot-learning-in-the-cloud/ V. Covic, â€Å"RoboBrain† Will Use Cloud to Teach Robots, Available: http://www.cloudwards.net/news/robobrain-will-use-the-cloud-to-teach-robots-4543/ RoboEarth, What is Cloud Robotics? Available: www.roboearth.org/cloud_robotics, 2013. RoboEarth, What are Software Components in Cloud Robotics? Available: http://roboearth.org/software-components/ Rapyuta: A Cloud Robotics Framework, A Cloud Robotics Platform Available: http://rapyuta.org/ Guoqiang Hu, Wee Peng Tay, and Yonggang Wen, â€Å"Cloud Robotics:Architecture, Challenges and Applications† IEEE NETWORK MAGAZINE S. Jordà ¡n*, T. Haidegger**, L. Kovà ¡cs**, I. Felde** and I. Rudas**, The Rising Prospects of Cloud Robotic Applications, IEEE 9th International Conference on Computational Cybernetics †¢ July 8-10, 2013 †¢ Tihany, Hungary Richard Voyles â€Å"Robotics as a â€Å"Singularity†: The Case for Cloud Robotics and Real-Time Big Data† Available:http://telerobot.cs.tamu.edu/CMA/slides/Voyles.CASECloudMfg.pdf, August 17, 2013 Grishin Robotics â€Å"Future of cloud Robotics† Available: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/278660295665464178/ K. Goldberg. Cloud Robotics. Available: goldberg.berkeley.edu/cloud- robotics, 2013. K. Goldberg and B. Kehoe, Cloud Robotics and Automation: A Survey of Related Work. UC Berkeley Technical Report No. UCB/EECS-2013-5. Available: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/ 2013/EECS-2013-5.html, 2013. RobotShop, Pioneers Cloud Robotics, Interview With Mario Tremblay. Available: www.robotshop.com/blog/en/myrobots-com F. Bonin-Font, A. Ortiz, and G. Oliver, â€Å"Visual navigation for mobilerobots: A survey,† Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol. 53, pp. 263–296, 2008. `

Friday, September 20, 2019

Prisons: Punishment and Rehabilitation

Prisons: Punishment and Rehabilitation In order to understand the nature of imprisonment, this chapter will briefly look at the historical origins of prison, and then it will move onto justify their theoretical legitimacy: punishment/retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. These theories/ideologies will re-occur through the thesis like themes- what we refer to them as meta-concepts. The final section of this chapter will examine the strategies employed by the Prison Service to reach its ultimate goal of protecting public and reducing re-offending. ORIGINS OF PRISON Prisons do not exist in a vacuum. They exist because society decided that they should be used as a method of responding to crime. The early 12th century prisons served a custodial function, mainly detaining people until civil debts were met. A prisons effectiveness was measured by its success in holding people (Muncie, 2001: 159). And in the 18th century, though the prison population remained mainly debtors, the rationale behind prison changed to one of punishment rather than containment. The end of the 18th century saw the rise of the penitentiary in which prisoners were categorised into groups in a regime of punishment, and were subjected to severe physical labour and moral reformation (Muncie, 2001: 164). Things changed drastically over time, and issues such as justice and rehabilitation ascended in the prison system. Benevolent societies were committed to ushering in better conditions, useful employment and good habits of behaviour through discipline and compassion (Muncie, 2001: 169). Perhaps this formed the inspiration of contemporary rehabilitative yet punitive National Offender Management Service (NOMS)- which is a law enforcement agency formed by the integration of the headquarters of prison and probation service to improve effectiveness and efficiency. JUSTIFICATIONS FOR IMPRISONMENT In his speech to the Conservative Party Conference, Michael Howard who was the Home Secretary in 1993, argued that for many crimes, imprisonment was the response demanded by victims in the interests of retribution. Hence, the first given purpose of imprisonment is to punish persons for the crime(s) they have committed. Punishment, in essence, is the practice of getting even with the wrongdoer. It is justified on the ground like a payment of what is owned: that is, offenders who are punished are paying their debt to society and offenders have a right to go free once they have paid their debt (McGraw, 2005:54). This is in some ways the complete antithesis of reductivism which justifies punishment on the ground that it helps to reduce the incidence of crime. Garland (1990:17) defined punishment as the legal process whereby violators of criminal law are condemned and sanctioned in accordance with specified legal categories and procedures. In Her Majestys Prison Services (HMPS) statement of purpose, which was adopted in 1988, punishment is defined as keeping in custody those committed by the court (cited in McGraw, 2005:39). There is a general agreement that the restriction of liberty would only be included for crimes like murder and other serious offences of violence against the person, such as rape. In the early times, systems of retribution favoured lex talionis, calling for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life (Hudson, 1996:38). It claimed that it is morally right to return evil for evil, and that two wrongs can make a right (Bean, 1981: 16). It looked only at the crime: it made no allowance for the mental state of the offender or for any mitigating or aggravating circumstances associated with the crime. Contemporarily however lex talionis is seen as a crude formula because it cannot be applied to many of todays crimes. For instance, what punishment ought to be inflicted on a rapist under