Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Finance Free Essays

Undertaking 1. 1: 1. There are some key patterns which may have diseases to Elecdyne during the following 5 years, those factor are appeared as follow: †¢Globalization in all industry may turn into a significant pattern to the organization. We will compose a custom article test on Account or on the other hand any comparable theme just for you Request Now Since the entirety of the top supervisory crew have learnt English, and a few of them have concentrated abroad, that may lead an initial change from the top to the base, from psyches to activities. †¢Trade with increasingly more Asia nations may turn into a well known inclination to Elecdyne on the grounds that a large portion of the nations have the least expensive work and material so they can deliver the items in a low cost. The difference in client needs will likewise be a significant factor which implies the various requests in various period may decide the advancement bearing of Elecdyne. †¢With the improvement of innovation and the general public, increasingly more howdy tech techniques for showcasing, for example, on-line shopping or e-exchange will assume a significant job in the business among Elecdyne and different organizations. 2. I will pick a STEEP table as the best instrument for examination of the Elecdyne circumstance in light of the fact that the table ma y contain more data than the guide and it is more clear in each segment. That might be simpler for the Elecdyne to make an examination to their hazard and make an improvement in each part. 3. The STEEP table Social patterns: ?For their Old adversaries who are now know the system of Elecdyne may have some effect on their tentative arrangement. There are another weight of those new-development endeavor and furthermore have some opposition to Elecdyne. That on the grounds that the expansion sense in greenness of customers might be a major test. ?The expanding of assortment requests may lead the organization alter their rule of the executives. So as to guarantee clients are acceptable on their administrations. What's more, hold their old clients and investigate progressively likely buyers. ?These days, broad communications are assuming a significant job in each field. Either a positive news or negative news can bigly affect the certainty of the clients. Mechanical patterns: ?Whether the inside branch of organization can have enough new specialized to improve the old items. ?The accident from high innovation to the old items with the goal that the old items will be gotten rid of. There are increasingly more duplicate items show up available, the organization should attempt their best to keep up their patent right. Monetary patterns: ?There is a Steady downturn of financial lead the expense of item is expanding. That may cause the staffs of the organization are jobless. The organization ought to likewise ensure the Capital chain can be regularly activity. ?Utilize the least expense of the item, for example, modest work from Asia nations so that can make the benefit however much as could be expected. Be sure on the recuperation time of financial so as to get a handle on the chance to lead the endeavor to the pinnacle Ecological patterns: ?Protecting the biological can set up great organization picture ? These days an ever increasing number of individuals focus on the naturally well disposed society and green items. ?There are stricter and stricter to the guideline of establishments. ?Sustainable power sources and new crude materials are turning out to be increasingly more well known among the organizations which may implies progressively environmental they are, more benefit they can acquire. Political patterns: Whether the legislature will bolster the organization and the duty of the organization is increment or lessen ? The track hindrance can be impact whether the organization can have a worldwide business with the world organizations. ?Regardless of whether the nationality of the organization is the individual from some exchange associations. That may likewise be a key factor to influence the exchange of the organization. Sources: ?Infed: globalization http://www. infed. organization/biblio/globalization. htm ?MBA Boost STEEP: Analysis Tool http://www. mbaboost. com/content/177/?Contact-bg: STEEP Table http://contact-bg. wikispaces. com/STEEP+Table The most effective method to refer to Finance, Essay models Money Free Essays Money 2 ASSINGMENT 2011-2012 Nikesh Hindocha (10044607) Part A. Presentation As a major aspect of my task, I have been approached to talk about the accompanying proclamation â€Å"Mergers and acquisitions can be esteem destroyers or worth creators†. A merger can be characterized as when two equivalent organizations as far as net revenue and status, join so as to become one lawful element. We will compose a custom paper test on Money or on the other hand any comparative theme just for you Request Now At first, the crucial purpose behind this consolidation is to create an organization that is worth more than the whole of its parts. An obtaining is the place one organization gets a controlling enthusiasm for another organization. The blend of these inconsistent organizations can create the equivalent or considerably more advantages as a merger would. In various cases, these mergers and acquisitions are either considered as the maker of significant worth or the destroyer of significant worth or even perhaps both. An organization that is considered as a worth maker is doing their essential worth including exercises in the correct way. Interestingly, an organization that is viewed as a worth destroyer does the direct inverse implying that the organization is less engaging workers, clients and possible speculators. Worth Creation Mergers and acquisitions are framed with the expectation that they will make worth and there is a huge measure of thinking on why they have been presented. Organizations will attempt to make an incentive for the organization, investors, clients and workers. The current estimation of all presentation improvements inferable from the executives change would bring about the expansion in esteem from just by dealing with the advantages all the more effectively (Damodaran, 2005). Flat and Vertical Integration of Mergers and Acquisitions Mergers that are of a huge scope may have been acquainted all together with involve an enormous portion of the market, while acquisitions may have been framed so as to wipe out the opposition. The cell phone gathering of the ongoing converge between t versatile UK and orange UK could be possibly the greatest worth making organization ever. There point is to exploit the way that their items are connected with the goal that they can work of one another and hence make benefit and incentive for the client (cooperative energy) I. . clients will have the option to utilize either system of t portable and orange. Tom Alexander, CEO of Everything Everywhere †the organization that runs Orange and T-Mobile †stated: ‘This is the start of a driven arrangement to give our clients moment access to anything they desire, any place they are †moment access to everything all over. This type of blending is viewed as level jo ining, where development is accomplished through mergers and acquisitions offering comparable items and administrations. Be that as it may, the size of the mergers decides the impact it forces available. On account of the converge among Morrisons and Safeway, the market all in all was influenced, though two organizations of a littler size wouldn’t have as large of an effect. Another type of blending is called vertical reconciliation. Vertical coordination secures organizations in a similar industry however at various phases of the flexibly chain. The advantage of vertical combination includes the capacity to make sure about provisions and future requests. A case of vertical combination is the securing of Amstrad from BSkyB, which thus prompted a decrease in expenses of its gracefully chain. Sir Alan Sugar said-â€Å"I can't envision a superior home for the Amstrad business and its gifted individuals. Our organizations share the enterprising soul of carrying development to the biggest number of customers†. This suggests the merger is making an incentive towards the representatives, since workers who have a top to bottom comprehension of the business can connect there information with their partners. The union will likewise add an incentive towards clients because of the business giving improved productivity and the presentation of advancement. Worth formation of Shareholders Managers need to practice different key methodologies so as to make investor esteem or to expand it. The costs at which products and ventures can be sold, the dangers inalienable in the business and the degree of required speculations are utilized to gauge investors riches. â€Å"Building productive organizations makes esteem. The governing body and management’s essential obligation is to expand organization worth and investor riches. Investors put resources into organizations looking for a critical profit for their speculation. They anticipate that the prize should be fitting for the business and monetary dangers of an uncertain future. â€Å"Article: The Key to Creating Shareholder Value Knowledge Begins with Simple â€Å"Cigar Box† Accounting†)[2. ]. The systems and approaches utilized by the organization will help decide whether the business has made an incentive for the investor. On account of Cadbury Schweppes, where the critical point was to build investor esteem, their essential point is to concentrate on development markets, improving brands and advancement so as to pick up their destinations. (Source-yearly report, 2000 Cadbury Schweppes) Value Destroyers Even however the key goal for mergers and acquisitions is to make esteem, there might be factors included that cause the incentive to be crushed. It is accepted that the prime segment of why acquisitions fall flat is because of the way that they paid a lot to control it, which thus leaves them with tremendous obligations. The purchaser may find that the top notch they paid for the procured company’s shares (the alleged â€Å"winner’s curse†) clears out any increases produced using the securing (Henry 2002). The distinctions in corporate culture assume a significant job in the M;A devastating worth in light of the fact that each organization may vigorously rely upon how they independently deliberately maintain their organizations. Workers from one organization may not feel to contribute or

Saturday, August 22, 2020

IMMIGRATION REFORM Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Migration REFORM - Coursework Example Those businesses who don't satisfy the necessities laid out by the Act may encounter a fine of $100 to $1000 for every worker whose archives are not finished. On the off chance that the business doesn't agree to the Act while thinking about the law, he/she may confronted a punishment between $200 to $2000 for her first mix-up and for the following mix-ups the fines are raised to $200 to $5000 (Malpert, 2000). In the event that the business doesn't pay the authorizations that the business can encounter detainment for a greatest residency of a half year alongside a fine of $3000 for each unapproved representative he/she has employed. These authorizations are totally supported in light of the fact that it is the employer’s obligation to guarantee that they are not recruiting unlawful workers. Besides, bosses may engage in recruiting illicit representatives so as to diminish their cost which is again illegal. While recruiting representatives, Patricia ought to play out an individu al verification in which she ought to acquire the essential records from the candidates to guarantee that he/she is approved to work in United States. Patricia needn't bother with all the records and she simply needs one single archive for confirmation and that report can be the US

