Modern railway developments Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Modern railway developments - Essay Example It is stated in the Wikipedia (n.d.) that modern railways are the outcome of the development that took place over the past 500 years, a time when railroads were made of wood and stone. England is the pioneer of the first railway system that marked the beginning of the modern railway system in the 1820s. The system was based on steam locomotive which continued to dominate the railway system till the next century. In the sixteenth century tramways or wagon ways were introduced that could transport coal to and from the mines. Bellis (n.d.) states that this technology was widely used in many European countries including England. By the eighteenth century these tramways or wagon ways had impressed the engineers with its great utility. It could carry huge tones of coal without damaging the roads. It was thus felt that the technology must be improved in order to gain maximum benefit out of it. Around 1760 wooden rails were replaced by iron rails to ease the friction between the rail tracks and the wheels. It was thought that the technology could be used for the transport of people from one place to another. This led to the development of the first passenger train in 1803. However greatest achievement in the modern railway development came with the invention of the steam engine. Samuel Homfray funded the development of the steam engine in 1803. This was the greatest achievement since the steam powered engines replaced the horse drawn trams and wagon ways. The first journey on a locomotive train was done in 1804 by 70 men along with 9 extra wagons and 10 tones of coal. The engine covered a distance of 9 miles in two hours. However the first successful railway emerged in 1825 which was called Stockton and Darlington Railway. The railway connected the town of Darlington to the ports of Stockton and was basically invented for the transport of coal to the docks. A little later a more powerful engine was designed by an English man George Stevenson. The

Termination Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Termination Report - Essay Example Since this was a termination session, the most important part of informed consent was asking them if they agree and are comfortable with the termination. They stated that they felt much better and have noted great improvement in their relationship, thus, had no objection to the termination. I initiated the termination process having noted that the couple had made a lot of progress in their therapy. It was clear that both parties had gained enough insight to deal with conflicts and any future issues that may occur in their relationship. The termination session was smooth having discussed it with them earlier in the counseling process. The couple did not resist the session, and this means that they were also satisfied with the progress. However, I noticed some negative facial and body expressions, which could have come from the thought of ending a close relationship that we had built. I felt the same way too because I had bonded well with the couple, and because of their enthusiasm to share, I found it easy to talk and relate with them. Nevertheless, I felt happy because, at this point, the goals of the therapy had been achieved. At the beginning of the termination process, I handed the couple pieces of paper each and asked them to write down any concerns of anger and anxiety regarding the end of the counseling process. They noted that they noted they were satisfied, but were a bit anxious on how they were going to maintain the progress that they have achieved in their relationship since the start of counseling. This kind of reaction is normal in most counseling exercises, and it does not raise any alarm so long as the clients are not angry at the counselor for terminating the process. Hence, it was a mature decision to terminate the process since I did not witness any negative reactions against the decision. In addition, I also asked each of them to narrate what has been most beneficial to them that they will take a way from the process. Though they both gave a

Effectiveness of Racial Discrimination Act in the UK

Effectiveness of Racial Discrimination Act in the UK Discuss the relationship between opportunities and outcomes of how successful legislation against racial discrimination has been a failure in the UK As Blackstone et al. (1998, p247-249) have argued, there have been many legislative initiatives within Britain to deal with the problems associated with racial discrimination. The problem of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ has cropped up on numerous occasions in Britain since the problem of race discrimination was first recognised, officially, back in the 1960s. The progress of these initiatives can be discussed using the lexicon of opportunities and outcomes, a lexicon which has in many ways and often justifiably been regarded as failing to incorporate legislation which deals adequately with the problems relating to race discrimination in Britain. In historical terms discrimination against people of difference race, for example; Jews, Gypsies, Black People and Irish People had been a feature of everyday society prior to and during the 1960s. Speaking of racial difference in a discriminatory and disparaging way and the unequal treatment of foreigners was widely accepted in Britain during the 1960s, when this mentality first started to improve (Ifekwunigwe, J. (2004), p301). As Moore, R (2000, p1) acknowledges, migration to the UK was probably a catalyst for this problem, and in many ways this is still true today. Therefore the threads of racial discrimination, which existed years ago, exist today, giving momentum to the argument that the outcome of legislation in Britain regarding race discrimination has been a failure. The period immediately following the Second World War also saw huge numbers of foreigners coming into Britain. Even the British government of 1905 shared the prejudice which was rife within society, when it passed the 1905 Aliens Act, which made reducing the numbers of Jewish people in Britain a legislative objective (www.cre.gov.uk, 2006). These attitudes were encouraged by the presence of right wing groups and the fact that certain resources like hospital beds and housing provision among poor people were in high demand amongst both ethnic and British people. In assessing the background of how the forces of racial discrimination developed in Britain, it is possible to form an argument that the government did not do enough to use the opportunities of progress in other countries to try to ingrain more tolerance in British society, through the use of legislation. This too can be regarded as a failure on the part of the British government. But failure is a complicated matter and as more efforts were made by the British government to deal with racism, the idea of whether the outcome of their efforts was a failure becomes more complicated. The passage of legislation which prohibited racial discrimination has its main roots in 1965, when the first moves were made within Britain to accept racial discrimination as a problem that should be dealt with by the government. The move happened against the backdrop of a successful American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. 1965 saw the introduction of the first Race Relations Act, which included a definition of what racism was. This definition set down that it was unlawful to treat a person less favourably than another on the grounds of colour, race or either ethnic or national origins (www.cre.gov.uk, 2006). These steps have been criticised as being very limited, and some critics like Blackstone et al. (1998) have argued that the protections offered by the first Race Relations Act were hard for people to access as they were so difficult to prove. Therefore this piece of legislation can be described as in some ways a failure and in other ways, the somewhat successful outcome of an opportunity in which the government used a legislative tool to deal with problems associated with racial discrimination. 1968 saw the introduction of a new version of the Race Relations Act which made the parameters of making a claim of racial discrimination, broader in scope (www.cre.gov.uk, 2006). This is arguably an example of how Britain used a piece of legislation as an opportunity to address certain problems of race discrimination. However, one must look towards the outcome of this to measure the relative success of any legislation. This is a complicated task. The 1968 Act provided that it was unlawful for people to be discriminated against on the grounds of race in the areas of employment, goods and services, housing and trade unions (www.cre.gov.uk, 2006). The Race Relations Board which had been formed to ensure that the Race Discrimination Act was implemented appropriately had its membership increased during the late sixties, making the Board a more effective body. Although whether one accepts whether the Board was an effective body is a matter of opinion, indeed it can be argued here that the Board was successful in that it oversaw the implementation of the Race Relations Act, but it was limited in its mandate, as it could not oversee the functions of government or small businesses in its scope. The 1970s saw the introduction of the 1976 Race Relations Act which in still in operation today. This addressed the continuing problem of racial discrimination in Britain. How well the Act addressed the problem of race discrimination is the subject of much debate, and the answers to this question are rooted in subjectivity. The success of the Race Relations Act 1976 as the outcome of an opportunity is therefore a complex matter. The new Act defined two forms of discrimination, ‘Direct’ and ‘Indirect’. It also further defined the idea of victimisation, which was classified as a form of discrimination which was direct. On the more negative side many exceptions remained and this was not addressed by the Act; examples were, the recruitment process for certain types of jobs and certain roles within government were not covered by the legislation. Therefore a dichotomy exists relating to whether one can effectively argue how much of a success and/or a failure opportunities and outcomes associated with the problem of race discrimination in the UK have been. Blackstone et al. (1998, p247) have argued that much has been offered in terms of progress by the race relations legislation, yet Blackstone et al. (1998) have also argued; ‘Most of the problems that troubled the early 1980s are still with us. The political climate has, in a number of ways, remained unhelpful†¦.[1]’. It must be remembered however that the idea of failure is inherently linked with ideas of opportunities and outcomes in this discourse of racial discrimination provision and is also linked with how these processes have overlapped and complimented one another. Therefore, while it is easy to see the many failures of the British government to deal with the problems of racism, the outcomes of many of their attempts to deal with the problem of racial discrimination cannot be regarded as an abject failure, and equally cannot be regarded as a resounding success. The answer to this question, as is often the case, lies somewhere in between these two diametrically opposed positions. Bibliography Website: http://www.cre.gov.uk/40years/act_one.html >> Books and Articles Blackstone, T, Parekh, B and Sanders, P. (1998) Race Relations in Britain: A Developing Agenda. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: London. Ifekwunigwe, J. (2004) Mixed Race Studies: A Reader. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Moore, R. (2000) Race, Class and Struggle: Essays on Racism and Inequality in Britain, the US and Western Europe. Journal Title: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Volume: 26. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 372. Footnotes [1] p247. Blackstone, T, Parekh, B and Sanders, P. (1998) Race Relations in Britain: A Developing Agenda. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: London.

Trickery and Deception in Much Ado about Nothing :: essays research papers

Incomplete An exploration of Shakespeare’s presentation of trickery and deception in his play ‘Much Ado about Nothing.’ In William Shakespeare’s play ‘Much Ado about Nothing’, there are many instances of trickery and deception, which seem to surround the whole of the play. These instances are as follows: Don Pedro wooing hero for Claudio, Don Pedro wooing hero for himself, Claudio pretending to be Benedick to find out information from Don John and Borachio, Don John and Borachio both know that Claudio is not Benedick but trick Claudio into thinking that they believe that Claudio is in fact Benedick, Benedick pretending to be somebody else whilst talking to Beatrice, Beatrice pretending to believe that she is in fact talking to Benedick, Beatrice having romantic feelings for Benedick, Benedick having romantic feelings for Beatrice, Beatrice not having romantic feelings for Benedick, Benedick not having romantic feelings for Beatrice, Hero is unfaithful with Borachio, Hero is dead, and Antonio having another daughter. Don John plays an essential role for nearly all of the trickery and deception in this play. He acts like a catalyst and an instigator for trouble, whose sole aim is to marmalize the love and happiness between Claudio and Hero. Shakespeare uses foreshadowing of Don John’s villainy to display the trickery and deception: ’It better fits my blood to be distained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any, in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchized with a clog: therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite, if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.’ - Don John. o (Act I, Scene III: Lines: 22-30). The first instance of trickery and deception is when Don Pedro tells Claudio that he will woo Hero for Claudio to marry her in Act I Scene I. Tricking her to believe that Don Pedro himself has feelings for Hero: ‘I will assume thy part in disguise, and tell fair Hero that I am Claudio, and in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart, and take her hearing prisoner with the force and strong encounter of my amorous tale. Then after, to her father will I break: and the conclusion is, she shall be thine.’ - Don Pedro. o (Act I, Scene I: Lines 276 - 282). It is reported to Don John by Borachio that â€Å"†¦The Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

