Day: January 21, 2020

#2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination

January 21, 2020 4 Comments Nursing

Select a community organization or group that you feel would be interested in learning about ethical and policy issues that affect the coordination of care. Then, develop and record a 10-12-slide, Create a detailed narrative script for your presentation, 4-5 pages in length.

As coordinators of care, nurses must be aware of the code of ethics for nurses and health policy issues that affect the coordination of care within the context of the community. To help patients navigate the continuum of care, nurses must be proficient at interpreting and applying the code of ethics for nurses and health policy, specifically, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Being knowledgeable about ethical and policy issues helps ensure that care coordinators are upholding ethical standards and navigating policy issues that affect patient care.

This assessment provides an opportunity for you to develop a presentation for a local community organization of your choice, which provides an overview of ethical standards and relevant policy issues that affect the coordination of care. Completing this assessment will strengthen your understanding of ethical issues and policies related to the coordination and continuum of care, and will empower you to be a stronger advocate and nursing professional.

It would be an excellent choice to complete the Vila Health: Ethical Decision Making activity prior to developing the presentation. The activity provides a helpful update on the ethical principles that will help with success in this assessment.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

  • Competency 4: Defend decisions based on the code of ethics for nursing. 
    • Assess the impact of the code of ethics for nurses on the coordination and continuum of care.
  • Competency 5: Explain how health care policies affect patient-centered care. 
    • Explain how governmental policies related to the health and/or safety of a community affect the coordination of care.
    • Identify national, state, and local policy provisions that raise ethical questions or dilemmas for care coordination.
  • Competency 6: Apply professional, scholarly communication strategies to lead patient-centered care. 
    • Communicate key ethical and policy issues in a presentation affecting the coordination and continuum of care for a selected community organization or support group. Either speaker notes or audio voice-over are included.

Preparation

Your nurse manager at the community care center is well connected and frequently speaks to a variety of community organizations and groups. She has noticed the good work you are doing in your new care coordination role and respects your speaking and presentation skills. Consequently, she thought that an opportunity to speak publicly about contemporary issues in care coordination would be beneficial for your career and has suggested reaching out to a community organization or support group to gauge their interest in hearing from you, as a care center representative, on a topic of interest to both you and your prospective audience.

You have agreed that this is a good idea and have decided to research a community organization or support group that might be interested in learning about ethical and policy issues related to the coordination of care. Your manager has suggested the following community organizations and support groups, but acknowledges that the choice is yours.

  • Homeless shelters.
  • Local religious groups.
  • Nursing homes.
  • Local community organizations (Rotary Club or Kiwanis Club).

To prepare for this assessment, you may wish to:

  • Research your selected community organization or support group.
  • Review the Code of Ethics for Nurses With Interpretive Statements and associated health policy issues, specifically, the ACA.
  • Review the assessment instructions and scoring guide to ensure you understand the work you will be asked to complete.
  • Allocate sufficient time to rehearse your presentation before recording the final version for submission.

Note: Remember that you can submit all, or a portion of, your draft presentation to for feedback, before you submit the final version for this assessment. If you plan on using this free service, be mindful of the turnaround time of 2448 hours for receiving feedback.

Instructions

For this assessment:

  • Choose the community organization or support group that you plan to address.
  • Develop and record a presentation, with typed speaker notes (the script for your voice recording) and audio voice-over recording, intended for that audience. Video is not required.

Note: PowerPoint has a feature to type the speaker notes directly into the presentation. You are encouraged to use that feature or you may choose to submit a separate document. See for technical support about the use of PowerPoint, including voice recording and speaker notes.

Note: For this assessment, develop your presentation slides and speaker notes, then record your presentation. You are not required to deliver your presentation to an actual audience but you certainly could if you chose to.

Presentation Format and Length

You may use PowerPoint (recommended) or other suitable presentation software to create your slides and add your voiceover. If you elect to use an application other than PowerPoint, check with your faculty to avoid potential file compatibility issues. You can also record your presentation using Kaltura or similar software.

Be sure that your slide deck includes the following slides:

  • Title slide. 
    • Presentation title.
    • Your name.
    • Date.
    • Course number and title.
  • References (at the end of your presentation).

Your slide deck should consist of 1012 slides, not including a title and references slide with typed speaker notes and audio voice over. Your presentation should not exceed 20 minutes.