Friday, August 21, 2020

Comp Time Vs. Overtime Which Should You Offer Employees

Comp Time Vs. Overtime Which Should You Offer Employees Normally, employees have a maximum number of hours they are supposed to work each week. Sometimes, however, employees may be required to work more hours than they are ordinarily supposed to.This could be caused by things such as an overflow of work and looming deadlines.In such cases where employees are required to work extra hours, the employees are supposed to be compensated for the extra time they put in.Employees who work overtime without being compensated may sue their employers in a federal court.Ideally, employers are supposed to compensate employees for any extra hours worked by providing overtime pay â€" this is where an employee receives monetary compensation for each hour worked in overtime.Some employers, however, opt to compensate extra hours worked by employees by providing comp time.Doing this allows employers to reduce their labor costs.In some cases, however, offering comp time as compensation for extra hours worked can ensnare you in legal suits, and therefore, as a n employer, you need to be vigilant about comp time policies.So, which of the two should you offer your employees?In today’s article, we are going to review all information relating to overtime pay and comp time and help you decide your best option when it comes to compensating employees for extra hours worked. WHAT IS COMP TIME?Compensatory time, also referred to as comp time or time off in lieu, refers to paid time off that is granted to employees in place of overtime pay.In other words, instead of paying employees for the extra time worked, employers allow employees to take some paid time off from work, equivalent to the number of extra hours they worked.Normally, employees are required to work 40 hours per week.Therefore, if an employee works for more than 40 hours in a given week, comp time allows them to take time off to cover for these hours.For instance, if Stacy works 48 hours in one work week, her boss might allow her to take a day off a day off work the following week i nstead of giving her overtime pay for the 8 extra hours worked.According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), compensatory time should be calculated at the same rate as overtime pay.Since overtime pay should be calculated at a rate of one and half times the hourly pay for ordinary working hours, the same applies to comp time.In our case above, Stacy would be entitled to 12 hours of comp time after working 8 extra hours. However, offering comp time is not always a good thing to do.Depending on the classification of Stacy’s employment, her boss could actually be exposing the company to a lawsuit by offering Stacy comp time instead of overtime pay.This is because there are some laws governing the use of comp time.LAWS SURROUNDING USE OF COMP TIMEThe laws governing the use of comp time depend on whether an employee is exempt or non-exempt, whether the employee works for the private or public sector, as well as the state in which they work, since some states have their own laws rega rding comp time.An employee’s status as exempt or non-exempt is determined by their job duties and responsibilities.Federal vs. State LawFederally, the eligibility of an employee to receive comp time in lieu of overtime pay is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, and will depend on whether an employee is considered exempt or non-exempt.Generally, non-exempt employees within the private sector are not eligible for comp time and must be given overtime pay for all extra hours worked.Still, some states have their own laws regarding the use of comp time.For instance, there are a few states that allow employers within the private sector to give their employees comp time instead of overtime.A good example is Washington State, which allows employers to offer comp time, provided the employee has specifically consented to the comp time.California is another great example.Just as with Washington State, employers in California can offer comp time instead of paid overtime, provided the emp loyee has provided written consent to receiving comp time before working the overtime hours.In order to be eligible to comp time, however, the employee should be a full-time worker. The comp time also needs to be calculated at the same rate as federal overtime pay.Unlike other states, California considers overtime to be anything worked in excess of 8 hours in a day, regardless of what happens during the rest of the week.For instance, if an employee works 12 hours one day, but then works 4 hours the next day, they will still have worked 40 hours in a week.In most other states, such an employee is not eligible for overtime compensation, because they have not worked more than 40 hours in a week.In California, however, they will be eligible for overtime compensation for the 4 extra hours worked during that one day of the week.Depending on your state, there may be instances of conflict between federal and state laws regarding the use of comp time.In such cases, greater priority is often given to whatever law provides greater benefit for the employee.The same applies for labor union contracts. If the terms stated in the labor union contract provide greater benefits to the employee than federal or state laws, greater priority will be given to the labor union contract.If, as an employer, you happen to find yourself in a position where there is a conflict between federal laws and state laws or labor union contracts, the best thing is to consult an employment law specialist or get in touch with your State Department of Labor to find out the best course of action.Comp Time for Exempt EmployeesExempt employees are typically not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Exempt employees are usually classified as those in executive positions, supervising two or more employees and with the mandate to hire and fire said employees, as well as those whose job duties require them to exercise independent judgment for more than half of their working time.Exempt employees must be on a salary, rather than an hourly wage.Examples of exempt employees include executives, managers, outside sales personnel, and professionals. Some computer and IT professionals are also classified as exempt employees.Exempt employees are exempted from overtime laws, which means that employers are under no obligation to compensate them for overtime, regardless of the number of hours worked within a week. However, the employer can compensate them for overtime if he or she so wishes.Since it is the employer’s discretion to determine whether and how to compensate exempt employees for overtime hours worked, the employer is at liberty to either offer overtime pay or comp time.Since comp time is far much cheaper than providing overtime pay, most employers choose this route for compensating exempt employees for overtime hours worked.If you decide to go down this route, it is imperative to formulate a policy to regulate how and when comp time will be given. This ensures that some level of c onsistency in applying this benefit.In case an exempt employee leaves their position without using up any comp time hours they might have accrued, they are not entitled to receive compensation for the unused time.It is the discretion of the employer to decide whether to compensate them for this time or not.Comp Time for Non-Exempt EmployeesUnder the Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees are those that are entitled to a minimum wage and overtime pay.These employees must earn $455 or less per week and must work under the direct supervision of someone else. Non-exempt employees are more common in employment sectors such as maintenance and construction.According to the FLSA, non-exempt employees working within the private sector must receive overtime pay for every hour worked in excess of the regular 40 hours per week.The overtime pay should be calculated at a rate of one and a half times their usual hourly rate.For instance, if Stacy, who makes $20 per hour, works for 48 hours during one week, he gross pay for the week should be $1040 ($800 for the regular 40 hours at the usual hourly rate of $20, plus $240 for the eight extra hours at an hourly rate of $30).Since the FLSA states that any non-exempt employee should receive overtime pay for any extra hours worked, it is illegal for employers in the private sector to offer non-exempt employees comp time in lieu of overtime pay.The federal definition of overtime is any hour worked in excess of 40 hours in a week. Like we saw, however, some states, such as California, define their overtime as any amount of time worked in excess of 8 hours per day, rather than the amount of hours worked per week.Therefore, you need to be aware of the laws that govern overtime compensation in your location before issuing overtime pay to non-exempt employees, else you can easily find yourself as the subject of a legal suit.It is also important to note that a workweek does not necessarily mean Monday to Friday. A workweek consis ts of seven consecutive days, regardless of when they start.However, your definition of a workweek cannot keep changing from week to week. It must be consistent.So, what do you do in case a non-exempt employee requests for comp time instead of overtime pay?Regardless of what the employee wants, you should always keep in mind that offering comp time instead of overtime pay is a violation of federal law, and should be avoided unless your state laws state otherwise.It’s also good to note that non-exempt does not mean the same thing as hourly.I have sometimes seen employers mistakenly assume that non-exempt employees are those who are paid by the hour, while any employees paid a salary are automatically categorized as exempt.This assumption is wrong, and can lead employers to unintentionally violate the terms of the FLSA.An employee’s classification as exempt or non-exempt is determined by the duties and responsibilities of their job position, rather than by how they are paid.While all exempt employees are salaried, non-exempt employees could be either salaried or hourly.Therefore, don’t automatically assume that an employee is eligible for comp time just because they are salaried.Comp Time for Government EmployeesFormally structured and recorded comp time is a lot more common in the public sector.According to the Department of Labor, workers employed by federal, state, or local government agencies may be given comp time instead of cash overtime pay, provided certain conditions are met.The comp time for government employees should be calculated at a rate of at least one and a half hours of comp time for every extra hour worked.In order for comp time to be applicable to public sector employees, the following conditions have to be met:Where applicable, an agreement on the use of comp time should be arranged between the employer and union reps.Both the employer and the employee have to agree to the comp time prior to the employee working the extra hours.The com p time must be calculated at a minimum rate of one and a half hours for each extra hour worked.The comp time has to be used within the same pay period that the employee worked the extra hours. This means that accrued comp time cannot be rolled over to the following year.It is also good to note that first responders employed by government agencies â€" such as law enforcement officers, emergency response officers, fire protection personnel, paramedics, park rangers, probation and parole officers, corrections officers, hazardous materials workers, as well as other government employees engaged in seasonal activities â€" are considered as non-exempt employees and are therefore covered by overtime laws.However, they are still eligible to be comp time in lieu of overtime pay.Whereas other government employees are allowed to accrue up to 240 hours of comp time, first responders and seasonal employees can accrue up to a maximum of 480 hours in comp time.It is also good to note that public se ctor employees are allowed to request use of their accrued comp time whenever they deem fit, unless doing so would unduly disrupt the ability of the government agency to efficiently perform its operations.DOES COMP TIME APPLY ON HOLIDAY AND WEEKENDSWhat happens when an employee is required to work during a weekend or holiday? Are you required to compensate them for this time, and if so, how?Well, there are no federal labor laws that make it mandatory for employers to compensate employees for working on a weekend or holiday.Therefore, hours spent working on a weekend or holiday do not qualify for comp time or overtime pay.In addition, it is not mandatory for the employer to give employees time off during holidays and weekends, whether paid or unpaid.Therefore, it is up to the employer to decide whether to give an employee a day off after working during a weekend or holiday.However, such time off is not considered as comp time. Instead, you can think of it as rescheduling the employee ’s day off.SO, IS COMP TIME LEGAL, AND SHOULD YOU OFFER IT?Based on the terms stipulated within the Fair Labor Standards Act, it is illegal for employers in the private sector to offer their employees comp time in place of overtime pay, except for exempt employees.Still, the fact that comp time is illegal hasn’t stopped employers from using it to compensate employees for overtime work, either because they aren’t aware it is illegal, or because the employees have no problem with receiving comp time.A survey carried out by TSheets, which polled about 500 employers found that almost 30% of employers polled use comp time to compensate non-exempt employees for overtime hours worked. 17.4% of the respondents also said that they don’t compensate employees for overtime hours worked, which is also illegal.18% of respondents also claimed that they gave non-exempt employees the option to choose between overtime pay and comp time, with the hope that employees will go for comp time. Note that even this is illegal â€" the fact that employees prefer comp time to overtime pay does is no defense for violating the overtime laws. Source: TSheetsAside from being illegal, comp time might not be the best way of rewarding employees for overtime hours worked.Comp time can be problematic even when offered to exempt employees. Some problems that might arise from comp time include:When offered regularly to exempt employees, they might start asking for it every time they work extra hours, even if the employer is under no obligation to give them comp time.Offering comp time can cause rows over whether employees should be exempt or non-exempt.Sometimes, employees may abuse the comp time policy by working extra hours even when it is not necessary in order to get future time off.Employees can feel cheated in case they need to quit and do not get paid for any comp time they might have accrued.To avoid such issues, any employer who offers comp time to exempt employees should formulate a strict and stringent comp time policy.You should also avoid making comp time come across as an hour-for-hour overtime exchange, unless you are in the public sector where this is required.The key to doing this is to make the comp time an occasional reward, or to use it informally, without putting the extra hours worked on a score card.For instance, if an employee was forced to work extra hours to beat a deadline, the employee’s immediate manager or supervisor might give them an informal comp time by saying something like, “Hey Stacy, you have pushed yourself really hard this week. Why don’t you take Friday off and get some rest.”For employers who want to avoid having to give comp time or overtime pay, you have a few options. You could:Improve and streamline the job so that employees do not have to work extra hours.Adopt a flexible work schedule, such that employees who worked extra hours one day can work less hours another day within the week, so that they balance out and maintain the regular 40 hours per workweek.Assign some tasks to another employee to reduce the likelihood of an employee being forced to work overtime.If there is just too much work, hire an additional employee.PENALTIES FOR COMP TIME VIOLATIONSIt is important to be conversant with both the state and federal rules and regulations surrounding overtime pay and comp time, since violation of these rules can cause serious legal problems for an organization.Violations of comp time regulations are enforced by the Department of Labor.Some of the penalties you stand to face if you are found to be in violation of comp time rules include:Organizations that are found to have willingly violated the laws can be fined up to $10,000.The organization might be required to pay double the amount of back wages owed to employees.If a lawsuit by an employee is prosecuted successfully, the employer might be required to pay the legal fees associated with the suit.Employers who are found to be repeat offenders may face penalties of up to $1,000 per infraction, as well as possible jail time.Any employers who retaliate or discriminate against employ ees for filing comp time violation complaints may face additional fines.The Fair Labor Standards Act also makes it illegal to ship any goods that were produced at a time when the company was in violation of comp time and overtime regulations.WRAPPING UPThe issue of comp time vs. overtime pay can be a bit confusing for employers looking for an effective way of compensating their employees for overtime work.The most important thing to keep in mind when making this decision is to consider the status of your employees.If your employees are exempt, there are no federal directives on how to compensate them for overtime work, in which case you can go with comp time.If your employees are non-exempt, on the other hand, you are obligated to give them overtime pay for any overtime hours worked.Giving them comp time instead of overtime pay is a violation of these laws and exposes your organization to legal suits that may bring along very costly penalties.If you do not want to compensate employe es for overtime, the best thing is to effect changes that decrease the likelihood of employees working extra hours, such as adding extra employees or giving employees a flexible schedule.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Robert Frost The Most Beloved Poet - 1637 Words

