University of Washington Admissions

The challenging family situation I would like to share with you is our move from Korea to the United States. In 1989, my life was changed when my family immigrated to a new country, hoping for a better future. My life in Korea was hopeless, because I was a failing student with not much interest in school. I spent the majority of my time in Arcades, wasting my coins on video games. Rather than studying with my friends, as I had told my parents I would, I obsessed over the games. The only positive aspect to my life was my private computer programming lessons. Programming in Apple BASIC presented me with an opportunity to create my own world. One day, my parents told me that we were going to move to the United States of America, and I developed a strong feeling that my life soon would change forever. After spending eleven years in Korea, our family moved a totally different environment. This I knew would be my toughest challenge to date. As a fifth grader attending a new elementary school in a new country, I felt left out because of my inability to communicate. Some kids assumed that I did not understand them at all, so they made rude remarks about me. I understood them, maybe not completely, but I knew the intent of their messages. All that I had was my Apple II computer at which I just sat and programmed when I came home from school. At home, my parents pressured me to study all of the time, but I was frustrated and wanted to return to Korea. I wanted to go back and talk freely with my friends and play games with them. My parents often told me that they decided to move here because of the educational opportunities, yet I continued to rebel and refused to listen to what they said. Over time, my English improved. I moved on to regular sixth grade classes; some of which were challenging, but tolerable because of my teachers whom were willing to help. I always enjoyed class trips to the computer lab, where I would start programming on the computer. Other kids would start to gather around and treat me like a genius. Before long, I made more friends and found that I was enjoying school. Thoughts of going back to Korea faded, and my grades rose to a satisfactory level. This pleased my parents who now encouraged me to invite friends to dinner. When my friends came over, I became the translator between my parents and my friends. Since then, I often translate for my parents in any occasion where translation is needed. Talking to some adults was intimidating and sometimes embarrassing, but I felt mature and responsible. The rest of my school year went by very smoothly, and my self-confidence grew. Now I help other Korean people with language difficulties, helping them to understand English and American customs. Prior to my arrival to the United States, I thought everything would be nice and easy, but it did not turn out that way. Life was difficult, since I had to learn a new language, culture, and customs. One of the best things I learned was that my parents were right. This experience helped change me from a hopeless kid to a confident and responsible young adult. From this experience, I have learned that if one sets goals, works hard towards those goals, dedicates oneself to those goals, and takes advantage of opportunities presented, they can achieve anything.

Bless You and Various School Activities Essay

We have gathered here today to bid farewell to the students of standard 10th. I am indeed honoured to be given this opportunity to represent the students of standard 9th. Just when we start to get comfortable with a person, something comes to alter the recipe. In this context, I would like to mention that for the past few months, the students of standards 9th and 10th have indeed worked very closely together to organise various school activities which has helped us forge close ties of friendship. And now, before we know, its time to say ‘Adieu’. The Bible says â€Å"To everything there is a reasonand a time to every purpose under heaven† May I take the liberty to give you a piece of advice? Life is series of events, both good and bad. No matter how deft your organizational skills, there will always be life influencing factors over which you may have no control. As you embark on this new stage of life, you will be able to rise to the occassion because of the values our school has taught you. On such occassions think of principles our teachers have instilled in you and make us proud. â€Å"Change indeed is painful, yet over needfull†, said Thomas Carlyle. We are going to miss you very much. We pray that God guide you and guard you, as you undertake this new and exciting journey of lifem in 11th science. A very good evening to all the respected dignitaries, teachers, my lovely seniors and friends, I Yashodhar of M. E VI sem am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to bid you farewell from your juniors. On behalf of my class, I want to congratulate every one of you on your successes at Global Institute Of Technology & Management. It seems like just the other day when we were all talking about our senior’s farewell as they move on. I remember thinking that it would be hard to say goodbye †¦ and I was right – it is hard. Yet I consider myself fortunate to have met such a special person †¦ a person that we care so much about †¦ that it makes saying goodbye to them hard! As we say goodbye, we remind ourselves that farewells are not forever, nor are they the end. They are simply words to say that we will miss you dearly and that we will remember you fondly. I still remember the day when I first met my seniors and to tell the truth I was really terrified by those sweet funny things which they made me and my class fellows do. But later we all realized that it was just to increase our confidence level and to decrease the communication gap among us. And I hope that this is quite an example to demonstrate their well wishes for us. Although we may be separated by time and distance in the interim, nothing will diminish the important role that you have and always will play in our lives. We wish you happy adventures, fantastic new friendships, amazing experiences and the journey of a lifetime. Most of our life is a series of images. They pass us by like towns on the highway. But sometimes, a moment stuns us as it happens. And we know that this instant is more than a fleeting image. We know that this moment†¦ every part of it†¦ we will live on forever. In the end I would like to say that where ever you go you will remain closer to our hearts. And May you conquer new fronts in life. May God bless you with a happy successful life and I.. We have gathered here today to bid farewell to the students of standard 10th. I am indeed honoured to be given this opportunity to represent the students of standard 9th. Just when we start to get comfortable with a person, something comes to alter the recipe. In this context, I would like to mention that for the past few months, the students of standards 9th and 10th have indeed worked very closely together to organise various school activities which has helped us forge close ties of friendship. And now, before we know, its time to say ‘Adieu’. The Bible says â€Å"To everything there is a reasonand a time to every purpose under heaven† May I take the liberty to give you a piece of advice? Life is series of events, both good and bad. No matter how deft your organizational skills, there will always be life influencing factors over which you may have no control. As you embark on this new stage of life, you will be able to rise to the occassion because of the values our school has taught you. On such occassions think of principles our teachers have instilled in you and make us proud. â€Å"Change indeed is painful, yet over needfull†, said Thomas Carlyle. We are going to miss you very much. We pray that God guide you and guard you, as you undertake this new and exciting journey of lifem in 11th science. A very good evening to all the respected dignitaries, teachers, my lovely seniors and friends, I Yashodhar of M. E VI sem am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to bid you farewell from your juniors. On behalf of my class, I want to congratulate every one of you on your successes at Global Institute Of Technology ; Management. It seems like just the other day when we were all talking about our senior’s farewell as they move on. I remember thinking that it would be hard to say goodbye †¦ and I was right – it is hard. Yet I consider myself fortunate to have met such a special person †¦ a person that we care so much about †¦ that it makes saying goodbye to them hard! As we say goodbye, we remind ourselves that farewells are not forever, nor are they the end. They are simply words to say that we will miss you dearly and that we will remember you fondly. I still remember the day when I first met my seniors and to tell the truth I was really terrified by those sweet funny things which they made me and my class fellows do. But later we all realized that it was just to increase our confidence level and to decrease the communication gap among us. And I hope that this is quite an example to demonstrate their well wishes for us. Although we may be separated by time and distance in the interim, nothing will diminish the important role that you have and always will play in our lives. We wish you happy adventures, fantastic new friendships, amazing experiences and the journey of a lifetime. Most of our life is a series of images. They pass us by like towns on the highway. But sometimes, a moment stuns us as it happens. And we know that this instant is more than a fleeting image. We know that this moment†¦ every part of it†¦ we will live on forever. In the end I would like to say that where ever you go you will remain closer to our hearts. And May you conquer new fronts in life. May God bless you with a happy successful life and I..

Changes in Art History with Emphasis on the Mid-Twentieth Century Essay

Art during the mid-twentieth century contained some of the most important changes art history. These explosive times were counter-balanced with explosive popular culture. More historical events, abrupt changes, and turbulence occurred from the end of World War II until the height of the Vietnam War than in any time period. Before this time, styles of art had lasted generations. In the 1960’s numerous important art movements were happening at the same time. There were variations on variations, movements inside of other movements. Therefore, because of the amount of independent and integrated pieces of movements and styles, a lot can be missed in a short paper. The amount that happened in these twenty-five years is enough to fill volumes, and so, this is just a brief scraping off the top of what during these times—the most tumultuous times in American History. INTRODUCTION: The 1940’s through the 1960’s were not only some of the most socially and politically volatile times in American History, but were the catalyst for the numerous changes in which occurred in American Popular culture during these and following years. Instead of experiencing the trauma which resulted after World War I’s end, post-World War II United States returned fairly easily back to everyday life. Although there were some problems converting from a wartime to a peacetime economy in the late 1940’s, Americans took on the task and entered the 1950’s on a very auspicious high note. During the time period after World War II, the United States experienced many changes. Technology was abundant and the rate at which new inventions, industries and technologies came about was at a rate never seen before. From a television in every home to the first computers and ultimately space flight, these two decades after World War II were crowded with advancements. S ome of the most dramatic changes came in the field of art. What was once a single, slow road of popular culture advancement branched off into thousands of smaller, faster changing roads. Some of these â€Å"roads†, which can be seen as changing styles, or movements, in art, whipped Americans through a roller coaster of change in what they saw around them. The End of World War II: The major art movement taking place in the United States directly after World War II was ther in their concept. So as we start in a new millenium, we have to ask ourselves what will be the next great movement in art? Could there be anything again as influential as the times that existed here? Only time will tell. Bibliography: Cagle, Van M., Reconstructing Pop/Subculture: Art Rock and Andy Warhol, New York: Sage Publications, 1995 Yapp, Nick, Ed. The 1950s, Chicago: Konemann, 1998 Yapp, Nick, Ed. The 1960s, Chicago: Konemann, 1998 Reed, T.V., American Popular Culture. (online) Available: http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/pop/tvrguide.html, February 17, 2000 Seitz, William C., Art in the Age of Aquarius, 1955-1970, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992 Alloway, Lawrence. American Pop Art, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974 Dynamic Movements. (online) Available: Http://library.thinkquest.org/17142/dynamic-movements/ Jansen, H.W., The History of Art, New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1997, p. 914-915 Warhol’s Reflection of the Social Times. (online) Available: Http://vc.lemoyne.edu/ant305/students/7_abarnett/page3.htm Marcel Duchamp. (online) Available: http://www.peak.org/~dadaist/English/Graphics/duchamp.html