Create a detailed narrative script for your presentation, approximately 45 pages in length.

Supporting Evidence

Cite 35 credible sources from peer-reviewed journals or professional industry publications to support your presentation. Include your source citations on a references page appended to your narrative script.

Grading Requirements

The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination Scoring Guide, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

  • Explain how governmental policies related to the health and/or safety of the community affect the coordination of care. 
    • Provide examples of a specific policy affecting the organization or group.
    • Refer to the assessment resources for help in locating relevant policies.
    • Be sure influential policies include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA).
  • Identify national, state, and local policy provisions that raise ethical questions or dilemmas for care coordination. 
    • What are the implications and consequences of specific policy provisions?
    • What evidence do you have to support your conclusions?
  • Assess the impact of the code of ethics for nurses on the coordination and continuum of care. 
    • Consider the factors that contribute to health, health disparities, and access to services.
    • Consider the social determinants of health identified in Healthy People 2020 as a framework for your assessment.
    • Provide evidence to support your conclusions.
  • Communicate key ethical and policy issues in a presentation affecting the coordination and continuum of care for a selected community organization or support group. Either speaker notes or audio voice-over are included. 
    • Present a concise overview.
    • Support your main points and conclusions with relevant and credible evidence.

BUS402 WK 3 Journal

January 21, 2020 2 Comments Business Finance - Operations Management

Mission Statements

COMPANY SELECTED: MICROSOFT

Prior to completing this assignment, review Chapter 2, section 2.1 in your Constellation textbook and read the article (Hull, 2013), being sure to review this Now, turning to the company you selected, research and find the companys mission statement. Then,

  • State how the mission statement provides guidance for the companys organizational activities.
  • Evaluate the companys mission statement per each of the four questions posed in the Hull article as well as your assigned readings for the week.
  • Rate the company according to the 5 star rating system used in the Fortune 500 list, stating how many stars would you rate the mission statement. Explain your rationale.
  • Rewrite the mission statement so that it better addresses the four questions and forms a complete mission statement.

Carefully review the for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

Required Resources

Text

Abraham, S. (2012). . Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

  • Chapter 6: Creating Strategic-Alternative Bundles
  • Chapter 7: Choosing the Best Strategy/Support

Article

Moore, K. (2011). Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2011/03/28/porter-or-mintzberg-whose-view-of-strategy-is-the-most-relevant-today/

  • This article compares two points of view to consider which may be the most relevant today and will assist you in your Porters Five Forces discussion forum this week.
    Accessibility Statement does not exist.

Any topic (writer’s choice)

January 21, 2020 7 Comments Business and Management, Not applicable

1. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/first-time-homebuyer-mistakes-1.aspx

2. http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/05/02/13-real-world-tips-for-college-grads

You will need to read the 2 articles and view the videos at the above link.

1. Then, write a comment about something you learned in the articles that might apply to you or others who are buying a home whether it be as a First Time Home Buyer or not.

2. Then, write a comment about something you learned in the article that might apply to yourself or others as you prepare to graduate from college.

3. Which video lessons helped you further your understanding of Personal Finance the most?

Dicks Sporting Goods

January 21, 2020 4 Comments APA, Business and Management

Chapter 4. Case Study 4.8 Dicks Sporting Goods: Taking control of its E-commerce Operations, pages 247 250. Answer questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 on page 250. Clearly cite all the sources.

1. Why did Dicks decide to leave eBay and take over its own e-commerce operations?
2. What is Dicks omnichannel strategy?
3. What are the three steps in Dicks migration to its new website?
4. What are the primary benefits of Dicks new system?