lex talionis? The failure to inflict the same on the offender as the offender has inflicted on his or her victim has forced the retributive tariff to be considerably more lenient than it used to be in Biblical times (Hudson, 1996). Being required to stay behind the walls of a prison for the specified period, not permitted to go out from the prison other than in approved circumstances, is now the most punitive sentence which a court in England and Wales can impose. The criminal law is quite specific in restricting the courts authority to impose a prison sentence: The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it, was so serious that neither a fine lone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence (Criminal Justice Act, 2003: Section 152 cited in Scott, 2007: 42) A sentence of imprisonment is imposed, in principle, to deprive the individual of his or her freedom. Although some would argue that the prison is a refuge from the pressure and severity of normal life, for many prisoners the pains of deprivation of liberty and separation from family are almost unbearable. Furthermore, the coercive punitive element of imprisonment extends beyond the mere deprivation of liberty: typically, the offenders family who have not been found guilty of a crime have also seen to be punished (McGraw, 2005). This is not a big concern for some ideologies. According to the utilitarian theory, moral actions are those that produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (Hudson, 1996:54), inferring that if punishment is effective in reducing crime, then the pain and unhappiness caused to the offender and to the relatives may be outweighed by the unpleasantness to other people in the future which is prevented. Prison works because it ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists (Howard, 1993 cited in Cavadino and Dignan, 2002: 67)- a reference to the second justification of imprisonment known as incapacitation. Incapacitation enables the prison service to protect public because offenders are in prison, and they are prevented from committing other crimes. In some respects this argument is valid, particularly in respect of specific neighbourhoods where a significant proportion of crime is committed by identifiable individuals. However, this type of crime tends to be low level, attracting relatively short prison sentences. The person concerned may be taken out of their community for a short period of time but they are likely soon to return. Some of them may still give indication that, if they were to return, they would continue to present a threat to the public. A more problematic group includes those who have not committed a serious crime but have been identified by expe rts as likely to do so. It may well be necessary that these people should be in prison for as long as they present a threat. However, in order to justify holding these men in custody, the state has to derogate from Article five of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the right to a fair trial. Hence, although punishment for imaginary crimes in the future might not be essentially wrong for utilitarianism, it is a serious objection for retributivism and human rights theory. This is because, our powers of prediction are simply not up to the job, whether we use impressionistic guesswork, psychological testing, statistical prediction techniques or any other method (Ashworth and Redmayne, 2005: 206) inferring that a number of persons will suffer incapacitation who would not have committed further crimes if left free. The third justification of imprisonment is deterrence. There are two types of deterrence: individual and general. The former involves deterring someone who has already offended from reoffending where as the latter involves dissuading those who might be tempted. Becarria expressed his early conception of deterrence and argued that the aim of punishment can only be to prevent the criminal committing new crimes against his countrymen and to keep others from doing likewise (cited in Bean, 1981: 30). Michael Howard (1993 cited in Jewkes and Johnston, 2007:84), took a similar position to Beccaria and argued that prison works à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice because people fear the punishment that they may receive if they offend. The greater the punishment, the greater the deterrent. It can be argued, for example, that the prospect of one month in prison might be enough to deter someone from stealing  £100 but not from stealing  £100,000. To dete r someone from stealing that amount of money, the prospect might have to be several years in custody. On the contrary to punishment, another justification for imprisonment is to rehabilitate. The rehabilitation of prisoners became a prime concern for the penal system in the late eighteenth century when the demands for labour were high. The rehabilitation of prisoners in the early years of its origin was unsophisticated. The development of human sciences of psychology, physiology and sociology enabled todays rehabilitative ideal to include an examination of the offence and the criminal, and a concern for the criminals social background. The rehabilitation of offenders to re-join society, as useful and law-abiding members of the community (House of Lords, 2004:12) is attractive on a number of counts. Firstly, it provides a positive justification for what would be an otherwise negative form of punishment of the criminal, although there are some who would argue that punishment has already got a rehabilitative effect on the offender; as a result of punishment is a change on offenders valu es and