Housing Management (See assingment criteria section for the full Essay

Housing Management (See assingment criteria section for the full question) - Essay Example Some associations provide shared ownership contracts, also, to provide services to people who cannot afford to buy their homes outright. Housing associations in England are funded and regulated by the Housing Corporation. Other governmental bodies perform the same service in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Whales. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister sponsors the services provided as a non-Departmental Public Body. The Housing Corporation supports communities over the entire country of England by funding the supply and regulating the quality of affordable homes. Regulation by the Corporation makes is easier for those who have circumstances that make it difficult for them to meet their housing needs in the open market. This also includes homeless people, low-income families, and anyone who is in need of supported housing. These associations provide a large scope of housing. Some manage large estates for housing for families, while the smaller ones manage a group of houses for older people. These entities also provide special project housing for people with mental health or learning disabilities, substance abuse problems, homeless people, young people, ex-offenders, and women fleeing domestic violence. The housing associations day-to-day operations are supported by rent and service fees made by the tenants living on the properties. Some of the funding is provided on behalf of the tenants. Housing associations are operated as a commercial entity, but most do not require donations for their daily general activities. New Housing, however, is very different. Its support tends to require subsidies in order to be economically viable. Where the sources of subsidies come from depends on where the association is located The Housing and Regulations Act of 2008 created two bodies of support. One being the Home and Communities Agency that directly deals with funding and regenerated work. And second, the Tenant Services Authority, which provides responsibility for the regul ations. Beginning in 2010 the TSA began regulating all providers of â€Å"social housing.† The associations of these entities are known as Registered Providers of the private, public, and for profit or not-for-profit status. In Northern Ireland the same procedure is handled by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and in Scotland by the Scottish Government. However, in Whales, this process is handled by the Welsh Assembly Government. Housing associations are generally seen as private entities because they are neither owned nor operated by the state. This has been challenged by many legal rulings in the past few years. In 2004, a ruling by the British government did document housing associations as public bodies for the purpose of procurement. In 2008 the high court in the UK ruled that housing associations were public authorities, and could be subject to judicial review in some instances. The ruling stated.†permeated by state control and influence with a view of meetin g the Government’s aims for affordable housing, and in which RSL, Registered Social Landlords, work side by side with, and can in a very real sense be said to take the place of, local authorities.† This ruling is very politically significant since the housing associations do not currently contribute to the United Kingdom’s public sector borrowing requirement. Although larger housing associations usually have paid staff to manage the association operations, a volunteer board of management is

Central Bank Independence and the Conduct of Monetary Policy Essay

Central Bank Independence and the Conduct of Monetary Policy - Essay Example During the period of 1970s and in the beginning of 1980s, main industrialised economies witnessed constant stage of increased inflation (Walsh, 2005). A central bank that is independent enjoys freedom while planning its instrument of policy in order to attain its purpose. In order to have functional independence, it is necessary for the main purpose of the nationwide central bank with regard to a state which is a member of the EU, to be planned in a transparent and lawfully certain way. It is also required to be completely aligned along with the main purpose of price steadiness (Smaghi, 2007). To be more precise, the concept of central bank independence means that the bank enjoys complete independent authority in planning the degree of short-term rate of interest with regard to the ‘money market’ (Smaghi, 2007). 2. The Central Bank Independence & Framework of Monetary Policy In the earlier years, there have been certain absolute alterations made in the legislation of the central bank in order to boost the legal independence for the bank. The alterations made in the legislation provide more power to the central bank and facilitates it to emphasise chiefly on the purpose of price stability. ... Therefore, it can be stated that the vital purpose of the monetary policy designed by the independent central banks is to uphold stability in prices by effectively managing the inflation (Cukierman, 1994). 2.1. Basic Concepts in Monetary Policy The mechanism of the monetary policy is a process with the help of which alterations in the supply of money have an effect on employment, equilibrium of payments, output and inflation as well. For instance, any increase in the supply of money would imply that there would be more availability of money for the people to expend on assets that are financial in nature. As a result, the cost of the financial assets would increase. It is a known fact that there exists an inverse relationship among the rate of interest and the cost of the financial assets. To further understand this concept, it is assumed that there has been an issue of a certain government bond for ?1000 and which is expected to pay an interest of 10 per cent which makes it ?100. Now , if assumed that the price for that particular bond went up to ?2000 then the interest of ?100 would be now 5 per cent. Therefore, it indicates that an increase in the costs of the financial assets would result in decreasing the interest rates. Decrease in the rate of interest encourages investment along with consumption. They even tend to lessen the requirement for currency by way of lowering the value as well as increasing the export demand and lessening the import demand concurrently (Grant & Vidler, 2000). The main purpose of a central bank is that of defending the worth for the currency with regard to what it would buy. Inflation or rising price decreases the value for money. Monetary

Culture and costums of Korea Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Culture and costums of Korea - Assignment Example Culture refers to a set of socially transmitted human behaviors, beliefs, arts, among other thoughts and works of the human mind. The definition implies that culture is reliant on the interaction and integration of humans. Historically, regions had secluded boundaries owing to the numerous geographical barrier such as mountains, seas and rivers, which enclosed specific regions thus cutting off human interactions. At such times, regions had specific cultures defining their languages, arts, dietary and religion among many other aspects of human lives. However, with the onset of industrial revolution, the use of machines resulted in the invention of better ways of transportation and communication thus overcoming the previously existing geographical barriers. Located in North East Asia, Korea is an expansive territory currently divided into two political territories; North Korea and South Korea because of divergent political interests of both the leaders and the citizens (Kleiner, 2001). The use of the internet in the modern society and the advanced modes of communication such as mobile phones have resulted in the creation of a global village in which people can live anywhere and work anywhere. The intensified human interactions in the contemporary society have therefore revolutionized culture. A conflict between the previously definite traditional cultures and the modern culture has diverse effects depending on the type of the society. Whenever cultures conflict, the people abandon their previous cultural practices that they consider backward and adopt certain features of the new culture that they feel appropriate. Culture in the modern global society is relative and liberal with every individual and social institution choosing only the specific cultural practices that best protects their interests. Korea is one such region in which the conflict between the traditional culture and the modern culture is evident and the effects of the modern culture on the tradition al culture thus manifest itself. The division of the region into two might have affected the culture of the people in the region but since culture is reliant on the interaction of humans, the regions still share some of their cultural practices as they had throughout history with their neighbors in the eastern bloc such as China and Japan. Both the south and North Korea are developed economies and industrial hubs. South Korea for example is home to some of the leading electronics manufacturing companies such Samsung and HTC among many other local and international brands. With an internet infiltration of more than seventy percent, Korea is an active part of the global village as her citizens interact with others throughout the world. Korea has numerous international airports and attracts millions of tourists annually. Such features of both the economy and social structure imply that the intensified human interactions in the modern Korea presents numerous cultural conflicts as the mo dern culture through the revamped interactions and economic activities in the modern society. Previously, Korea had definitive cultural practices and arts. Such practices included specific languages, religions, arts such as ceramics and dietary among others. However, with time the region opened up for trade with the West and other parts of the world such as African and South America. Coupled with the concepts of urbanization, globalizations seamlessly turned the expansive Korean region into a metropolitan society habiting people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Korea thus forms an effective choice for the study assignment since the cultural conflict between the traditional and new culture is evident. The society is developed and industrial; the living pattern of the people has changed with time to the perfect urban settings in the modern Korea. Such a society thus exhibits diverse cultural patterns as native Koreans continue holding onto some of their traditional cultural practice s

Marketing Fundamentals Module (CIM Professional Certificate in Essay

Marketing Fundamentals Module (CIM Professional Certificate in Marketing) - Essay Example Their definition of a successful firm is one, which is able to predict the future accurately, acquire core competences ahead of competition and thereby become the dominant player within an industrial sector. Markets always change faster than Marketing. Today many companies are disappointed over marketing’s inability to produce measurable result. While companies unabashedly declare their wish to get closer to customers, marketing actually losing power to other functions in the corporation. Now to achieve highest level of operations every company needs a strong market plan, which will ensure success to them in the present competitive environment. 2. Marketing plan: The marketing plan operates at two levels strategic and tactical. The strategic marketing plan lays out the target markets and value proposition that will offer, based on an analysis of the best market opportunities. The tactical marketing plan specifies the marketing tactics, including product features, promotion merchandising, pricing, channels and services. The marketing plan is the central instrument for directing and coordinating the marketing effort. Today teams develop marketing plans with inputs and sign-offs from every important organizational function. These plans are then implemented at the appropriate levels of the organization, with management monitoring results and taking corrective action when necessary. The format and contents of marketing plans depend upon the size of the organization, the attitude of the organization the degree of formalization required within the annual planning cycle process and accepted sector conventions. 2.1. Situation review: Within situation review, there should be coverage of the strategic situation facing the organization. This will base on a description of market size, market growth trends, customer benefits

Database Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Database Systems - Essay Example Likewise, every new version bundled with the database, can easily be upgraded with the latest one, enabling enterprises to enhance web technologies and service oriented architecture (SOA) (, Oracle Forms). Industries that can benefit from this technology involves Financial institutions, Stocks and bonds, Communications, Aerospace, Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Legal, Government and Educational institutes. Furthermore, Oracle Forms assist business developers to create all-inclusive java client applications rapidly, without writing any java codes. Similarly, these applications are created on the basis of rapid application development (RAD) and are optimized for Internet. Of course, java client applications meet and exceed requirements of professional user communities. Furthermore, these web-deployed applications are rich in functionality and available on demand for express processing of large queries and rapid achievement of complex calculations, transactions and analysis. The int egration of builders in â€Å"Oracle forms developer† facilitates business developers to construct complex database forms and business logic robustly with nominal efforts and time. In addition, the developments tools provide powerful features including wizards, drag and drop, and built in menus. Moreover, these powerful features contribute for a creation of fully purposeful applications from database definition with minimum coding in record time. The Oracle forms developer† endow with an open and extensible user interface model, enabling full customization and integrations of applications with Java (, Oracle Developer Tools). To match the pace for the rapidly demands of changing business environment, developments teams are facing challenges, in terms of enhanced application functionality, enhanced user interface and high performance complex configurations. Finally, â€Å"Oracle forms developer† provides a scalable and flexible architecture to deploy and develop h igh performance enterprise solutions to cater business requirements. Furthermore, the existence of integrated delivery environment is operational for Internet applications, to expand and perform by processing thousand of concurrent users (, Oracle Developer Tools). The limitations consist of the GUI functionality that does not work on the forms deployed on the web. For instance, it is not possible to program or modify the cursor style to hourglass. 2 Oracle Reports Oracle reports are an advanced reporting tool used for dynamic and enterprise level reporting. Moreover, it enables businesses to expand and organize information to all levels within in and outside of the organization. It is a component of Oracle fusion middle-ware which is Oracle’s award winning, high-fidelity enterprise reporting tool. In addition, this tool enables businesses to provide instant access to information at all stages in or outside of the organization in an expandable and safe environment. Oracle Rep orts includes Oracle Reports Developer - a prevailing, (WYSIWYG) report design tool and a J2EE 5.0 based Oracle Reports Server. Furthermore, it is a multi-tier architecture to access data sources and develop reports in any format for the web and paper, and to distribute reports to any possible target. Oracle vestiges committed to the development of this technology, and to the continuing release as a component of the Oracle Fusion Middle-ware platform (, Oracle

