Marginal Costing

What is Marginal Costing? What are its features? What are the basic assumptions made by Marginal Costing? Marginal Costing is ascertainment of the marginal cost which varies directly with the volume of production by differentiating between fixed costs and variable costs and finally ascertaining its effect on profit. The basic assumptions made by marginal costing are following: – Total variable cost is directly proportion to the level of activity. However, variable cost per unit remains constant at all the levels of activities. – Per unit selling price remains constant at all levels of activities. All the items produced by the organisation are sold off. Features of Marginal costing: – It is a method of recoding costs and reporting profits. – It involves ascertaining marginal costs which is the difference of fixed cost and variable cost. – The operating costs are differentiated into fixed costs and variable costs. Semi variable costs are also divided in the individual components of fixed cost and variable cost. – Fixed costs which remain constant regardless of the volume of production do not find place in the product cost determination and inventory valuation. Fixed costs are treated as period charge and are written off to the profit and loss account in the period incurred. – Only variable costs are taken into consideration while computing the product cost. – Prices of products are based on variable cost only. – Marginal contribution decides the profitability of the products. What are the limitations of Marginal Costing? The limitations of Marginal Costing: – The classification of total costs into fixed and variable cost is difficult. – In this technique fixed costs are totally eliminated for the valuation of inventory of finished and semi-finished goods.Such elimination affects the profitability adversely. – In marginal costing historical data is used while management decisions a re related to future events. – It does not provide any standard for the evaluation of performance. – Selling price fixed on the basis of marginal cost will be useful only for short period of time. – Assessment of profitability on the marginal cost base can be used only in the short period of time. What is Cost Volume-Profit relationship? Cost Volume-Profit (CVP) relationship is an analysis which studies the relationships between the following factors and its impact on the amount of profits. Selling price per unit and total sales amount †¢ Total cost which may be in any form i. e. fixed cost or Variable cost. -Volume of sales In simple words, CVP is a management accounting tool that expresses relationship among total sales, total cost and profit. Cost Volume-Profit relationship is one of the important techniques of cost and management accounting. It is a powerful tool which furnishes the complete picture of the profit structure and helps in planning of profi ts. It can also answer what if type of questions by telling the volume required to produce.This concept is relevant in all decision making areas, particularly in the short run. Explain P/V ratio and Contribution. P/V Ratio: P/V Ratio (Profit Volume Ratio) is the ratio of contribution to sales which indicates the contribution earned with respect to one rupee of sales. It also measures the rate of change of profit due to change in volume of sales. Its fundamental property is that if per unit sales price and variable cost are constant then P/V Ratio will be constant at all the levels of activities. A change in fixed cost does not affect P/V Ratio. It is calculated as under: Contribution * 100) / Sales (Change in profits * 100) / (Change in sales) A high P/V Ratio indicates that a slight increase in sales without increase in fixed costs will result in higher profits. A low P/V ratio which indicates low profitability can be improved by increasing selling price, reducing marginal costs or selling products having high P/V ratio. Contribution: It is the difference between sales revenue and variable cost (also known as variable cost). Variable cost is the important cost in deciding profitability as fixed costs are ignored by marginal costing. It can be expressed in two ways: Sales Revenue – Variable Cost †¢ Fixed Cost + Profit The situation generating higher contribution is treated as a profitable situation. Explain Break Even Point. How does BEP help in making business decision? Break Even Point (BEP) is a volume of sales where there is neither loss nor profit. That means contribution is enough to cover the fixed costs. Thus, we can say that Contribution = Fixed Cost Any contribution generated after BEP will directly result into profits as the fixed costs are fully covered now. BEP can be computed in two ways: In terms of Quantity- Fixed Costs / Contribution per unitIn terms of Amount- (Fixed Costs) / (P/V Ratio) BEP (Break Even Point) is the situation whe re there is neither loss nor profit. At this stage, the contribution is enough to cover the fixed costs i. e contribution is equal to fixed cost. Contribution generated after the break even point will result in profits for the organisation. Profit maximization is the motive of every organisation. Thus, every organisation use BEP as a base to take various decisions in regard to its sales volume and tries to increase it so that total fixed costs can be covered as early as possible and more profits can be earned.Explain Margin of Safety. Margin of Safety is the amount of sales which generates profit. In other words, sales beyond Break Even Point are known as Margin of Safety. It is calculated as the difference between total sales and the break even sales. It can be expressed in monetary terms or number of units. It can be expressed as below: Margin of Safety = Sales – Break Even Sales = Sales – {(Fixed Cost) / (P/V Ratio)} = ((Sales * (P/V) Ratio) – Fixed Cost) / ( P/V) Ratio = (Contribution – Fixed Cost) / (P/V) Ratio = Profit / (P/V) RatioThe size of margin of safety is an extremely important guide to the financial strength of a business. If margin of safety is large, which indicates that BEP is much below the actual sales, that means business is in a sound condition and reduction in sales will not affect the profit of the business. On the other hand, if margin of safety is low, any loss of sales may be a serious matter. Thus, efforts need to be made to reduce fixed costs, variable costs or increasing the selling price or sales volume to improve contribution and overall P/V Ratio.

University Application

I would like to explain about work experience. From 2005 to 2007, I worked as a help desk technician for a high school affiliated to Korea University in Korea. I maintained roughly 400 desktops and supported technical works including backup, error corrections of desktops and printers, and unskilled user’s mistakes. I formatted and installed Windows OS and replaced main-board’s condenser, VGA, RAM, HDD, LAN card, and ODD. I installed a LAN line for new class rooms to be internet accessible. In 2008, as a system operator I worked for one of the biggest securities companies in Korea.I implemented a daily batch job involved opening and closing a stock market, processing deals in stocks, ERP, marketing and whole stock task with Solaris UNIX. I was involved in discussion on a modification of a batch job scheduling and maintained a batch job by documenting on a scheduled manual record and analyzing the dependency while recording the elapsed time. The next job that I worked for one of the biggest telecommunication companies in Korea, where I discussed about annual operational plan and held the responsibility of including DB running on AIX UNIX and CTI, IVR and recording servers running on Windows 2000.I did first-level troubleshooting and informed a person in charge of a server when the issues arose. I continued to work as a technical support specialist for Apple in 2011 in Singapore. I provided front line support via live web-chat and email for Apple Care certified technicians. I drew on technical information from groups such as Apple care engineering, service training and documentation with a predominant focus on assisting field technicians with the repair of Apple Products.I identified potential engineering issues and trends in escalations by ongoing analysis and tracking of escalations, and analysis of reports. Currently I am working for Seagate as a technical support specialist. I answer to inbound customer inquiry calls and emails for individual and business Seagate hard drive customers. I work cross-functionally to resolve complex issues in Windows and MacOS environments. One day, I participated in a project in designing a team website to implement integrated trouble shooting.It became a great internal knowledge base for our team. It is also very helpful as all articles written by hands on experience for specific issues. After designing the project, I have trained team members for trouble shooting steps for Apple products, and it was a good opportunity for me to utilize my previous working experience at Apple. I am quite interested in UNIX system administration and database. I want to be a computer science professional who delivers environment friendly, convenient and secure life to the world.Special achievements I have made is that I was promoted to be an advanced network product support team member in Feb 2013. I was Chosen as a top 10 agent of all agents around the world in 2011. My personal aim is to know essential comput er knowledge to lay down the foundation. Furthermore, I wish to learn the computer and its related fields in depth. Actually, that was my hope when I was working as a system operator in a big data center. This was because I ran shell scripts daily but sometimes I did not fully comprehend how it works.I monitored SQL queries yet sometimes I had difficulty to understand it. I would like to build my career at business computer related. However, the requirements I applied were asking a degree in computer science. In addition, I hope to discover a potential and interesting area in computer filed through BCS. I would like to study with Adelaide University as they provide high quality teaching. I believe after graduation of this degree, I will be highly skilled and adaptable with the ability to design computer-based solutions to the problems of information management and processing.

