Monday, April 6, 2020
Importance of Greek Burial free essay sample
The Importance of Burial in Greek Religion For the most part, the Greeks did not believe in a different afterlife for the good or badââ¬âi. e. , no heaven or hell. In their view, the afterlife was almost universally grim; the important detail for the dead was whether they were buried or unburied. Those who did not receive proper funeral rites were doomed to wander by the river Styx, the entrance to the Underworld, for eternity; their souls could never be at rest. Thus, denying burial to a corpse not only insulted the body, but also damned his soul for all time. The buried were granted access to Hades, the name of both the Underworld and its king (who was also known as Pluto). In order for the dead to gain this access, a complicated ritual had to be performed. There were few ââ¬Ëprofessional undertakers, so a mans funeral fell to his family, especially the women of the family. We will write a custom essay sample on Importance of Greek Burial or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page They prepared the body for cremation, oversaw the collection of the bones and ashes and burial of the urn, provided the tomb with liquid offerings (libations), and led the mourning, a loud and violent process in which women tore their cheeks with their fingernails, ripped out their hair, and poured dirt over the heads and clothing. Mourning the dead was one of the few things women were allowed to do in ancient Greece, especially Athens. Women of well-born families were expected to stay at home in specially designated womens quarters at all times except during certain religions festivals. Marriages were arranged by a girls father or guardian. Women were not true citizens of the democracy and could not speak or vote in the assembly. They were not even allowed to speak in court, a basic right for Athenian men. Burying and mourning their dead relatives gave women an opportunity to do something important for their families. It brought women to the fore and gave them a role to play. When Creon forbids burial of Polynices, he denies Antigone the chance to do one of the few important things society allowed women to do. Thus, he is attacking her identity, and that is a large part of the reason she opposes his orders.
Monday, March 9, 2020
St. Johns, Capital of Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's, Capital of Newfoundland and Labrador St. Johns, the capital city of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, is Canadas oldest city. The first visitors from Europe arrived at the start of the 1500s and it grew as a prominent location for fisheries for the French, Spanish, Basques, Portuguese and English. Britain became the dominant European power in St. Johns by the end of the 1500s, and the first permanent British settlers put down roots in the 1600s, around the same time that the first English settlements occurred in what is now Massachusetts in the U.S. Near the harbor is Water Street, which St. Johns claims is the oldest street in North America. The city shows its Old World charm in winding, hilly streets lined with colorful buildings and row houses. St. Johns sits on a deepwater harbor connected by the Narrows, a long inlet, to the Atlantic Ocean. Seat of Government In 1832, St. Johns became the seat of government of Newfoundland, an English colony at theà time,à when Newfoundland was granted a colonial legislature by Britain. St. Johns became the capital city of the province of Newfoundland when Newfoundland joinedà Canadian Confederationà in 1949.à St. John covers 446.06 squareà kilometers or 172.22 squareà miles. Its population as of the 2011 Canadian census was 196,966, making it Canadas 20th largest city and the second largest in Atlantic Canada; Halifax, Nova Scotia is the largest. à The population of Newfoundland and Labrador was 528,448 as of 2016. The local economy, depressed by the collapse of the cod fishery in the early 1990s, has been brought back to prosperity withà petrodollarsà from off-shore oil projects.à St. Johns Climate Despite the fact that St. Johns is in Canada, a relatively cold country, the city has a moderate climate. Winters are relatively mild and the summers cool. However, Environment Canada rates St. Johns more extreme in other aspects of its weather: Its the foggiest and windiest Canadian city, and it has the greatest number of days ofà freezing rainà per year. Winter temperatures in St. Johns average around -1 degree Celsius, or 30 degrees Fahrenheit, while summer days have an average temperature around 20 degrees Celsius, or 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Attractions This easternmost city in North America à situated on the east side of the Avalon Peninsula in southeast Newfoundland is home to several interesting attractions. Of special note is Signal Hill, the site of the first transatlantic wireless communication in 1901 at Cabot Tower, which is named for John Cabot, who discovered Newfoundland. The Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden in St. Johns is a designated All-American Selections Garden, with beds of award-winning plants bred in the U.S. The garden offers visitors beautiful viewing, with more than 2,500 plant varieties. It has a superb collection of rhododendrons, with 250 types, and nearly 100 hosta cultivars. Its alpine collection displays plants from mountain ranges around the world. Cape Spear Lighthouse is where the sun first comes up in North America- it sits on a cliff jutting out into the Atlantic on the easternmost point on the continent. It was built in 1836 and is the oldest lighthouse in existence in Newfoundland. Go there at dawn so you can say you saw the sun before anyone else in North America, a true bucket list item.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Analysis for the 7Cs Framework Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words
Analysis for the 7Cs Framework - Assignment Example With the information provided on the website, it is easy for a potential customer to book a room because the site is enough to keep the visitors updated. All the content available on the website has been developed by the company in an effort to ensure that users of the website are well-informed (164). Communityà The Le Meridien website presents a strong community because it promotes interactions between different customers. The website has a page that allows guests or visitors to share their experiences with other visitors. The page is highly interactive because new visitors can post questions to the authors of the current reviews concerning their experience at the hotel. The page serves to create a highly connected community that allows all the users to interact. The page is under the close monitoring by the site owner. Notably, this aspect is a remarkable feature of the Le Meridien website (169).Customizationà A close analysis of the Le Meridien reveals that it is generic becau se all visitors to the website see the same phase of the website. The fact that the site is information dominant, it does not present an opportunity for personalization or tailoring by the site owner. All the functions and windows in the website are permanent and are the same for each viewer. Therefore, there is a salient need for the company to introduce a measure of customization so that visitors may experience a measure of freedom and exercise their self-expression (173). The communication between the users and the site owner.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
1.What are the key issues in the external and competitive environment Essay
1.What are the key issues in the external and competitive environment affecting your organisation Discuss the opportunities and threats for your organisation - Essay Example he organization by applying relevant, correct strategic management theory to determine the key issues in the external and competitive environment affecting Morrison Supermarket1 as an organization. By so doing, the paper aims also to discuss the industry opportunities and threats. Strategic management aims for attainment of corporate objectives. Strategic management theory could use the models called Porterââ¬â¢s five forces and SWOT to determine the external and competitive environment affecting Morrison Supermarket. Before proceeding further, therefore, we have to understand the meaning of the models. SWOT stands for strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. As to how the models relate to each other, Porterââ¬â¢s five forces will dissect the facts classifying the effects of the industry forces to the profitability2 of the industry. For example, the ease or difficulty of entry, which is part of the model, assumes that the presence of entry barriers is an opportunity since less competition will allow present players to have wider area for influencing prices. SWOT includes the companyââ¬â¢s strengths and weaknesses as opportunities and threats but we are only interested on the latter. The opportunities and threats that will be derived will be used to attain corporate objectives. As to how to attain objectives, industry opportunities must be taken advantage while industry threats must be avoided or overcome. The taking of advantage will be in the nature of the strategies that need to be formulated and implemented to attain the desired objectives of Morrison Supermarket. Strategies must be prepared in relation to industry opportunity and threats as well as companyââ¬â¢s strengths and weaknesses. However, since strengths and weaknesses are not made part of this analysis, it must made clear that any strategy that may be may not fully consider the complete model. New entrants will find few big players, which make them concentrated, making it difficult for