Caribbean Poetry

Caribbean Voices : Living a Double life / Dual Identities. Caribbean Poetry is the expression of the constant dualistic nature of the Caribbean identity. Caribbean Poetry exemplifies a unique hybrid made from the voice of the Caribbean experience and its postcolonial English heritage but this creates an inner crisis. The inner crisis of two conflicting cultures that create further conflicting ideas of home and belonging on one hand and growth and fulfilment on the other. But it is also about the resolving of these inner issues. A life in limbo. Searching for identity in Limbo.The Carribean Voice is spoken through the Poetry of the Caribbean islands. The answer to the identity crisis can be found amongst the poetry. It’s hybridity, uniqueness and resilience are all characteristics of the poetry and therefore the poet. What does the poetry reveal about the problems of post colonial identity, including the relationships between personal identity and cultural identity and such iss ues as double consciousness and hybridity. Looking at the difficulties inherent in the postcolonial subject's attempt to formulate a new personal and national identity.Social and cultural oppression are the effects of colonialism. The aftermath, language and culture. Hybridization and double consciousness are the effects of colonization. Homelessness and exile. Living in a state of limbo. Caught between two cultures. Introduction: Living in Limbo The poetry not only addresses the issues of the Caribbean people but over time has developed into something much more. It has become philosophical and wise and this is down to its cultural experiences. The Caribbean offers us literature about the process of growth through, or in spite of, a history of exploitation and prejudice, about the turning of negatives into positives.. ’ (Burnett, 1986, Pg23) Chapter one: Home, Hybridity and Diasporic Existence – look at what the poetry tells us about the writers sense of home, national identity, cultural identity. The social and cultural oppression they faced. Chapter two: The power of Language – what does the language in the poem tell us about the identity of the poet, liberating or oppressive, close reading of the poetry.Chapter three: The future of the post colonial subject/ the aftermath of colonialism – is the identity of postcolonial subject destined to be uncertain, identity being cultural or personal? Double consciousness exile and homelessness . Taking of different cultural influences and making them whole. Poetry is a way of breaking through/ deconstructing the colonization and forming new senses of identity that is a combination of all the cultures. Taking the bits you prefer or the best bits and forming something much better out of it. Way to combat is to embrace the differences and create new forms of identity.Introduction Poetry from the Caribbean Islands has evolved remarkably. It has now developed an identity of its own despite emerg ing through the forced combining of different cultures. This new identity is belonging to the poets of the islands and this identity is resilient and clearly uniquely Caribbean. Through colonial education writers were able to take the Great Tradition of European poets and give them a new identity by changing the subject matter of the poems and experimenting with rhythms and poetic languages stemmed from the African heritage these writers uniquely possess.It becomes a magical combination of poetic prose and oral tradition that the writers use to share with the reader the experiences and realities of the Caribbean existence. What results is poetry that is able to communicate to masses of people, from different cultures, in a form so well placed that it becomes both simple and profound. The poetry not only addresses the issues of the Caribbean people but over time has developed into something much more. It has become philosophical and wise and this is down to its cultural experiences. The Caribbean offers us literature about the process of growth through, or in spite of, a history of exploitation and prejudice, about the turning of negatives into positives.. ’ (Burnett, 1986, Pg23) The poetry of these writers has a way of shedding the old skin of western thinking and emerging with a new self awareness, that comes with a new form of self expression. Carribbean poets portray via their poetry, the personal struggles they experience, of yearning to be home whilst fearing rejection and seeking their own national and cultural identity through their own displacement.Chapter Two: Language and Technique within Caribbean Poety: ‘Not Just a Pretty Verse’ Walcott’s poetry is of a high literary quality, is the success of his poetry not an example of the oppressor still containing the power of approval. Walcott represents the colonial subject adopting the style of the colonizer and his remarkable talent becomes impossible to ignore. Brathwaiteâ€℠¢s poetry rebels against Standard English and literary traditions and draws from his African heritage to express himself in a unique form, so that it cannot be compared or approved of by English traditions.Where Walcott adopts and accepts the example set by the European colonizers, Brathwaite is determined to set a new example. There is evidence of a dual identity within Caribbean poetry and it is this dual identity that supplies the poetry its richness and depth that make it uniquely Caribbean thus making it successful in terms of literary value and technique in its own right. This is evidently apparent in the works of Derek Walcott and Edward Brathwaite. Both poets utilise their colonial heritage in different ways.Walcott embraces the duality with some apprehension, but always remains graceful and loyal to his art form's indignity, he writes with dignity and recognition. Brathwaite however is the more accessible poet of the two in terms of his focus in all things historical and so cial. Brathwaite is concerned with the dilemmas of the Caribbean experience. However in spite of their differences, when viewed complimentary to each other, as opposed to compared and critiqued on their differences alone, the works of these two poets amalgamate and create a unique Caribbean voice.A voice that expresses the beauty in this new art form, a new mode of poetic expression and poetic language whilst dealing with the problems of a dual identity. The advantage of the colonial subject’s cultural hybridity would arguably be the development of language. A Caribbean writer is not only able to use Standard English to express his art but can as easily slip into the local vernacular of his native home. This invaluable skill of a multiple form of expression creates a very distinctive style and a unique elegance to the poetry.The Caribbean writer inherits the English language, which itself is a hybrid, not forgetting the Spanish or the French-based ‘patois’, and t ogether these European languages are combined and rewritten by the Caribbean poets. This gives the writers of the Caribbean a chance to develop and adapt language even further and create a new form and create a brand new poetic language which results in a unique richness that can only come from the Caribbean. Caribbean poetry can often be categorised and placed into neat sections.By sectioning off the poems in terms of their style is to ignore the importance of the embracing of their hybridity. To fully appreciate the work of the poets is to ignore the neat piles they have been placed into and listen to the voice of the poet, on an individual poem basis. To discuss the language within Caribbean poetry and the expression of Caribbean poetry it is impossible to ignore the term ‘oral tradition’. The use of this term, or more particularly the debates surrounding its literary value, is a frequently discussed topic in the study of Caribbean poetry. It is only since the 1970s that the term ‘oral tradition’ began to be consistently used in connection with the certain developments in West Indian poetry. ’ (Brown, Morris, Rohlehr, 1989, Pg1) There has always been an issue of the viability of this poetry and this leads to debates with regards to class and power. Societies have not always relied on the written to preserve their history and therefore the importance of oral tradition is crucial when trying to grasp any kind of understanding of the culture and heritage of the Caribbean.For the purpose of this essay the term ‘oral tradition’ will be used in conjunction with the words vernacular and dialect, to describe the native dialect of the poets, as and when they choose to use these forms of expression. It is the hybridity of these forms combined with the literary traditions that they are so often compared to, that will be the focus of this essay, and the benefit of its hybrid nature, not the political factors that are involv ed in its validity as an expression of poetry. Focussing on the hybridity of poetic form for now, the poet that excels in this manner is Claude Mckay.McKay’s poem’s formal style shows a clear influence of the traditional English verse, the style of the sonnet. McKay’s appreciation of literary quality is obvious. The rewriting of the sonnet to express the heartbreak of prejudice is arresting and completely enraptures its audience, ‘McKay pours old wine – brilliantly – into new bottles. ’ (Denize, Newlin, 2009, Pg100) What is remarkable about McKay is how he uses the famous verse established by his oppressors to express and communicate the sorrow of prejudice.McKay appreciates the art of poetry in a traditional literary sense yet he uses it to express the realities and emotions of subjects that are personal to him, issues of race and oppression. What is also unique about McKays sonnets is that anger and frustration runs through the poems , parallel with dignity and bravery. This combination of emotions is powerful and inspiring. The combination is achieved through a mixture of technique and chosen language.In ‘The White House’ the first two lines use the cacophonic sounds of the consonants ‘t’ and ‘s’ to portray a frustration and annoyance with the situation. ‘Your door is shut against my tightened face, And I am sharp as steel discontent;’ The cacophony effect replicates a tut sound. The next two lines however are less aggressive in tone as McKay describes his dignity despite his frustration, ‘But I possess the courage and the grace To bear my anger, proudly and unbent. ’ Traditional and vernacular style of Louise Bennett. Her authentic Carribean voice, storyteller.Humour and satire within the poetry of Louise Bennett. Brathwaite revolutionary style, experimented with rhyming patterns and shapes. It appears incomplete and as though the form has not be en established, but the poetry possesses an authority that demands the attention of the reader. Caribbean poerty written in the English language should ponly serve to strengthen a sense of identity by proving that Caribbean ideas can survive translation. There is an undeniable strength and tenacity evident in Caribbean poetry. Chapter Three : What the future holds†¦ the aftermathLinton Kwesi Johnson, younger in Jamaican heritage, Johnson would become more accessible to the Black British youth. Use of music to express his poetry. Evolved from Brathwaite’s rthymitic style. ‘to think of the world you might inherit, less in terms of the size of the estate than in the level of pollution that hangs over it’ (Markham, 1989, Pg19) A formally colonized nation can use language as an aid to progression on the path to reclaiming and recreating its own identity. Poetry is a means of negioting the conflicting cultures to achieve a positive sense of identity.Colonial educa tion should be used as a means by which to strengthen not demean your cultural heritage; a means to forge a new identity of your own. The Sonnet Tradition and Claude McKay Donna E. M. Denize and Louisa Newlin The English Journal  , Vol. 99, No. 1 (Sep. , 2009), pp. 99-105 Published by:  National Council of Teachers of English Article Stable URL: http://www. jstor. org/stable/40503338 Morris, Mervyn, Disappointed Guests: Essays by African, Asian and west Indian Students, ed H. Tajfel and J. L. Dawson, Oxford Uni. Press, 1965, Pg5-26.

The rise of Renaissance culture

The rise of Renaissance culture was predetermined by the assortment of disparate events and ideas surfacing during the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. The most important concept to come out of all the innovative developments of the late fourteenth century was a renewed belief in the power and the majesty of the human being. An interest to individuality was a line of demarcation between the medieval period, where God was the center, and the epoch of Renaissance.The Renaissance is viewed as culmination of a general rebirth of humanistic pursuits and a freeing of the artist from the restrictive dogma of the medieval Church. The status of art and the artist shifted significantly and our contemporary views on both are based very much on certain assumptions about the role of art in culture that were first developed during the Renaissance. It was in the Renaissance that the role of artist went from simple maker to that of creator (with individual genius) – the appellation once reserved only to God.As a consequence, art took on even greater significance becoming not only an expression of its age and its means of production but also the very embodiment of genius. Filippo Brunelleschi fairly takes the place of such a genius. It was he, the Italian architect and sculptor, who made revolutionary discoveries in architecture. This Florentine was the first and perhaps the most distinguished of the Renaissance architects. The best support for the veracity of this statement is Brunelleschi’s solution for the dome of Florence Cathedral, the building that made him most complete and representative Renaissance artist.The story of Brunelleschi’s success begins with his failure. In 1401 the competition for a pair of bronze doors for Baptistery was announced (Web Gallery of Art). This was to be one of the greatest competitions at the age, and it pitted two of Florence’s most talented young artists against each other: Fili ppo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti. The competition asked each artist to submit design of cast bronze around the subject of the sacrifice of Isaac. Brunelleschi lost the bid. But this perhaps initial loss was the Renaissance’s gain in that his later discoveries in architecture were to prove revolutionary.At the time of competition the Florence Cathedral was still unfinished. The problem was how to successfully bridge the enormous area of central tower without the use of flying buttresses, which were out of question because of their obvious incompatibility with the beautiful Romanesque marble exterior. Brunelleschi studied many ancient building projects in Rome such a Parthenon and suggested that a dome could in fact be built without the visual distraction created by buttressing. His answer was the implementation of classical vaulting techniques.Thus Brunelleschi’s innovative design provided further evidence of the new sensibility of Renaissance art. Brunelleschi und erstood that the principles of buttressing were useful in spreading the enormous weight of a dome over a greater expanse – thereby alleviating much of stress on the walls and foundation of the structure. He thus concluded that the tall supporting walls of the dome had to be constructed with tribunes, small offshooting extensions from the original walls, which would act as the original buttress, to disperse weight over a wider area.In this way Brunelleschi manipulated the basic tenets of medieval cathedral construction to better serve the interests of the new church. Clearly, however, it was the dome itself that created such awe among the Florentines. No structure like it had been attempted in Europe since antiquity, and never before on such an immense scale. In 1420 he began to build the Cathedral dome, a vast octagonal structure crowned by an enormous lantern designed by Brunelleschi alone.His solution was to create a dome within a dome, which would further support the exter ior weight effectively while removing the need for interior armatures or any other superfluous accessories that would distract from the simplicity of the construction. The outer dome was thus constructed as a light skin or cover, exhibiting great visual authority over the Florence skyline. The use of â€Å"spiraling courses of herringbone brickwork, iron chains and sloping masonry rings to bind the dome together, and ribs joining the shells† (King, 87) are his inventions, although owe much to his studies of Roman structures.Brunelleschi’s genius lay in his abilities to combine ancient and modern aesthetic, architectural, and engineering principles. The result was a resurgence in dome architecture, since now architects possessed both the skill and technical know-how to attempt structures which had only years before been thought impossible. In the words of Vasari, Brunelleschi â€Å"was sent by Heaven to invest architecture with new forms, after it had wandered astray f or many centuries† (Vasari, 104).The ‘new forms’ were those of Classical antiquity, which Brunelleschi applied to such building types as cathedrals and basilican churches for which there were no ancient precedents. In these schemes he was the first since antiquity to make use of the Classical orders; at the same time he employed a proportional system of his own invention, in which all units were related to a simple module, the mathematical characteristics of which informed the entire structure. Brunelleschi worked almost exclusively in Florence, and many features link his architecture with the Romanesque heritage of that city.Nevertheless, he was beyond question responsible for initiating the rediscovery of ancient Roman architecture. He understood its inherent principles and he employed them in an original manner for the building tasks of his own day. So what we may conclude from Brunelleschi’s technical breakthrough that in the best way complied with Rena issance requirements? First, it must be remembered that had it not been for the renewed interest in Classical thought and culture, it is doubtful that artist like Brunelleschi would have sought inspiration from Roman architecture such as a Pantheon.It was not that artists and architects had not been interested in such building solutions before Brunelleschi comes on the scene, but simply that most looked toward more spiritual and divine art forms. Brunelleschi’s dome is by design a stable and symmetrical structure. It possesses attributes that visually mimic the emerging Renaissance ideas of harmony and equilibrium over the obedience and superstition that had marked the previous age. In this way, the innovative dome construction situates itself as a vivid reminder of the greatest influences its creator had in his time. Works Cited PageKing, Ross Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, New York: Walker and Company, 2000 Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists. Transl. by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 â€Å"Brunelleschi’s Biography† from Web Gallery of Art Retrieved Nov 7, 2006 from http://www. wga. hu/frames-e. html? /bio/b/brunelle/biograph. html â€Å"Brunelleschi’s Cupola† from Florence Art Guide Retrieved Nov 7, 2006 from http://www. mega. it/eng/egui/monu/bdd. htm â€Å"Filippo Brunelleschi† from Wikipedia Retrieved Nov 7, 2006 from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi

Density of Pennies Lab essays

Density of Pennies Lab essays The means of this experiment will be to work with the density of pennies. I will be enforcing the concepts of accuracy and precision as I repeat one step three times. In addition, I will begin to perform percent errors. The main purpose of this experiment will be to discover if any differences exist with comparison of pennies dated before 1982 to pennies dated after 1982, such as the average of the volume and the average of the mass. And last but not least, I will practice my expertise of determining densities of objects, as in this case, the pennies. The procedures of this experiment will be easy. I will determine the mass of forty pennies dated before 1982 with a balance, and also for the pennies dated after 1982. I will repeat this three times for each group of pennies and find the average. Then I will pour the pennies into a graduated cylinder of water and record the volume for both groups of pennies. I will also repeat this three times and calculate the average. Next, I will determine the volume of the pennies alone, repeat it three times, and determine the average volume. Then, I will verify the density of each group of pennies, by using the equation D=M/V. Finally, I will compare and contrast the data I collected with Data Table 2-4. The concepts to this experiment are not very complicated, because it only involves simple concepts. For instance, the density formula: mass divided by volume. In addition, the concepts of accuracy and precision are involved in this experiment. Accuracy is the closeness of measurements to the correct or accepted value. Precision is the closeness of a set of measurements. The notion of significant figures perhaps may also be utilized in this experiment. Lastly, percent error will be used in the data processing, which is defined as the absolute value of the accepted value subtract the experimental value, divided by the accepted value, and multiplied by 100. ...

Theodoric of the Ostrogoths essays

Theodoric of the Ostrogoths essays Theodoric the Great was the king of the Ostrogoths. Born in 454 in the Roman province of Pannonia as the son of Theodemir the Amal. He was held as a political hostage in the Roman court at Constantinople from age seven through to age seventeen. There he was educated in the roman way of life and law. Theodoric also learned that the Roman Empire could offer his people many things. After securing leadership of the Ostrogoths in 471 Theodoric was forced to defend his crown against Theodoric Strabo. With the death of Theodoric Strabo in 481, the current emperor Zeno recognised Theodoric as king of the Ostrogoths and in 483 appointed him master of the soldiers and in 484 Consul-designate. In 488 Zeno commissioned Theodoric to take his people and expel the western roman emperor Odovacar. After several years of war Theodoric was able to murder Odovacar. Theodoric then pronounced the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. Theodorics rule was recognised in 497 when the eastern emperor Anastasius I sen t Theodoric the royal insignia. Theodoric the Great was a successful leader. Theodoric was able to keep the balance between his Ostrogoths and the people of the Roman empire. Theodoric was able to do this through his religious understanding, mastery of politics and his social policy. The ability to manage these three factors made Theodoric not only the King of the Goths but also a successful leader of the Western Empire. Theodoric used the religious and ideological belief of the Roman people in the Western Empire to gain acceptance of his rule. The educated Romans of the later Empire were receiving a Greek education as well as a traditional Roman education. Through this education the ideas of the divine and the cosmos were coming together and the belief that there was an underlying order in the universe that was set forth by God had become popular. The Roman Emperors were developing this belief further by claiming that no one could hold p...

Army Soap Note

A: (assessment) – Your interpretation of the patients condition. P: (plan) – Includes the following: 1. Medical treatment: includes use of meds, use of bandages, etc. 2. Additional diagnostics: which if any test which still might be needed. X-ray MRI ect.. 3. Special instructions, handouts, use of medications, side effects, etc. 4. Return to clinic: when and under what circumstances to return. Components of the SOAP note. . Medical History – Which gives you an idea of the patients problem before you start the physical exam of the patient. a. Patient data b. chief complaint 1. This is the reason for the patients visit. 2. Use direct quotes from patient. 3. Avoid using medical terms. c. Observations begin as soon as the patient walks through the door. d. Open ended questions will help you to get more complete and accurate information. e. Provider obstacles which are your attitude towards the individual or pre diagnosis of sick call ranger may prevent you from makin g an accurate judgment. . History of present illness/injury (HPI) f. Duration: when the illness/injury started. g. Type of pain: use the patients words to describe the type of pain. h. Location: have the patient explain, then have them point it out. i. : what makes it better or worse and is it constant or does it vary in intensity. j. Pain in different positions: does the pain vary with the change of the patients position. k. Medications/allergies: note any medications whether over the counter or not. Do the medications relate to the problem? Take note of the patients allergies. l. Supplements: note any supplements the patient is taking along with vitamins so you are aware of the possible interactions with the medication that may be given to the patient. m. Pertinent facts: facts which lead you to your diagnosis. Usually consist of classical signs and/or symptoms. I have found that the best way to get a person’s medical history is to using the SAMPLE and OPQRST. It’s a fast and easy way to recall the information that you need to provide to the PA or NCOIC. S: Symptoms A: Allergies M: Medicine taken P: Past history of similar events L: Last meal E: Events leading up to illness or injury O: Onset – What caused the illness or injury, or what were you doing at the time P: Provocation/Position – what brought symptoms on, where is pain located. Q: Quality – sharp, dull, crushing etc†¦ R: Radiation – does pain travel S: Severity/Symptoms Associated with or on a scale of 1 to 10, what other symptoms occur T: Timing/Triggers – occasional, constant, intermittent, only when I do this. Lastly you need to provide a name(first, last and middle initial) phone number, date of birth, FULL social security number, sex, and rank/grade. All this information is provided in order to file the note into the patients medical records. It can also be used to contact the patient regarding an appointment or information we may further need to assist the patient in his medical needs. All notes must be signed by the individual that screened the patient. There are 2 reason for this one is to insure that nothing is added to the note, this protects both yourself and the patient. It also allows the PA or NCOIC to speak with the individual that screened the patient for additional information regarding the patient or having them correct a deficiency with the note itself before being placed in the patients medical history. Signing under the last portion of the note lets people know that the note has ended however do not mark any open space out, the PA may want to add additional information which he will then stamp verifying that he was the one who in fact added the information. Spc Singleton 68W10 Army Soap Note A: (assessment) – Your interpretation of the patients condition. P: (plan) – Includes the following: 1. Medical treatment: includes use of meds, use of bandages, etc. 2. Additional diagnostics: which if any test which still might be needed. X-ray MRI ect.. 3. Special instructions, handouts, use of medications, side effects, etc. 4. Return to clinic: when and under what circumstances to return. Components of the SOAP note. . Medical History – Which gives you an idea of the patients problem before you start the physical exam of the patient. a. Patient data b. chief complaint 1. This is the reason for the patients visit. 2. Use direct quotes from patient. 3. Avoid using medical terms. c. Observations begin as soon as the patient walks through the door. d. Open ended questions will help you to get more complete and accurate information. e. Provider obstacles which are your attitude towards the individual or pre diagnosis of sick call ranger may prevent you from makin g an accurate judgment. . History of present illness/injury (HPI) f. Duration: when the illness/injury started. g. Type of pain: use the patients words to describe the type of pain. h. Location: have the patient explain, then have them point it out. i. : what makes it better or worse and is it constant or does it vary in intensity. j. Pain in different positions: does the pain vary with the change of the patients position. k. Medications/allergies: note any medications whether over the counter or not. Do the medications relate to the problem? Take note of the patients allergies. l. Supplements: note any supplements the patient is taking along with vitamins so you are aware of the possible interactions with the medication that may be given to the patient. m. Pertinent facts: facts which lead you to your diagnosis. Usually consist of classical signs and/or symptoms. I have found that the best way to get a person’s medical history is to using the SAMPLE and OPQRST. It’s a fast and easy way to recall the information that you need to provide to the PA or NCOIC. S: Symptoms A: Allergies M: Medicine taken P: Past history of similar events L: Last meal E: Events leading up to illness or injury O: Onset – What caused the illness or injury, or what were you doing at the time P: Provocation/Position – what brought symptoms on, where is pain located. Q: Quality – sharp, dull, crushing etc†¦ R: Radiation – does pain travel S: Severity/Symptoms Associated with or on a scale of 1 to 10, what other symptoms occur T: Timing/Triggers – occasional, constant, intermittent, only when I do this. Lastly you need to provide a name(first, last and middle initial) phone number, date of birth, FULL social security number, sex, and rank/grade. All this information is provided in order to file the note into the patients medical records. It can also be used to contact the patient regarding an appointment or information we may further need to assist the patient in his medical needs. All notes must be signed by the individual that screened the patient. There are 2 reason for this one is to insure that nothing is added to the note, this protects both yourself and the patient. It also allows the PA or NCOIC to speak with the individual that screened the patient for additional information regarding the patient or having them correct a deficiency with the note itself before being placed in the patients medical history. Signing under the last portion of the note lets people know that the note has ended however do not mark any open space out, the PA may want to add additional information which he will then stamp verifying that he was the one who in fact added the information. Spc Singleton 68W10