â€Å"Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference† (Beginning sentence of The Road not Taken Frost). Robert Frost is the most beloved poet in America and around the world. Many of his famous works in poetry include: â€Å"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,† â€Å"Birches,† â€Å"The Road Not Taken† (Which the first sentence of this poem is the beginning introit), â€Å"A Boys Will†, and many other great works. Many would not know, but Frost was not widely successful until he was thirty-eight years old. What happens to be the most surprising thing about Robert Frost was not only how fast he was known, but how he did it. In this composition it will describe the slow and steady rise of Robert Frost’s†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Robert and Elinor shared a deep interest in poetry, but their continued education sent Robert to Dartmouth and Elinor to St. Lawrence University.â₠¬  (Gerber 1) Aggravated with his education at Dartmouth College, Robert left his education straightaway and married his beloved sweetheart in 1985. Twelve years in to the Frost’s marriage came with great sadness. The first came when Frost yet decided again to leave college, â€Å"upon entering Harvard in 1897†¦ his experience at Harvard affected him more profoundly than that of Dartmouth†. (Potter 9) The second originated when the Frost’s lost two of their three children who were both severely ill with the son infected with Cholera and one the daughters with Postpartum infections. Only one of their children was able to survive the diseases. This devastated Robert and Elinor. Not only did the devastation of two of their children’s death, but also the death of Isabelle Frost, who was the victim of cancer. 1900 was both shocking and prosperous for the Frost’s. â€Å"Although the first year was darkened by Isabelle Frost’s death, the Der ry period became a generally happy time for the family†¦and encouraging.† (Potter 10) Three more children were born during the Derry period and Frost enjoyed this very much. Aside from playing and teaching his children poems and religious stories and many other great entities, both Robert and Elinor’s personal and nuptial relationship matured immensely and was at its paramount. After the death ofShow MoreRelatedBiography of Robert Lee Frost Essay650 Words   |  3 PagesBiography of Robert Lee Frost Biography of Robert Lee Frost A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words Robert Lee Frost once said. Robert Frost is widely admired and recognized for his literary works. He was an honored poet of the twentieth century. Frost may have lived a troubling lifeRead MoreRobert Frost s Poem After Apple Picking918 Words   |  4 PagesRobert frost was one of the most critically accepted and widely admired American poets in the twentieth century. He was honored for his achievement with multiple Pulitzer Prizes for his work in poetry. He uses vivid detail about nature and has been called a natural poet although, he denies such view. Robert frost work is more of the human condition which are they key aspect being related to being a human. He was so beloved because he understood the key aspect of being related to human an d wrote poetryRead MoreRobert Frost s The Gift Outright 1313 Words   |  6 PagesRobert Frost Emma Ramsey English 6th Hour December 8, 2012 â€Æ' Robert Frost According to PoetryFoundation.org, â€Å"Robert Frost holds a unique and almost isolated position in American letters.† Robert Frost is very popular for his realistic writings of rural life. He was a great poet and was honored frequently during his lifetime. Frost received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and recited his poem, â€Å"The Gift Outright,† at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961 which got him nationalRead MoreNature Of A Man By Robert Frost1279 Words   |  6 Pagestheir work to be perceived. Robert Frost wrote his work in common folk dialect, unlike many writers of his time. Frost’s poems Design, Road not taken, and my November guest exemplify his use of diction, imagery, and word choice to show situations in a natural form, which made Frost so popular to so many varied audiences. Robert Frost’s poetry is in between the lines of modern poetry and 19th century works. In most of his poetry, he uses simple meter and verse. Frost believed that the form of aRead MoreLove and Nature in the Poems of Robert Frost Essay2313 Words   |  10 Pagesmade all the difference.† (Frost 697) Robert Frost was a unique writer of the 20th century. In his poems â€Å"Nothing Gold Can Stay† Birches Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Fire and Ice and Mending Wall Robert Frost explores the theme of nature, and the human emotion love. Robert Frost is considered a humanist and is one of the most well-known American poets. â€Å"If the United States ever adopted a national poet, chances are it would be Robert Frost. By the time Frost died in 1963 at the ageRead MoreInfluential Factors Of The Audience s Understanding1425 Words   |  6 PagesInfluential Factors of the Audience’s Understanding Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American drama film that tells the story of an English teacher, Mr. Keating, who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry. The film received critical acclaim, and was a box office success. It won the BAFTA Award for Best Film and Cà ©sar Award and David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Film (British Board of Film Classification, 2014). However, people still hold different opinions on it. Viewers haveRead MoreEdward Estlin Cummings Essay example1240 Words   |  5 Pages Edward Estlin Cummings was an American poet – the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost – born in 1894. He was immensely popular, especially among younger readers for his work; he experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax. The majority of his poems turn to the subjects of love, war, and sex, with such simplistic language, abandoning traditional techniques to create new means of poetic expression. â€Å"Somewhere I have never travelled†, is a veryRead MoreMany Factors Can Contribute To The Downfall Of A Relationship.1182 Words   |  5 Pages Many factors can contribute to the downfall of a relationship. In â€Å"Home Burial†, a modernist poem by Robert Frost, the death of s child causes said downfall. In â€Å"Your Love is Killing Me† by Sharon Van Etten, the cause of the decline in the relationship is unknown. Though similar in the way they depict the downfall of relationships, â€Å"Home Burial† and â€Å"Your Love is Killing Me† differ in their attitudes towards said relationships. â€Å"Your Love is Killing Me† by Sharon Van Etten deals with the breakingRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Essay1275 Words   |  6 Pages â€Å"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening† is, without a doubt, one of the most famous – and probably most misquoted and misunderstand – poems by Robert Frost. This poem clearly possesses pastoral elements; a beautiful, tranquil, and picturesque scene is eloquently painted through the careful use of descriptive language. This beautiful scene, however, is contrasted by the dark, elegiac undertones present in the text. Frost makes extensive use of metaphor in the poem to convey his message; while itRead MoreFrost, By Robert Frost1976 Words   |  8 PagesRobert Frost, an indigenous New England poet, is deserving of an ovation for his contributions and magnitude in American Literature. Frost advises his readers to be actively engaged in questioning the world we inhabit (49, Dickstein). In most of Frost’s work, readers and critics enjoy his choices of theme, likely being the outdoors and his surroundings. By using â€Å"emotions recollected in tranquilityà ¢â‚¬  and his organic and inviolable relationship with his countryside, he celebrates New England’s natural

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

The Greek Attitude Towards Women as seen in the Works of...

