Milk Tea Essay Example

Milk Tea Essay In conclusion, I have found that TQM can be a powerful tool for using employee creativity, reducing costs, and improving service to customers and the public. However, the concept of TQM was weak and the quality of many products was still poor in China, and the implementation of TQM is not always a worthwhile investment. So I disagree that no business can succeed without the TQM system. It is not necessary for every business to use TQM, especially in China business environment. If it is implemented properly, TQM can keep an organization at the leader in the international market. If managers stick to planning and implementing TQM carefully, it can become easier to make the company successful year after year. In conclusion, I have found that TQM can be a powerful tool for using employee creativity, reducing costs, and improving service to customers and the public. However, the concept of TQM was weak and the quality of many products was still poor in China, and the implementation of TQM is not always a worthwhile investment. So I disagree that no business can succeed without the TQM system. It is not necessary for every business to use TQM, especially in China business environment. If it is implemented properly, TQM can keep an organization at the leader in the international market. If managers stick to planning and implementing TQM carefully, it can become easier to make the company successful year after year. Xerox is committed to providing world-class products and services to our customers. This commitment requires developing a diverse and global network of benchmark suppliers. We will write a custom essay sample on Milk Tea specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Milk Tea specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Milk Tea specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Xerox Supplier Relations is our web site dedicated to Global Supplier Relationship Management. Here you will find the latest information which is designed to be simple and consistent. We hope this web site serves you, our supplier community, by providing a centralized location for information to assist you in conducting business with Xerox. All Xerox suppliers are expected to develop and maintain an environment where Total Quality Management principles are practiced to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. Xerox requires suppliers who provide products and services to do so in a manner that not only assures 100% compliance to contracts and specifications but also assures customer satisfaction. This must be accomplished in an environment of continuous improvement with a zero defects philosophy. Our goal is to purchase products and services from those suppliers who practice Total Quality Management as a means to achieve world-class benchmarks and meet or exceed Xerox requirements for quality, cost and delivery. Xerox is committed to developing business relationships with suppliers who support these initiatives as well as assure Xerox satisfaction in the performance of these products and services. Further information can be found within Quality Standard xw1001, which provides a more detailed overview of the Xerox / Supplier support program and our mutual obligations for achieving quality goals. 1. The Xerox corporation focuses on  benchmarking, a reduced supplier base, and leadership teams as a way of producing Total Quality Management. Benchmarking is a standard or point of reference in measuring or judging quality, value, etc. (Webster, 1979). Xerox looks at what the competition is doing and sets a level of quality and value that all of its products are compared against. These levels of quality are also used by other companies because of Xeroxs excellent standards. Once the standard that has been set is met then a new and higher standard is set so that the company is continually striving to do better and have a higher quality product. . Xerox is using in its strive for TQM is to reduce its  supplier base. Xerox has gone from individual suppliers for each of the different manufacturing facilities to a consolidated group of suppliers for all of the manufacturing facilities (Evens-Correia, 1991). This has drastically cut the amount of suppliers needed which increases accountability of the suppliers to get the materials to Xerox on time and it decreases some overhead costs because of shipping reductions and economi es of scale discounts. There are a reduced amount of people needed in overseeing the ordering process from the suppliers which allows for a decrease in positions and less of a chance for error. 3. Xerox uses to help in Total Quality Management is  leadership teams. Leadership teams are a new concept that many companies are adapting. These teams consist of a group of people with different areas of specialty. The main functions of the teams are to produce a product for the lowest possible cost with the highest quality. These teams can have jobs that range from finding ways to cut costs all the way to how to handle difficult employees and anything in between. Outcome: 1. Xerox has won the  Baldrige Award  as well as a few other awards. The Baldrige Award has come to signify a standard of excellence in total quality management, and the practices and achievements of each years award winners have been examined with considerable interest 1. The  workers  want to take part in different and more activities because of a sense of competition to come up with the best ideas and pride in the work the team has done. These are the kind of employees that help make a corporation become a success and stay a success. 2. Xerox does surveys to customers, stockholders and employees as part of this research. These surveys are mailed out to the respective people and ask questions about the satisfaction of the products and ask about improvements that can be made to the products. Response were  very positive and customer happier  with Xerox than ever after the implementation of TQM. The corporations total program Xerox accompanying corporate governance Xerox.

