Essay --

We like to think that once a criminal is put behind bars that he or she no longer poses a threat to society. In The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism's Prison Connection, Patrick Dunleavy, a former official within the New York State Department of Correctional Services, shows the delusion behind this mindset. Dunleavy’s thesis is that terrorists use the American prison system to recruit the disenfranchised to radical Islam. While many Americans may be oblivious to this practice, Dunleavy’s involvement in Operation Hades, an investigation conducted by the State of New York to determine the extent of recruiting to Islamic extremism that took place within the state’s prisons, makes him quite familiar with the process. Writing from experience, Dunleavy examines cases that show just how this recruitment takes place. Throughout the book, Dunleavy follows the story of Abdel Nasser Zaben. An immigrant and member of Hamas, in 1993 Zaben was arrested and sent to prison in New York State. Dunleavy finds that â€Å"convicts today are not isolated from society† (p.100), Zaben being a prime example. Like others before and since, once within prison Zaben became a clerk for a prison imam. This expanded his influence, furthered the radicalization process, and put him in contact with other radicals outside of prison. The Fertile Soil of Jihad demonstrates that Dunleavy has a clear understanding of the prison system in America. It benefits the reader by showing the problems in this system (at least as far as its connection to terrorist recruitment goes) as characterized by Zaben’s experience. Perhaps the most glaring issue is that of prison imams. Dunleavy indicates that many of the imams in the employ of the New York State Department of Correctional Servi... ... Patrick Dunleavy’s The Fertile Soil of Jihad endeavors to bring to light an often misunderstood or unrecognized problem. And in so much as it does that, it should be praised. However, his analysis of this issue is fraught with his own misunderstanding. Ultimately, the book’s worth depends on what the reader wants to get out of it. If he or she seeks to understand the radicalization process that occurs in American prisons, then it is a good source. Yet, if the desired outcome is to understand Islam, jihad, or how prison radicalization can be addressed on a societal or cultural (rather than institutional) level, then it is inadequate. Whether America is at war with Islam or it is the other way around is never made clear. The book could be read either way. To truly address the problem, an understanding of Muslim culture and Islam is necessary: a radical notion indeed.

Assignment: Optimism and Health

Assignment: Optimism and Health Andrea Pulis PSY/220 October 9, 2012 Ratonya Bennett For this paper, I researched two peer reviewed articles which discusses the effects of optimism and psychological health. The first one that I found is called Optimism and Physical Health: A Meta-analytic Review by Heather N. Rasmussen, Ph. D. , Michael F. Scheier, Ph. D. , and Joel B. Greenhuse, Ph. D. It was published in 2009. The second article that I located is called Perceived Academic Control: mediating the effects of optimism and social support on college students’ psychological health by Joelle C.Ruthig, Tara L. Haynes, Robert H. Stupnisky, and Raymond P. Perry. In Optimism and Physical Health, there was a study conducted to find out the relationship between optimism and physical health outcomes. According to their findings, the data suggests that optimism is a significant predictor of physical health. I would have to agree with this study and I find it validating. One thing that I fou nd interesting in the article was the significance of pessimism and physical health.We learned from the study that optimism can have a positive effect on physical health but we also learn that pessimism can have a negative effect on physical health. According to the article Optimism and Physical health, â€Å"It may well be the case that it is the presence or absence of pessimism that is important in determining physical health outcomes rather than the presence or absence of optimism†(p. 247). What this is telling me is that having the presence of pessimism can have a more negative effect on physical health rather than the positive effect optimism has on physical health.To summarize, â€Å"In general, it is clear from this review that optimism is related to physical health. It is also clear that the link between optimism and health is stronger for subjective health outcomes than for objective health outcomes† (p. 248). This study really shows this information and it ca n be said that for future studies that they can move past this understanding and do further research. This could lead to what specifically does optimism effect and how to possibly teach those who are suffering physically how to be optimistic.In the second article I found, Perceived Academic Control, the article discusses the psychological effect that optimism has on college students, particularly freshmen and how they are doing psychologically at the end of their freshmen year. The study assessed year end GPA, stress level and depression level. According to the academic journal, â€Å"As expected, optimism and support predicted less stress and depression, yet their beneficial effects were mediated by student’ PAC† (Ruthig, Haynes, Stupnisky, Perry, 2008).PAC stands for perceived academic control. Having optimism can buffer the students’ for being susceptible to stress and depression and having optimism can protect freshman’s health when facing the challen ges of transitioning from high school to college. Think about it, a lot of students decide to leave home to go to college. They will be in a new environment, a new home, new friends, new restaurants, possibly new weather and many other factors. Believing in being optimistic is very beneficial.I can say from personal experience that I was very pessimistic and ended up dropping out of college after my freshman year because I could not handle it. I never thought positive. I did not believe, expect, or hope that things will turn out well and I did not have the attitude of somebody who feels positive or confident. I think and I know that if I was more optimistic or even possessed a hint of optimism, I would have stuck my years out at college. However, I was so depressed by the end of my freshman year that I could not even think of going back.I associated that place as negative and I was not going to put myself through it any further. It is safe to say that I believe whole-heartedly that optimism does have a psychological effect on individuals or in particular, on me. Both of these articles bring up how powerful thinking positively can be on individuals. You can always think negatively and think that nothing will turn out well and in fact, it might not. Or, you can be someone that thinks that things will ultimately turn out for the better, that there is positivity out there and that the glass is half full rather than half empty.I chose to think that the glass is half full. References Ruthig, J. , Haynes, T. , Stupnisky, R. , & Perry, R. (2009). Perceived Academic Control: mediating the effects of optimism and social support on college students’ psychological health. Social Psychology Of Education, 12(2), 233-249. doi:10. 1007/s11218-008-9079-6 Rasmussen, H. N. , Scheier, M. F. , & Greenhouse, J. B. (2009). Optimism and Physical Health: A Meta-analytic Review. Annals Of Behavioral Medicine, 37(3), 239-256. doi:10. 1007/s12160-009-9111-x

Inter-organizational Cooperation Essay

The fundamental principle of a resonance inter-organizational cooperation is that an agency must give up something in order to get something else in return. The cooperation of local or international organizational is fostered to ensure that both organization benefit from each other. The inter-organizational attraction brought about by trust plays a big role in helping such collaborations to achieve their goals. Paying much attention on developing leadership styles that will promote effectual and collaborative value chains through building of a closer relationship which comprises of trust, commitment, cooperation, and coordination needed between organization members guarantees success of the alliance. Inter-organizational cooperation has continued focusing on leadership as the key for its success. A clear leadership of a focal organization accounts for a stable alliance by guaranteeing legitimacy and authority within the alliance. Effective leadership helps to deal with social, economic and environmental concerns within the inter-organization (Ebers, 1999). In addition, the inter-organization cooperation are increasingly focusing on leadership so as to ensure coordination by merging resources to achieve new things and address common issues through group decision making. Consequently, the leadership behavior of adapting to the competitive global environment through inter-organizational cooperation rather than competing in an adversarial manner ensures survival of the collaboration. This can be attained through impacting leaders with supply chain management skills so that they may be able to establish and maintain effective inter-organizational networks. Proper investment in leaders will ensure that the desired business results are met given that leaders will facilitate an open exchange of proposals which will foster collaboration. Examples include; Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), International Labor Organization (ILO) and Consortia and Enduring Construction firms in the U. S.