The Greek Attitude Towards Women as seen in the Works of Hesiod Hesiod leaves no doubt that the existence of women is on balance a terrible thing for men. Zeus ordered Hephaistos to create women as a punishment for his having been decieved.. Women were to be a poisoned gift for men, which all shall take to their hearts with delight, an evil to love and embrace (WD, 57-59). In the Theogony women are called a great plague because they are ill-suited to Poverty’s curse, but suited to Plenty (592-93), among other flaws. While Hesiod offers some well-turned phrases in praise of womens’ good qualities, it is unmistakable that these positive attributes are all put there by Zeus for the sole purpose of making woman an inescapable†¦show more content†¦Prometheus is given a (possibly) eternal torment, to be chained to a column and have his liver torn out daily. His brother Epimetheus is given what we may infer is punishment of comparable magnitude: the first woman. In the Works and Days, we learn she is called Pandora, The Gift of Al l. This gift comes with many alluring qualities: she looks like a goddess immortal, having the lovely shape of a virgin, she is taught by Athena weaving, and Aphrodite hasshed on her charm, †¦mak[ing] her an object of painful love and exhausting desire (Theogony, 62-66). She is dressed by Athena in a silver-white gown (575) and adorned by the Graces and our Lady Persuasion with golden necklaces, and crowned by Horai with flowers, as well as an intricately crafted golden crown, which, while a marvel to look at, depicts terrible monsters. And if these charms aren’t enough to lure a man into the clutches of woman, men who do not marry and have progeny are doomed to baneful old age with no one to care for his needs,(604-5) and his collateral heirs will divide his goods. At best, a man manages to get a virtuous wife, one endowed with good sense, throughout his life good and evil will alternate endlessly (606-8). The alternative is a wife who is not any good at all, and so the man will suffer without any respite all his life. Because in addition to woman’s inherently evil nature, that Hermes put in her mind a dog’s shamelessness and the deceit ofShow MoreRelatedAnimal Imagery And The Classical Period Essay2365 Words   |  10 Pagesuse of animal imagery in Greek literature initially appears easy to understand as it is one of the simplest types of comparison found in poetry from European tradition. In fact, Western culture seems to encourage us to contrast the human world with that of the animal. This habit makes it easy to assume that no profound meaning can truly be drawn from such a clichà ©d analogy. I have not found this to be the case however when analysing the use of animal imagery to describe women in the Classical periodRead Mo reWomen : At The Bottom Of The Grecian Man Pyramid1457 Words   |  6 PagesWomen: At the Bottom of the Grecian Man-Pyramid Listening and reading a great deal of Greek Mythology I often found myself asking what about the ladies? Well, re-reading these myths and looking past the epic heroes, I at first did not see how Greek mythology certainly undermined women and as a society were very misogynistic. Women were forcefully resting at the bottom of their man-pyramid due to the Greeks patriarchal way of thinking. In the Grecian myths women were pushed down the power hierarchyRead MoreWomen in Greece2882 Words   |  12 Pagesroles and status of women in ancient Greece are hard to asses since there is very little evidence from that period written or illustrated from a women’s perspective. Most literature and art from ancient Greece comes from men, thus making it hard to evaluate exactly what it was like to live has a women in those times. Sarah Pomeroy states in Goddesses, whores, wives and salves: women in classical antiquity the study of women in ancient literature is the study of mens views of wom en and cannot becomeRead MoreThe Gods vs. Man Essay1966 Words   |  8 Pages significance to the Greeks. It was something they feared and respected. Throughout history men have always wanted to be like the gods. It is something that is seen over and over, mans universal struggle to be like the gods. Is it mans fault that he wants to be like the gods? Or is it the gods fault? The story Oedipus Rex by Sophocles shows that mans arrogance and fallible personality is the cause of this struggle for superiority. The Greeks dealt the most with godsRead MoreHAMLET AND ORESTES10421 Words   |  42 PagesTraditional Types By Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt. Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford Fellow of the Academy New York Oxford University Press American Branch 35 West 32nd Street London : Humphrey Milford THE BRITISH ACADEMY THE ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 1914 Hamlet and Orestes A Study in Traditional Types By Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt. Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford Fellow of the Academy New York OxfordRead MoreManagement Challenges for the 21st Century.Pdf60639 Words   |  243 Pagesmost of the emerging ones (e.g., Korea or Turkey). They can already be identified, discussed, analyzed and prescribed for. Some people, someplace, are already working on them. But so far very few organizations do, and very few executives. Those who do work on these challenges today, and thus prepare themselves and their institutions for the new challenges, will be the leaders and dominate tomorrow. Those who wait until these challenges have indeed become â€Å"hot† issues are likely to fall behind, perhaps

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

What You Do Not Know About Books for Help Write Ged Essay Samples Might Surprise You

What You Do Not Know About Books for Help Write Ged Essay Samples Might Surprise You Then identify which type of essay you need compose. These forms of errors will impact the essay score only if they're so widespread they hinder the essay's readability. You are certain to find these and several different advantages if you request assistance with essay writing from Edusson! It's hard to pick a service to purchase your essay from. Alternately, you can search for essay topics online. Make an essay will not have any difficulty. If you realize that you are stuck in regards to writing an essay, request somebody's assistance that will help you proceed through writing an essay. Writing an essay at our company is completely stress-free. Books for Help Write Ged Essay Samples for Dummies Explain how you intend to achieve it. The GED asks test-takers to write on a number of subject issue. 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Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Linguistics Second Language Learning and Teaching