Founded in 1948 by Dick Stack in Binghamton, New York, Dicks Sporting Goods has grown from a small local business selling fishing and camping supplies into a Fortune 500 business with stores throughout the United States. After Stacks retirement in 1984, his son Edward bought the business with his siblings
and took over as president. Edward spearheaded the companys growth from a handful of local stores into a sporting goods powerhouse. The company sells athletic apparel, outerwear, sportswear, a variety of shoes, fitness equipment, and outdoor equipment. Now headquartered in Pennsylvania, Dicks also runs two smaller franchises: its Field & Stream outdoor goods division, and Golf Galaxy for golfing supplies. Dicks prides itself on combining small-business customer service with big-box retailer selection and values, and routinely outperforms competitors in customer service metrics such as phone and e-mail response time and delivery speed.
Unlike some of its competitors, Dicks was quick to embrace the online channel and has maintained very strong e-commerce sales relative to its competitors in the sport-ing goods industry. Dicks increased its e-commerce revenue by 40% from 2010 to 2015, whereas its competitors revenues increased by only 20% over that span. For most of that period, Dicks relied on external vendors for its IT and e-commerce needs. EBay handled Dicks back-end fulfillment processes and most aspects of their e-commerce presence for approximately 10 successful years. However, by 2015, Dicks had grown to a size where its agreement with eBay was costing the company significant revenue. eBay collected a fixed commission on all items Dicks sold online, no matter how big, despite the fact that expensive items cost no more for eBay to process than cheaper ones. As Dicks e-commerce sales continued to grow, its deal with eBay was costing it more and more money. Many bigger businesses have begun migrating their e-commerce operations away from external vendors and back within the control of the company to avoid these types of expenses. Also, it can be difficult to customize pre-made software and services from external vendors. However, once in-house, companies can more easily differentiate their web presences from competitors and adjust their software and services to best suit their capabilities. Companies that reclaim their e-commerce operations also maintain easier access to their proprietary customer data. Examples of companies following this path include Target, which left Amazon Web Services to build its own e-commerce platform, and Toys R Us, who had also used eBay Enterprise, like Dicks. Facing pressure to slow down physical growth and reduce the high cost of maintain-ing physical real estate, and sensing the trend towards e-commerce at the expense of in-store sales, Dicks made the difficult decision to follow suit and formulate a plan to take over its own e-commerce operations by 2017. The companys rapidly increasing online sales gave Dicks both the incentive and the budget to undertake the transition. Edward Stack explained that the money the company was going to recoup from no longer paying transaction commissions to eBay would pay for the temporary increase in expenditure required to build and maintain an e-commerce infrastructure. Stack estimated that the company stood to immediately save between $20 and $25 million per year, and with a total expenditure relating to the switch of about $80 million, the move would pay for itself within four years. Having control of its e-commerce operations allows Dicks to provide better support for unique omnichannel features, such as shipping online orders from physical Dicks stores. To that end, Dicks has also made plans to convert its stores into distribution centers as well as traditional retail showrooms. This will increase efficiency and improve deliv-ery times, turning its perceived weakness of excessive bricks-and-mortar infrastructure into a strength. Approximately 80% of Dicks e-commerce orders are shipped within the geographical area of a physical store. Dicks foresees its stores functioning not only as traditional retail showcases, but also as miniature distribution centers. In addition, cus-tomers can order online and pickup orders at local stores. Customizing its infrastructure and website capabilities to capitalize on this unusual arrangement was one of the reasons it wanted to reclaim operation of its e-commerce platform. To carry out this strategy, Dicks began development of its e-commerce platform and integrating its existing systems in 2014. In 2015, Dicks began moving two of its lesser brands, Field & Stream and Golf Galaxy, onto the platform to ensure that there were no major issues with it, and continued development work. In 2017, the company plans to re-launch its flagship Dicks Sporting Goods site on the platform. Dicks selected IBM Websphere Commerce Suite for its e-commerce technology stack
because of its emphasis on omnichannel shopping and fulfillment capability. Core com-ponents of the stack also include Apache ServiceMix service-oriented architecture, Man-hattan Associates Order Management System for supply chain management, JDA Software Group software for merchandising, allocation, and replenishment, Oracle PeopleSoft for human resource management, IBM hardware, and Cisco networking technology. Manhat-tan Associates runs Dicks four Pittsburgh distribution centers, and JDA Software Group data is directed into a data warehouse that allows Dicks to access real-time information from any area of their business. Specific features of the new e-commerce platform that Dicks has prioritized include
the ability to buy online and pick up items at a store, the ability to ship from or to a store, and its associate ordering system. The platform also features the ability to break down and test different pricing and marketing approaches by region, an improved search function, and better analytics capabilities. Dicks has found that e-commerce sales double in regions where it opens new stores, and that multichannel customers spend three times as much as single-channel customers. Thats why Dicks has focused so much on integrating physical and virtual sales and omnichannel features. Bringing all of its e-commerce infrastructure in house also gives the company better control over development cycles and speeds up its testing and implementation time frames. Dicks has also used the mobile platform to drive brand loyalty. Dicks uses piloting beacons, or physical sensors in stores that respond to incoming customers smartphones, to produce customers company rewards cards as they approach the store, offering promotions and other customized deals. The company has also integrated its own mobile app with popular fitness trackers like FitBit and MapMyRun to encourage its customers to live a healthy lifestyle, awarding rewards card points for consistent physical activity. The process wasnt without risk. Installing a completely new e-commerce platform
is no easy task. It involves integrating legacy systems and new systems without losing access to information, hiring a slew of new employees to manage the system, and avoid-ing implementation delays, cost overruns, outages, and other delays. Shifting much of its focus to the lower-margin online channel with extremely experienced competitors like Amazon lurking is also a challenge. Dicks has capitalized on the failures of its competi-tors, acquiring 30 Sports Authority leases at a steep discount after its bankruptcy, as well as all of the assets of GolfSmith after it went out of business as well. Dicks also acquired the intellectual property of both franchises, which will help it learn more about the customers of its former competitors. In 2017, Dicks has continued its strong e-commerce growth, which it believes will
allow it to avoid a similar fate. While the bankruptcies of Sports Authority, GolfSmith, and other bricks-and-mortar franchises may cause problems in the short term for Dicks, which cant compete with the prices of companies that are liquidating their inventories, they have also given Dicks more market share. In 2016, e-commerce accounted for 11.9% of Dicks sales for the full year, or approximately $942.7 million, and 17.9% of its sales for the fourth quarter, representing a gain of 27% from its e-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2015. Although some analysts are concerned that Dicks will eventually suffer the same fate as many of its competitors in the face of competition from Amazon, others believe that Dicks has done more than enough to bolster its e-commerce presence to remain viable going forward. The companys overall sales have continued to increase and are on track to exceed $8 billion in 2017, and Dicks also plans to fully complete its e-commerce overhaul by the end of the year.