The 5 Best Singulair Alternatives for Asthma and Allergies

The 5 Best Singulair Alternatives for Asthma and Allergies SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Do you take Singulair for asthma or allergies? Are you wondering about possible Singulair alternatives? In this article, I’ll go through what Singulair is and how it works. I’ll also walk you through both prescription-only and over-the-counter Singulair alternatives, including the estimated cost and pros and cons of each one. What Is Singulair? How Does It Work? Singulair, or montelukast, is a leukotriene receptor antagonist (LTRA). Leukotrienes are released by the immune system in response to allergens, such as pollen, and promote inflammation, bronchoconstriction (tightening of the airways in the lungs), breathing difficulties, and other allergy symptoms. The active ingredient, montelukast, in leukotriene receptor antagonists like Singulair binds to these receptors and opposes their function. Singulair is usually used to prevent asthma attacks and treat seasonal allergies. Singulair isn’t effective for acute asthma attacks or sudden, extreme allergic reactions. Instead, it’s commonly used long-term for maintenance purposes and is usually safe for extended, regular use. Why Use an Alternative to Singulair? There are several main reasons why patients with asthma and/or allergy symptoms might be looking for Singulair alternatives. Generally speaking, the reasons to choose another medication rather than Singulair are cost, side effects, and effectiveness. Cost Currently, a month’s supply (30 tablets) of Singulair costs around $246. You might be considering a Singulair alternative in order to save money. Side Effects For many patients, Singulair has no major side effects. However, some Singulair users report negative side effects like headache, nausea, stomach pain, diarrhea, skin reactions, or worsening asthma. One of the most worrying (though rare) side effects of Singulair is a change in mood or depressive symptoms, which may include suicidal thoughts or actions. For this reason, some patients with histories of anxiety or depression choose an alternative to Singulair. Effectiveness For whatever reason, Singulair might not effectively treat your symptoms. Perhaps a medication with a different active ingredient will work better for you, or maybe you need a stronger drug than Singulair. Singulair is usually used to treat asthma or allergies. Top 5 Singulair Alternatives The following Singulair alternatives are often used to treat asthma or allergies. For each one, I’ll go through how it compares to Singulair in terms of cost, side effects, and effectiveness. #1: Nasonex (Mometasone) Nasonex is a mometasone nasal spray used to treat congestion, runny nose, and other seasonal allergy symptoms, as well as nasal polyps. It is available by prescription or over-the-counter. Estimated Cost (Without Insurance): One 60-spray bottle of Nasonex costs about $150. Pros: Nasonex is more effective for allergic rhinitis (inflammation of the nasal passages) and congestion than Singulair for most users. Also, Nasonex virtually never causes side effects like depression, behavioral changes, or suicidal thoughts or behaviors. These are more common with Singulair, so if you have trouble with anxiety or depression, Nasonex may be a better choice. Cons: Some negative side effects of Nasonex include headaches, bronchitis, nausea, sore throat, nosebleeds, and sores or white spots inside the nose or mouth. The main downside of Nasonex is that it doesn’t work right away. It should be used twice daily, starting one to two weeks before allergy season, in order to be effective by the time your allergy symptoms start. How Does It Compare? Nasonex is generally cheaper than Singulair, and is usually as effective or more effective in treating allergy symptoms like nasal congestion and inflammation. However, Singulair is more effective for asthma symptoms and in preventing asthma attacks. #2: Flonase (Fluticasone) Flonase is a corticosteroid nasal spray that’s used to treat allergy symptoms by reducing nasal inflammation. It’s available over-the-counter. Estimated Cost: For a bottle that contains around 120 sprays, you should expect to pay about $25 over-the-counter. Pros: Flonase is available at most pharmacies and only needs to be used when you’re experiencing asthma or allergy symptoms, so it’s cheaper, and unlike Singulair, you don’t have to take it every day. Flonase doesn’t have as many reported side effects as Singulair, especially those such as insomnia, aggression, anxiety, and depression or other behavioral changes. Cons: Because Flonase comes in spray form, it can be hard to keep track of how much you’ve taken or how much you have left. Also, Flonase is a Category C drug, meaning that risks can’t be ruled out for pregnant or nursing moms. Singulair is a Category B drug, so it’s generally considered safer for unborn and breastfeeding babies. How Does It Compare? Flonase is generally considered the first-choice treatment for seasonal allergies by doctors, because it doesn’t have to be used long-term and doesn’t carry as much of a risk of side effects as daily-use medications like Singulair. One study found Flonase and other nasal sprays containing fluticasone to be superior to montelukast for allergy symptoms. However, if you experience negative side effects with Flonase, have had nasal surgery, or have an irritated nasal passage, Singulair or another oral medication might be preferable to Flonase. Nasal sprays like Flonase