Question: Discuss about theLinguisticsfor Second Language Learning and Teaching. Answer: Part 1 Language is a complex system of sounds and humans generally gain the ability to learn and acquire language at an age of four to six years. However, the learning capability may vary from person to person. Research shows that humans have the capability to learn more at specific periods of their life. At certain stages, the brain learns to gain certain propensities from the environment in which he lives (VanPatten Williams, 2014). For instance, he learns the language of humans and slowly learns how to use it. Humans learn to use and implement language till puberty. In fact, in some cases it has been seen that children learn foreign language more quickly and efficiently than adults (Benson Voller, 2014). Humans learn a language through speech sounds, signs, and symbols. Saussure talks about acquisition of human language. Meaning is attributed to a word. The meaning itself is not contained within it. Sign comprises the linguistic form and the meaning. Both the signifier and the signified are contained within a word (Rock, 2016). When one teaches a child any language, he/she makes him her acquainted with the objects and the meaning contained within it. For instance, a child learns the word cat when he is shown a cat and told that this is a cat. He first sees the expressions that are created on the face of the speaker when the word is pronounced (Ortega, 2009). His understanding of the word cat may differ from the understanding of the speaker. He may take the word cat to be sat. It is pronunciation that is the only physical part of a language and demands programming through neuromuscular activities (Joseph, 2013). A child observes the motor skills in the tongue, lips, throat- precisely the lower face. It is to be noted that all these organs of the body are involved in the production of sound and speech. An individual thus, first learns by seeing, watching, and observing. However, the exact sound produced by the speaker is not always replicated by the listener. The listener may perceive the speech sound completely in a different way. Once a child learns to perceive speech sound, he slowly and gradually learns to associate the meanings attributed to words (Harris, Taylor, 1997) In case of second or foreign language, a person is likely to develop foreign sounding accents when he/ she has learned the first or native language completely. He then learns the second or foreign language in the later period of his life. Compared to adults, children learn languages very quickly and easily. An adult must struggle and toil to learn a new language. However, a child picks up any language out of thin air. For him, it is a part of a play. Children initially communicate using vocalizations and gestures (McGilvray, 2013). It is only through vocalizations and gestures that they make their intents known to others. Children then learn words and their usage. New functions slowly take over the old functions. They learn words and associate the meanings attributed to them. They learn to express their feelings through words which they earlier did through preverbal means. Though the language that humans learn differs from one place to another, the way in which children learn to use a language is universal. Children, with time, acquire the meanings, forms, and uses of utterances and words. In this regard, there are two methods in which the language skill of an individual is developed. There are two approaches for development of syntax. The first is the empiricist approach in which children learn the syntactic rules. The second is the nativist approach in which the principles of syntax are innate. In this approach, the principles are transmitted through genome (Mitchell et al., 2013). The nativist theory was proposed by Naom Comsky. According to him, children are able to learn and acquire a language since they have the innate ability of language acquisition. It is a unique accomplishment of humans. Children have language acquisition device or the LAD (Chomsky, 2014). The LAD is the area of the human brain wherein all the rules of a language are set. The syntactical rules of all languages are stored in the brain of a child. Hence children are able to construct novel words and sentences using their vocabulary. Chomsky claims that it is this innate quality because of which children are able to learn a new language (Moro et al., 2015). Whatever children hear, the external linguistic input is not sufficient to explain their ability to know and learn a language. Naom Chomsky argues that the external input from the environment has limitations and is full of errors. It is thus impossible for a child to learn a language solely from the external environment until and unless he has the innate quality of acquisition. It is because of the language acquisition device that children are able to learn a language wholly and completely despite errors and incomplete information from the external environment (Cohen, 2014). On the other hand, the empiricist theory contrasts Chomskys nativist theory. The empiricist theory suggests that since there is enough information in the external environment and children are able to receive that information properly, they do not need any innate language acquisition device (De, 2014). The existence of an innate device is purely based on assumption. Since external sources are available, there is no need to assume that there exists an innate device and it is only because of this innate device that children are able to learn and acquire a language. Empiricists believe that the brain processes in a human are sufficient for the acquisition of a language. It is of utmost importance that a child is actively engaged with the environment while learning a language (Culler, 1976). The adult or teachers must communicate with the child appropriately that is, he must carry out child directed speech or the CDS. It is through the child directed speech that the children are given the information required to learn a language. According to the statistical language acquisition, children acquire and learn language through perception of patterns (Givn Ranch, 2013). According to the interactionist perspective, children learn language through interaction and communication. Learning a language means creating meaningful ways of communication. It is only through interaction that children are able to learn a language. Language, is, in fact, a mode of communication. It is in the first six years of a human life that a child learns a language. In the first three to twelve months, a baby is merely able to laugh and make cooing sounds. He communicates through symbols and gestures. Children start producing babbling sounds by the age of twelve months (Hoff, 2013). This is followed by jargon phase whereby children start producing unintelligible strings forming a conversation like tone. The babbling sound thus sounds meaningful. In the next twelve to eighteen months, children start uttering words that are rich in meaning. More words are added to the vocabulary and children gain understanding of words and their surrounding environment (de Saussure, 1983). In t he next eighteen months to two years, children start putting the words in their vocabulary together to form meaningful phrases and sentences. In the next three to five years, the child becomes a preschooler and is able to construct longer and more meaningful sentences. He/ she can now put words and sentences together in a variety of ways. Finally, once the child turns six, he/ she begins to understand the working of language. They learn how to use them and are able to find out meanings out of their framed sentences (Hyams, 2012). A child thus first learns to produce sounds by listening and watching others in the environment. It is only after acquisition of speech sounds that a child develops the ability to learn a language. Speech is completely a physical activity controlled by the brain and needs the organs of the lower face such as lips and the vocal cords. Language involves both written and spoken language (Schtze, 2016). Part 2 Teaching English as a second language to the non-native speakers, can in itself be a highly challenging task. The main challenge while teaching English to a non-native English speaker, lies in the fact that a child takes a long time in acquiring the phonemes and speech sounds of the new language. I have a personal experience of teaching English to a 5 year old child, who had been learning English for the first time in the English class. In this part, I intend to discuss as well as critically analyze the language acquisition process of the particular child, as observed by me. The child had been raised by a Chinese couple, and as a result the child had been accustomed to the Chinese language since his childhood. As it is a well-known fact, that any child mostly acquires a new language between 18 months to 4 years, this particular child failed to receive sufficient exposure to English language, during the very early phase of his life. Consequently, the biggest challenge has been to create an organic need for the child to employ the words of the minority language (here English). However, language learning process does not start off very fast. During the very first few weeks, (approximately a period of 2 weeks), the child was acquainted with his native language only, and consequently refused to communicate via the newly learnt English language. This period can be referred to as the silent period, when the child had been more of an observer, trying to observe, and willing to imitate the facial expression, gestures or speech sounds of the teacher. The way I was enunciating common words, such as Book, Ball, or Play, was being observed by the child, who however refused to communicate with me in the foreign language. Once, the silent period has passed, from the third week onwards, the child started enunciating indistinct words, though the sound utterances were not always right. In this stage, although the child have been acquiring new words of English language, he had been hearing n the last couple of weeks, he was unable to form a symbolic association (lantolf et al., 2015). Each word, as even Saussure, had pointed out in his structuralism theory signifies a specific concept that becomes a symbol for the learner, in the language acquisition process. Thus, the picture teaching technique becomes a very fruitful way of teaching new language. The child already had clear acquaintance with the idea of common objects or things, such as play, food, or boy, and hence I used pictures, for each object, to signify the object as well as the concept, it was denoting (Mitchell et al., 2013). The child started forming pictorial association between the objects seen, and the English words signifying the same that helped him remember the words. However, it should be noted that the utterances or the speech sounds of the child were far different from that of the native English students. The English phonemes do not exist in the Chinese language, and more importantly the stress and the intonation patterns of the English language are completely different from those of the Chinese language. The child was unable to distinguish between the pronunciation of ship, and sheep, or full and fool, and he was pronouncing both the words in each set alike. Besides, often when the child was being shown the picture of sheep, he confused it with ship, and wrote the same. Each word in itself stands for, and signifies a specific concept, and in case of a new language learning process, I observed the child got confused between the two similarly spelt and almost similarly pronounced words. I realized that the phoneme video and audio lessons became imperative to solve the problem. During the next stage, although this kind of confusion was not occurring frequently, I observed that the child struggled to comprehend the underlying structure of the language. While he was well-aware of the commonly used inputs of language, the child was unable to understand the rules of word segmentation. The question is how to frame a grammatically correct sentence, or how to absorb the statistical regularities of apparently meaningless acoustic events. I observed that the child had rather shown a fast progress in detecting the probabilities with which one syllable predicts the other. Again, I also observed that the child encountered a huge challenge in assessing the distribution of language elements, and consequently he was not able to understand the significance of grammatical endings ( -s, -ed) or even the function words (to, of ), while constructing a sentence in English. While trying to say, My mom brought me the bag, the students said I brought my mom a bag (Cook, 2013). Thu s, the parsing process, which forms an important part of the language comprehension process, was not developed in the child. However, gradually when I introduced classroom reading sessions and made story-telling sessions a mandate, I was able to solve this problem. Gradually, by engaging in the story-telling and hearing process, the child was finally able to assemble a string of elements among the different inputs of English language. In case I wish to evaluate the teaching method, I would like to appreciate the video and audio method that was being adopted for improving the phoneme and the speech sound of the child. Besides, the video lessons can help in grabbing the attention of a child in a more effective way, and can eliminate his unwillingness or fear of learning a new language. These lessons can easily appeal to the sense of the child, enthuse him to actively participate in the learning process, and can also improve his vocabulary as well (Rost Candlin, 2014). The story-telling sessions, also was a good thing as it helped in fascinating the child, thereby making him a more active and fast learner. However, I feel that I should have also used familiar Chinese images, themes or mythological stories, while explaining concepts or narrating stories in English. Instead of telling him story of Cinderella, I could have used stories of Yeh-Shen, so that the child can easily recognize the inner meaning. Besides, I co uld also have recommended the use of mobile apps to the child, that could help in the effective, faster language learning process. A child developing and acquiring a new language, requires huge effort and time as well as guidance from the teacher and the family. It is not merely about the words, or the grammatical rules, but it is all about learning the new concept and a new framework as a whole. In order to learn a language in an integrated way, the teacher requires focusing on the development of more advanced vocabulary and phrases. The child must not be taught a new language, but must be encouraged and inspired to experiment new words and phrases. In order to prevent the boredom of the learning process, new, fresh and innovative as well as student-friendly techniques of language techniques, should be adopted by the instructor. References Benson, P., Voller, P. (2014).Autonomy and independence in language learning. Routledge. Bygate, M., Swain, M., Skehan, P. (2013).Researching pedagogic tasks: Second language learning, teaching, and testing. Routledge. Chomsky, N. (2014).Aspects of the Theory of Syntax(Vol. 11). MIT press. Cohen, A. D. (2014).Strategies in learning and using a second language. Routledge. Cook, V. (2013).Second language learning and language teaching. Routledge. Culler, J. (1976). Saussure. Sussex: The Harvester Press. Chapter 2: Saussures theory of language - pp. 18-52. de Saussure, F. (1983). Course in general linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). London: Duckworth. Part II, Chapter IV: Linguistic value; Part II Chapter V: Syntagmatic relations and associative relations - pp. 110-125. De, R. (2014).Linguistic theory: The discourse of fundamental works. Routledge.. Givn, T., Ranch, W. C. (2013). On the intellectual roots of functionalism in linguistics.Functional Approaches to Language,248, 9. Harris, R., Taylor, T. J. (1997). Landmarks in linguistic thought I (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge. Introduction - pp. xiii-xxi. Hoff, E. (2013).Language development. Cengage Learning. Hyams, N. (2012).Language acquisition and the theory of parameters(Vol. 3). Springer Science Business Media. Joseph, J. E. (Ed.). (2013).Ferdinand de Saussure: Saussure, Structuralism and Post-structuralism. Routledge. Koerner, E. F. (2013).Ferdinand de Saussure: origin and development of his linguistic thought in Western studies of language(Vol. 7). Springer-Verlag. Lantolf, J. P., Thorne, S. L., Poehner, M. E. (2015). Sociocultural theory and second language development.Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction, 207-226. McGilvray, J. (2013).Chomsky: Language, mind and politics. Polity. Mitchell, R., Myles, F., Marsden, E. (2013).Second language learning theories. Routledge. Mitchell, R., Myles, F., Marsden, E. (2013).Second language learning theories. Routledge. Moro, A., Chomsky, N., Caponigro, I., Kane, D. B. (2015).The boundaries of Babel: The brain and the enigma of impossible languages. Mit Press. Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Hodder. - CHAPTER 10: Social dimensions of L2 learning. pp. 216-254. Rock, P. (2016).Making of symbolic interactionism. Springer. Rost, M., Candlin, C. N. (2014).Listening in language learning. Routledge. Schtze, C. T. (2016).The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology(p. 244). Language Science Press. VanPatten, B., Williams, J. (2014).Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction. Routledge.

