MOD 5 FIN SLP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MOD 5 FIN SLP - Essay Example The challenge for non-profits is to effectively research and find funding resources to receive the necessary funds to perform all projects and functions within the company without missing out of any potential opportunities. We have two major projects we are currently working on that will be examined in this paper. The first project is attempting to improve our development budget to expand the company and purchase equipment and necessary resources for better care to the individuals. The second project is a local nonprofit book festival to allow developmentally challenged persons to interact with members of the community. The first project that we are currently implementing is one in which we are seeking funding for developmental avenues to expand the current operations of the company. We have been seeking different funding methods to increase our development budget and make necessary equipment and supplies purchases that are essential to providing proper care to these individuals. The primary source of funding that should be examined comes straight from state, federal and local grants that can be awarded to nonprofits for providing special care (Foster, Kim & Christiansen, 2009). These grants can be offered to any organization, group or individual based on very specific or broad criteria. Oftentimes, nonprofit organizations attempt to utilize these fiscal resources because grants are essentially free money that never has to be repaid. Grants can involve a lot of paperwork and man hours, but most require no fiscal obligation or investment and can pay for part or all of the necessary expenses to expan d operations given the type of care that is being provided and that we are indeed a nonprofit organization. These are two essential areas that work in our favor and will provide strong reasonable support to justify why we need the funds and that they will be put to good use to improve several of the local communities as

Nikes Strategic Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Nikes Strategic Management - Assignment Example The intention of this study is Nike Incorporation as world leader in designing, developing and worldwide distribution and marketing of sports equipment, ranging from athletic footwear, athletic clothing lines, sports equipment and accessories. Nike’s main focus is on markets where the political environments are relatively stable and democracy flourishes. Nike’s main markets are considered to be USA, European Countries, developing countries of Asia, South Africa and few countries of North and South America. Usually, in these countries, the government has been elected through a general election. The economic conditions in these countries are relatively stable and favorable for businesses, despite of the economic slowdown experience in rest of the world. These political conditions provide a competitive advantage to Nike as it does not have to face the adverse effects of economic fluctuations and fluctuations in exchange rates. The policies regarding the interest rates and other monitory responsibilities are made keeping in view the requirements of the businesses, therefore; it becomes easier for Nike to utilize the disposable income in a more productive way. Although, the political scenario seems to b e favorable for Nike, but within governments, there are certain groups and lobbies that put pressure on authorities to ban the methodologies used by Nike for producing and marketing its products. Nike also needs to consider the subsidies it might get from the Government as it can be helpful for the company to setup its factories in these countries and import goods into the respective countries. ... Economic Conditions In most of the countries, where Nike sells its products, economic conditions are either getting improved or they have already flourished or target customers’ purchasing power is improving on a regular basis. Especially in European countries and USA, Nike’s products are considered to be reliable and durable and purchased by customers on regular basis due to their ever increasing purchasing power and better economic conditions. Also, sports are considered to be an essential part of an individual’s life in these countries which helps Nike to sell more units of its products in a year as compare to the previous year (Petkova and Pattabiraman 2010). Social Being a USA based multinational company, Nike is widely accepted as a brand in USA and European countries, but at the same time, Nike faces criticism and neglected to be accepted by the society in some Asian and South and North American countries. For catering this strategic problem, Nike designs different products for every region of the world and markets the products according to the societal norms and values. These products are designed keeping in view the local customers’ buying behavior, their culture, the society in which they live and the attributes of sports equipment that these customers look for. Lifestyle also plays a pivotal role in Nike’s decision regarding designing a product. Majority of the markets that Nike caters, have a social background where sports events are paid especial attention, which implies that the purchasing of sports equipments is higher in these countries or markets (Mishra 2010). Technological Nike utilizes latest technology for manufacturing

Inequality undermines democracy Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Inequality undermines democracy - Assignment Example ality provokes a generalized anger that finds target where it can-immigrants, foreign countries, American elites, government in all forms-and it rewards demagogues while discrediting reformers†. I find this to be the key sentence because it encapsulated the ultimate danger that inequality can bring which is anger that begets hatred. The anger that begets hatred wrought by inequality as enunciated in those sentences to target where it can is not only in peculiar in the US but also in other countries and culture. In fact, these effects of anger wrought inequality are universal. What will change is the target but it will always find a target to vent that anger and hatred. Notice in countries, societies and cultures where there is so much anger, hatred, animosity, murder and other forms of onslaught – they have one common denominator which is inequality. Inequality which breeds poverty as Parker explained in his other sentence â€Å"creates a lopsided economy†. This inequality that breeds anger and hatred undermines democracy which explains why Parker ended his article with the sentence â€Å"Inequality undermines democracy†. He used the operating word â€Å"undermining† to illustrate that inequality is incompatible with democracy. Democracy, which provides an equal opportunity for all cannot thrive in an environment where equal opportunity cannot be had due to inequality. It cannot also thrive in any country or society where there is so much anger due to inequality because such anger would also target democracy

Ethics in Criminal Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Ethics in Criminal Justice - Essay Example Blagojevich was, ultimately, found guilty of nearly 20 different counts of soliciting bribes, conspiracy to illicit and accept bribes, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion, and attempted extortion.(Davey, and Emma G. Fitzsimmons ) But why does it exist? What causes people within politics to attempt such acts? What can be done to deter and prevent it? In order to get the answers to these questions it is necessary to understand more about corruption in government. Political corruption has a very strict definition, in that it involves political decision makers at high levels of the political system. When the people who are charged with the responsibility of making and upholding the laws are the very people who are corrupt, that is political corruption. It is widely accepted that corruption and the temptation to commit it is highly dependent on a person’s ability to believe they can successfully â€Å"get away with it.† The act of bribery, extortion, selling votes, accepting gifts and kickbacks are all reprehensible behaviors that can undermine the people’s faith in their elected officials. The overall cost of corruption is, also, rather high, and manifest in three typical ways. The first is, is the funds required to finance the bribes to get the favorable treatment , financing meetings, maintaining silence, and negotiating all add cost to whatever endeavor the involved group are attempting to illicit. The second, corruptio n can undermine the efficiency of the free market. Lastly, it can misrepresent resources towards the projects that generate â€Å"payoffs.†(Lanza, 2004) There are two ways that are encouraged to help curtail and deter corruption. The first is eliminating opportunity. Much in the way businesses are working harder and harder to fortify their companies from potential fraud. They structure their company to make the likelihood of successfully succeeding in committing fraud more and more risky to attempt.

