Infrastructure system Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Infrastructure system - Article Example The importance of the development of infrastructure systems in Sweden can be understood through the principles applied on the state regarding the protection of the interests of population. In this context, in accordance with a report related with the aims/ characteristics of social strategy in Sweden 'social policy of Sweden is based on the assumption that all citizens regardless of the origin and the status of property should have equal access to education, health, cultural, etc. characteristic for Sweden is to finance health care and pensions from taxation, and additional social security' (Sweden, Social System, December 4, 2008). At a next level, the projects that have been already developed but also those which are pended and which are related with the infrastructure systems of Sweden - see also the studies/ reports presented throughout this study - prove that the improvement of infrastructure systems in Sweden is one of the priorities of the country's government. Existing infras tructure (as analyzed in the paper) can lead to the assumption that the relevant projects are carefully reviewed and closely monitored by their administrators ensuring the quality of work but also the limitation of time/ cost in accordance with the relevant contractual terms. 2. Infrastructure systems - characteristics and effects on economy Infrastructure systems can refer to a series of sectors, including roads, bridges, communications, energy, railway network and energy. All these sectors are important for the quality of life of population within a specific country. It is for this reason that all of these sectors are administered primarily by the state - firms operating in the private sector can also intervene in the development of relevant projects however their work will be based on a relevant contractual agreement with the governmental authorities. In other words, these systems cannot be administered by the private sector - if such a case occurs then a relevant agreement has to exist between the state and the firms involved. From a different point of view, it is noticed by Fox (2001) that 'infrastructure is best envisioned as services that come from a set of public works, not as physical facilities; infrastructure can expand rural economies by raising productivity levels, allowing expansion in the use of other reso urces, and attracting resources' (Fox, 2001, 103). It should be noticed that infrastructure systems are quite important for many aspects of human life - including social life, health and personal/ professional development. Indeed, the presence and activation of people within a society requires the existence of specific facilities that will guarantee the

On the sidewalk bleeding Essay Example for Free

On the sidewalk bleeding Essay Sixteen year old, Andy Anderson, was found dead 3:00 am in the morning by his girlfriend Laura. Andy Anderson a member of a gang that refer to themselves as the ROYALS recently got stabbed by another gang group the GUARDIANS. This incident took place in a dark alley right in front Alfredo’s, a local corner store. The police think that andy was stabbed around 11:30 p.m. and slowly bled to death. He was stabbed with a knife just below his rib cage. Due to some evidences weve gathered at the scene and witnesses we spoke to, we have some major leads on this crime scene. Our first witness was a 32 year old man, luke lucas, who was sorry that he was too drunk to realize that andy was dying. â€Å" I only wish I would have been sober, I would of been able to help.† He said during his interview. Our next witnesses were two teens, they saw Andy lying down â€Å"on the sidewalk bleeding† and wanted to help †¦ until they saw his bright purple ROYALS jacket. The two teens did not want to get mixed up in between these two gangs. We are still asking them further questions on this because we feel that were not getting the whole story. This devastating tragic event really shows the extreme dangers of gang violence. When the police saw Andy’s ROYALS jacket that he had taken off, they knew that this wasnt just a random act of violence, and that this was a planned attack. What a price to pay for being in a teen death, what a tragedy. Police would like anyone with any kind of information with any kind of information to contact 69 division or to leave an anonymous tip for crime stoppers. Andy’s funeral will be held at Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Churc h in Ottawa Sunday afternoon. Donations are being accepted by the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa in the teen’s honour.