beliefs which refrains him or her from committing further offences (Cavadino and Dignan, 2002). Secondly, rehabilitation is reinforced by the notion that it can reduce crime by altering the individuals character or behaviour. The rehabilitationist theory regards criminal behaviour as a social disease rather than a personal choice and sees the reasonable solution as curing that disease through psychological therapy, education and training (Cavadino and Dignan, 2002). This is attractive to those who work in prisons and who wish to do more professional work than merely deprive prisoners from their liberty. However, unwarranted assumption that crime is related to a disease and that social experts can diagnose that condition is a weakness because treatment programmes are open-ended and do not always relate to the offence (Farrall, 2002). Furthermore, there is also a room for prisoners to cheat by participating in programmes they had no faith in, by expressions of remorse they did not feel, and of intentions to refrain from crime to which they had no commitment. UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY PENALITY As can be seen, there is relative clarity that prisons are not merely to lock up particular types of offenders for specified periods. There also seems to be a relative clarity that there are problems with the functions of prisons- retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation- when considering the high recidivism rates. Official figures show that when the Labour party came into power in 1997, more than a third of criminals reoffended within six months, 50% almost within a year, and 58% reoffended within two years of being released (Ford, 2005). More recent statistics showed that of the offenders who were discharged from custody in 2000, 20% had been reconvicted within three months, 43% within a year, 55% within two years, and 68% within five years (BBC News, 2010a). The offenders convicted of theft took the shortest number of days (90 days) to reoffend in 2000, where in 2008 it was offenders convicted of other (91 days) (MoJ, 2010a: 49). The official statistics based on the latest data show that the proportion of offenders reoffending decreased by 6.8% from 43% in 2000 to 40.1% in 2008 (MoJ, 2010a: 21). However, the number of reconvictions classified as severe within this period rose by 14.7% (MoJ 2010a: 9). Despite that however, the severity rate has remained broadly stable at between 0.6 to 0.9 offences per 100 offenders between 2000 and 2008: this is equivalent to less than one serious offence being committed per 100 offenders in the cohort (MoJ, 2010a: 9). The majority of the most serious reconvictions committed by the 2008 cohort were in the violence offence group, with 21% accounting for sexual-related crimes. The 80% of the most serious offences were committed by offenders who had never before committed an offence classified as serious (MoJ, 2010a:15). The reconviction rates for individual prisons published for the first time revealed that there are fourteen prisons in England and Wales which have reconviction rates of more than 70%. The Do rchester prison, in Dorset, has the highest at 74.7% for adult male prisoners and New Hall, in Yorkshire, has the highest reconviction rates for female prisoners at 76% (The Guardian, 2010). However, it is highly questionable whether searching for an association between recorded crime statistics and usage of official punishments can provide satisfactory answers to the question of whether prison works. This is partly because of the unreliability of crime statistics, and also because à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ there is every reason to assume that extralegal conditions play a major role in criminal etiology (Gibbs, 1988: 28). As can be seen, the statistics above underline a long-term ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system at diverting persistent offenders from a life of crime. Thus the emerging question is why prisons are not working? It would be fair to assert that prisons are impacted by developments, trends, and changes that occur with regularity in the larger society (Saunders and Billante, 2002). The complex set of changes in politics, economics, social and cultural life has had a fundamental influence on the way prisons operate. For instance, in the mid-1990s, escapes from prisons, particularly by highly dangerous offenders, emphasised on improving security, and thus enabled community safety to become a prominent political agenda at central and local level. Michael Howard prioritised public protection and thereby played a central role in the introduction of Prisons Works philosophy because It is a deterrent. Criminals fear it. And it takes criminals out of circulation(cited in Farrall, 2002: 5). This took much of the necessity of tackling prisoners behaviour and lessened the rehabilitation initiatives: the movement was all away from individualised, indeterminate sentencing which considered offenders circumstances towards standardised, tariff sentences, which valued consistency, proportionality and predictability. Consequently, this led to a rise in the prison population (Saunders and Billante, 2002). In May 1993, the prison population used to be 43,500 but this figure rapidly increased to 60,000 within four years (McGraw, 2005:9). The labour government did little to dispel the prison population but favoured tough regime and introduced harsher sentence outcomes for violent and non-violent offences. As a result, while it had taken four decades from 1958 to 1995 for the prison population to rise by 25,000 it had taken New Labour only eight