Showing posts with label Mental. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mental. Show all posts

Effects of Nature On Our Mental Health

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What is nature and how does it affect our health? Well this is one major question that we are coming across these days in relation to have a proper mental health. If we try to understand the meaning of nature in terms of dictionary definition then it clearly states nature as the natural physical world including plants, animals and landscapes etc. It refers to the phenomena of the physical world. In general terms it is also referred to the method related with inanimate objects and the manner in which the particular kind of things exist and change of their own harmony.

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Now looking at the present scenario, today if we try to relate the term nature in relation to health then it won't be wrong. Plants represent a vital element of the original ecological system in which the human species evolved. Perhaps the time has come when we all take a close look at the impact of nature on the health of communities and individuals. Since the evolution of life, the nature has always featured as key components in health promotion models. Our relationship with nature is like a basic component that helps in sustaining good health.

As per the recent study conducted in UK, it was found that more than 75% of people live in urban areas and as a result the detachment with nature has contributed to a drastic rise in mental health problems. Roger Ulrich one of the pioneers of research in this area conducted an experiment to explain that patients suffering and recovering from identical operations were more likely to recover quickly if they had a daily view of nature from their hospital beds.

Studies in this field have also shown that well-being and levels of psychological and physiological stress are significantly influenced by our natural surroundings. These days nature is widely used as an element or modern therapy for people who are suffering from physical and mental health problems. In order to improve your mood, now concepts like hospital therapy gardens, wilderness trips for people bearing from ruthless stress have all shown positive effects on patients. Moreover in past few years, it has also been found that horticultural therapy have a growing body of research data which points to the many mental benefits of engaging with nature.

Research from Netherland and Japan has also revealed that people living close to green ambience live longer and enjoy better and healthy life. A Swedish study concluded that if office personnel could view greenery through their office windows, then it further significantly reduce the stress during their working days.

Latest studies from Germany and Australia have also confirmed the capacity of ecosystem of plants to perform as powerful air purifiers. Virginia Lohr at Washington University performed a computer based test on students, and observed that the systolic blood pressure was lower, and measured the performance level. It was found that the reaction time during the test was higher, if plants were present in the computer lab.

From an economical point of view, it should be of great interest to establish a green surrounding that can benefit your mental health by providing opportunities to be physically active both in terms of physical and mental health.

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The Top 10 Brain Health Books of 2008 - Ready For Some Mental Exercise?

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Here you have The 10 Most Popular Brain Fitness & Cognitive Health Books of 2008. I hope you find them as stimulating as I did!

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1. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Pear Press, March 2008)

- Dr. John Medina, Director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, writes an engaging and comprehensive introduction to the many daily implications of recent brain research.

2. The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person (Oxmoor House, March 2007)

- Dr. Judith Beck, Director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, connects the world of research-based cognitive therapy with a mainstream application: maintaining weight-loss.

3. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (Viking, March 2007)

- Dr. Norman Doidge, psychiatrist and author of this New York Times bestseller, brings us "a compelling collection of tales about the amazing abilities of the brain to rewire, readjust and relearn".

4. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain(Little, Brown and Company, January 2008)

- Dr. John Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, summarizes the growing research on the brain benefits of physical exercise.

5. The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning (Stylus Publishing, October 2002)

- Dr. James Zull, Director Emeritus of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education at Case Western Reserve University, writes a must-read for educators and lifelong learners.

6. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves (Ballantine Books, January 2007)

- Sharon Begley, Newsweek' excellent science writer, provides an in-depth introduction to the research on neuroplasticity based on a Mind & Life Institute event.

7. Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton Mifflin, August 2007)

- Prof. Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis and Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology, writes a solid book that combines a research-based synthesis of the topic as well as practical suggestions.

8. The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind (Oxford University Press, January 2001)

- Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, provides a fascinating perspective on the role of the frontal roles and executive functions through the lifespan.

9. The Brain Trust Program: A Scientifically Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Memory (Perigee Trade, September 2007)

- Dr. Larry McCleary, former acting Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Denver Children's Hospital, covers many lifestyle recommendations for brain health in this practical book.