Different Between Adaptive and Rational Expectation

Working Paper No. 00-01-01 Are Policy Rules Better than the Discretionary System in Taiwan? James P. Cover C. James Hueng and Ruey Yau Are Policy Rules Better than the Discretionary System in Taiwan? James Peery Cover Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies University of Alabama Phone: 205-348-8977 Fax: 205-348-0590 Email: [email  protected] ua. edu C. James Hueng Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies University of Alabama Phone: 205-348-8971 Fax: 205-348-0590 Email: [email  protected] ua. edu and Ruey Yau Department of Economics Fu-Jen Catholic University Taiwan Phone: 619-534-8904 Fax: 619-534-7040 Email: [email  protected] csd. edu Correspondence to: C. James Hueng Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies University of Alabama, Box 870224 Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 Phone: 205-348-8971 Fax: 205-348-0590 Email: [email  protected] ua. edu Are Policy Rules Better than the Discretionary System in Taiwan? ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether th e central bank of Taiwan would have had a more successful monetary policy during the period 1971:1 to 1997:4 if it had followed an optimal rule rather than the discretionary policies that were actually employed.The paper examines the use of two different instruments—the discount rate and the monetary base—with several different targets — growth of nominal output, inflation, the exchange rate, and the money growth. The results show that most of the rules considered would not have significantly improved the performance of the Taiwanese economy. The only rule that is clearly advantageous is one that targets inflation while using the interest rate instrument. Keywords: monetary policy rule, small open economy, dynamic programming JEL classification: E52, F41 1.Introduction How well has the Central Bank of Taiwan implemented monetary policy during the past three decades? With the exception of two inflationary episodes during periods of oil-price shocks (1973-1974 and 1979-1981), as far as inflation is concerned, the historical record suggests that monetary policy in Taiwan has been very successful. Figure 1 shows that during other periods the rate of inflation in Taiwan typically has been relatively low, nearly always being between 2% and 7% per year. But could the Central Bank of Taiwan have performed much better than it actually did?That is, could it have achieved a lower and less variable rate of inflation at little or no cost in terms of lost output? Because Taiwanese monetary policy has been discretionary, rather than based on a formal rule, there is a strand of macroeconomic theory that suggests the answer to this question must be yes. If the structure of the Taiwanese economy is such that an unexpected increase in the rate of inflation causes output to increase, then policy makers have an incentive to increase inflation. This implies that a discretionary monetary policy will have an inflationary bias [Kydland and Prescott (1977) and Barr o (1986)].The existence of this inflationary bias makes it difficult for policy makers to lower expected inflation without first earning a reputation for price stability. If the only way to earn this reputation is through actually achieving low inflation, then the cost of reducing inflation is a significant loss of output. A solution to this reputation or credibility problem is for the monetary authority to follow an explicit formal rule that eliminates its discretion to inflate. It therefore follows that a monetary policy implemented according to a rule will achieve lower inflation than a discretionary monetary policy.For example, Judd and Motley (1991, 1992, 1993) and McCallum (1988) have examined the empirical properties of nominal feedback rules and find that the use of simple feedback rules could have produced price stability for the United States over the past several decades without significantly increasing the volatility of real output. 1 This paper examines whether the cent ral bank of Taiwan would have had a more successful monetary policy if it had followed an explicit rule rather than the discretionary policies it actually implemented.Of the rules considered here, only one yields both an output variance and an inflation variance appreciably lower than those actually realized by the Taiwanese economy. Hence this paper concludes that the discretionary policies implemented by the central bank of Taiwan were very close to being optimal. Svensson (1998) divides proposed rules for monetary policy into two broad groups, instrument rules and targeting rules. Instrument rules require that the central bank adjust its policy instrument in response to deviations between the actual and desired value of one or more variables being targeted by the monetary authority.Examples of this type of rule are those proposed by both Taylor (1993) and McCallum (1988). A rule that requires the Fed to raise the federal funds rate (its instrument of monetary policy) whenever the growth rate of nominal GDP is unexpectedly high (the rate of growth of nominal GDP being the target variable) regardless of other information available to the Fed is an example of an instrument rule. But because instrument rules do not use all information available to the monetary authority, as shown by both Friedman (1975) and Svensson (1998), they are inferior to monetary policy rules that do use all available information.If a monetary policy rule minimizes a specified loss function while allowing the monetary authority to use all available information, then Svensson (1998) calls it a targeting rule. If the monetary authority is following a targeting rule, then it will respond to all information in a manner that minimizes its loss function. The loss function formalizes how important the monetary authority believes are deviations of its various target variables from their optimal values. The policy rule is derived from the optimal solution of the dynamic programming problem that m inimizes the loss function subject to the structure of the economy.The resulting rule expresses the growth of the policy instrument as a function of the predetermined variables in the model. That is, the policy instrument responds not only to the target variables but also to all other variables in the model. Hence a targeting rule would not 2 always require the Fed to raise the federal funds rate when the growth rate of nominal GDP is unexpectedly high because other information might imply that the relatively high rate of growth of nominal GDP is the result of an increase in the growth rate of real GDP (rather than an increase in inflation).Although there appears to be a growing consensus that price stability should be the central long-run objective of monetary policy, there are still continuing debates about the proper selection of the policy instrument and the best target variables. But clearly the choice of the best policy instrument and the best target(s) is an empirical issue. Furthermore, the best choices can vary from country to country because the controllability of any particular policy instrument and the effectiveness of each target most likely vary across countries.Therefore, this paper examines two different policy instruments and several targets to search for the best policy rule for Taiwan. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the instrument and the targets of monetary policy that this paper considers. Section 3 describes the method used to derive the policy rules and conduct the simulations. Section 4 describes the data and presents the simulation results, while Section 5 offers some conclusions. 2. Instruments and Targets of Monetary Policies In discussing how monetary policy should be implemented it is helpful to draw a istinction between the instruments and the targets of monetary policy. The targets of monetary policy are those macroeconomic variables that the monetary authority ultimately desires to influence through its policy actions [Friedman, 1975]. For this reason Svensson (1998) prefers to call target variables only those variables that are important enough to be included in the monetary authority's loss function. The targets of monetary policy therefore are a way to formalize the overall objectives of a monetary authority.On the other hand, the instrument of monetary policy is the variable that the monetary authority chooses to control for the purpose of meeting its overall objectives, i. e. minimizing its loss function. 3 Monetary policy instruments basically fall into two categories: the monetary base and short-term interest rates. Proponents of using the monetary base as the instrument of monetary policy argue that the base is the variable that determines the aggregate level of prices, and therefore is a natural instrument for the control of inflation [McCallum (1988)].But most central banks, including the central bank of Taiwan, use a short-term interest rate as their instrume nt of monetary policy. Proponents of an interest rate instrument point out that it insulates the economy against instability in the demand for money, that interest rates are a part of the transmission channel of monetary policy, and that no useful purpose is served by wide fluctuations in interest rates [Kohn (1994)]. This paper presents simulation results using both types of instruments. The results support the central bank of Taiwan's decision to use an interest rate instrument.This paper examines four target variables: a monetary aggregate, the exchange rate, nominal income and the rate of inflation. 1 The targeting of a monetary aggregate often is advocated by those who believe that business cycles largely result from changes in the growth rate of a monetary aggregate [Warburton (1966), M. Friedman (1960)]. Another reason for choosing a monetary aggregate as the target variable for monetary policy is its ability to serve as a nominal anchor that can prevent policies from allowin g inflation to increase to an unacceptable level.Although this allows a monetary aggregate to communicate long-run policy objectives to the general public, as Friedman (1975) points out, it is by its very nature an inferior choice as a target variable because the monetary authority is only concerned with monetary aggregates to the extent that it provides them with information about inflation and output growth. 2 1 Recent For a more complete discussion about different target variables, see Mishkin (1999). That is, monetary aggregates are intermediate targets rather than true targets of monetary policy. Friedman (1975) shows that the use of intermediate targets is not optimal. Although Svensson's (1998) idea of using forecasts of the target variable as a synthetic intermediate target is implicit in Friedman's (1975) discussion. 4 instability in the velocity of money for the time being has ended any possibility that a monetary aggregate will be used as a target for monetary policy in t he United States. McKinnon (1984) and Williamson and Miller (1987) argue that monetary policy should target the exchange rate in an open economy.For example, the exchange rate has been the sole or main target in most of the EMS countries. Pegging the domestic currency to a strong currency prevents changes in the exchange rate from having an effect on the domestic price level. But exchange rate targeting results in the loss of an independent monetary policy. The targeting country cannot respond to domestic shocks that are independent of those hitting the anchor country because exchange rate targeting requires that its interest rate be closely linked to that in the anchor country.McCallum (1988) suggests a nominal GDP targeting rule because of its close relationship with the price level. The nominal GDP target has intrinsic appeal when instability in velocity makes a monetary target unreliable. As long as the growth rate of real GDP is predictable, there is a predictable relationship between nominal GDP and the price level. However, recent studies on the time series properties of real GDP raise questions about the predictability of real GDP.If real GDP does not grow at a constant rate, then a constant growth rate for nominal GDP does not guarantee a stable price level. Recently there has been a great upsurge of interest in direct inflation targeting, a policy that has been adopted by the central banks of New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Australia, and Spain. Although this policy has been implemented with apparent success in the above countries, there are theoretical concerns with inflation targeting.One problem with inflation targeting is that the effect of monetary policy actions on the price level occurs with considerably more delay than its effects on financial variables. The use of a financial variable such as monetary aggregates or exchange rates as the target would provide an earlier signal to the public that policy has deviated fr om its goals. In addition, attempts by the central 5 banks to achieve a predetermined path for prices may cause large movements in real GDP, but only if the price level is sticky in the short run.But the apparent success of inflation targeting, where it has been tried, suggests that these concerns are misplaced. 3 Also, because the effect of monetary policy on long-term trends in output and employment is now considered to be negligible, many economists are now advocating that monetary authorities should use only inflation (or the price level) as the sole target for monetary policy. According to this view the main contribution that monetary policy can make to the trend in real output is to create an environment where markets are not distorted by high and volatile inflation.The central bank of Taiwan appears to have accepted this position. It has repeatedly stated that its number one priority is price stability and the reaction function estimated by Shen and Hakes (1995) confirms that it has behaved as if price stability is an important policy goal. So what combination of policy instrument and target variable would result in the best rule for monetary policy in Taiwan? Would the adoption of such a rule have improved Taiwanese monetary policy during the past three decades?To answer these questions this paper experiments over two policy instruments (monetary base and interest rate) and four target variables (the rate of inflation, the growth rate of nominal GDP, the growth rate of the monetary base, and the change in exchange rate) in an attempt to find what would have been the best targeting rule for Taiwan during the period 1971:1-1997:4. The historical performance of the Taiwanese economy is then compared with the performance predicted by the â€Å"best† targeting rule to evaluate how good Taiwanese monetary policy has been.This comparison is made by comparing the volatility of the relevant variables resulting from the proposed rules with those from the historical data. 3 A careful reading of Friedman (1975) and Svensson (1998) also suggests that these concerns are misplaced. 6 Although, as noted above, by their very nature targeting rules are superior to instrument rules. Hence this paper emphasizes targeting rules. But just how much better targeting rules are than instrument rules is an empirical question of some practical importance because instrument rules are more transparent than targeting rules.Hence, for completeness, this paper also presents results for instrument rules using the rate of interest and the monetary base as instruments and the rate of inflation as the target variable. 3. The Model and Methodology 3. 1 The instrument rule An instrument rule adjusts the growth of the policy instrument in response to deviations between the actual and desired value of the target variable. That is, ? It = (? xt-1 – ? xt-1*), (1) where It represents the policy instrument, ? xt is the target variable, the superscript * denot es the target value desired by the central bank, and ? efines the proportion of a target miss to which the central bank chooses to respond. In this paper, variables are expressed as deviations from their own means. Therefore, there is no cost in terms of generality to set the targeted growth rate desired by the central bank to zero. The economy is characterized by an open-economy VARX model which includes five variables: the growth rate4 of real income (? yt), the rate of inflation (? pt), the change in the logarithm of the exchange rate (? et), the growth rate of the monetary base (? mt), and the change in the interest rate (? rt).Since the purpose of this paper only requires a model that fits the Taiwanese economy well during the sample period, we use a general VARX model with a 4 Growth rates in the empirical work are calculated by taking log-first differences. 7 maximum lag length of four and adopt Hsiao’s (1981) method to determine the optimal lags for each variable. 5 S pecifically, the general VARX model can be written as: ? Xt = A0 + A1? Xt-1 + A2? Xt-2 + A3? Xt-3 + A4? Xt-4 + i =0 ? ai ? I t ? i 4 + ? t, (2) where ? Xt is the 4? 1 vector that contains variables other than the growth of the policy instrument.The policy instrument has immediate effects on other variables if the 4? 