Trends and Challenges in Human Resource Management Essay

Trends and Challenges in Human Resource Management - Essay Example Owing to rapid technological advancements, the demand for well trained employees is high. Organizations are now looking to impart necessary skills to their workers using all kinds of innovative strategies and training resources. With respect to this trend, Rothwell, Hohne, & King (2000), state HR practitioners, " must be ready to manage, design, develop or select, and use learning technologies that support learning and development for their organization" (p. 190). Focus has also shifted to employee development, leadership development and performance improvement. Here again the organization looks to HR practitioners to bring out positive results. Mathis & Jackson(2005) state, "Four major HR challenges faced by managers and organizations now and in the future are the globalization of business, economic and technological changes, workforce demographics and diversity, and organizational cost pressures and restructuring" (p. 28). Nowadays the world is a global - workplace and under these circumstances it is the role of Human Resource Management (HRM) to steer the organization across the choppy waters of international law, cultural issues and the threat of terrorism. Technological changes have made it imperative that HRM adapt itself to meet the needs of the organization. The workplace has become increasingly diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender and age. Therefore HR practitioners must ensure there is no discrimination or harassment on the basis of ill-conceived stereotypes. They must also work to create an environment of security to enable optimal production while keeping at bay employees' insecurities about losing their jobs. A Complete Performance Management System as Opposed to Annual Performance Appraisals: Performance management seeks to enhance performance, introduce changes as per the need, keep up morale, and keep communication channels opens. According to Hendry et al., "Despite a revised perspective which treats performance management as a wide-ranging process many line managers still equate performance management with annual appraisals and their negative aspects" (as cited in Price, 2000, p. 193). Annual performance appraisals are dreaded by the employees. They are asked to fill out forms or are interviewed and then judgments are made as to their character by managers who are usually ill-suited for the purpose. This method of evaluation creates a hostile environment where negative attitudes prevail and no discernible improvement in performance is seen. In the words of Price (2000), "Modern performance management systems emphasize dialogue rather than assessment" (p. 194). Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) and behavioral observation scales (BOS) are popular techniques designed to overcome the shortcomings of performance appraisals. These techniques stay objective, while focusing on employees' performance and potential. Performance management is a key aspect of HRM. It helps bring out the potential of employees as individuals and as team members. Thus by focusing on performance management the HR department can deal effectively with the trends and challenges of Human resource management. References Fitz - enz, J. (2001). How to measure human resource mana

The Beatles and the Topic of Androgyny Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Beatles and the Topic of Androgyny - Essay Example In other words, androgyny is the state of breaking away from the rigid following of cultural principles, especially regarding the issue of gender roles. Ideally, application of androgyny is reported to have gained popularly from 1960s, but by 1950s and before, people used to strictly follow their cultural practices. As such, androgyny is a component of societal revolution and cultural changes, an aspect that is portrayed succinctly by Jane Tompkins in her â€Å"I Want to Hold Your Hand†. This essay will delve into the lifestyles of the Beatles music band, and the manner in which they advanced androgyny during their reign. The essay will close with a personal reflection on different Tompkins’ opinions regarding androgyny and the cultures of nineteen fifties and sixties. Discussion In her autobiography, Jane Tompkins reveals how her exposure to Beatle’s music transformed her life. She portrays Beatle’s music band as androgynous, something that was apparently likable by the women and hence encouraging them to become androgynous. Jane Tompkins grew up as shy person who, like any other persons who resembled her character, is interested in only the ordinary formalities of life. As such, she was less concerned with the interests of her contemporary peers, and in fact her gender role was defined by the American popular culture of the 1950s, an era in which gender roles were inflexible. Her perception about popular artists such as the Rolling-stones is very negative, and that is why she says that they were violent humans and that they possessed male chauvinist traits, a penchant she affirms that is associated with hostility towards the opposite gender. In the 1950s, the roles of gender were firmly based on guiding principles designed by the society. For example, masculinity was represented by roughness of a male as a person. Tompkins says Beatles seemed human because of the way they sing about â€Å"love† which she did not understand w ell. This shows that she is endured to the emotional aspect of their culture, which was uncommon in the music of 1950s. She confirms this when she says that most of the popular songs she used to listen were not human in this sense (Womack and Todd 216). What Tompkins loves about Beatle’s music most is the fact that it was innocent and appealing; it had childlike quality and it focused on quality, rather than being world-weary and knowing. What’s more, their songs were very simple and they did not pretend to be righteous or possess sheer masculinity, again supporting them in breaking away from following of rigid roles of gender, which she describes as being androgynous. Beatles had compassion for people other than themselves, because they told real stories, which again is a cultural transformation – breaking away from self-aggrandizement to thinking about others. To her, this is a reprieve because the songs by Beatles did not have the authoritarian baritone of ma ny males’ singers whose tone declared the superiority of the male opinion, which was an advancement of male sexism. This is also seen where the author says that the singers of the sixties had stopped having authoritarian baritone of many male singers. She adds that this change is not only generational, but it has something to do with gender, being vulnerable, authority, showing your feelings, and wanting to

Aircraft Icing Essay Example for Free

Aircraft Icing Essay Ice and aircrafts are never a good combination. Ice, which can accumulate on any part of the aircraft, is most dangerous when it accumulates on the wings or similar airfoils. These icing encounters cause many fatalities a year, fatalities that could be prevented if pilots use the strategies and tactics that are at their disposal to avoid icing dangers. In flight icing is always a concern and should be treated with an expedited response, however, proper avoidance of icing conditions begins on the ground during preflight. This safety report will discuss the many types of icing and their effects on flight. Along with the effects of icing on an aircraft, this report will examine the procedures to follow when reacting to these icing conditions. This report will include accident data as reported by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and more importantly the research and technologies developed to help reduce icing-related aviation accidents. Aircraft Icing Aircraft Icing What are the Causes and Possible Solutions? Icing is a definite weather hazard to aircraft. Icing refers to any deposit or coating of ice on an aircraft. Two types of icing are critical in the operation of aircraft: induction icing and structural icing. Another important form of structural icing may affect the runway or other resources used by aircraft. A runway covered with even a thin film of ice can cause loss of directional control and make braking efforts completely ineffective while the craft is on the ground (Roy, Steuernagle, Wright, 2008). In flight, including the takeoff, the threat of ice hazard is increased. Icing Causes:  Common sense tells us that winter time brings on icing conditions, however, ice is present, or potentially present, somewhere in the atmosphere at all times, no matter what the season. The secret is the freezing level of altitude, which may be around 15,000 feet during the summer and perhaps as low as 1,000 feet above ground level (AGL) on those â€Å"warm† winter days (Lester, 2004). Carburetor icing: When the temperature and dew point are close, you can be certain that water vapor is condensing within the carburetor of an aircraft reciprocating engine, and, if the engine is run at low speed, the condensation is turning into ice. This is why some engine manufacturers recommend that carburetor heat be applied when the throttle is retarded for prolonged descent and prior to landing (Gleim, 2003). Accident summaries contain many cases of unexplained power loss. Many of these aircraft accidents can be attributed to carburetor ice. Once carburetor ice is suspected –at the first sign of engine roughness Aircraft Icing or power loss- apply full carburetor heat (Gleim, 2003). After carburetor heat is applied the engine may run rougher as the ice melts away but the rpm will return to their normal setting. There are many cases of loss of engine power as a result of carburetor icing which forces a landing. The following accident report summary describes a similar carburetor icing situation: A 106-hour Skyhawk pilot reported that the engine began to run rough and lost power as the airplane climbed through 9,000 feet means sea level (MSL). She then switched fuel tanks and moved the mixture to full rich, but the engine continued to lose power. Carburetor heat was not used at any time. A forced landing was subsequently made in a field, where the airplane collided with a utility pole and landed in a ditch. An examination of the engine revealed no evidence of mechanical failure or malfunction. An icing probability chart revealed that the reported weather conditions in the area were favorable for the formation of moderate carburetor icing at cruise power. The Cessna 172M owner’s manual notes that a gradual loss in rpm and eventual engine roughness may result from the formation of carburetor ice and prescribes the use of carburetor heat to clear the ice. (Civil Aviation Authority, 2006). Structural Icing: The previous report refers to induction icing within the engine, but other forms of icing attach to the exterior of the aircraft called â€Å"structural icing†. Airframe or structural icing refers to the accumulation of ice on the exterior of the aircraft during flight through Aircraft Icing clouds or liquid precipitation when the skin temperature of the aircraft is equal to, or less than 0 deg C (Lester, 2004). Types of Structural Icing: Structural icing takes on many forms depending on the size of the moisture that comes in contact with the aircraft. The types of structural ice are clear, rime and a combination of the two. The primary concern over even the slightest amount of structural ice is the loss of aerodynamic efficiency. The increase in drag caused by the additional ice also causes an increase in stall speed, instability and a decrease in lift (Roy, K. S, 2008). The type of ice that forms on the aircraft primarily depends on the size of the water droplets. Clear ice forms when the drops are large and the droplets impacting an airplane freeze slowly, spreading over the aircraft components gradually forming a smooth sheet of solid ice (Lester, 2004). Clear ice is the most dangerous form of structural icing because it is heavy and hard; it adheres strongly to the aircraft surface greatly disrupting airflow. Clear ice will normally form while flying through cumuliform clouds and through freezing rain (Lester, 2004). Rime ice is the most common icing type and forms while flying through stratified clouds and freezing drizzle (Lester, 2004). It forms when water droplets freeze on impact, trapping air between the small frozen drops, giving the ice a milky white appearance. Mixed ice has characteristics of both types making it a combination of rime and clear ice. Aircraft Icing The following NTSB summary describes the dangers of inadvertently encountering ice and the effect it will have on the ability of the aircraft to maintain lift and stability: CE 182. One serious and one minor injury. Pilot received a weather briefing approximately one hour prior to flight during which â€Å"A chance of light icing† was forecast. Approximately 30 minutes after takeoff, while at 6,000 feet, a small amount of ice began to form on the strut in the light rain. Although the aircraft was then cleared to climb above the cloud layer, heavy icing began to accumulate. The aircraft could not climb above 7,300 MSL and a 300 – 400 feet per minutes (f. p. m). descent developed. The aircraft was cleared to an alternate airport via radar vectors. Over the runway at about 50 feet above ground level (AGL), the aircraft uncontrollably veered to the left and struck the ground hard, collapsing the nose gear. A witness stated that there was ? inch of ice on the fuselage and an inch on the belly. The aircraft was also loaded approximately 200 pounds over gross weight. NTSB cited the probable causes as icing, improper weather evaluation, and deteriorated aircraft performance. (Watson, 2007) Pilots need to avoid ice especially if their aircraft are not approved for flight into icing. The aircraft in the NTSB report summary above was not approved for flight into icing conditions. Although ice forecast retrieved via weather briefings are in some cases inaccurate the pilot needs to have an escape route should icing be encountered. Accident data as reported by the NTSB is most useful when it brings about the development of technologies that help reduce icing-related aviation accidents. Aircraft fall into two categories, those approved for flight into icing and those that are not. Aircraft equipped with ice protection system allow them to keep ice from accumulating Aircraft Icing on the wing structures while in flight. The evolution of aircraft has provided advanced and useful technologies that have made our aircraft safer in less favorable atmospheric conditions. Icing protection systems: The types of icing protection systems are pneumatic deicing boots, thermal devices, and electro-mechanical systems (Burrows, 2002). The pneumatic deicing boot is a rubber tube attached to the leading edge of an aircraft wing. When ice is encountered during flight, portions of the rubber device inflate breaking off the ice (Burrows, 2002). Pneumatic deicing boots are used on propeller driven aircraft and jets. Thermal systems use electricity to heat protected surfaces of equipped aircraft. Thermal deicing systems have a more advanced function than deicing boots in that it prevents ice from forming on the heated protected surfaces. The electric heaters can be used as de-icers or anti-icers (Burrows, 2002). The newest technological advance in de-icing is called electromechanical de-icing, the system use a type of mechanical actuator that physically knocks the accumulated ice off the flight surfaces. The technology works in conjunction with previously developed ice detection systems and is triggered automatically once sensors detect ice. First, an electro-thermal strip heats the wing’s leading edge to just above freezing, melting the ice. Then other electro-thermal systems heat the leading edge enough to evaporate moisture on contact, preventing it from escaping and refreezing elsewhere as â€Å"runback† ice. The water flows downstream and eventually freezes where Aircraft Icing the aircraft is less sensitive to airflow disruptions. That’s where [the deicers] hit it. † An electrical current is sent through one set of coils at a time, and as the current loops through the coil, it flows in one direction and then the opposite, inducing a magnetic field. Jolted with electrical energy pulses that last . 0005 second, the coils deliver impact accelerations of over 10,000 Gs to the airfoil skin once a minute, shedding ice as thin as . 06 inch.  Despite the high G-load, the impact amplitude—the amount of movement of the aircraft skin—is only about . 025 inch. The skin accelerates so rapidly, though, that ice de-bonds as if hit with a hammer (Smithsonian Air and Space). Conclusion Ice and aircrafts are a dangerous combination when pilots don’t utilize weather services to determine freezing levels. When a pilot doesn’t understand when to deploy his ice protection system or doesn’t do a proper preflight including weather briefings, icing encounters become a reality. Many fatalities a year could be prevented if pilots use available resources to avoid icing dangers.

