Iconic Construction Projects: Issues and Controversies

Iconic Construction Projects: Issues and Controversies Introduction Construction of large, expensive, and prestigious projects is an historical obsession of the human race. Every age of human history, as well as every human civilisation, features huge architectural showpieces (Silverberg, 1965). Religions have used enormous and ornate structures, churches, mosques, and temples, to shock and awe their followers into submission. Many of the ancient and modern seven wonders, e.g., the Coliseum of Rome, the Great Wall of China, or the Taj Mahal, were architectural wonders that were built with massive doses of money, effort, time, and genius (Silverberg, 1965). It took two emperors, ten years, and extensive public taxation to build the Coliseum. The Great Wall was built, over hundreds of years, to protect the Mings against invaders, by generations of architects; who did not foresee that the opening of one of its doors would neutralise centuries of sweat and toil (Silverberg, 1965). The Taj Mahal was built over 16 years with an unlimited budget by an idiosyncratic emperor who failed to connect the irony of amputating the arms of his sculptors (after the erect ion of the Taj) with the building of a monument to the cause of immortal love (Ahmed, 1993). In modern times each of these iconic projects would have been considered to be failures in some aspects, even though they have delivered and continue to deliver numerous benefits. Such awesome projects link humanity over time and distance with common threads of ambition, grandeur, status, and prestige. The construction of the Empire State Building in New York in 1931 set off a race, albeit some four decades later, among other cities, to build something grander and taller, (Cowan, 2007), the title for the tallest building going from skyscraper to tower in different locations until it was grasped in late 2007 by the under construction Burj Dubai, an architectural and construction wonder that will be ready only in 2009. Accepting numerous design modifications and a construction delay of many months, mainly to ensure that their project does not get upstaged in its target of becoming the world’s tallest building, the creators of Burj Dubai are motivated by ambitions that are largely iconic. â€Å"Chairman Mohammed Ali Alabbar said Dubai has resisted the usual and has inspired to build a global icon, ‘it’s a human achievement without equal.†™â€  (Dubai skyscraper worlds tallest, 2008) The urge to undertake iconic construction projects, projects that are commonly associated with size, status, prestige, architectural complexity, and grandeur, is not restricted to the oil rich sheikhdoms of the Middle East, the capitalist bastion of the United States, aggressive young economies like Australia, or the ambitious Asian Tigers. The United Kingdom, long associated with restraint and the virtues of understatement, has its fair share of projects that can be termed iconic; the Millennium Dome, the London Eye, Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower, and London’s Wembley Stadium; to name but a few. Iconic projects are usually undertaken with diverse objectives in mind, e.g., raising the profile of a city, creating a tourist attraction, or even increasing the status of a premier football club; they are normally complex in nature and require substantial outlays of money, long construction periods, large tracts of land, sophisticated construction and construction management skills, involvement of political and non-political organisations, agencies and individuals, and numerous administrative, financial, and legal issues (Prasser, 2006). Always in the arc of media attention, their progress receives inordinate publicity; their failures and successes are widely discussed, debated and often roundly criticised. The amount of controversy and censure that invariably attaches itself to most such projects, as well as their patchy records, can well lead people to believe that â€Å"iconic projects are virtually certain to fail†. With such sweeping statements possibly appearing to be somewhat naà ¯ve to serious students of management and construction, (more so in light of the rapid strides made by the construction management industry in recent years, both in terms of technological advances and in terms of utilisation of management processes), this study attempts to investigate the issue, with the aid of relevant current examples and current construction management theory. Commentary and Analysis A meaningful discussion on the italicised topic calls for logical and relevant structuring. This analytical commentary is structured into sequential sections that take up the determination of failure, as applicable to iconic projects, the various environmental, political, economic and managerial factors that can contribute to such failures, and the measures that can be adopted and implemented to lessen the chances of their happening. The concluding section summarises the discussion and contains appropriate recommendations. Determination of Project Failure A project can be defined as a discrete and predetermined endeavour that has specific commencement and conclusion nodes and is undertaken to construct a quantifiable deliverable (Lewis, 2007). Projects can be initiated in many areas of social, economic and business life and can be classified as iconic in terms of their status, importance, glamour, media friendliness and size. With the topic of this discussion being related to construction, the commentary is focussed on iconic projects that involve substantial construction activity, e.g. stadia, buildings, roads, dams, museums, monuments and the like. Large and prestigious projects in areas like IT or brand building, which can also be truly termed to be iconic, do not find place in this study. A project can be termed to be a failure if it does not meet its objectives (Lewis, 2007). With most modern day projects, especially those that are large and complex, having aims and targets, in terms of physical, cost, and time deliverables, and expected to conform to norms of accountability, transparency, and ethics during their execution, such projects can be deemed to be unsatisfactory if they fail to meet such signposts and requirements (Lewis, 2007). Properly set project objectives, in the language of project management, are expected to meet specific SMARTA criteria, i.e., they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Framed, and Agreed (Lewis, 2007). Apart from such objectives, iconic projects have broad aims in terms of what they are expected to achieve and the services they are to provide (Prasser, 2006). The Millennium Dome at Greenwich in the outskirts of London, for example, was conceived as a mega project that was planned to be either a football stadium or a huge convention and exhibition centre (and an attractive tourist destination), after the completion of the Millennium Experience in December, 2000 (Maddox, 2000). The structure, which is the largest of its type in the world, whilst proving to be a huge tourist attraction in 2000, proved to be of