10. A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain (Pantheon, January 2001)

- In this book (previous to Spark), Dr. John Ratey provides a stimulating description of how the brain works. An excellent Brain 101 book to anyone new to the field.

Let me ask you know...have you already chosen a book to read next?

Copyright (c) 2009 SharpBrains

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Mental Illness in the Prison System

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Should the mentally ill be placed in the mainstream population of a prison?

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How is Mental Illness in the Prison System

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Chances are you've never given much - if any - thought to this question. A paranoid schizophrenic kills someone because the voices in his head tell him that person is an alien trying to steal his brain. Is that schizophrenic safe in a prison? Are the other prisoners safe with him (or her) there?

A person suffering with severe bipolar disorder shoplifts an armload of clothing during an attack of acute mania. He or she is sent to prison, to co-exist with gangbangers, rapists, and murderers. Or, perhaps worse, to live in a solitary cell with no human interaction, for 23 out of 24 hours each day. The acute mania shifts to severe depression. What are the chances he or she will survive the prison term?

According to the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1998 approximately 300,000 inmates had some form of mental illness. A decade later, that number rose to 1.25 million.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) states that 16 percent of the prison population can be classified as severely mentally ill. This means that they fit the psychiatric classification for illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. However, the percentage skyrockets to as high as 50 percent when altered to include other mental illnesses, such as anti-social personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder.

Two major causes attribute to the rise of mentally ill inmates:

In the 1950s, the U.S. had 600,000 state run hospital beds for those suffering from any form of mental illness. Because of deinstitutionalization and the subsequent cutting of state and federal funding, the U.S. now has just 40,000 beds for the mentally ill. The inability to get proper treatment left this segment of our population vulnerable and, consequently, many of them now land in prisons.

Deinstitutionalization hasn't worked. All this has managed to do is to shift the mentally ill from hospitals to prisons - one institution to another. We have made it a crime to be mentally ill.

The largest psychiatric facility in the U.S. isn't a hospital; it's a prison. At any given time, Rikers Island in New York City houses an estimated 3,000 mentally ill prisoners. The average inmate population at Rikers Island is 14,000. One out of every 4 to 5 inmates at this prison suffer from mental illness.

Florida judge Steven Leifman, who chairs the Mental Health Committee for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, states that, "The sad irony is we did not deinstitutionalize, we have reinstitutionalized-from horrible state mental hospitals to horrible state jails. We don't even provide treatment for the mentally ill in jail. We're just warehousing them."

What happens to the mentally ill in an overcrowded, violent prison system with little to no psychological counseling available?

In state prisons, the mentally ill serve an average of 15 months longer than the average inmate. The very nature of most mental illnesses makes it difficult to follow prison rules. These inmates are more likely to be involved in prison fights and they tend to accumulate more conduct violations.

Prison staff often punishes mentally ill inmates for being disruptive, refusing to comply with orders, and even for attempting suicide. In other words, these inmates are punished for exhibiting the symptoms of their illness.

Gaining parole is also more difficult for the mentally ill. Their disciplinary records are often spotty, they may have no family willing or able to help, and community services are usually inadequate.

In October 2003, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled Ill Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness. Following two years of in-depth research, this organization found that few prisons have adequate mental health care services. Furthermore, it found that the prison environment is dangerous and debilitating for the mentally ill.

An excerpt from Ill Equipped:

"Security staff typically view mentally ill prisoners as difficult and disruptive, and place them in barren high-security solitary confinement units. The lack of human interaction and the limited mental stimulus of twenty-four-hour-a-day life in small, sometimes windowless segregation cells, coupled with the absence of adequate mental health services, dramatically aggravates the suffering of the mentally ill. Some deteriorate so severely that they must be removed to hospitals for acute psychiatric care. But after being stabilized, they are then returned to the same segregation conditions where the cycle of decompensation begins again. The penal network is thus not only serving as a warehouse for the mentally ill, but, by relying on extremely restrictive housing for mentally ill prisoners, it is acting as an incubator for worse illness and psychiatric breakdowns."

According to Fred Osher, M.D., director of the Center for Behavioral Health, Justice and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, the majority of mentally ill inmates are arrested for misdemeanors and crimes of survival. He states, "That's a whole host of folks who land in the criminal justice system because of their behavioral disorders."