Consider the View That Free

Consider the View That Free Will is an Illusion Essay You decide on the chocolate cake confident that you could have chosen the sandwich instead. You were free to do both, but as a matter of fact, you chose to eat the unhealthy option. But were you actually free to choose the unchosen alternative? Many philosophers think that free will is actually an illusion – that the choice you actually made was inevitable. Schopenhauer, for example, argued that for a man to say that he could have chosen an alternative is analogous to water in a still pond saying it could be flowing. Yes, he said, the water could be flowing if that same water were in a river, but given that it is actually in a pond its stillness is inevitable. I will argue that the arguments that purport to show that free will is an illusion are weak, and that we have such a thing as free will. First let us look at the arguments for determinism (here I will understand the determinism being discussed to be hard determinism – the view that our free will is illusory – rather than the compatibilist idea that free will can exist alongside causal determinism). What makes you take the chocolate cake instead of the sandwich? We think that the chocolate taking is the result of our deliberation and that the motive for eating the chocolate cake overcame our desire to be healthy. But what determined or caused us to be the kind of being that preferred the one to the other? It was our overall character. But what caused this? We say it is our upbringing and our genes. Now did we decide upon our upbringing that started the casual chain of events that culminated in the taking of the chocolate? No, so there was no other action that was in fact possible. Think of a snooker ball falling into the pocket. What caused this to happen? It was the combination of its shape, the direction of the cue, and the nature of the table. These factors combined with the laws of physics made the event inevitable. Of course, the snooker ball was not logically required to go into the pocket. There could have been a gust a wind at the crucial moment, but then this other event would have been causally necessary. Other things can only happen if other things which cause these other things to happen occur. So whatever happens is determined. If this is true of snooker balls, why should it be not true of us as well? If we are physical beings, and our brains composed of physical stuff, why should I be not constrained by the same physical forces as everything else? The hard determinist says that there is no reason to believe that we are not subject, like the billiard ball, to the laws of nature. We feel like we could have chosen the sandwich, but given the physical facts about the situation the taking of the chocolate was inevitable. Of course, we could have taken the sandwich if the physical facts were different, but they weren’t! So free will – the sense that we could have done otherwise in the same situation – is an illusion say the hard determinists. We are not free. This is a radical thesis, and if accepted would result in a radical readjustment of our concept of ourselves. And it from this that my first argument comes. According to phenomenalism we should proceed according to this methodology: accept the appearances – accept what you have the most warrant for believing. Descartes, for example, says we can be more philosophically assured of the existence of our own minds than the existence of the physical world. Hence his famous proposition: Cogito ergo sum. Why should the more doubtful propositions of science about the nature of the doubtable physical world take precedence over the immediate data of consciousness? Why should the philosophically disputable over-ride the philosophically indubitable? Physical determinists are committed to this doubtful methodology: let the world, which we cannot prove to exist, take precedence over the mental world whose existence we simply cannot doubt. The phenomenalist like Sartre says the mental appearances are indisputable. We certainly have the phenomenology of the appearance that we could have chosen otherwise. And it is from these certainties that we should proceed. So our freedom is here an inevitable part of our conception of ourselves and no argument from the outside world of physics can over-ride these certainties. Here’s another argument against the acceptance of the idea that free will is an illusion. Kant says that ought implies can. In other words, we cannot be obliged to do something if it is not within our ability to do it. Someone may say that I ought to eliminate third world poverty – that if I do not do so I am guilty of a neglect of duty. But this is unreasonable. It is not within my power to eliminate third world poverty, so it cannot be said that I ought to do so. Of course, if someone were to say that I ought to help to eliminate third world poverty, this is a reasonable ‘ought’ because I can do it. Ought then implies can. The argument proceeds from this presupposition and says that if Eric murders Sam we say that he ought not to have done so. He ought to have done differently – he ought to have refrained from murder. But if determinism is true, then, Eric had no alternative open to him. He was caused by his nature, the laws of physics, and his environment to kill Sam. We cannot therefore say that he ought not to have done it. We cannot expect people to do things that are not within their power to do. Our moral beliefs then presuppose that determinism is false. If we are not free then a morality of oughts and duty is incoherent. Again, we could proceed phenomenologically on this – we are more sure and have more warrant for our oughts than we have for our beliefs in determinism, so moral oughts should over-ride any belief we might be entertaining for determinism. Another argument against determinism says this: if I am caused to inevitably accept the conclusions of an argument then I cannot have been rational to accept the conclusions of the argument. If I am determinist I have to say that my belief in determinism was caused by physical processes. The determinist has to accept that it is true for his opponent. Both are caused by ignorant physical forces to accept their beliefs. But this is self-refuting. The determinist is in effect saying that there is no rationality, so we cannot be rational in accepting or rejecting beliefs. So the consistent determinist cannot say that he is offering reasons for accepting determinism; he must say he is putting in new causal inputs that cause a new belief state to emerge. This seems little better than irrational brain-washing! To conclude: belief in determinism is not warranted. It goes against our fundamental conceptions of ourselves and threatens to make morality meaningless. Moreover, determinism is self-refuting. It says of itself ‘There is no rational reason for accepting me. ’ I cannot rationally accept that which has no rational reason for its justification.