can be the best available treatments for allergy symptoms. #3: Sudafed (Pseudoephedrine) Sudafed is a nasal decongestant used to treat allergy symptoms such as sinusitis and stuffy nose. It is often available over-the-counter, but requires a prescription in some states in the U.S. Estimated Cost (Without Insurance): Sudafed is generally inexpensive, with 24 tablets costing around $8-10 at generic pharmacies. Pros: One study found that Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) was more effective than montelukast in treating nasal congestion. If you’re experiencing congestion as your primary symptom, Sudafed is an inexpensive OTC alternative to a prescription drug like Singulair. Cons: Some Sudafed users report negative side effects like anxiety, restlessness, hyperactivity, a racing heartbeat, high blood pressure, insomnia, or hallucinations. Also, Sudafed can make users drowsy. Sudafed, unlike Singulair, doesn’t treat asthma or prevent asthma attacks. Also, after four days of use, Sudafed doesn’t work as effectively. How Does It Compare? Sudafed is a cheap, convenient alternative to Singulair if your main allergy symptom is nasal congestion or inflammation of the nasal passages. One study at the University of Chicago found Sudafed and Singulair to be equally effective in the treatment of hay fever and to have similar side effects. However, Sudafed isn’t appropriate for long-term use, for more severe allergy symptoms, or for people with asthma. #4: Allegra (Fexofenadine) Allegra is an antihistamine, meaning that it inhibits the release of histamines- compounds that trigger allergic reactions- in response to allergens such as pollen. It relieves allergy symptoms like itching, hives, watery eyes, and congestion. It’s available OTC. Estimated Cost: 30 tablets of Allegra will cost you around $20 at most generic pharmacies. Pros: Allegra users don’t report side effects of depression or weight gain as commonly as Singulair users. Allegra can be used in babies six months or older, while Singulair isn’t safe for a baby until he or she has reached 12 months of age. Also, Allegra, unlike Singulair, comes in liquid form as well as tablet form, which some users (especially children) might find easier to take. Cons: Users of Allegra some report negative side effects such as impotence, other sexual side effects, drowsiness, and weight loss. Allegra can’t be prescribed to anyone with kidney disease, as it can (rarely) cause kidney damage or failure. Allegra is only used to treat allergy symptoms. It isn’t approved or effective in treating asthma. The risks of taking Allegra while pregnant are unknown. It’s generally considered to be safer to take Singulair than Allegra while pregnant. How Does It Compare? Allegra users who experience adverse reactions to the medication report different, but potentially just as serious, side effects- such as kidney damage or failure, rapid weight loss, anxiety, impotence, and other sexual side effects- as those frequently experienced by Singulair users. Allegra is an inexpensive, and often effective, allergy medication, but won’t be as helpful if asthma attacks or other breathing difficulties are your main symptoms. Allegra is generally considered to be safe for regular use, but there aren’t as many studies on long-term use of the drug as there are on chronic use of Singulair, so there isn’t as much data available overall. #5: Accolate (Zafirlukast) Accolate is an alternative to Singulair for asthma and allergies. Like Singulair, it's a prescription-only LTRA except that the active ingredient is different (zafirlukast rather than montelukast). Estimated Cost (Without Insurance): Accolate tends to be cheaper than Singulair. Currently, a month’s supply of Accolate would cost you around $126.80. Pros: Although changes in mood and behavior can be side effects of both medications, Singulair users report more frequent suicidal thoughts and behaviors, as well as more symptoms of depression as a result of taking the drug. This is rarer among Accolate users. Additionally, overall, more patients report negative side effects with Singulair than they do with Accolate. Cons: Although Singulair users report more side effects over, Accolate carries a higher risk of liver failure than does Singulair. Though this side effect is rare, it is serious. More Accolate users report certain other adverse side effects, such as severe headaches, as well. On a less serious note, Accolate has to be taken twice a day, unlike Singulair, which some users don’t prefer as it’s more difficult to remember to take. Also, Accolate hasn’t been on the market as long as Singulair, and it isn’t prescribed as often. Therefore, we simply don’t have as much data on Accolate’s side effects, particularly of long-term use of the drug. How Does It Compare? One study didn’t find many differences in the effects, or effectiveness, of Accolate and Singulair. Overall, the two medications are very similar both in how, and how well, they work for people with asthma and/or allergies. The biggest differences between Accolate and Singulair are their cost and side effects, with prices usually much lower for Accolate than for Singulair, and fewer users reporting suicidal thoughts or attempts when using Accolate as opposed to Singulair. Also, although Accolate and Singulair are both leukotriene inhibitors and thus very similar, their active ingredients are different, so one may work for you while the other doesn’t. Many users report more success with Singulair than with Accolate, and vice versa.