years to match that 25,000 increase (McGraw, 2005:1). On 22 February 2008 the total population exceeded the useable operational capaci ty of the prison estate for the first time in history. The number of offenders in prison at the end of February stands on 85,206. Of the population in prison custody, 80% comprised males aged 18 or older while 16% were on remand either awaiting trial or sentence (House of Commons, 2010:2). Approximately one-third of the total sentenced prison population are serving sentences of more than 12 months, with a further 18% serving indeterminate sentences (House of Commons, 2010:4). Of the sentenced population, the violence against the person offence group accounts for the largest proportion (28%) (House of Commons, 2010:4). Importantly, unlike in the past, a higher proportion of the sentenced female population are now serving sentences for violence against the person offences rather than drug offences. At a glance, the incapacitation of offenders might be a good idea (as it removes offenders from circulation), but the truth is that it is an ineffective strategy towards crime. The public rightly expects someone who is convicted of a serious crime to receive a suitably severe punishment, and in particular expects protection, but the evidence about the incapacitation effect of prison has concluded that the degree of incapacitation resulting from a sentencing policy has a marginal effect on the crime rate (Blumstein and Farrington, 1986). The best calculations suggest that incapacitation effects of imprisonment are only modest partly because most criminal careers are relatively short: by the time offenders are locked away they may be about to give up crime (Green et al 2005 cited in Cavadino and Dignan, 2002). Where crime was once viewed as a social problem facilitated by the failure of the society to provide for its members, today the society is blameless and the individual offender i s seen as a wholly volitional creature who makes rational choices to engage in crime. When imprisoned, despite the existence Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 which discloses criminal convictions, ex-offenders experience serious difficulty in readjusting to society after they have served their time and paid the dues that the law required of them because the stigma of imprisonment and long absences from work often puts employers off hiring ex-prisoners (Giddens, 1999). This exacerbates social exclusion and increases the risk of a return to crime and a life dependent on social benefits. Another effect of imprisonment, according to Western (1999 cited in Street, (no year:), prisoners are likely to develop certain attitudes, mannerisms and behavioural practices that on the inside function to enhance survival but are not compatible with success in the conventional job market. McGuire and Priestley (1985) told that to reduce the actual crime rates by one-third the prison population in England and Wales would have to rise to 300,000- an approximate fourfold increase. The capital and revenue costs of this enterprise would be enormous. To arrest the required extra numbers, many more police and prisons officers would be needed, and to process them through the courts there would have to be a rise in the numbers of court personnel. The law-and-order would not just be the biggest item of public spending; there might well be nothing left over for anything else. There also exist doubts about the effects of deterrence. According to Lefton (1991) freedom is the most valuable thing for every human being, and people will do anything to avoid putting that freedom at risk. Leftons claim may sound acceptable at first sight but there is little evidence that offenders are deterred by longer or more frequent prison sentences. Because the deterrence theory is based on classical criminology, ie, individuals must, before they act, weigh up the benefit of carrying out the offence against the possible disadvantage of going to prison, one of the problems is that we cannot calculate how many crimes are avoided because potential criminals are deterred by the prospect of imprisonment. But in terms of deterring those convicted from reoffending, the statistics do not give a great deal of cause for optimism, as discussed above. After carrying out a comprehensive review of studies, Beylebeld (1979 cited in Hudson, 1996: 23) concluded that implementing an official deterrence policy can be no more than a shot in the dark because much crime is committed on impulse, given the opportunity presented by an open window or unlocked door, and it is committed by offenders who live from moment to moment (The White Paper cited in Cavadino et al, 1999:186). An alternative deterrent strategy has been put forward by Bachman et al (1992 cited in Farral, 2002). They told that potential offenders are more likely to be deterred by the certainty of detection than the prospect of punishment. At the other end of the spectrum, for McGraw (2005), punishments that are designed as deterrents can increase, rather than decrease, delinquency. In support, Wests (1982:104) research study on boys growing up in London found that if a boy offends, the best way to prevent him from offending repeatedly is not to catch him in the first place. This research evidence may seem contrary to common sense, but such finding suggests that punishment has other effects which may cancel out and even outweigh its deterrent effects. The labelling theory, for example, contends that catching and punishing offenders labels them as criminals, and stigmatises them. To make matters worse, harsher penalties can change offenders