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
The Indian Armed Forces
The Indian Armed Forces The Indian Armed Forces have long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the finest in the world. The armed forces render invaluable service to the country, in times of war as well as during peace, ensuring the security of the nation. They are also called to help restore law and order, ensure the safety of the people in times of internal strife, provide help and relief to victims of natural calamities also contribute to the building of vital infrastructure facilities like roads and bridges in remote and war torn areas. The Indian Armed Forces are facing an acute shortage of officers in all three services. The shortage of officers in the Army is around 11,500 and in the Navy, it is around 1507. Air Force is approx 1237 offrs short of its requirementà [1]à . Statement of Problem. Is there a need to enhance the social standing of Armed Forces personnel to continue to attract the right talent to serve the nation? Hypothesis Though the profession of arms is a calling not a career, lately, some decline in the status social standing of the combatants, particularly the officer cadre of the three services has been perceived. It has led to the present generation of youth preferring other professions, leading to a significant shortage of officers in all the three services. If not arrested, this trend can get aggravated and begin to compromise operational efficiency of our Armed Forces. Justification For the Study Though the subject of status of Armed Forces has been touched upon by a large number of eminent personalities, no writer has comprehensibly addressed the complete issue. The approach of all the writers was either towards financial aspirations or changing social environment or it was a fragmented effort, touching a large number of inter-related issues, eg promotional aspects social standing in civil society. Prominent writings on present day leadership challenges, change in socio economic environment, growing involvement of Armed Forces in IS duties, changes in the Warrant of Precedence etc along with practical approaches to meet the present day challenges have been drawn up by a large number of military minds, journalists, politicians eminent scholars. It is felt that there is a requirement of articulation of these works in a comprehensive manner to recommend an appropriate approach towards the issue. Scope. This paper aims to highlight the erosion in status in the Armed Forces starting from the time of Independence. The reasons for this erosion will be debated. The lack of intent and complete endeavor of defence and civil personnels will be brought to light. Finally some recommendations for making the Defence Services more attractive would be discussed. Methodology It is proposed to study the subject in the following parts:- (a) Part I. Status of Armed Forces Officers before Independence. (b) Part II. Post Independence era. (c) Part III. Pay commission effects. (d) Part IV. Warrant of Precedence Present Status. (e) Part VI. Intent and endeavor with Limitations Positives (f) Part VIII. Recommendations. Source of Data The study has been conducted based on books and columns written by eminent writers on the subject, official history and gazete notifications of GOI, newspaper articles and write ups from internet sites. A bibliography of sources is attached. PART I STATUS OF ARMED FORCES OFFICER BEFORE INDEPENDENCE Warrant of Precedence Before 1947 Status of the Commander-in-Chief. The Warrant of Precedence of British India kept the Armed Forces Officers on a very high pedestal. The Precedence in India was regulated till the independence by a Royal Warrant which was promulgated on the 6th of May 1871à [2]à . As per the Royal Warrant, the Army Chief, the erstwhile Commander-in-Chief was higher in rank to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court while Military Officers above rank of Major-General were higher than the Judge Advocate General of India also the Secretaries to the Government of India. Status of the Major-Generals. It is important to note that First Class Civilians of 28 years standing were equated with Major-Generals while in the present day it is with IAS of 14 years of service. Similarly Civilians of 20 years standing were equated with Colonels and included Commissioners of Divisions. Status of the Colonels Below. Inspector General of Police, then the highest post in any state were similarly equated with Chief Engineers were in the same league as the Colonels. The next grade comprised of the Third Class Civilians of 12 years standing who were equated with the Lieutenant-Colonels. These comprised of the Under-Secretaries to Government of India, Inspector-Generals of Jails etc. The next grade comprised of the Fourth Class Civilians of 8 years standing who were equated with the Majors and so on. The Comparison. It is evident from the above comparison, the high esteem of the officers of the Armed Forces which they enjoyed during the era. The Inspector General was responsible for the complete state but was considered equivalent to a Colonel of a Battalion with 20-25 officers. The same was required because the State machinery was generally static but the Armed Forces were considered to be working in a volatile environment requiring split second decision making which resulted in a situation of life death. There was no requirement felt of large number of officers in the police, where the job was to catch thieves and petty criminals. This task was found suitable for the lower staff in the police forces comprising one Darogah, one Jamadhar and a number of constables who were maintained at each district headquartersà [3]à . Later the same were controlled by the Deputy Superintendent, Inspectors, Head Constables and Constables. The Indian Armed Forces as the Preferred Occupation of Royals and Dynasties The Kashtriya Way of Life. Kashtriya meaning warrior formed one of the four varnas (social orders) in Hinduism. Kshatriyas constituted the military and ruling elite of the Vedic-Hindu social system outlined by the Vedas and the Laws of Manuà [4]à . A Kshatriya was a fighting man, he was bound by the holy scriptures to govern as a Dharma-Raja, with the main duties being protection of his subjects and livestock. The people looked upon Kshatriyans to protect them from all dangers. The great kings and generals on ancient and medieval India took pride in their Kshatriya lineage and took pride in being the kings and warriors in the army. The British Age. During the British Empire, most of the royals had to give up the rights to their land. Some of the royal dynasties even acted as British protectorates. In such times, only some of the dynasties could kept their own armies but the same was not possible with the smaller states. In time, it became a tradition of the royal princesses to either join the British Indian Army or to command their own troops in their small princely states. It was considered bounteous for these princes to command troops in the old Kshatriya ways, be it in the Indian army or the state troops. Serving the Army. Due to the above reasons, the British Indian Army was always associated with the rich royalty who served its ranks often rising to the officer cadre due to their competence and efficiency. Even after independence, the tradition continued. The Indian royalty found itself in the whos who of Indian army with few of them rising up to the highest ranks while serving the Army. Some of the prominent names among them are Colonel Sardar Bahadur Muzzaffar Jung Bahadur Thakur Girdhari Singh, O.B.E, O.B.I Brigadier Th. Harish Chandra Singh, V.S.M. of Kuchela royal familyà [5]à ; Capt Amarinder Singh of Patiyala royal familyà [6]à ; Brig Sukhjit Singh, MVC of Kapurthala royal familyà [7]à ; Brigadier Bhawani Singh, MVC of Jaipur royal familyà [8]à . The tradition of joining the Army gradually started to decline with