The Challenger Shuttle Disaster Engineering Essay

The Challenger Shuttle Disaster Engineering Essay Abstract The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a global leader in the field of space flight and space science. NASA as an organization is exclusive in terms of mission, vision, objectives, magnitude, control, risk, and complexity. NASAs space flight program is the most complex and difficult task in their history. It is well known that the accident of Challenger space shuttle on 28th January 1986 was attributed to organizational failure. The breakdown of Columbia space shuttle in February 2003 points out again how even minute details play important roles in complex and high risk organizations. Many major organizational failures are result of poor decision making, adverse conditions, and poor assumptions. This paper focuses on Challenger Columbia space shuttle disaster, and validation behind calling it as an organizational failure. If NASA is sincerely thinking about reducing failure, they should consider organizational change to reduce probability of occurrence of such m ishaps. Introduction An organization exists when a group of people work together to achieve goals (Daft, 2007). Organizations are all around us and shape our lives in many ways. Organizations can be classified on the basis of scope, size, clientele, and nature of services. Even though the work culture of every organization is different, the basic principle of operation is same. With rapid globalization, there is added pressure on organizations to outperform each other. The pressure on a firm is the direct pressure on employees to perform. Every individual react to this pressure differently and at times can affect decision making skills in a poor manner. Organizational failure can be described as a single major incident, or chain of incidents, resulting from the action or inaction of individuals associated with the organization (Gillespie and Dietz, 2009). Organizational failures are unavoidable, and it can be consequence of a single cause. The enormity of failure depends upon number of causes. The basic reasons for organizational failures are poor planning, management, and corporate culture. Organizational characteristics of NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an organization with 18,000 employees and a budget of US$ 15 billion was set up in 1958. It is exclusive in the terms of size, mission, and motivations. The motivation factor ranged from winning the SOVIET/US space battle during the 1960s, to becoming a leader in all the areas of spaceflight and space science at present. NASA is considered to be a closely path dependent organization (Bruggeman, 2002). Path dependence implies to the inclination of an organization to make decisions based on their history. During 1960s space race between United States and Soviet Union for technological superiority, cost concerns were less important. During this period the importance of human spaceflight for a successful space program was realized. There were significant budget cuts for NASA by the end of the cold war era; even then the focus was on human spaceflight. To counter budget cuts, some portions of the shuttle program were contracted out to private suppliers (Hall, 2003). The key point is that, even today space shuttle is an experimental vehicle. Lessons are still learned from each shuttle returning to earth. The official development stage for the space shuttle was from 1980 to 1982. After that period, it was considered operational, but still shuttle engineers had contradicting opinions. They considered it to be a developmental aircraft because of constantly changing technology and inexplicable problems that cannot be predicted from design. The unexpected problems continued to occur during shuttle missions, but no disasters occurred. Due to budget constraints, management was not keen on finding the root causes of the problem. NASA allowed these technical flaws to pass, as analyses were costly and time consuming. Even at the suppliers end, due to incessant production pressure, problems were often neglected. The Challenger Tragedy On 28 January 1986, around seventy-six seconds into the mission, the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed, killing all seven crew members (Rogers Commission report, 1986). This happened due to a design flaw in shuttles solid rocket booster and disintegration of an O-ring on its right solid rocket booster (Lighthall, 1991). The problems mentioned above were significant, but there were many other reasons which contributed to the destruction of Columbia space shuttle. Components of Shuttle The Columbia space shuttle, officially called as Space Transportation System (STS), has three major components; the Orbiter, External Tank (ET), and two Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) motors as shown in Figure 1. Orbiter It is a winged craft that carries astronauts and payloads (satellites or space station) into space and travel back to land on a runway. However, to get additional thrust, two large Solid Rocket Boosters are provided, each attached to the sides of external tank (shown in Figure 1), as Orbiter alone does not provide enough thrust. Figure 1: Challenger Space Shuttle (Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, 2003) Components of the Space Shuttle The three components are attached together during shuttle assembly, whereas the field joints between the sections contain two rubber O-rings. The purpose of O-rings is to fill the field joints and prevent hot gases from escaping. The solid rockets are cheaper and less complicated than liquid- fuel rocket engines. The biggest disadvantage of solid rocket is that it cannot be tuned off once ignited. External Tank The purpose of external tank is to carry liquid fuel for the three engines located in the aft section of the orbiter. The lower two third of the tank carries liquid hydrogen with the upper one third containing liquid oxygen. Cold Temperature Concern for O-rings Before the launch of Columbia shuttle, no experimentation was conducted on space shuttles at temperatures below 51 F (11 C). The air temperature dropped to 18 F (- 8 C) in the night and 36 F (2 C) in the morning before the launch. Even Morton Thiokol, the contractor for construction and maintenance of shuttle SRBs had insufficient data on performance of boosters at lower temperatures. There were some other notable factors which are discussed as follows: 1. The external tank was filled with -423 F (-253 C) liquid hydrogen and -300 F (-184 C) liquid oxygen. The cold breeze in the night and morning before the shuttle launch changed air in external tank to super-cooled state and moved it down to the ground. 2. It was known that passing of cold breeze results in formation of external tank. This observation was not unusual because it happened during warm temperatures also. The direction of wind was western-northwestern that day, resulting in super cooled air to slide down directly to the lower portion of the right SFB. 3. To measure the thickness of ice layer on the external tank, infrared cameras were used by the ground staff before every launch. On the day of the launch, a temperature of 8 F (-13 C) was recorded at the aft field joint of the right SRB. The ground staff did not pass this vital information to the management. Figure 2: Challenger Space Shuttle (Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, 2003) All these factors contributed to the malfunctioning of primary and secondary O-ring causing hot exhaust gases at the temperature of 6000 F (3315 C) to escape from the rocket chamber and led to catastrophic incident. Poor Decision Making Before the launch of the Challenger space shuttle, a teleconference was held between Morton Thiokol, Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to decide whether it should be launched or not. The engineers at Thiokol were not in the favor of the launch because of their apprehensions on the performance of O-rings in cold weather conditions (Hall, 2003). However, before the launch of Challenger there were many cases of O-ring damage (Dalal, Fowlkes, and Hoadley, 1989). Due to immense production pressure, the Thiokol engineers were not able to find the root causes, and justify their arguments with substantial evidence. The graphs presented during the teleconference were vague and confusing. Furthermore in their rush to get ready for the conference call, the engineering team erroneously included slides which were previously used for Flight Readiness Review (FRR) to claim that O-rings would not be a problem (Tufte, 1997). The management was not convinced with the case and decided to launch the shuttle. The report on the challenger space shuttle disaster states, After the shuttle became operational in 1980, the workforce and functions of several shuttle safety, reliability, and quality assurance offices were reduced. A safety committee, the Space Shuttle Program Crew Safety Panel, ceased to exist at that time (Leveson, 1995). Recommendations Collaboration with Suppliers: NASA needs to change the conventional thinking about sourcing. The Collaborative sourcing approach is different from the traditional approach on sourcing. The traditional sourcing technique is all about squeezing the supplier to make profit. In collaborative sourcing both buyer and supplier craft a joint vision to achieve their objectives. They should emphasize on improving product and line processes by concurrent engineering, combined testing, and root cause engineering for error finding and rectification (Helper, MacDuffie, and Sabel, 2009). Role of Hierarchy at NASA: A grave problem with NASA was its complicated corporate culture. NASA, which was a research institute, had become a platform, which was used by politicians for their promotion. The management should have understood that minute details play a crucial role in research organization like NASA. Even the decision to launch Challenger was influenced by government officials. As, President, Regan was scheduled to give his State of the Union Address the next night in which he intended to speak about astronaut Christa McAuliffe (Hall, 2003). NASA needs to develop a system for engineers to overcome the bureaucracy and hierarchy. By this way they wont be asked to defend their concerns and intuitions. Importance to minor problems: Acceptance of deviations from standard was one major reason for the challenger disaster. The nature of work carried out at NASA is very sensitive and therefore the specification of tolerance to abnormalities should be suitably low. The O-ring problem was frequent, but management persisted with it on the grounds that it does not possess flight safety risk. If the engineers had succeeded in convincing the management to replace the damaged O-rings, loss of life and vehicle could have been averted. Following steps are recommended for problem analysis: 1. Find the significance and basis of the problem. 2. Prepare a full proof action plan to rectify the problem. 3. All the parameters should be tested against variables like temperature, wind, humidity etc. 4. Importance to Problem Reporting and Corrective Action (PRACA). Conclusions The Challenger shuttle disaster presents various issues that are relevant from engineering management standpoint. One of the key points is change in perspective of engineers who are now placed at managerial positions. It is vital for managers not to overlook their own engineering work experience, or the knowledge of their assistants. A lot of times, even managers with engineering background are not up to date about the latest advancement in the field of engineering. The managers should realize this while taking any decision on technical matters. Another important aspect is the role of ethics in engineering management. The job of engineer is to design, and along with it comes the responsibility that the product or service designed is safe for customers. It is the ethical responsibility of engineers to acknowledge mistakes and present unaltered data to the management. Further, the management decision can have a positive result or negative impact on organizations reputation.