little use thereafter. Horrendously expensive to maintain, it remained practically unused during the next five years. Most of its adjacent structures were demolished. Renamed O2 in 2005 it has since been transformed into an entertainment district at a cost of 600 million dollars (Millennium Dome, 2008). The Spinnaker Tower at Portsmouth is another example of an iconic project that has come in for widespread criticism. Reflecting Portsmouth’s maritime history and designed to resemble a sail, the tower was completed five years after schedule, incurred expenditures far beyond what was originally forecasted, was executed poorly, developed construction defects and was found to be unfriendly towards disabled visitors (Oates, 2006). The London Wheel, on the other hand, which received lesser visitors than the Millennium Dome in 2000, belied pessimistic forecasts and went on to become a hugely successful tourist attraction, redefining London’s skyline and being featured in every Bollywood movie that was shot in London. Projects to be successful should specifically deliver on the wider planned benefits and services. â€Å"The concept of project benefits is central to project success. A project will be deemed successful if it delivers its promised benefits. What about on time and on budget? These are different questions, relating to how well the project is managed. Important as they are, these are not the focus of a quest to clarify objectives. Besides, in the end we would rather have a successful project a little late and over budget than a beautifully managed disaster which fails to deliver on promises† (Writing Project Objectives, 2008, http://www.numerix.com.au/docs/newsletter-articles/writing-project-objectives.htm). Causes for Project Failure Commercial project management, as a discipline, has enlarged significantly in recent years. Imbibing theories and concepts from various sectors of management theory like strategic, human resource (HR), financial, general and environmental management, its evolution has been helped by the progressive sophistication of project management, decision making, monitoring and control techniques (like PERT (Project Evaluation and Review Techniques), CPM (Critical Path Method), Gantt Charts, and Fishbone diagrams) (Richman, 2002). With construction having progressively become one of the biggest business activities in the world, the use of sophisticated management practices, which otherwise originated and were developed in other business sectors like automobile and steel production, is but normal (Richman, 2002). The fact that project construction, especially on the scale of what is being attempted in the modern day, is an extremely complex process that involves political decision making, activist involvement, environmental repercussions, land acquisition, financial organisation, use of sophisticated technology and complex machinery, diverse human skills, and the involvement of numerous agencies, contractors, and subcontractors, results in the emergence of numerous variables, which, individually, and in tandem with others, can lead to partial or complete failure in achievement of project objectives (Richman, 2002). Despite the existence of numerous related and independent factors that can effectively hinder the success of projects, management experts feel it advisable to group and analyse these variables under specific categories. Again, whilst project management experts and project consulting organisations by and large appear to have their own interpretation of reasons behind failures of large and prestigious projects, they are united on some major causal factors. Problems in Project Initiation The most important of these causal factors arise during the initiation of the project, a process that in the case of iconic projects is likely to include issues of political governance, harmonisation of expectations of different stakeholders, environmental requirements, cost estimation, organisation of finances, selection of management team, and crystallisation of broad project objectives, benefits, and services, as well as its SMARTA criteria (Lewis, 2007). Ambiguity about any of these factors, especially at the initiation stage can lead to the perpetuation of uncertainties in objectives, as the project progresses, and inadequate or inappropriate managerial inputs at later times (Lewis, 2007). Large projects, more often those that are public in nature, or involve public private participation, need clarity in political approach, inter-departmental involvement, and decision making; the lack of which can lead to continuing snags in project implementation. The Millennium Dome, projected as the most celebrated iconic project of the beginning of the Millennium, went over budget by more than 200 million GBP and lay idle for five years after 2000 (Millennium Dome, 2008). It was mired in political and public controversy regarding its cost, design, and content right from project inception; developments that definitely contributed to unsteadiness in its management and leadership and uncertainty in its execution. Whilst the initiation stage of the project in matters of time is often much shorter than the actual time required for its completion, it is critical for satisfactory project outcomes, because of its key processes, (all of which involve high level decision making skills), namely (a) crystallisation of project benefits (b) agreement on project implementation at governing levels, (c) fleshing out of project dimensions and project design, (d) arrangement of finance, and (e) selection of management team (Lewis, 2007). Although commercial project management does borrow many managerial and control techniques from regular management theory and practice, its finite and bounded nature poses significantly different and multifaceted challenges, especially those that arise from the need to make route corrections, if and when such need arises (Hannigan Browne, 2000). Whilst such route corrections are part and parcel of regular management projects, their occurrences in construction projects invariably lead to disruption of time, cost, and completion targets; thus the need for careful project initiation. A project well begun often leads to far easier meeting of project objectives (Hannigan Browne, 2000). The costs of the project, its construction and finance requirements, and time frame, ultimately depend upon project design, the excellence of which has a significant effect on its final success. The design for the Millennium stadium at Cardiff had to take account of variables like the proximity of the river Taff, the issue of tidal flooding and the demolition of a number of buildings with consequent compensation and relocation costs (Lowe, 2008). Mishandling of these issues could well have fatally jeopardised the outcome of this project. Project design is also inextricably linked to the land needed for the project. With land for prestigious projects invariably being substantial, and more often than not in populated areas, land acquisition is a complex exercise with political, environmental, social, and economic aspects that need to be