Sub Sector Indices and Crude Oil. Gold, Market Return

Sub Sector Indices and Crude Oil. Gold, Market Return CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction The global crude oil price has been seen a sharp increase in recent years and has been widely reported in the daily newspaper or TV news. For example, popular business and financial US based website Bloomberg has been constantly providing breaking news headlines like The crude oil hits to level of $ 120 per barrel or Crude Oil Increases to 25-Month High as Commodities Gain. Besides, video clips are uploaded on the website with commentary by senior investment analyst on the last traded crude oil price with prominent TV host. It has been noted that rising crude oil prices has created jittery and uncertainty in the financial market. For example, any negative news on price increase or disruption to oil supply will cause stock market indices like Hang Seng Index, Nikkei 225, STI (Straits Times Index), Shanghai Composite, Seoul Composite, and others regional markets to fall sharply knee jerk reaction from the investors on panic selling . Theoretically, soaring of crude oil prices will cause inflation and inadvertently would cause interest rates to go up. Consequently, this would impact various segments of the financial market especially the stock market. It has been argued that continues rising on global oil price will eventually erode the company profit margin. Basher, Haug, and P. Sadorsky (2010) found that oil price can affect prices directly by impacting future cash flows or indirectly through an impact on the interest rate used to discount future cash flows along with in the absence of complete substitution effects between the factors of production and rising oil price. For example, there would be an increase in the cost of doing business as cost of capital will increase. In financial terms, discounting the free cash flow with the higher discount rate (cost of capital) will cause the fair value of stock price valuation to decrease significantly from previous valuation. J.Happonen (2009) also highlighted that spi king high prices on crude oil will affect greatly the poor as fuel costs are most significant in food production and transportation cost. High oil costs also hit various economies on a macro-level. Commodity analysts employ various types of methodology e.g. fundamental or technical analysis to forecast the future trend of the crude oil price meanwhile investment bankers start to develops and launches a new commodity mutual fund or unit trust products to attract attention on the public. As a precaution and in order to protect their investment, risk adverse investors are moving their assets into the safer assets like precious metal, e.g.; gold, silver and etc. According to Basher Sadorsky (2006), oil is the lifeblood of modern economies. When growth of Growth Domestic Product (GDP) of the countries are rapidly increasing like BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), total demand oil of the countries will increase significantly. There is a positive relationship between the crude oil price and global gold price trend in the market. The linkage of gold between the risings of crude oil price has been investigated and empirical studies show that the two commodities are correlated each others. P. Narayan, S. Narayan and Zheng (2010) examine the long-run relationship between gold and oil spot and futures markets at different levels of maturity and found a significant positive correlation between crude oil and gold price. The most oil producers Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members are from Islamic country such as Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and etc. Based on the Islamic historical studies, Islamic law is forbids the use of a promise of payment such as fiat money USD dollar acting as a medium of exchange. Thus, most of members try to diversify their vast US dollar revenue holding into precious metals e.g. trade in gold Dinar and Dirham. The concept of Gold Dinar System was mooted out by our former Prime Minister Malaysia Tun Dr. Datuk Seri Mahathir on year 2002 before. The purpose of adopted the gold Dinar and Dirham is to represent the solely currency for international trade and prevent the Asia currency crisis 1997 to happen again. Meanwhile, some of the members also refused to accept USD as currency trade on the crude oil like Iran and Venezuela have been pushing for a switch to the euro to protect the value from further losses. This caused by US government adopted t he ease monetary policy on keep printing their money to curb the recession economy. Ultimately lead to USD dollar depreciated value relative with the Middle East oil producers currency. 1.2 Problem Statement Oil has been an important commodity and influences the economic activities of the country. On the other hand, gold has been used as important hedging tools to hedge against inflation which among others has been caused by rising oil prices. At present, with the present escalating oil prices, the world economy is grappling to contain inflation and ensure that the economic growth is not derailed. As a result, commodities like crude oil and gold has been a subject of studies by academics in various countries. Gold has been used as a good indicator of expected inflation in the market while oil is a barometer for deflation. Thus, when inflation is expected, investors will divert their asset to the gold portfolio to protect their asset value. On the other hand, when deflation is expected investor will reallocate their funds and start to buy safer government bond. This reaction can partially be explained by behavioral finance whereby the investor is irrational and market is an imperfect. A large body of empirical research has been conducted on the impact of oil prices and other macro variables with relation to the stock market. Wang, CP. Wang, and Huang (2010) attempt to establish the relationships among oil price, gold price, exchange rate and international stock market. They investigated the fluctuations in crude oil price, gold price, and exchange rates of the US dollar against other various currencies on the stock price indices of the United States, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and China respectively, as well as the long and short-term correlations among these variables. G. Sharma, A. Mahendru, (2010) studies on the impact of macro-economic variables on stock prices in India. In Malaysia, Shaharudin and Hon (2009) extended the research to investigate the stock return in relation with firms size and macroeconomic variables (Consumer Price Index, Industrial Production Index, Money Supply, Interbank Money Market Transaction, three months and six months Treasury Bills Disc ount Rate and crude oil prices) and found that stock return were significantly influenced by selected macroeconomic variables. Based on the importance of two commodities prices and gold, this paper is attempt to investigate and address the significant level of relationship between the commodities and the selected 10 major sub-sector components indices in FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI). There have been limited researches studies on the different degree of impact of the crude oil price, gold price, market return, and short-term interest rate against sub-sector components index. A small number of studies were mainly using stock index FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) as the general proxy for overall performance of stock market. However, the stock index consist a numbers of sub sector components index in FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) it may not be a true reflective of a particular contribution of a sector to the overall stock market index. Thus, in our research will studies on these and examine the degree of significant level for commodities impact to a particular sub sector composite in dex. 1.3 Objective of the Study The main objective of the study is to examine the relationship of majors sub-sector indices between the crude oil prices, gold prices, market return, and short-term interest rate. The study will includes the examination of correlation between sub sector indices and 4 other variables as mentioned earlier. A sub-analysis on the gold oil ratio will also be conducted. Gold oil ratio is a barometer of economic vibrancy and when times are good; the ratios indicator remains low and these reflect a relatively robust priceand demandfor crude oil. When fear is pervasive or the economy slumps, the ratio is high, as gold is chased by investors looking for a safe haven. In other words, this would infer that when the current ratio is below the benchmark, gold price is either too cheap or crude oil is too expensive. When the ratio is greater than benchmark, it will mean otherwise. 1.4 Significance of the Study The economies of the world are now integrated in terms of trade and capital flows with formation of global network across different region. As such, when financial crisis occur, it will have systematic effect throughout the world. A clear example is the occurrence of U.S. Sub-prime crisis which happened in 2009 and present year Euro Zone Debt Crisis was created contagion effect to the global economy. With advancement of technology and innovation of financial product, risk adverse investors should be more alert on the important signals or indicators as a guide to monitor and time the market to avoid any unexpected risk. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship of oil prices, gold price, market return, and short-term interest rate on majors selected sub-sector index. The results on this study will add to the body of knowledge and assist policymakers like Bank Negara Malaysia as well as pratictioners such as corporate managers and investors to participate in the stock market. It also enhance their understanding on the level of impact on the four (4) variables to the selected sub-sector indices. The Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) postulates that every investor believes that the stochastic properties of returns of capital assets are consistent with a factor structure. For the purpose on this study, the APT model was adopted in evaluating the major sub-sector components indices relationship with various macroeconomic risk factors. The conclusion of the study shall enrich investor understanding on some sub-sector industries relationships to macroeconomic risk factors. Thus, smart investors still have a chance to explore it and gain return on that sub-sector industries. 1.5 Definition of Terms KLSE (Kuala Lumpur Composite Index) The FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) is used as a proxy for the performance of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and comprises the largest 30 companies listed on the Main Board by full market capitalisation that meet the eligibility requirements of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Ground Rules. The two main eligibility requirements stated in the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Ground Rules are the free float and liquidity requirements. London Bullion Market (LBM) (U$ Troy Ounce) price Index shows the performance of gold prices over time per troy ounce. The troy ounce is a weight measure for precious metals, which is still used in the Anglo-American zone. It is named for the French city of Troyes. Crude Oil WTI (West Texas Intermediate) Known as Texas light sweet, is a type of crude oil used as a benchmark in oil pricing. It is a light (low density) and sweet (low sulfur) crude oil. It is the underlying commodity of New York Mercantile Exchanges oil futures contracts. T-Bill band 4 T-Bill band 4 is type of money market instrument. The Malaysian Treasury Bills (MTB) issued by the Central Bank of Malaysia are tradable on yield basis (discounted rate) based on bands of remaining tenure (e.g., Band 4 = 68 to 91 days to maturity). The standard trading amount is RM5 million, and it is actively traded in the secondary market. This instrument represents the short-term interest rate in the Malaysia money market. The high or low interest rate will make bonds look more attractive than stock and consequently impact the stock price return. Sub-sector Price Index Major sub-sector prices index are the 10 majors sub-sector price index consist of Consumer, Plantation, Finance, Trading and Services, Industrial, Industrial Products, Construction, Mining, Properties, and Technology. Each index is representing overall performance instituted on sub-part of FBM KLCI index. CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction This chapter provides a comprehensive review on the empirical evidences on four (4) variables and the theories on Arbitrage pricing Theory (APT) model and Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). It will provide a better understanding of the relationship between variables and sub-sector component indices performance. 2.2 Macroeconomic Factors Choo, Lee and Ung (2011) investigates the behavior of Japanese stock market volatility with respect to a few macroeconomic variables including gold price, crude oil price and currency exchange rates (Yen/US$). The authors using the performance of GARCH models and Ad Hoc methods to carried out a comparison study. Their results show that macroeconomic variables used in this study have no impact on the volatility of Japanese stock markets and the simplest GARCH (1, 1) model yields the best result. Maysami et al. (2004) study on relationship between macroeconomic variables and stock market indices: co-integration Evidence from Stock Exchange of Singapores All-S Sector Indices and based on the study concludes that the Singapores stock market and the property index form co-integrating relationship with changes in the short and long-term interest rates, industrial production, price levels, exchange rate and money supply. 2.3 Crude oil Based on the past study from Huang et. Al, (1996), they found that oil future returns do not have much impact on SP 500 Index. On the other hand, Al-Rjoub,Samer Am* (2005) investigated the effect of oil price shocks in the U.S. for 1985-2004 using VAR Mixed Dynamic and Granger Causality Approaches to study the whether the U.S. stock market react to the oil shocks, a big importer of crude oil. They found that from VAR suggests that oil shock affect the stock market returns in the U.S. oil price are important in explaining the stock market reactions. According to Basher Sadorsky (2006), oil is the lifeblood of modern economies and can have significant impact on the growth of a countrys economy. In addition, Driesprong, Jacobsen and Maat (2004) found that investors in stock markets under react to oil price changes in the short run. Recent study by Charles (2009) found that higher volatility in both gold price and oil price reduces volatility of stock price. Some studies directly tested the relationship between oil prices and stock values. Huang, Masulis and Stoll (1996) applied vector autocorrelation models to find the time-series relationship and concluded that crude oil futures lead stock prices of oil companies. However, they were unable to bring a conclusion for any significant relationship to other stock prices. In addition, the volatilities of crude oil futures lead the volatilities of oil industry stock index. A related study (Sadorsky, 1999) had different conclusion. It showed that oil prices as an important factor which predicts stock prices very well. Sadorsky (2003) used vector autocorrelation model to verify the importance of oil price, federal fund rate, CPI, fo reign exchange as variables to describe the performance of technology stock prices. Hamilton (2008) examines the factors responsible for changes in crude oil prices and the statistical behavior of oil prices. The study includes the role of commodity speculation, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and resource depletion and found that although scarcity rent made a negligible contribution to the price of oil in 1997, the situation at present would be different and crude oil prices might play an important role. 2.4 Gold Melvin and Sultan (1990) consider a different approach of establishing the relationship between gold and oil markets. Their study was based on the implication of the gold prices through the export revenue channel. As gold is an integral part of the international reserve asset of several countries, including the oil producing countries, their finding reveal that stock shock will leads to expectations of official gold purchases and this in turn will make the expected future price of gold to soar higher. Sultan (1990) argue that when oil price rises, the oil exporters countries will benefit in terms of higher oil revenues. This in turn may have implications on the price of gold especially when the gold consists of a significant share of the asset portfolio of oil exporters (relative to other nations) and oil exporters purchase gold in proportion to their wealth. The impact on this will lead to an increase in demand for gold and subsequently rise in price of gold and ultimately an oil pr ice rise leads to a rise in gold price. Ismail et al. (2009) develop a forecasting model for gold prices using Multiple Linear Regression Method to predict gold prices based on economic factors such as inflation, currency price movements and others. They argue that investor starts to invest their asset in gold because of depreciation of US dollar currency and gold as an important stabilizing role for investment portfolios. based on their findings, they conclude that many factors determine the price of gold and several economic factors such as Commodity Research Bureau future index (CRB); USD/Euro Foreign Exchange Rate (EUROUSD); Inflation rate (INF); Money Supply (M1); New York Stock Exchange (NYSE); Standard and Poor 500 (SPX); Treasury Bill (T-BILL) and US Dollar index (USDX) were considered to have influence on the gold prices. 2.5 T-bill (short term interest Rate) T-Bill rate is a benchmarking for short-term interest rate and is deemed as risk free. As such, T-Bill rate is normally taken into consideration for financial valuation purpose and widely used by financial institutions and academics especially to determine the fair value of stock pricing. Chan et al. (1992) reaffirmed that the short-term riskless interest rate is one of the most fundamental and important prices determined in financial markets. In referred to Damodaran (2002) published textbook Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset, Choice of risk-free security the returns on both Treasury bill (t-bills) and treasury bonds (t-bonds), and the risk premium for stocks can be estimated relative to each other. This was based on the yield curve in the US that has been on upward-sloping for most of the past seven decades. The risk premium is larger when estimated relative to short-term government securities (such as Treasury bills). Damodaran (2002) also stated that the risk risk-free rate chosen in computing the premium has to be consistent with the risk-free rate used to compute expected returns. So, if the Treasury bill rate is taken into consideration as a risk-free rate, the premium has to be earned by stock over that rate. This applies to the Treasury bond rate as well and premium has to be estimated relative to that rate. He also mentioned that for the most part, in corporate fi nance and valuation, the risk-free rate will be a long-term default free (government) bond rate and not a Treasury bill rate. Thus, the risk premium used should be the premium earned by stocks over Treasury bonds. 2.6 FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) The FBM KLCI is taken as a proxy to represent the market growth optimal portfolio. This research paper attempt to construct and compare various total-return world stock indices based on daily data. The data was collected from DataStream Advance cover the period from 01 January 1973 to 31 August 2006. Due to the diversification, these indices are noticeably similar. This proposed method of constructing a proxy for the growth optimal portfolio has specific advantages over the methodologies of diversity weighting and market capitalization weighting. The diversified world stock index has applications to derivative pricing and investment management. Petttengill et al. (1995) developed a conditional relationship between return and beta that depends on whether the excess return on the market index is positive or negative. When the excess return on the market index is positive (negative), there should be a positive (negative) relationship between beta and return. Their empirical results support the conclusion that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between beta and realized returns. Furthermore, consistent with Hodoshima et al. (2000), the results are similar when the test is done on 20 beta sorted portfolios. However, it seems that the negative relationships during down market are steeper in Tokyo Stock Exchanges (TSE), which seems to have contributed to have negative rewards for holding beta risk in the long run. Consistent with the findings of Pettengill et al. (1995) in the USA and Hodoshima et al. (2000) in the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), the result found that there is a significantly positive relat ionship between portfolio beta and portfolio return during up markets and the relationship is significantly negative during down markets. Moreover, the test of individual stock return shows that this conditional relationship can even be seen in individual stock returns. That is, there is a significantly positive (negative) relationship between individual stock beta and individual stock return up (down) markets. However, the results of the study suggest that the beta-return relation, in the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), seems to be negatively steeper during down markets, which seems to have contributed to have a negative reward for holding beta risk even in periods where the average market excess return is positive. Therefore, in conclusion, the results suggest that, though the slopes during down markets seem to be steeper than up markets, there seems to have a conditional relationship between beta and return, which justifies the continued use of beta as a measure of market risk. 2.7 Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) The Capital Asset Pricing Method (CAPM) is a single factor model it specific risk as a function of only one factor, the securitys beta coefficient. CAPM has been considered as one of the main tools to study for the risk-return trade-off assets. CAPM has been widely referred and used in academic research and business financial studies. As long as the return for any asset is interrelated to one variable with its market beta, or the systematic risk, it is defined as the covariance of an assets return and the market return. CAPM implies that expected returns and market beta exists, and only market beta that efficiently exanimate the time series and cross-sectional tests for asset returns. CAPM has its restrictions, assume investors are rational and based on several assumptions that were not practical in the real world. According to empirical studies by Fama and MacBeth (1973), there are several variables e.g. the market value of equity ratio (MVE), the earnings to stock price ratio (E/P), and the book-to-market equity ratio that having greater influence compare to market beta. Another study was carried out by Ross (1976) on the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) which was considered a new modeling for CAPM. Ross refute through Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) that market beta is not the only variable to measure the systematic risk. There are multiple variables that have an effect on the stock returns beside market beta. The study tested on systematic, unconditional, and positive trade-off between average returns and beta. Perhaps the risk-return relationship is more complex, with a stocks required return a function more than one factor. For example, what if investors, because personal tax rate on capital gain are lower than those on dividends, value capital gains more highly than dividends. Then, if two stocks had the same market risk, the stock paying higher dividend would have the higher required rate of return. In that case, required returns would be a function of two factors, market risk and dividend policy. The Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) can include any number of risk factors. So the required rate of return could function of two, three, four or more factors. The Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) is based on complex mathematical and statistical theory that goes far beyond the scope for discussion in this paper. Even though the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) model is widely discussed in academic literature, the practical usage to date has been limited. The concepts of Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) which assume that all stocks return depend on only three factors: Inflation, industrial productions, and the aggregate degree of risk aversion (the cost of bearing risk, it was assume that this will be reflected in the spread between the yields on Treasury and low-grade bonds). The primarily theoretical advantage of the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) is that it permits several economic factors to influence individual stock returns, whereas the CAPM assumes that the effect of all factors, except those unique to the firm, can be captured in a single measure fewer assumptions than the CAPM and hence is more general. Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) was developed by Professor Eugene Fama. He said that an efficient capital market theory is one in which security prices adjust rapidly to the arrival of new information and, therefore, the current prices of securities should be reflected all information about the security. In simple terms, it means that no investor should be able to employ readily available information in order to predict stock price movements quickly enough so as to make a profit through trading shares. If markets are efficient, stock price will rapidly reflected all available information. There are different types of information available to incorporate into stock prices. Financial theorist have been developed the three form of market efficiency. There are three common forms in which the efficient-market hypothesis is commonly statedweak-form efficiency, semi-strong-form efficiency and strong-form efficiency, each of forms has different implications for how markets work. In weak-form efficiency, future prices cannot be predicted by analyzing prices from the past. The abnormal return cannot be earned in the long run by using investment strategies solely depend on historical data share prices. Moreover, technical analysis techniques will not be able to consistently produce an abnormal profit, though some forms of fundamental analysis may still provide excess returns. In semi-strong-form efficiency, it is implied that share prices adjust to publicly available new information very rapidly and in an unbiased fashion, such that no excess returns can be earned by trading on that information. Semi-strong-form efficiency implies that neither fundamental analysis nor technical analysis techniques will be able to reliably produce abnormal return. However, in strong-form efficiency, share prices reflect all information, public and private, and no one can earn excess returns. If there are legal barriers to private information becoming public, as with insider trading laws, strong-form efficiency is impossible, except in the case where the laws are universally ignored. CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This chapter provides an outline of the research process designed to investigate the relationship between economic variables and Sub-sector price index. 3.1 The Data In this section, we will summarize our models data and present the methodology of our model. The daily data for interdependent and dependable variables e.g. FBM KLSE (Kuala Lumpur Composite Index), T-Bill band 4, Crude oil WTI (West Texas Intermediate) price, London Bullion Market (LBM) (U$ Troy Ounce) price, and Sub-sector Price Index are collected from the DataStream and cover from period 17/04/2000 to 18/04/2011. There are 2610 daily observations obtained from DataStream. The data set is given in the Appendix of this paper. In relation on this, dependable variable are consists of ten (10) majors price index e.g., Consumer Product, Plantation, Finance, Trading and Services, Industrial, Industrial Products, Construction, Mining, Properties, and Technology. As can be seen from figure 1, there is an increasing trend on global gold price and reached its the highest point, $ 1,492.06, on 18th April, 2011. The gold price was tending to increased since year October, 2008. We believe this trend will continues increasing due to strong demand and short supply gold in the commodities market. Moreover, some expertise research firms like GFMS, a leading global precious metals consultancy, released its 2011 Gold Survey and GFMS expects that gold will reach $1,600 by the end of 2011. Another independent variable, Crude oil WTI (West Texas Intermediate) price known as Texas light sweet, is a type of crude oil used as a benchmark in oil pricing. As refer to figure 2, the oil price increase significantly during year 2007 and the reasons behind can be explained by the Asian growing demand on oil to sustain their economy growth. The past researchers also been reported, that oil consumption in India was increased approximately 8.7% according 1998 and 6.5% according to 2006. Mehmet Eryigit (2009) has studied and found that in year 2007, USA has been consumed the 23.9% of the total oil, however total share of the world oil consumption for China, India and Turkey in 2009 is only accounted 13.4% (China consumed 9.3%, India consumed 3.3%, and Turkey consumed 0.8%). Meanwhile, back to middle of year 2008 Sub-prime crisis was happened in U.S financial system and the crude oil price has reached to a minimum price $31, that is a minimum last trader price was reported since year 2004. After decreasing trend along the year 2008, early of 2009 crude oil price are at the recovery stages and maintained a reasonable price between $ 65 -$ 100 per barrels. We expect the crude oil price bullish will continue increasing. The next independent variable is Market returns FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI). The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) is used as a proxy for the performance of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and comprises the largest 30 companies listed on the Main Board by full market capitalization. The last independent variable is T-Bill band 4. T-Bill band 4 is type of money market instrument. The Malaysian Treasury Bills (MTB) issued by the Central Bank of Malaysia Are tradable on yield basis (discounted rate) based on bands of remaining tenure (e.g., Band 4 = 68 to 91 days to maturity). This instrument are represents the short-term interest rate in the Malaysia money market. The high or low interest rate will make bonds look more attractive than stock and consequently impact the stock price return. Figure 1: London Bullion Market (LBM) (U$ Troy Ounce) Price Figure 2: Crude Oil WTI (West Texas Intermediate) Price 3.2 Conceptual Framework 1. Crude Oil WTI 2. London Bullion Market (LBM) (U$Troy Ounces) 3. KLSE (Kuala Lumpur Composite Index) 4. T-Bill Band 4 Sub Sector Price Index Consumer Product, Plantation, Finance Trading and Services, Industrial, Industrial Products, Construction, Mining, Properties, and Technology.The conceptual framework of this study was derived from literature review where proven macroeconomic variables like FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) are used as independent variables. The Crude oil WTI (West Texas Intermediate) future contract price, London Bullion Market (LBM) (U$ Troy Ounce) price, and T-bill band 4 had been widely used in evaluating a significant statistical rel

