Life in Plymouth Colony Essay Example for Free

Life in Plymouth Colony Essay The book of John Demos on â€Å"A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony† explores on the concept of the family life in the context of the Plymouth Colony. In particular, it tends to describe the ways of life of the people in the Plymouth Colony specifically the aspect of family, which is the smallest unit of the society. Through this book review, one will be able to determine the true accounts of the social life and customs of the people in the Plymouth Colony. Basically, the book is dedicated into furthering the importance of the smallest and most intimates of all group environments- the family. This concept has been usually left out by experts and historians alike wherein their interest is focused on the larger units of social actions. This includes the region, the class, the party, the ethnic as well as the religious group. Most of the time, the unit of family is left with the behavioral science which includes the anthropology, sociology and psychology. In order to examine the behavior of the Plymouth Colony in a family setting, the author has to descend on the local level which is considered as almost personal history. As such, one has to know average people in the everyday routine of their lives, in order to begin to understand their behavior in a family setting. In this way, the author was able to successfully present a picture of the family in the Plymouth Colony rather than any single instance thereof. Different aspects of the family setting of the Plymouth Colony have been discussed in the book. The author started with providing a historical survey on the Plymouth Colony. Among the various aspects of family setting mentioned in the book are physical setting, the structure of the household and the themes of individual development. More specifically, the physically setting deals with the elements of housing, furnishing and clothing. On the structure of household, it consists of the husbands and wives, membership, parents and children and, masters and servants. Lastly, the themes of individual development involve the infancy and childhood, coming of age as well as late years. With the examination on the different aspects of the Plymouth Colony’s family setting, the author has come to realized that the family life in Plymouth was not at all unique. This is because of the evident similarities of the colony with other American colonies. More specifically, the similarity between the Plymouth Colony and other American colonies reside in the embrace of the term â€Å"Puritanism†. As such, it can be claimed that the family is, after all, an extremely fundamental and durable institution: it often provides a kind of common denominator, or baseline, for a whole culture whose various parts may differ substantially in other respects. Plymouth Colony has been known as the Old Colony and sometimes, the New Colony. It has been said that this colony is founded by the â€Å"Pilgrims† in 1620. In particular, the â€Å"Pligrims† are defined as the group of religious people which consists of adults as well as family groupings. They were English separatists from New England. They were famous on their sailing away from Europe to New America during the early 17th century in order to search for a home where they could freely practice their Puritan style of religion and live according to their own laws. Orginally, the â€Å"Pilgrims’ are English Puritans who broke away from the Church of England because they felt that it had not completed the work of the Reformation. Because of this, they committed themselves to a life based on the Bible. Most of the members of the â€Å"Pilgrims† are the poorly educated people, farmers and people without political and social standing. (â€Å"Chapter 2: The English Transplantations – People/Term†, 2007) Consequently, the arrival of the â€Å"Pilgrims† in the New World is illustrated by the following lines below: â€Å"Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element. † (Demos, 1971) During their stay in North America, the â€Å"Pilgrims† manifested their views on Puritanism, especially on the way they deal with one another. Through these dealings, it is found out that the repression on the Puritans was not as strongly directed against sexuality as against the expression of hostile and aggressive impulses. Moreover, this evident on the prevalent modes of family life as well as child-rearing. More specifically, the book shows that even from the very start, the family of the Plymouth Colony was nuclear. This family characteristic has been unchanged even from the beginning of their settlement. Specifically, the family consists of one couple and their own children formed the core of each household with the addition in some cases of an aged grandparent or â€Å"servant†. And during these times, the life in the households was much less segmented. However, despite this physical arrangement, the roles and responsibilities of the members of the family are almost the same as today. In this colony, there is a much tighter line of authority between the parent and the child. And the range of functions performed by the family includes material, psychological, social, and otherwise. Above all, the system of family life revolves around the fulfillment of certain basic needs as well as universal needs. These need comprise of the food, shelter and sexual release. Furthermore, the family in the Plymouth Colony setting is likened to different things and institutions. Particularly, the family is described as a â€Å"business†, â€Å"school†, â€Å"vocational institute†, the â€Å"church†, â€Å"house of correction† and as a â€Å"welfare institution†. As a business, the family is the central agency of economic production and exchange. As a school, the parents and the masters are obliged to attend to the educational needs of the children. As a vocational institute, there is a need to apply the knowledge and skills on the larger economic system. As a church, there is an obligation for â€Å"family worship†. Lastly, on the welfare institution, the family usually provides welfare services such as the presence of the hospital or even orphanage. Indeed, the findings on the book of John Demos create awareness on the true nature of the people from the Plymouth Colony. Moreover, it contributes to the strengthening on the American culture and history. In fact, it serves as one of the foundations of the family life of the American people. Undoubtedly, there is only little difference between the family of the Plymouth Colony and the modern-day American family. As such, the study of the ways and customs of the family on the Plymouth Colony proves the resemblance of families between the ancient colonies and the modern societies. Works Cited Demos, John. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Chapter 2: The English Transplantations – People/Term. 2 July 2007. http://www. cvhs. com/CVHS%20Inet/academics/history/apus/ch2. html.

Operating a Fleet of Electric Taxis Essay Example for Free

Operating a Fleet of Electric Taxis Essay Abstract. The deployment of electric taxi ? eets is highly desirable from a sustainable point of view. Nevertheless, the weak autonomy of this kind of vehicles requires a careful operation. The way of managing such a ? eet and the question of locating charging terminals for the vehicles are addressed in this paper. Methods for dealing with these tasks are proposed and their e? ciency is proved through simulations. 1. Introduction 1. 1. Context. Centrale OO 1 is a pioneering project aiming to deploy in Paris a ? eet of 100 % electric taxis. The company in charge of the management of the ? eet is the Soci? t? du Taxi Electrique Parisien (STEP).ee The deployment of such ? eets ? nds is main motivation in sustainable issues: electric vehicles release almost no air pollutants at the place where they are operated and have less noise pollution than internal combustion engine vehicles. However, the main drawback of an electric vehicle is its weak autonomy – 80 km in the case of the Centrale OO project. In taxi ? eet management, two kinds of requests can be di? erentiated: booking requests and opportunistic requests. The ? rst ones can be immediate or in advance of travel and have to be processed by the taxi dispatching system which assigns the request to a taxi. The opportunistic requests correspond to the traditional taxi services picking up passengers at cab-ranks or from the side of the road. Of course, this kind of requests is not processed by the dispatching system. The constraints of the management, as expressed by the STEP, are †¢ A taxi must never break down †¢ An opportunistic demand inside Paris and its suburbs must always be satis? ed (legal environment of Paris) †¢ The number of booking demands accepted has to be maximized The charging problem of the taxis must therefore be carefully addressed. At a tactical level, a good assignment of the trips to the taxis is crucial. We propose an e? cient way to manage the electric ? eet in real-time while taking into account the charging tasks. At a strategic level, the charging problem includes the determination of the best location for the charging terminals. The signi? cant initial investment (the cost of an electrical charging terminal is about 20. 000 euros) and the restricted vehicle autonomy give a high relevancy to the charging terminal location task. Indeed, a wrong placement may in e? ect lead to a poor ? eet management with vehicles having di?culties to charge the batteries due to charging terminals saturation or even with vehicles constantly running out of charge to keep operating. Our purpose is to propose a practical way for computing the â€Å"best† locations for the charging terminals. 1. 2. Model. We describe now formally the model we deal with in this paper. We derive also some elementary relations, which gives some informations on the capacity of a given system (in terms of number of trips that can be realized by unit of time). 1. 2. 1. Input description. A complete directed graph G = (V, A) models the network. The vertices are points in the city at which trips start and ? nish. They can moreover be used to locate vehicle charging terminals. The arcs model the possible trips. The duration of a trip is a random variable Ta of expectation ? a . The Key words and phrases. charging terminal location; electric vehicles; ? eet management system; mixed integer programming; simulation; taxi dispatching. This project has been funded by R? gion Ile de France. e 1 See the website http://taxioo. com/index. html for an artistic view. 1 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 demand for each possible trip a ? A is assumed to follow a Poisson process of rate ? a . Actually, this demand is split between a booking demand and an opportunistic demand, see Section 5 for a more accurate description. There are n taxis. A taxi consumes ? Wh by unit of time when it is moving. It stores ? Wh by unit of time when it is charging. The number of charging terminals is denoted by r. Several terminals can be located at the same vertex. ? 1. 2. 2. Elementary relations. Let us denote by ? a the average number of demands for a trip a that are ? a ? ?a . accepted by unit of time. We have ? 1 ? ? ? ?a ? a be the Let ? = ? a be the average number of trips accepted by unit of time and let ? = ? ? a? A a? A average duration of an accepted trip. ? The energy consumption of the system by unit of time is ? . The maximal rate of supply in energy is ? r. Therefore, we have the following inequality (1) ? ? ? ? r hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 A second inequality can be derived by considerations on the time needed to perform the di? erent tasks. Let us consider a taxi over a time window of su? ciently large duration T . Denote by x the time during ? which it stores energy at a charging terminal. Over the time window, it spends in average T n unit of time with a customer on board. Therefore, we have ? T +x? T n During this duration x, it stores a quantity of energy that must cover in average the consumption over the time window. Hence ? ?T ? ? x n Combining these two inequalities leads to (2) ? (? + ? ) ? n Equations (1) and (2) can be summarized in the following inequality. (3) ? ? ? min ? r n , (? + ? )? Knowing the number of taxis, their e? ciency (encoded by ? ), the number of charging terminals, and their e? ciency (encoded by ?), then an upper bound of the number of trips that can be accepted by unit of time can be calculated. 1. 3. Plan. Section 2 is devoted to the literature review for the two problems addressed in this paper, namely ? eet management and charging terminal location. The following sections – Section 3 and Section 4 – detail the approaches proposed for each of these problems. Next, we describe a simulator that has been implemented for the evaluation of the proposed approaches (Section 5). The results of the experiments are described in Section 6. The paper ends with concluding remarks (Section 7). 2. Literature review 2. 1. Taxi dispatching. Traditional taxi dispatching systems are characterized by two principles. First, simple rules such as for example â€Å"nearest vehicle ? rst† or â€Å"least utilized ? rst† are used for dynamic vehicle assignment and second, the geographical space is usually divided into zones. In the literature, most of works on the topic basically focus on customer waiting time minimization by proposing improved methods for rule-based systems. In this context, Shrivastava et al. [SCMK97] describe a fuzzy model for rule selection and Alshamsi et al. [AAR09] propose a new technique for dynamically divide the dispatch areas. The recent apparition of transportation technologies (GPS, EDI, GIS) has widely increased the opportunities for ? eet management optimization. It is also the case for taxi dispatching. For example, Seow et 2 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 al. [SDL10] propose a collaborative model for taxi dispatching where a set of n taxis of the same zone are de? ned as the agents of the model and a set of n customers as the service-requests. The objective is then to maximize the total service quality solving a collaborative linear assignment problem. However, taxi dispatching is not the only aspect that can be optimized. For example, Lee et al. [LSP08] and Jia et al. [Jia08] use real-time vehicle information to propose a model for taxi relocation recommendation based on demand forecasting and a probability model for the design of taxi stops, respectively. Another approach for ? eet management optimization consists in modeling the problem as a variant of the Pick-up and Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (PDVRPTW). The idea is to plan a set of routes satisfying known in advance customer requests. In the taxi management context, Wang et al. [WLC09] propose a bi-criteria two-phase method with an initial feasible assignment ? rst and a tabu search improvement later in order to minimize the number of vehicles and the sum of travel times for advanced bookings. However, the idea to block some vehicles only for advanced bookings might in some cases yield to a ? eet underutilization. Horn and al. [Hor02] and Meng et al. [MMYH10] try to ? ll the gap between simple non-optimized rule-based taxi dispatching systems and static routing approaches. The second paper describes a genetic network programming in order to ?nd the optimal balance between the waiting time and the detour time. The work of Horn [Hor02] is of particular interest in relation to the present work, proposing a taxi dispatching system architecture similar to our ? eet management system. He proposes a system for vehicle travel time minimization composed by a set of insertion algorithms to decide whether a new customer is accepted or not and a set of optimization mechanisms in order to improve the solution. However, some important di? erences exist between our work and these last two ? eet management systems. The ?rst di? erence is that in our case, the constraints related to the restricted autonomy of the vehicles have also to be taken into account by scheduling charging tasks in the routes of the vehicles. The second di? erence is that, unlike us, both articles deal with the multi-customer problem authorizing customers to share the same vehicle at the same time. 2. 2. Location issue. The location problem was originally de? ned by Webber when he considered how to position a single warehouse minimizing the total distance between the warehouse and a set of customers [Web29]. In 1964, Hakimi [Hak64] de? nes the P-median problem, the problem consists in determining the best location for a set of limited facilities in order to minimize the sum of the weighted distances between the clients and the facilities serving these clients. The problem increases its relevance during the last decades. High costs related to property acquisition and facility construction make facility location projects a critical aspect of strategic planning for a wide range of private and public ? rms. Indeed, the fact that facility location projects are long-term investments leads the researchers to focus on dynamic and stochastic location problems (see [OD98] for a review of this extension of the problem). Another important variant of the problem is the Capacitated Facility Location Problem (CFLP) where facilities have a constraining upper limit on the amount of demand they can satisfy. An extension of the CFLP closely to our problem is the Capacitated Facility Location Problem with Multiple facilities in the same site (CFLPM). In charging terminal location, the positions of the terminals are not the only decision variables, the number of terminals at each position have to be ? xed too. However, in some real-world applications, selecting the best location for distance minimization is not the best suitable choice. For example, in electric vehicle charging terminal location, like in other critical applications such as ambulance and ? re terminal location, the interest is to guarantee that the di? erent geographic zones are covered by a facility (closer than a previously ?xed covering distance). This class of problems are known as Covering Location Problems (see [WC74], [SVB93] and more recently [VP10] for a complete review of covering problems). In that context, the covering issue can be sometimes modelled as a problem constraint. However, if the covering distance is ? xed to a small value the problem might become unfeasible. The Maximal Covering Location Problem (MCLP) [CR74] locates the facilities in order to maximize the number of covered customers (customers with a distance to the nearest facility smaller than an initial ?xed distance). An extension of the problem is the maximal covering with mandatory closeness problem which imposes a maximal distance (less stringent than the covering distance) between the geographical zones and the nearest facility [CR74]. These covering models implicitly assume that if a geographical zone is covered by a facility then the facility will be always available to serve the demand. However, in some applications, when facilities have a ? xed capacity, being covered is not su? cient to guarantee the demand satisfaction. We ? nd 3 in the literature some models attempting to overcome this issue by maximizing the number of geographical zones covered by multiple facilities [DS81, HR86, GLS97]. 3. Fleet management We describe in this section two ways for managing the ? eet, a classical and rule-based one (Subsection 3. 1), and an improved one trying to address explicitly the charging issue (Subsection 3. 2). Let us ? rst introduce some notations. Let CRi be a booking customer request. Each customer request CRi is de? ned by a start time Si and an origin-destination pair Oi ? Di . The Si is ? xed by the customer when the customer request arrives. The completion time of a trip is Ci = Si + ? Oi Di , where ? Oi Di is the travel time between the origin and destination of the customer request CRi . Finally, let R : CTj be a taxi charging task scheduled on the charging terminal CTj . 3. 1. A classical rule-based taxi dispatching system. A taxi dispatching system based on the principles of the most common real-world systems (see for example [SCMK97], [LWCT04] or [AAR09]) is described in this section. The architecture of the current taxi dispatching systems are very similar to the system illustrated in Figure 1. The two main components of the system are (1) a customer acceptation mechanism deciding for each new customer if it is accepted (the accepted customers are inserted into a queue of customers) or rejected and (2) a rule-based mechanism assigning accepted customer requests (trips) to the free taxis. For each accepted trip i, the assigning process has to start a few minutes (? ) before the ? xed start time (Si ) in order to maximize the chances to ? nd a taxi to attend the demand. Once a trip is assigned to a taxi, the vehicle is automatically blocked and the taximeter begins counting. hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 Customer Request Rule? based Customer Acceptation Mechanism Time? ordered queue of customers CRn CR2 CR1 Figure 1. Rule-based taxi dispatching system A rule for customer acceptation using the time windows for the trips already accepted is proposed. The idea is to limit the trips that have to be performed at the same time in order to minimize the number of not served customers and to establish a margin of k vehicles to attend opportunistic customers. For each new customer request CRnew the Algorithm 1 determines if it is accepted or not. Algorithm 1: Rule-based checking for customer acceptation for a margin of k vehicles L = {CR1 , CR2 , . . . , CRn }, list of already accepted customers CRnew , new booking customer request nC 0, number of trips performed at the same time than CRnew foreach CRi of L do if CRi is executed at the same time than CRnew ((Si ? Snew Ci ) or (Snew ? Si Cnew ) then Step 1: Increase the number of customers performed at the same time than CRnew (nC nC + 1) if condition to accept the customer (nC n ? k) then Step 2: Insert CRnew to the list of accepted customers L 4. Once the customer request CRi is accepted, it remains in the queue of customers until Si ? ? (? is usually ? xed around 20 minutes). At that moment, the system automatically starts looking for a free taxi having su? cient charge to operate the trip. If di? erent taxis are available, the system assigns the trip to the taxi minimizing the customer waiting time (a parameterizable not announced customer waiting time can be authorized). In the case of no vacant taxis are available, the system waits for a vehicle to become available. If the waiting time for any request exceeds the authorized maximal customer waiting time ?, the customer request is then canceled. Note that the number of unsatis? ed customers can be reduced by using a more restrictive rule for the customer acceptation mechanism. The main advantage of such a system where no future work is planned is the high degree of independence for taxi drivers. On the other hand, the drawbacks are the underutilization of the ? eet and the lost of e? ciency during the peak hours when most of the companies have to close their booking requests systems in order to avoid unsatis? ed customers. Indeed, some real-world systems do not integrate a customer acceptation mechanism leading, in rush hours, to unsatis?ed customers who had been initially accepted and they are ? nally served with an unannounced and, sometimes, intolerable delay or, eventually, never served at all. Furthermore, the charging tasks of the vehicles cannot be controlled leading to a poor ? eet management with vehicles having di? culties to charge the batteries due to charging terminals saturation. 3. 2. The improved electric vehicle management system. An improved ? eet management system aiming to overcome the weakness of the rule-based taxi dispatching system is proposed in this section. The main objectives of the system are to maximize the number of accepted customers and to minimize the customer waiting time. One of the major issues is how to deal with opportunistic demand. Indeed, this kind of demand is unpredictable and must always be satis? ed, so free taxis must be at any moment able to satisfy the longest trip without running out of charge. This constraint makes the problem considerably more complex forcing the system to provide a mechanism ensuring the feasibility of the already accepted trips each time an opportunistic demand is accepted. The approach proposed consists in maintaining continuously a feasible planning for the taxis and the charging terminals (see Figure 2). Each time a customer asks for a trip, a simple insertion algorithm is run, at the end of which either the trip has been successfully inserted or not. The objective is to assign the customer to the taxi minimizing the customer waiting time (a parameterizable announced customer waiting time can be authorized). If none of the tried delays on the pick-up time leads to a feasible planning, a rescheduling algorithm allowing to reallocate the already accepted customers to the taxis is run. In all these processes, a key routine is often called, namely the charging task manager, which schedules the charging tasks of a taxi, given a planning for the other taxis and the charging terminals. Feasible planning:Temporal and autonomy? related constraints are satisfied Taxi 1 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 Taxi 2 111111 000000 111111 000000 111111 000000 111111 000000 111111 000000 111 000 111 000 CR2 111 000 111 000 CR1 R : CT1 CR4 R : CT2 CR5 VEHICLES Customer Customer Request Acceptation Mechanism Feasible Planning Taxi 000000 n 111111 111111 000000 111111 000000 CR3 R : CT1 111111 000000 111111 000000 1111111111111111111111 0000000000000000000000 Taxi n Taxi 1 CT1 CHARGING TERMINALS CT2 Taxi 2 Figure 2. Customer acceptation mechanism of the electric vehicle management system In the case of an opportunistic demand, which is necessarily accepted, we follow exactly the same scheme except that there is no degree of freedom in the insertion process: the trip is inserted at the front of the planning of the taxi stopped by the customer, and the rescheduling algorithm is also run if it is necessary. 5 3. 2. 