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Puberty in Alice and Wonderland free essay sample

One of the most prominent themes in children’s   is maturation and grasping with adulthood. In keeping with this tradition, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland presents a girl who transforms immensely from the bored little girl who can’t imagine reading a book without pictures to the mature adult described at the end of the novel. Throughout much of the novel, the reader witnesses Alice struggling with frequent, rapid changes in her body. While the repeated size changes in the book serve to illustrate the difficulties of children in grasping the changes of puberty, the changes in Alice’s personality and state of mind that come with each fluctuation in size hint at the greater rewards of knowledge and certainty that accompany Alice’s maturation. Alice’s first adventure in Wonderland presents the emotional frustration that comes with being so uncertain about one’s identity. After noticing a fifteen-inch door and the flourishing garden that lays behind it, Alice expresses a desire to shrink in order to fit through it, a wish that is then fulfilled by her consumption of a drink laying on a nearby table (Carroll 22-3). We will write a custom essay sample on Puberty in Alice and Wonderland or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page From the onset of her time in Wonderland, Alice is concerned by her inability to fit in with her physical surrounding. We see this in her initial reaction to shrinking; she’s immediately elated expressing her pleasure at being â€Å"now the right size† (24). Yet this joy quickly dissolves into apprehension.. Alice’s sudden diminution is accompanied by a strikingly different perspective of her surroundings that creates a more hostile environment. Small and out of place, Alice’s persistent effort to climb up the slippery legs of the glass table brings her to tears. This sudden inability to conquer her surroundings startles Alice and concerns the narrator, who begins to repeat variations on the phrase â€Å"poor Alice† (24), causing readers to identify her shrunken state with frustration and dejection. Essentially, Alice’s response to being small in a large world seems to mirror the frustration of those who desire to grow up. Alice’s confusion merely continues after eating the cake she finds under the table (25). From the beginning, she is unsure in which way her body will respond: will she grow larger or smaller? Alice even delays to see how her body will respond to this relatively ordinary event, placing her hand on her head and awaiting the results â€Å"anxiously† (25). The resultant size change further alarms Alice as she explores her body after growing. With her increase in stature (26), Alice is so disconcerted on how far emoved her head is from her feet that she meditates rather nonsensically on the idea in an effort to grasp the new perspective she has developed. Now too small for surroundings that were formerly too small for her (and even before that, just the right height), â€Å"[p]oor Alice† (27) is still in no position to achieve entering the garden. Remarkably, her initial reaction is quite similar: she begins crying hopelessly—but she quickly admonishes herself, claiming that â€Å"a great girl like [her]† (the word â€Å"great† here referring to her new size) has no business crying like the small child that appeared merely two pages before. Despite her remarkable change in size, then, Alice’s personality and views remain unaffected, a fact that leaves her even more frustrated as she continues crying. In other words, Alice knows she is acting inappropriately for her new size, but she still remains unable to seize control of her increasingly volatile emotions. Similar to biological hormone surges, Alice’s rapid changes in growth are accompanied by fierce emotions and mood swings that she is unable to control. Alice’s meditation upon the recent events also provides great insight into how changes in size have affected her mentally. On page 28, the girl confusedly discusses the identity crisis that has befallen her, identifying the puzzling question that these changes have led her to: â€Å"Who in the world am I? † As she begins to meditate on whether she may have been changed for another child, we see the depth to which she has been affected. So flustered by these constant changes, Alice’s memory and knowledge have suffered, as she is unable to recall basic facts. This, accompanied by the realization that her voice has become hoarse and strange, once again moves â€Å"poor Alice† to tears. Finding both her body and mind to be completely altered, Alice hints towards not liking who she has become, resolving to stay in Wonderland and only come out if she is somebody else. Just as soon as this stream of thoughts leaves her, though, Alice realizes that she has shrunk once again, and rather than being comforted, Alice is â€Å"frightened at the sudden change† (29), saying that she is now â€Å"worse than ever† and that she â€Å"never was so small as this before. † She finds herself confronted by a pool of tears that had once seemed so inconsequential, frustrated once again by her uncontrollable emotions: â€Å"I wish I hadn’t cried so much! (30). Once again, she realizes somewhat bitterly that â€Å"everything is queer to-day. † Alice’s size continues to come into play through her interactions with the mouse. Not used to seeing things from small eyes, Alice’s etiquette is brought into question as she offends the mouse with h er talk of cats (31). Despite being the same size as the normally-small animals she now interacts with, Alice is viewed as foolish for not utilizing the same logic as her counterparts. In essence, while she is physically small, her mind has not adapted to this new size and she does not fit in among small creatures. The animals’ simplicity seems incredibly childlike throughout the third chapter, particularly with the childlike arguments and faux pretentiousness that many of the creatures utilize (34). The Caucus-race seems to resemble childlike games that make little sense to observers, and Alice notes this absurdity (36), again showing her inability to fit in with this other world. As her travels continue, however, Alice begins to come to terms with the frequent size changes and shows increased logic in dealing with the unpleasant situations. Upon her foray into the White Rabbit’s house, Alice expresses both a desire to grow and frustration with being â€Å"a tiny little thing† (41). While Alice realizes that she will grow upon drinking the bottle, she still does not recognize that her inability to control her growth. She is surprised by the rapidity of the action, and despite her explicit wishes, she continues growing until she is too large for her physical surroundings, her body extending outside of the house. Alice has not yet learned that her changes in size will cause her discomfort and unhappiness, and once again she finds herself hopeless (42). Commenting on her physical size, Alice notes that she is â€Å"grown up now† and pleased that there’s no room to â€Å"grow up any more†. However a sentence later, she contradicts this thought, worrying that she will â€Å"never get any older,† yet comforted by never having to be â€Å"an old woman† (42). This contradiction shows the confusion with which Alice views herself: she is not a childnor does she desire to be one—and yet she does not entirely see herself as a woman. In other words, Alice is stuck between stages of her life: while her size suggests maturation, she does not identify herself as a mature adult. This is further evidenced by Alice’s subsequent fear of the White Rabbit (43). Still in the mind-frame of a child, she trembles, neglecting to come to terms with being â€Å"about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit. † Yet with her increased size, Alice has become more assertive and more prepared to handle her situation. Wielding her sudden growth as a weapon rather than seeing it as a ulnerability, she scares the Rabbit with her motions in order to fend him off and kicks Bill the lizard as he goes to retrieve her (44). Contrary to her interaction with the mouse, Alice is now adequately prepared to handle smaller creatures: she displays an increased knowledge and a stronger capacity for coping with her situation. More aggressive now, she embraces the physical change, resorting to vocal threats that are backed by the differen ces in size between her and the creatures. Even more remarkable, Alice becomes aware that she can use these size changes to her advantage, responding to the violent attacks of the creatures by shrinking in size (45). Still, after the ordeal, Alice is desperate to reach â€Å"the right size†, wanting to â€Å"grow up again† (47). Alice’s lack of identity is further underlined in her conversation with the Caterpillar. From the outset of their interaction, Alice explains her identity crisis, explicitly stating, â€Å"I can’t understand it myself†¦and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing. (49) She is remarkably unable to answer the simple question of identity, telling the caterpillar that while she is fully aware who she was when her adventures began, she has changed several times since then. Alice states that her problem is not with the size that she is (an odd contradiction to her previously-stated desire to return to the right size), realizing that she simply doesn’t like changing so often. The Caterpillar responds in scorn, insinuating that Alice is being ridiculous with his standoffish remarks. He appears to be rather knowledgeable throughout their whole conversation, speaking authoritatively on not only her size changes, but her recitation of ‘You are old, Father William’. After their conversation, Alice launches into a similar identity crisis: eating the mushroom causes her body to undergo strange changes where some parts change and others do not (54-55), but after much experimenting, she eventually manages to return to her â€Å"usual height. † (56) Alice sums up her recent events by stating that the fundamental problem with her physical changes is that she never knows what she’ll be â€Å"from one minute to another. The vast knowledge of the caterpillar provides an odd conundrum when compared with the Mouse from chapter III, whose small size seemed to be associated with the childlike state of mind that he possessed. However the size contrast of Alice and the Caterpillar provides a reasonable explanation: he is larger than her (48: â€Å"a la rge blue caterpillar†), and thus more knowledgeable just as Alice was able to outsmart the Rabbit when she was previously a thousand times its size. This lays the foundations for the idea that relative size appears to indicate knowledge and power in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, an idea that is further affirmed by Alice’s final size change in the book and will signal Alice’s passing through puberty. During the trial, Alice’s growth accompanies the point at which her logic finally begins to triumph over the nonsense that dominates Wonderland. Alice begins growing rather helplessly during the trial, but her physical change is now accompanied with a more bold and assertive personality (106). As she moves to take the stand, Alice suddenly realizes just how large she has grown, but for the first time in the novel, she doesn’t seem concerned or disconcerted by her new stature. Alice is marked by her critical attitude towards the trial, assertively answering the King’s questions and countering the King’s attempted attacks on her with her own logic (112). Alice is also marked by her aggressive attitude towards the Queen; instead of attempting to please her, Alice now cuts her off and demands attention and order rather than nonsense and whim (113, 115). Alice’s greatest realization occurs as she grows to full size and declares that those who formerly inspired fear are only a pack of cards (116). This is the final change of the novel, and its effects are best summarized by Alice’s sister at the end of the novel. As she dreams of Alice’s adventures, she remarks on Alice’s initial status as â€Å"little Alice† with the â€Å"tiny hands† and â€Å"eager eyes† (117). However after her adventures (in the â€Å"after-time†), she views Alice as a knowledgeable and loving â€Å"grown woman† who would reflect fondly on â€Å"her own child-life† (118). She creates a contrast, identifying Alice apart from the â€Å"simple and loving heart† of her childhood. Thus, with her growth in size, Alice has received a wealth of knowledge and finally achieved maturity. On the surface, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland regards Alice’s physical changes with hostility and apprehension. However upon further examining the mental and emotional changes that accompany them, it becomes clear that the physical changes produce the eventual reward of self-awareness and knowledge that allow Alice to finally triumph over her threatening environment. It is through these changes which Alice achieves the ability to brandish adult logic against the childhood nonsense that governs Wonderland. Thus, Carroll manages to accurately portray the emotional difficulties of maturity by also depicting their eventual reward.