6

January 21, 2020 2 Comments Information Systems

part 1:

 Using Agile to Increase Quality and Decrease Risk

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Chapter 3 (Quality in the Agile Space) and Chapter 4 (Agile in the Waterfall) of your textbook.

You have been assigned the role of a SCRUM master in a new Agile project. You have been asked to make a presentation to the Agile team on the Agile-specific activities and best practices that promote increasing the quality of the final product and decreasing the risks associated with the project.

Using your textbook and at least one source from the  Library, select at least two Agile activities and two Agile best practices that you will use in your presentation. Explain them, and demonstrate how they would increase quality and reduce risk.

Should be at least 300 words

Part 2a:

 Draft Evaluation of Agile Methods

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read through the Final Project instructions if you have not already done so.

Over the last few weeks, you have explored various aspects of Agile project management, and will have an opportunity to share your own evaluation of these methods in your final project this week. For this team discussion, write a draft of the script you plan to use for your recorded final evaluation. Then, submit your draft to your team discussion forum for peer review.

Your draft script should be a textual representation of what you plan to say in your final project evaluation, and should:

  • Describe the main characteristics of Agile methods
  • Differentiate between Agile methods and traditional waterfall methods
  • Explain best practices for applying Agile methods to project management
  • Assess the benefits of agile project management methods to your organization, including examples for support
  • Analyze how Agile techniques influence the leadership of a project

2b:

 

SCRUM Project, Part 6: Evaluating Agile Methods

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Module 1 (Business Leadership Transition) in Chapter 12 of your textbook.

Your organization is struggling with its projects. Some projects completely fail to provide quality solutions. Others take long to complete, often require constant modifications that were not originally part of the requirements, and cost more money than initially budgeted. The organization is looking for better ways to bring these projects under control and to ensure higher probability of success and quality products.

Using your new knowledge and skills in Agile project management methods, along with any feedback you received from your peers in the Team Discussion this week, create a PowerPoint video presentation to upper management of your organization. The video presentation should exhibit your own evaluation of Agile methods and how they could be used to turn the organizations projects around. The goal of the video presentation is to influence upper management decision makers to transition to Agile project management in the organization.