1. Insertion algorithm. This algorithm is the ?rst step in order to decide if a new trip CRnew is accepted or not. The objective is to assign the trip to the taxi minimizing the delay on the pick-up time (see Algorithm 2). The algorithm increasely tests the di? erent authorized pick-up times. Once the start time is ? xed, we sequentially try for each vehicle to insert the new request. First the scheduled charging tasks are removed. Then the new request is accepted only if it can be inserted with no constraint violation (the pick-up times of the rest of customers are respected and the current autonomy of the vehicle, without any charging task, is su? cient). In the case that the vehicle autonomy-related constraint is violated, a greedy algorithm trying to schedule a charging task between each pair of trips is proposed. After the charging tasks are inserted, if the taxi is able to perform the trips without running out of charge, then the customer request is also accepted. Algorithm 2: New request insertion algorithm for a maximal authorized delay of ? minutes V = {V1 , V2 , . . . , Vr }, list of taxis CRnew , new booking customer request accepted f alse, variable indicating if the new request is accepted st Snew , start time of the trip while st ? Snew + ?and accepted = f alse do foreach vi of V do Step 1: Delete the charging tasks of the vehicle vi if CRnew starting at st can be inserted in the route of the vehicle vi then if the vehicle autonomy-related constraint is satis? ed then Step 2: CRnew starting at st is inserted in the route of the vehicle vi (accepted true) else Step 3: Insert charging tasks for vi between each pair of trips if the vehicle autonomy-related constraint is satis? ed then Step 2: CRnew starting at st is inserted in the route of the vehicle vi (accepted true) if accepted = f alse then Step 4: Increase the pick-up time for the CRnew (st st + 1) hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 3. 2. 2. Rescheduling algorithm. The rescheduling algorithm is proposed when the new customer is still not accepted after the insertion algorithm. As for the insertion algorithm, the goal is to ? nd a new feasible planning for the vehicles integrating the new request CRnew . The main di? erence is that the trips can be reassigned to di? erent vehicles. The problem without taking into account the autonomy-related constraints can be solved in polynomial time [NSZ02]. The idea is to convert the schedule of trips (without the charging tasks) into a graph and to verify using a max ? ow computation that all trips can be performed by the taxis. To construct the network two vertices are considered for each customer request CRi , the ? rst one vi represents the pick-up time and the second one vi the completion time of the customer request. Four dummy vertices are required: 0, 0 , a source s and a sink t. The arcs of the graph are (s, 0), (0 , t), all the (s, vi ), all the (vi , t), all the (vi , vi ), and all the (vi , vj ) such that the customer request CRj can be performed by the same taxi than the customer request CRi and after CRi , that means if Sj ?Ci + ? Di Oj . Except the arcs (s, 0) and (0 , t), they all have a capacity equal to 1. The arcs (s, 0) and (0 , t) have a capacity equal to n. A maximum ? ow computation in this directed graph determines the schedule feasibility and also proposes a new planning for the vehicles respecting the customers pick-up times. The max ? ow computation is integrated in the rescheduling algorithm in order to check the feasibility of the schedule for a given pick-up time st ? [Snew , Snew + ? ] and, if it is the case, to ? nd a reference planning (planning without charging tasks). A local search explores the neighborhood of the reference planning de? ned by the swap and the reallocation operators [Sav92]. Finally, for each explored planning respecting temporal constraints, the greedy algorithm for charging task scheduling is sequentially applied to the taxis that do not satisfy autonomy-related constraints (that is, taxis whose current charge is not enough to perform all 6 the trips assigned to them without adding charging tasks). If a feasible solution is found, the new customer is then accepted. 3. 2. 3. Charging task manager. As we have already seen, the insertion and the rescheduling algorithm constantly runs a greedy algorithm aiming to insert a charging task between each pair of successive trips of the same route. The algorithms proposed to determine if a new charging task can be integrated in a speci? c charging terminal planning are described in this subsection. The main feature of our problem is that the processing time of the new charging task is not ? xed, instead it is a decision variable de?ned between the interval limited by the minimal charging time for a vehicle pmin (customizable parameter) and the maximal charging time corresponding to the time necessary for a full charge. The problem to be solved by the charging terminal manager can be then formally stated as follows. A charging task Ri is de? ned by its time window [ri , di ], where ri is the earliest start time (earliest arrival time to the terminal) and di the latest end time (latest departure time from the terminal). Let pi be the decision variable corresponding to the processing time of the task Ri , then ri ? Si and Si + pi ? di , where Si is the e? ective start time of Ri . Given a feasible schedule of n charging tasks S n = {S1 , S2 , . . . , Sn , } for the charging terminals located at the same geographical position. We are given a new charging task Rn+1 with a time window [rn+1 , dn+1 ] and a processing time pn+1 inside the interval pmin ? pn+1 ? pmax . The problem consists in ? nding a new n+1 feasible schedule S n+1 = {S1 , S2 , . . . , Sn , Sn+1 } maximizing the processing time of the task Rn+1 (whence without changing the processing time of the other tasks). The mechanism tests ? rst a task insertion aiming to ? nd quickly a feasible solution. The complexity of the algorithm for task insertion maximizing the processing time of the new task is O(n) where the start times and completion times of the scheduled jobs are non-decreasing ordered. If no solution is found after the task insertion algorithm, a dichotomous algorithm allowing to reschedule the tasks is proposed in order to ? nd a solution maximizing the processing time of the new task. For each iteration of the algorithm, a satis? ability test based on constraint propagation involving energetic reasoning is ?rst triggered. The goal of the feasibility test is to detect an inconsistency indicating that it is not possible to ? nd a feasible schedule integrating the new task. Finally, if the energetic reasoning is not conclusive a local search algorithm is proposed in order to ? nd a solution. Satis? ability test: Energetic reasoning. A satis? ability test based on constraint propagation involving energetic reasoning is proposed [LE96]. A ? ctitious energy (which has nothing to do with the electricity) is produced by the charging terminals and it is consumed by the charging tasks. We determine the ? ctitious energy consumed by the tasks (Econsumed ) over a time interval ? = [t1 , t2 ] and we compare this ? ctitious energy with the available ? ctitious energy (Eproduced = m ? (t2 ? t1 )). The minimal ? ctitious energy consumed by the tasks in an interval ? = [t1 , t2 ] is: n+1 hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 (4) Econsumed = i=1 max{0, min{pi , t2 ? t1 , ri + pi ? t1 , t2 ? di + pi }} If Econsumed Eproduced , it is then impossible to ? nd a feasible schedule S n+1 integrating the new task. The relevant intervals ? for a complete satis? ability analysis can be enumerate in O(n2 ). The test is restricted to the intervals [t1 , t2 ] speci? ed by {ri } ? {di } ? {ri + pi } ? {di ? pi } where the new task Rn+1 may consume (t1 ? dn+1 and t2 ? rn+1 ). Dichotomous algorithm. A dichotomous algorithm maximizing the processing time of the new task is described in this section (see Algorithm 3). A dichotomy is run on the processing time p as follows. For processing times p ? [pmin , pmax ], the satis? ability test based one the energetic reasoning indicates whether n+1 the necessary conditions are satis? ed or not. If it is the case, a local search mechanism tries to ? nd a feasible schedule. The parallel machine scheduling problem with time windows can be solved by a list scheduling algorithm. It means there exists a total ordering of the jobs (i. e. , a list) that, when a given machine assignment rule is applied, reaches the optimal solution. For our problem, this rule consists in allocating each task to the machine that allows it to start at the earliest (Earliest Start Time or EST rule). The local search mechanism proposed to solve the problem is based on this result. First, the tasks are ordered in a non-decreasing order of their due dates (Earliest Due Date or EDD rule), then the local search consists in 7 exploring di?erent permutations of the list de? ned by the insertion neighborhood (O(n2 )). For each list of task, the machines are assigned according to the EST rule in order to reach a feasible solution. If no feasible schedule is eventually found, the request is rejected. Algorithm 3: Dichotomous algorithm for processing time maximization min pmin max pmax n+1 n+1 Sbest ? while min ? max do Step 1: Fix the processing time p of the new task Rn+1 (p min+max ) 2 if Satisf iabilityT est() then Step 2: Sort the tasks according to the EDD rule Step 3: Local search using the insertion operator if a feasible schedule S n+1 = {S1 , S2 , .. . , Sn , Sn+1 } is found then Step 4: Update the lower limit (min p + 1) n+1 Step 5: Update the best solution (Sbest S n+1 ) else Step 6: No solution exists, update the upper limit (max p ? 1) else Step 7: No solution exists, update the upper limit (max p ? 1) n+1 if Sbest = ? then Step 8: No solution is found (return ? ) else n+1 Step 9: A feasible solution is found (return Sbest ) hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 4. Electric vehicles charging terminal location The EV charging terminal location problem consists in determining the best locations of the charging terminals. The linear programming model has to take into account two important aspects. First, the charging terminals have to be conveniently spread over the geographical area in order to avoid remote geographical zones which di? cult taxi operability and ? eet management. The second aspect is that the model has to determine the number of charging points facilitating the charging process of the taxis by minimizing the risks of terminals saturation. For these purposes, we propose two models, one called the P -median model, the other the Demand-based model. V is the set of geographical points of the problem and J ? V is the set of potential locations where the charging terminals can be located. The number of terminals is limited to r. 4. 