Greek and Roman Art Essay Example for Free

Greek and Roman Art Essay Greek sculptures embody a lot of things and meanings. The way they create a certain object reflects to their psychological state that human beings are ‘the measure of things. ’ One of the known Greek artists during the ancient times is Praxiteles. He is the most famous ancient Greek artist because of his countless masterpieces such as the Aphrodite of Knidos and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal. Another well-known magnum opus that is crafted by Praxiteles is Hermes and the infant god Dionysus. Hermes and the infant god Dionysus is created by Praxiteles in a way that it is anchored to his ultimate decision of altering the rules and principles of the standard and ideal body proportions. It is the most famous example of an adult and child statuary. Praxiteles traces the Kephisodotos step by creating and sculpting a piece delineating a relationship between two figures (Praxiteles, 2008). This sculpture is found at Olympia where it has been commissioned for the said sanctuary. It conveys and expresses the secular world of the period (Hermes and the Infant Dionysus, n/d). Due to the artist’s manipulation and alteration of the standard body proportion, the adult on the artwork which is Hermes, is portrayed as tall and slender, standing in calm, tranquil and relax position. His figure encompasses various lines—from vertical, horizontal, curvilinear and spiral. Vertical lines are visible in his nose, neck and lower part of his leg. Horizontal lines are evident in his eyes and lips. Spiral lines are noticeable in his twisted and curly hair. Curvilinear dominates the whole figure—from Hermes’ face down to his feet. His phallus is not rendered. Nevertheless, a part of the male organ is still exposed and depicted. On the other hand, the baby figure, which is Dionysus, is illustrated in such a way that it is carried by Hermes in his left arm. The infant is just composed of curvilinear. He faces sideways making its physical features appear summarily represented. The cloth that wraps his lower body demonstrates horizontal lines, as well as the trunk of the tree which functions as support of the sculpture per se. On the contrary, Roman sculptures are said to be copied in Greek’s even though they are said to be purely Roman in origin and conception. Some statues are imitations and pastiche of more than one Greek original; some are combinations of Greek gods/athletes’ image and Roman head (Department of Greek Art and Roman, n/d). One of the ancient Roman sculptures which is said and believed that is copied from Greek’s is The Hope Dionysos. It embodies a retrospective Greco-Roman style (Hemingway, 2007). It is crafted during the late 1st century A. D. but during the 18th century it is restored by Vincenzo Pacetti (Vincenzo Pacetti. The Hope Dionysos: 1990. 247, 2006). The main figure in the sculpture is Dionysos. He is portrayed standing at ease and his left arm is resting on a female figure traditionally recognized as Spes, the embodiment and representation of hope. Dionysos wears a panther skin overlapping his chiton while a cloak envelops around his upper right arm and shoulder (Vincenzo Pacetti. The Hope Dionysos: 1990. 247, 2006). The statue is composed of various intricate lines—horizontal, vertical, curvilinear and spiral. The robes of the two figures possess a myriad of draperies which illustrate various vertical lines; however the cloth that is on Spes head shows curvatures. The two sculptures are depicted realistically with their complete body parts as compared to some statues that are lacking with head, arms or feet. Both sculptures possess two figures at the same time. If Hermes and the infant Dionysus showcases Dionysus as a baby, The Hope Dionysos illustrates the grown up one. The former is accompanied by a known Greek god Hermes, the latter is escorted with archaistic female figure, Spes. If Hermes is naked, Dionysos is very well-wrapped. The two statuaries imply dichotomies: the main focus (Hermes and Dionyos) and the out-of-focus (baby Dionysos and Spes), adult and baby, male and female. References Department of Greek and Roman Art. n. d. Roman Copies of Greek Statues. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. metmuseum. org/toah/hd/rogr/hd_rogr. htm. Hemingway, Colette. (July 2007). Retrospective Styles in Greek and Roman Sculpture. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. metmuseum. org/toah/hd/grsc/hd_grsc. htm. â€Å"Hermes with the Infant Dionysus. † n. d. The Museum of Antiquities Collection. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. usask. ca/antiquities/Collection/Hermes. html. Praxiteles. (2008). PEOPLE: Ancient Greece. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. ancientgreece. com/s/People/Praxiteles/. Vincenzo Pacetti: The Hope Dionysos-1990. 247. (October 2006). In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. metmuseum. org/toah/hd/grsc/ho_1990. 247. htm . List of Figures Hermes and the infant Dionysus. n. d. Greek Art: Hermes and Dionysus of Praxiteles. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. mlahanas. de/Greeks/Arts/HermesPraxiteles. htm. The Hope Dionysos. (October 2006). Vincenzo Pacetti: The Ho

Crowdsourcing As An Effective E Commerce Strategy Business Essay

Crowdsourcing As An Effective E Commerce Strategy Business Essay ABSTRACT With the growing trend of social websites and their usage for e-commerce activities, crowdsourcing has become an innovative strategy to conduct e-commerce. The paper aims to explore on its effectiveness as an e-commerce strategy, firstly by trying to understand the history of crowdsourcing. Secondly the paper will look at the methodology and definitions of various types of crowdsourcing. Thirdly, the paper will define how crowdsourcing is used in e-commerce. Next, some case studies of business that uses crowdsourcing are discussed, with analysis on its success and failures. Finally, the paper will provide suggestion on how crowdsourcing can be an effective strategy. 1. INTRODUCTION Introduced by Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson in the June 2006 issue of Wired magazine, the term crowdsourcing describes a process of how new web-based businesses organize labor, by outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by contractors or employees, to a community (usually online) through what amounts to an open call for proposals. Howe offers the following definition: Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers. (Howe, 2006) Howe further explained that true crowdsourcing involves a company accepting the idea received, processing it and producing for sale; and the idea provider being rewarded, in most cases, monetarily. This is to differentiate crowdsourcing from open sourcing, which is a cooperative activity initiated and voluntarily undertaken by members of public. In other words, crowdsourcing happens when a company posts a problem online, individuals in the community offer solutions to the problem, the winning ideas are awarded some form of a monetary reward, and the company mass produces the idea for its own gain. In another article, titled Power of Crowdsourcing, by Matt H. Evans, he states that Crowdsourcing taps into the global world of