time. The reasons can be attributable to a large number of facts to include the changing socio economics, the changing of family values and the perceived social standing of Armed Forces personnel in civil society. PART II POST INDEPENDENCE ERA START OF THE DECLINE Involvement of Mil in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Mayanmar in their pol affairs During the middle of 20th Century, most of the countries in Indian peninsula got their independence. Independent India found itself sandwiched between large numbers of politically unstable states in which the military frequently thrust itself in the political arena replacing the democratically elected political leaders. Large numbers of coups were accomplished by the military in the nearest neighborhood of India which fuelled mistrust for the Indian Generals in the political circle. The political class often found itself worried because of presence of influential leaders in the military. Military coups in Pakistan began in 1958 and number three successful attempts. There have also been numerous unsuccessful attempts since 1949. Since its independence in 1947, Pakistan has spent several decades under military rule (1958 1971, 1977 1988, 1999 2008)à [9]à . On the other hand, Bangladesh had military coups in 1975, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1996 then in 2007. Bangladesh remained under military rule from 1975 1990 under two different military rulersà [10]à . Mayanmar had its share of military rule when democratic rule ended in 1962 when General Ne Win led a military coup dà ©tatà [11]à only after fourteen years of democracy. The reaction by the politicians to all of the above was obvious. Firstly the Defence Services were increasingly isolated from the process of decision making in defence matters. During the British era, India was perhaps the only country in the world which had a single Commander-in-Chief for all the three Services. In 1947, this arrangement was discarded and each Service came to have its own Commander-in-Chief, independent of each other. The nomenclature of the three Chiefs was changed in 1955 from Commanders-in-Chief to Chiefs of Staff. In this set up, the Chiefs of Staff are not part of the Ministry. They are not authorized to take any decision on behalf of the Government nor issue any Government orders. These functions are performed by civil officials in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The Service Chiefs continue to function as Commanders-in-Chief of their Serviceà [12]à . Each war increased the popularity of the Indian Army among the common masses and the status of the service chiefs was lowered after successive wars in the Official Warrant of Precedence due to the perceived threat of a possible coup by the Armed Forces. Such was the popularity of eminent military leaders like Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw after the 1971 Bangladesh libration that late Indira Ghandhi feared a massive military coup in 1977à [13]à . Mistrust of the Political class fuelled by Bureaucrats. The mistrust of politicians for the military generals was always exploited by the bureaucrats in every way to increase the rift between them. The incidents of armed rebellions coups in the neighboring countries the world over always added fuel to the fire. Gradually the military generals were sidelined by their political masters the bureaucrats made a place for themselves in between the political masters the military started making important decisions which made an impact on national security matters. Tradition History of Police Ranks The Police followed the following system of rank badges till about independence : (a) Superintendent of Police / Assistant Inspector General of Police. Three Stars (Upgraded to Crown on reaching the basic pay scale of Rs 950/-). (b) Deputy Inspector General of Police. Crown with one Star. (c) Inspector General of Police (highest police rank). Crown with Two Stars. In the late 1950s and early 60s, the police establishment went in for a major overhaul and upgradation of rank badges. This followed the introduction of additional ranks such as Selection Grade etc. To meet new ranks, rank badges were appropriately upwardly modified. Contrary to popular perception, the Ministry of Defence very vehemently protested the rank confusion created by junior police officers wearing senior military rank badges but the issue was sorted out in a high level meeting between MHA and MoD (the meeting is documented and minuted) where it was rather unusually concluded that there could be no confusion between police and military ranks since police rank badges are silver in colour whereas military ranks are made of brass, and it was also decided that rank badges would not reflect the actual status comparison of military and police officers. This later resulted in the rank of DIG (then established by pay and by the MHA as being between a Lt Col and a full Colonel) weari ng rank badges as worn by a Brigadier of the Army. So far so good. But this came to haunt the military years later when by forgetting the historical background of the issue; police officers started demanding status and pay equation by virtue of the rank badges worn. The skewed situation got adversely solidified when the 6th CPC commented about an established relativity between a Brig and a DIG in all probability based on the equality of brass carried on the shoulders by the two ranksà [14]à . PART III PAY COMMISSION EFFECTS Effect of Successive Pay Commissions The Post War Pay Committee of 1946. The first attempt at rationalisation of the remuneration structure was made by the Post War Committee in 1946. The mendate of the Committee was to produce pay scales exclusively to Indian conditions, to simplify the pay system and achieve maximum amount of harmony between the three Services. A decision was also taken by the Government that the future pays of the Armed Forces should be linked with civil pays. Based on these parameters and guided by the Post War Pay Code of the British Armed Forces, the Post War Committee recommended a remuneration system based on the following equationsà [15]à :- (a) Service officers should broadly receive equal treatment with police officers. (b) A fully trained infantry soldier with three years service was equated with a semi-skilled worker who in turn was equated with an Able Seaman of the Navy and the juniormost Leading Aircraftman of the Air Force. Comparison of Officers. The closest comparator to Defence Services officers was identified as the Police as both wore a similar uniform due to the fact that the Indian Police was manned by mostly retired British Army Officers in the past. This relativity had no other logic with regard to job content. The same continues till date, much to the detriment of the Service officers pay scales. In establishing this relativity, it was agreed that the end of the Maj scale should not exceed the end of the Senior Time Scale of the Police in which the SP was placed, thereby establishing a linkage between the two. The next link in the Police then was the DIG. The Service representatives sought a linkage of the DIG with the rank of Lt Col. However, DIG was finally placed between the service ranks of Lt Col and Col. One of the factors in establishing this linkage was that the three pillars of administration, namely the DIG of a Range, the Commissioner of a Division and the Commander of a Military Di strict (of the rank of Colonel) had near identical years of service, were of approximately the same age and required to socially interact with each other. The Raghuramaiah Committee Report. Consequent to the Second Pay Commissions Report in 1960, a Departmental Committee, headed by Shri Raghuramaiah, examined the pay and allowances of the Armed Forces. It stated thatà [16]à :- The Service representatives felt that pay scales approximating to the scales prevalent on the civil side were preferable to the existing pay structure, but that a revision would be such a complex and lengthy process that it was not practicable at the present juncture. In view of these practical difficulties, we decided that the present pay structure might be retained until such time as the Government finds it convenient to carry out a detailed review. Initiation of Major Changes in Cadre Structure by IAS IPS. As the benefit of a review of their conditions of service and pay scales could not be done, the Armed Forces emerged into the post second Pay Commission scene with a arithmetical revision of their pay and allowances. At this stage the Civil Services, especially the IAS and IPS, initiated major changes in their cadre structure. A Selection Grade was introduced in the IPS, between the SP and DIG. This grade was equated to the service rank of Col and pressure was built up for revision of DIGs pay scale. By 1969, the DIG had overtaken the