Those on the fringe of society are primarily affected. These people are almost always impoverished and disabled by their illness. They have nowhere to turn, no one to help them, and so we toss them in prison. Even minor offenses keep them locked in prisons, since many cannot afford and/or do not know how to bond themselves out.

The recidivism rate among the mentally ill is higher than that among the general prison population. Prison has become a revolving door system for dealing with mental illness. By default, prisons have become the new mental hospitals. However, they lack the funding and the training to deal with these patient-inmates.

Ratan Bhavnani, executive director of the Ventura County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, states that, "In general, people with mental illness can recover when given the appropriate treatment rather than to be sent off to jail only to become more psychotic and come back and reoffend."

Michael Jung of Ventura, California suffers from bipolar and hears voices telling him that he is the devil. Over the past 10 years, Jung has been arrested a minimum of 15 times - all for relatively minor offenses. Earlier this year, Jung spent six weeks confined in G Quad, the unit where mentally ill inmates stay in their cells 23 out of the 24 hours in each day.

Cells such as those in G Quad are referred to as the "rubber rooms" because the walls are padded. There is no furniture in these rooms. The "toilet" is a grate in the floor. They are stripped naked and monitored via video camera. Inmates who are paranoid, delusional, or otherwise difficult to manage are often placed in this type of cell, whether for their own protection, the safety of the other inmates, or just plain convenience.

Susan Abril, a former inmate who suffers from bipolar disorder, was placed in this type of cell. During her confinement, Abril began hearing voices for the first time. "I didn't sleep," she said. "I mentally went insane being locked down 23 hours of 24."

We are essentially making the mentally ill inmates sicker, as well as ensuring their return to an already massively overcrowded prison system. Obviously our current system is not working. We cannot expect prison staff to function as psychiatrists. We also cannot expect the mentally ill to be "rehabilitated" in a mainstream prison system.

The Taxpayer Action Board for Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois cited annual savings in the tens of millions of dollars that could be gained by releasing thousands of non-violent offenders, closely monitoring them and providing substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, education, job training, and employment opportunities.

For the most part, the mentally ill do not belong in prison. It would be cheaper (and smarter) for us as taxpayers to divert funding in order to provide adequate treatment programs to keep them out of prison.

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The Hormone Connection to Women's Mental health

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Do hormones really affect women' mood?

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In the past fifteen years the field of endocrinology has produced vast amounts of evidence showing that the loss of estrogen that occurs normally during menstrual cycle changes puts women at greater risk for mood, anxiety, and craving disorders. Considering the prevalence of these illnesses among women, we're fortunate to be gaining a better understanding of them.

Women are more than twice as likely to become depressed. Research shows that they're also more likely to suffer from anxiety. More develop phobias. It's the same ratio for agoraphobia: nearly 8% of women become agoraphobic, compared to only 3% of men. More succumb to post traumatic stress syndrome. Seventy percent of those with social phobia are women. What could be happening here?

The cyclic nature of estrogen secretion may account for women's special vulnerability to mood and anxiety disorders, Dr. Mary Seeman reported, in the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association, in an analysis of dozens of studies on how female hormones affect psychopathology in both men and women.

The theory of "recurrent estrogen withdrawal" proposes that a low estrogen state drives the onset, or worsening, of mood symptoms in women who are predisposed--by virtue of already low serotonin levels--to mood and anxiety disorders. In 1996, researchers at the University of Edinburgh published a report discussing the molecular level at which these changes occur. Struck by estrogen's "profound effects on mood, mental state and memory" they described the hormone as "nature's psychoprotectant." Sufficient levels of estrogen must be present in the brain, that is, if psychic stability is to be maintained. Estrogen's importance to cognitive processing and memory is not a slight matter. It's been discovered that actually buffers the brain's neurons against degeneration.

By the end of the nineties mounting evidence had begun to show a unique and persistent hormone connection to almost all mental illness in women. For example, binging and purging behaviors in bulimics worsened during the premenstruum, when estrogen levels go down. So did panic attacks in women with panic disorder. Impulse disorders, too, seemed to get worse during that week or ten days before the period begins--kleptomaniacs went on more stealing escapades, trichotillomaniacs pulled more hair, skin cutters cut more skin.. All of these illnesses are related to serotonin dysfunction, and, as we've seen, serotonin and estrogen are inextricably linked.