Censorship and Banned Books Essay -- Sensorship Literature Ban

Censorship and Banned Books "Books are dangerous. They make you thinkÂ…feelÂ…wonderÂ…. They make you ask questions (Weiss p.2)." At the present time, at least seventy-five books are being banned. This is hurting our culture more than it is helping. This has to be stopped; books cannot be taken off of the shelves at the rate that they are today. The books that are being taken off of the shelves are, for the most part, considered classics. The act of book banning puts limitations on what authors can say, and what readers can read (Dorshemer p.1). The banning of books in America is a violation of our first amendment rights. Amendment 1 of the United States Constitution states as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance (Dorsheimer p.1). As long as humans have sought to communicate, others have sought to prevent them. Everyday someone tries to restrict what can be said, written, sung, or broadcast. Almost every idea ever has proved to be objectionable to one person or another. Books, especially public and school library books are among the most visible targets. Books are of often challenged due to an individual or group of individuals considering the book to be controversial, immoral, inappropriate, sexually explicit, divisive, corrupt, vulgar, violent, or even wicked (Weiss p. 2.) Unfortunately, among the most banned books are some of the best loved modern classics. But by far the most common type of censorship involves books quietly disappearing from libraries. Sometimes a parent ... ...rion to nail down in real life with real children (Miner)." Issues of age appropriateness are most common in elementary and middle schools. Teachers, parents, and the courts have generally recognized that the older the student, the more that student has "the right to know." Of the questions about age-appropriate material, the one that schools in the early elementary classroom seem least prepared to deal with, in part because it is relatively new, is the controversy over discussion of gay and lesbian families. Banning books not only violates our rights, it also puts our society in danger of not thinking for ourselves Books must be put back on our shelves for all to enjoy. As Goethe once said, "There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance (Weiss p.2)." Books are not what we should be scared of; it is the people who try to take the books away from us.

Pride And Prejudice :: essays research papers

Elizabeth’s Pride and Darcy’s Prejudice?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a timeless social comedy which is both satirical and full of sentiment. The title refers to the personalities of the two main characters and cues the reader to Austen’s broader thematic purpose: to satirize nineteenth century manners and morals, especially as they relate to courtship and manners. Although both characters contain both these traits, it is mainly Mr. Darcy who exemplifies ‘pride’ while Elizabeth Bennet exemplifies ‘prejudice.’ However, one of the book’s many ironies is that the prejudiced Elizabeth thinks it is Mr. Darcy who has the overall prejudiced disposition. Likewise, proud Darcy thinks it is Elizabeth who is most often proud. Through the course of the novel, these characters grow and through each other, discover their own foibles-- Elizabeth is indeed prejudiced and Darcy is indeed proud. Armed with this growth and heightened moral insight, the couple is rewarded wi th happiness and fulfillment at the end of the novel. But what if their initial beliefs were correct? Let’s say that Mr. Darcy’s pride and Elizabeth’s prejudice were switched within the context of Austen’s plot and narrative structure. Could a proud Elizabeth and a prejudice Darcy grow in self-awareness through the circumstances of the novel and gain a better understanding of human condition? Before Austen allows her characters to have a ‘fairy-tale’ ending, they must undergo self-growth. Given Austen’s overall view of English class structure and her empathy towards independent and spirited young women, it would be unlikely that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy would resolve their differences and grow as human beings.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is Mary, Elizabeth Bennet’s younger sister who seems to pinpoint a working definition of “pride'; as it is portrayed in the novel. She says: “Pride is a very common failing I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary... Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves...'; (67) Both Elizabeth and Darcy’s characters show evidence of pride, yet Austen clearly takes Darcy’s pride to an extreme. His character is first introduced at Netherfield Ball-- he quietly keeps to himself, occasionally speaks to one of the upper class, and declines all introductions to any young ladies.