rank of Col, and started drawing relativity with the ranks of Commodore and Brigadier, thereby lowering the status and relativity of the Armed Service Officer vis a vis the Police. The Third Pay Commission. In early 1970, the Government while announcing the formation of the 3rd Pay Commission, for the first time, entrusted the task of reviewing the pay and allowances of the Armed Forces to a Pay Commission and not to a Departmental Committee. However, there was a major difference between the terms of reference as applicable to the Armed Forces and that of the civilians. In the case of the Armed Forces, the Commission was not asked to make recommendations on the conditions of service but take them as given. This difference was prominently highlighted by the Commission in their report. On the question of the presentation of the Services case, the Commission was of the view that the service personnel should have the liberty to represent their case directly before them like civilian employees. But this request to the Ministry of Defence was turned down on the grounds that the requirement of Armed Forces discipline would not permit such an approach. Thus the three S ervices could not explain their case directly to the Pay Commission. As a result, many of the anomalies injected by earlier Committees remained uncorrectedà [17]à . Status of Officers. The main thrust of the services was to seek parity in pay scales with the IAS. The Third Pay Commission was of the view however that the officer cadre of the Armed Forces was an omnibus group of individuals of varying disciplines, status and job responsibilities. Whilst there would certainly be some categories, though difficult to identify, who could claim parity with the IAS, the 60,000 strong Armed Forces officer cadre could at best be compared with the Class I officers cadre which had a similar disparate composition. Parity with IAS was therefore not accepted and the existing relativities were retainedà [18]à . Expert Cell. The Ministry of Defence now created an Expert Cell comprising the Chairmen of the three Services Pay Cells, a Joint Secretary and an Additional Financial Adviser. The Expert Cell was asked to scrutinise the Memorandum of each Service and give their own views to the Pay Commission. Unfortunately no agreement could be reached between the Service Members on the one side and the Ministry of Defence on the other. Eventually a report was submitted only by the Service Members. This resulted in the impact of their report being lost and the Third Pay Commission had to seek views of Ministry of Defence seperately. Compensation for X Factor. In the British Armed Forces Pay Structure, the X factor compensated for the uniqueness and distinct disadvantages of service life. Service Headquarters sought the extension of the X factor to the Indian Armed Forces. The Third Pay Commission examined the advantages and disadvantages of Service life, considered that the former outweighed the latter and concluded that there was no justification for the X factor. One of the advantages of naval life taken into consideration was the opportunity for naval personnel to visit distant foreign countries at Government expenseà [19]à . Formulation of Rank Pay. The third pay commission also crafted a rank pay out of the existing pay for defence personals. This was to differentiate the pay from Captain to Brigadier in a running pay band. It was specified by the pay commission that the rank pay was part of basic pay for calculation of all emoluments for consideration of status. The successive pay commissions continued with the same. But in the sixth pay commission, when the rank pay was abolished, the pay of all service personals was calculated erroneously as rank pay was not taken into consideration. This created a major anomaly. Research of XLRI Jamshedpur for sixth pay Commission in Estimating cost of Benefits For Armed Forces to government Incongruous Deductions XLRI Jamshedpur was tasked by the sixth pay commission to estimate cost of benefits of all government servants including defence personals. In their estimate, mundane things like loans for housing, car computer, canteen facilities, medical care etc were taken into consideration to calculate the cost of living of defence personals. The picture thus pasted was a very rosy one. The problems faced by defence personals in form of frequent transfers, separation from family, lack of stable education for wards of defence personals were not taken into consideration. Comparison with IPS, PMF and Other gp A services The sixth pay commission compared the Brigadier rank of Defence forces with DIG of the IPS. This comparison was wrong because the DIG was placed between Lt Col Col in all previous comparisons. The DIG wore the insignia of Ashoka a Star till early 1970s but later it was changed to Ashoka three Stars. On being questioned, it was clarified by the MoH that police ranks wear Silver Stars which was different from the Brass Stars of the military hence no comparison was possible. The Commission also used the PMF for comparison with the Armed Forces forgetting that PMFs are not Group A services. A service is considered Group A service only if at least 80 % of its employees hold ranks equivalent to Jt Secy above. The same was utilized by the bureaucracy in creating a rift between the Armed Forces the CPMFs quoting the problems faced in empowerment of CPMFs whenever the injustice faced by the Armed Forces were highlighted. Delinking the rank pay from the basic pay caused a major setback to the pay parity of Armed Forces with the other Group A services. Certain ranks with a higher pay scale till fifth pay commission turned up with a lower grade pay after the Sixth Pay Commission. In a noteworthy judgment, the Supreme Court of India directed that Rank Pay forms part of Basic Pay. The same was prayed by the Govt of India to reconsider the same is still pending. Comparison with Defence Support Services It must also be brought to light that Defence Support Services like Defence account services, Ordinance Board Services etc which are primarily existing for supporting the Armed Forces now enjoy a better pay scale that what is enjoyed by the services they serve. Also the promotion rate is much faster with an officer making it to Jt Secy level in 16 yrs while a equivalent Maj Gen makes it after almost 32 yrs of service. The Govt Doctors also have a faster promotion rate due to the MACP scheme but the same could never be implemented for Armed Forces doctors due to the acute disparity they would cause. PART IV WARRANT OF PRECEDENCE PRESENT CONDITION Successive Lowering of Status The status of Armed Forces Officers was lowered after each war as it was perceived by the civil society that the image of Armed Forces Officers was augmenting the political as well as bureaucratic class found itself threatened by the same. Analysis Effects of 6th pay commission to Include Financial Effects The pay commission was near sighted in determining the grade pay of Armed Forces Officers but when faced with a large amount of criticism, it delinked grade pay from status clarified that grade pay was only for determining inter services seniority. This was a knee jerk reaction but the damage was done. The grade pay differences was not only to be used to determine the seniority for all practical purposes but also determined the amount of Entitlements Benefits for all personals. This caused a major Financial Loss to all personals including loss of Social Standing among peers. Misinterpretation of the Warrant by Vested Interests The Warrant of Precedence shows Jt Secy to the GOI to be equivalent to Maj Gen. The official warrant does not cover the lower ranks. This was taken as a guide map by vested interests in equating all civil posts of IG police similar posts with a Maj Gen. In view of the above, it must be stated that very few posts are equivalent to Jt Secy to the GOI posts like IG police of a state is not equivalent unless empanelled by the GOI. These minor rules are not known by a large number of people are being used by some persons for their advantage. The Economic Boom the Present IS Situation The boom in the economy added to the aspiration of all persons including that of the Armed Forces. The present IS situation also increased the commitments lead to further increase in difficulties faced by the Defence personal. The same was not adequately compensated by the successive pay commissions or the government thus causing a steady decline in their strata in the society. Status as Perceived by the Society In the present society where the visible factors of money power are taken as guidelines for deciding the Social Standing of a person, the persons of Armed Forces take a beating. This has caused a visible change in the social environment has also affected the intake of officers in the Armed Forces. This