Your video presentation should be 5-9 minutes in length and should:

  • Describe the main characteristics of Agile methods
  • Differentiate between Agile methods and traditional waterfall methods
  • Explain best practices for applying Agile methods to project management
  • Assess the benefits of agile project management methods to your organization, including examples for support
  • Analyze how Agile techniques influence the leadership of a project

How to Create a PowerPoint Video

  • Method 1: .

Your deliverables for this project are a video (e.g., .mp4 or URL) and a corresponding PowerPoint slide deck (e.g., .ppt file).

  • Your video:
    • Must be 5-9 minutes of narration
    • Can take any form (e.g., a talking head video, a voice-over image video, a voice-over animation video, etc.).
  • Your corresponding PowerPoint slide deck:
    • Must include 12-15 slides (excluding title and reference slides)
    • Must include a separate title slide with the following:
      • Title of paper
      • Students name
      • Course name and number
      • Instructors name
      • Date submitted
    • Must include the speaker’s notes that were used to deliver the recorded presentation
    • Must use at least 3 credible sources in addition to the course text.
    • Must document all sources in APA style as outlined in the  Writing Center.
    • Must include a separate references slide that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Writing Center.

Akamai Technologies

January 21, 2020 2 Comments APA, Business and Management

Chapter 3. Case Study 3.8 Akamai technologies: Attempting to keep supply ahead of Demand, pages 182-185. Answer questions 1, 2, and 3 on page 185. Clearly cite all the sources.

1. Why does Akamai need to geographically disperse its servers to deliver its cus-tomers web content?
2. If you wanted to deliver software content over the Internet, would you sign up for Akamais service? Why or why not?
3. Do you think Internet users should be charged based on the amount of band-width they consume, or on a tiered plan where users would pay in rough propor-tion to their usage?