Contact Sports

Introduction: According to the oxford dictionary a â€Å"Contact sport† is a sport in which participants necessarily come into bodily contact with one another, this includes football, rugby, hockey and la cross. Children and parents must be warned of the mental, physical and social risk factors that are associated with contact sports before being able to participate in them, doing so will lead to less children taking unnecessary risk. One factor that parents should be aware of is the increased risk and occurrence of injuries in children at such a young age.Many injuries such as concussions go unnoticed therefore prolonging and escalating the severity of injuries, in some cases leading to death. For example, second impact syndrome occurs when an athlete returns to a sport too early after suffering from an initial concussion and obtains another concussion shortly after. This often causes fatal effects. Several concussions go undetected because of the difficulty in diagnosing whe ther one is present or has fully healed.Although death from a sports injury is rare, the leading cause of death from a sports-related injury is a brain injury. According to stats Canada about 4. 27 million Canadian aged 12 or older suffered an injury sever enough to limit their usual activities in 2009-2010. (MAYBE CHANGE IT TO A CONTACT SPORT STAT) In more recent years there has been a discovery associated with multiple concussions known as CTE. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) caused by cumulative, long term neurological consequences of repetitive concussions and hits to the brain.This causes cognitive and neuropsychiatric impairment which include depression, suicide attempts, insomnia, paranoia, and impaired memory. Another issue that parents needs to be aware of is the increase in violence and aggression that is common in contact sports. Children are often rewarded for being aggressive which can lead to aggression and violence off the playing field. It makes it difficult f or children to draw the line between what is acceptable aggression and unacceptable and may lead to violent behavior.According to a study found results strongly suggest that participation in powered sports actually leads to an increase of enhancement of anti social involvement in the form of elevated level of violence(Participation in power sports and antisocial involvement in preadolescent and adolescent boys. Research Center for Health Promotion (HEMIL), University of Bergen, Norway) . So not only does this lead to children being violent in day to day life but also being dangerously violent in sports adding to an increase in injuries.The glorification of violence and aggression in sports leads to kids focusing more to use their bodies rather than skill in the game, In a Dutch population-based study on 1818 school children aged 8 to 17 years showed that Over a period of 7 months, 399 sports injuries were reported in 324 youngsters. The most common types of injuries were contusions (43%) and sprains (21 %). Medical attention was needed in 25% of all cases. This is problematic because it puts children at an unfair playing field and reduces enjoyment of the game for smaller and non athletic children.In addition coaches may unknowingly promote stereotypes such as homophobia and gender roles. It seems to be more amplified in contact sports where aggression is considered to be a more masculine trait. This can severely affect the child’s ideas and concepts during the prime learning age. Discourse surrounding contact sports coming from coaches, even parents and fan tends to encourage the common stereotypes and leads violent behavior this view is supported by an article called (THE SPORT BEHAVIOUR OF CHILDREN PARENTS AND COACHES THE GOOD THE BAD THE UGLY by david light shields uni of missouri , st. ouis ). Overall there are several factors that children are exposed to during contact sports that can lead to mental, physical and social risk factors. Many of these issues are unknown and unclear to parents and its our job to warn them. These factors not only harm the children themselves, it can also be detrimental to their growing process and even friends and families associated with them

Feasibility study for punch drinks Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Feasibility study for punch drinks - Coursework Example Feasibility study for punch drinks Punch drinks unlike other business firms has an ultra-successful sortie into the beverage market which is driven by necessity; being set up in a society where sports is valued, and the disappointing taste of existing energy drinks. The existing drinks had questionable ingredients and could not be believed to be in synchrony with the changing lifestyles. Establishing the feasibility Punch energy drink is a visually clean and appealing brand which gets the eye of the consumer at sight. Punch drinks comes into the energy drinks production industry with an intention to meet the changing demand of the clients in a classy way. As the tastes of people change with the ever-changing trend if the world, it is important to note the aspect of moving with the change in order to succeed in the industry. Currently people have developed concerns over their health in terms of what they take. Thus, a result was the calls for natural drinks which have no additives. Punch comes as a solution by producin g an energy drink which has no additive; has only the natural ingredients and changes the way the drink tastes. The drink is presented as a pleasant tasting assortment of juice flavours and ingredients of energy which gives the product a natural taste of a fruit. This is a big leap towards the mild but sweet flavour which ends with a crisp and clean finish. In the production process, a number of additives used by other firms have been eliminated, such as gurana. In the real sense, punch energy drink is a valiant product which in it presents the first hand thought of innovation combined with the realities of its viability which makes punch drinks a business firm of the 21st century as it respects the need of the people and move along with them. Market research and competitor analysis Based on PEST analysis, it is likely to identify the essential environmental effects on punch drinks. Firstly, it is eminent that the main economic issue is the universal recession which was initially ca used by the U.S. housing bubble over 2005 to 2008. This financial crisis has been to sturdily motivate consumers to purchase affordable products with immense quality. This means that punch drinks will attract a good number of consumers without much efforts in advertising and sales promotion. Due to this, it is not essential to adopt complex strategies to grow the customer base. On the other hand, the recession resulted in the increase on the production costs, thus creating a doubt in the lowly priced and high-quality products. Therefore, the business should consider this problem for it to ensure that it will succeed in the market. Furthermore, social aspects which influence punch drinks include the variation in consumer taste, lifestyle and health concerns. It is definite that over the recent years, customers have changed their taste preferences such as the rise in the demand for natural and organic drinks. Punch drinks should consider this aspect since it may have effects on the fu ture strategies of product developments. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the changes in lifestyle might escalade the need for natural drinks. At the present, health concerns have become global issues, with consumers purchasing healthier products without many worries (Elliott 2005). In order to analyze the competitive environment of punch drinks, porter’