of status has even affected the parity which is perceived by the civil society which can be seen from various agencies intake of ex-servicemen. In a recent UCO bank intake, the post of Security Officer was open to Commissioned Officer in Army (Captain)/Navy (Lieutenant)/Air Force (Flight Lieutenant) and to Any officer in the rank of Inspector (Executive)/Inspector (GD) from Para-Military forces like BSF, CRPF, ITBP, CISF etc. Shortage of Officers in the Armed Forces The Armed Forced are facing a acute shortage of officers in all three services. The shortage of officers in the Army is around 11,500 and in the Navy, the shortage is around 1606. The numbers which are less in Air Force is around 1342. This shortage is causing serious hamper in the operational efficiency of the services the trend need to be arrested at the earliest. Noteworthy Judgment Rank Pay Judgment Maj Dhanapalan case are major judgments of Honorable Supreme Court of India stating rank pay forming part of basic pay for all intent purposes. The Supreme Court slamming the union for treating Armed Forces personnel like beggars in respect of emoluments and pension asking authorities to adopt a more humane approach towards those bravely defending the countrys borders. Treatment of Veterans by Civil and Military The agenda of One Rank One Pay is present in the election manifesto of most of the National parties but no party in power has done anything on the same except giving lip service. The ex-servicemen returning their medals to the President of India was a day of national shame but no concrete steps have yet been taken to meet the demands. PART V LACK OF INTENT AND ENDEAVOR CERTAIN POSITIVES Approach of Govt to Incl Politicians and Civil Bureaucrats The apathy towards Armed Forces was well observed when the Committee of Secretaries formed to look after the anomaly of Sixth Pay Commission was formed without a military member and established more anomalies in its verdict. The Group of Ministers formed after the same to look into possible anomalies has not given any verdict even after a year of its formation. When the veterans demanding One Rank One Pension marched toward the Rashtrapati Bhavan for returning their medals, the President who is the Supreme Commander of Armed Forces did not even feel it important to meet them and assigned a Joint Secretary to receive the medals in her behalf. Negating the Effects of AVC Commission AVC Commission lowered the intake service for the rank of Captain to two years and that of Major to six years. This was done to increase the satisfaction level of the officers of the three services. The same effect was reversed by the Sixth Pay Commission in which the grade pay of all ranks Captain onwards was lowered such that now the Major equaled the Captain of the pre-AVC Commission days. It must be noted here that the Major of post AVC Commission is not even authorized the Majors Accommodation he possesses in a military station but now being equal to a erstwhile Captain, is authorized only the Captains Accommodation. This may not be a area of concern in a pure military station, but causes major embarrassments in a mixed station where the status has declined substantially. Similar problems exist for all military ranks. The Working of Mil Machinery Before the
Monday, January 20, 2020
Free Essay - The Theme of Courage in Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter :: Scarlet Letter essays
The Theme of Courage in The Scarlet Letter In the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, new ideas and themes are portrayed, giving a whole new meaning to the story. The trials and tribulations that each character faces, and overcome made the reading more enticing. However, the theme that stood out was one of courage; one must have the courage to be one's self. This theme touched each character in a different way, leaving each with a new perspective of life. Throughout the novel, different aspects of chivalry were shown. These aspects were displayed through Hester Prynne and Rev. Dimmesdale, one having courage from the beginning to the end, the other only finding courage at the end. The boldness Hester possessed was one that a person only dreams of. It was in her nature to be courageous. ."..with the embroidered letter glimmering..." (141). Hester knew that her action was wrong, yet she felt the need to be herself. She figured that if she was to be punished by a permanent letter it was necessary to make it beautiful (like herself). Hester dealing with guilt and embarrassment had enough and ."..undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter..." (185). Knowing that Dimmesdale was going to confess pushed Hester to be herself again. This led her to find her fortitude once again and become herself. Dimmesdale, however late it occurred, did in fact find courage. Hawthorne kept Dimmesdale "confused." Dimmesdale struggled to find an answer, tossing confession and secrecy back and forth. Dimmesdale ."..longed to speak out..." (132), and confess. Chillingworth knew that Dimmesdale did not have the valor to speak out. Taking this into consideration Dimmesdale pondered the situation and came upon a solution. "And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart;" (141). This showed true courage, which was not expected of Dimmesdale. Ascending the scaffold and embracing his own punishment, Dimmesdale became himself taking consequences for his actions. Dimmesdale struggled to make peace with Pearl. He knew that all she wanted was attention, which could only be cured by confession. In doing so he took it upon himself to attempt forgiveness. ."..to admit him into the child's kindlier regards-bent forward, and impressed one on her brow.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Crowdsourcing: Human-based Computation and Amazon Mechanical Turk
In a companion blog post to his June 2006 Wired magazine article, Jeff Howe posited the first definition of crowdsourcing:ââ¬Å"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.â⬠Daren C. Brabham was the first to define ââ¬Å"crowdsourcingâ⬠in the scientific literature in a February 1, 2008, article:ââ¬Å"Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem-solving and production model.â⬠In the classic use of the term, problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Usersââ¬âalso known as the crowdââ¬âs ubmit solutions which are then owned by the entity that broadcasted the problemââ¬âthe crowdsourcer. In some cases, the contributor of the solution is compensated monetarily, with prizes, or with recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudos or intellectual satisfaction. Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organization.Crowdsourcers are primarily motivated by its benefits. One of these includes the ability to gather large numbers of solutions and information at a relatively inexpensive cost. Users are motivated to contribute to crowdsourced tasks by both intrinsic motivations, such as social contact,à intellectual stimulation, and passing time, and by extrinsic motivations, such as financial gain.Due to the blurred limits of crowdsourcing, many collaborative activities are considered crowdsourcing even when they are not. Another consequ ence of this situation is the proliferation of definitions in the scientific literature. Different authors give different definitions of crowdsourcing according to their specialties, losing in this way the global picture of the term.After studying more than 40 definitions of crowdsourcing in the scientific and popular literature, Enrique Estellà ©s-Arolas and Fernando Gonzà ¡lez Ladrà ³n-de-Guevara developed a new integrating definition:ââ¬Å"Crowdsourcing is a type of participative online activity in which an individual, an institution, a non-profit organization, or company proposes to a group of individuals of varying knowledge, heterogeneity, and number, via a flexible open call, the voluntary undertaking of a task. The undertaking of the task, of variable complexity and modularity, and in which the crowd should participate bringing their work, money, knowledge and/or experience, always entails mutual benefit. The user will receive the satisfaction of a given type of need, be it economic, social recognition, self-esteem, or the development of individual skills, while the crowdsourcer will obtain and utilize to their advantage that what the user has brought to the venture, whose form will depend on the type of activity undertakenâ⬠.Henk van Ess emphasizes the need to ââ¬Å"give backâ⬠the crowdsourced results to the public on ethical grounds. His non-scientific, non-commercial definition is widely cited in the popular press:ââ¬Å"Crowdsourcing is channeling the expertsââ¬â¢ desire to solve a problem and then freely sharing the answer with everyoneâ⬠Crowdsourcing systems are used to accomplish a variety of tasks. For