1. P -median model. Following Hakimi [Hak64], we de? ne xj to be the decision variables indicating if a facility is located to the point j and yij to be the variables indicating that the geographical point i is assigned to the facility located in j. The linear program minimizing the sum of the distances between clients and facilities can be written as follows. 8 (5) min i? V j? J distij yij s. t. (6) j? J yij yij xj j? J = 1 for all i ? V ? xj for all i ? V, j ? J ? r ? {0, 1} for all j ? J ? {0, 1} for all i ? V, j ? J (7) (8) (9) (10) xj yij hal-00721875, version 2 31 Jul 2012 4. 2. Demand-based model. Another approach consists in de? ning a model with two distances ? f ar and ? close as proposed by Church and ReVelle [CR74]. The idea is then to spread the terminals by ? xing a maximal distance (? f ar ) between the di? erent geographical zones and the nearest charging terminal and, at the same time, trying to maximize the demand that will be covered by a nearby charging terminal (? close ). We can then de? ne Jif ar (resp. Jiclose ) as the subset of points in J at distance less than ? f ar (resp. ?close ) from i ? V . Conversely, Vjclose is the set of points at distance less than ? close from the point j ? J. Let xj be the decision variable indicating the number of terminals located at point j ? J and yij to be the fraction of the demand di for i ? V covered by a charging terminal located in j at distance less than ? close from i. The linear programming model proposed to solve the problem called Demand-based model is the following. (11) max j? J i? Vjclose di yij s. t. (12) f j? Ji ar xj yij close j? Ji ? 1 for all i ? V ? 1 for all i ? V ? xj for all j ? J ? r ? Z+ for all j ? J ? R+ for all i ? V, j ? Jiclose (13) (14) i? Vjclose di yij xj j? J (15) (16) (17) xj yij The objective function (Eq. (11)) consists in maximizing the pointwise demand covered by a charging terminal considering the distance ? close . Eq. (12) imposes that a geographical zone i ? V must be covered at least for one charging terminal considering the distance ? f ar . Here the mandatory closeness is only required for the geographical zones closer than ? f ar from a potential charging terminal location in order to ? nd a solution even if this constraint is violated for some geographical zones. We stress that an adequately ? f ar make possible to spread the charging terminals over the geographical area. Eq. (13) speci? es that for each geographical zone i ? V the sum of the fractions of demand covered by a charging terminal considering the distance ? close has to be less or equal to the unit.

Therapeutic Horseback Riding

Therapeutic Horseback Riding Running Head: THERAPEUTIC HORSEBACK RIDING Abstract Therapeutic horseback riding is very beneficial for a rider of any age and had been used as a way of improving the health and physically good state of a person with a handicap or disability. Therapeutic horseback riding is a good way of teaching a kid with disabilities how to react and grow while working with horses. Horses have an uncanny way of communicating with a person and knowing how to work with them to benefit them no matter how long they have known the person. Many miracles have happened with people who were disabled and told they couldnt do something but with some work are able to now. I have heard many success stories in the news and in the paper about people getting into accidents or becoming unable to move and after many years of hard work on horseback they are able to take their first step again! Therapeutic Horseback Riding Eleven years ago, Henry Boersmas stroke left him not only paralyzed on his left side, but without the self-confidence he once had in his career as a regional industrial representative. It took a move to Ocala and volunteering with MTRA Marion Therapeutic Riding Association) to not only find his self-esteem again, but also regain his physical strength-on the back of a horse. When Henry, now 64, heard someone from the Marion Therapeutic Riding Association speak at a meeting of a local stroke club about five years ago, Henry decided to give it a try, even though he had never been on a horse in his life. â€Å"The first time I was on a horse, I was really sore the next day! Now I ride once a week, and volunteer 5 days a week. I feed the horses, clean their hooves, and even help clean the fields and carry the manure! I go home tired, but it feels good. This is such a great program. Two years ago Henry won the Exceptional Challenge Cup at the National United Professional Horseman Associat ion competition in Kansas City. He won third overall too. (Marion, 2007) Therapeutic horseback riding can help people in many ways and can be traced throughout the ages. There is documentation of individuals exploring the different therapeutic ways of horsemanship as far back as 600 B.C. The first study actually documented can be traced back to 1875 where Cassaign, a doctor, prescribed horseback riding his patients and believed that riding would and did benefit the patient. There were many patients with all different issues like; neurological disorders, joint pain, people being told they will never walk again, and people with balance issues. A hospital in England called Oxford tells their patients or injured soldiers from World War I to ride. (Marion, 2007) Due to the unique bond formed between human and animal. Many people throughout the ages have realized the importance of riding for people with disorders of all kinds. History According to the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association, therapeutic riding is mostly attributed to Lis Hartel. She was stuck in wheelchair and even though she could barley walk she was very determined to keep riding despite her disability. Hartel was stricken with polio in 1940 and that illness made her limited to how much she could move. Even though she was limited in her mobility she still rode all the time and due to that she was successful in rehabilitating herself through horseback riding. She was so successful that she went and won two Olympic silver medals for Grand Prix Dressage in 1952 and 1956. This caught the attention of therapists, and doctors and Hartel paired with a physical therapist and together started one of the first. (ORourke, 2004) Therapeutic Riding According to All and Loving (1999) therapeutic horseback riding, which can also be called equine-assisted is an emerging activity used for a person with a range of mental, physical, social or emotional needs and who need special attention to survive in life. This kind of riding is greatly beneficial for the rider as a way of improving health and a well being of people with handicaps and disabilities. There are two services in therapeutic riding equine assisted activities and equine assisted therapy. Equine assisted activities are activities with the horses provided by trained professionals, but more focusing on recreational, leisure, sport or education some examples are therapeutic riding, driving or equine facilitated learning. All these activities are guided by an educational or learning model and skills are taught to riders and students. (Bieber N. 1996) Equine Assisted Activities- Therapeutic riding is usually most effective in children because they are learning from the horse mental and social development. These activities produce many improvements and many success stories in riders of all ages. Some activities they do on horse back are identifying shapes, colors, numbers, letters, and pictures and also playing games to help the kids function while working a horse but also improving on their flexibility, balance, posture, breathing, and verbal abilities. There are hundreds of programs around the world as well as many organizations that work with the various forms of therapeutic riding including hippo therapy which is a treatment strategy used by occupational, physical and speech therapists and use the horse as a therapeutic tool. The movement of the horse is helps by influencing neuromuscular changes in the patient. Psychotherapy- There is psychotherapy which is used by a mental health professional and uses the horse not as a tool but in different ways for a therapeutic benefit. Horses often provide the best therapy for patients because they do not have to suffer from the unreliability of a person. (Warner Saleh, 2007). Horses are honest, which forces the patient to become responsible for their actions. Patients who refuse to admit to their responsibilities encounter many difficulties in working with a horse. Once a patient begins to admit their mistakes and search for ways to fix them, then they are naturally rewarded by the horse being more intuitive to their actions. Equine Assisted Therapy- The other service is Equine Assisted Therapy; these services are taught by licensed medical professional. To be a professional in this kind of program they have to go through proper training, education and state license appropriate to their practice. Examples of this practice are hippo therapy and equine assisted psychotherapy. How they use the horses to help treat the patients is by utilizing the horses movement to meet the patients goal based on what their disability is. But these horses help the patients not only with acquiring a relationship with the animal and learning to care for the animal but riding a horse provides a often profound and unique activity for many people. The motion of the horse, the concentration it takes to learn how to ride and the communication between their instructor and rider allow the patient to benefit from riding even with a disability and is a fun kind of therapy. This therapy has many benefits because when horseback riding gently and rhythmically mov es the riders body so similar to a humans gait that patients with physical disabilities show improvement in flexibility, balance and muscle strength. But with patients who have a more mental or emotional disability the relationship the patients have with the horse can lead to an more confident person with more self esteem than when first started. (Bieber N. 1996) Who Can Benefit? Physically Disabled- Some advantages of therapeutic riding are; physically therapeutic riding can be beneficial to many people with special needs. Riding is a physical activity and people who are mentally disabled benefit from it with an improvement of physical tasks, balance, muscle strength, flexibility, joint movement, and posture. Some physical disabilities that this helps with is muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, amputation, paralysis, spinal bifida, downs syndrome, etc. (Beiber, 1996) Balance and Posture- Horseback riding requires balance and posture for any rider. Patients lacking good balance and posture get a lot of work on it when riding from the very moment they hop on the back of a horse. The movement from the horse causes the rider to strengthen its core muscles and the movement works on both sides of the rider helping with the position. The connection between riders is the most important element in building a patient up to improve in different areas.