1 vector a0 is not zero. For example, if the instrument is rt and the target is ? pt, then Xt = [ yt, pt, et, mt ] and equations (1) and (2) can be written as: ? rt = ? ?pt-1, ? Xt = A0 + A1? Xt-1 + A2? Xt-2 + A3? Xt-3 + A4? Xt-4 + (1)’ i =0 ? ai ? rt ? i 4 + ? t. (2)’ Previous studies such as Judd and Motley (1991, 1992, 1993) and McCallum (1988) estimate equation (2) and assume that the economy faces the same set of shocks that actually occurred in the sample period.The estimated equation, the historical shocks, and the policy rule (1) are used to generate the counterfactual data. Statistics calculated from the counterfactual data are then compared to the historical experiences. In these studies, the response parameter ? is arbitrarily set and the results from different ? ’s are compared. However, given linearity of the model and the variance-covariance matrix of historical shocks, one can analytically solve for the value of ? that minimizes the variance of the inflation rates. Specifically, substituting (1) into (2) yields a VAR(5) in ?Xt. For convenience, the VAR(5) system can be written as a more compact expression: 5 We tried to adopt Ball's (1998) open-economy Keynesian type model to Taiwan, but this model was not supported by the Taiwanese data. 8 ?Wt = B0 + B1? Wt-1 + ? t, (3) where Wt = [ Xt, Xt-1, Xt-2, Xt-3, Xt-4 ] and ? t = [? t, 0] are both 20? 1. Assume that ? Wt is stationary. Denote V? W as the variance-covariance matrix of ? Wt and V? the variance-covariance matrix of ?t. Equation (3) implies V? W = B1 V? W B1†² + V?. (4) Given the regression results of (2), the variance of ? t is a function of ? only. Th erefore, the value of ? that minimizes the variance of ? pt, given historical shocks, can be calculated. The advantages of an instrument rule include its simplicity, transparency to the public, and the fact that it is always operational. The central bank responds to observed deviations from the target and does not need to base its policy actions on forecasts that require knowledge of the structure of the economy. However, as noted above, instrument rules are not optimal in the sense that they do not use all available information.The policy instrument only responds to the target variables, which is usually inefficient compared to rules that allow the instrument to respond to all the variables in the model. The following section uses an optimal control problem to derive the optimal policy rule, instead of specifying the rule in advance. 3. 2 The targeting rule A targeting rule is derived from the minimization of a loss function. This loss function reflects the policymaker’s des ired path for the target variable. A commonly used one is a quadratic loss function which penalizes deviations of the target variable from its target value.The policymaker’s optimization problem can be solved with the knowledge of the dynamics of the economic structure, which is equation (2). That is, equation (2) is used as the constraints in the dynamic programming problem. To simplify analysis, equation (2) is written as a first-order system, Zt = b + B Zt-1 + C ? It + ? t, (5) 9 where Zt = [? Xt, ? Xt-1, ? Xt-2, ? Xt-3, ? It, ? It-1, ? It-2, ? It-3]. The constant vector b is 20? 1, B is 20? 20, C is 20? 1, ? t is 20? 1, and their arguments should be obvious. Therefore, the central bank's control problem is to minimize a stream of expected quadratic loss function: T 1 E0 ?Zt ‘ K Zt, T t =1 (6) subject to Zt = b + B Zt-1 + C ? It + ? t, (5) where the expectation E0 is conditional on the initial condition Z0. Again, without loss of generality, the target value is set t o zero since all the variables are expressed as deviations from mean. The elements in the matrix K are weights that represent how important to the central bank are deviations of the target variables from their target values. For example, if the central bank wants to target the inflation rates, then the [2,2] element of K is 1 and the other elements are all zeros.The loss function is equivalent to (1/T) E0 ?t =1? pt 2 . T If the central bank wants to target the nominal GDP, then the 2? 2 block on the upper left corner of K is a unity matrix and the other elements are all zeros. The loss function in this case is (1/T) E0 ?t =1(? yt + ? pt ) 2 . T Now the problem is to choose the policy instrument ? I1, . . . , ? IT that minimizes (6), given the initial condition Z0. By using Bellman's (1957) method of dynamic programming the problem is solved backward. That is, the last period T is solved first, given the initial condition ZT-1.Having found the optimal IT, we solve the two-period prob lem for the last two periods by choosing the optimal IT-1, contingent on the initial condition ZT-2, and so on. Letting T > ? , the optimal policy rule can be expressed as [see Chow (1975, ch. 8) for derivation details]: ? It = G Zt-1 + f , with (7) 10 G = -(C ‘ HC) ? 1 (C ‘ HB), f = -(C ‘ HC) ?1 C ‘ (Hb-h), H = K + (B+CG) ‘ H (B+CG), and h =[I-(B+CG) ‘ ] ?1 [- (B+CG) ‘ Hb]. The rule defines the policy instrument as a function of the predetermined variables in the model. The economy is assumed to face the same set of shocks that actually occurred in the historical period.Therefore, the estimated equations, the policy rule, and the historical shocks are used to generate the counterfactual data. The resulting statistics are compared. Even though it is usually more efficient to let the instrument respond to all the relevant variables than to let it respond only to the target variables, the ad hoc instrument rules are more widely discussed in th e literature. The reason for the preference for simple instrument rules may be that the targeting rule is more sensitive to model specifications. For example, the assumption of full information is generally maintained for the computation of an optimal rule.This tends to make the targeting rule less robust to model specification errors than are the simple instrument rules. In addition, the optimal rule may require larger adjustments of the instrument because it responds to more variables. This would in turn yield undesired higher volatility of the other variables such as output growth. Therefore, again, the choice between the instrument rule and the targeting rule cannot be determined by theory alone and is an empirical issue. 4. Empirical Results 4. 1 Data This paper uses Taiwanese national quarterly time series data for the period 1971:11997:4.The sample starts in 1971:1 because of data availability. All data are taken from two databanks: the National Income Accounts Quarterly and the Financial Statistical Databank. 11 The rediscount rate is used as rt because it indicates the policy intentions of the central Bank of Taiwan most directly. The monetary base mt is defined as the reserve money. The exchange rate target is the NT/US dollar rate. The variable yt is real GDP in millions of 1991 NT dollars, and pt is defined as the GDP deflators. Except interest rates, all variables are in logarithms. All variables are in first-difference form and expressed as deviations from their means.The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test is used to ensure that the variables are transformed into stationary processes6. The top row of Table 1 presents the historical standard deviations of the variables in the model in order to allow comparison with the values obtained from the simulations. 4. 2 Estimation results under instrument rules Panel A in Table 1 presents the standard deviations obtained using an instrument rule with inflation as the target variable. The first row of Panel A presents simulation results under an interest rate instrument, while the second row presents results under a monetary base instrument.The simulations using an interest rate instrument yielded standard deviations for output growth, the change in the exchange rate, and money growth that are only slightly higher than those for the historical data, while the standard deviation of inflation is slightly lower than its historical value. The only standard deviation in the first row of Panel A that differs substantially from the historical data is that for the change in the interest rate, which is much lower in the simulation.These results indicate that actual policy in Taiwan achieved results almost as good as those that would have been obtained under an optimal interest-rate instrument rule with the 6 The lag lengths in the ADF regressions are determined by the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the Schwartz's (1978) criterion. The maximum length is set to 12. A time trend is includ ed in the yt, pt, and mt regressions. All results indicate that the original time series are integrated of order one. The results of the tests are available from the authors upon request. 12 xception that the optimal rule would have yielded a more stable rate of interest. The simulation using the monetary base as the instrument yielded slightly higher standard deviations for all variables except the rate of inflation. Those for output growth, the change in the exchange rate, and the rate of interest were only slightly higher than the historical values, while the standard deviation of the growth rate of the monetary base was much higher than its historical value. The standard deviation of the inflation rate is slightly lower than the historical value but is higher than that in the interest rate instrument rule.These results suggest that the discretionary policy implemented in Taiwan was superior to an optimal monetary base instrument rule. They also indicate that an instrument rule u sing the rate of interest would have been superior to one employing the monetary base as instrument, though not by a large margin. 4. 3 Estimation results under targeting rules Panel B of Table 1 presents standard deviations of the variables under the various targeting rules considered here. The first four rows of Panel B present results obtained using an interest rate instrument.In the first row of Panel B the standard deviation of nominal GDP is minimized; in the second row the standard deviation of inflation is minimized; etc. The last three rows of Panel B present results under a monetary base instrument. Notice that for both instruments, if nominal GDP is the target, then the standard deviations of all variables are higher than their historical values. This implies that the growth rate of nominal GDP would not have been a suitable target variable for Taiwan. Furthermore, notice that for all targets under the monetary base instrument the standard deviation of output growth is mu ch higher than its historical value.This effectively rules out consideration of the monetary base as the instrument of monetary policy under a targeting rule for Taiwan. Now notice from the fourth row of Panel B that if the monetary base is the target under an interest rate instrument, the standard deviations of output growth and inflation are both higher 13 than their historical values. This effectively rules out the use of the monetary base as an appropriate target for monetary policy in Taiwan. Finally, by comparing rows â€Å"? pt Target† and â€Å"? t Target† of Panel B, one sees that if the rate of inflation is the target, then the standard deviations of output growth and inflation are lower than if the exchange rate is the target. Also, if inflation is the target, the standard deviations from the simulations for inflation and output are lower than their historical values. Hence it is concluded that Taiwanese monetary policy would have been better than its histor ical performance if it had used an optimal targeting rule with the rate of interest as instrument and inflation as the target. 5. Conclusion Taiwan has been very successful in using discretionary monetary policies.This paper attempts to see whether there exist policy rules that can improve the Taiwanese economy for the past several decades. This paper evaluates several monetary policy rules using Taiwanese quarterly data from 1971:1 to 1997:4. Two types of policy rules are examined. Instrument rules adjust the growth of the policy instrument in response to deviations between the actual and desired values of the target variable. Unlike those in the previous studies where arbitrary instrument rules are proposed, this paper solves analytically for the optimal instrument rules that minimize the standard deviation of the rate of inflation.Targeting rules are derived from the solution to the dynamic programming problem that minimizes a loss function subject to the structure of the economy . The rule expresses the growth of the policy instrument as a function of all the predetermined variables in the model. Two policy instruments (interest rate and monetary base) and four targets variables (nominal GDP growth, inflation rate, changes in exchange rates, and money growth rate) are examined in the paper. Simulations of a simple VARX model and the policy rules suggest that, 14 ompared to the historical policy, the use of a policy rule in Taiwan would not have reduced substantially the volatility of inflation rate. The only policy rule that would appeal to the authority is the direct inflation targeting rule with the interest rate as the instrument. This rule would have reduced the standard deviation of the inflation rate in Taiwan by 0. 7% while maintained similar volatility of the other variables to those in the historical data. 15 References Ball, L. (1998), â€Å"Policy Rules for Open Economies,† NBER Working Paper 6760. Barro, Robert J. (1986). Recent Developme nts in the Theory of Rules Versus Discretion,† The Economic Journal Supplement, 23-37. Bellman, R. E. (1957), Dynamic Programming, Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press. Chow, G. C. (1975), Analysis and Control of Dynamic Economic System, John Wiley & Sons Press. Friedman, Benjamin (1975), â€Å"Rules Targets, and Indicators of Monetary Policy,† Journal of Monetary Economics, 1, 443-73. Friedman, Milton (1960), A Program for Monetary Stability. Fordham University Press, New York. Hsiao, C. (1981), â€Å"Autoregressive modelling and money-income causality detection,† Journal of Monetary Economics, 7, 85-106.Judd, J. P. and B. Motley (1991), â€Å"Nominal feedback rules for monetary policy,† Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Review (Summer), 3-17. Judd, J. P. and B. Motley (1992), â€Å"Controlling inflation with an interest rate instrument,† Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Review 3, 3-22. Judd, J. P. and B. Motley (1993), â€Å"Using a nominal GDP rule to guide discretionary monetary policy,† Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Review 3, 3-11. Kohn, D. L. (1994), â€Å"Monetary aggregates targeting in a low-Inflation economy–Discussion,† in J. C.Fuhrer, ed. , Goals, Guidelines, and Constraints Facing Monetary Policymakers, 130135. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Kydland, F. E. and Prescott, E. C. (1977), â€Å"Rule rather than discretion: The inconsistency of optimal plans,† Journal of Political Economy 85, 473-491. McCallum, B. T. (1988), â€Å"Robustness properties of a rule for monetary policy,† CarnegieRochester Conference Series on Public Policy 29, 173-204. 16 McKinnon, Ronald (1984). An International Standard for Monetary Stabilization, Washington: Institute for International Economics. Mishkin, F. S. (1999). International experiences with different monetary policy regimes,† NBER Working Paper #6965. Schwartz, S. G. (1978), â€Å"Est imating the Dimension of a Model,† Annals of Statistics 6:461-464. Svensson, Lars E. O. (1998), â€Å"Inflation Targeting as a Monetary Policy Rule,† NBER Working Paper #6790. Shen, C. H. and Hakes, D. R. (1995), â€Å"Monetary policy as a decision-making hierarchy: The case of Taiwan,† Journal of Macroeconomics 17, 357-368. Taylor, John B. (1993). â€Å"Discretion versus Policy Rules in Practice,† Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, 39: 195:214.Warburton, Clark (1966), â€Å"Introduction,† Depression, inflation, and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers, 1945-1953. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. Williamson, John and Miller, Marcus (1987). Targets and Indicators, Washington: Institute for International Economics. 17 Table 1:Standard Deviations of the Variables (in Percentage) Output Growth ? yt Historical Data: Simulated Data: (A) Instrument Rules: Interest Rate Instrument: ? pt Target Monetary Base Instrument: ? pt Target (B) Targeti ng Rules: Interest Rate Instrument: ? (yt + pt) Target ? pt Target ? et Target ? t Target Monetary Base Instrument: ? (yt + pt) Target ? pt Target ? et Target 5. 346 3. 862 3. 798 4. 964 1. 972 3. 449 2. 767 5. 950 2. 139 14. 63 27. 781 6. 794 0. 185 0. 198 0. 159 4. 348 2. 993 3. 047 4. 446 4. 314 2. 092 3. 064 6. 880 3. 076 2. 469 2. 361 2. 771 5. 421 4. 473 4. 281 4. 058 0. 485 0. 175 0. 332 0. 431 -2. 38 3. 308 2. 748 2. 718 6. 540 0. 178 3. 185 Inflation Rate ? pt 2. 793 Change in Exchange rate ? et 2. 415 Monetary Base Growth ? mt 4. 315 Change in interest rate ? rt 0. 162 Optimal ? : 0. 0133 3. 201 2. 633 2. 601 4. 454 0. 035The sample period is from 1971:1 to 1997:4. The variable ? yt is real GDP growth rate, ? pt is inflation rate, ? et is change in exchange rates, ? mt is monetary base growth rate, and ? rt is change in interest rates. All data are from the National Income Accounts Quarterly and the Financial Statistical Databank data banks. The response parameter ? in the instrument rules defines the proportion of a target miss to which the central bank chooses to respond. 18 Figure 1 Inflation Rate (annual rate %) 70 60 Inflation Rate (% per year) 50 40 30 20 10 0 -10 70 74 78 82 Year 86 90 94 98 19