In the nineties a Canadian psychologist, Barbara Sherwin, was conducting very interesting studies on how estrogen loss affects cognition and memory. I went to Toronto to spend a day with Dr. Sherwin in her office at McGill University. I needed a mini-course in estrogen and she was willing to give it to me.

From early fetal life, hormone receptors are present in the hypothalamus of the brain. It is here that they begin organizing brain circuitry, setting the stage for puberty, regulating subsequent adult sexual behavior, and controlling the frequency and intensity of emotional disorders. Research in neuroendocrinology has much to tell us about the pre-menopausal malaise that used to be thought the result of women's sadness over the loss of reproductive function. Now it's known that the mood and cognitive changes experienced are physical in origin.

Low estrogen affects mood. What I hadn't known, until speaking with Dr. Sherwin, is that in order to produce serotonin the brain needs estrogen. I didn't even known that estrogen existed in the brain. "There are estrogen receptors in various organs throughout the body, the brain included," she explained. "That's why estrogen loss produces so many different bodily symptoms--loss of skin elasticity, bone shrinkage, mood and cognitive decline".

When estrogen levels rise, on the other hand, as they do in the first week of menses, their overall effect is to increase the amount of serotonin available in the spaces between the brain's nerve cells. That improves mood. Within the brain, estrogen may in fact act as a natural antidepressant and mood stabilizer.

Dr. Sherwin introduced me to the work of researchers who were doing important basic science, including Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller Institute, in New York, and Joseph LeDoux, at New York University, who were discovering the molecular changes supporting the view that estrogen had profound effects on the mind and its capacities.

It wasn't long after my visit with Dr. Sherwin that I learned of an important review of ten years' worth of studies entitled, Estrogen, Serotonin, and Mood Disturbance: Where is the Therapeutic Bridge? Two researchers in the Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry Program at Harvard Medical School had essentially been motivated by the same question that I had: What is the hormone connection to women's mental health? Joffe and Cohen looked at a hundred-and-twenty five studies on the relationship between women's reproductive cycle hormone changes and their mental status. In study after study they found that women with histories of depression are apparently more vulnerable to recurrent episodes during periods of "significant reproductive endocrine change".

Correlation does not prove causality. The fact that someone becomes morbidly depressed exactly on the day ovulation begins and remains that way until the day she starts bleeding doesn't prove that premenstrual drops in estrogen cause mood changes, but it damn well raised suspicions. Once information from new brain imaging techniques was added to the mix, the case for a hormone connection to women's mental vulnerabilities became as close to an open and shut case as are you're likely to get. Neuro-imaging has improved our understanding considerably, indicating lightening flashes of activity in different parts of the brain during what used to be called, dimly, "that time of the month."

It is the dance between two kinds of hormones, ovarian hormones and brain hormones, that ultimately determines how symptomatic any given woman will become during her menstrual cycle, and at other reproductive risk points as well. If, for example, a woman is genetically coded to have low, or borderline levels of brain serotonin, the estrogen drop that occurs premenstrually may be all it takes to send her serotonin spiraling below the level of optimum functioning, putting her in a mental state that, for all its upsetting symptoms, mysteriously vanishes as soon as her period starts and her estrogen levels go back up.

Why does this happen? Because serotonin needs estrogen for its metabolization in the brain. The two hormones are a dynamic duo, functioning arm in arm. As estrogen levels drop, so does serotonin. When estrogen rises (as it does, for example, once menstruation begins) serotonin levels come right back up with it, and calm is restored. The ebb and flow of womens' menstrual moods is orchestrated not by the moon but by secretions in her brain and ovaries. What we now know is that the sometimes negative outcome of these secretion changes is not inevitable. Just as science has learned to modify insulin changes and thyroid changes, it can now modify ovarian changes. If you don't want to blame your mood on your ovaries, blame it on the brain. Blame it on whatever pleases you, just don't resign yourself to the view that women were born to suffer.