example, the crowd may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design or distributed participatoryà design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or help capture, systematize, or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science).HistoryThe term ââ¬Å"crowdsourcingâ⬠is a portmanteau of ââ¬Å"crowdâ⬠and ââ¬Å"outsourcing,â⬠coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article ââ¬Å"The Rise of Crowdsourcingâ⬠. It has been argued that crowdsourcing can only exist on the Internet and is thus a relatively recent phenomenon., however, long before modern crowdsourcing systems were developed, there were a number of notable examples of projects that utilized distributed people to help accomplish tasks.Historical examples The Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary (OED) may provide one of the earliest examples of crowdsourcing. An open call was made to the community for contributions by volunteers to index all words in the English language and example quotations of their usages for each one. They received over 6 million submissions over a period of 70 years. The making of the OED is detailed in The Surgeon of Crow Thorne by Simon Winchester.Crowdsourcing in gene alogy researchGenealogical research was using crowdsourcing techniques long before computers were common. Beginning in 1942 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon church) encouraged members to submit information about their ancestors. The submitted information was gathered together into a single collection. In 1969 in order to encourage more people to participate in gathering genealogical information about their ancestors, the church started the three-generation program. In this program church members were asked to prepare documented family group record forms for the first three generations. The program was later expanded to encourage members to research at least 4 generations, and became known as the four-generation program.Institutes that have records of interest to genealogical research have used crowds of volunteers to create catalogs and indexes to records.Early crowdsourcing competitionsCrowdsourcing has often been used in the past as a competition in order to discover a solution. The French government proposed several of these competitions, often rewarded with Montyon Prizes, created for poor Frenchmen who had done virtuous acts. These included the Leblanc process, or the Alkali Prize, where a reward was provided for separating the salt from the alkali, and the Fourneyron's Turbine, when the first hydraulic commercial turbine was developed.In response to a challenge from the French government, Nicholas Appert won a prize for inventing a new way of food preservation that involved sealing food in air-tight jars. The British government provided a similar reward to find an easy way to determine a shipââ¬â¢s longitude in the The Longitude Prize. During the Great Depression, out-of-work clerks tabulated higher mathematical functions in the Mathematical Tables Project as an outreach project.Modern methodsToday, crowdsourcing has transferred mainly to the Internet. The Internet provides a particularly good venue for crowdsourcing since individuals tend to be more open in web-based projects where they are not being physically judged or scrutinized and thus can feel more comfortable sharing. This ultimately allows for well-designed artistic projects because individuals are less conscious, or maybe even less aware, of scrutiny towards their work. In an online atmosphere more attention is given to the project rather than communication with other individuals.Crowdsourcing can either take an explicit or an implicit route. Explicit crowdsourcing lets users work together to evaluate, share, and build different specific tasks, while implicit crowdsourcing means that users solve a problem as a side effect of something else they are doing.With explicit crowdsourcing, users can evaluate particular items like books or webpages, or share by posting products or items. Users can also build artifacts by providing information and editing other people's work.Implicit crowdsourcing can take two forms: standalo ne and piggyback. Standalone allows people to solve problems as a side effect of the task they are actually doing, whereas piggyback takes users' information from a third-party website to gather information.Types of crowdsourcingIn coining the term of ââ¬Å"crowdsourcingâ⬠, Jeff Howe has also indicated some common categories of crowdsourcing that can be used effectively in the commercial world. Some of these web-based crowdsourcing efforts include crowdvoting, wisdom of the crowd, crowdfunding, microwork, creative crowdsourcing and inducement prize contests. Although these may not be an exhaustive list, they cover the current major ways in which people use crowds to perform tasks.According to definition by Henk van Ess that has been widely cited in the popular press,ââ¬Å"The crowdsourced problem can be huge (epic tasks like finding alien life or mapping earthquake zones) or very small (ââ¬Ëwhere can I skate safely?'). Some examples of successful crowdsourcing themes are p roblems that bug people, things that make people feel good about themselves, projects that tap into niche knowledge of proud experts, subjects that people find sympathetic or any form of injustice.â⬠Crowd votingCrowd voting occurs when a website gathers a large group's opinions and judgment on a certain topic. The Iowa Electronic Market is a prediction market that gathers crowds' views on politics and tries to ensure accuracy by having participants pay money to buy and sell contracts based on political outcomes.Threadless.com selects the t-shirts it sells by having users provide designs and vote on the ones they like, which are then printed and available for purchase. Despite the small nature of the company, thousands of members provide designs and vote on them, making the websiteââ¬â¢s products truly created and selected by the crowd, rather than the company. Some of the most famous examples have made use of social media channels: Domino's Pizza, Coca Cola, Heineken and Sam Adams have thus crowdsourced a new pizza, song, bottle design or beer, respectively.Crowdsourcing creative workCreative crowdsourcing spans sourcing creative projects such as graphic design, architecture, apparel design, writing, illustration. etc. Some of the better known creative domains that use the Crowdsourcing model include 99designs, DesignCrowd, crowdspring, Jade Magnet, Threadless, Poptent, GeniusRocket and TongalCrowdfundingCrowdfunding is the process of funding your projects by a multitude of people contributing a small amount in order to attain a certain monetary goal. Goals may be for donations or for equity in a project. The dilemma right now for equity crowdfunding in the USA is how the SEC is going to regulate the entire process. As it stands rules and regulations are being refined by the SEC and they will have until Jan. 1st, 2013 to tweak the fundraising methods. The regulators are on edge because they are already overwhelmed trying to regulate Dodd ââ¬â Frank and all the other rules and regulations involving public companies and the way they trade. Advocates of regulation claim that crowdfunding will open up the flood gates for fraud, have called it the ââ¬Å"wild westâ⬠of fundraising, and have compared it to the 1980s days of penny stock ââ¬Å"cold-call cowboys.â⬠The process allows for up to 1 million dollars to be raised without a lot of the regulations being involved. Companies under the current proposal will have a lot of exemptions available and be able to raise capital from a larger pool of persons which can include a lot lower thresholds for investor criteria whereas the old rules required that the person be an ââ¬Å"accreditedâ⬠investor. These people are often recruited from social networks, where the funds can be acquired from anà equity purchase, loan, donation, or pre-ordering. The amounts collected have become quite high, with requests that are over a million dollars for software like Trampoline Systems , which used it to finance the commercialization of their new software.A well-known crowdfunding tool is Kickstarter, which is the biggest website for funding creative projects. It has raised over $100 million, despite its all-or-nothing model which requires one to reach the proposed monetary goal in order to acquire the money. UInvest is another example of a crowdfunding platform that was started in Kiev, Ukraine in 2007. Crowdrise brings together volunteers to fundraise in an online environment.Most recently, the adult industry gained its own site in the way of Offbeatr. Offbeatr allows the community to cast votes on projects they would like to see make it to the funding phase. ââ¬Å"Wisdom of the crowdâ⬠Wisdom of the crowd is another type of crowdsourcing that collects large