Bridging the gap between police and citizens: what we know, what we've done, and what can be done

Master's Project (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017There is a long history of distrust between police and citizens and there have been no meaningful and sustained steps to correct this situation. Death and injuries are sustained by citizens and police, but still there has not been a real attempt to prevent this occurring because there is no trust between police and citizens and this lack of trust has created a rift or gap between police and citizens and this projects aim is to address the gap. Research into what causing damage and finding a way to repair the damaged relationship between police and citizens by way of finding approaches that tend to lead to trust between groups of people. Communication, a better ethics base for police, training and education, restorative justice, media, and the studying of social theories will help find a way to repair the damage. A collaboration of all of the aforementioned categories will tend to help bridge the gap between police and citizens. It is believed that by addressing the issues and the roots of the problems between police and citizens, a new relationship built on trust will emerge. By having a more trusting relationship there will be less harm caused to police and citizens

Fiscal competition in developing countries : a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature

The last two decades have witnessed a sharp increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and increased competition among developing countries to attract FDI, resulting in higher investment incentives offered by host governments and removal of restrictions on operations of foreign firms in their countries. Fiscal competition between governments can take the form of business tax rebates, productivity-enhancing public infrastructure or investment incentives such as tax holidays, accelerated depreciation allowances or loss carry-forward for income tax purposes. It can take place between governments of different countries or between local governments within the same country. This paper surveys the recent theoretical and empirical economic literature on decentralization which attempts to answer three questions. First, does theoretical literature on fiscal competition and"bidding races"contribute to a better understanding of such phenomenon in developing countries? Second, are FDI inflows in developing countries sensitive to fiscal incentives and is there empirical evidence of strategic behavior from the part of developing countries in order to attract FDI? Third, what evidence is there about fiscal competition among local governments in developing countries?Subnational Economic Development,Debt Markets,Taxation&Subsidies,Emerging Markets,Public Sector Economics

Training methods used at Harvey Norman

In today’s highly competitive retail world, identifying the experts, striving for performance and prospering skills are essential components needed to succeed. However, many organisations struggle to bring constructive approaches to work. Retail companies’ big or small, depend upon their sales representatives’ knowledge and skills for making or breaking a deal and whether a customer would return or not. The employees of an organisation can be an asset or a liability and because they are also human, they are bound to have good and bad moods, a possibility of forgetting things and making mistakes. This research was conducted to examine the methods used by Harvey Norman (Hamilton) to train their employees and the effects of training on the employee performance and the company’s output. The researcher used qualitative research methods to collect primary data. The manager and Harvey Norman (Hamilton) sales representatives were interviewed to evaluate the importance and need of the training, the training methods used by the organisation and how they affect employee performance and the brand image. The results depict the significance of correct training techniques and their impact on selling skills, and also the knowledge gained from training by the sales representatives of Harvey Norman and its impact on other necessary activities of a retail business. Information was collected from primary sources that tell about the methods of training being used in Harvey Norman. It was found that even though managers are aware of the significance of the employee training, there are certain changes that can be made to make the training programmes better and more efficient. Therefore, recommendations are given for future modifications in training techniques. Such as, it is important that not just the managers, but employees as well, understand the importance of the training and why is it required. Managers need to identify gaps in what is demanded by the job profile, and where the employees really stand, and how they can fill that gap by giving a proper training about knowledge and techniques. The managers need to identify the learning style of each individual in order to use a correct method of training, and let their employees be creative in using that knowledge and ideas to perform better. Most importantly, the training of the employees of Harvey Norman (Hamilton) has to be a steady process as knowledge and growth comes only with continuous effort

Collaborative Caring: Stories and Reflections on Teamwork in Health Care

[Excerpt] There are many theoretical and conceptual books and countless articles that have explored issues of teamwork in general and teamwork in health care in particular. The editors, and many of the authors in this book, have read most, and have even written some of them. To tackle the issue of teamwork, we have, however, taken a different approach. Rather than write a theoretical book about what teamwork is, what it is not, where it exists in health care, what barriers prevent its implementation and how they can be removed, we have chosen instead to address these questions through narratives and reflections that vividly describe good teamwork as well as problems in creating, leading, and working on genuine teams. What we believe is too often lacking in the literature is a clear and compelling picture of what teamwork looks like on the ground, in the institutions where health care work is delivered and where teams play well, or don\u27t play well, on a daily basis. The question we ask here is thus: What is the state of play in most health care institutions? To describe the state of play, we have asked clinicians to write what we think of as where the rubber hits the road stories or reflections about the nature of teamwork in their own particular work setting. To gather these stories, we talked to many people in different health care disciplines. In the invitation for submissions we wrote the following: We are seeking short, concise narratives that describe a concrete example in which you personally have been involved. The idea here is not to focus so much on the individual doctor-patient, nurse-patient, therapist-patient communication but the teamwork that was involved in ensuring that the standard of care was met or exceeded. If the patient or family was involved, so much the better. Stories can deal with interprofessional or intraprofessional teamwork. On balance, we would prefer to have more stories about interprofessional or occupational teamwork. Nonetheless, we recognize that interprofessional work depends on the ability to create teamwork within an occupation or profession. Stories involving support staff, such as housekeepers who spoke up about a patient safety issue, are definitely within the purview of this book. We would also welcome personal reflections that would enhance our understanding of either how to produce genuine teamwork or the obstacles that stand in its way