To me it's fascinating that the individual pieces of this important puzzle were not available to us twenty years ago. And the dynamite effect of putting those pieces together has occurred only in the last decade. Building on previous knowledge and assembling the picture step by step, endocrinologists at places like the Neuropsychiatric Institute in California, and the Reproductive Mood Disorder Program at the University of Texas Medical Center have come to understand that women are not only vulnerable during the premenstruum, they are vulnerable at all the reproductive risk points. Moreover, a woman who suffers at one of these risk points is vulnerable to becoming symptomatic at others. If she has genetically low serotonin in her brain, estrogen drops are going to affect her, simple as that.

Things have taken a more enlightened turn since then, thank God, but we are only now coming to understand what actually happens to women's mental well-being at times of hormonal stress. Women scientists in particular, including psychiatrists and reproductive endocrinologists like Barbara Sherwin, are making a unique and important contribution to the massive surge of research that is currently shaping a whole new paradigm for understanding the role of hormonally created change in female well-being and mental status.

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Causes Of Software Project Failure

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University Hospitals - Causes Of Software Project Failure

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Most software projects fail completely or partial failures because a small number of projects meet all their requirements. These requirements can be the cost, schedule, quality, or requirements objectives. According to many studies, failure rate of software projects is between 50% - 80%. This essay is a compilation of failure causes of software development projects; this essay summarises several areas that play a vital role in software project failure.

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So, what really is the reason for software project failure? The sad fact is that software projects fail because we do not recognize that good engineering principles should be applied to software projects just as they are to building office buildings. We try to defend ourselves by saying that software construction is "different".

One of the most serious complaints against software failure is the inability
to estimate with acceptable accuracy the cost, resources, and schedule necessary
for a software project. Conventional assessment methods have always produced
positive results which contribute to the too well-known cost infested and
schedule slippage.

Over the last 20 years many cost and schedule estimation techniques have been
used with mixed sensation due to restrictions of the assessment models. A major
part of the estimations failure can be due to a lack of understanding of the
software development process and the effect of that method used in the project
plan, schedule and cost estimates.

Failure Case Studies
Below are few of the case studies considered which will be analysed to fetch
the main reasons of failure of the software system.

Northumbria University developed accounting software to manage its day to day
business. The project could not come up with the desired results and failed to
meet the deadlines. Te investigations showed that the basic project management
procedures were not followed. This case study is referenced in this essay at
different points where necessary. [1]

Thai subsidiary (SMTL) of a Hong Kong-based multinational company (SMHK)
engaged in the manufacturing of electronic equipment. They implemented an
integrated software package; which was a failure at the several factors. These
factors were mostly management related. Such as a poor fit between the business
process assumptions inscribed in the software and the business processes in SMTL,
poor leadership at different levels, cultural differences, organizational
environment, and poor human resource management.

St John's Hospital is a District General Hospital provides medical and
nursing services, which includes both general surgery and medicine.All these
services are supported by diagnostic imaging, laboratory, ambulance, pharmacy
and therapy services, which are all on site. As the major hospital in a tourist
area, it deals with many visitors in the holiday season, generating a large
amount of non-booked admissions work.

Software Management & Leadership
It has been shown repeatedly, that effective leadership is essential for successful IT implementation (Klenke, 1994). A leader must also have cultural sensitivity, communication skills, creativity, ability to delegate, and the ability to develop and retain human resources (Luthans, 1994). The software manager at (SMHK) was a western, where as the lower managers were Eastern. So there was a cultural clash going on always. Jack (Manager) always try to introduce creative thoughts. And most of the time the lower management could not do them. Hence there was a clash going on all the time.

Employees also felt that management hardly ever "listened" to their concerns
or attempted to address them. Consequently, many employees were eager to leave
the company, and did so as soon as they found alternate opportunities in other
companies.

Project Planning & Scheduling
Project planning means creating work breakdown, and then allocate responsibilities to the developers over time. Project planning consists of construction of various tasks, timelines and essential pathways including Gantt charts and PERT charts and different written plans for various situations.

It is quite usual in software development process to work backward from the
project end date which results in complete software project failure. It is
impossible that a project can be completed efficiently from the planning stage
to the implementation stage.