In 2017, the amount of Internet traffic generated by YouTube alone is greater than the amount of traffic on the entire Internet in 2000. Because of video streaming and the explosion in mobile devices demanding high-bandwidth applications, Internet traffic has increased over 500% since 2010 and is predicted to nearly triple by 2021 (see Figure 3.18). Internet video is now a majority of Internet traffic and will reach 82% by 2021, according to Cisco. Mobile platform traffic is expected to grow sevenfold from its 2016 levels by 2021. Cisco estimates that annual global Internet traffic will be around 3.3 zettabytes in 2021: thats 3,300 exabytes, or, in other words, 33 with 19 zeroes behind it!
In todays broadband environment, the threshold of patience is very low. Increased video and audio customer expectations are bad news for anyone seeking to use the Web for delivery of high-quality multimedia content and high definition video. Akamai is one of the Webs major helpers, and an overwhelming majority of the Webs top companies use Akamais services to speed the delivery of content. Akamai serves more than 30 terabits of web traffic per second. Slow-loading web pages and content sometimes result from poor design, but more often than not, the problem stems from the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. The Inter-net is a collection of networks that has to pass information from one network to another. Sometimes the handoff is not smooth. Every 1,500-byte packet of information sent over the Internet must be verified by the receiving server and an acknowledgment sent to the sender. This slows down not only the distribution of content such as music, but also slows down interactive requests, such as purchases, that require the client computer to interact with an online shopping cart. Moreover, each packet may go through many different servers on its way to its final destination, multiplying by several orders of magnitude the number of acknowledgments required to move a packet from New York to San Francisco. The Internet today spends much of its time and capacity verifying packets, contributing to a problem called latency or delay. For this reason, a single e-mail with a 1-megabyte attached PDF file can create more than 50 megabytes of Internet traffic and data storage on servers, client hard drives, and network backup drives. Web page load times for desktops have also increased significantly as pages become laden with more content of various types. Load times increased by over 60% from 2013 to 2015 and have continued to rise since that time, further complicat-ing content distribution. Akamai Technologies was founded by Tom Leighton, an MIT professor of applied
mathematics, and Daniel Lewin, an MIT grad student, with the idea of expediting Internet traffic to overcome these limitations. Lewins masters thesis was the theoretical starting point for the company. It described storing copies of web content such as pictures or video clips at many different locations around the Internet so that one could always retrieve a nearby copy, making web pages load faster. Officially launched in August 1998, Akamais current products are based on the
Akamai Intelligent Platform, a cloud platform made up of over 233,000 servers in 130 countries within over 1,500 networks around the world, and all within a single network hop of 85% of all Internet users. Akamai software on these servers allows the platform to identify and block security threats and provide comprehensive knowledge of network conditions, as well as instant device-level detection and optimization. Akamais site per-formance products allow customers to move their online content closer to end users so a user in New York City, for instance, will be served L.L.Bean pages from the New York Metro area Akamai servers, while users of the L.L.Bean site in San Francisco will be served pages from Akamai servers in San Francisco. Akamai has a wide range of large corporate and government clients: 1 out of every 3 global Fortune 500 companies, the top 30 media and entertainment companies, 96 of the top 100 online U.S. retailers, all branches of the U.S. military, all the major U.S. sports leagues, and so on. In 2017, Akamai delivers between 15% and 30% of all web traffic, and over 3 trillion daily Internet interactions. Other competi-tors in the content delivery network (CDN) industry include Limelight Networks, Level 3 Communications, and Mirror Image Internet.
Accomplishing this daunting task requires that Akamai monitor the entire Internet,
locating potential sluggish areas and devising faster routes for information to travel. Frequently used portions of a clients website, or large video or audio files that would be difficult to send to users quickly, are stored on Akamais servers. When a user requests a song or a video file, his or her request is redirected to an Akamai server nearby and the content is served from this local server. Akamais servers are placed in Tier 1 backbone supplier networks, large ISPs, universities, and other networks. Akamais software deter-mines which server is optimal for the user and then transmits the content locally. Web sites that are Akamaized can be delivered anywhere from 4 to 10 times as fast as non-Akamaized content. Akamai has developed a number of other business services based on its Internet savvy, including targeted advertising based on user location and zip code, content security, business intelligence, disaster recovery, on-demand bandwidth and computing capacity during spikes in Internet traffic, storage, global traffic management, and streaming services. You can see several interesting visualizations of the Internet that log basic real-time online activity by visiting the Akamai website. The shift toward cloud computing and the mobile platform as well as the growing
SOURCES: Facts & Figures, Akamai.com, accessed August 7, 2017; Discontent and Disruption in the World of Content Delivery Networks, by Mahendra Ramsing-hani, Techcrunch.com, June 1, 2017; Michael Kerner, Akamai CSO Detailers Cyber-Security Challenges and Improvements, Eweek.com, May 15, 2017; Why Akamai Lost More Than $1.5B in Market Value After Earnings ReportAgain, by Kelly J. OBrien, Bizjournals.com, May 3, 2017; Akamai Shares Dip After Deal to Buy a Digital Analytics Company, by Luqman Adeniyi,
Cnbc.com, March 30, 2017; Akamai Buys Software Startup Soasta, by Natalie Gagliordi,
Zdnet.com, March 29, 2017; Akamai Security Business Shines, Offsets Apple, Facebook Shift, by
popularity of streaming video have provided Akamai with new growth opportunities. As more businesses and business models are moving to the Web, Akamai has seen its client base continue to grow beyond the most powerful Internet retailers and online content providers. In 2014, Akamai made a push to encourage Hollywood studios to use the cloud for feature films, touting its ability to handle uploads and downloads of large video files, to quickly convert files from one format to another, and to apply DRM protec-tions. Establishing partnerships with movie studios represented big business for Akamai, with an increasing amount of media consumption taking place on mobile devices through the cloud. Akamai has also made agreements to become the primary content delivery platform for cloud service providers like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. However, the growth of streaming video has also created new challenges for Akamai, including increased competition from Comcast and Amazon, which have built compet-ing content delivery services. Amazons CloudFront content delivery network is already bringing in $2.3 billion in revenues. Many of Akamais largest clients, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix, are also increasingly shifting their content delivery operations away from Akamais platforms and onto in-house content delivery networks, putting downward pressure on the companys revenues and stock price, which dropped in response to lower first quarter earnings in 2017. Amazon in particular contin-ues to make inroads against Akamaiwhile Akamai still serves more top 100 domains, Amazon CloudFront serves the majority of the top million domains, suggesting that Amazon is steadily building its client base with mid-sized companies. Other competitors in content delivery, such as Cloudflare, Fastly, and StackPath also represent threats to Akamais continued dominance. Akamai is also acutely aware of the increase in cybercrime as more traffic migrates to the Internet. Growth in Internet traffic is good news for Akamai, but the company must also now deal with politically motivated cyberattacks, organized crime online, and state-sponsored cyberwarfare, not just against its clients, but against CDNs like Akamai itself. Akamai has continued to improve its Kona Site Defender tool, which offers a variety of security measures for Akamai clients. The tool protects against Distributed Denial of  out new improvements to Konas web application firewall and analytics features. Akamai also upgraded Site Defenders Web Application Firewall feature and developed modifica-tions to the tool that make it easier for its users to use. With DDoS attacks against CDNs on the rise, Akamai has also taken precautions to ensure that it can withstand an attack against its infrastructure. With so many businesses now dependent on the uninterrupted flow of content over the Internet, Akamai is in a very strong position to sell security ser-vices and analytics to its customers. Akamai has partnered with security companies such as Trustwave and China Unicom to sell products jointly and has also set itself up for future growth by moving into areas of the world with less developed broadband infrastructure, such as the Middle East. In 2015, Akamai opened an office in Dubai, hoping to bolster its presence in an area where the adoption rate for broadband is skyrocketing. In 2017, Akamai acquired SOASTA, whose flagship product, CloudTest, allows companies to test and analyze the performance of their websites and website applications and is used by Apple, Target, and Walmart. The move will add a valuable new offering to Akamais Web Performance Solutions group of tools. In 2016, experiencing rapidly increasing demand from its clients for security tools, Akamai announced it would restructure its business into two distinct units, one focusing on content delivery and media, and the other on website security. The improvements in Akamais security businesses have offset much of the slowdown in its content delivery business, with 60% of the companys overall revenue coming from its cybersecurity divi-sion in the first quarter of 2017. While the future of its content delivery business is cloudier due to increased competition and the challenges of Internet growth, the company remains profitable.