Annotate We Dare Not Postpone Action by CCT Annotated Bibliography

Annotate We Dare Not Postpone Action by CCT - Annotated Bibliography Example onal communions and seven national organizations, including Sojourners—realized that apparently no clergy had ever issued a response to Kings famous letter, even though it was specifically addressed to "fellow clergymen [sic]." In 2013, to mark the 50th anniversary of Kings letter, Christian Churches Together released its thoughtful response, which we excerpt below. —The Editor WE CONFESS. As leaders of churches claimed by more than 100 million Americans; as Catholics, evangelicals, Pentecostals, Orthodox, Historic Protestants, and members of Historic Black denominations; as people of many races and cultures: We call ourselves, our institutions, and our members to repentance. We make this confession before God and offer it to all who have endured racism and injustice both within the church and in society. responsibility to obey the law while neglecting our equal moral obligation to change laws that are unjust in their substance or application. All too often, the political involvement of Christians has been guided by the pursuit of personal or group advantage rather than a biblically grounded moral compass. We confess it is too easy for those of us who are privileged to counsel others simply to "wait"—or to pass judgment that they deserve no better than what they already have. We confess that we are slow to listen and give legitimacy to those whose experience of race relations and social privilege in America is different than our own. We keep the "other" at arms length to avoid hearing the call to sacrifice on their behalf. Our reluctance to embrace our "inescapable network of mutuality" underscores Dr. Kings observation that privileged groups seldom give up their advantages voluntarily. For example, it is difficult to persuade most suburban Christians to demand that they strive for the same quality of education in our cities that they take for granted in their own schools. To the extent that we do not listen in love, our influence in society is limited

Addressing School Violence in the United States Essay

Addressing School Violence in the United States - Essay Example Statistically, during the school years of 2008-2009, there were fixed 38 violent deaths on school premises, among students aged 5-18. As for non-fatal violent cases, 1.2 million students suffered from thefts and assaults back in 2008 (Robers, Zhang, and Truman, 2010). The school shootings mentioned above have been classified as â€Å"rampage violence†. It has been established that the acts of rampage violence at school have much in common with other acts of massive violence unrelated to schools. Along with rampage shootings at workplace and political terrorism, these acts have been committed by males who were mentally disturbed (Harris & Harris, 2012, p. 1054). Along with rampage shootings, school violence in the United States includes a list of the following undesired behaviors and anti-social acts: acts against people’s property and objects (for example, arson, theft, acts of vandalism, etc), acts against same-sex and opposite sex peers (bullying, assault, intimidatio n, rape, harassment, etc), acts against school staff (sexual offences, theft, assault). Besides, Algozzine and McGee also mention â€Å"victimless acts† here, which include skipping classes, for example (Algozzine & McGee, 2011, p.91). ... d that school prevention harassment consultations should be carried out by principals and teachers at schools, with emphasis on engaging students in a meaningful dialogue (Wessler, 2011). Further, intervening at the point of school entry is recommended to prevent undesirable behavior at an early age through implementation of the First Step to Success program (Walker, Severson, Feil, Stiller, and Golly, 1998). In order to devise effective policies targeted at handling rampage school violence in the United States, first of all, changes need to be done on the level of scholarly research into the problem. Specifically, the solution which is expected to lead to better understanding of rampage school violence is doing transdisciplinary research (Harris & Harris, 2012, p.1055). Since the existing explanations of rampage violence at American school given by sociologists and mental health experts have been found inadequate in interpreting the criminal actions, a multi-factor approach was sugg ested. It suggests that 5 basic factors need to be studied in order to understand the nature of rampage violent attacks. Specifically, within Newman’s explanatory model, these factors include individual marginalization, exposure to certain cultural scripts, weapon access, inadequacy of surveillance systems at schools, and psychosocial factors that magnify the marginalization (Harris & Harris, 2012, p.1055). Taken Newman’s model as a basis, Harris & Harris suggest that school violence should be studied in a broader context. While they find Newman’s approach limited sociologically, Harris & Harris believe uniting the efforts of scholars in mental health, epidemiologic, social, criminal, and neurobiological spheres will help produce desirable results once the data are used for policy

How does the discourse of sports punditry differ from Sports Essay

How does the discourse of sports punditry differ from Sports Journalism Address the key themes and differencesaround pundits and sports journalists in sports reporting - Essay Example Sports discourse is usually discussed with regard to social, political, cultural and economic factors. Discourse discussion is mainly provided with examples from printed sources in order to show how national identities influence on sports events (Boyle, 2006, a). Both sports texts and events were chosen for discussion in this research. On the one hand, the idea of interconnection of politics and sports journalism can’t be underestimated, especially in the modern world, where sport is another tool in the hands of ‘all-mighty people’, which they use as PR move. If television and journalism are considered to be two main spheres of cultural production, then discourse of sports journalism shouldn’t ‘dumb the culture down’ (Oates, Pauly, 2007). In accordance with the definition provided by Boyle (2006, b): â€Å"Journalism stands accused of sacrificing accuracy for speed, purposeful investigation for cheap intrusion and reliability for entertainment.† Unfortunately, sports journalism highlights sensations and not sports events; presents celebrities and not achievements. Sports journalism is on market. Its main goal is to satisfy the needs of customers. Thus we are to blame no one but ourselves for a shift in sports accents from sports events and achievements to a kind of so ciety column. Critics explain this change from the point of view that sports journalism has always existed next to entertainment and lifestyle journalism. Abrams (2009) claims: showbiz and sports columns in the Sun and the Mirror are preferred by the readers most of all. Nevertheless it is possible to note that these two newspapers are focused on ‘nonserious entertainment’. An interconnection of sports journalism and politics can be exemplified by the sports news coverage of London’s 2012 Olympic bid or England’s hosting of the 1996 European Football Championships. These

Movie Piracy - Is There a Solution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Movie Piracy - Is There a Solution - Essay Example This paper attempts to answer questions such as these. It argues why movie piracy should be stopped and how it can be curbed to a large extent, if not completely stopped. I. Instilling Ethics The film industry experiences losses to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars due to movie piracy. Film studios and copyright holders are the largest victims. Movie piracy began with the advent of VCRs in the 1980s (Straubhaar, LaRose, and Davenport 204). Ever since, the copying and selling of movies has been rampant. It is vital for both, vendors of pirated movies and consumers of pirated movies, to realize that the very practice of propagating and consuming pirated movies is unethical. It is unjust to jeopardize and exploit the hard work of others and deprive them of their fair share. Pirate activities undermine every aspect of the legitimate filmmaking business since legitimate retailers cannot possibly compete fairly with pirate business. Pirate operations do not have the average expen ses associated with the cost of doing legitimate business. Piracy negatively affects every rung on the ladder including the studios that invest in the film, the distributors, the retailers, and foreign and local filmmakers (MPAA qt. in Pang 43). Movie piracy is prevalent worldwide. According to Indian filmmakers, movie piracy accounts for at least 50% loss of revenue (Badam 46). Commenting at the practice of movie piracy, Mukesh Bhatt, an Indian film producer, states, â€Å"I’ve seen my movies pirated in streets abroad and it makes my heart bleed because it means I’m not getting my rightful share,† (Badam 46). Those indulging in movie piracy need to realize that they are stripping the filmmakers of their hard work and well deserved earnings. It is important to understand that being involved in such unethical activities only for a few dollars is against civility and humanity. II. Highlighting the Actual Victims Another issue that must be brought to public notice is that movie piracy is not a victimless crime. Supporters of piracy may argue that it is not harmful to anyone and that it in fact eases the pockets of consumers who cannot afford to spend too much money. This belief is contrary to the actual reality. Video piracy in fact harms the economy in many ways, whose effects cascade down to the general public including the perpetrators of the crime themselves.  

Liquidation Assessment through Strategic Financial Statement Analysis Essay

Liquidation Assessment through Strategic Financial Statement Analysis - Essay Example The present research has identified that the year 2009 witnessed liquidation of 19,077 companies as per the figures of the insolvency service representing an increase of 23% from the year 2008. and out of 19,077, 6,335 companies have been declared insolvent. According to Adam, the figures are 13,434 as voluntary liquidations and 5,643 are compulsory liquidations totaling 19,077 as per the above report. Again in the UK, Red Flag Alert says that more than 140,000 were showing signs of financial distress in q4 2009. The figure is 6 % higher than Q3 2009 but 14 % lesser than the identical period in 2008. The corporate failures seem to unstoppable despite fiscal support by the Government, VAT reductions by 2.5% and the HRMC’s payment support for  £ 4.2 bn covering 242,000 ‘time-to-pay arrangements’. The U.S.based Circuit City, second largest retailer of electronics next to Best Buy went into liquidation of its last retained store after series of one liquidation after another in early 2009 rendering their final tally of 30,000 of employees jobless. One commentator has said that it was a well deserved as a poorly managed company. Needless to say, a recession has been responsible for this state of affairs. Recessions are considered a process of the plumbing of economics that removes the inefficient entities and paves way for reallocation of capital and labor to the most deserving entities. The faster the reallocation, the safer the investments. The three ways in which insolvency is dealt with are the liquidation, rescue, and workout. Liquidation is the process administered by the court for sale of the assets of the insolvent firm in piecemeal. A rescue is again a court intervention for rehabilitation, reorganization or restructuring of the insolvent firm with the objective of preventing its liquidation. A workout is an informal process where a court has no role and the creditors either reschedule their debts or allow settlement of debts at a disco unt.

Challenges facing ESL - High School students in acquisition of writing Essay

Challenges facing ESL - High School students in acquisition of writing and communication skills - Essay Example Challenges facing ESL- High School students in acquisition of writing and communication skills Challenges faced by ESL students differ depending on the above listed classification. The immigrants are considered to be likely to experience least amount of challenges because they have already received formal education in their native countries that included learning English as a foreign language. They usually visit English speaking countries out of their own personal choices hence more prepared for the challenges ahead. In most cases, they have decent family background marked by intact family units and financial stability. Despite these factors, such students still face challenges such as difficulties in adapting to the new culture, conflict of cultures in terms of what is learnt at home and what is learnt at the new school, varying abilities in the understanding of the English language and conflict in terms of what s learnt and practiced at home and the nee foreign schools. International students are characterized by the fact that they are in foreign schools for purpose of pursuing their studies on a temporary basis. They are driven by the passion to learn English and get integrated into the new culture. In most cases, they have already studied English as foreign language at their lower levels of study in their countries of origin and are usually well educated in other spheres of life.

Good fences make good neighbors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Good fences make good neighbors - Essay Example The neighbor believes that a healthy boundary between the two farms can make them better neighbors as he feels that the erection of good walls or barriers would prevent any of his things getting across to the speaker’s farm thus preventing any future argument, though this makes no sense to the speaker as he says that, â€Å"He is all pine and I am apple-orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.† (23-25). The speaker asks a question that he answers himself, â€Å"Where there are cows? But here there are no cows,† (30) The speaker believes that since the two of them do not rear cows that could eat up their pines or apples, there is no need for the erection of a wall. The neighbor still insists on his saying that, â€Å"Good fences make good neighbors.† (44) The neighbor believes so much in his father’s saying, while the speaker sees him as somebody with a dark-age mentality. To him, good neighbors are the ones that have good fences between them, a good neighbor would not have any of his/her things interfering with their neighbor’s and to the neighbor, and it is only the erection of good fences that would make this possible.

Oceanography Today Essay Example for Free

Oceanography Today Essay The speed of sound waves in the ocean ranges from 4,800 to 5,100 feet per second, depending on water temperature, salinity, and depth. This speed is about 4 and ? times the average speed of sound waves in the air. Sound waves can travel great distances in regions of minimum velocity called sound channels. In 1960 the sound from depth charges exploded by a Columbia University research ship off southwestern Australia was detected in a sound channel by hydrophones off Bermuda, 12,000 miles away. In addition to determining the shape of the ocean floor, sonar equipment is used for navigation, to locate submerged submarines, and to locate schools of fish. Porpoises and certain species of sea lions have a natural form of sonar. They emit high- frequency sound pulses, which they use to avoid collisions and to search for food. A fully submerged submarine can communicate with a nearby submarine or surface ship by means of an underwater telephone. This device transmits voice signals directly through water. Reference: 1. Blair, Carvel. (1986). Exploring the Sea: Oceanography Today. Random House Publishing.