self-image from that of a law-abiding person to that of a deviant because custodial institutions are notoriously schools for crime where offenders can meet each other, learn criminal techniques and enter into a criminal subculture. In support, Woolfs (2001) investigation into English prisons found that some prisoners who were not addicted to drugs before admission were later drug addicts by the time of their release (cited in House of Commons, 2005). This process upon release is sufficient to elicit pathological behaviour (Zimbardo, 1982:249) which can in various ways make it more difficult for prisoners to conform to a law-abiding life in future (Cavadino and Dignan, 2002). If labelling theory is correct, then an essential area which needs to be tackle d in order to lower the crime rate is to change the way the society interacts with criminals, including those released from prison, to avoid these stigmatised labels from sticking. An institutional transition from being soft on offenders to get tough agenda which incorporated retribution, deterrence and incapacitation does not mean that the rehabilitative ideal is totally taken away from the justice system. Contemporary imprisonment is also about helping offenders to lead a law abiding lives in custody and after-release (Crawley, 2004:65). Over 700 National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) schemes are being implemented in prisons. Research-based offender rehabilitation programmes do not only offer viable alternative for reducing recidivism, but they have also shown to be an economically efficient strategy (Farrall, 2002). It is widely accepted that rehabilitation programmes give the opportunity to harness prisoners strengths, make amends to their misdemeanours, earn their redemption, and restore their relationship with the society (Maruna and LeBel, 2002). Today, many rehabilitative programmes are based on cognitive behavioural approach, which attempts to alter how offenders think by improving their cognitive and reasoning skills so that they change their attitudes towards breaking the law. Leading empirical reviews of the literature on prison based rehabilitative programmes (Lipsey and Wilson, 1998; MacKenzie, 1997) told that the most effective way to reduce offending and re-offending is through education and employment, along with behavioural or cognitive programmes. In support, Marques et al (1994:55) gave an encouraging result by reporting that offenders in their study who did not volunteer for treatment were 8.5 times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime in the first twelve months after release from prison or discharge from parole. Less dramatic but equally encouraging results were reported from Patrick Carter (2003): well-designed, well-run and well-targeted cognitive behavioural programmes can reduce reconviction rates by 5-10% (cited in House of Commons, 2005:24). However, despite the positive effects of rehabilitation on recidivism, rehabilitation remains secondary to the facilities primary functions: control and confinement. Carters (2007: 146) research into prisons found that more than two-thirds of prisoners did not agree that they were being helped to lead a law-abiding life on release in the community; and only 28% of prisoners agreed that sufficient efforts are made to help prisoners stop committing offences when they have been released from custody. On the contrary however, Linden and Perrys (1988) review of research studies on the effectiveness of prison education programmes showed that although inmates have made substantial alterations to their behaviour, the changes did not necessarily have an impact on post-release employment and recidivism rates (cited in Ryan, 1990). Crawley (2004) argued that the pessimism that nothing works and that whatever you do to offenders makes no difference (Martinson, 1974) has destroyed the reformative aim of the penal system by encouraging policy makers and legislators to abandon the idea of rehabilitation as an objective of punishment- not because it had been shown to be true, but more because the disappointment of the high hopes invested in reform led to an over-reaction against the rehabilitative ideal. Mental Health Case Study: Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Mental Health Case Study: Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Mental health, Amir Daud case study Later in your initial discussions with Amir you think he may be having an anxiety disorder. Identify the character of anxiety disorder Amir is likely to be experiencing and what constituents in his history indicate this type of upset. Amir is highly likely to be experiencing Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) which results from too much sympathetic activation of the neural system. It makes the person experiencing it gets constant nervousness that leads to a negative impact on both physical and emotional health status. It significantly interferes with the normal behavior path of the individual at its mercy. Amir spent two years in torturous detention in Afghanistan, which was a time of constant uncertainty and anxiety followed by a perilous journey to Australia. While he was in detention, he witnessed many episodes of self-harm by fellow detainees who had lost hope and pessimistic about their future welfare which have contributed to increasing Amir’s trauma and anxiety state. The fact that he felt powerless in his situation aggravated his stress levels because he lacked hope or someone or something that would help secure it in that hopeless state of personal business. Amir is also battling with mild depression