Business ethics and law Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Business ethics and law - Assignment Example There are many ethical dilemmas that face persons dealing in sales. These dilemmas arise from interaction with individuals and agencies both within and from outside the organization. Sales personnel are prone to facing more ethical conflicts than individuals dealing in other lines of business. These persons are not as closely supervised as other workers and they play a big role in raising income for the organization. This paper seeks to document the pressures that a sales representative working for a company that provides technical support to customers may face. The paper will delve into the dilemma the individual will be facing when the organization does not hit its first and second quarter profits consecutively. The sales representative is paid on commission, and the company has not met its quarterly expectations for the first and second quarters. This translates to a fall in the company’s revenue. As an employee of the company, he or she has the duty to execute his responsi bilities with diligence and resilience as his effort is needed to realize the company’s overall targeted performance (Weiss 213). When the company is not realizing its targets, it impacts on its competitive capacity against its rival companies. Continued failure to realize targets will drive the company to making decisions on adjusting salaries and wages to its personnel or retrenching some. The sales representative is under pressure from his duty to the company to help realize its target. The sales representative has two young children whom he or she supports from the income he or she gets from working for the sales company. The individual is just but one of thousands of people employed by the company and who most probably also survive on the salaries and wages they get from the company. Having not made any sales for a while, the sales representative is probably going without some things that he or she needs because affordability is going down with the lack or reduction of i ncome. The individual and probably the others working for the company have perhaps had to cut on certain expenditures so as to make ends meet with the way things are going in the company. Family needs are a profound source of pressure in the situation facing the sales representative. 500 Company has approached the representative to supply them with 3,000 new computers. The company stands the risk to incur high costs if they do not get the computers. What does this mean for the individual and 500 Company? The individual has the human obligation to see to it that the company does not incur the costs when he or she can help. There are people who work for the company just like he or she and many others work for their company. Incurred costs in 500 Company will perhaps translate to poor stock price and or reduced salaries and wages for its workers further affecting other innocent people who depend on these workers (Weiss 215). It will also mean that 500 Company will do poorly in its perf ormance relative to its competitors. The sales representative will feel obligated to lend a hand to avoid such a scenario from happening. 500 Company needs all the 3,000 computers supplied in two months’ time. The sales representative has 1,000 new computers ready in the warehouse. The deficit of 2,000 new computers will need to be ordered from the manufacturer. Whereas the individual knows that it would take the manufacture two months to get the 2,000 new computers ready for 500 Company, he or she also knows that the manufacturer is struggling with too many orders already. The individual has the option of closing the deal with 500 Company and deliver the 1,000new computers available and order the rest from the manufacturer. How will closing the deal with 500 Company impact on the representative’s company? He or she will enable his or her company to meet its third quarter’s target and improve its stock price. What will it mean for the representative? The represe ntative will earn a good commission from the deal and he, or she

Policy Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Policy Analysis - Research Paper Example For this reason, the Colorado Springs Police Department is largely concerned about the existing predatory behavior against children on the internet, which leads them to create an initiative to form a regional task force with Pueblo Sheriff’s Department with one mind to fight Internet Crimes against children (City of Colorado Springs, 2012). What makes this possible for implementation is the authority vested in Colorado Springs Police Department by the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention (OJIDP), for them to work with finding resolutions on problems encountered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline (City of Colorado Springs, 2012). The Colorado Springs Police Department defines some activities associated with online Child Sexual Exploitation (City of Colorado Springs, 2012): â€Å"Online arrangements are made for the exchange of Sexually Exploitative Materials (child pornography). The actual exchange or delivery may occur via the mail, e-mail, IRC, FTP and other electronic means, or even hand-to-hand exchanges. Adults seeking sexual access to children will make arrangements with other adults willing to trade and/or provide children for sexual purposes.† â€Å"Adult predators seeking sexual contact with children may establish 'friendships' with children online. Having 'befriended' a child online, the predator will then attempt to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the child for the purpose of sexual contact.† Description of the issue The issue about child pornography in line with internet sex crime is not new, but what seems interesting about this is the actual implementation of the authority with policies aiming to maximize child protection from predatory online behavior. For years, the government, particularly the State of Colorado faces tough battle against online child sexual exploitation. Finally, the government is always looking forward to find for appropriate resolutions of the said crime. The rise of federal child pornography prosecutions in Colorado is just a clear indication that the authority are getting active in performing its part to protect the welfare of children in strong opposition to predatory behavior of sexual exploitation online. An act of law enforcement The Department of Justice already passed varying policies concerning the welfare of children and one of them resulted to a program as stated earlier known as Project Safe Childhood. The role of Colorado Springs Police Department is to implement the associated policies with this program. The rise of federal child pornography prosecutions in Colorado is just a reliable measure of the actual active enforcement of the legislative-initiated policy. The initiative of Colorado Springs Police Department to tie up with the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention (OJIDP) for finding resolutions on problems in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline is a regulator y policy. This initiative is strongly consistent with the emancipated policy by the Department of Justice in line with Project Safe Childhood. In other words, the Colorado Springs

Surprising reversal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Surprising reversal - Essay Example This plan is supposed to take care of the soldiers’ children in times of deployment. Many a time, this does not work the way it is supposed to. Often a soldier has to assign temporary guardianship to a relative. Soldiers are also sent back home to reconstruct a new FCP, because the previous one has failed and the time a soldier gets to complete this task is just not enough for such an important exercise. FCPs are something that soldiers need time to put together. This is not a task to be taken lightly. It takes a lot of time, thought and effort to put together an effective Family Care Plan. Instead the military gives only thirty days for them to find someone to entrust their loved ones. FCP helps the military maintain its level of readiness for deployment. On the face of it, it is a deceptively simple exercise but from the soldier’s point of view, it is a rigorous task that is not easily completed by a long shot. There are several factors that must be addressed when imp lementing the FCP. The ‘person of choice’ to entrust children is to me, the biggest choice a soldier has to make. Someone that appeared to be a prime candidate might have issues/flaws that would keep that person from being able to take care of the soldiers’ loved ones. ... The soldier found herself charged with desertion, which is a very high wartime crime. If it had not been for the local media in her home town, this soldier might have even been convicted. FCP exercises are hard to complete and most of the time, they don’t even hold up. Everything is documented and placed into the soldiers’ files. Everyone knows that deployments come and go, but no one knows when. Knowing when and where a soldier will be deployed is one thing, but not everything goes according to how it was planned. When the time came for me to activate my FCP in which I named my mother as the preferred guardian, she was ill with cancer – an unforeseen factor. She was unable to provide the necessary care to my children due to her illness. When I tried to get one of my sisters to take my mother’s place in my FCP, I was unsuccessful; she had marriage issues that she was dealing with at the time, which made her not a very good candidate for the job of care of my two boys. Such unforeseen factors reduce the efficacy of FCPs. I was separated from the armed forces recently, in March of 2009 for a collapse of my FCP. Of course, I was honorably discharged. In conclusion, despite the military’s best intentions and beliefs, FCPs are not what they appear to be. They have been known to trap soldiers into legally binding contracts, which in some cases are not in the best interest of either the soldiers or their families. On the other hand, FCPs appear to have been designed to free soldiers from any obligation that they might have, so that the military does not have to lose them from its deployment readiness. Reference Engler, A. (2011). â€Å"Deployed military parents: Choosing custody or duty†. Good Housekeeping, April 3, 2011. Available

Segmenation and customer profiling and wallet share Essay

Segmenation and customer profiling and wallet share - Essay Example Customer profiling and analytics is an advanced database management system with works with customer segmentation and data mining applications. With customer profiling tools, customer information such as who are they, places where they reside and work, distance travelled to purchase products, their differences by products and regions and so on (Bhalla, 2009). With this information, it is possible to identify areas where customers are in higher intensity, understand viability of the locations and then develop campaigns that focus on the target customers (Drupal CRM, 2011). Wallet share measures the end result of the CRM implementation. It refers to the percentage or share that the customer spends on purchasing a particular product. It can also refer to the amount of revenue that a firm generates from a specific customer segment. In effect, the wallet share shows if the amount spent on maintaining customer relations and on advertisements are effective enough to make the customer buy the organizations products. In the case, the CRM system tracks the billing to the customer segment and after hundreds of transactions are tracked, a decision is taken about the share of wallet. Wallet share information can then be used in changing the marketing plan, in targeting the proper customer segment and so on (Croteau, 2009). These systems are used in modern database marketing and in

Nursing-introduction to personal & professional development Essay

Nursing-introduction to personal & professional development - Essay Example e simple understanding of multiplication and division, percentages, conversion of units and the handling of different ratios and proportions in medication. So, in mastering the skill of numeracy, proper learning framework and teaching is very much required for the nurses so that they can perform not only well in classrooms but also in their practical settings. Adequate guidance and support by practitioners and educators is also required for the new nurses. In United States a shocking number of patients die every year just because of severe medications errors on the part of the nurses. Institute of Medicine, a generally cited estimate, places thousands of deaths as the result of calculations and medications errors and concludes these errors the fourth leading cause of causalities in United States. Numbers are very important in medicine and drug therapy. The term numeracy skills mean the utilization and recognition of numeric data or numbers accurately and clearly. This data may be used on forms and in performing other numeric calculations. So, we can say that the use of numeric data in a proper way is very required for a professional nurse. Furthermore, it is also important to use this data effectively and competently which is only possible if a nurse learns the basic skills of numeracy. Remember, the success of any nurse always depends on the professionalism associated with the use of numeric data. As already mentioned, that nurses always require proper understanding of the numeric data. Some basic courses or entry level lessons in home nursing always include the ability to understand and learn medication calculations plus numeric data related to various tests. These calculations may be in fractions, numbers and percentages and considered as the building blocks of the career of any nurse. So, here the question arises why numeric data is so important? Actually various calculations are always required for the proper assessment of the patient. For example, if

Middle East And The West Of Asia History Assignment

Middle East And The West Of Asia History - Assignment Example The Crusades included expeditions to the Holy Land, Iberian Island, and North Eastern Europe, against Ottoman Turks, and the Hussite and Albigensian crusades. In addition, the jihad concept employed by the Muslim leaders became less significant during the last phase of the tenth century. However, the jihad concept regained force in the twelfth century wars between Muslims and the Latin Christian Crusaders. Hence, the Crusades raised a conflict between Christians and Muslims who were believed to threaten the existence of the Christian faith. During this period, Latin Christians never gained victory in the wars but did slow down the propagation of the Islamic faith. In the Iberian Peninsula Crusade, Christian leaders replaced Muslim leaders. As a result, other Christians, Muslims, and the Jews were forced to convert to the Catholic faith. Most notably would be the Hussite Crusade of the 1420s in which the Hussite heretical doctrine remained not eliminated. On the contrary, the Albigens ian Crusade eliminated the aristocratic clans who believed in the Cathar heretical doctrine. The wars and the plagues of incurable diseases that occurred during the Crusades period distressed the whole nation as well as killing vast portions of the world’s population thus destroying cities. The overtaxed and marginalized populations in the society protested against authoritative governments. It would be worth noting that, because of the Crusades, women began participating in high roles in both their cultures and the Western world. Despite the negative impacts of the wars marking the Crusades, positive impacts also emerged to mark the history of the Middle East and the West of Asia. The acquisition of... Moreover, the emergence of the middle-class concept originates from the rise of cities. In a similar perspective, the evolution of modern civilization could have only occurred following the rise and growth of medieval cities along with their associated cultural and artistic influences. The developments in science and technology consequently transformed the modern world into an engine and commercial driven society in terms of agriculture, the invention of the horizontal loom in cloth and the iron works and water power. Technology also facilitated the concepts of defined methodology and mechanization. Moreover, people organize their activities using timetables because of the discovery of the mechanical clock thereby changing the modern life. In conclusion, the paper presented the occurrences of the Crusades to include wars between different religious associations, conflicts between civic and church leaders, territorial invasions, the rise, and fall of Christianity and Islam faiths with their associated effects, and reformation of the Catholic Church’s architecture. Following these occurrences, the aftermath of the Crusades led to both negative and positive impacts. Negative impacts may include the destruction of cities and loss of lives. On the contrary, positive impacts consist of advancement in science, technology, and growth of cities. The growth of cities facilitated growth on the trade that stabilized social classes. The development enhanced health and welfare, which are essential for existence.