addressed separately and competently. The Tatas, recent acquirers of Corus Steel and Jaguar Landrover, are in the process of constructing their factory for the world’s cheapest car, the 2200 USD Nano, in India. In many ways the group’s most celebrated and iconic project, the original Nano site near Kolkata in East India had to be abandoned after a year’s work and more than 100 million US dollars in expenses, after protests from local landowners, (who did not agree with the land acquisition price negotiated by the concerned state government), led to riots and violence (Misery Is the Price Farmers Must Pay for â€Å"People’s Car†, 2008). The project, whi ch has been resumed in a totally different location, is now substantially behind, both in terms of costs and time, and only the future will tell whether the Tatas will be able to keep their price commitment. Provisioning of finance, its estimation, its sources, and its arrangement form another crucial component of project initiation activities. Project financing, especially in public private partnerships is a complex process, with different sources of finance carrying different cost and repayment commitments. Whilst the Millennium Commission projects were by and large funded by the national lottery, most projects are not so lucky and need to be funded adequately to ensure against work delays on account of financial inadequacy. The Spinnaker Tower, the showpiece of Portsmouth Harbour, suffered from underestimation of cost as well as under-arrangement of finances, leading to an overrun of 36 million GBP and the need to use taxpayers’ money, an avenue that was specifically not considered at the time of the project decision (Oates, 2006). With financial inadequacy likely to arise both from poor financial management and from wrong cost estimation, it is important to get the financials right before the start of a complex and expensive project. Activities like the estimation of finance and the coordination of design activity are the responsibility of the commercial management team of the project, the selection of which, along with that of the commercial manager, is critical to project success. Subject to the necessary provisioning of required inputs from the project owners, the functioning of the commercial management team assumes enormous responsibility for successful project execution. Commercial Management Commercial management of projects is a complex and multifaceted discipline requiring numerous managerial skills and inputs. The execution of large projects is possibly among the most challenging of modern day management tasks, an area of work that is distinguished by two main features, first the sheer number of variables that need to be controlled and issues that need to be attended, and second the minimal scope for wrong decisions or operational blunders (Frame, 2002). The commercial management function is underpinned on theory that is drawn from diverse disciplines like social sciences, management, economics, law, accountancy and finance, in addition of course to project management and supply chain management (Lowe, 2008a). Commercial managers of construction projects have extensive responsibilities that commence from the time of initiation and need to be appointed as soon as a final decision on project implementation is taken (Frame, 2002). Whilst commercial managers are not involved in much of the initial decision making that concern areas of political governance, environmental and ecological issues and sourcing of avenues of finance, their involvement at this stage can be rewarding because of their managerial expertise and their previous experience (Frame, 2002). Commercial managers are more often than not senior practicing managers with significant project experience and are expected to be competent in areas of technical and financial knowledge, budgeting, forecasting and monitoring, law, human resource management, supplier chain management and above all leadership and general management. They need to be selected with the utmost of care as much of the proper execution of projects depends upon their knowledge and competence. Whilst they are generally provided with adequate support in both line and staff functions, their own knowledge of finance management, HR management, supplier chain management and project management is under constant challenge and test; successful project progression depends significantly upon their own interpretation of cash flows and assessment of contractors and subcontractors for project jobs. With the overwhelming majority of project work being carried out by contractors who are chosen for and assigned specific jobs, the most important constraint and critical variable in successful project execution arises from the need to appoint, instruct, monitor and control them (Lowe, 2008a). Unlike regular business organisations, where the bulk of the work is handled by company employees, the majority of project work is undertaken by external contractors who are supervised by project managers with the help of support staff and project accountants, a phenomenon that leads to the emergence of numerous uncertainties and project risks. Much of the delay in the construction of the Wembley stadium, which was finally opened in 2007, more than a year after schedule, can be related to unsatisfactory working of Multiplex, the main contractor (Lowe, 2008a). Contractors are used for every conceivable function and service, from providing designing and architectural services to erection, masonry, electrical work, provisioning of machinery and vehicles, and secretarial and canteen services. A comparison of the nature of project work with that of the currently growing trend of outsourcing in routine business operations is apt. Outsourcing, a process by which internal operations of the company, is handed over to outsiders in return of cost and efficiency advantages, can make a company vulnerable to external factors and is handled by most organisations with utmost circumspection and care. It is used only for repetitive and low skills work and the credentials of service providers are literally tested with fire before they are engaged. The complexities associated with running a company where practically every activity is outsourced can be realistically compared with the challenges faced by commercial managers of large, iconic, projects. Whilst appointing contractors it is essential to gauge their competence and ability for fulfilling proposed responsibilities by assessing their size, competence, availability, financial position, and readiness to work (Frame, 2002). Although such contractors are routinely appointed in Asian countries on the basis of their closeness to and intimacy with the commercial management team (leading to informal and trust based client-contractor relationships), such relationships in Anglo American environments are governed by detailed contracts, and most commercial managers use sophisticated legal help to draw out elaborate agreements with their contractors (Frame, 2002). It needs to be mentioned here that few of the contractors who are engaged in large projects