from worrying too much about the family he left behind as he says he feels guilty because he is aware they are still facing persecution. He blames himself for not being able to rescue them from that situation. In addition, Amir is required to secure himself employment, only he feels quite the opposite due to his impatience and poor absorption. The major symptoms of this disorder include restlessness, exaggerated startle response, sleep disturbance, difficulty in concentrating, irritability and tremor. The symptoms must have occurred days than not for at least 6months and must cause clinically important distress or impairment in social, occupational or other significant areas of functioning’ (APA, 2000). According to Sigmund Freud, His type falls under Neurotic category of which is defined as the anticipation of negative consequences that activate defensive processes. This is as a consequence of his experience in the detention which he says makes him sleep poorly and development of negative intrusive thoughts during his waking time in the morning. Possible Treatments that could be administered to Amir include pharmaceutical medication (SSRIs and Benzodiazepines) or herbal extracts made from a relaxant made from the root of the kava plant (Hall, 1998). References Derek Hayes, A. G., Suhaini, M. J., Kassim, K. K. (2014). Hope and Mental Health Nursing. LinkedIn Corporations. Hall, R. H. (1998). Anxiety Disorders. Psychiatryonline. (2014). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders. Retrieved March 31st, 2014, from www.psychiatryonline.org: http://psychiatryonline.org/content.aspx?bookid=29sectionid=1361949 School, I. S. (2008). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders. In I. S. School. Russia: St. Petersburg. Explain what is meant by the neurobiology of anxiety. Anxiety is a psychological and a behavioral state commonly characterized by avoidance behavior which affects a patient emotionally and psychologically. Neurobiology of anxiety is the classification of all anxiety disorders that affect the brain emotional states. These emotional states could be anxiety about the future, fear of the present or depression about events that occurred in the past. There are many different categories of the neurobiology of anxiety as listed below. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) which is most common in young adults like Amir. It’s the fear, anxiety and depression associated with reaction to any dangerous situation. (Psychiatryonline, 2014). GAD is more likely than not to be confused with other anxiety disorder types. For one to conclude that a patient has it, they must identify four symptoms from the first rank list and at least one from the second list. First rank Inability to relax or restlessness Fatigueability Exaggerated sudden response Muscle tension Poor sleeping habits Poor concentration Easily irritable Second Nausea or abdominal complaints A Dry mouth Tachycardia Tremor Stress disorders (Post traumatic stress disorder- PTSD) and Phobias which are divided into specific and social phobia. These are characterized by a general feeling of dissociation from reality. Panic disorders (With or without agoraphobia) -Attributes are manifested by intense apprehension, terror, fear often associated with feelings of hopelessness and intense physical discomfort. Attacks usually last for a short while and rarely take hours. In case they are accompanied by agoraphobia, there is a fear of being in places or Situations from which escape might be hard or in which help might not be available in the event of a panic attack (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health, 2000) Agoraphobia without history of panic disorder- The (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health, 2000) identifies the essential feature of this disorder as fear of being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult or in which help might not be available in the event of suddenly developing a symptom that could be incapacitating or extremely embarrassing. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) –This is characterized by involuntary recurring thoughts or images that the patient is not able to dispense. The victims feel powerless despite them knowing that it’s irrational behavior. The four general categories are: counting, checking, cleaning and finally avoidance. They happen frequently, which consequently interferes with normal daily activities. Acute Stress Disorder-It’s an anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition. Symptoms of are judged to be the direct physiological consequence of a general medical condition. They may include prominent generalized anxiety symptoms, panic attacks, or obsessions or compulsions (APA, 2000) References APA. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health (4th Ed.). DSM-IV-TR: American Psychiatric Assocaition press. Psychiatryonline. (2014). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders. Retrieved March 31st, 2014, from www.psychiatryonline.org: http://psychiatryonline.org/content.aspx?bookid=29sectionid=1361949 School, I. S. (2008). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders. In I. S. School. Russia: St. Petersburg. Why is hope relevant in mental health nursing practice? How might you incorporate this concept in subsequent therapeutic communication with Amir? What other elements of communication might you employ? Hope is a vital element in any human’s life and is a pivotal act in any mental health nurse. It helps people with any medical problem get assurance about their situation, whether or not the treatment or recovery is complete. Kylma and Vehvilainen-Julkunen (1997) described it as an experience, emotion or need. The term in nursing is regarded as being dynamic and helps in rebuilding a patients self-worth and how they regard themselves which acts as a complementary treatment. Amir needs to be shown unconditional acceptance, understanding and tolerance to help him overcome his disorder condition. A patient who believes that their situation can change through professional guidance and hard work from their end does find a way out of their situation. The reason the placebo effect is important when dealing with patients like Amir. The nurse-client relationship with Amir’s case needs to be on a personal level, to breed trust and a sense of value. Recognizing that Amirs case is difficult will be the first step to helping him since for him to feel inspired by the therapeutic communication; he must feel the same energy from the nurse. There are different ways in which one can inspire hope especially in Amir’s case. They include: Educating Amir of his condition, treatment and assuring him that he can still achieve all his goals and objectives like any normal human being. Group therapy –This is where the assessor tries to interact with the patient with a group of other patients with more or less similar anxiety disorders with the aid of a leader to help them resolve interpersonal problems. Groups bring a sense of security and trust that they not battling their condition alone. More often, this results in positive outcomes in almost all cases. Humor-Using humor to help Amir arouse happy thoughts and avoid the negative thoughts he gets during his waking time. Humor results to laughter which has been proven to be therapeutic. Spiritual aspect-Here one tries to introduce spirituality, faith in the patient, which is a form of faith in all religions. Psychoanalysis-The main goal will be to reduce his anxiety and guilt through verbal processes. Conduct Humanistic therapy to help him fulfill his full potential and improve self concept. Conduct Behavior and cognitive therapy to help him change unwanted abnormal behaviors and acquire desirable ones through revising his thoughts and behavioral training. Later, Amir can be engaged in the assessment of his hope level to monitor any progress. Use of Herth Hope Index (HHI) rating where higher rate shows a high level of hope and subsequent opposite are an indication of low self-worth and depression. Amir detachment from the normal world could drive him to commit suicide and thus the nurse need to do a full assessment on his level of hope. Effective communication of the management plan and encouraging self-help strategies will also play a big role during management discussion with Amir. References Derek Hayes, A. G., Suhaini, M. J., Kassim, K. K. (2014). Hope and Mental Health Nursing. LinkedIn Corporations. Psychiatryonline. (2014). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders. Retrieved March 31st, 2014, from www.psychiatryonline.org: http://psychiatryonline.org/content.aspx?bookid=29sectionid=1361949 Define what is meant by ethnicity. Given Amir’s ethnic background explain what cultural assessments you might make in planning his ongoing care. Ethnicity refers to a state in which an individual belongs to a certain social group which happens to share common national, customs or cultural traditions. Amir is ethnic Hazara. The Hazara people have for a long time been the victim of discrimination in Afghanistan. At the refugee camp the people there are more likely to be of the same ethnicity with Amir. This will make it easier for Amir since he will feel a sense of belonging while interacting with people who share his cultural values and origin. I would use a cultural assessment tool to help me get all the information about Amir cultural background. Details I would include in the assessment area include: The primary language spoken by Amir, how he communicates with other people who speak a different language, whether he requires an interpreter or not, the highest level of education he has attained, whether his condition has ever occurred before, if it did in what manner was it handled, what are his normal ways of coping with stress? Let Amir describe his family living arrangements, the major decision maker in the family, his religious beliefs and any religious requirements or restrictions that may place limitation to his care, any special belief and practices that may vary from the conventional ways, from whom has the family been seeking help from. Additionally, the following questions should help in cultural assessment. Are there any topics that are particularly sensitive or unwilling to discuss (because of cultural taboos) Are there any activities in which Amir is unwilling to participate (because of cultural customs or taboos) What are the Amir’s personal feelings regarding touch? What are his personal feelings regarding eye contact? What is his personal orientation to time? (Past, present, future) Any particular illnesses to which the Amir may be bioculturally susceptible? All the above questions will help gather any possible information regarding the Hazara ethnic group which will help in treatment program recommended to Amir while he is in Australia. It will also help the employer of his religious and ethnic practices to avoid stigmatization. References Mary C.Townsend, D.-B. (2011). Nursing Diagnoses in Psychiatry Nursing (8th Edition Ed.). Philadelphia, 1915 Arch Street: F. A Davis Company. Psychiatryonline. (2014). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders. Retrieved March 31st, 2014, from www.psychiatryonline.org: