Alcatraz Prison Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Alcatraz Prison - Research Paper Example Alcatraz is located on Alcatraz Island, which is right outside San Francisco Bay. It earned its name from Juan Manuel de Ayala who named the island La Isla de los Alcatraces, which means island of the pelicans. Since its creation Alcatraz has served as an institution for multiple prisoners such as a military prison and then as a federal prison. The earliest history has the island serving as a prison for those in the Civil War. After serving as a military prison, it was turned over to the federal government in 1933. During this time it housed some of the most dangerous criminals of all time. It was closed in 1963 and now serves as a historical site, which can be toured by the public. In 1847, the United States Army began a topographical survey of the island assessing it’s potential due to the fact it was isolated, small, and had relatively little flora and fauna. The United States Army Corps of Engineers was called in and began construction of a military fortress. Another reaso n that the United States created this as a military prison was due to the fact that it had extremely strong and freezing currents, which would prevent escape of prisoners. It has housed military prisoners not only from the Civil War, but also from the Spanish-American War. It was considered a harsh facility due to the fact of military discipline and corporal punishment. The cellblocks in the island were divided into three levels and each level housed criminals who did a particular crime. There were also perks and privileges that were associated with each level i.e. Reading time, being able to write letters, etc. Unlike traditional prisons today in which inmates spend a majority of time in their cells, the military prisoners were only allowed to return to their cells in order to sleep. During the day, they were on work details in which they would be assigned work details based on their skill level and what was required, not unlike how duties in the military are assigned today. The de cline of the military presence was actually due to public dislike. They felt that the sterility and harshness of the island was an eyesore and wanted it renovated to look more pleasing. Unfortunately, this was also the time where the Great Depression was starting to set in and the military abandoned its investments there as it was closed in 1934 (â€Å"History of Alcatraz Island†). Before the prison could start taking on civilian prisoners, the federal government had to convert it and make sure that the island was reformed so that no prisoner could escape. It would end up costing the federal government around $260,000. The military buildings were renovated and new technology such as thicker windows and better bars were implemented to replace the outdated materials. There was also limited travel allowed and/or near the island. The restriction was only for government owned ships to come near the island. Thick iron gates were placed which kept everything contained and was only a ccessible via keys that the guards had. Electricity was rewired into all of the cells, as unlike the military counterparts, the prisoners, especially the dangerous ones, would be housed there. Prisoners also had access to a library, which contained many different types of literature that a person could read. There were also other amenities such as services and a chaplain that were

Seven Ways To Socialize With Your Employees (And Not Get In Trouble) Research Paper

Seven Ways To Socialize With Your Employees (And Not Get In Trouble) - Research Paper Example In an administrative setting, socialization is a method and a new employee understands how to pull the strings, by flattering responsive attitude towards the prescribed and casual arrangement and the explicit manner to understand the regulations of deeds (Socialization). Different organizational settings require different setups and behavior and the employees have to abide by the set regulations. Employees have to meet each other to share their views and thoughts and to formulate a strategy to march ahead. These socialization process are imperative in developing an understanding towards each other and also to build a repo and social circle as it aids in better working atmosphere. Mingling with people, sharing ideas and thoughts are the essential components of a developing personality. In certain organizations the employer does not seem to socialize with the employees, rather the employer finds it degrading to mingle with the employees. On the contrary, it is essential to socialize with the employees and to motivate them to work with more co-ordination. In order to get more from your employees it is essential to socialize with them for varied reasons ... It is essential that the employer make the team members or the employees special about themselves. It is essential to motivate the team as salary and wages only could not do wonders but giving something in terms of motivation will add a fire to the sense of loyalty and also the feeling of belongingness (Six Keys to Motivating Your Team). 3. A few gestures and words of appreciation work better for the efficient and close-knit team- Saying "Thank you" and also acknowledging their efforts brings a remarkable difference. It works well under the conditions of economic constraints and when the market is not making much rise. It is essential to understand the psychology behind the motivation of the employees as different employees need different factors for motivation. For the employer it is essential to socialize with the employees in order to know the team and thereby to create an environment where the employees can remain positive and happy and try their best to harness the results the e mployer is searching for (Six Keys to Motivating Your Team). 4. Understanding the employees sooner the better- If the employees are devoting extra time, without much benefit and monetary gains, hardworking employees become discouraged and they tend to remain unmotivated to fulfill the task in the desired manner therefore it is essential to keep appreciating the staff from time to time. It is essential that appreciation should be done in the time frame as after a long interval if the employer appreciates the charm of getting appreciation is lost and the entire duration goes in waiting to listen to the words of admiration from the employers. It is therefore desired that the employers must socialize well with the employees and in admire them for all their efforts in a

Climate Change in Nigeria Essay Example for Free

Climate Change in Nigeria Essay Climate change has always occurred in different Nigeria; however the effects have become more noticeable recently over the years. The effects have affected the daily lives of many for better or worse. A peer reviewed research done by an unknown source, which was accepted by the Journal of Geography and Regional had concluded that the average temperature of Nigeria has increased by 1. 7Â °C in the period of 1901-2005. The increase has however been higher in semi-arid areas and is lower in coastal regions. The paper has also shown that the rate of change has increased in the 1970’s. The consequences of the increase in temperature have resulted into the desertification of the north as well as the coastal erosion in the south. A combination of overgrazing, abuse of woodland for fuel as well as the unreliable rainfall, the Sahara desert is advancing at an estimated rate of 600 metres each year. This means that an estimated 55 million or more would be affected in the northern states such as Sokoto. However in the south, increasing sea levels have threatened the coastal region. A given example is Bar Beach, Victoria Island, Lagos. Bar Beach, once a family spot for relaxation is currently under reconstruction after 100m of the shoreline had been eroded over the past 20 years. Lagos State also teamed up with Chagoury Group to build a 1km sea defence to prevent further damage. Another region is the Niger Delta, which is the source of Nigeria’s oil wealth but however is vulnerable to the flooding due to its low-lying terrain with criss-crossed waterways. The protective mangroves have also been reduced by a drastic amount due to human intervention. Many people may not know but half of the 15 million people in Lagos live less than 6 feet away above sea level. Also in the rural economy, most small farms always assume stable rainfall patterns for their time of seeds and planting. Therefore the Government strategies for poverty in semi arid areas in the north as well as arable regions are at risk due to the variation in the weather pattern. Due to awareness campaigns made by organizations such as NCF, Nigerians are able to relate the disturbing issues of very high temperature as well as the uncertain implication for disease carrying pest and insects. Nigeria’s adaptation to climate change has not received much funding from external bilateral or multilateral sources. This may be due to the Nigeria’s slow moving institutional response to climate change. However locally, adaptation strategies are consistent with existing responses to that of hunger and poverty. For example trees are being planted in order to stop desertification. The use of substitute fuels such as biogas is also being used as well as the adoption of more versatile livestock. In more conventional farming regions, they have been encouraged to diversify their corps and adopt more efficient rainwater harvesting and irrigation techniques. The coastal region has also approached climate change with better management of existing resources. A short film Water Runs Deep talks about the impact of climate change in Nigeria. It gives an insight on how climate change has affected the lives of many for the worst. The movie shows how crops have been destroyed by flooding as well as schools being ruined. Various interviews give tale of their hardship and how they cope with it as well as the predicted change in weather for Nigeria and how adaptation strategies have been used to help the rural communities cope with Climate Change. According to the 2010 MDG progress report, Nigeria’s forest cover has reduced from 18. 9% to 9. 9% in the last two decades. This is one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. The main reason for such is due to the high demand for wood fuel. In the absence of affordable alternative energy sources, charcoal is popular even in cities, which boosts its uncontrolled production

Impact of Inflation on Chinas Economy

Impact of Inflation on Chinas Economy Chinese inflation is rising too fast But its had another major side effect. The Chinese economy is fast overheating. All that extra liquidity is driving up prices and wages, while property values have soared. In October, the official figures showed Chinas cost of living climbing by 4.4% year-on-year. That was the fastest increase in more than two years. And the situation may be rather worse than this. Two weeks ago a pundit at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one of the governments top think tanks, said that by its own calculations the countrys consumer price index had been understated by more than 7% over the past five years. And last week the original Dr Doom, Marc Faber, said he reckons the real Chinese inflation rate is nearer 10% a year. Whatever the exact figures, theres no doubt inflation is rising far too fast for comfort for the authorities. The Chinese central bank has been trying to cool things down gently. Five times this year its raised bank reserve requirements, which reduces the amount that lenders can lend. Yet the credit brakes are being tapped, not slammed, says the FT. The government could be more aggressive. In other words, so far the tightening hasnt had much of an impact. The workforce is getting far stroppier than it once was. Between 2007 and 2008 the latest available data labour disputes more than doubled. Food prices are already rising at 10% year-on-year. The Xinhua news agency reported last week that a basket of 18 staple vegetables cost 62% more during the first ten days of November than in the same period last year. So higher wage demands are likely to become more frequent as most of the population lives close to the edge, says the FT. In fact, its starting to look like Chinas inflation problem has now got rather out of hand. This article is talking about the inflation occurring in China and the costs that it has brought to China. This inflation has caused severe consequences to China and we will be discussing the possible solutions inflation  is a rise in the general  level of prices  of goods and services in an  economy  over a period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the  purchasing power  of money a loss of real value in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy. A chief measure of price inflation is the  inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general  price index  (normally the  Consumer Price Index) over time. Costs of inflation in China: When inflation rates are high, groups such as pensioners, households, dependent on social security benefits, stand lose to a great deal since they are often on fixed incomes. These Chinese will now be able to purchase less than before (less purchasing power), and will start to demand for higher wages. Only those with strong bargaining positions will be able to bid up for higher wages. In addition, people will be able to buy less food items than before which is a major issue because food is one of the basic necessities in human life, as in the article it has shown the the prices of food increase 10% year-to-year. Inflation causes an increase in interest rates and will therefore have a negative effect on investment and output, both of which will adversely affect employment, as in the article we can see that labour disputes have been doubled Higher inflation means that the businesses in China will have to change their prices to keep up to date on the price level. Inflation affects the foreign trade and the exchange rate. Experiencing high rates of inflation, Chinas domestic products will be less competitive internationally. As the domestic products prices increase the demand for these products will fall and therefore the demand for Chinas currency will also fall, thus affecting the exchange rate. The cause of inflation in China: The cause of inflation in Chinas economy was expansionary monetary policies and rising wages. The inflation in China was caused by cost-push inflation. It means that the cost of firms increase, in this case it is higher wages, and the firms are forced to raise prices inorder to cover the costs. Cost-push inflation If the economy demands higher wages, the higher costs of labour will shift the SRAS curve to the left from SRAS1 to SRAS2. The price level rises from P1 to P2. Higher wages increase consumption and therefore increases aggregate demand from AD0 to AD1. The increased spending (and possible expansionary policies) move the economy towards equilibrium at Yfe but at a higher price level. We have now a round of cost-push inflation. Solution: In the article, it has shown that Chinas government is trying its best to avoid this issue but it has been said that it hasnt had much of an impact. One of the possible ways of reducing inflation is by subsidizing businesses. The government can give out subsidies to business so that the businesses can reduce their costs of production. This will then encourage the businesses to lower their prices and thus avoiding inflation. The problem here is that the government will suffer a huge loss if there are many businesses to subsidize. Another possible solution is by appreciating its currency. This is because if it appreciates its currency then firms will be able to buy cheaper raw materials and therefore will have lower costs of production. Thus reducing prices of goods. It can appreciate its currency by using its foreign currency reserves to buy its own currency and this will increase the demand for its currency. Even though this method will help businesses to reduce their prices, there are also negative consequences.

Perl Harbor :: essays papers

Perl Harbor In 1941, one of the largest American military defeats occurred. An entire naval fleet was destroyed, hundreds were killed, all before 09.00 on a Sunday. The US did not have any knowledge of this attack, partially because of ignorance, partially because of the military strategies of their Japanese opponents. The Japanese attack on the US naval base of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a classic case of "It will not happen to me!" Although the US suspected Japanese actions, they did not take a defensive stance as they believed an attack would never touch their soil. Through an examination of military history, tactics and eye witness descriptions, it will be proven that the US had no knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. In the years before 1941, the war saw little American military action. After the collapse of France, American President Roosevelt promised his county that no American troops would be sent to Europe to aid in the battle against Hitler and his powerful army. These promises caused Roosevelt to be criticized by his closest advisors for his indecisiveness about declaring war . The President's defense to these accusations was he did not want to out step public opinion. As well, he believed American intervention would cause a 'mortal blow' to the Allies cause. In reality, the advisors, as well as Roosevelt, knew that Britain could not win the war without American armed intervention. Two oceans to the East, Japan was deep into a war or her own. Japanese forces were concentrated on the Chinese front to conquer and obtain. As a result of her unpopular declaration of war on China, Japan's fuel supply from the US was eliminated. Consequently, the Japanese turned to Indonesia to continue the supply of fuel for her war efforts. Fuel talks broke down as the Dutch, who were in control of the Indonesian fuel supply and, under heavy influence from the US, would not supply Japan with fuel. Desperately needing fuel to continue the war, Japan first thought of attacking Indonesia, but feared US intervention. After some thought, Japanese leaders decided that an attack directly on the US would be more appropriate to bring the US to the fuel supplies negotiating table . The first acknowledgment that Japan was a war threat came on November 27, 1941 when Washington ordered a 'War Warning'. The US feared a Japanese attack, not on America, but on the Philippines. American military leaders took little or no precautions upon the issue of warning.

Hierarchical Social Structure :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Hierarchical Social Structure Societies begin with a hierarchical structure in which one must begin from the top of its basic structure, through its intermediates, before hitting the bottom of the sociologically defined society. The pyramid scheme begins with a single individual, as presented by Diego Velasquez in The Waterseller of Seville. This painting portrays a cycle of life by its circular patterns and smooth curves, like that of a full moon with its glowing softness as it blends into the clear, midnight sky. At its center is a clear cup filled with water, like the water of life that quenched the dying man’s thirst in a hot desert. It is being passed around three men, who also stand in a circular fashion. They represent one body in different stages of life. The young boy, in his school uniform of a black jacket and white dress shirt, looks at the glass as would a child at a chocolate chip cookie, craving and yearning for that bit of sweet chocolate encased by a soft sugary dough. He is eager and ready to take on the next step of satisfying himself and his thirst for knowledge. The old man on his right is wearing a very bright red cloak that reflects off onto his hands and face, giving it a red g low as well. He reminds one of the story of the red balloon that befriends a young boy while floating round and about in a protective and guiding manner before it was accidentally burst. He too has his hand on the cup as if to receive it from the young boy, as if they are passing this bit of knowledge onto the next stage of life, where he is now present. His hand rests upon a large water jug with such smooth curves, like the soft ripples in a pond after a rock skids across its surface. It contains that bit of knowledge carried through the years from life, flowing as would water. Behind the young boy and man is a more mysterious figure, like a spirit from the netherworld whose face is transparent. He, too, holds a glass in his hand, but unlike the other two, he is actually drinking from it. He is the symbolic representation of a completion in the rites of the glass. In the center, lie both Grant Wood’s American Gothic and Pablo Picasso’s Acrobat’s Family with a Monkey, which represent the basic unit of family.

Postcolonialism

Postcolonial is that which questions, overturns, and / or critically refracts colonial authority-its epistemology and forms of violence, its claims to superiority. Postcolonial therefore refers to those theories, texts, political strategies, and modes of activism that engage in such questioning, that aim to challenge structural inequalities and bring about social Justice. It is helpful to view postcolonial in a comparative frame alongside feminism.Both these approaches arrived at points of critical self-awareness in definitive periods of civil rights protests. This conjunction ay be partly explained by the fact that both approaches champion resistance to entrenched singular forms of authority (patriarchy, empire) from below or from positions of so called weakness. Both too seek the politicians of areas conventionally considered as non political: the domestic space, education, sport, the street, who may walk where, who may sit where, and how.Some of the central critical concepts of po stcolonial developed out of nationalist struggles for independence in the early half of the twentieth century. The political and cultural reforms proposed y anti-colonial movements in such countries as India, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Kenya and in the Caribbean, formed the fountainhead of what we now call postcolonial. At first, these movements advocated a politics of assimilation of ‘natives' or the colonized into colonial society for them to obtain self representation.They began with limited demands for piecemeal constitutional reforms but it became rapidly clear that the colonial authorities were not ready to dismantle the social, economic and political hierarchies on which their control rested. After the end of World War II, anti colonial nationalist movements took a more confrontational, no-compromise attitude. The demand was for complete independence. This demand extended not only to the liberation of political structures but also to the obliteration of the colonization of the psyche.The sass marked a period of growing militancy in movements across the colonized world. Alongside came the retrieval and animation of indigenous culture as an important vehicle of national self expression and thus of resistance to the colonial exclusion of the native as uncouth, uncivilized inarticulate and irrational. The nationalist leaders and intellectuals like Gandhi and Nehru in India, fanons in Algeria and Came Markham in Ghana, helped define the major ideologies of postcolonial liberation.They shaped some of the definitive concepts of postcolonial studies, as later interpreted in the works of Edward Said. They understood the anti-colonial struggle as a Mechanical, or binary, conflict of us against them, of self versus ‘other'. The binary between the so-called rational, superior colonial self and the barbarism and irrationality indicated by everything that was not-self or ‘other' was to be repudiated wholesale. It was not Just to be turned upside down, b ut also destroyed. The chains of oppression were to be obliterated and not simply filed down.If natives or others were always seen as secondary figures, imperfect replicas of the colonizer, wearers of borrowed cultural rags; if native society was invariably represented as disorderly or ethically degenerate; it was important that they remake themselves from scratch. It was essential that they reconstitute their identity on their own terms, that they Initialized, Africanize, or Caribbean themselves. They effectively needed to give birth to a new identity, to peak in a language that was chosen, not imposed. The liberation struggle involved a tripartite process.It led from attempted cultural assimilation with the colonizers, the first stage, through attempts at political reform, sometimes of an intensively radical kind, as in demands for self -help and self-representation, the second stage. But if the colonial state proved intransigent, as it so often did, from this phase of forceful se lf-assertion developed a possible third stage; outright militant resistance. As Robbing wrote , conditions could arise where ‘national life' had to become ‘perforce a national assault'.