Emerging House Husbands :: Research Sociology Home Caregivers Essays

The out-dated stereotype that men are better workers than women is now more laughed at than believed. Yet, the stereotype that women can take care of the household better than a man has not changed. Extensive research proves that â€Å"house husbands† are more popular than ever imagined; they have their own websites, groups, and how-to books. House husbands are becoming much more popular, but are they being appreciated the same as house wives were. The simple definition of a house husband is a married man who either chooses to not hold a career and assume all household responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, bill paying, full child care, and necessary evils such as, buying stamps in the absence of their fulltime working wife. (Heiman 122) It can also be a man who does hold a career but chooses to have a â€Å"second shift† by coming home and assuming household responsibilities. At the end of 1987 15% of married men chose to become house husbands (O’Sullivan). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 189,000 full-time, stay-at-home dads in 2002, up 18 percent from 1994. But dads' groups say that estimate is the result of too-restrictive criteria, and they put the number at closer to 2 million. Now, some may not consider this to be a huge leap, but take into consideration the standard of living has also grown. Also, many people still regard women as the care takers of the house, and a man assuming this job is odd and unacceptable. The option of becoming a stay at home dad might be more realistic than it seems. If a father is considering staying at home, they examine their earning power as compared to their partner's. They consider work attire (no need for power suits), as well as commuting costs (gas, wear-and-tear of the car, depreciation, extra insurance costs), daycare costs, and all the other expenses of working (Father Time). A slight repetitive blemish is embedded along with the idea of house husbands. Women statistically make less than men; even if they are working the same job. (Nair 47) Most employers well tend to give men a better income because they are traditionally the â€Å"sole bread winner for their family.† (Arendell 157) They give less to women because they believe she already has a man taking care of her and any children she has. This can easily discourage men because their well-known egos can get the best of them, especially when it comes down to the green.

Essay --

1.3 Rationale for Research Topic Employee engagement is a relatively new concept which has been heavily marketed and publicised by management consultancies. The reason for this is because many of these management consultancy firms suggest that employee engagement can affect the bottom line, increase business performance, profitability and customer service Macey & Schieder (2008 P:). Increasing levels of engagement is becoming more important to an organisation because the outcome of employee engagement has been reported to correlate with performance. The CIPD through their research into employee engagement have identified that engaged employees are more likely to deliver business performance (CIPD 2010) Research into engagement has unveiled that individuals who are engaged are more likely to show enthusiasm for the work they do, show willingness to do well and are likely to be engaged by the values of the organisation. To understand what this can look like engagement can be determined by measuring its characteristic (vigor, dedication and absorption) and when measured can be found to be positively related to an individual’s job performance (Bakker et al 2008) Although ‘engagement' can be seen as a buzz word it has also been identified that for such a well-used term there is little associated research in the field of engagement (Robinson et al, 2004). Several of the key concepts of employee engagement derive from social psychology, drawing upon theories that are concerned with motivation, organisational behaviours and attitudes. Some academics argue that employee engagement is basically old wine in new bottles because key concepts by theorists such as Hertzberg, Maslow and Alderfer underpin the notion of employee engagement (Rob... ...ent and sustain it, you must approach it at three different layers of the organisation - the individual, the manager and the executive. Individuals must own their engagement. They cannot expect HR or the organisation to provide a blanket formula that will fit their unique needs. Managers cannot make employees engaged, but they can act as coaches to facilitate their team members' engagement journeys. Managers need to understand the unique interests, talents and aspirations of their employees, and then align these with specific organisational priorities and projects. Executives also have a specific and important role to play. Their focus must be on creating a culture that fuels engagement and business results. Senior teams must 'walk the talk' by demonstrating their own engagement, sharing their passion in candid, consistent communications† (HR Magazine 2013)