Self Disclosure Online in Romantic Relationships

January 21, 2020 1 Comment APA, Business and Management

This is a topic proposal. Instructions listed below. I will be attaching an EXAMPLE of what the proposal topic paper SHOULD look like. DO NOT USE ANYTHING that is on the EXAMPLE PAPER!!!! It’s meant as a simple reference ONLY!

The purpose of this assignment is for you to propose a topic of interest and begin researching it.  For the first part of this assignment, you will write a short introduction (1-2 pages) of the topic/question of interest.  These pages should introduce your topic.  You will want to have an attention getter, justification statements, thesis and preview of your main points.  Your topic proposal must focus on communication behavior.  You need to make sure that there is some sort of message focused behavior being discussed.  If you are unclear as to what this means, please ask!

After providing this overview, please provide the following:

    Preliminary research question or hypothesis.  This may change as your paper develops, but please provide the preliminary research question or hypothesis as you are currently thinking about the topic.
    Conceptual definitions for all independent variables and dependent variables.

Please use third person (i.e., avoid I, me, you, etc.) to help get you comfortable with this type of writing.

After you have your topic defined, you need 10 peer reviewed journals for your bibliography in APA format. Please use journals from the Communication discipline.  An easy way to find these journals is using COMABSTRACTS through the ASU library. See the list provided for approved communication articles. Please keep these journals recent.  Aim for articles published within the last 5 years. You should search for articles that:

    Help describe the problem you are studying and why it is important
    Define key variables or concepts
    Provide a theoretical foundation for your argument
    Help establish the links in your argument/explain why you think something should happen
    Describes previous research on the key variable, population, etc.
    Address the same question you are interested in only in a different setting, population, etc.

You will be graded on:
1. Do you have a topic proposal? 
2. Do you have 10 journals? 
3. Are they in APA format?
4. Do your conceptual definitions make sense and clearly define the phenomenon you are interested in?
5. Is your topic communication based?

The basic requirements for the assignment must be met or it will be impossible to get a grade better than a C (1-3 are the basic requirements).  You will NOT get a grade higher than a C if you do not have enough journals or a question.  You will be marked off for each APA error.  This is an easy assignment to do well on but it will be graded very strictly.