Introducing New Software and Hardware :: Sales Consumerism Technology Essays

Introducing New Software and Hardware ICT Coursework-Spreadsheet Identify: Mr Smith, who is the owner of JC SPORTS, has discovered three main problems with his shop's basketball sales, these were due to: 1. The old-fashioned manual systems in his company. (Manual system). 2. The lack of interest for the latest new products on the market. (Marketing system). 3. The lack of a new hardware & software systems. (Computer system). Surprisingly, because of poor product handling, out of all the sales in his sports and design shop, the amount of basketball sports goods sold dropped massively over the past six months. At the time, I happened to assist Mr Smith as he was recording down his sales. Mr Smith was not very clever when it came to using computers. He needed a quite a lot of helping out. Due to the fact that I was one of his best customers, Mr Smith then showed me his most baffling results that he recently found out. The problem was that Mr Smith was pretty old fashioned and used the ancient, long gone manual technology like the typewriter to sort out his business instead of using the modern day computer software and technology such as the word processor and the spreadsheet. Since I was compiling this project, I offered to help him solve this very problem by myself doing a series of analysis on the sales, marketing and systems later on in that very same week. It was a challenge. Mr Smith was very much obliged and gave me his sales report immediately. I also advised him to shape up and use the latest up-to-date, business & industrial technology around him and not use his very old, former technology. Later on at home, as I assessed the report, I took into consideration any possible alternative solutions and objectives of the following concerning a sales analysis, marketing analysis and a system analysis. These were ========== 1. Write a questionnaire: Write questionnaire in Microsoft Word. (For the customers- Customers will fill it in) 2. Do a survey: Plot survey results in Microsoft PowerPoint. (For the customers- Questionnaires will be sent out to customers as part of survey) 3. Enter all information and data into both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. 4. Cut down prices: this will help by attracting customers who would like to buy the product at an affordable price. 5. Include deals: this is making special offers to customers that they will find hard to resist. 6. Advertise: this will help more and more people, customers and business associates know more about the product. 7. Introduce new appropriate hardware and software. Analyse: Continuing assessing my project, I conducted a feasibility study on

Survey Questionnaire

Please choose as honestly as possible and tick your answer/s. We ensure that your answers will be kept in strict confidentiality. Thank you very much! 1. Please indicate which allowance bracket you most likely belong to: oGreater than Php 400 / day oPhp 300-399 / day oPhp 200-299 / day oPhp 100-299 / day oLess than Php 100 / day 2. How much are you willing to spend for snack items? oPhp 10 or less oPhp 11-20 oPhp 21-30 oPhp 31-40 oPhp 40 or more 3. Are you fond of eating potato chips? oYes oNo 4. How often do you eat potato chips? everyday o1-2 times a week oonce every 2 weeks oonce a month 5. What flavor of potato chips do you usually eat? oSalted oCheese oBarbeque oSour Cream oOthers ___________________________ 6. Do you prefer your potato chips coated, dipped or just plain? oCoated oDipped (dip is separate) oPlain 7. What type of coating or dip do you want for your potato chips? oChocolate oCaramel oVanilla oOthers ___________________________ 8. Other than potato chips, what snack items do you usually eat? oBreadsticks oCrackers oDonuts oPastries Others ___________________________ 9. Are you willing to buy our product? oYes oNo oDepends – why? ___________________________ 10. Do you have any comments or suggestions for our product? oNo oYes ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Thank you very much for taking part in our survey. God bless and good day! ?