ideas, helping companies work through a rapid design process. From both definitions, it can be understood that crowdsourcing needs a channel that is able to reach out to the masses to be effective, and the most obvious choice is the internet. This is further complimented by the rise of Web 2.0 technologies, whereby individuals are able to interact and define the web rather than being passive browsers of the web. This makes crowdsourcing even more attractive as it allows companies to tap into the potential vast collective intelligence of the masses to achieve their business strategy. As such, e-commerce businesses (businesses that uses the internet to handle the buying and selling of products or services) are the most likely adopter of crowdsourcing technique for their e-commerce strategy. E-commerce strategy is the plan and courses of action that a company undertakes to offer its products and services on the internet to achieve its business goal. For companies that have existing offline operations, e-commerce strategy will most likely be focused on integrating its offline operations into an online presence. This will include how to best represent the company online, the infrastructure and framework required to do so and the range of activities needed to promote the companys core activities on the World Wide Web. Another reason that crowdsourcing is gaining popularity is because in todays globalised market, competition in innovation is very fierce and in-house research and development is getting more costly. As mentioned in The Global Brain, by Nambisan Sawhney, 2008, These forces rapidly decreasing product life cycles, decreasing internal innovation productivity, and global competition together are creating a Red Queen effect  [1]  in innovation: Companies have to invest more and more just to maintain their market position. This make crowdsourcing a viable option, as it allows the tapping into the vast intelligence of the masses, like what former Sun Chief Scientist, Bill Joy says, Most of the smart people in the world dont work for your company. More importantly, this intelligence can be obtained at relatively low cost. 2. POPULUARITY OF CROWDSOURCING To understand the current popularity of crowdsourcing, this paper has referred to PBworks ( http://crowdsourcingexamples.pbworks.com/ ), one of the worlds largest provider of hosted collaboration solutions for business and education, which has a wiki that provides a comprehensive list of companies that uses crowdsourcing. In addition to the wiki, as the list provided by PBworks is purely textual, this paper has also referred to Grant Silverstones article, Friday Fact Box Crowdsourcing ( http://www.gottaquirk.com/2010/01/29/friday-fact-box-crowdsourcing/ ), for graphical representation of the list. Extracted are two graphical breakdowns of industries that use crowdsourcing, one group using purely crowdsourcing as their business strategy, and the other using crowdsourcing as an add-on initiative to their current business, without disrupting their own core business strategy. In the chart (Fig 1.1), it shows the current industry breakdown of companies using Crowdsourcing as their main business strategy. According to PBworks, out of the listed 141 companies, the majority, or 43% belongs to general business, such as marketing, sales, advertising and finance. This is followed by Design (15%) and then Media (13%), while Tourism makes up the least at 1%. Fig 1.1 (Source: Grant Silverstone, Friday Fact Box Crowdsourcing) In addition to that, in Fig 1.2, it shows that of these 141 companies, a huge majority comes from USA (65%), Europe (13%) and UK (6%), while Brazil, Africa and Russia only make up 1% each. Fig 1.2 (Source: Grant Silverstone, Friday Fact Box Crowdsourcing) From these two charts, it can be derived that majority of companies using crowdsourcing efforts are those in industries that traditionally requires large community networks (such as sales, news and marketing) and creativity capacity (such as design, advertisement, media). While industries that requires specific skills (such as Education) and are more systematic (such as Science and IT) are less popular with companies to consider using crowsourcing as a business strategy. Moreover, crowdsourcing is mainly engaged in western countries, which the economy and infrastructure are much more developed. This is an important factor as mentioned earlier that a good networking channel is needed for the success of crowdsourcing. Next in Fig 1.3, it shows the industry breakdown of companies that initiated crowdsourcing efforts to complement their current business strategy, with the majority from IT at 33%. It is also interesting to note too that nearly all these companies in the list are big players in the industry, such as Adobe, BMW, Nokia and so on. Fig 1.3 (Source: Grant Silverstone, Friday Fact Box Crowdsourcing) From the chart and the list, it can be seen that currently, crowdsourcing is still a new idea and not attractive enough to draw companies to venture into it as a complement process to their existing business strategy. However, big companies, with huge resources, do see the potential of crowdsourcing and are able to invest into it. This is also the reason why IT industry is the major contributor to crowdsourcing initiatives, as they have the knowledge and expertise to tap on the internet to maximize crowdsourcing potential. 3. Examples of Business using Crowdsourcing To understand how crowdsourcing is currently being used in businesses and its effectiveness, it is necessary to look at real cases. The paper will look into 3 companies, each with distinctive methods of engaging crowdsourcing, namely Threadless, Amazon Mechanical Turk and Cambrian House. Threadless Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store launched in 2000 by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart, with $1,000 in seed money after entering and meeting in an Internet t-shirt design contest. They wanted to start their own design competition, but instead of hiring a jury, they decided to let the designers themselves pick the winner. Source: Threadless: http://www.threadless.com How it works In the beginning, members of the Threadless community will submit their t-shirt designs online, where the designs are then put to a member vote. The winner would get free T-shirts bearing the winning design, while everyone else would get to buy the shirt. Currently, Threadlesss receives on average, one thousand designs in any given week, of which, only ten designs from the voted top hundred to print and sell through an online store. DeHart and Nickell also increased the bounty paid to these winners to $2,000 in cash, a $500 gift certificate ($200 in cash if they trade in the certificate), as well as an additional $500 for every reprint. This is because limited batches are printed and sold out shirts will only be re-printed if there is enough demand from customers requesting for a re-print. On occasion, special contests will run in association with various sponsors. These contests set a theme for designs, with a selection of additional prizes, often related to the sponsor, being awarded to the chosen winner. How Successful was Threadless The Threadless community is currently six hundred thousand