Nursing-introduction to personal & professional development Essay

Nursing-introduction to personal & professional development - Essay Example e simple understanding of multiplication and division, percentages, conversion of units and the handling of different ratios and proportions in medication. So, in mastering the skill of numeracy, proper learning framework and teaching is very much required for the nurses so that they can perform not only well in classrooms but also in their practical settings. Adequate guidance and support by practitioners and educators is also required for the new nurses. In United States a shocking number of patients die every year just because of severe medications errors on the part of the nurses. Institute of Medicine, a generally cited estimate, places thousands of deaths as the result of calculations and medications errors and concludes these errors the fourth leading cause of causalities in United States. Numbers are very important in medicine and drug therapy. The term numeracy skills mean the utilization and recognition of numeric data or numbers accurately and clearly. This data may be used on forms and in performing other numeric calculations. So, we can say that the use of numeric data in a proper way is very required for a professional nurse. Furthermore, it is also important to use this data effectively and competently which is only possible if a nurse learns the basic skills of numeracy. Remember, the success of any nurse always depends on the professionalism associated with the use of numeric data. As already mentioned, that nurses always require proper understanding of the numeric data. Some basic courses or entry level lessons in home nursing always include the ability to understand and learn medication calculations plus numeric data related to various tests. These calculations may be in fractions, numbers and percentages and considered as the building blocks of the career of any nurse. So, here the question arises why numeric data is so important? Actually various calculations are always required for the proper assessment of the patient. For example, if

Advanced accounting Ch 1 solution Essay Example for Free

Advanced accounting Ch 1 solution Essay 1A business combination is a union of business entities in which two or more previously separate and independent companies are brought under the control of a single management team. Three situations establish the control necessary for a business combination, namely, when one or more corporations become subsidiaries, when one company transfers its net assets to another, and when each combining company transfers its net assets to a newly formed corporation. 2The dissolution of all but one of the separate legal entities is not necessary for a business combination. An example of one form of business combination in which the separate legal entities are not dissolved is when one corporation becomes a subsidiary of another. In the case of a parent-subsidiary relationship, each combining company continues to exist as a separate legal entity even though both companies are under the control of a single management team. 3A business combination occurs when two or more previously separate and independent companies are brought under the control of a single management team. Merger and consolidation in a generic sense are frequently used as synonyms for the term business combination. In a technical sense, however, a merger is a type of business combination in which all but one of the combining entities are dissolved and a consolidation is a type of business combination in which a new corporation is formed to take over the assets of two or more previously separate companies and all of the combining companies are dissolved. 4Goodwill arises in a business combination accounted for under the acquisition method when the cost of the investment (fair value of the consideration transferred) exceeds the fair value of identifiable net assets acquired. Under GAAP, goodwill is not amortized for financial reporting purposes and will have no effect on net income, unless the goodwill is deemed to be impaired. If goodwill is impaired, a loss will be recognized. 5A bargain purchase occurs when the acquisition price is less than the fair value of the identifiable net assets acquired. The acquirer records the gain from a bargain purchase as an ordinary gain during the period of the acquisition. The gain equals the difference between the investment cost and the fair value of the identifiable net assets acquired.

Examining The Yellow Ribbon Project On Offenders Criminology Essay

Examining The Yellow Ribbon Project On Offenders Criminology Essay Help Unlock the Second Prison, the tagline from Yellow Ribbon Project, describes that the ex-offenders, upon release from the prisons, will be locked up by the walls built up by the society. Because of the perception of the public towards these ex-inmates, they often found difficulties in seeking employment. Such prejudice and discrimination will result in ex-inmates receiving fewer benefits, not just affecting the ex-offenders, but also their families. Fi the situation does not improve, inequality will continue to exist in the society. We should then implement pragmatic solutions to alleviate the discrimination against them. Ex-offenders, also known as ex-convicts, are those who have been released from prison or those with a criminal record or history (Wikipedia). Every year in Singapore, around 11,000 ex-convicts are released back to the society (Singapore Prison Service). Some of the common offences are offences against persons such as assault, offences against property such as robbery, sexual offences, drug offences and white collar crimes (Criminal Law). Employment is one of the key indicators on whether these former inmates are able to successfully re-integrate into the society. Looking at some of the employment statistics, Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE) expanded their database with 2,118 employers in their database and Industrial Services Co-Operative Society (ISCOS) has helped 3,000 ex-offenders to find jobs so far. In this essay, I seek to explore and compare discrimination on ex-offenders, especially employment opportunities, as well as its implications in Singapore with United States. After having knowledge about the issue, I will propose solutions across government, organisational and individual level. Many people would have known there are support programmes such as the Yellow Ribbon Project and other organisations such as Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE), to help ex-offenders reintegrate into the society. Although these support programmes exist, we need to consider its effectiveness in helping ex-offenders to reintegrate into the society. The re-integration rate will therefore serves an indication of the level of discrimination against these ex-offenders. Furthermore, there is little interaction with between the public and former inmates as the public shun away and feel that they do not deserve all the benefits such as housing and tax benefits. It is therefore important that we recognize the existence of such stereotyping and raise awareness to reduce the degree of discrimination and to assist these ex-offenders. After these former inmates leave their physical incarceration, they are faced with the second prison, i.e. family, friends, employers and the community at large. Most of the offenders have tattoos on their body, which signifies status, power and belonging to a certain group. Because of stereotyping, we tend to group people who have tattoos as those who have committed crimes and thus, concluding that they are gangsters and criminals. We are often afraid that we might be the next victim of these gangsters and criminals that we stand a distance away from them or go towards a crowded area. On an organisational level, we can see that some employers are still unwilling to hire ex-offenders, because they believe that leopards can never change its spots. It is heartening to see the number of ex-offenders being employed have increased with the years but we cannot guarantee that they have been given equal employment rights as the others. For example, some employers resorted to background grounds before make decisions with regards to employment. From the papers, excited applicants applied for a job at the Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands casinos, but before the official opening, at least 30 employees had to leave their job. All of them failed the Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA)s background checks and hence their contracts were voided. One of the affected employees had failed to declare his shoplifting offence. We realised that there is no difference on whether if those with criminal records declared or not, they still had their contracts terminated anyway. While we understand the concerns over criminal history as the amount of money handled in casinos are in large sum, we need to consider if these history are necessarily the best and sole predictors for future performance. Do we judge those have continuously erred and condemn that they do not deserve the chance to repent? For this case, suggestions would be to put those people who have a criminal record on a period of probation instead of sacking them. Some of the youths interviewed felt that the move by the casinos are not wrong, because we cannot guarantee that people will not be driven by greed and if there are any troubles, the public may complain and question on why the casinos were built in the first place and why were no precautions taken. Hence, it is only right to conduct background checks on them. Besides that, jobs can still be offered to them in the less risky areas. In addition, job applicants are often required to fill up the employment application form and declare that if they have been convicted in a court in any country before. Because this is usually a one-liner question, ex-offenders applications can be filtered out without considering the seriousness of the offences or even the recidivism rate of the offender. This may therefore provide an opportunity for employers to screen out ex-offenders and justify if there any inappropriate acts in the company in future. Generally, these applicants can expect that there will no reply from the company, and this may encourage them to lie about their background. If the ex-offender is caught lying, they will be automatically disqualified while declaration of their history may not be always disqualify them. We encourage all ex-offenders to be honest with the past. In the United States, the discrimination against ex-offenders is so great that they are deprived of the basic rights of voting. Without voting rights, this means that the policies and laws implemented could be against their rights. In 2008, the legislation amended the law to allow voting. Section III Why is it important for us to talk about it? The society plays a significant role in the reintegration of the ex-offenders. It is important that we recognise that these ex-offenders are human beings too. To err is human. Whether they have committed a great sin in the past or not, they still belong to the society. They are able-bodied and are eager to contribute to the society and economy. However, despite their eagerness, we shun and discriminate them, and assume that they will revert back to their old ways. In the end, the society is unable to progress as a whole. We need to prove that former convicts are assets to the society. Also, when these ex-offenders are not able to secure a job, even on short-term, to get their income, they will revert back to their old ways to get the money to survive. The recvidism rate in Singapore has remained at 25 % since 2006 (Prisons-SCORE Corporate Advance 2009) . This is much lesser than the recidivism rate in California, where 70% revert back to their old ways. It is expensive to maintain the prison as well as support rehabilitative programmes. The economic costs, which comes from tax payers increased further when these ex-offenders recidivise. The major prisons in United States, such as the one in New York, faced increased pressure to release their prisoners after minimum serving period or putting them through programmes rather than prisons. The state spends $2.5 billion a year to maintain its corrections department. Sudden surge of ex-offenders was too overwhelming and many recidivise due to insufficient and effective rehabilitative and support programmes. The revolving door is very expensive, it adds $1 billion a year to Californias overburdened penal system (Another By-Product of the Recession: Ex-convicts, TIME). Skeptical about safety, Section IV Where can we start to fix the problem? As mentioned previously, these former inmates faced discrimination in the public and most importantly, at the workplace. Without a job, they will not be able to survive and support their families, especially if they are the breadwinner of the family. When this happens, they are not able to afford basic necessities. Their families may also suffer as a result of poor education and may need to come out to work. Their spouse and children may grow up thinking why should life be so demanding and will then resort to crimes to get what they wanted. It is difficult for ex-offenders to live a better life when they are not given the same opportunities. This will continue as a vicious cycle. To reduce and even eliminate the stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination against these ex-offenders, it is important that we find out the root causes of this issue and implement various programmes and activities to encourage active participation as increased interaction may improve the perspective of the public towards ex-offenders. To begin with, organizations should organize more activities to bring ex-offenders a step closer to the public. It is hoped that through such activities, it provides both the public and ex-offenders an opportunity to interact and hence, develop a sense of trust among them. Such activities may be visit to the prisons and / or halfway houses, outdoor and indoor activities, community service projects or even, encourage ex-offenders to participate in existing events such as Yellow Ribbon Prison Run. Through interaction, it may change the perspective of the public towards them and therefore reduce the extent of discrimination. Many ex-offenders have low self-esteem and are afraid of rejection. Therefore, we should involve the ex-offenders in the planning and executing of events in the community. These events provide an opportunity for the former inmates to showcase their talents in various areas. The public are aware that it is difficult for ex-offenders to find and secure jobs. Also, from an interview with an ex-offender from Highpoint Community Services Association in 2009, I found out that employers often do not want to give ex-offenders a second chance. This outright act of non-acceptance already killed the only hope that these ex-offenders have to reintegrate into the society. As such, more organizations should start working on a campaign on hiring ex-offenders. These campaigns should focus on instilling the correct mindset of treating the ex-offenders and also their ability to work as well as any other ordinary person. As much as I acknowledge that nobody can be free from discrimination, including employers, research shows that provision work is important. In addition, more jobs seminars should be introduced to increase the employment opportunities available to ex-offenders. To enhance the public confidence in them, we can consider cooperating with companies to provide these ex-offenders transitional jobs as probationers, to start them off for several years so that they have relevant working experience, instead of merely skills acquiring in the rehabilitative programmes. After the transition period, these organizations can also help to recommend the employees to other companies. Besides the technical skills acquired from the support programmes, the programmes should also focus on soft skills such as interpersonal skills. These ex-convicts should also learn more about resume writing and interview skills, as these will help them to market themselves well. For the declaration of whether the job applicant has been convicted in court before, we should further improve on the question so that it allows the ex-offender to declare that they have convicted for which offences and also the year of conviction. In this case, the employers benefit as they can take note of the offences made, and be aware that these are not detrimental to the interests of the company and other stakeholders. This is because if the ex-offenders cause any troubles, the company will be the party that suffers the heaviest losses. Also, the job applicants gains from this as the employers are practising selective screening rather than a total elimination. There are also calls to ban the declaration box. However, I feel that the employers are right to protect their interests and the ex-offenders should be honest and convince the employers on their efforts to stay out of crime. As noted above, generally the society has the perspective that ex-offenders are likely to revert back to their old ways. Hence, it is important that we improve the rehabilitation programme to reduce the chances of such cases occurring. We need to note that the limitation of the rehabilitation programmes as decision to go back to old ways varies from the circumstances faced by the ex-offenders. If the solutions proposed above are being implemented on a long-term basis, we could see that less discrimination acts towards ex-offenders and the Singapore will move towards a much more forgiving society.