Natural Disasters and Their Effect on the Macro Economy Essay

congenital Disasters can deal both a positive(p) and negative seismic disturbance on the local, landal and the globular sparing system. However it is r ar, save non out of the question, to see the positive disturb it whitethorn redeem on an parsimony. For instance, when mishap struck in Haiti from the 7. 3 order temblor in 2010, amongst cc,000-250,000 heap were kil contri preciselye. That is 2 map of the get a vast Haitian race of only 10 billion. Comparatively clean York City social unit cores headspring as to a hugeer extent as the entire population of Haiti with about 8. 2 million flock (U. S. Census Bureau, 2010). The Inter-the Statesn maturement Bank estimated that it exist 8.5 million dollars in damage to Haitis preservation. The temblor caused the states gross interior(prenominal) harvest-tide (gross domestic product) to contract 5. 1 per centum that class. Considering that Haitis saving only averd 12 jillion dollars in 2008, 8. 5 cardinal dollars is a huge deficit to the everyplace in all employment and functionality of their stinting and social rebelth. That is less than a tenth of a part of U. S. gross domestic product of 14 trillion dollars, besides Haitis GDP per capita is only 1,300 dollars comp atomic cast 18d to oer 40,000 dollars per person in the U. S. (CIA. gov). With all of this s attention, Haiti brought in to the highest degree fifteen billion dollars through donations.So although there was catastrophic and disastrous losings to both the social and stinting stimulus, on donations al bingle, Haiti was able to receive common chord billion dollars more than than crimson their best grade in 2008 with only twelve billion dollars. Proposing a theoretical situation, if an earthquake washed-up large(p) storage however left field the labor force intact, the objective precondition of a contract toll of seat of government would increase. The squ ar rental scathe equals the margin al product of capital and having less capital stock forthcoming raises the marginal product of capital and therefore, raises its real rental monetary value.This situation would also train the labor force larger in relation to available capital. Since this would lead to a declining marginal product of labor as rangeers beat less equipment to use, the real affiance would decrease as salutary(p). Due to a fancy up mankind population, climate change, and environmental degradation, instinctive possibilitys be increase in frequency. They are also becoming constitutelier and deadlier, according to Swiss Re, a reinsurance comp whatever the U. S. suffered a cost of 145 billion dollars in 2004, which was up from 65 billion dollars in 2003. In 2009, born(p) disasters cost insurers about one hundred ten billion dollars.In 2010, the cost was fork- the like that, at 218 billion dollars. So as you can see, in the past 10 long time there permit been jumps nearly doubling the cost th at a coarse suffers to inseparable disasters from year to year. According to the orb Bank, there are several components that repair a republics photo graph to inherent disasters its geographic coat, the fount of disaster, the long suit and structure of its rescue, and prevailing socio scotchal conditions. In a globalized economy, all these factors, as advantageously as former(a)s, also play into how the military personnels finances allow for be alter.A common belief is that short-term stinting hits aft(prenominal) a disaster, steady those as large as this years earthquake and tsunami in lacquer or Hurri strap Katrina in the U. S. in 2005 are more than off fix by the reconstructive memory boom that follows. However this is only in countries that are large and rich ample to urinate short-term stabilization to the adjacent economic hit. The nature of the disaster and the size of the victim count in an economy are key when determining whether or not inseparable d isasters have a negative force on macroeconomic festering.So in a country such as Haiti and their disastrous earthquake, although a lot of property was pumped into the economy in order to cooperate in the restore, that does not do lots when they are still in need of the ripe man mogul that can produce novel development or ideas for rebuilding the structures that were destroyed. Incidences of natural disasters have increased by 30 share since the 1960s, and risk-modeling companies have raised the likelihood of a Katrina-like event contingency erstwhile every 20 eld, preferably than once every 40 years (SKOUFIAS, 2003).Because of the possibility of large natural disasters calamity more often as well as more frequent small natural disasters occurring, how impart the economy be affected? Especially if in front the reconstructive memory both socially and economically is ideal from the original disaster, an early(a) strikes in the very(prenominal) part. An another( prenominal) problem that is faced with economic downwardly downfalls due to natural disasters is how other countries may view the st energy of that country. For example, 75 percent of Haitis national income came through the export of retail apparel to the linked States.If Haiti were to have any kind of smaller disasters in front they can properly rebuild their economic and litigateing communities, then other countries allow for only see them as a reoccurring high-risk investment and will no longer look to invest in Haiti, only deepening their turmoil from an economic stand point. Droughts cannot be forgotten either. 2010 set records as the hottest year in one of the hottest decades in history. Climate change, exacerbated by the personal cause of El Nino, sparked off a serial of global heat waves. In Pakistan, temperatures rose wine to 128. 3 degrees Fahrenheit on may 26, the highest temperature seen in Asia.Russia was plagued by a serial of wildfires, destroying crops a nd woodland, and blanketing cities in smog. People across europium had to be hospitalized for heat strokes and dehydration as air-conditioning failed to claim easiness. Asia had one of the approximately everlasting(a) droughts across the globe. The drought caused an estimated 3. 5 million dollars in immediate damage, both to kitchen-gardening and to the countrys hydroelectric sector. in that location are also other innumerous tone endinges, but still very real costs from the drought a drought can lower the overall productiveness of land due to erosion and topsoil breathing out.It can reduce the numbers in livestock herds, which intimately of Asia relies on for day-by-day living needs as well as economic income. Before the decease of the summer, the death toll would burn down into the thousands. 15 million people were evacuated, and over a million homes destroyed. Nearly 34 million acres of crops were affected by floodwaters, with at least two million all told destro yed. By August, direct damage from the floods was estimated at $41 billion. This is several(prenominal)thing that affected the worldwide boorish need and take (PreventionWeb, 2010).Proving the destructive power of natural disasters, even in passing developed nations, Hurricane Katrina c rush along the gulf seashore. rightful(prenominal) east of the Bahamas on August 24, 2005 a small, unlikely tropical depression increase into a tropical act which was condition the name Katrina. This storm slowly counterbalance its demeanor to Floridas southern coast on the 25th where to the highest degree experts believed the storm would dissipate. Unfortunately, Katrinas path took it over the everglades allowing it to respect its category 1 standing that it had acquired before it initiative make landfall, then entered the disjuncture of Mexico.The warm waters of the Gulf fostered the quick development of Katrina (Kempler 2010). The above image shows Hurricane Katrina at the heighter from Decatur of her power. Estimates had Katrina make landfall as a category 4, but thankfully it shortened a bit and before it rolling in as a fast(a) category 3. Katrina became been answerable for an estimated 1,800 deaths, as well as 100 billion dollars total in damages, of which about 60percent were uninsured divergence a directiones. rough economists would put the total economic bolshie at more or less 250 Billion dollars (Amakeo 2011). That made Katrina the virtually destructive natural disaster ever to hit the linked States.With all of Katrinas destruction, the short term personal install on the economy were very evident. still one year after the disaster the join States, the economy was cover to approach pattern. In the first three quarters of 2006 the United States had GDP growth of 5. 6 percent, some of the most rapid growth in new-fangled years (Herman 2006). Even though the nation as a whole made a quick economic recovery after Katrina, locations that we re struck directly, like impertinently siege of siege of siege of Orleans, did not make the lapsing quite as rapidly as hoped. The first few months after Katrina the United States economy went into a downward trend.The GDP growth rate decreaseped from the 4. 2 percent that it had experient in the first three quarters to 1. 8 percent in the last quarter of 2005. The causation for this impact goes beyond the destruction of property and the base economic concern the loss of goods and merchandise capabilities (Herman 2006). Perhaps the most important imaging that the gulf region produces is oil. The gulf makes up about 30 percent of Americas oil hold out and distribution. The effectuate of Katrina resultant roleed in the destruction of 113 offshore platforms, and nearly 500 oil and gas pipelines (Amadeo 2011).The loss of this labor led to a forceful increase in gas prices sailing to over 4 dollars per gallon. This drastic testify in prices created a panic, and people rus hed to the gas stations to fill up before prices rose once again, creating massive lines and much talk about the gloomy imagine of economic woes come. The only positive result from the increasing gas prices was when the Federal authorities opened the strategic petrollium reserves. This increase in gasoline prices surprisingly did not have as much of an impact as plumbers helpers feared, other than peoples candidate on the situation. There were some set up.mthough for the most part food price centered. The three main(prenominal) goods that saw a notable impact were the prices of bananas, rice and cultivated cabbage (Leibtag 2006). The primary apprehension for the increase in the rice and sugar prices is because the Louisiana Mississippi area is responsible for 85 percent of the sugar cane end product, and 14 percent of the rice production in the United States (Leibtag 2006). The drastic loss in production from that area was ho-hum by short- surpass increases in the other producers of those crops. This ability to increase short-run production is a factor that contributes to the resiliancy of free- foodstuff economies.though the across the nation effects were not all that staggering, the effects in immature Orleans the months side by side(p) Katrina were devastating. With 80 percent of the city flooded, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee the city of newly Orleans, some never to damages again (Blackburn 2010). This drastic loss in population coupled with the destruction of approximately 200,000 homes and businesses led raw Orleans and the touch areas into a dire economic situation. In the first few months after Katrina, Louisiana upset 12 percent of the states 214,000 tricks (Herman 2006).One result of the loss of jobs was a drastic raise in owe delinquancy rates (Herman 2006). This inability to pay is more than likely a contributing factor to the very low rate of return from people who were forced to evacuate their homes by Katrina. Those that did take chances the resolve to return to remain were in a desperate situation. modern Orleans, whose primary industry is touristry, suffered great losings after the storm. They desperately needed to be able to find a way to add together back the American and distant tourist in order to arouse the creation for more jobs.The repose in tourism is best reflected by the attention rates in New Orleans famous Mardi-Gras and Jazz Festivals. Both events had about a 30 percent sink in attendance from previous years (A year after Katrina, New Orleans desperately seeking tourists 2006). Part of the reason for the delay in the return of the tourism industry is the mass clean-up that had to take regulate first. Before anyone could return and maintain normal operations, there was still 118 million cuboidal yards of debris to be cleaned up.(Amadeo 2011) Thanks to efforts by FEMA, the Red Cross and legion(predicate) church ministries across the country, there was much assistant to be found. However, despite the efforts of all these groups, New Orleans a year after the incident was still working its way very slowly towards full recovery. With the aid that had come into the city, organizations were able to rebuild substructure and make great im climb upments to both pedagogy and government. In fact, post Katrina New Orleans has experienced steady growth in almost every way, including education take aims, over the last 6 years as shown by the chart belowThough it took about a year for it the effects to show and recovery to really make a strong step forward, the relief money that came into New Orleans and the other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina did what the nation was hoping it would help residuumore one of Americas cultural and industrial centers. The economic turn roughly in New Orleans shows how an initial investment in the form of government aid, insurance claims, and closed-door donations can improve the economy of an area affe cted by a natural disaster.If this idea can hold to be true with the most costly natural disaster in American history, it should work with other costly natural disasters as well. Though by chance part of New Orleans success lay in the restructuring of their government and school systems in rundown to the monetary support. Though the economy of the areas affected improve without bringing down the rest of the nations economy, suffering this type of event might not prove to be true in countries with weaker economies.Also, if a disaster like this was to hit a city like Los Angelas or New York, like Irene almost did, it is still speculator to say if there would be quasi(prenominal) results. One thing can be said for certain, Americas ability to maintain long term economic growth despite short term impacts, like Katrina shows the resiliency of America as an economic superior-power. Other economic super powers, like japan, are trying to find this very(prenominal) formula for economic recovery. In the case of japans 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011, the loss of clean water, electricity, infrastructure, production lines, financial institutions, and more than 15,000 lives caused what the Prime Minister of lacquer called the The most difficult crisis for japan since World fight II. However difficult it has been, people have been recovering from the loss of loved ones, injury, and the world(a) trauma of the disaster. Perhaps the greatest and most uncertain long term effects brewing are the economic impacts on the world market. Many large industries and economic functions have been hurt, causing price puffiness in those industries passim the world.Since March 11, 2011, nations around the world have had to adjust their purpose in accordance with the loss of production in lacquer. Several car companies, such as Toyota and Honda, had their production of car separate slowed, and electronics producers experienced the same effects (Syed, 2011). This has be en felt worldwide. For example, Toshiba, who produces roughly 30 percent of the worlds computer chips that store info in smart phones, cameras, and laptops, closed down several factories due to economic losings and physical damages.Events like this are what caused the just price of a chip with eight gigabytes of memory to rise from 7. 30 dollars to around 10 dollars just three geezerhood after the earthquake and tsunami struck (Helft, 2011). Obviously, the price of computer chips is not the only price that has risen. Because computer chips are more expensive, new phones, laptops, televisions, cars, cameras, electronic billboards, and complex machinery will have a rise in price to cover the cost of parts and production. This effect will be felt for months, and maybe even years in an already instable world economy.Many of these products are produced in Japan the world export market has been greatly affected because of that. Japans exports have decreased, causing increased economic uncertainty. The macroeconomic result of this is that investors tend to take out away from the increasing risk of pumping money into Japan and look for safer and smarter industries and nations to try to grow their profits (Kihara, 2011). One of the most absorbing things about at presents economy is that everything is so globally connected. Because of this and the slow in Nipponese exports, the United States level of consumption of Japanese goods dove 3.4 percent undermentioned the earthquake (Guardian. uk, 2011).If this trend continued throughout the year, then the Japanese economy would have lost 4. 2 billion dollars from 2010 levels of United States consumption alone (State. gov, 2011). The disaster and surrounding effects not only caused a decrease of funds going into Japan, but the economic instability caused by the earthquake was devastating in its timing. Japanese and other Asian stock markets plunged as the in recognizeigence of the disaster spread, and this is coming on the heels of the U. S.stock market falling nearly 2 percent the date before. Not only that, but the earthquake caused struggling European stocks to fall to three month lows (CBS give-and-take. com 2011). This goes to show that natural disasters can cause a myriad of negative factors in an economy, and that a relegate in uncertainty can be one of the most demoralizing. That uncertainty does not just surface in the stock markets, but also in global financing. The Japanese currency, the ache, had a significant wad the day after the massive earthquake struck (Bloomberg. com, 2011).This is said to be attribute to the immediate cleanup, repair, and re wind needs that Japan incurred following the damages. The long-term effects of the rise in the value of the hankering are still unknown, but it has made the fade rise in demand in recent months, despite fluctuations since the initial rise in trading worth (Bernard, 2011). The Yen is flow rately becoming stable once again, eight m onths after its spike in March then fall in April. Japan has done well in its recovery considering that the Yen hit recent year record lows in April. This graph shows the trading value of the Yen in the past year (Forexblog.org, 2011). The value of the Yen is not the only financial issue at stake. Japan is one of the major(ip) foreign holders of U. S. government and corporation debt. With Japans Debt-to-GDP ratio at 200 percent, and massive amounts of government spending looming in the rebuilding of the thousands of buildings and roadways lost, Japan is in great need of more money (CIA. gov, 2010). Because of this, the menses interest rates that U. S. corporations are give on their international loans could increase in an effort to generate more tax in Japan (Nanto, 2011).In turn, corporations would not be able to borrow as much money for new capital investment, thus hurting the consumption and job creation in the United States at a time when jobs are greatly needed with unemploy ment rates near baseball club percent (BLS. gov, 2011). Jobs are a full-size issue in Japan too. With many of the more than 15,000 killed and nearly 6,000 injured people being a part of the Japanese work force, and tons of cleanup and construction to be done, companies and the government have had to film thousands of new workers to satisfy the demand for work (Japanese National Police Agency, 2011).After a brief climb in unemployment because of the direct aftermath of the earthquake, numbers dropped to a recent history record low of 4. 1 percent (Tradingeconomics. com, 2011). Once organization was restored, Japan began to utilize its workforce to combat the altercate of rebuilding cities. It is perhaps a low-spirited yet effective means of increasing job demand in a nation when its economy was unsettlingly devastated. Since the record drop in unemployment, Japan has had what could be considered a Recovery boom.On November 14, 2011, a news article stated Gross domestic product gr ew at an annualized 6 percent in the three months ending Sept. 30, the windy pace in 1 1/2- years, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo. At 543 trillion hanker ($7 trillion), economic output was back to levels seen before the March 11 earthquake, the paper showed. Japans return to growth after three quarters of compaction was driven by companies including Toyota Motor Corp. making up for lost output from the disaster.A sustained rebound will expect on how much reconstruction demand can offset a mental retardation in global growth as Europes debt crisis damps global combine and an appreciating yen erodes profits (Sharp, 2011). The fact the Japan is now back to its pre-earthquake GDP level is remarkable. It initiates again the idea of what is known to economists as The Broken Window Fallacy. The theory is that an economy can create jobs and achieve high employment levels though the destruction of the current goods that exist.However, the destruction comes at a cost of repla cement that, in the end, is not going to create a net gain, but will instead create a loss or quick-fix break even because businesses will be stimulated, but run less efficiently in the long run. Only time will tell if Japans growth over the last few months is simply a rebound or if the disaster caused a rethinking of how things should be done and built, therefore creating a more efficient, productive Japanese economy. Economists will be watching closely to discern trends. Another disaster that could have the same categories of effects on a much smaller scale is Hurricane Irene.The northeastern U. S. experienced the worst flooding since the existence of many towns and buildings of the region. Since only three months have passed since Irene made landfall on the New England area on August 28, 2011, the long term impact of the estimated 45 billion dollars in losses are still speculative (Morici, 2011). tending(p) the current status of the American economy, any damages of the storm a re in all likelihood being felt most nationally right now, if compared to the time table of Japans economic fall and rise with respect to the earthquake in March.The U. S. may see a slight drop in unemployment and a rise in capital investment as part of the restoration of Irenes damages, but most likely, no real growth will come out of it. However, the increase in consumption in order to rebuild the damaged parts of the northeast may spark a rise in consumer confidence, and that is what America desperately needs. A natural disaster in a ternary world country might bring in more money in aid than that countrys economy could have ever produced on its own, making a very positive economic impact.But, as far as the number go, in a developed nation like the United States or Japan, natural disasters cause little more than a large scale broken window fallacy case study. A hurricane, earthquake, or other disaster can bring forth events that build intangible benefits such as consumer conf idence, improved organization of infrastructure, or more efficient ideas, but most real development and confidence comes from ingenuity, not devastation. However, it is hard to argue against the fact that urgency is the mother of invention, or in this case, restructured success. full treatment Cited