represent small one man organisations. Most of them are medium sized or even large, (where the requirement is substantial, involves the use of expensive machinery or large numbers of people), organisations employing thousands of peopl e. Some are joint stock or privately held companies, and many operate a number of projects simultaneously. In many cases main contractors engage sub-contractors to carry out different jobs that fall under their area of responsibility. Apart from contractual obligations, contractors are controlled by regular monitoring, quality checks, and financial incentives and penalties. Despite the use of legal and managerial methods for progressing work, advancement of project activity in line with forecasts and schedules are often affected adversely due to a number of operational reasons. Commercial mismanagement of projects occurs, in the opinion of experts mainly because of (a) lack of commercial and project management skills with the implementing management (b) inability to assess and control risks (c) lack of attention to breaking development and implementation into manageable and discrete steps, (d) lack of understanding and contact with the supply industry at senior levels and (e) lack of effective project team integration between the commercial management team, the subcontractors, and other participants of the supply chain (Frame, 2003). Experts are also quite clear in arguing that many of the problems that arise in p roject management occur because of overworked commercial managers. Project owners rarely understand the extent of detailed and complex work that is natural to commercial management of projects, a phenomenon that leads to unsustainable loads on executives and to consequential errors and delays (Frame, 2003). Failure of Iconic Projects Project execution is essentially a complex exercise and is affected by the inter-play of a host of variables, many of which arise from issues and developments that are not under the direct control of the project execution team. Project delays and cost overruns, are common to both the private and public sector, and continue to happen despite the increasing sophistication of project and commercial management techniques and methods. Project failure in the IT industry, for example, is an unhealthy 85 %! â€Å"Research highlights that only one in eight information technology projects can be considered truly successful (failure being described as those projects that do not meet the original time, cost and (quality) requirements criteria† (McManus and Wood Harper, 2008) The situation becomes even more complex in case of iconic projects. Such projects in the public or public-private domain arise because of a continuing historical obsession of decision makers with size and grandeur and often occur at the expense of more essential infrastructural projects like roads, hospitals, power and public transport. With the origins of such projects often mired in controversy and public disapproval, their approval leads to difficulties in balancing of public budgets and slashing of other required expenditure; the stated benefits of such projects often have to be related to the reduction of benefits from other areas that need to be cannibalised. Iconic projects, all over the world, irrespective of their location in the UK, Australia or the United States involve enormous costs and stress on size as a feature rather than as a requirement. They extol form over function and their benefits are more symbolic than measurable. Often large scale in nature they are taken up for boosting economic or tourism activity, (Millennium Dome), hosting huge sporting events, (Beijing and London Olympics), lifting regional prestige (The Millennium Stadium at Cardiff and Spinnaker Tower at Portsmouth), and symbolising governmental achievement (the magnificent Parliament House at Canberra). The Beijing Olympics led to an enormous demand for global steel and the intensification of a commodity super cycle, a phenomenon that now lies buried under the debris of the sub prime crisis. The London Olympics are similarly expected to generate 60,000 person years of employment during construction. With decisions for undertaking such projects often being founded on peripheral considerations, they are subject to excessive political interference, have unclear and ill defined objectives, over optimistic considerations, and inflated viability. More often than not they are driven by considerations of supply rather than demand and suffer from the â€Å"Build it and they will come† syndrome (Fenn, 2002). It is difficult to assess today whether the huge infrastructure that has been created at Beijing or is being created at London will be utilised in future after the dust of the three week Olympic spectacle subsides. With England in the middle of a severe economic crisis, the pound losing against all world currencies, and unemployment expected to rise, the justification of continuing with such massive expenditure at the cost of economic measures that could help overcome the recession appears to be difficult. Critics also associate iconic projects with poor governance, symbolised by secrecy, lack of transparency, minimisation of risk assessment, fudging of budgets, and political expediency. The Federation Square project at Melbourne had major icon implications. It had high profile and high visibility during construction and a complex architectural design. The haste shown in its construction led to construction activity moving ahead of detailed design work and its lack of transparency was revealed in the cost overrun of more than 350 million when it was inaugurated in 2002, two years behind the opening deadline and in a still incomplete state (Prasser, 2006). The project was affected by cost variations, trade disruption and contractor delay claims, increases in contracting costs, extra project costs, hidden design changes, and post completion changes (Prasser, 2006). Whilst examples of poorly executed iconic projects are not difficult to find, tarring all top drawer projects with the same critical brush appears to be cynical; there also being projects that have been handled and executed with utmost transparency and brilliance. Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium at Islington, completed in 2006, is an example of brilliant project visualisation and construction. Awarded the Building Project of the Year at the Annual Building Awards, the judges described it thus: â€Å"The whole process was an example of how important teamwork should be to a project, with everyone from the client to the contractor and subcontractors coming together and working successfully to ensure the project was completed on time and under budget. The way that this team tackled design changes should be a lesson to the industry† (Lowe, D, 2008, 21). Conclusion Much of the perceptions associated with the â€Å"failure† of large â€Å"iconic† projects arise out of their being over budget and behind schedule. The execution of such projects is in common perception also associated with poor risk management, bureaucratic thinking, and poor project execution. Whilst a number of big ticket projects have been rightly criticised for their failure in meeting of project objectives and underdelivery of promised benefits, the basic issue about viability of iconic projects is prone to becoming clouded by media publicity and public debate. Project conception and management are by themselves extremely complex tasks and it is not difficult to understand the reasons behind their execution problems. The private sector also witnesses numerous incidences of project failure, a fact that possibly does not come to light because of the shroud of confidentiality that covers much of private sector working. Successful project execution involves two discrete and distinct components, first, the conception and visualisation of and the decision to undertake a project and second, its actual physical execution and completion. The actual progression of a project is largely carried out by experienced professionals with the aid of experienced contractors and it would be nothing short of uncharitable to lay the blame for unsatisfactory project execution to the inferior project management skills of managers of iconic projects. Brilliantly executed iconic projects like the Emirates Stadium at Islington confirm that large and top drawer projects can indeed be successfully completed. Iconic projects, especially those that occur in the public space, are usually visualised by political leaders, who, whilst capable of feeling the public pulse and conceptualising ambitious and extravagant plans are not fundamentally strong in commercially complex areas of project management. Being impatient doers they tend to rush through the initiation stages of such projects without paying detailed attention to the greater practical ramifications of project execution, thus building in inherent weaknesses that lead to difficulties later. Iconic projects have a far greater chance of being successfully executed if such errors can be minimised by more transparent and participative working in the initial stages without sacrificing the project’s grand vision. The widely publicised aims and benefits of iconic projects are essentially subjective and their assessment in terms of right or wrong is beyond the scope of this commentary. Being public and long term decisions their benefits are judged more by posterity than by current applause or criticism and on many occasions assume dimensions that make issues like cost and time overruns trivial matters of detail and quibble. The public perception of success of iconic projects could however improve radically if their initiation and execution were tackled with clarity, conservatism and attention to detail. The responsibility for this lies essentially with the project owners, the people who conceptualise and decide upon the project, than on anybody else. Word Count: 4691 References Ahmed, A. S. (1993, May). The Taj Mahal, History Today, 43, 62+ Ali, M. M., Moon, K. S. (2007), Structural Developments in Tall Buildings: Current Trends and Future Prospects. Architectural Science Review, 50(3), 205+ Boss Stuck in Lift as Tower Opens. (2005, October 18). The Evening Standard (London, England), p. 9

Positive Psychotherapy in Cancer Treatment

The start of the psychoanalyst is registered as 1975 by Jimmy C. Holland, when the understanding of the psychological support to those who was cancer- diagnosed. The meaning of psychoanalyst or sometimes they call It inconspicuously, originally was started from telling the cancer- diagnosis to the patient. In USA special stuff was assigned who would tell the diagnosis Initially to the patient. However there are lots of other cases that should be dealt with, In the process of the cancer treatment.Incontinent Is going through lots of kinds of treatments, such as chemotherapy, deteriorated, Impenetrably, medications, and so on. While going through all those hard to bear stuffs, patient Is having not only well-being problems, psychological problems, physiological problems, but also changes in physical appearances are problems. Since the patient already knows that he isn't as usual anymore, and has â€Å"zero† haircut, has lost weight, got very skinny and even sometimes color of sk in becomes different than before and many other chances such as those can happen. Heir treatments, other negative outcomes, such as metastases, cancer recurrences, repeated surgeries and worsening of the tests and so on. Can we have different people assigned to tell or to communicate about each one of those steps, or let's say outcomes? Is it possible? Cancer patients also may have problems in communication with family, doctors, medical stuff, friends, spouses, siblings, caregivers, parents, and so on. Should we not interrupt? What about leaving him alone to go through such hardships? â€Å"Absolute no† is an answer for this. Here is the main set of work for a psychoanalyst to deal with.Not only are these kinds of stuffs act as an issue, although. Psychoanalyst is a huge amount area, what is responsible for huge amount of work for every single case of a cancer patient. What I mean is, every single cancer patient has a different stereographic state: age, gender, family state, blood type and so on. Also there are lots of differences such as diagnosis, type of treatment, history of illness; and family is different. Even the place of living and birth place is important, when figuring out what is loved and unloved by him/ her.Other things like allergies, previous diagnoses, previous hospitalizing causes, and effects of treatments and etc. All of those are very important for the psychologist working in the oncology centers. Another responsibility of the anesthesiologist is to improve the actor-patient relationships, subordination state, and solve conflicts between medical stuff. How? That is up to the situation, again. Therefore, it must be known what is the real problem, the main problem that is leading to conflicts. If the treating stuff isn't feeling comfortable in his workplace then the positive effect of the treatment is under the question as well.Also, most of doctors have a burn-out state at their workouts. It is when they don't want to work to help fo r the patient to recover, and see the results, and building empathy in the relationships between him/her (doctor) and patient, owing Just what he/she has to do without any motivation and excitement. The consummation of alcohol and smoking of the doctors can be explained as a stress- release, or how we call it â€Å"discharge†. What is the reason for the doctor to have stress? As I'm in charge of psychological state of the well-being, I will tell from what I know.When the doctor sees that the patient who is discharged and happy about it will come back very soon, when the doctor have to deal with the bad outcomes of his/ her patients alone; without telling to his/her patient and his/her family, because the actor was been told like that by them; when the doctor is assigning any kind of treatment and seeing that it made the patient worse; when the doctor was scolded for the worsening of his/her patient, while already feeling bad about that; when doctor loses