The Argument of Abortion †Philosophy Essay

The Argument of Abortion – Philosophy Essay Free Online Research Papers The Argument of Abortion Philosophy Essay In On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, Mary Anne Warren discusses a few arguments against abortion, namely bringing into play whether the fetus is actually a person, or â€Å"not a member of the moral community†. She defends that abortion is a morally sound action. Don Marquis, in his essay An Argument that Abortion is Wrong, takes the opposite stance. He claims â€Å"that abortion, except perhaps in rare instances, is seriously wrong†. The first thing we read in Warren’s article is the thought experiment first conceived by Judith Thomson. It’s an analogy that uses a normal person, male or female, and a famous violinist. Let’s say the Society of Music Lovers kidnaps you, and hooks you up to this dying violinist. If you choose to unhook yourself, the violinist will die, but if you let him stay hooked up to you to use your kidneys (for a period of nine months), then he will be cured and both of you will be free. Thomson asks what a person’s obligations in this situation are, and, to be consistent with Warren’s argument, she says it would be ridiculous to be stay in bed with the violinist, and thus you are able to leave at any time. You shouldn’t feel responsible for the death of the violinist. But Marquis, in his essay, points out that, while good for dealing with abortions due to rape, the analogy doesn’t hold up. Thomson draws to our attention that in pregnancy a fetus uses the woman’s body for life-support, but the woman doesn’t use a fetus’s body for life support. Thus, in an abortion the life that is lost is the fetus’s, not the woman’s. This leaves us with a standoff. I think this overall analogy is not significantly helpful for either side of the argument. Warren then discusses whether or not abortion is actually the killing of a â€Å"person†, calling into question when a fetus matures to the point of personhood. She defines the moral community as having some (the more the better) of these six characteristics: sentience (capacity to have conscious experiences), emotionality (capacity to feel sad, angry, happy, etc.), reason (capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems), capacity to communicate (by any means), self-awareness (concept of oneself), and finally moral agency (capacity to regulate one’s own actions). This is clearly very sketchy, because infants and mentally or physically challenged people are still referred to and thought of as â€Å"people†, or â€Å"members of the moral community†, despite a lack of many of these traits. Both articles address this idea of personhood, but neither one really wins. The good thing with defining personhood biologically- saying it’s a person at conception- quantifies it†¦it gives a definitive time, not some subjective date when certain sentient or reasoning qualities are met, and this lessens the confusion. But I still agree somewhat with the view held by Warren that fetuses can’t reason or fend for themselves nor (until cerebral development) do really anything other than exist. So again, I don’t think either side has a stronger case, because both Warren and Marquis have points that basically offset one another. An interesting thing that Marquis then does is go on to talk about FLO, or â€Å"future like ours†. He claims that killing deprives a person of a future that is like ours, and says that abortion is killing a fetus that will have a future like ours. Taking someone’s entire future away from them is the worst of crimes, and he argues that abortion is this kind of deprivation of future. Killing an adult is an awful thing to do because it takes away that adult’s future, a future that is of great value. The same goes for aborted fetuses- they had a future that would be valued but it was taken away from them. Warren also argues that a woman has a right to life, so she can make a decision that she sees fit, since her body belongs to her and only her. In response to this, Marquis says that, except during rape (when he believes it is permissible), a fetus has just as much of a right to life as the woman, and therefore an abortion is wrong. Marquis concludes that abortion is seriously wrong, except in unusual cases (rape, incest, and possible death of the mother). Depriving an FLO shows how wrong killing an adult is, and since fetuses have an FLO, killing them is just as bad. Warren concludes that fetuses are neither persons nor members of the moral community. She does not think that the fetus’s resemblance to a person nor the potential for becoming a person is a good enough claim to say it has an equal right to life. Marquis agrees with Warren inasmuch as the pregnancy is due to rape or other unusual condition, so there is no argument there. The argument over personhood is a much better one, and I think that both sides have a very strong position and arguments. On one side there is the lack of human traits to make a fetus a person, and on the other there is a biological definition of life which occurs at conception. It is nearly impossible to determine who’s argument is stronger, because I can see how both sides can work. As for the woman’s rights, I think again it is two-sided. Neither side really comes away with a clear-cut victory. Warren argues that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body because it is her body but Marquis suggests that that cannot include killing a fetus (with an FLO). Overall I believe that Warren has stronger arguments, although I don’t necessarily agree with them. I think it is morally correct to carry the baby for nine months and then give it up for adoption or something like that, but that is such an unbelievably huge burden to put on someone, so I can understand where an abortion might need to take place. So, I feel that Mary Anne Warren gives stronger arguments only because she explains them in much more detail, allowing the reader to at least understand where she is coming from, whereas Don Marquis just tells us what his views are with little information to back them up. Abortion is a very difficult topic to discuss or write upon, and, even though I disagree with her, I think Warren did a better job to explain what her views on abortion were and where they came from. Research Papers on The Argument of Abortion - Philosophy EssayPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoCapital PunishmentMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesHip-Hop is ArtArguments for Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)Relationship between Media Coverage and Social andInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesGenetic EngineeringEffects of Television Violence on Children