amounts of information and aggregates them to gain a complete and accurate picture of a topic, based on the idea that a group of people is on average more intelligent than an individual. This idea of co llective intelligence proves particularly effective on the web because people from diverse backgrounds can contribute in real-time within the same forums.iStockPhoto provides a platform for people to upload photos and purchase them for low prices. Clients can purchase photos through credits, giving photographers a small profit. Again, the photo collection is determined by the crowd's voice for very low prices.In February 2012, a stock picking game called Ticker Picker Pro was launched, using crowdsourcing to create a hedge fund that would buy and sell stocks based on the ideas coming out of the game. These crowdsourced ideas, coming from so many people, could help one pick the best stocks based on this idea that collective ideas are better than individual ones.MicroworkMicrowork is a crowdsourcing platform where users do small tasks for which computers lack aptitude for low amounts of money. Amazonââ¬â¢s popular Mechanical Turk has created many different projects for users to par ticipate in, where each task requires very little time and offers a very small amount in payment. The Chinese versions of this, commonly called Witkey, are similar and include such sites as Taskcn.com and k68.cn. When choosing tasks, since only certain users ââ¬Å"winâ⬠, users learn to submit later and pick less popular tasks in order to increase the likelihood of getting their work chosen. An example of a Mechanical Turk project is when users searched satellite images for images of a boat in order to find lost researcher Jim Gray. Inducement prize contestsWeb-based idea competitions, or inducement prize contests often consist of generic ideas, cash prizes, and an Internet-based platform to facilitate easy idea generation and discussion. An example of these competitions includes an event like IBMââ¬â¢s 2006 ââ¬Å"Innovation Jamâ⬠, attended by over 140,000 international participants and yielding around 46,000 ideas. Another example is Netflix Prize in 2009. The idea wa s to ask crowd to come up with a recommendation algorithm which was more accurate than Netflix's own algorithm. It had a grand prize of US$1,000,000 and it was given to the BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos team which bested Netflix's own algorithm for predicting ratings by 10.06%Another example of competition-based crowdsourcing is the 2009 DARPA experiment, where DARPA placed 10 balloon markers across the United States and challenged teams to compete to be the first to report the location of all the balloons. A collaboration of efforts was required to complete the challenge quickly and in addition to the competitive motivation of the contest as a whole, the winning team (MIT, in less than nine hours) established its own ââ¬Å"collaborapetitiveâ⬠environment to generate participation in their team. A similar challenge was the Tag Challenge, funded by the US State Department, which required locating and photographing individuals in 5 cities in the US and Europe within 12 hours based o nly on a single photograph. The winning team managed to locate 3 suspects by mobilizing volunteers world-wide using a similar incentive scheme to the oneà used in the Balloon Challenge.Open innovation platforms are a very effective way of crowdsourcing peopleââ¬â¢s thoughts and ideas to do research and development. The company InnoCentive is a crowdsourcing platform for corporate research and development where difficult scientific problems are posted for crowds of solvers to discover the answer and win a cash prize, which can range from $10,000 to $100,000 per challenge. InnoCentive, of Waltham, MA and London, England is the leader in providing access to millions of scientific and technical experts from around the world. The company has provided expert crowdsourcing to international Fortune 1000 companies in the US and Europe as well as government agencies and nonprofits.The company claims a success rate of 50% in providing successful solutions to previously unsolved scientific and technical problems. IdeaConnection.com challenges people to come up with new inventions and innovations and Ninesigma.com connects clients with experts in various fields. The X PRIZE Foundation creates and runs incentive competitions where one can win between $1 million and $30 million for solving challenges. Local Motors is another example of crowdsourcing. A community of 20,000 automotive engineers, designers and enthusiasts competes to build offroad rally trucks. Implicit crowdsourcingImplicit crowdsourcing is less obvious because users do not necessarily know they are contributing, yet can still be very effective in completing certain tasks. Rather than users actively participating in solving a problem or providing information, implicit crowdsourcing involves users doing another task entirely where a third party gains information for another topic based on the userââ¬â¢s actions.A good example of implicit crowdsourcing is the ESP game, where users guess what images are a nd then these labels are used to tag Google images. Another popular use of implicit crowdsourcing is through reCAPTCHA, which asks people to solve Captchas in order to prove they are human, and then provides Captchas from old books that cannot be deciphered by computers in order to try and digitize them for the web. Like Mechanical Turk, this task is simple for humans but would be incredibly difficult for computers.Piggyback crowdsourcing can be seen most frequently by websites such as Google that mine oneââ¬â¢s search history and websites in order to discover keywords for ads, spelling corrections, and finding synonyms. In this way, users are unintentionally helping to modify existing systems, such as Googleââ¬â¢s ad words.CrowdsourcersThere are a number of motivations for businesses to use crowdsourcing to accomplish tasks, find solutions for problems, or to gather information. These include the ability to offload peak demand, access cheap labor and information, generate bet ter results, access a wider array of talent than might be present in one organization, and undertake problems that would have been too difficult to solve internally. Crowdsourcing allows businesses to submit problems on which contributors can work, such as problems in science, manufacturing, biotech, and medicine, with monetary rewards for successful solutions. Although it can be difficult to crowdsource complicated tasks, simple work tasks can be crowdsourced cheaply and effectively.Crowdsourcing also has the potential to be a problem-solving mechanism for government and nonprofit use. Urban and transit planning are prime areas for crowdsourcing. One project to test crowdsourcing's public participation process for transit planning in Salt Lake City has been underway from 2008 to 2009, funded by a U.S. Federal Transit Administration grant. Another notable application of crowdsourcing to government problem solving is the Peer to Patent Community Patent Review project for the U.S. Pat ent and Trademark Office.Researchers have used crowdsourcing systems, in particular Mechanical Turk, to aid with research projects by crowdsourcing aspects of the research process such as data collection, parsing, and evaluation. Notable examples include using the crowd to create speech and language databases,and using the crowd to conduct user studies. Crowdsourcing systems provide these researchers with the ability to gather large amount of data. Additionally, using crowdsourcing, researchers can collect data from populations andà demographics they may not have had access to locally, but that improve the validity and value of their work.Artists have also utilized crowdsourcing systems. In his project the Sheep Market, Aaron Koblin used Mechanical Turk to collect 10,000 drawings of sheep from contributors around the world. Sam Brown (artist) leverages the crowd by asking visitors of his website explodingdog to send him sentences that he uses as inspirations for paintings. Art cur ator Andrea Grover argues that individuals tend to be more open in crowdsourced projects because they are not being physically judged or scrutinized. As with other crowdsourcers, artists use crowdsourcing systems to generate and collect data. The crowd also can be used to provide inspiration and to collect financial support for an artistââ¬â¢s work.Additionally, crowdsourcing from 100 million drivers is being used by INRIX to collect users' driving times to provide better GPS routing and real-time traffic updates.DemographicsThe crowd is an umbrella term for people who contribute to crowdsourcing efforts. Though it is sometimes difficult to gather data about the demographics of the crowd, a study by Ross et al. surveyed the demographics of a sample of the more than 400,000 registered crowdworkers using Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete tasks for pay.While a previous study in 2008 by Ipeirotis found that users at that time were primarily American, young, female, and well-educated , with 40% having incomes >$40,000/yr, in 2009 Ross found a very different population. By Nov. 2009, 36% of the surveyed Mechanical Turk workforce was Indian. Of Indian workers were male, and 66% had at least a Bachelorââ¬â¢s degree. ? had annual incomes less than $10,000/yr, with 27% sometimes or always depending on income from Mechanical Turk to make ends meet.The average US user of Mechanical Turk earned $2.30 per hour for tasks in 2009, versus $1.58 for the average Indian worker. While the majority of users worked less than 5 hours per week, 18% worked 15 hours per week or more. This is less than minimum wage in either country, which Ross suggests raises ethical questions for researchers who use crowdsourcing.The demographics of http://microworkers.com/ differ from Mechanical Turk in that the US and India together account for only 25% of workers. 