patient's belief or t rust in him/her and lots of such kind of stresses of the doctor may cause bigger problems for his/her career as well as to the patient's treatment. It is seen as â€Å"those doctors are cold-blooded folks†, however they are in state of long-lasted chronic distress or even sometimes chronic depression. What to do? Here psychologist is in charge of making kinds of trainings or stress-relieving consultations, treatments and therapies. However, doctors aren't always open to those kinds of procedures. This is another Job for the psychologist, to find those approaches to attract medical stuff to be open to that. Is that's all? What about the applied psychology?Applied psychology is the main thing that helps to accomplish all listed above tasks. In the first place, for the psychologist, as for the doctor, the well- session with the oncology patient, and after introducing him-I herself, the anesthesiologist is listening to the patient. While in the normal clinical session, psychologi st writes down socio-demographic state of the client. Next is asking questions in the flow of the patient's speech, and listen and notice everything told by the patient. The writing while listening isn't so necessary, even is better not to write, since the patient has gone through all those writing stuff till getting to the psychologist.If there are some significant issues in his/her speech and hard to memorize, it is k to ask the patient to stop and permit him/her to write it down, since it is very important for you, as well. If the patient is not so open-minded, however most of the incontinent are up to â€Å"free association† and not need to ask them to tell, however there are those depressed or aggressive incontinent going through one of the steps of Kibble-Rose's Scale (5-stage of the coping). There the psychologist may even make a bedside-session, what is prohibited in normal-life clinical consultation. What we do at the bedside is trying to build so called one-to-one e mpathy. With those kinds of patients, the psychologist may be called by the treating doctor of the patient or by the family of the patient, most probably.One of the way of building an empathy between the patient and the psychologist is, when psychologist is using so called insight and finds out what is favorable activities, fields of interest of the patient, either by asking the close ones or Just by looking around patient's bed and room, sometimes clothes and objects near the pillow, or accessories on him/her. Methods of treating the patient clinically (psychological term), is to use different kinds of therapies due to the cases of the patients; NIL, Gestalt therapy, psychoanalysis, psychotherapies, COB, Art therapies (especially for underage patients), cognitive harpies, meditation, visualization, Positive therapy and etc. The one that I'm going to study is Positive therapy. There are lots of different types of so-called Positive Therapy, in some cases not even based on Psychology Science.Just entering the term â€Å"Positive therapy' to the search databases will give out plenty of links, such â€Å"Silva Method†, other named webzines, named psychologists virtual seminars, trainings and so on. However, what is Positive? The term positivism leads to the belief that only scientific knowledge is accepted as the truth, and was found by August Comet in 19th entry. So, it is better not to mention about other unknown methods of positive therapies at all, and grab and hold the idea of positive therapy as the real considered method of psychological help. Some researchers say that positive thinking of cancer patient may cause the problem rather than the positive progress.It is like forcing a patient to think positively and not expressing aggressiveness or stress and whatever is felt negatively. Somehow it's related to the â€Å"not telling the diagnosis to the patient† debates. It was like that in the earlier years and nowadays thanks to philosophers, p sychologists and doctors for changing that rule, such as Level Tolstoy â€Å"Death of Ivan Illicit† work which was used in the different fields of medicine and health psychology area even as a textbook, where the sufferings of Ivan Illicit described in a detailed way, and how he couldn't express that since his wife and servant tried to hide every truth about his illness and death.Contrary to this, positive psychology is trying to help the patient considering diagnosis, it's consequences and everything open to the patient and being with the patient, that's how the support appears, when the patient How to express the anger, suffering, pain in a positive way? Positive psychology never says to express pain in a positive way, since the pain isn't something emotional. But emotions, these are what have to be dealt positively; it has many distinct methods, which are in a scientific and checked mode. That is therapies to stay positive by using Cognitive-Behavioral methods, or Locus of Control, Happiness Training Programs and so on.Surely, before setting a therapy to the patient everything should be taken into an account, such as socio-demographic state, illness, character, behavior and especially amnesias of life. Those are measured by scales, questionnaires, surveys and other testing methods. Initially, positive psychology was found by Howard Gardner, but it was assigned not for treatment, but for prevention, as for people not to get sick, not to have depression, and under-stress appearing consequences and so on. More briefly, cancer is from the psychosomatic illness group. Exciting is that the illness based on low level of well-being may cause physiologically terminal illness (here is another example for close relationship between mind-and-body).However Positive Psychology (PPTP) started to be used as a treatment as well, since the revelation is preventing from happening (not always), and how about already started or initially not prevented cases. That is how we come to apply to positive psychotherapy, what was found by Iranian neurologist, psychiatrist, and psychotherapist Angoras Physician since 1968. He developed a collection of East or in another words, Oriental tails, and stories, as one of the methods for a positive psychotherapy. There were contra-opinions to it. Like one of those I have told before, and other ones as well. However, as an explanation to those hypothetical debates, it may also develop into scientific studies and hypotheses, and may be the true of the â€Å"Positive Psychology' has perspective height as well. If the positive psychology is forcing patients to stay positive, should we develop â€Å"Realistic Psychology', or were patients aren't going to be forced to stay positive and will be taught to deal with every single problem in a real way, without trying to be positive or whatever; and if the positive psychology isn't Just forcing patients to stay positive, but more guarding patients and training them to deal with negative emotions positively, and not risking for progress of the tumor or cancer cells (cancer cells are getting ore by having the stress, depressive state, aggressive emotions and other negative mood expressions, also