Common Latin Abbreviations Used in English

Common Latin Abbreviations Used in English In this list of common Latin abbreviations youll find what they stand for and how theyre used. The first list is alphabetical, but the definitions that follow are linked thematically. For instance, p.m. follows a.m.   A.D. A.D. stands for Anno Domini in the year of our Lord and refers to events after the birth of Christ. It is used as part of a pair with B.C. Here is an example: The standard date given for the fall of Rome is A.D. 476. The start date of Rome is, traditionally, 753 B.C. More politically correct are the terms C.E. for the current era and B.C.E. for the other. A.D. traditionally precedes the date, but this is changing. A.M. A.M. stands for ante meridiem and is sometimes abbreviated a.m. or am. A.M. means before noon and refers to morning. It starts just after midnight. P.M. P.M. stands for post meridiem and is sometimes abbreviated p.m. or pm. P.M. refers to afternoon and evening. P.M. starts just after noon. Etc. The very familiar Latin abbreviation etc. stands for et cetera and the rest or and so forth. In English, we use the word etcetera or et cetera without necessarily being aware it is actually Latin. E.G. If you want to say for example, you would use e.g. Here is an example: Some of the Julio-Claudian emperors, e.g., Caligula, were said to be insane. I.E. If you want to say that is, you would use i.e. Here is an example: The last of the Julio-Claudians, i.e., Nero.... In Citations Ibid Ibid., from ibidem means the same or in the same place. You would use ibid. to refer to the same author and work (e.g., book, html page, or journal article) as the one immediately preceding. Op. Cit. Op. cit. comes from the Latin opus citatum or opere citato work cited. Op. cit. is used when ibid. is inappropriate because the immediately preceding work is not the same. You would only use op. cit. if you have already cited the work in question. Et Seq. To refer to a certain page or passage and those that follow it, you may find the abbreviation et seq. This abbreviation ends in a period.   Sc. The abbreviation sc. or scil. means namely. Wikipedia says it is in the process of being replaced by i.e. Latin Abbreviations of Comparison q.v. and c.f. You would use q.v. if you wanted to make reference to something elsewhere in your paper; whilec.f. would be more appropriate for a comparison with an outside work.

Evidence base practice Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Evidence base practice - Assignment Example RAM was of was advanced by one Callista Roy, back in 1976 (Clarke, Barone, Hanna and Senesac 2012). Roy’s major aim while developing the model was to promote adaptation in the nursing practice. The model’s development was influenced by various factors like; education, clinical experience, family, religious background, and education (Weiss, Hastings, Holly and Craig 2012). It seeks to address the following issues; According to Roy, adaptation happens whenever individuals respond positively to environmental changes. The model comprises four major components of individual, Nursing, Health and Environment (Weiss et al. 2012). The model notes that an individual is a bio-psycho-social being that constantly interacts with an ever changing surrounding. It considers people as individuals or in groups like families, organizations and the society as a whole (Clarke et al. 2012). It suggests that health is both a status and a procedure of being complete. Health and sickness are considered unavoidable areas of an individual’s life. RAM remains the best fit for the nursing practice because it gives practical suggestions concerning the nursing practice and process. It supposes that for individuals to respond well to changes in the surrounding, they have to adapt. Such adaptation depends on the stimulus the person is exposed to and his/ her extent of adaptation (Smith 2013). The individual also has four adaptation means, namely; physiologic necessities, self-notion, role purpose as well as interdependence. In conclusion, RAM is still the best fit for the nursing practice because it gives practical suggestions concerning the nursing practice and process. It suggests that all through the nursing process, every nurse, and all healthcare professionals should make adaptations to the nursing care plan. All this is done on the basis of the patient’s health

The Best Brand Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Best Brand - Assignment Example Achieving this make it easy for the company to reach and build association with its target market. The Coco Mademoiselle by Coco Chanel displays superb consistency in its marketing effort. With young women from twenties to mid-thirties as its target market, the product aptly exudes femininity, excitement, youth and freedom. The irrepressible spirit of Coco is what makes the product more saleable to its target market. Apparently, it is in the ages of twenties to thirties that women are so excited about their career and image, the age of financial freedom and independence as this is the age before they settle for marriage. A perfume then which promotes free-spirit would fit the target market. In terms of product, the Coco Mademoiselle by Coco Chanel aptly services the wants of its target market, composed mainly of high-earning, independent minded, sociable, career women. The status symbol brought by having the superior price among the rest of the perfume products also fits the youthful conviction of being the best and achieving the highest. Coco Mademoiselle's target market mainly comprises of women who wouldn't settle for less, therefore paying the highest price for a perfume is actually a desire and not a sacrifice. With this, the product greatly coincides with the price strategy. In terms of place, both Coco Mademoiselle by Coco Chanel and J'adore by Christian Dior have found the excellent distribution sites in famous out

Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 29

Response - Essay Example In the university entry tests many students fail to get in because the quota system only picks out the best ones in each province. Chris Buckley seems to be a bit biased in his report by comparing only Henan with big cities like Shanghai and Beijing. The two major cities had started to progress far earlier than any other cities and gave rise to major educational hubs so comparing a countryside to a major urban development that began years ago seems to come out as a very one sided undertone. There are other provinces and cities in China where education might be on equal levels with the two urban areas mentioned. There is no denying the fact that inequality does persist in China because the government officials tend to focus more on the urban areas than on the rural ones but keeping in mind the geography of the land it is hard to focus on any issue without keeping in mind the background of the country and the phases that it went through to attain the position in the world it enjoys today. The federal government does have the tendency to lose sight of the issues of the sort because there is so much more to focus o n in China but the regional government should not only put Henan in the spotlight of the educational injustice rather put in every other province that faces the problem of quota system educational place allotment. There needs to be a proper report that not only focuses on the province of Henan during gaokao but also other provinces that feel deprived of equal education opportunities. In conclusion, the writer does remain firm on the ground that many Chinese students prefer going abroad for education because the gaokao system makes it hard for them to get in good universities and attain an educational degree of good standards but then again, the news report only talked about Henan when it could have talked about other provinces that feel neglected in the backdrop of the article.

Identifying Changes in Manufacturing Process and Costs Due to Case Study

Identifying Changes in Manufacturing Process and Costs Due to Automation & Applying ABC to Small Businesses - Case Study Example 2. This kind of the manufacturing process reduces the employability of the unskilled labor. The semi-skilled labor or the highly skilled labor’s demand grows as some knowledge is required in operating the machineries of an engineering based manufacturing company. But the best part of the automated process is that the employee’s physical labor reduces but at the salary paid earlier or at an increased level of salary. 3. Depending on the level of automation the impact on the company workforce falls on the employees of the company. Generally the existing employees take a lot of time in adapting to the changing working condition of the company. This may result in the employees losing their job and being replaced but such employees who have prior knowledge about the automation process of the firm. 4. The automation process of the company may result in the improved quality of product which can be made affordable at a cheaper price than before. Automation process is both repeatable as well as precise which ensures the manufacturing of the product with same specification, thus leading to the high efficiency level of the company. 5. The overhead costs related to the direct material, direct labor and other manufacturing costs get affected after the implementation of the automation process to the extent that initially there is a rise in the cost because of the conversion to the automated process. But after reaching the break-even point of the company’s per unit cost of the product seems to decrease with time in terms of all manufacturing cost except labor. The labor cost is usually high because employing of skilled labor is essential for manufacturing companies with automated process. Moreover, with the further updating the machineries of the company; cost in labor increases in the process of training as well. 6. The automation affect may tend to increase the fixed and the variable proportion of the company. This rise may usually come

Explain what the term 'fair trade' means and what are the importnent Essay

Explain what the term 'fair trade' means and what are the importnent issues for the business world - Essay Example The Fair Trade Federation states that members are committed to seven key concepts: to pay fair wages; to support participatory workplaces; to ensure environmental sustainability; to supply financial and technical support; to respect cultural identity; to offer public accountability; and to educate consumers. Fair trade consists of 10 standards a business must adhere to. These include: working to create opportunities for disadvantaged producers; transparent management and accountability; helping producers to develop independence; raising awareness and promoting the opportunities of fair trade; paying a fair price; offering gender equality; providing safe and healthy work environments; respecting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; working toward environmentally healthy approaches; and fair trade relations—taking into consideration the social, economic and environmental well-being of producers and not taking advantage of the producers by profiting at their expense. 2 To be included as a fair trade business, one must first determine what is considered â€Å"fair†. Fair Trade Resource Network (FTRN) says that being fair constitutes more than just paying a fair wage. â€Å"It means that trading partnerships are based on reciprocal benefits and mutual respect; that prices paid to producers reflect the work they do; that workers have the right to organize; that national health, safety, and wage laws are enforced; and that products are environmentally sustainable and conserve natural resources.†3 The products included in fair trade business are numerous. These include: apparel, accessories, art, crafts, agricultural products, furniture, cards, holiday items, house wares, jewelry, music and musical instruments, paper, pottery, rugs, textiles, toys and others. For consumers, it’s not always easy to determine if a product comes from a fair-trade business.