OCD in Motion Picture Essay Example for Free

OCD in Motion Picture Essay As Good As It Gets is a movie that portrays the life of a person with a psychiatric disorder called obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The protagonist Melvin Udall (played by Jack Nicholson) is a novel script writer who lives in an apartment with Simon Bishop (played by Greg Kinnear) as his neighbor. Melvin’s odd behaviors make his life difficult when dealing with people around him. He is preoccupied with too many compulsions that he did not have time to build a healthy relationship with other people. He is not sensitive to the words he say not knowing that he is already hurting the person’s feelings. His life starts to change when Simon was hospitalized and Melvin was forced to take care of Simon’s dog, Verdell. The dog acted as a bridge for Melvin and Simon to become friends. Melvin also became close acquaintances with Carol Connelly (played by Helen Hunt), a waitress in the restaurant where he always dine. He falls in love with Carol but due to his unpredicted odd behaviors, Carol moves away from him. Thanks to Simon, he helped things become okay between Carol and Melvin. Deeply in love with Carol, Melvin tries to change his ways and the movie ended with a bright yet uncertain future. As the psychiatric disorder progresses, the patient as well as the people surrounding him starts to complain about his behavior. Below are several complaints the patient and his significant others have in the movie â€Å"As Good As It Gets†: Melvin to Simon: â€Å"Im clearing my head, dont like myself anymore. Im tired. † Melvin to Dr. Green: â€Å"Dr. Green, how can you diagnose someone with an obsessive- compulsive disorder and act as if he have some choice? Are you teasing me? † Carol to Melvin: â€Å" Dont you have any control of how creepy you are about to get? † â€Å"I want my life for just one minute but my biggest problem is somebody else has a free convertible so I can get out of this city! † â€Å"Stop it! Why cant I just have a normal boyfriend? Why? A regular boyfriend who doesnt go nuts on me! † Simon to Melvin: â€Å"Youre sick. Everything looks distorted and everything inside you. You hate everything so you can barely find a way to complain. † Generally speaking, the people are complaining about Melvins attitude. His attitude is so bothersome that it prevents him from building a healthy relationship with other people. Melvin tries to be nice to some people but his present attitude serves as a bias why most of them consider his kindness as an act of insult or deceit. He somehow develops an obsession with Carol. In order to know the problem of the client, it is better if the health provider would take some sort of history taking. History taking is important since it serves as a baseline to know the roots of a certain disorder. The history taking can be started with simple questions regarding the patients name, age, occupation and the like. Taking OCD into consideration, the health provider should ask specific questions that will help in understanding the disorder of the patient. If a patient is asked to describe his/her past childhood experiences, the client may state that he/she has experienced rigid toilet training. Toilet training is an important aspect that must be accomplished during toddler years. Considering the fact that autonomy must be favored more than shame and doubt, toilet training must be done in way the child practices his autonomy. The client may also say that whenever he/she experiences anxiety, he/she begins performing repetitive actions. Exploring deeper into the question, the client may also say that his compulsions or rituals take him several minutes or hours to accomplish. Attempts to stop these compulsions are reported to be unsuccessful. If asked about his/her relationship with other people, the client may say that he/she finds it hard to build a healthy relationship because his compulsions prevent him from doing so. In the movie, As Good As It Gets, actor Jack Nicholson portrays the role of a person with an obsessive compulsive disorder. Obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder wherein the person has recurrent unwanted thoughts called obsessions. To relieve the anxiety brought by these thoughts, the person is involved in repetitive behaviors such as hand washing, checking and counting. These so called rituals or compulsions reduce a persons anxiety while deprivation from these rituals increases the person’s anxiety. However, the action only provides temporary relief. Jack Nicholson shows odd behaviors which add humor to the movie. Whenever he washes his hands, he always uses a new soap then throws it away. He also avoids stepping on the cracks on the floor whenever he goes outside his apartment for a walk. At the same time, he feels that he should eat on the same table in his favorite restaurant and even bring along his plastic utensils whenever he dines there. The way of locking and unlocking the doors of his apartment is complicated as well as turning the lights on and off. He needs to follow certain number of times before getting over with it. He is characterized as verbally abusive which offends people most of the time. He also lives in solitary and has no friends at all, although he is considered as a famous novel writer. Those living with this kind of people find themselves in a state of frustration. The obsessions as well the compulsions make the lives of these people difficult. To support the diagnosis of OCD on Melvin Udall, certain criteria must be met with DSM TV IR. Obsessions of a client with OCD must be intrusive, inappropriate, recurrent, and persistent, and causes distress and anxiety. There are unsuccessful attempts to ignore the obsessions with positive adaptive actions and thoughts. People with this disorder are not excessively worried about real life problems and they usually recognize that these obsessions are produced by their own thoughts. On the other hand, the compulsions of a person with OCD are converted to repetitive behaviors such as hand washing, counting, and arranging things according to color, height, and the like. They display these excessive behavior or mental acts for them to prevent distress or frightening events. At some point during the course of the disorder, the client will recognize that these excessive thoughts and behaviors are inappropriate or unreasonable. The compulsions themselves are time consuming and they interfere with the client’s ability to perform for their daily needs. Such needs would include food, occupation, social activities, and healthy relationship with other people. Lastly, these obsessions and compulsions are not side effects of other substances such as alcohol or medications. They are merely coping mechanisms for a person to relieve anxiety. Considering that the patient has obsessive compulsive disorder, sets of treatment are planned to help relieve the patient’s anxiety. Treatments or interventions can be divided into three: therapeutic relationship, psychopharmacology, and milieu management. Starting off with the therapeutic relationship, the nurse must ensure that the basic needs such as food, clothing, grooming, and the rest are met by the client. Client has less time in dealing with these activities since they are preoccupied by their obsessions and compulsions. Provide time for the patient to finish the ritual. Setting limits has more advantage than stopping the ritual abruptly because it may ensue panic than relief. Prepare simple yet structured activities for the client. This is a good and productive diversion for the client’s obsessive compulsive behavior. Whenever the client demonstrates a non-ritualistic behavior, give praise or recognition. This will increase self-worth and self-esteem. Be empathic with the client and be aware of the need in performing the rituals. It will convey acceptance and understanding on the client’s situation. Certain drugs also help the patient deal with OCD. Clomipramine is considered as the drug of choice in dealing with these clients. However, a certain group of drug is said to be effective for this kind of psychiatric disorder. They are called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI). SSRI is a kind of antidepressant that treats depression, anxiety disorders, and some personality disorders. As the name suggests, it prevents the reuptake of serotonin whose action is to elevate the mood. Since OCD is an anxiety disorder, it is proven to be effective and helps in dealing with the anxiety of the patient. Some of SSRI drugs commonly used are fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, and sertraline. However, one should watch the side effects of these drugs. SSRIs are known to cause gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea and diarrhea. They are also known to cause anticholinergic effects as well as sexual dysfunction. Milieu management also helps in the treatment of anxiety disorders particularly the cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Although rooted in two different theories, it is found to be effective in treating patients with anxiety disorder. The basic concept of using the CBT in anxiety disorders is systematic desensitization or in vivo approach. It is believed that fear is learned and continued to be learned unless the client is exposed to certain stimuli. Initial exposure causes an increase in physical and emotional distress. As the desensitization therapy progresses, the client then will learn how to unlearn hi/her fear. In OCD, there is what we call exposure with response prevention which is directly under the CBT. The aim of CBT is the same with systematic desensitization. Nonetheless, as anxiety is relieved, so is the ritualistic behavior of the client. Others would also consider thought stopping, a technique wherein the client’s intrusive obsessions are substituted with adaptive ones such as deep breathing or walking. As the treatment goes, several outcomes must be predicted in order to evaluate whether the treatment is effective or not. It can be short term or long term. Short-term outcomes would include the following: 1. Patient will be able limit the time needed in performing rituals. 2. Patient will report and identify strategies and actions that will be substituted for compulsions. 3. Patient will be able to finish and focus on the structured activities given to them by their health provider. These short-term outcomes must be followed in order for the client to achieve long-term outcomes. Nonetheless, long-term outcomes would include: 1. Patient will be able to develop strong and healthy relationship with the people surrounding him/her. 2. Patient will be able to substitute compulsions with positive adaptive behaviors and thoughts. References Ziskin, L. (Producer), Brooks, J. L. (Director). 1997. As Good As It Gets [Motion Picture]. United States: TriStar Pictures

HRM Department of British Airways (BA)