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Ginzburg Essays - Art History, Painting, Style, Gottfried Semper

Ginzburg Essays - Art History, Painting, Style, Gottfried Semper Ginzburg Proceeding from the following quote, briefly explain Ginzburgs historical model of stylistic change, referring back to Volliet-le-Duc and Gottfried Semper wherever appropriate. A Flower grows in the field because it cannot help but to grow: thus it cannot contemplate whether or not it is appropriate to the field that existed before it. On the contrary, by its very appearance, the flower transforms the general image of the field Ginzburg talks about the formal development of styles and how the modern architecture is grown from the past but isnt necessarily based on the past. These ideas are very much shared by Semper. This growth is singular and linear, based on a preceding proposition, each out growing the latter, but not continuing the old. a person making use of the achievements in electricity cannot, under any circumstances, be forced to revert to steam power. Gottfried Semper explains this form of thinking very well in that, we learn from the past, we cannot copy it, as this is a waste but rather we cannot turn our backs on this existing knowledge, and previous epochs. The development and changing of styles is a meshed concept. There is no end or beginning of styles. Ginzburg explains the life of a particular style as a growing organism in that it is born, lives out its youth, matures and lives out its old age, but never dies, but rather atrophies. This is why the actual timing of a style is impossible to track, for there is no death of a style, the life of the style atrophies. Styles cannot be erased because they are not physical elements to knocked down and demolished. So when an epoch forms, there is a trace of the old style, a marking, like a child would have of his parents. Each style has a genetic imprint of its parent, history. A flower grows in the field because it cannot help but to grow A flower germinates in the grown and is thus, it is born. This organism grows in its field, no choices, no alternatives, but it still grows. This flower could wither and die, for what difference would it make? But does it know that its individual expression of color and aroma could be the single characteristic that beautifies its surroundings. A style that in its own being, transforms a hideous field into a breathtaking space. This theory of style stands true to the linear growth of architecture. Style will continue to grow and thrive, without its own predetermined plan. Each bit of architecture is born, and lives through maturity. This excerpt is taken from the given quote above. It assesses the revolution Ginzburg prescribing for Russia. Ginzburg talks about how the architects in Russia, like the flower, doesnt have the choice of banishing the historical development of architecture. But that their styles can transform t his field into a flowering spectacle.

Thursday, February 20, 2020

US Immigration History Reading Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

US Immigration History Reading Journal - Essay Example Adams (242) criticizes the exploitation by immigrant parents of their children’s earnings, and extols the role of public schools as Americanizing agencies: school-going daughters educate their immigrant mothers. The third sociologist (244) depicts the patriarchal immigrant family, in which arranged marriages are the norm, and children automatically assume responsibility for their parents. The the three Italian-American males (246), regret the undermining of traditional parental authority and the American-like freedom granted to immigrant women. The accounts of Swedish-Americans (248) demonstrate the economic and personal freedom gained by immigrant women in the USA. The Mexican ballads (249) echo the earlier Italian chauvinistic protest against liberalization of female behavior. The narrative of a Chinese prostitute (250) shows that, in some cases, female exploitation by ethnic groups continues even after immigration. Diner’s essay (252) depicts how low marital rates, late marriages, desertion by husbands and prevalent domestic violence, combined with Irish women’s long stint in the labor force, effectively raises women’s authority and status within the family order. Finally, Ruiz’s (262) essay uses oral testimony from Chicano women to show the tension between expected adherence to traditional culture and the attraction of the American way of life. World War 11 brings new employment opportunities and hastens the Americanization of Chicano immigrants. By the judicious choice and mix of primary sources, the author has succeeded in giving a very vivid picture of the life of women in traditional immigrant families and the changes brought about by contact with American society. It is evident that it is the women who served as the most active agents of change and accelerated the assimilation of immigrants into American

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

FINAL REPORT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 9000 words

FINAL REPORT - Essay Example The researcher was appointed as an accounting clerk and placed at Almajal security firm where the individual’s fundamental responsibility was to support accounting operations which mainly involved filling up of documents. In addition to that the researcher was also responsible for settlement of financial statements as well as run a simulation package. This reflective report has primarily been segmented into two sections. The first segment involves an exploration of different learning curves attained during the placement program. Alongside that, a thorough analysis of learning outcomes will be done via a self reflective report with the help of theoretical models that emulate the overall mechanism of learning. Thereafter is the second segment where the research topic will be addressed. In this segment the researcher will basically conduct an in-depth research by means of an investigative study over the implications of automating the process of accounting followed within an organization. This analysis will be presented in context of the organization where the researcher was placed. One of the major issues witnessed in contemporary accounting organizations is accounting error, manipulation or fraud. On one hand where accounting regulators such as the Internal Accounting Standards Board is trying their level best to unify accounting principles in order to enhance the transparency and understandability of financial statements, accounting officials are either committing huge errors or indulging in fraudulent activities which in turn is increasing the cost borne by the company. This is where the relevance of an automated accounting process lies, that strives to minimize the probability of error and in turn enhance efficiency of the organization under concern. This in turn would enable the company to increase its profit margin while bringing down the cost. As conclusion, it was stated that incorporating technologically enabled