Norbert Rillieux :: essays research papers

Norbert Rillieux Norbert Rillieux was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 17, 1806. His mother, Constance Vivant was a freed slave from New Orleans, and his father, Vincent Rillieux, was a inventor and engineer. Vincent invented the steam-operated cotton baling press. Norbert's academic talents were seen at an early age by his father, and was sent to Paris to be educated. At the age of twenty-four, Norbert Rillieux was a teacher of applied mechanics at a school in Paris. In 1830, he put out a series of papers about steam economy and steam engine work, a prelude to his invention involving steam. In fact, it was during the time that he was writing these papers, most likely, that he created his theory about multiple effect evaporation. Between 1884 and 1854, he created the Rillieux apparatus, a revolutionary invention. In 1864, he patented his first model, and advanced the system for eight more years, and received more patents. It took him ten years to create the final model because he was black, and there were prejudices he had to deal with in addition to his invention. Norbert Rillieux invented the triple effect vacuum evaporator. The "triple effect" is for the multiple things that the system does all at the same time. The "vacuum" is for the vacuum of air that is used in the system, and the "evaporator" is for the sugarcane liquid syrup that is heated and evaporated into regular sugar. The actual system is somewhat complicated, so please see the picture that is provided. As I have stated, the purpose of the triple effect vacuum evaporator is to evaporate the liquid out of sugarcane syrup, the natural form of regular sugar, leaving the sugar crystals we can use. The way that the evaporator works is like this: Water is heated in the first container (1) which produces steam. The steam carries heat, called latent heat. A pump on the wall of the first container (1) pumps the steam into the second container (2). The steam from the first container (1) heats the syrup and boils it, creating sugar crystals, in the second container (2), using up the latent heat in the steam from the first container (1). The evaporating syrup creates it's own steam, with latent heat as well. A pump on the opposite wall of the second container, (2), pumps the latent heat in the steam into the third container (3).

Cults Essay -- essays research papers fc

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The word cult is defined as an alternative religion. Most cults are started because someone doesn’t like the way the world is, and feels that his/her church isn’t doing anything to make it better, so they leave and create what they believe to be the perfect religion. Then this person strives to make others believe as they do so they will join (Miller, 1991, p. 15). There are somewhere around 3,000 to 5,000 of these cults throughout the United States, but only 75 to 100 are documented (Miller, 1991, p. 15-16). Satanism is the oldest form of such cults. A few other commonly known cults are Reverend Jim Jones and the People Temple, Heavens Gate, and Charles Manson and the Family. In the early 20th century, Allistar Crowly, AKA â€Å"The Black Pope†, started modern Satanism. It is said that Anton Lavey brought Satanism to the United States. Anton believed that he was the reincarnation of the â€Å"Black Pope†. He set his church up in San Francisco in 1966. Within one year Anton’s cult grew to more than 200,000 members (Miller, 1991, p. 28-29). Anton then went to Hollywood to help make movies about Satanism. He succeeded in doing so and was involved with the making of many movies including Rosmary’s Baby (Miller, 1991, p. 29). During this time Lavey and his assistant Michael Aquins wrote The Satanic Bible, which instantly became a best seller. The Satanic Bible told of the main concepts of Satanism. Basically, it is the reverse of Christianity. The main idea projected is â€Å"Do what thou will† (Miller, 1991, p. 31). One of the peculiar rituals of Satanist is the sacrifice of a newborn child. They believe that the newborn has a special power, and if they sacrifice the baby immediately after birth, that its power will go into the coven (Miller 1991, p. 33).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reverend Jim Jones was the leader of The Peoples Temple. Jim thought of himself as the reincarnation of Jesus and Lenin. His vision of world domination was nuclear war, and the only cities that would survive are Ukiah, California and Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Because of this belief, he moved his cult to Ukiah and awaited the war (Cults R Us, 2000, September 27, p. 1). After awhile he grew tired of waiting for what he claimed would be â€Å"WW 3†, so he relocated his church to San Francisco. There he practiced a ritual know as â€Å"White Nights†. In this ritual members prepare... ...ly where to go first. Manson’s first victim was Terry Melcher. Several members of â€Å"The Family† went to his house and killed him. When they were finished they wrote â€Å"POLITICAL PIGGY† on a wall to make it look like the Black Panthers had committed the murder. The next victim was Cielo Drive. Once again several members of â€Å"The Family† went to her house and killed her. They killed five other people. One of the members wanted to cut a baby from the stomach of a pregnant woman they had killed and take it to Charles. She also thought about cutting out the baby’s heart and eating it (Cults R Us, 2000, p. 1). Manson’s antics were put to an end one day while â€Å"The Family† was out in the desert riding dun buggies where marshals arrested Charles and other members of the Cult (Cults R Us, 2000, p. 1). Statistics have shown that most Satanist lack self-confidence. They enter the religion because of the false sense of power and security it offers. Although   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bibliography 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cults R Us (2000, September 27) [online] Available: www.mayhem.net/crime/cults1/html 2. Miller, M (1990). Coping With Cults. Rosen Publishing Group, INC. New York.