Underneath My Skin - Original Writing :: Papers

Underneath My Skin - Original Writing I am 15 years old, and I hate my life. My parents are dead, I have no friends, I get bullied every day, and the worst of it is that I can't do anything about it. I now live in Omaha, Nebraska with my aunt, Patrice, who just made 21 and is never home. She is my last living relative. At school this kid named Brian messes me all the time. I never fight back because I'm just peaceful like that. I get good grades (I have nothing else to do with my spare time except homework). I earn my own money by playing craps behind the school with loaded dice. That's why I don't have any friends. So I was walking home and here comes Brian with his sidekick Jim. Brian says, "Hey punk how's it goin'?" Then Jim says, "Yeah punk." I say, "I'm doing fine." "Gimme all your money, or my fist and your face will become good friends." Then he pushes me. All of a sudden, something came over and I just start wailing on the guy. I get up, look at Jim and say, "You want some of this?" He stands there in fear for a while and runs away. The rest of the way home I kept thinking about what happened, thinking about what came over me. In the middle of deep thought, I heard a voice say, "It was me." I looked around and no one was there. So I blew it off and went on home. I got home, laid on my bed still thinking about what happened. There was that voice again, "It was meà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Makius." Now I knew something was up. "Who's there?" I said. "You don't know me but I know you very well," said the voice. "You know me," I said. The voice then said, "Yes, I know about the time when someone tripped you and everyone laughed. I know about the time when some bully stole your shoes, and wore them the next day.

A Prominent Pilot

One of the most outstanding features of the human nature is to aim to something beyond the everyday live. Have you ever caught yourself at looking into the distant skyline and thinking:â€Å"What is out there?† Have you ever looked up at the deepness of blue sky and dreamed about being there, swimming there, flying there. These thoughts are just dreams for some people but one day they become the reality for the others. Having taken off from the earth once these lucky people decide to spend the half of their lives in the sky – they become pilots. On the way to make the dream come true there are, however, many difficulties.A number of skills and qualities a pilot should have, the knowledge he/she should gain, fears that should be overcame can scare beginners in piloting and prevent them from flying.   How not to give up, how to stay faithful to the dream, and – what is very important – how to become an above average pilot – these are the questions t he beginners should find the answers to.Learning how to get and stay in the best physical and psychical shape for a flight together with finding out about the characters of famous pilots in history can help to picture the portrait of a prominent pilot and thus can show the way to one’s own success.The first key to success at any field is personal skills that can be explored through the social science studies. The psychological and emotional qualities of a pilot, as reflected by his/her motivation and sheer determination to succeed, is the single most important factor in becoming an above average pilot.A good pilot should have a strong character, and the task of social and psychological science is to research what exact qualities one should develop and show how exactly one can do it with particular psychological techniques and trainings.The sociologists can conduct a poll among experienced aviators and even plane passengers in order to find out what qualities they believe to b e important for a pilot to fulfill his/her job duties successfully and to be a reliable team member and caring supervisor. Sometimes these qualities can differ from what we can think.For example, not only the strong character is important but also respect for the aircraft, the crew and the passengers. A pilot should be careful with the navigation, the operation of the systems and the communications, safe take-off and landing, he/she should care about the image of the aircraft and service that is presented.All of these things form a complete pilot’s personality, and the successful future in the profession of aviation depends on it. Thus social and psychological research will help in forming the character of a prominent pilot.The physiological aspect of piloting is vital too. One should consider his/her own health abilities to bear the conditions pilots usually are in. The studies on pilot’s physiology should explore how flight can impact the physical processes in human body.The special attention should be paid at the circulatory system and heart physiology under the stress conditions. It is important also to research the reactions of the nervous system in order to find out how successful one can be in responding the emergency situations and taking immediate decisions. Based on the results of the physiological research, the specialists should work out the training programs, give some advice about the diet if necessary, and general recommendations to help pilots to keep themselves in excellent shape.The best acknowledgment of a prominent person is to be retained in history. The piloting history is the story of courage, adventure, and deeds. Exploring it can give us bright characters of particular airmen the beginners could take after. One can look through the biographies of the most outstanding pilots and find many similarities that made these people worthy of remembering. For example, a society has always acknowledged pioneering in piloting.Thus in 1919 Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown were the first who crossed the Atlantic. After this adventure they were received as heroes in London and knighted for recognition of their pioneering achievement. Like these two, the names of other pioneers form the stages of the piloting history. War heroes also take the special place in history.Hopefully there can be found more peaceful areas to succeed at but war deeds are the examples of courage that pilots should have.   Thus exploring the pioneers’ and war heroes’ biographies one can find out about the deeds that helped other people to become prominent aviators.As we can see, succeeding at piloting requires picturing the personality of a prominent airman by means of the sociological and physiological researches together with exploring the outstanding pilots’ biographies.