Monday, January 27, 2020

Risk management and hedging

Risk management and hedging Risk Management And Hedging In Derivatives Market Risk management can be undertaken in several different manners, which often depends on the structure and initiatives for the specific firm. One commonly used approach is to hedge in the derivatives market, which consists of futures, forwards, swaps, CFDs, warrants, convertibles and options. Derivatives are financial instruments whose value and performance depends on the value of underlying assets, for example equities, stock market indices, exchange rates, commodities etc. The main argument for hedging is for companies to minimize risks that may arise from interest rates, exchange rates, and other market variables and volatilities. By engaging in derivatives companies manage their various risks by hedging a position, to be more certain what the outcome will be. For example, one can hedge a certain amount of currency at a future point in time, in order to know exactly how much that will be received/paid at the specific time thereby avoiding the risk of losing value because of the exchange rate risk. There are however also arguments against hedging in the derivatives market. Establishing hedging programs may be very costly, and if there are alternative and more cost efficient ways to reduce risks, such as operational and financial strategies, that could be preferable. Furthermore, sometimes hedging may lead to losses even though there is a gain on the underlying asset, which is a scenario that is difficult to explain to stakeholders. If losses appear too often, this could cause mistrust from the shareholders, and should then be avoided. One has to consider the overall trade-off between costs and savings when engaging in hedging to manage and reduce risks. It is therefore also necessary for management to undergo thorough risk assessments and to construct firm specific schedules, in order to identify the most significant risks and subsequently to establish risk preventing actions. Hedging is in addition mostly used by institutions that are extensively exposed to the various busines s and market risks, and who most of the time would benefit from undertaking such actions. However, derivatives may also be used by the private sector if necessary. The article Who Manages Risk? An Empirical Examination of Risk Management Practices in the Gold Mining Industry by Peter Tufanoexamines a new database that details corporate risk management activity in the North American gold mining industry. The article claims that academics know remarkably little about corporate risk management practice, even though almost three fourths of corporations have adopted at least some financial engineering techniques to control their exposures to intresest rates, foregin exchange rates, and commodity prices. There is little empirical support for the predictive power of theories that view risk management as a means to maximize shareholder value. The article furthermore describes risk management practices and tests their conformance with existing theory by analyzing an industry that seems almost tailor-made for academic investigation: the North American gold mining industry. These firms share a common and clear exposure in that their output is a globally traded, volatile commodity. Firms can manage this exposure using a rich set of instruments, including forward and futures contracts, gold swaps, gold or bullion loans, rolling forward commitments called spot deferred contracts, and options. Perhaps most importantly, firms in the gold mining industry disclose their risk management activities in great detail. The gold industry has embraced risk management: over 85 percent of the firms in the industry used at least some sort of gold price risk management in 1990-1993. Using industry-specific measures for firms exposures, cost structures, and investment programs, Tufano tests whether cross-sectional differences in risk management activity can be explained by academic theory. For example, theory predicts more extensive risk management by firms more likely to face financial distress, which in this industry can be measured by operating costs and leverage. Other theories posit that corporate risk management activities might be linked to risk aversion of corporate managers, and the form in which they hold a stake in the firm. These theories would predict that firms whose managers hold greater equity stakes as a fraction of their private wealth would be more inclined to manage gold price risk, but those whose managers hold options might be less inclined to manage gold price risk. This article tes ts the predictive (as compared with the prescriptive) power of the various theories, i.e., whether they help describe the choices made by firms. He finds that gold mining firms risk management decisions are consistent with some of the extant theory. Managerial risk aversion seems particularly relevant; the data bear out Smith and Stulzs (1985) prediction that firms whose managers own more stock options manage less gold price risk, and those whose managers have more wealth invested in common stock manage more gold price risk. These results seem robust under a variety of econometric specifications, and using a number of alternative proxy variables. In contrast, theories that explain risk management as a means to reduce the costs of financial distress, to break the firms dependence on external financing, or to reduce expected taxes are not supported strongly. He also finds that firm risk management levels appear to be higher for firms with smaller outside block holdings and lower cash balances, and whose senior financial managers have shorter job tenures. â€Å"Managing Foreign Exchange Risk with Derivatives†by Gregory W. Brown is a field study of HDG, a multinational manufacturing company of durable equipment with sales in more than 50 countries that actively encounters 24 different currency exchanges. Although multinational companies like HDG are always exposed to foreign exchange risk, this is one of very few studies that investigate the risk management operations for a non-financial corporation. Since multinational companies tend to be very complex, while using multiple strategies, a field study of this nature provides a deeper understanding of how the risk management process works. Dr. Brown attempts to answer to three main questions. First he wants to understandhowthe Forex risk management program is structured; second,whythe firm focuses on management of exchange risk; finallywhatHDG uses within their hedging derivative portfolio in order to minimize their foreign exchange risk. In order to get a comprehensive understanding Dr. Brown investigated HDG over 14 quarters starting from 1995 and ending in 1998. The structure of HDGs foreign exchange group consisted of 11 employees who were not considered â€Å"traders†, with an average experience of 4 years, whose focus was not only hedging foreign exchange risk. The program cost which included salaries and overhead was approximately $1.5M annually, and the overall transactional costs averaged around $2.3M annually. HDG had an actual foreign exchange risk policy which focused to reduce transactional, translational, and overall economic exposures. In order to meet this policy the group actively engaged in spot and forward contracts, currency put option, and currency call options. Traditional economic theories usually illustrate hedging Forex risk for benefits such as reducing taxable income, protecting against potential costs of financial distress, and reducing overall volatility of wealth. HDG however, focu sed its risk management program on smoothing out earnings impacts, providing the company with competitive pricing, and enabling improved internal control management. In some ways it seemed that HDG was attempting to use Forex risk hedging in a speculative attempt to increase potential income and thereby increase overall firm value. The procedure used in Forex risk hedging was quite simplistic. The department would not use live market feeds but rather sources such as Bloomberg to signify a â€Å"hedge rate† from current market rates and overall cost of derivatives. This information would then be passed onto the tax department and after review would be developed into a hedging strategy to forecast future hedging activity. Browns statistical studies of HDGs hedging activities concluded that the models R-squared value increased as the time horizon decreased. This indicated that the companies hedging activity was dramatically affected by its most recent hedging transactions. This may seem rather obvious but the strongest tests only indicated 55% in accuracy. In all Brown explains there is much more in the way of testing that needs to beconducted in order to better evaluate which additional factors significantly influence the Forex risk management of multinational non-financial companies. This study should be the start of a new investigation in understanding currency risk perspectives. In Risk Measurement and Hedging: With and Without Derivatives, Petersen and Thiagarajan (2000) explore the reasons for two gold mining companies to use opposite approaches in managing their risk, namely American Barrick, which aggressively hedges its gold price risk with derivatives, and Homestake Mining, which uses no derivatives. By studying two firms from the same industry, which hardly has any variation in product quality, the fundamental differences that lead to the different approaches in risk management can be examined. Homestake Mining is focused on developing its own properties and hence, spends more on exploration costs (capital and labour costs), which makes high gold prices profitable if they are not correlated with exploration costs. The greater need of investment capital Homestakes Mining has when gold prices are high makes reductions in the volatility of operating cash flow less valuable to it as a complete hedging would take cash flow away when gold prices are high, i.e. when Homestake Mining is in need of it. The different opportunities companies possess of also explain some reasons for different risk management strategies. Homestake Mining has for example lower costs of adjusting the mining output than American Barrick as the former can (over a short period) alter the quality of the ore that is mined. This mining strategy creates costs that vary positively with the price of gold and thus provides the firm with a natural hedge, which American Barrick does not possess of. As managers will act differently according to the risk they are personally bearing, compensation strategies is of upmost importance when it comes to risk management. Both the American Barrick and Homestake Mining use options to link the managerial wealth to the shareholder wealth, however, American Barrick does so more intensively. Also, its compensation is equity-focused where the bonuses are linked to the stock values, whereas Homestake Miningss bonuses are linked to the profitability, which explains why the latter adjusts its costs as gold prices change. The earnings are quite volatile, however through this can be reduced by different choices of accounting techniques, which is the reason for Homestake Mining to changes them in opposite direction to gold prices, where American Barrick rarely alters its accounting choices at all. From the above findings one may conclude that the choice of managing risks depends on various firms specific characteristics; their firm structure, management contracts and incentives. Specifically, it is a matter of the trade-off between costs and savings/benefits. Establishing and maintaining derivatives program is often quite costly, and therefore the alternative of using other methods to hedge risks may be preferable. In the article Hedging and Coordinated Risk Management: Evidence from Thrift Conversions, the writers argue that the firms risk management can be used to reallocate the firms total risk between different sources, rather than reduce it. So in this case hedging doesnt necessarily equal total risk reduction as often stated, but rather a technique of risk-reallocation or as an essential part of a firms profit-maximizing strategy. This becomes clearer if we separate risk in to two types, based on the activities where the firms have their comparative information advantages, namely: -Core business risk: Firms earn rents or economic profit for taking on activities bearing this risk. -Homogenous risk: Financial risk as interest rate changes, foreign currency exchange rates, or commodity prices. By contrast there is no compensation for bearing this kind of risk. (This doesnt necessarily apply if the firm has a comparative information advantage in the financial risk sector, then financial risk can then become core business risk. If we now consider a risky asset, it may be viewed as a portfolio of multiple claims from the owners. These claims are bundled together which basically means that the firm must take on all the projects if it wants any of them. A subset of these projects may be â€Å"core business projects† which have a positive NPV for the firm, and the remaining subset may be projects bearing homogenous risk with NPV = 0 (the firm hasnt any disadvantage/advantage compared to others in assessing the unsystematic risk). The total variability of a portfolios cash flow of course includes both risk types. An example of this could be a farmer expecting payment for breeding pigs. Then his superior equipment or animal feed preparation would be categorized as activities bearing core business risk, while the price of pork would be homogenous risk. When increase in total risk is costly, risk composition becomes more important as the firm value becomes a concave function of the expected cash flows. Therefore if the risky asset was separable (which it is not), we would only seek to invest in positive NPV projects with core business risk. However this is not the case and therefore we can instead make a trade off by decreasing homogenous risk while gaining additional exposure to core business risk and still maintain the target level of total risk. This substitution is called â€Å"coordinated risk management† and can be attained by the use of derivatives. They test for coordinated risk management in a sample of thrifts that convert from the mutual to stock form of ownership. These conversions have been used to recapitalize the thrift industry since 1982 where legal barriers were cleared. From 83 to 88, 571 conversions issuing stock totaling over $10 billion were completed, compared to only 130 mutual-to-stock conversions between 75 and 82. At the end of 82, stock saving and loans managed only 30% of the industrys assets, but by the end of 88, stock saving and loans controlled 74% of the industrys total assets, going from $686 billion to $1,4 trillion. These converting thrifts provided an interesting sample to test whether the use of hedging can be part of an overall strategy to increase total risk. They argued that converting thrifts will attempt to increase their overall level of firm risk following conversion due to changes that occur at the time of conversion. In other words, these institutions are a unique case relative to empirical studies of risk management that focuses on firms with incentives to decrease total risk. The reasons for converting institutions to increase total firm risk are likely because of these two major reasons: 1. A converting institutions ability to take risk increases at the time of conversion, even though the investment opportunities do not change. This is because conversion provides financial slack and access to capital markets. A conversion typically proceeds at least the book value of equity of the mutual thrift. Assuming that pre-conversion mutual equity meets regulatory capital requirements, doubling the capital ratio creates a larger borrowing capacity that can be used to double the asset size of the thrift. Increasing thrift size does not necessarily imply an increase of thrift risk. However, thrifts usually have incentives to grow by investing in riskier assets because of flat deposit insurance premiums that allow thrifts to shift risk to the government. 2. Converting institutions are predicted to increase the total firm risk following because of the change in their managers incentives for risk taking. Before the conversion, managers receive a fixed salary. But upon conversion, shareholders are able to include stock and stock options in a managers compensation contract, aligning the managers interest with the shareholders. In this situation, the manager will typically be more willing to take risks in order to maximize firm value. The Test Schrand and Unal has used sample data from conversions completed between January 1, 1984 and December 31, 1988. They have also made some selecting in the sample excluding the supervisory mergers and merger-conversions. Also they further exclude smaller companies by having a minimum limit of $100 million among the sample companys. As of the methodology Schrand and Unal have used a quantitative time-series study, where they have analyzed the changes in total risk, interest-rate risk and credit risk using an ordinary least squares method. The model is a form of a least squares method where they have added the term Time(t+k). The extra term is an indicator variable which is equal to one if quarter t is k quarters from the conversion quarters, and if not the term equals zero. As of the independent variables in the model, they can be seen as tests, indicating the differences between the risks of the average converting institution and the risks of the average institution in the control group. However the model doesnt indicate whether the interest risk and credit risk are coordinated. Therefore Schrand and Unal have used another model to analyze if there is an association between the interest risk and the credit risk. The model which is a pooled time-series cross-sectional regression is computed as follows: Here Schrand and Unal predict a positive slope between the interest risk (XSNET) and the credit risk (XSHIGH). The Empirical Results The study show that the converting institutions capital position increases with roughly 70 percent after the conversion. Also the study shows that the converting institutions significantly decrease their exposure to interest risk. However the Credit risk increases when converting, because of taking more risk in their loan portfolios. Further the study indicates that the investment patterns are related to the actual conversion rather than the time-trend within the industry. Also they conclude that the increased use of derivatives is a strategic decision and not a mechanical phenomenon. References Brown, G. W. (2001), â€Å"Managing foreign exchange risk with derivatives†, Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 60, pp. 401-448. Naik, N. Y., and P. K. Yadav (2003), â€Å"Risk Management with Derivatives by Dealers and Market Quality in Government Bond Market†, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 58 (5), pp. 1873-1904. Schrand, C., and H. Unal (1998), â€Å"Hedging and Coordinated Risk Management: Evidence from Thrift Conversions†, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 53 (3), pp. 979-1013. Tufano, P. (1996), â€Å"Who Manages Risk? An Empirical Examination of Risk Management Practices in Gold Mining Industry†, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 51(4), pp. 1097-1137. Petersen, M. A., and S. R. Thiagarajan, (2000), Risk Management and Hedging: With and Without Derivatives, Financial Management, Vol. 29(4), pp. 5-30.