HRM Department of British Airways (BA) The following paper seeks to identify the human resource management department of the British Air ways. It shows the key HR activities of the British airways with reference to the two models of human resource. Moreover, it also evaluates and analyses the various HR planning and development programs implemented by the British airways. Finally the paper concludes by highlighting how the human resource is indicated and monitored. The report based on a case study and the majority of the information is taken from the case study. SUMMARY In 19th century British Airways is the worlds largest international airline and one of the most successful organizations in the airline business. British Airways (BA) was created by the merger between BOAC and BEA in 1974. BA was not always been quite much successful. The company was going in loss and BA had serious difficulties retaining customers in a competitive international airline industry. In 1980 BA recorded significant losses and there was not much profit to meet the running expenses of the organization. As a matter of fact British Airways delayered their bureaucratic management staffs that were mostly Air force retired officers and replaced them by managers having experience in the service industry. For the achievement of success BA launched many programmes to come out of the organisations loss which changes the culture and environment of the company. These programmes were successful and many customers were attracted towards the airline, which resulted British Airways one o f the worlds leading airline. HRM ACTIVITIES Although the British airways are seen to have implemented numerous strategies to allow human resource development the following are the three key areas where development is most significantly seen. Training and development Reward management Performance appraisal TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT British Airways has decided a significant investment in training and development that would improve the organization image of Helpfulness. On the basis of research BA found out that customer are satisfied and dissatisfied with friendly and unfriendly, caring and uncaring behavior of staff. As a result of these research findings, BA faced the task of designing and facilitating a training programme that would enable a total change in values and attitudes across the organization, particularly for staff that were exposed to customer contact. BA arranges several training and development programme for both new and old staff. These programme made much change in the behavior of the staff and due to which many customers were attracted towards this airline. British Airline recruited more staff, provide training to the new and developed the old staff for their excellent customer service. it can be clearly identifies that implementing these training programs prove to be highly essential for the organization to attain this objective of increasing the goodwill that the British airways had from the side of the customers. These programs also prove important to improve the revenue and sought to reduce the overall cost that the organization had. (Dessler, 2008) However, at the same time it is also important to note the fact that the success that British airline was not only and solely due to an increasing employee training but there were several other factors which were also important and contributed to the increasing revenue levels. One of the factors included improved legal and government conditions along with technological changes.BA has encouraged individual learning by providing wide employee access to two major learning programs. The first program is based upon principles of open learning; it can finally lead to an MBA and provides a number of progressive stages and qualifications. The completion of each stage gives access to the next qualification. The MBA awarded by the University of Bath. The second program Top Flight provides a series of Academies which are a number of development steps, designed to allow an individual to progress to an executive position. REWARD MANAGEMENT British Airline was motivating people with good remuneration package and rewards. They moving towards individually determined remuneration as well as both intrinsic and extrinsic benefits. They were giving standardized pay and also individual performance pay. The main proportion of salaried staff earnings is based upon pay rates which are governed by a job evaluation grading system. There is also a company -wide performance related bonus scheme paid to all employees and there have been offers of free and discounted shares. BA has also introduced an opportunity for all employees to purchase tax free shares through a trust using their company performance bonus. BA pays standardized salary as well as individual performance pay. They know that if employees are satisfied they will give the best effort for the company success; employees are start thinking that they are the part of company. So, it is clear that through the training Development programme and good remuneration packages staffs provide the high quality customer services and would be more committed to the company. Employees are more committed toward company for their remuneration package and rewards. And they go ahead to achieve the organization goal. PERFORMANCE APPARASIAL Performance appraisal measures the qualitative and quantitative aspects of job performance. An appraisal evaluates not only the employees performance but also his potential for development. The primary objectives of an appraisal are to assess past performance, to identify training needs, to set and agree on future objectives and standards, and to facilitate the achievement of these goals. Individual employee development is a part of a broader concern that BA has developed for the individual employee .As a part of the overall concern with organization culture, BAs philosophy has focused much more attention upon individual performance and this has led to the induction of a companywide -appraisal scheme. The main purpose of this scheme was to improve the relationship between reward and performance and this has reflected in a linked element of performance related pay. British airway has introduced performance related payments. Thus the more efficiently each of the employees works, the more likely it is for the organization to pay the individual worker a certain amount of payments. Moreover, there have been numerous and increasing companywide appraisal schemes introduced by the organization. Thus the harder and more the employee works, the more likely is it for the employee to earn a greater reward in the organization. Moreover, the amount of employees receiving remunerations on an individual basis is increasing at a radical rate at the organization. For instance the administrative staff at the British airways has also started being paid on the basis of their performance. (Armstrong, 2007) HRM MODELS MACTHING MODEL HARVARD MODEL MATCHING MODEL This model states that the HR systems and the organisation structure should be managed in such a way that is similar with the organisational strategy. This is the hard HRM which is interested only in making money or profit. It focussed on individual and organisational performance and concentrates on managing human assets to achieve strategic goals. It explained that there is human resource cycle that consists of generic processes like organisational structure, mission and strategy, human resource management, selection, performance, appraisal, rewards and development. It is based upon strategic control, organisational structure systems for managing people. It requires that human resource strategies have a tight fit to overall of the business. Mission and strategy Economic forces Cultural forces Organizational structure Human resource management MISSION AND STRATEGY: Mission means the specific target that the company wants to reach and strategy is the way through the company can reach their target. The mission of British Airways is to be the best and most successful airline in the world and the strategy is by providing high quality of customer service through resource planning which could not be easily duplicated. ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE: This means all the required things that needed to achieve the target. BA launched some programmes for their staff like putting people first, customer first campaign, managing people first, etc. They gave more powers to the line managers to take quick decisions and also break down bureaucracy. They also provide some learning programmes like MBA and series of academies for their staff. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: This is related to the recruitment of new staff. BA replaced some managers which were Air Force retired persons with the staff with analytical skills or the intellectual capacity rather than management experience in the service industries. HARVARD MODEL This model was developed by Beer et al in 1984. This is the soft model which aims at enhancing the commitment, quality and flexibility of employees. Soft model is also known as high commitment management. Here more responsibilities are given to the line managers for ensuring the alignment of competitive strategy and HR policies. This model is based upon individual influence, work systems, rewards and human resource flow; and concentrate upon outcomes for people. Its main components are work system, human resources flow, rewards, stakeholder interests, situational factors, HRM policies choices, HR outcomes, long term consequences. Stakeholder interests Shareholders Management Employee groups Government community unions HRM policy choices Employee influence Human resource flow Reward system Work system HR outcomes Commitment Competence cost-effectiveness Long-term consequences Individual well-being Organizational effectiveness Societal well-being Situational factors Workforce characteristics Business strategy and conditions Management philosophy Labor market Unions Task technology laws and societal values In Harvard model, extra powers and authorities are given to the line managers to fulfill organisations objective. This incorporate recruitment, selection, development and redundancy for the people in the organisation. Managers have to ensure putting right employee at right place and in right time. To motivate productivity, Harvard Model suggested some rewards system to the employees, which include pay, bonus, free and discounted share, holidays, health insurance, empowerment, etc. This model includes long term consequences which refer to individual well beings. These incorporate individual interest, organisational competencies, and the need of the society and community as a whole. In this model, stakeholders are those persons who have interest or shares in the organisation. Situational factor includes workforce, labour markets, union representation, laws, business environment, technology and work system; these issues lead to the HRM policy choices of employee influence. Work system r efers to the efficiency and productivity of work force to meet the organisational goal. For work to be done effectively, efficient communication channels and correct technology are needed. For this purpose, British Airways gave more powers and authorities to the line managers, so that there should not be any kind of delay and they can take quick decisions. HR Planning and Development Methods Firstly British Airline tends to recruit on the basis of analytical skill and intellectual capacity rather than management experience in a service industry. They are always tried to ensure that staff would provide a consistent high quality service to customers an achieving efficient flight operations. Many managers had also joined the company from Royal Air Force. They recruit the perfect person and place them on exact position. Secondly, British Airline setup several training programs for both new and old staff. Such as Customer First Campaign to meet the customer needs. Putting People First which was two day programme aimed at almost 20000 staff that had significant customer contact. This program was designed to persuade participants to examine their own existing values towards their passengers and where necessary to replace them with more helpful and supportive ones. Managing People first a one week residential training course. The programme was specifically designed to breakdown the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy had developed underlying values of order, rationality, dependability and system control. Finally British Airline pays good remuneration to employees and also gives both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. They plan to motivate people as well as make their assets. BA offers free and discounted shares. BA has also introduced a novel scheme which gives an opportunity for all employees to purchase tax-free shares through a trust using their company performance bonus. BA has encouraged individual learning by providing wide employee access to two major learning programs. The first program is based upon principles of open learning; it can finally lead to an MBA and provides a number of progressive stages and qualifications. The completion of each stage gives access to the next qualification. The MBA awarded by the University of Bath. The second program Top Flight provides a series of Academies which are a number of development steps, designed to allow an individual to progress to an executive position. Evaluation: British Airlines corporative objective is To be the best and most successful airline in the world. So to achieve this objective it makes huge investment on human resources. It recruits highly skill and intellectual people. BA replaces them with more helpful and supportive ones. It provides training on the basis of different skills. It developed employees as more customer friendly, knowledgeable and efficient. They form trade union for welfare or participation of line staff on strategic plan of the company. BA pays standardized salary as well as individual performance pay. They know that if employees are satisfied they will give the best effort for the company success; employees are start thinking that they are the part of company. So, it is clear that through the training Development programme and good remuneration packages staffs provide the high quality customer services and would be more committed to the company. And they go ahead to achieve the organization goal. HR Performances of British Airways In seventies BA performances were disappointing, When BA had serious difficulties retaining customer in competitive international airline industry. In 1980 BA recorded significant losses. Before 1990 BA found negative attitude from passengers in a research. Customers were dissatisfied with customer BAs customer services. For this reason BA redesign and restructure its Human Resources. BA makes huge investment on HR planning and HR performances. It setup many training and development program for line staffs and managers. It is hard to say how much impact the programme has had; it is commonly understood in training circles it is difficult to measure the value of training. However, British Airline believes that this programme has been successful, that a significant cultural change has been achieved at all levels of the organization, and that this cultural change has made a significant contribution to the steady improvement in the business performance. An extensive market research shown that customer have developed more positive attitudes towards service that they now receive as compared with the predominance of negative attitudes that were recorded in similar surveys conducted earlier in the 1990s. These satisfied customers must have an important factor in supporting BAs performance improve improvement. So its easily identified that with this HR planning and development, BA increases their HR performance that lead to the improvement of the organizations performance. On the other hand BA employees now more happy with remuneration and rewards. They are getting opportunities to learn through different training and qualification of MBA degree awarded by the University of Bath after competition of management training. They are getting basic pay as well as individual performance pay and scheme that benefited them more than the before. Through the trade union employees can participate on organization strategic decision. They can raise their voice against any critical issue of the company. That makes the employees happier. Employee turnover are less now than before .Employees are satisfied with their job description, responsibilities and working environment. Employees absenteeism is reduced significantly. They are now highly committed to the company success. Ways to improve HR performances It is very difficult to suggest BA. Because they are the worlds largest passenger airlines company in the world and they have many intellectual people for hunting innovation idea and planning every moment. In spite of this practical situation some ways of improvement are described below: British airlines significant development is that they made a small HR strategy and planning department with some specialist people in the UK. It can be suggesting that if they integrated more people with this department and also spread not only in Europe, but also other continents where they are earning more. As a result same cultural people will provide customer service to their own customers. They can easily share their feeling and fulfill the needs of customer. Employee would be happy to serve same people as like they are. British airline can run different talent hunt programme for recruit their best fitted people. They can go to the college and university and pick up the best student; those are very keen to learn and have creative ideas for the future excellent service both customer service and flight operation. BA can launch more training and development programme after certain time to compete with the competitors and updated technological knowledge. They have to push their employee towards extrinsic rewards to see happier. CONCLUSION Thus as highlighted by this paper, the British airways successfully manages the human resources department by an increasing amount of planning and organization. They also launched some learning programmes for the employees to do MBA and to reach at executive position. They mainly concentrated upon the improvement of delivering good customer service so that they can attract more customers and gain more profit; with this they want to become the worlds most successful airline. At the end, I can say that it is crucial to use both soft and hard HRM in order to meet the organisational business requirement and to remain worlds most successful airline.

Learning Temperance in Homer’s Odyssey Essay -- Odyssey

Learning Temperance in Homer’s Odyssey Being a work of importance in the western tradition of philosophy, The Odyssey is much more than some play written by Homer ages ago. Though The Odyssey certainly is a dramatic work and partially intended for entertainment, it also provides insight into the ways of thinking of the time it has been written in. Aside from illustrating the perspective of early Greek philosophy The Odyssey also raises certain questions pertaining to virtues and the morality of actions undertaken therein. Such questions and the pursuit of their answers may also lead to a better understanding of the actions taken in present-day society and the human condition in general. One of the virtues that is present throughout The Odyssey is temperance, or the lack thereof. In the course of Odysseus' journey, numerous events take place which are determined by the actions of Odysseus' himself, as well as those of his shipmates. In fact, the endeavor here is to portray how the delays and troubles encountered by O dysseus and his crew are due to their inability to exhibit proper self-restraint in conduct, expression, and indulgence of the appetites. This is undertaken in the proceeding text by an examination of two specific episodes from Homer's The Odyssey. The first episode being Book X of The Odyssey, entitled "The Grace of the Witch", containing Odysseus' encounter with the goddess Kirke. The second being Book V under the title of "Sweet Nymph and Open Sea," of how Odysseus departs the island of the nymph Kalypso. Both episodes are intended to demonstrate the importance of temperance in the journeys of Odysseus. Prior to a discussion of how temperance affects The Odyssey, it is good to discuss the concept of... ...ry for him to learn the virtue of temperance. If he is not able to moderate his impulses towards revenge, feasting, and lovely goddesses, then he shall always be doomed to roam upon the wine dark seas. Obviously he does learn this, since he does return to Ithaka without being smitten down by the gods, but he returns a different Odysseus. The new Odysseus realizes that there is more to living than a feast of roast meats and wine each night before the flawless bed of love of a lovely goddess. The new Odysseus wipes a salt tear from his cheek at the sight of an old hound that lays neglected (17.394). Works Cited Baird, Forrest E., and Walter Kaufman. "Aristotle." Ancient Philosophy. 3rd ed. Philosophic Classics, vols. 1. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000. 304 - 444. Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998.

“Stylistic Techniques in Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour” Essay

For centuries, American literature has served as indication on the power of words to articulate encouragement for change by creating a call to action. Indeed, literature â€Å"the art that expresses life in words† (Tanvir, Para. 4) has the ability to transform the comprehensive human race. Consequently, literature serves as a record of all the dreams that made such change a possibility throughout history. Each successive era, literature begins and ends with great writers communicating their own message to their intended readers. When skillfully written, enthusiastic, and engaging a piece of literature possesses the power to create a substantial contribution. One such great writer, Kate Chopin often wrote about an alternative way of thinking in regards to a women’s position in the 19th Century. Chopin was well known for some of the most shaping feminist stories and novels during her time. Accordingly, in her short story â€Å"The Story of an Hour† Chopin tells the tale of Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to the death of her husband, instead of fearing the forlorn widow years ahead of her; she falters upon a different comprehension all together. After hearing the news of her husband’s alleged death, Mrs. Mallard retreats to her bedroom in solitude. Although Mrs. Mallard is initially distraught by the news, she sits down, gawks out a window and astonishingly, it is spring and everything comes to life. As the reader takes an expedition with Mrs. Mallard on her revelation of true independence, Chopin’s strong word choice sheds light on and develops ideas that articulate, boost and deepen the content. Truly, her short story is comprehensible and clear-cut; Chopin plainly describes people and objects without wasting any words. While â€Å"The Story of an Hour† ... ...e of structural organization and powerful word choice work as a guide for the readers to gain a better understanding of Mrs. Mallard and an exploration of how she finds herself free after her husband’s sudden death. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Cummings Study Guide, 2006. Web. 10 Feb 2012. . Olson A. Gary et.al. Style and Readability in Business Writing: A Sentence-Combining Approach. Random House, 1985 Stepanek, Jennifer. "6 1 Trait Definitions." Education Northwest. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2012. Web. 11 Feb 2012. . Tanvir, Nabila. Chief Qualities of Literature. Online Library of Classic English Literature Books. 14 Aug. 2009. Taylor, Marilyn. Tips for Finding the Right Words. Writer 119.12 (2006).