nervousness), then should we change the title or name of these psychological sphere from â€Å"positive psychology' into â€Å"realistic psychology'?In my short but meaningful experience, I have noticed that most of patients received â€Å"chimerical†, oncologist progress not after a while as they've been severely distressed over something. It's not a secret, that cancer cells are already existing in our body, organism, and starting to react as soon as we trigger them to react. Surely, n those who have genetic vulnerability cancer cells react more than in those who have not gene-hearted cancer cells. Here, I want to mark that, the psychological treatment is as seriously important as medical one, may be even more, since the initial trigger of the illnes s may be psychological state of the patient. Cancer patient cases: 20 years old lady, she is married and has 2 small children, I'm not allowed to tell the diagnosis, but the area of the tumor is her limb.When I first came to her, she was the burdened chemo treatment and cancer diagnosis, but more she was focused on her life problems. She was very young and already married and living with her in- laws. Her husband was sent away to prison for murdering two people, however she is confident that he admitted the criminal imprisonment instead of someone else, that is covering somebody, who is an actual criminal. And the time of imprisonment is 25 years. She told about how hard it was for her to see everything and how she felt about that. She cried for two days and was very weak, and then she felt down from the stairs but not high ones and injured her leg. For me it isn't Just the accident of falling down caused the tumor in her limb.Another case is with the woman having a cancer and recei ving chemo, but talking about her allowances, and large amount of money she borrowed and that she must find from somewhere, but not having an idea from where. Also, her in-laws and husband are asking her to leave them, and cursing her for that. Next example is about a man who is 32 years old and divorced from his wife, has a son. This man was diagnosed as lung cancer. His sister came to me to consult about how to tell him his diagnosis. This man was grieving over his mother's death and living alone, and very often talking about committing a suicide. This case is even harder, telling him his diagnosis may cause him harm by himself. But this is another topic.

Linkage Between Capital Market Development and Economic Growth Essay

The capital market is an integral part of the financial system that provides efficient delivery mechanism for mobilization and allocation, management and distribution of long-term fund (Sunday O. E. Ewah and Judey Bassey). The capital market is a market for long-term debt and equity securities, where business enterprise and government can raise fund for long-term investments. It is normally divided into two broad categories: the stock market and the bond market (Central Bank of Lesotho Economic Review 2009). According to Tokunbo S.Osinubi (2000), the stock market is reported to perform some functions which promote the growth and development of an economy. It plays a pivotal role in mobilizing idle fund from surplus economic unit and channels such fund into deficit unit for investment in long-term project. The supplier of funds are basically individuals and corporate bodies who subscribe to capital market instrument as a way of adding value to their unused financial resources while the deficit unit i. e. the end users of the fund are government and corporate bodies as individual cannot approach the capital market for fund. Equally, the capital market provides ideal source for corporate bodies and government to pool monies from people and corporate bodies to finance capital intensive project which its internal purse cannot cope with. Akingboungbe (1996) opined that the importance of the capital lies in its financial intermediation capacity to link the laggard sector of the economy with the active sector. According to him, the absence of such capacity robs the economy of investment and production of goods and services for societal advancement. Capital market in any nation exists to provide long-term funds for government and corporate bodies for development purpose. It deals with long-term financial instruments which include equities or stocks, debentures, government bonds and derivatives like future options. In the capital market, the stock in trade is money which is often viewed as the lubricant of the economy and which can be raised through various instruments such as right issues, debt instrument, equity offering as well as through the stock exchange. This is a pointer to the fact that the capital market provides the wherewithal with which the goal of economic growth can be actualized, and equally held the key to economic prosperity of any nation. A virile capital market is capable of assisting a nation to muster financial resources and skills for rapid growth and development. The capital market is viewed as engine of growth in most countries. Empirical research by CBL Economic Review 2009 indicated that the capital market connects monetary sectors with the real sector and therefore facilitates growth in the real sector and economic development. The CBL economic review adduced the following as the fundamental channels through which capital market is connected to economic growth: First, capital markets increase the proportion of long-term savings (pension, funeral savings) that is channeled to long-term investment. Capital market enables contractual savings industry to mobilize long-term savings from small individual households and channel them into long-term investment. It fulfils the transfer of current purchasing power, in monetary forms from surplus sector to deficit sectors, in exchange for reimbursing a great purchasing power in future. In this way, the capital market enables corporations to raise funds to finance their investments in real estate. The implication will be an increase in aggregate consumption and hence growth and development. Second, capital market also provides equity capital and infrastructure development capital that has strong socio-economic benefit through development of roads, housing, energy, telecommunication, etc. These projects are ideal for financing through capital market via long-term bonds and asset backed securities. Moreover, capital market promotes public-private partnership to encourage private sector participation in productive investment. The need to shift economic growth from public to private sector has become inevitable as resources continue to diminish . It assists the public sector to close the resource gap, and complement its effort in financing socio-economic development through raising long-term project based capital. It also attracts foreign portfolio investors who are critical in supplementing the domestic savings levels. It facilitates inflow of foreign exchange into the domestic economy. Furthermore, the CBL Economic review 2009 equally asserted that countries with developed capital market have higher economic growth than countries