Efficient moving point handling for incremental 3D manifold reconstruction

As incremental Structure from Motion algorithms become effective, a good sparse point cloud representing the map of the scene becomes available frame-by-frame. From the 3D Delaunay triangulation of these points, state-of-the-art algorithms build a manifold rough model of the scene. These algorithms integrate incrementally new points to the 3D reconstruction only if their position estimate does not change. Indeed, whenever a point moves in a 3D Delaunay triangulation, for instance because its estimation gets refined, a set of tetrahedra have to be removed and replaced with new ones to maintain the Delaunay property; the management of the manifold reconstruction becomes thus complex and it entails a potentially big overhead. In this paper we investigate different approaches and we propose an efficient policy to deal with moving points in the manifold estimation process. We tested our approach with four sequences of the KITTI dataset and we show the effectiveness of our proposal in comparison with state-of-the-art approaches.Comment: Accepted in International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing (ICIAP 2015

The creation of culture in middle school

The problem of the creation of culture by the school administrator in the middle school is examined through a series of nineteen case studies. The case studies were compiled over a two year period at a middle school in a small southern city that was undergoing a transition to a true middle school concept. The cases are representative of the experiences of administrators, teachers, and students as the principal attempts to establish a culture which promotes civility. Nine elements critical to the development of culture emerge from the cases and are as follows: Commitment, it is demonstrated, will lead people to places authority cannot (or will not) go. There is a "language" a leader can use to discuss things with people that in the course of normal day to day life would not be discussed. It is important to find common ground to make communication of organizational priorities possible. Enthusiasm-“wanting to be there" really does make a difference in the creation of a culture. It is also important to know what frame of reference one is using when perceiving the world. What one expects to see flavors one's view of reality. Healthy dissent is a good thing in a school. The challenge for the leader is to keep dissent "healthy". The interaction between people as they deal with problems in the institution may be more important than the actual problem itself. Many people wrap the blanket of the institution around them to insulate them from responsibility. The "good" leader knows better than to be comforted or warmed by this insulation. Power is neither bad nor something to be feared, but rather a tool to be judiciously used. Finally, never underestimate the power of a big gesture. Symbols are much more powerful than they are given credit for being

Execution: the Critical “What’s Next?” in Strategic Human Resource Management

The Human Resource Planning Society’s 1999 State of the Art/Practice (SOTA/P) study was conducted by a virtual team of researchers who interviewed and surveyed 232 human resource and line executives, consultants, and academics worldwide. Looking three to five years ahead, the study probed four basic topics: (1) major emerging trends in external environments, (2) essential organizational capabilities, (3) critical people issues, and (4) the evolving role of the human resource function. This article briefly reports some of the study’s major findings, along with an implied action agenda – the “gotta do’s for the leading edge. Cutting through the complexity, the general tone is one of urgency emanating from the intersection of several underlying themes: the increasing fierceness of competition, the rapid and unrelenting pace of change, the imperatives of marketplace and thus organizational agility, and the corresponding need to buck prevailing trends by attracting and, especially, retaining and capturing the commitment of world-class talent. While it all adds up to a golden opportunity for human resource functions, there is a clear need to get to get on with it – to get better, faster, and smarter – or run the risk of being left in the proverbial dust. Execute or be executed

"The Limits of Prudential Supervision: Economic Problems, Institutional Failure and Competence"

Bank supervision typically receives little if any attention when banks are operating without difficulty. But when banks fail in large numbers, or large banks fail, and the system itself is threatened, supervision becomes a focal point for criticism and reform (see, for example, Conference Report, 1998, Title I, IX; Pecchioli, 1987, pp. 11 ff.; and Comptroller General of the U.S., 1977). On such occasions, institutional changes may take equal billing with the "improvement" of supervision. But as often as not, the only thing Congress can agree on is that supervision needs to be better. This usually translates into more supervisors operating with more authority. The repeated augmentation of bank supervision may give the impression that it is a solution rather that a symptom of recurring banking problems; and it is in the interest of supervisors to suggest that this is the case. Repeated disappointments about past performances never seem to undermine the promise that more and better supervisors, with more authority, will make things better in the future. The historical record suggests that this is not true. There are, however, independent reasons for questioning whether, in and of itself, more supervisors with more restrictive authority will help very much. It is argued below that the promise of supervisory enhancement is an illusion traceable to the belief that ignores the limitations of supervision in dealing with the problems that actually exist. These limitations include: (1) the existence of an intractable economic problem confronting depository institutions; (2) at least two distinct institutional failures, a fragmented regulatory system composed of multiple agencies and the growth of opportunism among banking organizations, that make it difficult to formulate and implement appropriate policies; and, finally, (3) the inability of the existing supervisory establishment to deal with these economic and structural issues. The nature of supervision is discussed. The limitations are reviewed in Section III, and the inadequacy of the current supervisory establishment to deal with the problems it must deal with to be successful is considered in Section IV. Some proposals to remedy the existing difficulties are presented in Section V. These include the consolidation of the "stand-alone" supervisory agencies with the monetary authority.