Discussion post

January 21, 2020 4 Comments Nursing

 

Sensation and Perception

Sensations involve one of your five senses and perception involves the brains capacity to interpret, analyze, and integrate the stimuli presented.  We cannot tune into everything our senses come in contact with or we would be overloaded with sensory stimuli.  Read and respond to the following: 

You are the president of a corporation that owns several large department stores. A board member has a plan for preventing shoplifting: In each store, play musical soundtracks containing subaudible and consciously imperceptible verbal messages such as don’t steal and shoplifting is a crime. Carefully discuss your reasons for supporting or rejecting this proposal to engage in subliminal persuasion. You should offer at least one citation to support your work.

3025 dq 3 resp to ab

January 21, 2020 3 Comments APA, Psychology and Education

MAIN POST

For this discussion board, provide an overview of each of the following types of imaging/assessment measures:
1. Computerized Tomography (CT)
2. Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI)
3. Functional Magnetic Resonance Image (fMRI)
4. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
5. Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT)
6. Electroencephalogram (EEG)
Which imaging technique would you select if you suspected a brain tumor? Why?
The following article may be helpful in answering this discussion board:
Camprodon, J.A., & Stern, T.A. (2013). Selecting neuroimaging techniques: A review for the clinician. The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 15(4), 12f01490. doi: 10.4088/PCC.12f01490
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3869600/
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**Discussion board posting requirements: For each discussion board, be sure to have one main post of at least 400 words and two reply posts of at least 200 words in order to demonstrate sufficient depth to your responses. To receive the highest grade for the discussion board posts, be sure to integrate the textbook as well as additional scholarly sources to support your contributions. Take a look at the empirical literature and include peer-reviewed journal articles to support your posts. Please have your posts submitted on at least two separate days (e.g., don’t post your main post and reply posts all on the same day). This will be worth one point per discussion board and falls under the “Advances Conversations” portion of the discussion board rubric. This helps to spread out the conversation over the course of the unit, and it gives every student the chance to respond to the discussion at a time convenient to their schedule (instead of most of the discussion occurring on the due date). Reply posts can be to either your peers’ posts or to the instructors posts.

Abigails RESPOND TO THE POST

Manage Discussion Entry

Computerized tomography:
According to the assigned book in this class it is commonly known as a CT scan where the “patient’s head is placed in a large doughnut-shaped ring. The ring contains an X-ray tube and, directly opposite it (on the other side of the patient’s head), an X-ray detector” (Carlson & Birkett, 2016, p. 130). There is an x-ray beam that scans the head in every angle. The information gathered from these beams are made into pictures of the skull. The goal of this method of brain scanning is to find the location of a lesion in the brain.
Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI)
This is very similar to a CT scan by finding the location of lesions in the brain.  The MRI finds slices in the brain, but with better detail in contrast to the CT scan. They use a magnetic field and radio waves to find the lesion location. Instead of using x-rays, the MRI uses a magnetic field . Here the MRI analyzes the signal taken by the magnetic field and then pictures are prepared of slices of the brain.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Image (fMRI)
An fMRi records the metabolic activity happening in regions of the brain. This type of scan measures measures the brain’s regional metabolic activity of living. It detects blood flow and oxygen levels.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
This type of scan “visualizes activity of brain regions that are metabolically active in a living brain” (Carlson & Birkett, 2016, p. 141). The PET uses radioactive 2-DG as well. This type of scan also shows how one’s tissues and organs function and also has the ability to show traces of certain diseases.
Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT)
This type of scan looks at blood flow to tissues and organs throughout the body. The types of tracers used are  iodine-123, technetium-99m, xenon-133, thallium-201, and fluorine-18.
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
These can often be described as writings of electricity from the head. This is often used to watch the stages of sleep and to diagnose epilepsy. This is because sleep patterns are associated with electrical activity. This test happens when an experimenter attaches electrodes to the scalp for the purpose to monitor the brain’s activity.

References
Lam, P. (2018, July 24). Mri scans: Definition, uses, and procedure. Retrieved January 21, 2020, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/146309.php
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Devlin. (2018, October 08). What is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri)? Retrieved January 21, 2020, from https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-fmri/
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Mayfield Brain & Spine. (n.d.). SPECT scan. Retrieved January 21, 2020, from https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-spect.htm
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Carlson R., & Birkett, M. A. (2017). Physiology of behavior. Harlow: Pearson.