Allocation of roles and responsibilities has to be clearly defined, and it
becomes crucial while hiring the stall from outside. University's higher
management failed to apply the basic project management rules which laid to the
project failure.

Proper scheduling is also required before the start of the project. It
includes the time scheduling, teams scheduling. Project managers don't know what
they have to plan and schedule. They just only tell the programmer what to do
and the programmers can come up with a proper solution.

The development was moved to a new office and the office was not fully
equipped with the proper infrastructure. As time is also a big factor in success
or failure of a project. So it delayed the development process and contributed
towards the project failure. Infrastructure was not fully scheduled and
management team didn't know where and how the project development will be
started.

The top secret of a winning software development project is to control the
quality up and lower the risk. Contingency plan is also the part of planning. In
case things went wrong then this plan can be followed to lower the affect of the
failure of project. Same was the case with university's accounting software. The
management team had no such a contingency plan nor did they evaluate the risk
involved in the development of the new system. So it caused more trouble without
the backup system or backup plan.

The management just try to follow the methodologies like SDLC or RAD, but don't know which methodology to use and at which time should apply the right technique.

Cost Estimation
Cost estimation is mainly involved the cost of effort to produce the software project. But it's not limited to the effort only. It also includes the hardware and software cost, training the employees and customer, travelling to the customer, networking and communication costs. Cost estimation should be done as a part of the software process model.

Cost estimation needs to be done well before the start of the project
development. Failure of the budgeting for the cost of the project results in
complete disaster. As stated above the infrastructure cost, development tools
cost and hardware cost also needs to be estimated first.

Same thing happened to university's accounting system development. They
purchased the new system well with out any serious estimation of the cost and
the income sources.

Below are the reasons why wrong cost estimation is done.

Inappropriate estimation methodology
Another reason would be the use of an inappropriate cost estimation methodology. Not a single methodology is better than other. Every methodology has its own strong and weak points which should be considered. Dr. Barry Boehm's book Software Engineering Economics lists seven estimation methodologies. One or more of these methodologies can be used to estimate the cost of a project

"Good suggestion is that more than one software cost estimation methodology
should be used for accurate estimation".

Cost estimation tools
There are many drawbacks in manual cost estimation. This technique is almost obsolete now. These days successful cost estimation includes the use of appropriate commercial software cost estimating tool.

Good software estimating tools do not always guarantee reliable software
estimates. Wrong input of the software size will result in wrong estimate.
Estimation software also needs to be customised for the specific need of
organization. These customisations require the data from the past projects as
input for the tool to estimate.

There are number of reasons these tools can return the wrong estimate.

Choosing the right estimation tool
Choice of a right estimation tool is necessary for the right estimation. The tool is not capable of handling the input and thus it can come up with the wrong estimate and hence cause the software project to fail.

Ease of customisation
As mentioned above the selected tool must be customisable according to the organisation needs, so that the organization can customise it according to the needs and past project data.

Easy to use and learn
The cost estimation tool should be easy to use and learn. It must include help and examples, simple and straight forward user interface. It must require less training to learn the system and inputs should be well defined.

Accurate Estimation
The estimation tool must have the capability to analyse all the parameters and come up with the accurate estimation for the cost.

Risk Management
Risk management is an important factor towards software project failure if it's not managed timely and effectively. As nothing can be predicted that what will happen in future so we have to take the necessary steps in the present to take any uncertain situation in the future. Risk management means dealing with a concern before it becomes a crisis.

Risk Identification

According to the Universal risk Project there are two types of conditions which can be a symbol of as risk.

IF-THEN Statements "IF technology is not available, THEN we will not meet the requirement" "IF we cannot hire sufficient qualified software engineers, THEN we cannot meet the planned development schedule

Given the "condition", there is a likelihood that the "consequence" will occur "Given that this specific test fails (the CONDITION), the CONSEQUENCE is that the planned schedule will slip"


Project managers have to identify the areas where the risk can be and how it
can affect the development of the project. Risk can be of technical nature or
non technical. Project managers needs to be aware of both the risks. Most of the
projects managers are not good in either of the side. A good manager with
programming skills can be good in identifying the technical risk but not in non
technical risk.