Coca-Cola Case Study :: Business Management Marketing

Coca-Cola Case Study 1. SWOT ANALYSIS: Strengths Coca-Cola has been an intricate part of American culture for over a century. The product’s image is laden with sentimentality, and this is an image many people have taken deeply to heart. The Coca-Cola image is displayed on T-shirts, hats, and collectible memorabilia. This extremely recognizable branding is one of Coca-Cola’s greatest strengths. â€Å"Enjoyed more than 685 million times a day around the world Coca-Cola stands as a simple, yet powerful symbol of quality and enjoyment† (Allen, 1995). Additionally, according to Bettman, et. al, (1998) Coca-Cola’s bottling system is one of their greatest strengths. It allows them to conduct business on a global scale while at the same time maintain a local approach. The bottling companies are locally owned and operated by independent business people who are authorized to sell products of the Coca-Cola Company. Because Coke does not have outright ownership of its bottling network, its main source of revenue is the sale of concentrate to its bottlers (Bettman, et. al, 1998). Weaknesses: Although domestic business as well as many international markets are thriving (volumes in Latin America were up 12%), Coca-Cola has recently reported some "declines in unit case volumes in Indonesia and Thailand due to reduced consumer purchasing power." According to an article in Fortune magazine, "In Japan, unit case sales fell 3% in the second quarter [of 1998]...scary because while Japan generates around 5% of worldwide volume, it contributes three times as much to profits. Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Japan account for about 35% of Coke's volume and none of these markets are performing to expectation (Mclean, 1998). Opportunities: Brand recognition is the significant factor affecting Coke’s competitive position. Coca-Cola’s brand name is known well throughout 90% of the world today. The primary concern over the past few years has been to get this name brand to be even better known. Packaging changes have also affected sales and industry positioning, but in general, the public has tended not to be affected by new products (Allen, 1995). Coca-Cola’s bottling system also allows the company to take advantage of infinite growth opportunities around the world. This strategy gives Coke the opportunity to service a large geographic, diverse, area (Bettman, et. al, 1998). Threats: Currently, the threat of new viable competitors in the carbonated soft drink industry is not very substantial. The threat of substitutes, however, is a very real threat. The soft drink industry is very strong, but consumers are not necessarily married to it.

Life of Cleopatra

One of the well thought-out classic scopes was the life of Cleopatra. She was considered as one of the most famous and influential figures in olden times. Because of the Hollywood film done for her account it was very tough to find which was real and which myth was. Her life was full of scheme and cleverness, and mystery. She was truly a dominant and radiant woman whose places in history, her tools that took her to manage many powerful men in her life and also led her to ultimate demise were her beauty, native allure and appeal.A lover, warrior, mother, enthusiast of all that brought splendor, queen of Nile, and were the account associated to her, but the certain thing was that she was last Pharaoh of Egypt. The life of Cleopatra was influenced the mythological ideas of the most writers as well as Shakespeare. Through her life the substitute ability to Catholic academic doctrine was recognized. As the matter of fact the influence of outside literature and arts were commanding in Rome up to now. And by her impressive history, many writer was trying to dig deeper the reality of her life.And this was the beginning of her epic life. Cleopatra VII Philopator or Cleopatra the destined queen was born in Alexandra the former capital of Egypt 69 years before the birth of Christ. A beautiful baby was the eldest child of Cleopatra VI Tryphaina and Ptolemy XII Auletes Theos Philopator Philadelphos Neo Dionysos also known as Ptolemy XII the reigning pharaoh of that time. At the very young age of nine, Ptolemy her father was allegedly a son of a non-married couple, her father was trying to overcome the trial for his fading supremacy by bribing authoritative Romans.Cleopatra VI was died when they returned to Egypt. Through Roman forces the throne was regained by his father. At 51 BC her 9 years old brother Ptolemy XIII was married to her at the age 18, with the same age together with her brother and husband she became the queen of Egypt by inheriting the ruler ship of her fat her. In the beginning of Cleopatra’s reign all was not so easy due to the fact of her age, many groups were too envious of her cleverness and for ruling the entire Egypt unaided and she had to compete with her enemies, and these were the reasons why she struggled completely.The Romans were conquering city after city, until the ministers pressed Cleopatra out of her command after ruling the Egypt for three years. She moved out of Egypt and lived in Syria and left the throne to her brother alone that she thought agreed with the situation. Because of the circumstances she was too infuriated but didn’t give up. When she learned that Julius Caesar was in Alexandria, Cleopatra planned to go back to her native land in secret to escape from the hand of her brother.To get coalition against her brother Ptolemy XIII and to defend her mother landed from fraud, as what the most accounts told that Cleopatra offered her virgin body and surrendered it in the form of rug, she covered u p herself in an oriental rug and presented it to the general who almost four times of her age . And she got the attention of the Romans general, Julius Caesar fall in love at the first sight to her when the rugs unfold. Her charisma and allure beauty surpassed the influence of Caesar. Ptolemy XIII affirmed warfare against Caesar and his Roman soldiers since he believed that he was deceived.Caesar took controlled of the throne of Alexandria when he defeated Ptolemy XIII in the war. After the battle Caesar due to his loved to Cleopatra he gave back the power to Cleopatra to rule the Egypt alongside with her brother Ptolemy XIV as co-leader. In June 47 BC Cleopatra bore a child and to emphasize that her son was from Caesar she named him Ptolemy XV Caesarion, but Caesar never properly acknowledged fatherhood. In 46 BC General Julius Caesar returned to Rome he brought Cleopatra and his son showing as a prisoner of war because he was already married with Calpurnia.But Cleopatra fought for her privilege; she asserted to be the wife of Caesar that brought him to assassination in 44 BC. After Caesar murdered Cleopatra go back to Egypt, she recognized her son Ptolemy XV Caesarion as her co-monarch regardless of the rumor that she perhaps killed her brother Ptolemy XIV. Rome Empire began to divide upon the death of Julius Caesar, and because of Caesar assassination Cleopatra’s throne was in danger; she collaborated with Marc Antony the subsequently Roman forces governor of the area, an old companion of Caesar.She proved to Marc dramatically and convinced him that she was not guilty about the allegation to her regarding her support to the followers of Julius in Rome, apparently, she got the hold up and captured his interest. Marc left Cleopatra with twin in her womb after he spent the whole winter in Alexandria with her. In the meantime he went to his first wife Fulvia who died in 40 BC. In 37 BC Marc went back to Antioch with Cleopatra and undergone a matrimony of marriage in 36 BC. With the same year a baby boy named Ptolemy Philadelphus was born to them.After they knew that Ptolemy XV was lost controlled his territory including Lebanon which is formerly part of Cyprus, officially Marc renovate to Egypt. After the military victory in 34 BC he tied Cleopatra in Alexandria and recognized Caesarion as the son of Julius Caesar and affirmed the joint rulership of Cleopatra and her son. When the Romans threatened specially Octavian formerly ally of Antony, conceding of country by Marc to Cleopatra was used by Octavian to destroy the trust of the ministers to him.Because of this, the Romans were not happy to their relationship because they considered that the loyalty of Marc was not in the Rome Empire anymore since he gave away the power of ruling Egypt to Cleopatra. In 31 BC Marc Antony lost to Octavian in Battle of Actium because of the misstep pointing to Cleopatra. Cleopatra tried to persuade Octavian to support her offspring to progression of authority but she was unsuccessful to make a deal. Unfortunately, luck was twisted against them. After the defeat of Marc Antony to Octavian and lost all his support he committed suicide and die in the arm of his beautiful wife Cleopatra.Since all of the Roman forces go against Cleopatra she decided to cut off her life by poisoning herself with the use of snake and died in admiration and was the very last Pharaoh of EgyptBIBLIOGRAPHYAnalysis of Four Character of Shakespeare http://www. free-essays. us/dbase/d3/lva130. shtmlAncient Egyptian Pharaohs: http://www. 123helpme. com/view. asp? id=23405Biography and history of Cleopatra http://en. oboulo. com/biography-and-history-of-cleopatra-44856. htmlBiography of Cleopatra http://www. chevroncars. com/learn/famous-people/cleopatraChronology of Cleopatra’s Life http://atrium-media. com/bibliotheca/romanhistory/cleopatrahist. htmlCleopatra – Queen Of Egypt: http://www. 123helpme. com/view. asp? id=58913Cleopatra, Ruler of E gypt http://www. infoplease. com/biography/var/cleopatra. htmlCleopatra’s Wiles http://www. azete. com/preview/58914Greco-Roman Influence in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra http://www. 123HelpMe. com/view. asp? id=16285Isabelle Vignier. The Tragic in Antony and Cleopatra, June 2004 http://www. literature-study-online. com/essays/antony-cleopatra. htmlShakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra http://www. englishessays.org. uk/english-essays/shakespeare-anthony-cleopatra. phpThe Female Pharaoh Cleopatra – History Essay http://www. freeonlineresearchpapers. com/female-pharaoh-cleopatraThe Love Story of Antony and Cleopatra http://www. azete. com/preview/8726The Masks of Anthony and Cleopatra http://www. thefreelibrary. com/The+Masks+of+Anthony+and+Cleopatra-a0161065564The Story of Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt http://www. echeat. com/essay. php? t=30239What are some conflicts and compromises in Cleopatra's life time? http://answers. yahoo. com/question/index? qid=20071227 084535AAGJBCP