(Beiber, 1996) Strength and Flexibility- The movement of a horse requires good strength and flexibility, the muscle regions that are used the most when riding are the back, buttocks, legs, ankles, knees and hips. Riding can also benefit smaller muscles and joints throughout the body in an activity or exercise. This exercise helps riders with low muscles tone and loose flexibility and helps strengthen and tighten the muscles. But it also works in reverse ways also and people with high muscle tone work on relaxing the muscle and moving with the gait of the horse.(Beiber, 1996) Mentally Disabled- People with sensory and cognitive disabilities can be helped on horseback also. Some examples of disabilities that can get help are: mental retardation, autism, brain damage, down syndrome, developmental disorders, ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, learning disabilities, etc. When riding you have to be very attentive and reason skills but also remember things that you have learned as halting, going, trotting, ect. Due to riding building knowledge as time progresses, simple tasks grow into complex skills that can help provide the rider with intellectual stimulation. Riding involves a lot of information in a small amount of time and in a lesson a rider is asked to interpret sensory information they are learning from the horse, instructor, and environment around them.(Sterba J 2007) The rider has to gain and learn all this information that is appropriate for learning riding skills. The motion, feel, smell, sound and sight of a horse is a lot to absorb especially for a mentally disabled person. Even t hough the instructors take it slow and let the student process this information. According to the North American Riding for Handicapped Association (NAHRA, 2002) â€Å"Riding is both relaxing and demanding for students of all cognitive abilities, depending on the focus of the lesson.† Why horses are therapeutic If you have ever looked at a small childs drawing or play toys they have always drawn horses or played with horses even if they have never seen or ridden one. When watching a horse movie you are always cheering or gasping when a horse is running onto the screen or racing in a big derby like Seabiscut . Many children loved that movie or Black Beauty and watched them over and over, playing with toy horses, or having a rocker to ride. I know my niece does and she is only two years old and has never seen a horse, but she rides her rocking horses every day. A horses special power A horse holds a special power that people of all ages will never out grow. No matter if you love or hate horses, if you see a beautiful horse you gasp and love it but then if you see an emaciated, almost dead horse your heart goes out to it. A simple picture of a horse can emotionally move us and interacting with one can strengthen someone who needs it. Horses do have natural healing powers and, if you have ever been around a horse and actually spent some alone time with them it can make you grow so fond of that horse and make you feel like the most amazing person possible. They love to cuddle. They are always curious and can put a smile on any face. So when someone with a mental or physical disorder comes with them, it help the person grow from the inside out and starting with the heart. If you show love to a horse they will show as much love as they can give to you. If you get mad at a horse and they realize they have done bad they will come up to you and try and kiss you and make up to like a dogs does. Those little things a horse does really shows to someone who has trouble mentally because it shows they do care. When interacting with a horse it immediately challenges issues of fear and confidence and horses are very responsive to human emotion and actions. Horses will sense and respond to a students negative emotions and behaviors. If you are frustrated on a horse the horse will sense that and become frustrated also. This shows a person that they need to recognize the effects of their emotions while riding and put all that aside.(Loving 1999) Advantage of Riding One advantage is a horse will never lie to you. Horses will truthfully tell you how it is and never hide emotions. Horses also do not respond nicely to bullying or aggressive behavior, a horse will kick or bite you and never hesitates to tell you â€Å"how it is.† To be able to work correctly with a horse a person needs to be aware of their methods of communication and be able to solve any problems that may come upon them when riding so they get positive responses from the horse. (Loving, 1999) Another positive thing is horses will not judge you they will react simply to what is or has happened or how they feel. People soon learn that the â€Å"labels† that are constantly used in todays society dont apply. They can â€Å"tell it to the horse—he doesnt care† Because of this people who are in therapy are able to learn to truly be themselves and enjoy for the first time in their lives! (Loving 1999) Individuals with emotional, social and mental disabilities benefit in many ways with therapeutic horseback riding. A study found that patients experience increased confidence and improved self-concept and with these activities it helps in a patients social skill. Horses also can help a person feel in control because you are telling the horse to do something and they will do it. A person also improves in communication due to learning how to care for and ride a horse, the patient has to be able to communicate with the horse and the instructor. Riding is a very social activity. Riding helps empower people and enables them to connect on a personal level. Also the unpredictable nature of animals and situations also creates a real-life environment in which the patient will be able to confront fears and make adjustments to situation that can be beyond their control. (Warner C Saleh S 2007) Skills you need to teach Some skills you will need to have to become an instructor or do therapy with the kids on horseback is: You are going to need a lot of patience and consideration to the kids, they do not understand everything going on and it is usually a new environment for them. If you are doing therapy with the kids you need the proper education as a four year college and proper physical therapy degree also. When coaching or instructing you are going to need a degree in an equine program for example equine industries management, so you know how to work with a horse and control a horse if it may go out of control. Other things that will be useful to have is being a happy person and not a grouchy person. A student does not want a grumpy teacher when they are trying to do something but a person who is happy and always cheering them on and helping them achieve the goals they have set for. You really need to have a positive attitude about everything so it is easier on you and the student but also be able to communicate well and if worse comes to worse have a plan B if plan A falls through. You want to be able to make the therapy lessons fun and enjoyable for the students also so they want to come back and enjoy what they are doing. This horse program is an integral part of any ranch and therefore are required to attend sessions at the barn regularly. When you first appear at the ranch you start working with a horse learning the safety, care, feeding, grooming, and as well the basic behavior and herd interaction of a horse. You participate in horse classes with a team of trainers two times a week for an hour and a half each time. Very few students who approach a ranch proclaim they hate horses and want nothing to do with them which is mostly a fear factor. But usually by the time they are done with their program they loves horses and cant get enough of them. These programs have been found to be very successful with the inexperienced as you are able to have a fresh start with them and easily shape the nature of their experience. In conclusion I have found out with a lot of the research I have been doing that when riding a horse you can really grow and become able to do things that you were not able before as; walking, making friends, and the daily chores a person must do. When riding a horse you also form a bond with the horse and learn how to work with such a big animal and you really can grow from the experience and develop better physical, mental and sociological skills that you could not learn before. Therapeutic horse back riding has many benefits and can help people achieve their dreams as it has already done for many others. Therapeutic horseback riding can be a very rewarding experience for the student and the teacher if you put the time and effort in it. Many people say that it is dangerous and students can get hurt but a professional will not put a kid on a high spirited horse all the horses they use are dead broke and are specially trained for this type of work. They are used to high pitched noise s and mentally disabled kids. For these horses this is not their first rodeo.