Risk Analysis
After the risk is identified there is a need to make the categories of that risk. Risk analysis is the process of examining the project results and deliverables after the risk analysis and applying the technique to lower the risk. After risk analysis is complete, the proper risk analysis plan needs to be made to cope with any uncertain situation. First identified risks are categorized and make the hierarchy of those risks. At this point the risk is classified as the positive or negative risks.

Risk Prioritization
After the risk is analyzed, the next step is to priorities the risk. At first focus on the most sever risk first; and les sever later. These risk factors can worked from time to time so that the final project out come is free of risk. So most of the time project management team fails to identify the sever risk and work on the less sever risk. This often results in the form of a crisis.

Risk Avoidance
Dealing with the risk is an art. Some times the management takes the projects with out identifying the proper risk involved in the project. So an experienced manager will take the project after proper risk analysis and avoid any risk involved in the project.

Risk control
Managing the risk to achieve the desired results and deliverables is done through controlling the risk at its best. This is a pure intuitive process and depends on the experience of the project management team, or risk already managed in past projects which were done by the same organization.

Conclusion
This essay has presented three basic factors which can cause the software development project to fail. Planning & Scheduling, cost estimation and risk management. All of these factors are to be considered at the management level and then transferred to the lower management.

Planning & Scheduling comes at first, good planning and scheduling makes the
strong foundation for the software project. Project planning consists of
construction of various tasks, timelines and essential pathways including Gantt
charts and PERT charts and different written plans for various situations. If
these factors are not taken into part then the software may encounter problems
during the development and the final product will be a failure.

Cost estimation depends on the budget of the project, customer type and the
size and effort to be put in the project. Cost estimations are done many times
during the life cycle of a project. It affects the project in many ways, wrong
estimation complete failure, affect the good-will of the organisation if the
costs are not covered, stake holders are affected and waste of resources.

Managing the risk is a practical approach for decreasing the ambiguity and
possible loss related with a software development project. Potential measures
can be considered as opportunity-focused (positive risk) if their consequences
are favourable, or as threat-focused (negative risk) if their consequences are
unfavourable.

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Mental Illness in the Prison System

University Hospitals - Mental Illness in the Prison System

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Should the mentally ill be placed in the mainstream population of a prison?

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Chances are you've never given much - if any - thought to this question. A paranoid schizophrenic kills someone because the voices in his head tell him that person is an alien trying to steal his brain. Is that schizophrenic safe in a prison? Are the other prisoners safe with him (or her) there?

A person suffering with severe bipolar disorder shoplifts an armload of clothing during an attack of acute mania. He or she is sent to prison, to co-exist with gangbangers, rapists, and murderers. Or, perhaps worse, to live in a solitary cell with no human interaction, for 23 out of 24 hours each day. The acute mania shifts to severe depression. What are the chances he or she will survive the prison term?

According to the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1998 approximately 300,000 inmates had some form of mental illness. A decade later, that number rose to 1.25 million.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) states that 16 percent of the prison population can be classified as severely mentally ill. This means that they fit the psychiatric classification for illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. However, the percentage skyrockets to as high as 50 percent when altered to include other mental illnesses, such as anti-social personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder.

Two major causes attribute to the rise of mentally ill inmates:

In the 1950s, the U.S. had 600,000 state run hospital beds for those suffering from any form of mental illness. Because of deinstitutionalization and the subsequent cutting of state and federal funding, the U.S. now has just 40,000 beds for the mentally ill. The inability to get proper treatment left this segment of our population vulnerable and, consequently, many of them now land in prisons.

Deinstitutionalization hasn't worked. All this has managed to do is to shift the mentally ill from hospitals to prisons - one institution to another. We have made it a crime to be mentally ill.

The largest psychiatric facility in the U.S. isn't a hospital; it's a prison. At any given time, Rikers Island in New York City houses an estimated 3,000 mentally ill prisoners. The average inmate population at Rikers Island is 14,000. One out of every 4 to 5 inmates at this prison suffer from mental illness.

Florida judge Steven Leifman, who chairs the Mental Health Committee for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, states that, "The sad irony is we did not deinstitutionalize, we have reinstitutionalized-from horrible state mental hospitals to horrible state jails. We don't even provide treatment for the mentally ill in jail. We're just warehousing them."