Criminal Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Criminal Law - Essay Example The evidence for these facts is that she has told the officer that she has been robbed and he was wearing dark t-shirt and white pants, which was a lie. According to 30 USC 941- sec 941 ,the lady will be fined for $ 1000 for false statement and she will be convicted and will be given imprisonment for not less than 1 year or both. The Second crime-The second evident crime in this scenario is that the man who was being stopped by the police officer Jones was a criminal. He also did not stopped at first call of the police officer which was a crime .The man was carrying drugs as cocaine was a serious drug and possession of it is against law.. The evidence for this claim is that the police officer found a bulge in the rear side of the person and on checking it was found to be cocaine and a cell phone hidden. As per (Find Law,2013) â€Å" Simple drug possession sentences tend to be the lightest, while intent to distribute drugs or the cultivation/manufacturing of drugs carry much heavier penalties†.According to section 844, the possession of drug is considered as a felony and the punishment can vary from small fine to imprisonment for years. It depends on the intensity of the crime. The third crime The third crime in this case is that the lady was abused by her husband. As a matter of fact physically abusing a person by another person is a criminal act. Especially, when the physical abuse is performed by the spouse then the act takes a serious criminal course.. An act of torturing and assaulting a woman is a serious criminal and legal issue and can cause legal action on the husband of the woman. According to (Madison,2013) â€Å"Felony domestic violence is a type of criminal charge. When a person is charged with domestic violence, it means he or she is accused of behaving violently toward family members or people who live with him or her†. The evidence for this instance is that upon investigation the lady revealed that she lied to protect her husband fr om arrest and she was abused by him. Under section 922(g)(20 The domestic violence is a felony and a federal crime and penalties to the bodily injury can apply and also the convict can be given imprisonment for 5 years. The Forth crimeThe forth crime is done by the police officer as he did mistake in identifying the robber and shot him instantaneously. This was a false action and a crime. A police officer does have a right to shoot but it cannot be in such cases where the culprit is almost at the reach of a police officer. The police officer cannot shoot a person or a culprit unless he is in a dire or a threatening situation. Here the culprit did not show any arm or weapon to the police officer jones so it is a crime from the police officer side to shoot the person immediately without a confined reason. According to (Olson,2013) ‘It is a mistake to   think because police are trained in firearm use, they are less likely to kill innocent bystanders†. The evidence for thi s fact that is that the person was shot on shoulder and was taken to hospital. According to The police officer will be given suspension for shooting the person without solid reason. The civil action -Here in this case the possible civil action that can be taken is to protect the health and life of the person who was shot by the police officer. Even though the person was a drug dealer and a criminal, the law authority has every right to protect his civil right which is protection of his life

The Different Scial Status for Ancient Chinese Women Research Paper

The Different Scial Status for Ancient Chinese Women - Research Paper Example This essay stresses that the place of women in the society has always been an issue of concern for many decades. It is of crucial significance to note that in earlier days, women were considered less superior in many aspects of life. This consideration built a lot of misconception in the minds of the people, especially men in the society. The chauvinism aspects of the male species majorly reinforced these forms of misconceptions and ill beliefs towards the women. It is of crucial significance to note that male chauvinism as well as the ingrained mental misconceptions and ill beliefs led to several forms of oppressions to the women. It is important to note that these oppressions and sufferings that women underwent were a global ordeal in the ancient times. This paper makes a conclusion that it is critical to note that in the ancient days, the women were only expected to play domestic roles, limited to good mothering as well as performing other domestic chores. However, other roles within the society were preserves for men. Women were never allowed to run the families for this was purposefully a man’s role. In addition, women were not allowed to hold any offices. Moreover, the women were never allowed to take part in any constructive debates, discussions or sharing ideas in the society concerning certain issues. However, it is of crucial significance to note that with revolution as well as modernization, the situation has changed considerably. In the current world, women have been empowered to an extent that they perform same roles as men.