strong, producing about one thousand designs for voting each week. In 2006, Threadless had managed to generate $17 million in revenues and it is still growing rapidly. Threadless boasts, according to Jeffrey Kamikoff (Threadless Chief Creative Officer), incredible profit margins. Each shirt that sells for between $12 to $25 is produced at a cost of just $5. Moreover, Threadless need not do any advertising or marketing, as the community itself will self-perform such functions. The designers will persuade friends and community members to view and vote for their work. Threadless will also rewards the community for those who submit photos of themselves wearing a Threadless shirt or refers a friend who buys a shirt with store credits (worth $1.50 and $3.00 respectively). This crowdsourcing strategy helps Threadless to sell an average of ninety thousand T-shirts a month. However, Threadless had also suffered by their own success. Their spring sale in March 2008 resulted in serious server downtime, resulting in the offer of $50 vouchers to inconvenienced customers and the promise to never ever let this happen again forever ever. Eighteen months later, a special one day sale to tie into the 09/09/09 date saw Threadless pummeled again by insane amounts of traffic, with users reporting inability to access the site for extended periods some never getting through. The customer experience was impacted by such a lack of planning of traffic which was to be expected from a company dealing with such huge social community. It was only from these experiences that Threadless had begun to look into better managing their wildly fluctuating levels of traffic in their infrastructure. Amazon Mechanical Turk Amazon Mechanical Turk is a service launched on November 2, 2005 by Amazon.com, which was initially invented for in-house use by Peter Cohen as a service to find duplicates among its web pages describing products. As of 2010, though still in beta, Mechanical Turk has grown to be a crowdsourcing internet marketplace for work where businesses (known as Requesters) publish tasks (known as Human Intelligence Tasks or HITS), and workers (known as Providers) complete them for a monetary payment that was set by the Requesters. Amazon Mechanical Turk gives businesses immediate access to a diverse, global, on-demand, scalable workforce and gives Workers a selection of thousands of tasks to complete whenever and wherever its convenient. Source: Amazon Mechanical Turk: https://www.mturk.com How it works Amazon Mechanical Turk, as mentioned is a market place for tasks that computer and machines cannot do, or cannot do it precise enough. These tasks can only be done by human intelligence, such as writing reviews or detecting specific objects in images. The process of Mechanical Turk is firstly, companies will post jobs (HITS) at MTurk (Amazon Mechanical Turk Market Place), then deposit the HITS payout amount into their MTurk account. Next, workers, who are registered members of MTurks, will look for tasks that they feel that they can perform. Once they take up the task, they will be assigned to it, but there will not be any contract. These HITS are tasks that are fairly easy and quick to execute, with most of them being able to be completed under 20 to 30 seconds or less and payout at about 10 to 50 cents. After the HIT is completed and submitted, Amazon Mechanical Turk will automatically transfer the money from the Requesters prepaid HIT balance to the workers Amazon gift certificate account. With the payout, workers can choose to either transfer the money to their bank account or to their amazon.com gift certificate balance. For every task performed, Amazon will take a cut. In addition, Requesters can also give bonus to workers w hom they like the task done. Besides the Official MTurk website, there is another website, Turker Nation (http://www.turkernation.com ), a forum for workers and requestors to meet and discuss the work at hand. Issues with Hits are discussed here. The site is independent from Amazon, and is not related to Amazon in any way. How Successful was Mechanical Turk Since its launch in 2005, the number of worker members in Amazon Mechanical Turk had grown in numbers. By March 2007, there were reportedly more than 100,000 workers in over 100 countries. MTurk is popular with companies as they find that HITS are a very affordable way to outsource large groups of similar tasks that are very simple to complete. Companies find the MT task auction model attractive because it reduces payroll costs of having to employ normal workers to perform such tasks. However, while Companies or Requesters find the cost of engaging MTurk to complete HITS attractive, there are many criticisms. As HITS are typically simple, repetitive tasks and users are paid often only a few cents to complete them, many have criticized Mechanical Turk as a market place for slaves. Moreover, workers are paid as contractors rather than employees, requesters enjoy tax advantages and low cost, and they also avoid laws regarding minimum wage, overtime, and workers compensation. Workers, on the other hand, must report their income as self-employment income. In addition, some requesters have taken advantage of workers by having them do the tasks, then rejecting their submission in order to avoid paying. Amazon.com does not monitor the service and refers all complaints to the poster of the HIT. Nevertheless, in view of such criticism, MTurk is still attracting workers, especially those living in second and third-world economies, because the impact of earning those few extra dollars will be magnified many times over. Cambrian House Launched in 2006, Cambrian House started as a crowdsourcing community that pioneered the idea of harnessing the power of the crowd to create ideas for websites and software products. Its mantra is You think it; crowds test it; crowds build it; you sell it; you profit. Source: Cambrian House: http://www.cambrianhouse.com How it works Cambrian House calls itself a community of people with broad talents and interests to create web-based products that the world wants, markets those products, and shares in the profits. They cater to people with no time to pursue new ideas or anyone with a vision and motivated to submit ideas. The way Cambrian House works is, firstly, Individuals register and create a profile of their capabilities in its website. They can then participate within the community by initiating ideas. The community will then test these ideas and give the approval on those that are feasible. Next, Cambrian House staff will create a brochure site to test the winners popularity and usability within the community. If the idea survives, the contributor will then seek people with passion and skills in the community to construct or co-develop the commercial version of the idea, by awarding them with Royalty Points (the amount you receive for coming up with an original idea) or Cambro (Cambrian Houses currency, 1 Cambro = $1 USD). Cambrian House will fund the project and if needed, they can also seek additional funding from the community. Once the product is created, the project champions can then seek marketers, business development professionals, and or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts in the Cambrian House community to deal with the promoting, selling and delivery of the product. Finally, once the product starts to sell, every member that contributed will earn Royalty Points or Cambro that had been negotiated with the business champion. In short, every member in the Cambrian House community can participate by not just giving ideas but also in bringing members ideas to life. There are no limits to number of projects members can join. During every development stage, everyone involved will also participate as peer-reviewers at select decision gates along the way to measure the individuals contribution. Although Cambrian House crowdsources the conception and creation of its products, ideas are subject to editorial review by a core team and actual production is subject to a set of quality guidelines. In the case of conflicting code or design contributions, the community decides which the best is. An example of how Cambrian House involves in every project is its first product (a video game) which was emerged from the community forums and seemed popular, so it risked $8,000CAD on a preliminary website to promote the game. It sailed through the market test selling hundreds of pre-orders at half-price ($9.95CAD) in a single weekend. That response encouraged Cambrian House to invest more for the next development stage. Cambrian Houses eventual goal is to turn each project into a separate, independently funded firm, but only after it has been market-validated. How Successful was Cambrian House The original Cambrian House community was deemed successful as it managed to achieve the most important component of crowdscourcing by attracting 50,000 plus members and more than 7000 ideas from the crowd. However, Cambrian House did not realized that although the crowd was great at thinking and testing, it was less interested when it came to the building element of Cambrian Houses model. Moreover, there are weaknesses in the idea-community model which include the challenge of convincing users to study and vote a rapidly growing pool of ideas, of which some are of relatively low quality, the management difficulty of distributed development, and the large number of duplicate submissions. After unsuccessfully trying to raise a new round of capital, in May 2008, Cambrian House announced the sale of much its assets to the New York-based venture capital company Spencer Trask. While Cambrian House will carry on as a vendor of Crowdsourcing software, its existence as a crowdsourcing community had come to a close. In reflection, Cambrian House CEO Michael Sikorsky states in a letter (excerpt): Indeed, our model failed. In short: we became a destination people loved to bookmark more than they loved to actively visit. The limiting reagent in the startup equation is not ideas, but amazing founding teams. A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas this is where our model fell short. What we learned: it would have been better to back great teams with horrible ideas because most of the heavy lifting kept falling back on us, or a few select community members. A vicious cycle was created leading all of us to get more and more diffuse. Hence: the wisdom of crowds worked well in the model, but it was our participation of crowds aspect which broke down. Trying to find people willing or capable to take on the offspring (our outputs) of the Cambrian House model was hard and/or incredibly time consuming. (Michael Sikorsky, 2008) The lesson from Cambrian House is that the crowd only is not enough as it needs to be managed and needs an inspiring leader to guide it. 6. How can Crowdsourcing be an Effective E-Commerce Strategy? After looking at the definition and cases of crowdsourcing, it is understood that crowdsourcing has the potential to help e-commerce businesses gain competitive advantage, but like all business strategies, it is does not guarantee success. Nevertheless, crowdsourcing can be effective as an e-commerce strategy by helping companies in 5 ways. Crowdsourcing, firstly, can help companies to do market prediction by using the crowd to understand market desires. Companies can use the crowd to test the appeal of any new business ideas. Besides that, companies can derive from the crowd, emerging market desires and trends. Secondly, in addition to the knowledge of market desire, companies can draw information from crowdsourcing for product and business innovation. Based on information drawn from the crowd, companies can prioritize new business ideas, conduct product tests, rank next best enhancements with existing products and uncover methods to reduce costs and improve service. Thirdly, as mentioned, the knowledge of the crowd is very powerful. As such, crowdsourcing is a good option to solve problems that are difficult to solve internally with the companies current resources, by inviting answers or solutions from the crowd. Companies can also collaborate with the crowd to find new scientific discovery. Fourthly, besides solving internal problems, crowdsourcing can also help to tackle external issues, such as marketing. Companies can invite crowd to help in the creation of campaigns. Lastly, crowdsourcing is relatively much cheaper than hiring workforce for doing similar jobs. As companies only need to reward those who had contributed in the crowd, and it is usually not of huge amount, crowdsourcing is able to help companies to cut cost. With the above it mind, crowdsourcing effectiveness depends on how and under what environment it is used. Based on all the information gathered, the paper has come up with a few key points to effective crowdsourcing. Firstly, the crowd that crowdsourcing wants to tap into must be of substantial size. For example, if Threadless has only a member base of 100, and maintains its process of choosing ten winning designs every week, it will come a time whereby members might lose interest or doubt the integrity of these winning designs. Moreover, one of the characteristic of crowdsourcing is that the crowd is to represent the market, as such, the larger the community or crowd, the better the representation it will be. Secondly, companies must understand the crowd. When companies use crowdsourcing, they are usually targeting a specific community, which is formed by a common interest. Therefore, if companies want to crowdsource, they will need to know the community strengths and weaknesses. For example, if Threadless decides to request its community to submit computer programming works, it might not get anything or the works might be of inferior qualities. Thirdly, companies need to know what they want and need from the crowd. This is one important factor that determines the effectiveness of crowdsourcing. For example, in Amazon Mechanic Turk, if requesters post HITs with ambiguous requirements, the workers might have difficulty understanding what is needed of them and provide works that are irrelevant or not to the intended requirements. This will cause many rejected tasks, which is a waste of time of the companies and crowd, thus causing inefficiency. Next, companies need to recognize the contributions of crowd. Monetary reward is a way to acknowledge the crowds contribution, but usually crowd works mainly not for monetary reason. Participants of crowdsourcing are often leisure users, whose main motivation to participate is to be recognized and feel they are part of the community. The more affiliated they feel towards the community, the more willing they will be in providing help in tasks presented. Lastly, companies need to have adequate resources to manage the crowd and support the output from the crowd. This is one mistake that many companies make when they do crowdsourcing, as they thought the crowd will be able to contribute in every part of their business plan. This is generally not the case, as experienced by Cambrian House. As mentioned in the previous point, the crowd is usually made up of leisure participants, as such, they will be more willing to engage in task that requires less effort like providing ideas and suggestions, as compared to more tedious task like building the actual product which will be avoided. 