What happens to the mentally ill in an overcrowded, violent prison system with little to no psychological counseling available?

In state prisons, the mentally ill serve an average of 15 months longer than the average inmate. The very nature of most mental illnesses makes it difficult to follow prison rules. These inmates are more likely to be involved in prison fights and they tend to accumulate more conduct violations.

Prison staff often punishes mentally ill inmates for being disruptive, refusing to comply with orders, and even for attempting suicide. In other words, these inmates are punished for exhibiting the symptoms of their illness.

Gaining parole is also more difficult for the mentally ill. Their disciplinary records are often spotty, they may have no family willing or able to help, and community services are usually inadequate.

In October 2003, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled Ill Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness. Following two years of in-depth research, this organization found that few prisons have adequate mental health care services. Furthermore, it found that the prison environment is dangerous and debilitating for the mentally ill.

An excerpt from Ill Equipped:

"Security staff typically view mentally ill prisoners as difficult and disruptive, and place them in barren high-security solitary confinement units. The lack of human interaction and the limited mental stimulus of twenty-four-hour-a-day life in small, sometimes windowless segregation cells, coupled with the absence of adequate mental health services, dramatically aggravates the suffering of the mentally ill. Some deteriorate so severely that they must be removed to hospitals for acute psychiatric care. But after being stabilized, they are then returned to the same segregation conditions where the cycle of decompensation begins again. The penal network is thus not only serving as a warehouse for the mentally ill, but, by relying on extremely restrictive housing for mentally ill prisoners, it is acting as an incubator for worse illness and psychiatric breakdowns."

According to Fred Osher, M.D., director of the Center for Behavioral Health, Justice and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, the majority of mentally ill inmates are arrested for misdemeanors and crimes of survival. He states, "That's a whole host of folks who land in the criminal justice system because of their behavioral disorders."

Those on the fringe of society are primarily affected. These people are almost always impoverished and disabled by their illness. They have nowhere to turn, no one to help them, and so we toss them in prison. Even minor offenses keep them locked in prisons, since many cannot afford and/or do not know how to bond themselves out.

The recidivism rate among the mentally ill is higher than that among the general prison population. Prison has become a revolving door system for dealing with mental illness. By default, prisons have become the new mental hospitals. However, they lack the funding and the training to deal with these patient-inmates.

Ratan Bhavnani, executive director of the Ventura County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, states that, "In general, people with mental illness can recover when given the appropriate treatment rather than to be sent off to jail only to become more psychotic and come back and reoffend."

Michael Jung of Ventura, California suffers from bipolar and hears voices telling him that he is the devil. Over the past 10 years, Jung has been arrested a minimum of 15 times - all for relatively minor offenses. Earlier this year, Jung spent six weeks confined in G Quad, the unit where mentally ill inmates stay in their cells 23 out of the 24 hours in each day.

Cells such as those in G Quad are referred to as the "rubber rooms" because the walls are padded. There is no furniture in these rooms. The "toilet" is a grate in the floor. They are stripped naked and monitored via video camera. Inmates who are paranoid, delusional, or otherwise difficult to manage are often placed in this type of cell, whether for their own protection, the safety of the other inmates, or just plain convenience.

Susan Abril, a former inmate who suffers from bipolar disorder, was placed in this type of cell. During her confinement, Abril began hearing voices for the first time. "I didn't sleep," she said. "I mentally went insane being locked down 23 hours of 24."

We are essentially making the mentally ill inmates sicker, as well as ensuring their return to an already massively overcrowded prison system. Obviously our current system is not working. We cannot expect prison staff to function as psychiatrists. We also cannot expect the mentally ill to be "rehabilitated" in a mainstream prison system.

The Taxpayer Action Board for Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois cited annual savings in the tens of millions of dollars that could be gained by releasing thousands of non-violent offenders, closely monitoring them and providing substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, education, job training, and employment opportunities.

For the most part, the mentally ill do not belong in prison. It would be cheaper (and smarter) for us as taxpayers to divert funding in order to provide adequate treatment programs to keep them out of prison.

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