Like Father Like Son Essays -- Character Analysis, Telemachus, Odysseu

THESIS STATEMENT Throughout the epic the Odyssey the theme like father like son is demonstrated through Telemachus following in his father’s (Odysseus) footsteps. PURPOSE STATEMENT It is evident that through extensive research on the Odyssey, Telemachus evolves into a character similar to his father Odysseus in this epic. INTRODUCTION Imagine ten grueling years of constant bloodbath at war. After all that horror facing journeying on vicious waters: battling a sea monster, traveling to the underworld, and angry gods attempting to wreak havoc everywhere you go. This is all on a quest to reunite with your loved ones. A brave Greek warrior–Odysseus–encounters all these circumstances. His son yearns for him to return home. This son of his is in a nervous state. He has no father figure in his life and is unable to protect his mother in their precarious situation. The Odyssey tells the thrilling tale of the clever Greek hero Odysseus. He has many terrifying adventures on his long awaited return to his kingdom, Ithaca. In this epic Odysseus’ son Telemachus becomes the man his father is and demonstrates personality traits Odysseus possesses. Telemachus must overcome his fear to undertake journeys in order to reunite his family. Odysseus and Telemachus together share a love and appreciation for Penelope. They both began as impulsive men and must learn patience in panicky situations later on. â€Å"He is like his father Odysseus, in that he is loyal and disgusted by evil. He also, like his father, is willing to go fight for his freedom.† (Pope 45) Telemachus is being described in comparison to Odysseus – they are equally dedicated in life to Penelope and have a great will to conquer obstacles in their life to reunite with each other. ... ...e was unsure about taking his father’s place. Odysseus learns to act wisely and not impulsively through his adventures. â€Å"All his past training in patience, wariness and self-control is needed now to help him play his part†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Walker 76). From past obstacles Odysseus was required to overcome on his trip home to Ithaca he was grown from acting out impulsively to thinking out strategies before had for attacks and battles. CONCLUSION In Homer’s the Odyssey the theme like father like son is demonstrated. Telemachus becomes the man his father (Odysseus) is through acquiring personality traits that he has and evolving in a brave and courageous character, such as his father was. Odysseus and Telemachus both go on journeys to reunite their families; they both have a great love and appreciation for Penelope and transition from being impatient and impulsive to patience.

Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) and the Global Economy Essay -- Explo

Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) and the Global Economy Introduction The world we live in today, revolves around technology, new innovations and constant change. The global economy incorporates these changes into its daily applications forming a technological driven world where businesses thrive on information and competitive markets. Computers and communication networks have planted a seed in this information age where enterprises flourish forming revolutionized market economies. One of the most profound changes emerging in the world of business today is the introduction and use of Electronic Commerce or EC. The impact of EC on customer services as well on businesses is dramatic enough to affect any and every organization. Electronic commerce is the buying and selling of products and services and information via a computer network.. It provides opportunities for companies to expand their business worldwide at a small cost. Business to Consumer EC includes business interaction with consumers where companies sell directly to consumers over the Internet. In terms of retail, Business- to – Consumer applications have increased revenues, and eliminated costly intermediaries like distributors, warehousing, etc. In addition, with the development of EC, the use of catalog or television shopping channels are becoming less popular. The former, limits an individual to what is seen on the screen or paper rather than the latter – EC that allows a wide variety of products. Shopping online also offers 24-hour service, the luxury of shopping for an item at your own convenience and detailed information of products and their prices, even when they go on sale! With the use of EC, distribution channels are eliminated maki... ...It benefits consumers immensely by providing convenience and variety. Computers and communication networks have paved the way for a technological driven economy in the last 20 years. Organizations are able to create efficient services and products, resulting in competitive markets, leading to specialization of products and concluding in higher profits and enhanced service. Moreover, the growth of E-commerce obliterates the ‘production focused economy’ of the industrial age and extends the information age to new heights through business services offered using the internet. http://hotwired.lycos.com/special/ene/ Works Cited Efraim Turban, R.Kelly Rainer, Richard E. Potter. Introduction to Information Technology. Toronto: John Wiley and Sons Inc. (2001) Joh Browning and Spencer Reiss. Encyclopedia of the New Economy. (http://hotwired.wired.com/special/ene/)

Prisons Essays -- Social Issues, Rates of Violence

Introduction Longitudinal research has been conducted comparing the rate of violence in male and female prisons. It is important to do research on this topic because it does not only lead to the conclusion of where is violence prevalent, but focuses on other aspects as well. It focuses on the psychological, social, and sexual side of the inmate. This topic does not only focus on who has the highest rates of violence, but why does that sex have a higher rate. This topic looks deeper at the differences between male and female inmates and what causes them to have high rates of violence. Most people would say that male prisons have a higher rate of violence due to biological reasons. People tend to think that males are more aggressive therefore violence is prevalent in male prisons, yet there is a lot more to this idea. The focus of this paper is to inform if the rates of violence are higher in male or in female prisons and why that is the case. Various key factors have been addressed in relation to this topic. These four factors would not only help in answering the research questions, but open opportunities for similar research to be conducted. This research paper will explore if violence is higher in male or female prisons and why is it high. In order to answer these two research questions, the following factors will be discussed: relational violence in women’s prison, a comparison of sexual coercion experiences reported by men and women in prison, prisoner confrontations and the search for respect, and the rates of victimization. Theoretical Framework The most important factor regarding the topic on rates of violence in male and female prisons is relational violence in women’s prison. This factor is ver... ...ul and relevant. Every single study contributed in finding an answer to the research question. The studies showed the factors of why? How? and when? do inmates (males and females) engage in violence and how does this raise the rates of violence. Although all this data was very helpful more research should be performed. There should be more studies focusing on female inmates in order to give a better understanding of female prisons. Furthermore the studies that do use females as part of the study should increase the sample size. Authors usually examine large male sample size and only a few female sample sizes. This leaves people with the question of why is there a huge difference between the sample sizes. In conclusion if experimenters would focus on females like they do with males maybe more data can be presented.