7. Conclusion The above discussion has shown that crowdsourcing, when used correctly can be highly effective as an ecommerce strategy. It is able to tap into the power of the crowd for knowledge which is virtually unlimited at very low cost. Just like Threadless, by keeping the crowd motivated, business will grow as knowledge from crowd grows. However, it is important to note that there are situations where crowdsourcing is not possible or impractical. First of all, jobs that are confidential in nature, such as lawyers and accountants, and high level jobs, like business process planning, are not possible to be crowdsourced. As shown by Cambrian House, the crowd needs to be monitored by the company and provide resources when needed for successful manifestation of ideas. As such, it is not possible to fully crowsource a business process to the crowd. Internal workforce is still needed as the crowd might not fully understand the companies business models and goals and these internal employees are able to monitor and ensure the crowds contributions are within the companies guidelines and process. Moreover, too much reliance on the crowd could be construed as unethical and open the company up to criticism about the true nature of its social mission. By using Amazon Mechanical Turk, many companies have been seen as operating virtual sweat shops. As such, physical workforce is needed to balance the image of the company.

Spasticity Following Stroke: a Literature Review

Spasticity Following Stroke: a Literature Review ABBREVIATIONS UMN: UPPER MOTOR NEURON SPASM: SUPPORT PROGRAMME FOR ASSEMBLY OF DATABASE FOR SPASTICITY MEASUREMENT CNS: CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM PMS: PASSIVE MUSCLE STRETCHING TS: TRICEPS SURAE TA: TIBIALIS ANTERIOR ROM: RANGE OF MOTION INTRODUCTION: Spasticity is a major disabling symptom that most commonly arises after stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, some traumatic brain injuries and other central nervous system (CNS) lesion (Dietz and Sinkjaer 2007). Lesion of the cortico-fugal pathway along with the pyramidal tracts, at any level, like cortex, brainstem, internal capsule or spinal cord results in spasticity (Carr et al. 1995). The term spasticity was derived from the Greek word ‘spasticus’ meaning ‘to pull or to tug’ (Ghai et al. 2013). The definition of spasticity that has been formerly cited is that of Lance in 1980: ‘Spasticity is motor disorder characterised by a velocity dependent increase in tonic stretch reflexes (muscle tone) with exaggerated tendon jerks, resulting from hyper-excitability of the stretch reflex, as one component of the upper motor neurone (UMN) syndrome.’(Brown 1994). Though this definition is useful for diagnosis, yet for the purpose of understan ding and managing the effects of inappropriate muscle actions after stroke, it is too restrictive (Bhakta 2000). Recently SPASM (Support Programme for Assembly of database for Spasticity Measurement) redefined spasticity as â€Å"disordered sensori-motor control, resulting from an UMN lesion, presenting as intermittent or sustained involuntary activation of muscles† (Mirbagheri et al. 2009). For the purpose of study the clinicians have divided the UMN syndrome into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ effects. The characteristics of the negative features are loss of dexterity, weakness and easy fatigability on the other hand spasticity, increased tendon reflexes, extensor and flexor spasm, clonus etc are the features of positive UMN syndrome. The later definition of spasticity includes all the characteristics of positive UMN syndrome excluding its negative features and the biomechanical changes in the joints and soft tissues (Mirbagheri et al. 2009). The negati ve features of UMN syndrome are regarded to be more disabling than the positive features (Carr et al. 1995) but recent studies have showed that spasticity adds on to the impairment of function and to limitation of activity for the affected person (Bovend’Eerdt et al. 2008). The core feature of spasticity is increase in stretch reflex, manifested as hypertonus. Muscle tone is defined as the tension of a muscle due to involuntary contractions of its motor units; it is determined both by the passive elasticity of muscular tissues, the viscoelastic properties of the fibrillary proteins contained within each muscle fibre and by the active (though not continuous) contraction of muscle in response to the reaction of the nervous system (Grabowski and Tortora, 2003). Alternately active and inactive motor units help in maintaining normal tone in a muscle. Any imbalance in the input from central motor pathways like the cortico-reticulo-spinal and other descending pathways to the inter-neuronal circuit of spinal cord results in alteration in the involuntary contraction in a muscle. The main tract restricting the spinal reflex activity is the dorsal reticulospinal tract that runs along the lateral spino thalamic tract. It arises from the ventero medial reticular for mation which has less facilitatorty control over the cortical motor areas, thereby augmenting the inhibitory drive. The main excitatory pathway also arising in the brainstem is the medial reticulo spinal tract. Damage to these tracts give rise to a net loss of inhibitory control leading to increased alpha motor neurone excitability at the segmental cord level and subsequent increase in muscle tone. Several studies also claim that peripheral neural changes also contribute to the increased muscle tone. Muscle tone has two components, neural involving CNS and musculoskeletal, where muscles are involved (Barnes, M. P. et al. 2003). Both the components help in maintaining normal muscle tone. Normal tone is the slight amount of constant tension in the healthy muscles offering small resistance to displacement (Barnes, Michael P. and Johnson 2008). There is change in mechanical, visco-elastic properties of muscle fibres as a result of paresis and immobilisation after an UMN lesion. Activation of actin and myosin cross bridges also increases muscle tone (Lee et al, 2005). CNS and neural pathways maintain tone by overlapping actin and myosin filaments on muscle contraction. Insufficient contraction results in decreased muscle tone due to insufficient development of tension (Grabowski and Tortora 2003). Through the phasic and tonic stretch reflexes the muscle