without. An instance cited to justify this position is South Africa, the country with the largest and most developed capital market in Africa in terms of market capitalization which is experiencing faster growth compared to other countries with less-developed capital market. In Nigeria, the capital market seems not to have contributed so robustly to economic growth as the empirical research of the CBL Economic review and the predict of endogenous growth model which envisage positive correlation between the development of the capital market and economic growth both suggested. The capital market in Nigeria started rolling in 1960 when the Nigeria Stock Exchange was opened. It metamorphosed from the Lagos Stock Exchange which had been created in 1959 based on the recommendation of the Barback Committee set up by the then federal government. However, the Nigeria capital market has enjoyed a decade of unprecedented growth in the past five years. Going by the annual report of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) the total market capitalization has increased by over 90%though, this feat was short lived by the decline of 45. 8% in market capitalization recorded in 2008. According to the NSE, the impressive performance of the capital market can be attributed to some reasons: First, the bank consolidation exercise which introduced a minimum capital requirement for banks stimulated the performance of the capital market as it has encouraged most banks to choose the stock market. Equally, the privatization policy has also significantly impacted on the performance of the capital market. Even though with this scenario, the Nigeria capital market is yet to keep pace with the trend across the globe. According to Sule Ndanusa the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nigeria capital market is still a small market by international standard as its equity listing and market capitalization stood at 196 and $7billion respectively. This size of the Nigeria capital market is affected by the continuous depreciation of the naira. While the global trend dictates that the market capitalization of the capital market should be nearer the GDP or be above it, the market capitalization of the Nigeria capital market hovered around 60% and 39% respectively for 2007 and 2008 (NSE Annual report2009) respectively compared to that of South Africa which stood at 239%. Thus, a lot still need to be done to make the Nigeria capital market the engine of growth for the Nigeria economy. Given the scenario in the Nigeria capital market, the point of departure of this study is to examine the linkage between capital market development and economic growth with a view to explore the channels through which the capital market in Nigeria can be made engine of growth while addressing problem inherent in its operation. In the word of Adebiyi (2005), capital market in developing countries often suffer from classical defect such as illiquidity, lack of equity capital, bank dominated economies and lack of investor’s confidence in the capital market. The situation in the Nigeria capital market is not different as the predominant problem revolves around low market capitalization as well as illiquidity as most research works have revealed (e. g. Emenuga 2004, Judey Bassey and Sunday E. Ewah). This is coupled with the more serious obstacle of non-strengthening of the channels of transmission from financial development to economic growth such as financial depth(ratio of financial asset to national income), advanced financial structure(moving from bank and non-bank ntermediaries to stock market ), size as well as the efficiency of the financial system . The description of the Nigeria capital market as a small market by international standard as well the dominant roles which banks still play in the financial system at the expense of other financial intermediaries lends credence to this viewpoint. Several recent overviews of the link between financial market development and economic growth affirm positive correlation between financial market development and economic growth. But, in Nigeria evidences to this effect are weak, inconclusive and non-definitive. For instance, Sunday O. E. Ewah and Jude Bassey (2004) concluded that capital market has growth inducing potential but it has not contributed to economic growth owing to such problems such as low market capitalization and illiquidity. In similar vein, efforts were equally made by Nyong (1997) to develop an aggregate index of capital market development and use it to determine its relationship with long-term growth in Nigeria. The study employed a time series data between 1970 and 1974. The result of the study reveals that capital market is negatively and significantly correlated with long-run growth in Nigeria. The result also showed that there exist bi-directional causality between capital market development and economic growth. However, Levine and Zervos (1996) established positive relationship between the measure of stock market development and long-run growth rates. Ariyo and Adelegan (2005) contended that the liberalization of capital market contributes to the growth of the Nigeria capital market but its impact at the macro-economy is negligible. That is, the question of the channels through which capital market development correlate with economic growth has not been given detailed attention in empirics literature in Nigeria as most available empirical analysis in this direction are cross-country study and more so, are conducted for Asian and European economy. Such works include Jose De Gregorio et al (2003) Dipendra Sinha et al Saray Joy et al (2002) . A more potent proof of the scanty of evidence on the channel of transmission from financial development and economic growth can be found in the word of Valpy FitzGerald (2006) who stated that financial development and economic growth are clearly related and this relationship has occupied the mind of economists from Smith to Schumpeter, although the channels and direction of this relationship has remained unresolved in both theory and empirics literature. Thus, the absence of empirical analysis in this direction has left a serious gap that needed to be filled with a research enquiry. Following the foregoing from the few empirical evidences sighted above which reveal inadequacy and lack of agreement among analysts about the sine-qua-non role of capital market in economic growth coupled with scanty of literature on channels of transmission from financial development to growth and the pervasive problem of decline in market capitalization and illiquidity which characterize the Nigeria capital market as reflected in Nigeria Stock Exchange Annual report(2009), it becomes important to turn the searchlight on the capital market and every other thing that accompany or propel it with a view to empirically examine how linkage between capital market development and economic growth as well as the channels of transmission from capital market development to growth can be pursued to bring the dream of economic growth to fruition.

Definition and Examples of Particle Movement