Case Study Retailmax

Case Study RetailMax: Role for Cam Archer and Regan Kessel Elizabeth Smith Grand Canyon University, LDR 610 April 10, 2013 Everyone has power to some degree. French and Raven (1959) distinguished five types of power: referent power, expert power, reward power, coercive power, and legitimate power and with each of the five types, the stronger the basis of power the greater the power. Power is defined in terms of the influence a person has over the ability to change behavior, opinions, attitudes, goals, needs, and values (French & Raven, 1959).Cam Archer is in a position of power at RetailMax; she has the CEO’s support to accept either a more lucrative position in the Professional Services (PS) Department or a marketing position with Regan Kessel, the Vice President of Product Management and Marketing (PMM) (McGinn & Witter, 2006a). Which position will provide Archer with the power to meet her needs; will Kessel’s power be affected if Archer accepts the position within hi s department? The power bases and social influence of both Cam Archer and Regan Kessel will be evaluated to determine which of the two most effectively used their power sources.Cam Archer is in an interim position as a retail account executive with RetailMax, Inc. , a software company based in Boston. Upon graduating with her MBA from a leading business school, Cam began working for RetailMax, a company providing merchandise optimization software. While working in business development where she was responsible for managing strategic alliances and partnerships, RetailMax was forced to downsize and all areas that were not directly involved with making or selling software were laid off.Cam was asked to join the sales team, an avenue she was not interested in, but one she agreed to accept because of her belief and faith in the entrepreneurial culture and service commitment RetailMax could provide to retailers during the current recessionary period (McGinn & Witter, 2006a). Cam’s dedication, drive, sacrifice, and social influence paid off; within the first year of sales she had built solid internal and external customer bases. Cam’s potential power was great. She had the trust and respect of the executive team and the support to decide which position she would accept; her fate was in her own hands.Cam’s referent and expert power is recognized by the CEO when he recruits her to handle an emergency situation with a new RetailMax customer who was one of the largest â€Å"big-box† retailers in the country (McGinn & Kessel, 2006a). Regan Kessel, a seasoned software executive, was recruited by Todd Elman, CEO of RetailMax to head product management and marketing because of his task, knowledge, and personal power. Kessel was put in place during Elman’s turnaround of RetailMax, and upon assessing his team he determined his product managers did not have the time or skill set to develop a consistent and clear marketing message.Although Kess el had the legitimate power to determine a strategy for his marketing dilemma, the solution came through another avenue. An informal meeting with Elman and Archer led to a brainstorming session that produced a plan of how to move Cam into the marketing department and provided a product marketing strategy. A new position, Director of Product Marketing, would be created for Cam, a position that would utilize her knowledge and expertise (McGinn & Witter, 2006b).Kessel is in the position to create a competitive compensation package, will Cam’s gender influence Kessel’s decisions because of stereotypical gender roles? It does not appear that Kessel made compensation decisions based on Archer’s gender; instead, his desire was to come up with a fair proposal based on Archer’s current and potential financial successes for the company, her skills, education, and qualifications; the same factors he utilized in determining the salary base for each of his employees.B ut, Kessel was going to have to make a tough decision. What was he going to offer Archer to incentivize her to accept the Director position, and would there be negative social factors such as resentment and envy toward Archer for her relationship with the Executive team? Cam is in a position of power. Not only does she have power over which position she will take at RetailMax, she also has strong personal and relationship power with both internal and external customers in addition to her close and personal relationship with the CEO and VP of sales.Kessel also possesses strong relationship power, if Cam accepts the position in Professional Services; he knows he can quickly locate a qualified candidate to replace her because of his strong ties and connections in the industry. What assumptions did Kessel make regarding Cam, and what if any assumptions did Cam have regarding Kessel? Kessel is aware that Cam does not want to stay in sales and she is tired of all the travel, he knows she is ambitious and assumes his compensation package will have to match the package being offered by Mangini (McGinn & Witter, 2006b).Cam assumes Kessel may resent not being able to select his own candidate for the Director position. She has researched the salary structure for the product managers and assumes Kessel will offer her a compensation package that is in line with the market, but since her role will have a broader more strategic scope she hopes to be compensated for this. On the other hand if she accepts the professional service position she will not be in a position to receive any credit if she is able to help with the turnaround of a chaotic professional services department (McGinn & Witter, 2006a).Cam has a decision to make, which position will strengthen her power? While the professional service position provides the opportunity to work closely with customers, involves revenue generation activities, and connects her compensation to revenue goals, Cam knows the position wi ll require as much travel as her recent sales position, while the marketing position is a more stationary position which means the opportunity to reestablish friendships and social activities, something Cam has missed.Cam is also drawn to the marketing position because it moves her toward her career goals of being in management. Although Cam would not have any direct reports, she would work with all five product managers to develop and implement marketing strategies for the corporate level, a level with more social networking, power, and prestige (McGinn & Witter, 2006b). Should Kessel be concerned with Archer’s career advancement, Archer does have the â€Å"ear† of the CEO, a close working relationship with the VP ofSales, and now she is being recruited internally by another VP? The benefits of hiring Archer means Kessel will gain an intelligent, dedicated employee with proven success for RetailMax and whose social connections and charisma could bring positive attenti on and promotion to the department; while the deficits being related to the team’s morale and how they may respond to a socially connected internal transfer who had a position created for her.Hiring an external candidate at a lower salary opens up the opportunity for Kessel to reward his current employees with a pay raise above cost of living, something they have not received in two years (McGinn & Witter, 2006b). Kessel has a decision to make. Kessel has put together his compensation package and made Archer an offer. Kessel reminded Archer of the benefits of the position: limited travel, social benefits and stability, and career advancement along with offering her a compensation package of $138,000 (15% above the market) because of her experience and proven success record for RetailMax (McGinn & Witter, 2006b).Archer believes the marketing opportunity makes good use of her education and skills, meets her personal needs and career goals, and positions her with the power and i nformation sources for the company; because of this she believes this is the best choice for her. Upon evaluation of both case studies, Cam Archer used social power most effectively through taking career risks that not only helped to develop and enhance her skills, but which brought visibility and attention to her reputation for being an innovative and resourceful employee whose charisma and business acumen brought much success to RetailMax.References French, J. R. P. , & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed. ), Studies in Social Power (pp. 259-269). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research Retrieved from http://www. communicationcache. com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/the_bases_of_social_power_-_chapter_20. pdf McGinn, K. , & Witter, D. (2006a). RetailMax: Role for Cam Archer. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing McGinn, K. , & Witter, D. (2006b). RetailMax: Role for Regan Kessel. Boston,