spindle plays an important role in regulating the muscle tone (Cameron-Tucker 1983). These muscle spindles can be adjusted in terms of their response to stretching. Spasticity is generated due to the over activity of the alpha motor neurons. Over activity occurs when the monosynaptic input via Ia afferent fibres and polysynaptic afferent input via the Golgi tendon organs and cutaneous receptors loose descending inhibition from the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia, which is relayed through the dorsal and medial reticulospinal and vestibulospinal tracts. Spinal inter-neurons are responsible for presynaptic and reciprocal inhibition of Ia fibres. Due to the loss of this inhibition inappropriate muscle co-contraction occur disabling voluntary limb movement (Bhakta 2000). The course of development of both cerebral and spinal spasticity after an insult is slow in humans, except for the cases of high brain stem lesion like traumatic brain injury where the increase in the tone is immediate (Carr et al. 1995). The time gap between the injury and appearance of spasticity may vary from days to months, depending upon the level of lesion (Ghai et al. 2013). The effect of spasticity ranges from mild muscle stiffness to severe, very painful and uncontrollable muscle spasm. If left untreated spasticity gives rise to many problems like pain, spasm, contracture and deformity leading to a loss of mobility and dexterity, problem in self hygiene, inability to wear orthotics hence resulting in decreased functioning, participation and low self esteem (Ghai et al. 2013). A multidisciplinary approach is required for the effective management of spasticity taking into consideration other variables that might affect treatment outcome. Aim of treatment should include prevention of abnormal limb or trunk posture and facilitation of movement in the context of functional activities (Bhakta 2000). Secondary to the neural changes there are dramatic changes of the structural and mechanical properties of the spastic muscle. A review conducted by Jared et al. concluded that the following changes occur in a spastic muscle: a) alteration of the size of muscle fibre and the type of fibre distribution; b) morphologically and biomechanically measured there is proliferation of extracellular matrix material; c) increased stiffness in the spastic cell muscle; d) compared to the normal muscle there is inferior mechanical properties of extra cellular matrix in the spastic muscle (Foran et al. 2005). As a management of spasticity the researchers have tried to alter the motor neuron excitability by many interventions like electrical stimulation (Bajd et al. 1985), pressure (Leone and Kukulka 1988), muscle tapping (Belanger et al. 1989), vibration (Gillies et al. 1969), cooling (Bell and Lehmann 1987), massage (Sullivan et al. 1991) and stretch (Kunkel et al. 1993, Avela et al. 1999). Among all of these, stretching has been intensively used as it is safe, economical and convenient (Tsai, KUEN-HORNG et al. 2001). Stretching is the process of applying tension to the soft tissue structures like muscle, tendon, and vascular, dermal, connective, neural tissues for elongation. Stretching can be applied mechanically (example- with dynamometer or an intelligent feedback control device) offering well controlled intervention and manually, which is difficult to standardise but represents clinical practice better. Stretching changes the viscoelastic, structural and excitatory property of the muscle. (Nielsen et al. 2007). However many neural as well as non neural property of stretching remains unclear. Stretching aims on decreasing muscle tone, maintain or increase soft tissue extensibility leading to improvement in function (Barnes, Michael P. and Johnson 2008). Lots of variation can be done while implementing stretching as an intervention. The amount of tension, the duration of the stretch, the velocity of stretch, the number of repetition can all be varied. LITERATURE REVIEW: A study was done by Harvey et al. in the year 2000 on the â€Å"Effects Of Four Weeks Of Daily Stretching On Ankle Mobility In Patients With Spinal Cord Injuries†. 14 recently injured subjects with paraplegia and quadriplegia were taken from two spinal injury units in Sydney, Australia. Their ankle was stretched into dorsiflexion, continuously for 30 minutes with a torque of 7.5 Nm for every weekday, for 4 consecutive weeks. The main outcome measure was measuring the torque angle in knee flexed and extended position. Measurements were taken pre-test and post test. Post test measurements were also taken thrice I,e, during the study (2nd week), just after the study (4th week) and one week after the study (5th week). Intervention was given by a custom made stretching device that is able to give ankle stretch. The baselines of all the subjects were same. The result showed that even after stretching for a longer time than usual there was no significant difference in the post test value in any of the three parameters from pre test. Hence the study concluded that there is no significant change in ankle mobility after 30 minutes of stretching for 4 weeks in SCI patients. The strength of the study is good, with random allocation, blinding of assessor, similar baseline of all the subjects but the intervention device needed to be more standardised. The study has a score of 8 on PEDro scale of assessment. A study by Tsai et al. 2001 examined the effect of a single session of prolonged muscle stretch (PMS) on the spastic muscle. 17 spastic hemiplegic patients were selected for the study and as an intervention PMS was given on the triceps surae (TS) muscles by standing on the tilt table with feet dorsiflexed for 30 minutes. Here the outcome measures were Modified Ashworth scale of the TS, the H/M ratio of TS and the F/M ratio of tibialis anterior (TA) and passive range of motion (ROM) of ankle dorsiflexion,. The measurements were taken pre test, post test and 45 minutes after the test. ROM was measured with a goniometer and electromiograph was used to perform nerve stimulation and reflex recording. The results showed non-significant difference in the Modified Ashworth scale, significant change in the ROM of ankle dorsiflexion, F/M ratio and H/M ratio. There was increase in the passive ROM of the ankle dorsiflexion post treatment compared to pre treatment, additionally PMS reduced motor neuron excitability of the TS and increased that of TA in the post treatment. There was no significant difference of result with in immediate post test and 45 minutes after post test. The study was well written but the sample size was too small. The age of the effected patients varied from 33 till 79 years which is a very wide range and the acuteness of the patients varied from 4.5 months post attack to 79.6 months post attack. These factors may cause a problem while generalising the results and the amount of stiffness may vary with the duration of illness. Bressel and McNair (2002) did a study to compare prolonged static stretch with cyclic stretching on ankle joint stiffness, torque relaxation and gait in stroke patients. 