197 countries are represented among users, with Indonesia (18%) and Bangladesh (17%) contributing the largest share. However, 28% o f employers are from the US.Another study of the demographics of the crowd at iStockphoto found a crowd that was largely white, middle- to upper-class, higher educated, worked in a so-called ââ¬Å"white collar job,â⬠and had a high-speed Internet connection at home.Studies have also found that crowds are not simply collections of amateurs or hobbyists. Rather, crowds are often professionally trained in a discipline relevant to a given crowdsourcing task and sometimes hold advanced degrees and many years of experience in the profession.Claiming that crowds are amateurs, rather than professionals, is both factually untrue and may lead to marginalization of crowd labor rights.MotivationsMany scholars of crowdsourcing suggest that there are both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that cause people to contribute to crowdsourced tasks, and that these factors influence different types of contributors.For example, students and people employed full-time rate Human Capital Advancement as less important than part-time workers do, while women rate Social Contact as more important than men do.Intrinsic motivations are broken down into two categories, enjoyment-based and community-based motivations. Enjoyment-based motivations refer to motivations related to the fun and enjoyment that the contributor experiences through their participation. These motivations include: skill variety, task identity, task autonomy, direct feedback from the job, and pastime. Community-based motivations refer to motivations related to community participation, and include community identification and social contact.Extrinsic motivations are broken down into three categories, immediate payoffs, delayed payoffs, and social motivations. Immediate payoffs, through monetary payment, are the immediately received compensations given to those who complete tasks. Delayed payoffs are benefits that can be used to generate future advantages, such as training skills and being noticed by potential employ ers. Social motivations are the rewards of behaving pro-socially, such as altruistic motivations. Chandler and Kapelner found that US users of the Amazon Mechanical Turk were more likely to complete a task when told they were going to ââ¬Å"help researchers identify tumor cells,â⬠than when they were not told the purpose of their task. However, of those who completed the task, quality of output did not depend on the framing of the task.Another form of social motivation is prestige or status. The International Children's Digital Library recruits volunteers to translate and review books. Because all translators receive public acknowledgment for their contribution, Kaufman and Schulz cite this as a reputation-based strategy to motivate individuals who want to be associated with institutions that have prestige. The Amazon Mechanical Turk uses reputation as a motivator in a different sense, as a form of quality control. Crowdworkers who frequently complete tasks in ways judged to b e inadequate can be denied access to future tasks, providing motivation to produce high-quality work. CriticismsThere are two major categories of criticisms about crowdsourcing, (1) the value and impact of the work received from the crowd and (2) the ethical implications of low wages paid to crowdworkers. Most of these criticisms are directed towards crowdsourcing systems that provide extrinsic monetary rewards to contributors, though some apply more generally to all crowdsourcing systems. Impact of crowdsourcing on product qualitySusceptibility to faulty results caused by targeted, malicious work efforts. Since crowdworkers completing microtasks are paid per task, there is often a financial incentive to complete tasks quickly rather than well. Verifying responses is time consuming, and so requesters often depend on havingà multiple workers complete the same task to correct errors. However, having each task completed multiple times increases time and monetary costs.Crowdworkers ar e a nonrandom sample of the population. Many researchers use crowdsourcing in order to quickly and cheaply conduct studies with larger sample sizes than would be otherwise achievable. However, due to low worker pay, participant pools are skewed towards poor users in developing countries.Increased likelihood that a crowdsourced project will fail due to lack of monetary motivation or too few participants. Crowdsourcing markets are not a first-in-first-out queue. Tasks that are not completed quickly may be forgotten, buried by filters and search procedures so that workers do not see them. This results in a long tail power law distribution of completion times. Additionally, low-paying research studies online have higher rates of attrition, with participants not completing the study once started. Even when tasks are completed, crowdsourcing doesn't always produce quality results. When Facebook began its localization program in 2008, it encountered criticism for the low quality of its cro wdsourced translations.One of the problems of crowdsourcing products is the lack of interaction between the crowd and the client. Usually there is little information about the final desired product and there is often very limited interaction with the final client. This can decrease the quality of product as client interaction is a vital part of the design process.It is usually expected from a crowdsourced project to be unbiased by incorporating a large population of participants with a diverse background. However, most of the crowdsourcing works are done by people who are paid or directly benefit from the outcome (e.g. most of open source projects working on Linux). In many other cases, the resulted product is the outcome of a single person's endeavour who creates the majority of the product while the crowd only participates in minor details.Concerns for crowdsourcersEthical concerns. Because crowdworkers are considered independent contractorsà rather than employees, they are not guaranteed a minimum wage. In practice, workers using the Amazon Mechanical Turk generally earn less than the minimum wage, even in India. Some researchers considering using Mechanical Turk to get participants for studies have argued that this may be unethical.Below-market wages. The average US user of Mechanical Turk earned $2.30 per hour for tasks in 2009, versus $1.58 for the average Indian worker. While the majority of users worked less than 5 hours per week, 18% worked 15 hours per week or more, and 27% of Indian users said income from Mechanical Turk is sometimes or always necessary for them to make ends meet. This is less than minimum wage in either country, which Ross et al. suggest raises ethical questions for researchers who use crowdsourcing.[ When Facebook began its localization program in 2008, it received criticism for using crowdsourcing to obtain free labor.Typically, no written contracts, non-disclosure agreements, or employee agreements are made with crowdsourced e mployees. For users of the Amazon Mechanical Turk, this means that requestors have final say over whether usersââ¬â¢ work is acceptable; if not, they will not be paid. Critics claim that crowdsourcing arrangements exploit individuals in the crowd, and there has been a call for crowds to organize for their labor rights.Difficulties in collaboration of crowd members, especially in the context of competitive crowd sourcing. Crowdsourcing site InnoCentive allows organizations to solicit solutions to scientific and technological problems; only 10.6% of respondents report working in a team on their submission.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)