Capital Asset Pricing Model and International Research Journal

International Research Journal of Finance and Economics ISSN 1450-2887 Issue 4 (2006)  © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2006 http://www. eurojournals. com/finance. htm Testing the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM): The Case of the Emerging Greek Securities Market Grigoris Michailidis University of Macedonia, Economic and Social Sciences Department of Applied Informatics Thessaloniki, Greece E-mail: [email  protected] gr Tel: 00302310891889 Stavros Tsopoglou University of Macedonia, Economic and Social Sciences Department of Applied Informatics Thessaloniki, Greece E-mail: [email  protected] r Tel: 00302310891889 Demetrios Papanastasiou University of Macedonia, Economic and Social Sciences Department of Applied Informatics Thessaloniki, Greece E-mail: [email  protected] gr Tel: 00302310891878 Eleni Mariola Hagan School of Business, Iona College New Rochelle Abstract The article examines the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) for the Greek stock market using weekly stock return s from 100 companies listed on the Athens stock exchange for the period of January 1998 to December 2002.In order to diversify away the firm-specific part of returns thereby enhancing the precision of the beta estimates, the securities where grouped into portfolios. The findings of this article are not supportive of the theory’s basic statement that higher risk (beta) is associated with higher levels of return. The model does explain, however, excess returns and thus lends support to the linear structure of the CAPM equation. The CAPM’s prediction for the intercept is that it should equal zero and the slope should equal the excess returns on the market portfolio.The results of the study refute the above hypothesis and offer evidence against the CAPM. The tests conducted to examine the nonlinearity of the relationship between return and betas support the hypothesis that the expected return-beta relationship is linear. Additionally, this paper investigates whether the CA PM adequately captures all-important determinants of returns including the residual International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) variance of stocks. The results demonstrate that residual risk has no effect on the expected returns of portfolios.Tests may provide evidence against the CAPM but they do not necessarily constitute evidence in support of any alternative model (JEL G11, G12, and G15). Key words: CAPM, Athens Stock Exchange, portfolio returns, beta, risk free rate, stocks JEL Classification: F23, G15 79 I. Introduction Investors and financial researchers have paid considerable attention during the last few years to the new equity markets that have emerged around the world. This new interest has undoubtedly been spurred by the large, and in some cases extraordinary, returns offered by these markets.Practitioners all over the world use a plethora of models in their portfolio selection process and in their attempt to assess the risk exposure t o different assets. One of the most important developments in modern capital theory is the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) as developed by Sharpe [1964], Lintner [1965] and Mossin [1966]. CAPM suggests that high expected returns are associated with high levels of risk. Simply stated, CAPM postulates that the expected return on an asset above the risk-free rate is linearly related to the non-diversifiable risk as measured by the asset’s beta.Although the CAPM has been predominant in empirical work over the past 30 years and is the basis of modern portfolio theory, accumulating research has increasingly cast doubt on its ability to explain the actual movements of asset returns. The purpose of this article is to examine thoroughly if the CAPM holds true in the capital market of Greece. Tests are conducted for a period of five years (1998-2002), which is characterized by intense return volatility (covering historically high returns for the Greek Stock market as well as signifi cant decrease in asset returns over the examined period).These market return characteristics make it possible to have an empirical investigation of the pricing model on differing financial conditions thus obtaining conclusions under varying stock return volatility. Existing financial literature on the Athens stock exchange is rather scanty and it is the goal of this study to widen the theoretical analysis of this market by using modern finance theory and to provide useful insights for future analyses of this market. II. Empirical appraisal of the model and competing studies of the model’s validity 2. 1.Empirical appraisal of CAPM Since its introduction in early 1960s, CAPM has been one of the most challenging topics in financial economics. Almost any manager who wants to undertake a project must justify his decision partly based on CAPM. The reason is that the model provides the means for a firm to calculate the return that its investors demand. This model was the first succe ssful attempt to show how to assess the risk of the cash flows of a potential investment project, to estimate the project’s cost of capital and the expected rate of return that investors will demand if they are to invest in the project.The model was developed to explain the differences in the risk premium across assets. According to the theory these differences are due to differences in the riskiness of the returns on the assets. The model states that the correct measure of the riskiness of an asset is its beta and that the risk premium per unit of riskiness is the same across all assets. Given the risk free rate and the beta of an asset, the CAPM predicts the expected risk premium for an asset. The theory itself has been criticized for more than 30 years and has created a great academic debate about its usefulness and validity.In general, the empirical testing of CAPM has two broad purposes (Baily et al, [1998]): (i) to test whether or not the theories should be rejected (ii ) to provide information that can aid financial decisions. To accomplish (i) tests are conducted which could potentially at least reject the model. The model passes the test if it is not possible to reject the hypothesis that it is true. Methods of statistical analysis need to be applied in order to draw reliable conclusions on whether the 80 International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) model is supported by the data.To accomplish (ii) the empirical work uses the theory as a vehicle for organizing and interpreting the data without seeking ways of rejecting the theory. This kind of approach is found in the area of portfolio decision-making, in particular with regards to the selection of assets to the bought or sold. For example, investors are advised to buy or sell assets that according to CAPM are underpriced or overpriced. In this case empirical analysis is needed to evaluate the assets, assess their riskiness, analyze them, and place them into th eir respective categories.A second illustration of the latter methodology appears in corporate finance where the estimated beta coefficients are used in assessing the riskiness of different investment projects. It is then possible to calculate â€Å"hurdle rates† that projects must satisfy if they are to be undertaken. This part of the paper focuses on tests of the CAPM since its introduction in the mid 1960’s, and describes the results of competing studies that attempt to evaluate the usefulness of the capital asset pricing model (Jagannathan and McGrattan [1995]). 2. 2.The classic support of the theory The model was developed in the early 1960’s by Sharpe [1964], Lintner [1965] and Mossin [1966]. In its simple form, the CAPM predicts that the expected return on an asset above the risk-free rate is linearly related to the non-diversifiable risk, which is measured by the asset’s beta. One of the earliest empirical studies that found supportive evidence fo r CAPM is that of Black, Jensen and Scholes [1972]. Using monthly return data and portfolios rather than individual stocks, Black et al tested whether the cross-section of expected returns is linear in beta.By combining securities into portfolios one can diversify away most of the firm-specific component of the returns, thereby enhancing the precision of the beta estimates and the expected rate of return of the portfolio securities. This approach mitigates the statistical problems that arise from measurement errors in beta estimates. The authors found that the data are consistent with the predictions of the CAPM i. e. the relation between the average return and beta is very close to linear and that portfolios with high (low) betas have high (low) average returns.Another classic empirical study that supports the theory is that of Fama and McBeth [1973]; they examined whether there is a positive linear relation between average returns and beta. Moreover, the authors investigated wheth er the squared value of beta and the volatility of asset returns can explain the residual variation in average returns across assets that are not explained by beta alone. 2. 3. Challenges to the validity of the theory In the early 1980s several studies suggested that there were deviations from the linear CAPM riskreturn trade-off due to other variables that affect this tradeoff.The purpose of the above studies was to find the components that CAPM was missing in explaining the risk-return trade-off and to identify the variables that created those deviations. Banz [1981] tested the CAPM by checking whether the size of firms can explain the residual variation in average returns across assets that remain unexplained by the CAPM’s beta. He challenged the CAPM by demonstrating that firm size does explain the cross sectional-variation in average returns on a particular collection of assets better than beta.The author concluded that the average returns on stocks of small firms (those with low market values of equity) were higher than the average returns on stocks of large firms (those with high market values of equity). This finding has become known as the size effect. The research has been expanded by examining different sets of variables that might affect the riskreturn tradeoff. In particular, the earnings yield (Basu [1977]), leverage, and the ratio of a firm’s book value of equity to its market value (e. g.Stattman [1980], Rosenberg, Reid and Lanstein [1983] and Chan, Hamao, Lakonishok [1991]) have all been utilized in testing the validity of CAPM. International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) 81 The general reaction to Banz’s [1981] findings, that CAPM may be missing some aspects of reality, was to support the view that although the data may suggest deviations from CAPM, these deviations are not so important as to reject the theory. However, this idea has been challenged by Fama and French [1992].They showed that Banz’s findings might be economically so important that it raises serious questions about the validity of the CAPM. Fama and French [1992] used the same procedure as Fama and McBeth [1973] but arrived at very different conclusions. Fama and McBeth find a positive relation between return and risk while Fama and French find no relation at all. 2. 4. The academic debate continues The Fama and French [1992] study has itself been criticized. In general the studies responding to the Fama and French challenge by and large take a closer look at the data used in the study.Kothari, Shaken and Sloan [1995] argue that Fama and French’s [1992] findings depend essentially on how the statistical findings are interpreted. Amihudm, Christensen and Mendelson [1992] and Black [1993] support the view that the data are too noisy to invalidate the CAPM. In fact, they show that when a more efficient statistical method is used, the estimated relation between average return and beta is p ositive and significant. Black [1993] suggests that the size effect noted by Banz [1981] could simply be a sample period effect i. e. the size effect is observed in some periods and not in others.Despite the above criticisms, the general reaction to the Fama and French [1992] findings has been to focus on alternative asset pricing models. Jagannathan and Wang [1993] argue that this may not be necessary. Instead they show that the lack of empirical support for the CAPM may be due to the inappropriateness of basic assumptions made to facilitate the empirical analysis. For example, most empirical tests of the CAPM assume that the return on broad stock market indices is a good proxy for the return on the market portfolio of all assets in the economy.However, these types of market indexes do not capture all assets in the economy such as human capital. Other empirical evidence on stock returns is based on the argument that the volatility of stock returns is constantly changing. When one c onsiders a time-varying return distribution, one must refer to the conditional mean, variance, and covariance that change depending on currently available information. In contrast, the usual estimates of return, variance, and average squared deviations over a sample period, provide an unconditional estimate because they treat variance as constant over time.The most widely used model to estimate the conditional (hence time- varying) variance of stocks and stock index returns is the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedacity (GARCH) model pioneered by Robert. F. Engle. To summarize, all the models above aim to improve the empirical testing of CAPM. There have also been numerous modifications to the models and whether the earliest or the subsequent alternative models validate or not the CAPM is yet to be determined. III. Sample selection and Data 3. 1. Sample Selection The study covers the period from January 1998 to December 2002.This time period was chosen because it is c haracterized by intense return volatility with historically high and low returns for the Greek stock market. The selected sample consists of 100 stocks that are included in the formation of the FTSE/ASE 20, FTSE/ASE Mid 40 and FTSE/ASE Small Cap. These indices are designed to provide real-time measures of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). The above indices are formed subject to the following criteria: (i) The FTSE/ASE 20 index is the large cap index, containing the 20 largest blue chip companies listed in the ASE. 82 International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) ii) The FTSE/ASE Mid 40 index is the mid cap index and captures the performance of the next 40 companies in size. (iii) The FTSE/ASE Small Cap index is the small cap index and captures the performance of the next 80 companies. All securities included in the indices are traded on the ASE on a continuous basis throughout the full Athens stock exchange trading day, and are chosen according to pr especified liquidity criteria set by the ASE Advisory Committee1. For the purpose of the study, 100 stocks were selected from the pool of securities included in the above-mentioned indices.Each series consists of 260 observations of the weekly closing prices. The selection was made on the basis of the trading volume and excludes stocks that were traded irregularly or had small trading volumes. 3. 2. Data Selection The study uses weekly stock returns from 100 companies listed on the Athens stock exchange for the period of January 1998 to December 2002. The data are obtained from MetaStock (Greek) Data Base. In order to obtain better estimates of the value of the beta coefficient, the study utilizes weekly stock returns. Returns calculated using a longer time period (e. g. onthly) might result in changes of beta over the examined period introducing biases in beta estimates. On the other hand, high frequency data such as daily observations covering a relatively short and stable time sp an can result in the use of very noisy data and thus yield inefficient estimates. All stock returns used in the study are adjusted for dividends as required by the CAPM. The ASE Composite Share index is used as a proxy for the market portfolio. This index is a market value weighted index, is comprised of the 60 most highly capitalized shares of the main market, and reflects general trends of the Greek stock market.Furthermore, the 3-month Greek Treasury Bill is used as the proxy for the risk-free asset. The yields were obtained from the Treasury Bonds and Bill Department of the National Bank of Greece. The yield on the 3-month Treasury bill is specifically chosen as the benchmark that better reflects the short-term changes in the Greek financial markets. IV. Methodology The first step was to estimate a beta coefficient for each stock using weekly returns during the period of January 1998 to December 2002. The beta was estimated by regressing each stock’s weekly return against the market index according to the following equation: Rit – R ft = a i + ? ? ( Rmt – R ft ) + eit (1) where, Rit is the return on stock i (i=1†¦100), R ft is the rate of return on a risk-free asset, Rmt is the rate of return on the market index, ? i is the estimate of beta for the stock i , and eit is the corresponding random disturbance term in the regression equation. [Equation 1 could also be expressed using excess return notation, where ( Rit – R ft ) = rit and ( Rmt – Rft ) = rmt ]In spite of the fact that weekly returns were used to avoid short-term noise effects the estimation diagnostic tests for equation (1) indicated, in several occasions, departures from the linear assumption. www. ase. gr International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) 83 In such cases, equation (1) was re-estimated providing for EGARCH (1,1) form to comfort with misspecification. The next step was to compute average portfolio excess retur ns of stocks ( rpt ) ordered according to their beta coefficient computed by Equation 1. Let, rpt = ?r i =1 k it k (2) where, k is the number of stocks included in each portfolio (k=1†¦10), p is the number of portfolios (p=1†¦10), rit is the excess return on stocks that form each portfolio comprised of k stocks each.This procedure generated 10 equally-weighted portfolios comprised of 10 stocks each. By forming portfolios the spread in betas across portfolios is maximized so that the effect of beta on return can be clearly examined. The most obvious way to form portfolios is to rank stocks into portfolios by the true beta. But, all that is available is observed beta. Ranking into portfolios by observed beta would introduce selection bias. Stocks with high-observed beta (in the highest group) would be more likely to have a positive measurement error in estimating beta.This would introduce a positive bias into beta for high-beta portfolios and would introduce a negative bias into an estimate of the intercept. (Elton and Gruber [1995], p. 333). Combining securities into portfolios diversifies away most of the firm-specific part of returns thereby enhancing the precision of the estimates of beta and the expected rate of return on the portfolios on securities. This mitigates statistical problems that arise from measurement error in the beta estimates. The following equation was used to estimate portfolio betas: rpt = a p + ? p ? mt + e pt (3) where, rpt is the average excess portfolio return, ? p is the calculated portfolio beta. The study continues by estimating the ex-post Security Market Line (SML) by regressing the portfolio returns against the portfolio betas obtained by Equation 3. The relation examined is the following: rP = ? 