10 community dwelling people were randomly allocated into two groups; one of the groups received single session of static stretch and the other cyclic stretch of the calf muscle for 30 minutes. There was a washout period for one week and then the group interventions were exchanged. The interventions were given by an isokinetic dynamometer that measured the torques and the angles also. Before and after treatment the time taken to walk 10 m was taken and stiffness of the ankle joint was calculated from the slope of the torque and angle curves before and immediately after the treatments. Over the 30 minutes stretch the percentage of the decrease in peak passive torque was the torque relaxation achieved. Results showed that there was significant decrease in ankle stiffness in both the intervention but there was not much significant difference between the post test values of the two interventions. The amount of torque relaxation was 53% greater in static stretching than that of cyclic stretching. And the 10 m walk duration did not have any significant difference pre and post test. The sample size of the study was very small to generalise the results and the wash over period between the two sessions were of just one week. Since the prolonged effect of the stretching is unknown hence it can’t be commented that whether there was any residual effect of the previous session that may have affected the results of the second session. Nowhere in the study blinding was done hence there may be a chance of being bias from the assessor. The baselines of both the groups were not similar. A study by Yeh et al. (2005) compared the effectiveness of constant-torque prolonged muscle stretching (PMS) treatment in subjects with ankle hypertonia. The study design was a pre and post test analysis. 30 subjects suffering from hemiplegia and calf muscle hypertonia were given stretching device using a motor driven stretching device for 30 minutes in constant torque or constant angle mode. The main outcome measures were Modified Ashworth scale, passive range of motion and viscoelastic property of the planter flexors were measured pre and post treatment. Result showed significant improvement in all the measures, but the in the viscoelastic component the constant torque showed more evident changes compared to the constant angle measure. This study proved that there is significant reduction in spasticity after a single session of PMS. The methodology of the study was appropriate and the analysis of the data leading to the result was done well. the study also mention about the future scope of study by changing the mode of stretch from constant to intermittent. Neither the subjects, nor the assessor was blinded in the study, so the question of bias remains. A systemic review done by Bovend’Eerdt et al. (2008) was the first review done on the effects of stretching in spasticity. Studies were taken from databases like Medline, Cochrane library, CINHAL, Web of Science, PEDro and Alied and Complementary medicine for review. 10 RCTs and 11 clinical trials were assessed. Randomised control trails were assessed on PEDro scale for methodologic quality and the other clinical trials were assessed using data extraction form containing 13 items from CASP guidelines and CONSORT statement. The methodological qualities of the RCTs were low and there was a huge diversity on the methodology, intervention, population etc. Both manual and mechanical stretching was given. The review concludes as there is not much evidence on the basis of which the review can say if stretching on spasticity has its clinical benefit. A recent study by Gao et al. (2011) aims to investigate the changes occurring in biomechanical properties of the calf muscle–tendon unit after controlled ankle stretching in stroke survivors. Comparison was done between 10 stroke patients with ankle spasticity/contracture in one group and ten healthy subjects in the control group. 60 minute ankle stretching was given as an intervention to both the groups. Joint biomechanical properties like resistance torque, index of hysteresis and stiffness were evaluated pre- and post-intervention. Length of Achilles tendon was measured with ultrasonography. The force output of the triceps surae muscles was given in torque–angle relationship, by stimulating the calf muscles at a definite intensity across different ankle positions. The device used for intervention was an ankle stretching device with intelligent control (the velocity of stretching was inversely proportional to the joint resistance torque) was used. Pre test the stroke survivors showed significantly higher resistance torques and joint stiffness, which were to a large extent reduced after the stretching intervention, especially in dorsiflexion. Stretching also significantly improved the force production of the impaired calf muscles in stroke population under matched stimulations, along with the ankle ROM. The study interpreted that at the joint level, repeated stretching leads to increased passive ROM and decreased joint stiffness; at the muscle–tendon level, calf muscle force output improved. The study provided evidence of improvement in muscle tendon properties through stretching intervention. Apart from the small sample size the study was well written and the methodology was well described. DISCUSSION: Spasticity is a disabling and often painful condition that occur secondary to the UMN lesion that leads to hypertonicity, exaggerated reflexes, weakness of muscle and loss of dexterity. Spasticity has both neural and non neural components. Stretching is a very commonly used intervention used in clinical physiotherapy. But stretching and spasticity together is a very complicated concept. From the articles reviewed one can conclude that stretching does have a positive effect on spasticity, but its effect on the neural component of spasticity alone is yet not proved. In this study the stretching that has been described are mechanical stretches, but there are various other form of stretches given through splinting, plaster cast, weights which could not be discussed because of their low level of evidence. Many studies could not be included because there stretching was combined with strengthening, stimulation, passive motion etc. Even among the articles taken in this study there is heterog eneity in methodology of stretching, its duration, the type of stretch and even the outcome measures used. Inspite of being a component in the definition none of the articles investigated spasticity by using different velocities of displacement. Due to so much of diversity it is tough to comment on which mode of stretching is most beneficial for spasticity. To come down to a conclusion, future studies are needed to be done to find a standardised protocol of stretching for spasticity. In the future studies the outcome measure should be chosen carefully and intervention should be planed keeping the aim of the study in mind. CONCLUSION: The studies taken in this review shows a great diversity in respect to methodology, intervention, population and outcome measures. Though from the reviewed articles it can be said that stretching is effective for spasticity but there is need of good quality of studies to decide on a stretching protocol, its long term and short term effects and to come down to a conclusion as to which type of stretching is most effective in spasticity . TOTAL WORD COUNT IS 2978.