0 + ? 1 ? ? P + e P (4) where, rp is the average excess return on a portfolio p (the difference between the return on the portfolio and the return on a risk-free asset), ? p is an estimate of beta of the portfolio p , ?1 is th e market price of risk, the risk premium for bearing one unit of beta risk, ? is the zero-beta rate, the expected return on an asset which has a beta of zero, and e p is random disturbance term in the regression equation. In order to test for nonlinearity between total portfolio returns and betas, a regression was run on average portfolio returns, calculated portfolio beta, and beta-square from equation 3: 2 rp = ? 0 + ? 1 ? ? p + ? 2 ? ? p + e p (5) Finally in order to examine whether the residual variance of stocks affects portfolio returns, an additional term was included in equation 5, to test for the explanatory power of nonsystematic risk: 2 rp = ? + ? 1 ? ? p + ? 2 ? ? p + ? 3 ? RVp + e p (6) where 84 International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) RV p is the residual variance of portfolio returns (Equation 3), RV p = ? 2 (e pt ) . The estimated parameters allow us to test a series of hypotheses regarding the CAPM. The tests are: i) ? 3 = 0 or residual risk does not affect return, ii) ? 2 = 0 or there are no nonlinearities in the security market line, iii) ? 1 > 0 that is, there is a positive price of risk in the capital markets (Elton and Gruber [1995], p. 336).Finally, the above analysis was also conducted for each year separately (1998-2002), by changing the portfolio compositions according to yearly estimated betas. V. Empirical results and Interpretation of the findings The first part of the methodology required the estimation of betas for individual stocks by using observations on rates of return for a sequence of dates. Useful remarks can be derived from the results of this procedure, for the assets used in this study. The range of the estimated stock betas is between 0. 0984 the minimum and 1. 4369 the maximum with a standard deviation of 0. 240 (Table 1). Most of the beta coefficients for individual stocks are statistically significant at a 95% level and all estimated beta coefficients are statistical signifi cant at a 90% level. For a more accurate estimation of betas an EGARCH (1,1) model was used wherever it was necessary, in order to correct for nonlinearities. Table 1: Stock beta coefficient estimates (Equation 1)Stock name beta Stock name beta Stock name OLYMP . 0984 THEMEL . 8302 PROOD EYKL . 4192 AIOLK . 8303 ALEK MPELA . 4238 AEGEK . 8305 EPATT MPTSK . 5526 AEEXA . 8339 SIDEN FOIN . 5643 SPYR . 8344 GEK GKOYT . 862 SARANT . 8400 ELYF PAPAK . 6318 ELTEX . 8422 MOYZK ABK . 6323 ELEXA . 8427 TITK MYTIL . 6526 MPENK . 8610 NIKAS FELXO . 6578 HRAKL . 8668 ETHENEX ABAX . 6874 PEIR . 8698 IATR TSIP . 6950 BIOXK . 8747 METK AAAK . 7047 ELMEK . 8830 ALPHA EEEK . 7097 LAMPSA . 8848 AKTOR ERMHS . 7291 MHXK . 8856 INTKA LAMDA . 7297 DK . 8904 MAIK OTE . 7309 FOLI . 9005 PETZ MARF . 7423 THELET . 9088 ETEM MRFKO . 7423 ATT . 9278 FINTO KORA . 7520 ARBA . 9302 ESXA RILK . 7682 KATS . 9333 BIOSK LYK . 7684 ALBIO . 9387 XATZK ELASK . 7808 XAKOR . 9502 KREKA NOTOS . 8126 SAR . 9533 ETE KARD . 82 90 NAYP . 577 SANYO Source: Metastock (Greek) Data Base and calculations (S-PLUS) beta . 9594 . 9606 . 9698 . 9806 . 9845 . 9890 . 9895 . 9917 . 9920 1. 0059 1. 0086 1. 0149 1. 0317 1. 0467 1. 0532 1. 0542 1. 0593 1. 0616 1. 0625 1. 0654 1. 0690 1. 0790 1. 0911 1. 1127 1. 1185 Stock name EMP NAOYK ELBE ROKKA SELMK DESIN ELBAL ESK TERNA KERK POYL EEGA KALSK GENAK FANKO PLATH STRIK EBZ ALLK GEBKA AXON RINTE KLONK ETMAK ALTEK beta 1. 1201 1. 1216 1. 1256 1. 1310 1. 1312 1. 1318 1. 1348 1. 1359 1. 1392 1. 1396 1. 1432 1. 1628 1. 1925 1. 1996 1. 2322 1. 2331 1. 2500 1. 2520 1. 2617 1. 2830 1. 3030 1. 3036 1. 3263 1. 3274 1. 4369The article argues that certain hypotheses can be tested irregardless of whether one believes in the validity of the simple CAPM or in any other version of the theory. Firstly, the theory indicates that higher risk (beta) is associated with a higher level of return. However, the results of the study do not International Research Journal of Finance and Economics â €“ Issue 4 (2006) 85 support this hypothesis. The beta coefficients of the 10 portfolios do not indicate that higher beta portfolios are related with higher returns. Portfolio 10 for example, the highest beta portfolio ( ? = 1. 2024), yields negative portfolio returns.In contrast, portfolio 1, the lowest beta portfolio ( ? = 0. 5474) produces positive returns. These contradicting results can be partially explained by the significant fluctuations of stock returns over the period examined (Table 2). Table 2: Average excess portfolio returns and betas (Equation 3) rp beta (p) a10 . 0001 . 5474 b10 . 0000 . 7509 c10 -. 0007 . 9137 d10 -. 0004 . 9506 e10 -. 0008 . 9300 f10 -. 0009 . 9142 g10 -. 0006 1. 0602 h10 -. 0013 1. 1066 i10 -. 0004 1. 1293 j10 -. 0004 1. 2024 Average Rf . 0014 Average rm=(Rm-Rf) . 0001 Source: Metastock (Greek) Data Base and calculations (S-PLUS) Portfolio Var.Error . 0012 . 0013 . 0014 . 0014 . 0009 . 0010 . 0012 . 0019 . 0020 . 0026 R2 . 4774 . 5335 . 5940 . 6054 . 7140 . 6997 . 6970 . 6057 . 6034 . 5691 In order to test the CAPM hypothesis, it is necessary to find the counterparts to the theoretical values that must be used in the CAPM equation. In this study the yield on the 3-month Greek Treasury Bill was used as an approximation of the risk-free rate. For the R m , the ASE Composite Share index is taken as the best approximation for the market portfolio. The basic equation used was rP = ? 0 + ? 1 ? ? P + e P (Equation 4) where ? is the expected excess return on a zero beta portfolio and ? 1 is the market price of risk, the difference between the expected rate of return on the market and a zero beta portfolio. One way for allowing for the possibility that the CAPM does not hold true is to add an intercept in the estimation of the SML. The CAPM considers that the intercept is zero for every asset. Hence, a test can be constructed to examine this hypothesis. In order to diversify away most of the firm-specific part of returns, thereby enhancing the precision of the beta estimates, the securities were previously combined into portfolios.This approach mitigates the statistical problems that arise from measurement errors in individual beta estimates. These portfolios were created for several reasons: (i) the random influences on individual stocks tend to be larger compared to those on suitably constructed portfolios (hence, the intercept and beta are easier to estimate for portfolios) and (ii) the tests for the intercept are easier to implement for portfolios because by construction their estimated coefficients are less likely to be correlated with one another than the shares of individual companies.The high value of the estimated correlation coefficient between the intercept and the slope indicates that the model used explains excess returns (Table 3). 86 International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) Table 3: Statistics of the estimation of the SML (Equation 4) Coefficient ? 0 Val ue . 0005 t-value (. 9011) p-value . 3939 Residual standard error: . 0004 on 8 degrees of freedom Multiple R-Squared: . 2968 F-statistic: 3. 3760 on 1 and 8 degrees of freedom, the p-value is . 1034 Correlation of Coefficients 0 ,? 1 = . 9818 ? 1 -. 0011 (-1. 8375) . 1034However, the fact that the intercept has a value around zero weakens the above explanation. The results of this paper appear to be inconsistent with the zero beta version of the CAPM because the intercept of the SML is not greater than the interest rate on risk free-bonds (Table 2 and 3). In the estimation of SML, the CAPM’s prediction for ? 0 is that it should be equal to zero. The calculated value of the intercept is small (0. 0005) but it is not significantly different from zero (the tvalue is not greater than 2) Hence, based on the intercept criterion alone the CAPM hypothesis cannot clearly be rejected.According to CAPM the SLM slope should equal the excess return on the market portfolio. The excess ret urn on the market portfolio was 0. 0001 while the estimated SLM slope was – 0. 0011. Hence, the latter result also indicates that there is evidence against the CAPM (Table 2 and 3). In order to test for nonlinearity between total portfolio returns and betas, a regression was run between average portfolio returns, calculated portfolio betas, and the square of betas (Equation 5). Results show that the intercept (0. 0036) of the equation was greater than the risk-free interest rate (0. 014), ? 1 was negative and different from zero while ? 2 , the coefficient of the square beta was very small (0. 0041 with a t-value not greater than 2) and thus consistent with the hypothesis that the expected return-beta relationship is linear (Table 4). Table 4: Testing for Non-linearity (Equation 5) Coefficient ? 0 Value . 0036 t-value (1. 7771) p-value 0. 1188 Residual standard error: . 0003 on 7 degrees of freedom Multiple R-Squared: . 4797 F-statistic: 3. 2270 on 2 and 7 degrees of freedom, the p-value is . 1016 ? 1 -. 0084 (-1. 8013) 0. 1147 ? 2 . 0041 (1. 5686) 0. 1607According to the CAPM, expected returns vary across assets only because the assets’ betas are different. Hence, one way to investigate whether CAPM adequately captures all-important aspects of the risk-return tradeoff is to test whether other asset-specific characteristics can explain the crosssectional differences in average returns that cannot be attributed to cross-sectional differences in beta. To accomplish this task the residual variance of portfolio returns was added as an additional explanatory variable (Equation 6). The coefficient of the residual variance of portfolio returns ? 3 is small and not statistically different from zero.It is therefore safe to conclude that residual risk has no affect on the expected return of a security. Thus, when portfolios are used instead of individual stocks, residual risk no longer appears to be important (Table 5). International Research Journal of Fi nance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) Table 5: Testing for Non-Systematic risk (Equation 6) Coefficient ? 0 ? 1 Value . 0017 -. 0043 t-value (. 5360) (-. 6182) p-value 0. 6113 0. 5591 Residual standard error: . 0003 on 6 degrees of freedom Multiple R-Squared: . 5302 F-statistic: 2. 2570 on 3 and 6 degrees of freedom, the p-value is . 1821 ? 2 . 0015 (. 3381) 0. 7468 ? 3 . 3503 (. 8035) 0. 523 87 Since the analysis on the entire five-year period did not yield strong evidence in favor of the CAPM we examined whether a similar approach on yearly data would provide more supportive evidence. All models were tested separately for each of the five-year period and the results were statistically better for some years but still did not support the CAPM hypothesis (Tables 6, 7 and 8).Table 6: Statistics of the estimation SML (yearly series, Equation 4) 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Coefficient ? 0 ? 1 ? 0 ? 1 ? 0 ? 1 ? 0 ? 1 ? 0 ? 1 Value . 0053 . 0050 . 0115 . 0134 -. 0035 -. 0149 . 0000 -. 0057 -. 0017 -. 0088 t-value (3. 7665) (2. 231) (2. 8145) (4. 0237) (-1. 9045) (-9. 4186) (. 0025) (-2. 4066) (-. 8452) (-5. 3642) Std. Error . 0014 . 0022 . 0041 . 0033 . 0019 . 0016 . 0024 . 0028 . 0020 . 0016 p-value . 0050 . 0569 . 2227 . 0038 . 0933 . 0000 . 9981 . 0427 . 4226 . 0007 Table 7: Testing for Non-linearity (yearly series, Equation 5) 1998 Coefficient ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 Value . 0035 . 0139 -. 0078 . 0030 -. 0193 . 0135 -. 0129 . 0036 -. 0083 . 0092 -. 0240 . 0083 -. 0077 . 0046 -. 0059 t-value (1. 7052) (1. 7905) (-1. 1965) (2. 1093) (-. 7909) (1. 3540) (-3. 5789) (. 5435) (-2. 8038) (1. 2724) (-1. 7688) (1. 3695) (-2. 9168) (. 139) (-2. 7438) Std. Error . 0020 . 0077 . 0065 . 0142 . 0243 . 0026 . 0036 . 0067 . 0030 . 0072 . 0136 . 0060 . 0026 . 0050 . 0022 p-value . 1319 . 1165 . 2705 . 0729 . 4549 . 0100 . 0090 . 6037 . 0264 . 2439 . 1202 . 2132 . 0224 . 3911 . 0288 1999 2000 2001 2002 88 International Research Journal of Fi nance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) Table 8: Testing for Non-Systematic risk (yearly series, Equation 6) 1998 Coefficient ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 3 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 3 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 3 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 3 ? 0 ? 1 ? 2 ? 3 Value . 0016 . 0096 -. 0037 3. 0751 . 0017 -. 0043 . 0015 . 3503 -. 0203 . 0199 -. 0185 2. 2673 . 0062 -. 0193 . 0053 1. 7024 -. 0049 . 000 -. 0026 -5. 1548 t-value (. 7266) (1. 2809) (-. 5703) (. 5862) (1. 4573) (-. 0168) (. 0201) (2. 2471) (-4. 6757) (2. 2305) (-3. 6545) (2. 2673) (. 6019) (-1. 0682) (. 5635) (. 4324) (-. 9507) (. 0054) (-. 4576) (-. 6265) Std. Error . 0022 . 0075 . 0065 1. 9615 . 0125 . 0211 . 0099 1. 4278 . 0043 . 0089 . 0051 . 9026 . 0103 . 0181 . 0094 3. 9369 . 0052 . 0089 . 0058 8. 2284 p-value . 4948 . 2475 . 5892 . 1680 . 1953 . 9846 . 9846 . 0657 . 0034 . 0106 . 0106 . 0639 . 5693 . 3265 . 5935 . 6805 . 3785 . 9959 . 6633 . 5541 1999 2000 2001 2002 VI. Concluding Remarks The article examined the validity of the CAPM for the Greek stock market.The stu dy used weekly stock returns from 100 companies listed on the Athens stock exchange from January 1998 to December 2002. The findings of the article are not supportive of the theory’s basic hypothesis that higher risk (beta) is associated with a higher level of return. In order to diversify away most of the firm-specific part of returns thereby enhancing the precision of the beta estimates, the securities where combined into portfolios to mitigate the statistical problems that arise from measurement errors in individual beta estimates. The model does explain, however, excess returns.The results obtained lend support to the linear structure of the CAPM equation being a good explanation of security returns. The high value of the estimated correlation coefficient between the intercept and the slope indicates that the model used, explains excess returns. However, the fact that the intercept has a value around zero weakens the above explanation. The CAPM’s prediction for the intercept is that it should be equal to zero and the slope should equal the excess returns on the market portfolio. The findings of the study contradict the above hypothesis and indicate evidence against the CAPM.The inclusion of the square of the beta coefficient to test for nonlinearity in the relationship between returns and betas indicates that the findings are according to the hypothesis and the expected returnbeta relationship is linear. Additionally, the tests conducted to investigate whether the CAPM adequately captures all-important aspects of reality by including the residual variance of stocks indicates that the residual risk has no effect on the expected return on portfolios. The lack of strong evidence in favor of CAPM necessitated the study of yearly data to test the validity of the model.The findings from this approach provided better statistical results for some years but still did not support the CAPM hypothesis. The results of the tests conducted on data from the Athens stock exchange for the period of January 1998 to December 2002 do not appear to clearly reject the CAPM. This does not mean that the data do not support CAPM. As Black [1972] points out these results can be explained in two ways. First, measurement and model specification errors arise due to the use of a proxy instead of the actual market International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Issue 4 (2006) 89 ortfolio. This error biases the regression line estimated slope towards zero and its estimated intercept away from zero. Second, if no risk-free asset exists, the CAPM does not predict an intercept of zero.