William Shakespeare’s Othello Essay Example for Free

William Shakespeare’s Othello Essay William Shakespeare is a talented dramatist, actor and poet whose popularity remains unsurpassed until today.   Until now his plays are still being performed not only in Western countries but also in Asia and in other non-English speaking countries as well.   (â€Å"William Shakespeare 14)   Indeed he is recognized as one of the greatest dramatist of all time. William Shakespeare’s birth place is the town of Stratford-upon-Avon.   His exact date of birth is not accurately known since there are no existing records.   However, based on his baptismal record which is on April 26, 1564 appearing in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church, his birth date could probably be April 23, 1564.    This is because the baptism of children during William Shakespeare’s time happens just two or three days after birth. (Amanda Mabillard 4) The names of his parents are John Shakespeare, a prominent glove maker, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a wealthy landowner.   He is the third among the children of eight.   He started his education at the age of six (6) at the Stratford grammar school.   Latin is the primary language that school uses which is why he learned a great deal about Latin and the works of Latin authors.   (David Ross 2) His wife’s name is Anne Hathaway whom he married at the age of 18.   She is 26 years of age at the time and pregnant fueling speculation that the marriage may have been forced. Nevertheless, William Shakespeare had three children with her whose names are Susanna, Hamnet and Judith who are twins. (Folger Shakespeare Library 1) He eventually decides to leave Stratford and his family to pursue his dreams of becoming an actor.   Not much is known from him for several years until in 1592 where he attains sufficient success as an actor.   However, his rise to fame started because of his poems such as Venus and Adonius (1593), and Rape of Lucrece (1594).   Two years after, he gains recognition for his plays. It must however be stressed that Shakespeare’s fortune came not from acting or from writing poetry or plays.   Shakespeare’s fortune came from his investment in a theatrical company.   After he earns enough money, Shakespeare uses his earnings to invest in a theatrical company known as Lord Chamberlain’s men where he not only acts but also writes plays for the company. Shakespeare dies of a fever on April 23, 1616, the same month and day he is believed to have been born.   (Encarta MSN 1) He leaves to his two daughters Susana and Judith, the bulk of his estate and 300 pounds, respectively.   He gives his wife their â€Å"second-best bed with the furniture.† (Encarta MSN 1)

Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales Theology Religion Essay

Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales Theology Religion Essay Avarice is defined as an extreme desire for personal material gain or wealth. It is also considered to be a deadly sin among others like gluttony and wrath. One of the main themes in The Canterbury Tales is that greed is the root of all evil. The message about avarice is clearly ironic, however, because each of the pilgrims on his and her way to Canterbury displays a greedy and self-centered quality. For example, the Pardoner sells sinners religious relics, to which he admits in his tale are not even real. He pockets the money in order to live lavishly instead of putting it towards improving the church. The Monk disregards his monastic order to never kill a creature, and instead engages in hunting for entertainment. The Summoner uses his position as a method of taking advantage of young women. The Summoners immoral choices are especially ironic because it is his job to punish those who violate the law of the church or act immorally. Nearly every pilgrim, with the exception of the Par son, demonstrates a sort of sneaky method to manipulate their surroundings into a way to experience personal gain. It becomes obvious that the entire message about greed in The Canterbury Tales is ironic. Ultimately, greed in the clergy is a main factor that contributes to the loss of followers for the church in the Middle Ages. They were no longer setting positive examples that others wanted to live by. With a morally weak and undependable clergy came a corrupt and undependable church. The Pardoners Tale is a specific part of The Canterbury Tales where Chaucer puts the most amount of irony and satirical content. The Pardoner starts his tale by talking about the disastrous effects of possessing drunkenness, swearing, gambling, and being greedy. He says that The Bibles words you cannot well deny: drinking by magistrates is called a vice.. and now that I have told of gluttony, Ill take up gambling, showing you thereby (Chaucer 125-128). At first, he seems like an honest man who is without corruption. However, he then tells the others that relics are fake and that they are simply used for him to gain money. He admits that instead of returning a sinner with salvation, that the money is kept to himself no matter how poor the sinner is. The Pardoner tells the entire tale while drinking alcohol and relaxing while the others gave him their attention. Halfway through his narrative yells N for the love of Crist, that for us dyde..sires, now wol I telle forth my tale (Chaucer 196-198). Immediately after shunning those who swear and drink, the Pardoner uses Gods name in vain before continuing his story and is brutally blunt, perhaps because he is drunk. Instantly, he shows himself to be a hypocrite and a nonbeliever in the very message that he preaches. He goes on to tell a tale about three young men who set out to kill Death for taking so many peoples lives when they discover a ton of gold at the roots of a tree. They forget about their incentive and they all become too individually greedy to want to share the gold they find. Two of the men kill the third and then are poisoned by the first man by drinking tainted wine. None of them get the chance to enjoy the gold. At the end, and one of the most shocking parts of the tale, the Pardoner preaches to the people like he would in a regular town or a village. He asks if any of the pilgrims want to buy a relic or indulgence, as if theyve forgotten that he openly admitted the falseness of his offerings. Those l ike the Pardoner are the typical hypocrites that were found in the Middle Ages. He is one that preachers to others about how to live a life free of sin, yet exemplifies everything that is immoral to him. His words can not be taken seriously by others because he does not take them seriously himself. Those like the Pardoner are believed to be a major reason in the decline of the Catholic Church. Decameron focuses more on relationships between men and women in order to show a decline in morals similar to those portrayed in Jeoffrey Chaucers work. It takes place around the time that the bubonic plague struck Europe and began to kill nearly a third of its entire population. The Black Death marks a time where even the most religious people questioned God for letting so many innocent people be swept up by disease. The European people were already discouraged and there was no longer a strong religion to turn to. The tales are about a group of people who join to escape the plague. They go on to tell tales every night like the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. The stories begin with open topics but go on to center the truth of the changing church. Decameron is another work that shows the nature of church officials by exploring their personal desires, such as lust and greed, despite the Bibles words. Another serious sin spoken of in the Bible is lust. Lust is described as a desire for pleasure for the body or physical company. In Corinthians 6:18 of the Bible, it is explained that sexual immorality is a sin against ones own body because longing for physical pleasure is wrong internally. In Europe, the Catholic Church enforced a doctrine that states that sex should be saved for marriage, and that even then, it is only to procreate. On the third day of the journey of those in Decameron, a story about lustful nuns is told explicitly by Filostrato. The tale is about a man who pretends to be mute and deaf and gets a gardening job at a covent for nuns. One day when he is laying, two of the nuns explore their lust. A quick dialogue between the two says what is t thou sayst? Knowest thou not that we have vowed our virginity to God? Oh, rejoined the first, think but how many vows are made to Him all day long, and never a one performed: and so, for our vow, let Him find another or others t o perform it' (Boccaccio 26-27). They both decide to lay with the man. The nonchalant manor in which the second nun says that tons of people make vows and that none are performed shows that even she had lost faith in God. In time, every single nun in the covent and their Abbess have made love to the man solely for pleasure. The tale goes to show that even the purest of women who devote themselves to God become suspects of lust and disregard their promises to Him. The tale focuses on young women longing for lust and not only men. Tales like Filostratos in Decameron are those that cause the book to become a forbidden read in parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. Those who read Decameron were engaging in pornography and could therefore be excommunicated by the church. Whether its tales were true or not, the church was certainly trying to hold onto its followers and mask any evidence of its impurities. The loss of morals and virtue of the Roman Catholic Church is ultimately what discouraged many people from joining. People viewed it as a greedy and corrupt organization that only wanted to take money by selling indulgences and stealing from its followers. Stories like Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio and The Canterbury Tales are a few of many novels published that capture the essence of the changing church by means of exposing its unjust leaders. A era then began where tons of Europeans still wanted to follow their religion but the Catholic Church became too dishonest to be seen as a holy center. The decline in churchgoers during the end of the Middle Ages leads to a time of new ideas presented to Europe by Martin Luther. While the end of the Middle Ages changed the general attitude to distrust the church, its consequences can be seen as positive as it leads to monumental changes in years to come.

The Beginning of the Second World War Essay -- Adolf Hitler, WWII

When the First World War started to come to an end, many people hoped that it would be the last war that Europe had to endure. Unfortunately to many people who lived through the first war, the Second World War surpassed the first in death, scope, brutality, and by the number of people it reached. The roots were not only buried in the First World War, but also in the precious years after it. It was also the result of Axis aggression, a failed peace treaty after the First World War, and the failure of the Allies to stop the expansion and influence of Axis powers. When the First World War started, many people believed that it would be a quick war (Wilkinson 35). To many who looked the combatants, the Entente powers appeared the strongest (35). Though when push came to shove, Germany's industrial might and cracked army came to a shock for the Entente powers (35). The failure of Germany's invasion plan into France, developed by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, lead to trenches being dug by both sides on the Western Front (40). With casualties mounting on both sides, the Germans risked everything in one last offensive into France (68). Defeat would be the collapse of the Central Powers (68). Victory was almost in reach, although the German army could no longer field enough men to attack (69). On September29, 1918, General Erich Ludendorff of the German General Staff, said that only an immediate armistice could save Germany now (69). With mutinies in the navy, revolutions in Bavaria, and the emperor abdicating, Germany signed an armistice ag reement in terms with the Entente powers.( 70). On November 11, 1918, the First World War came to an end.( 70). The end of the war brought a peace treaty that was signed in the Hal... ...sualties. As the Allies slowly pushed the German’s back to Germany, evidence of the Nazi’s racial polices was slowly uncovered. Mass graves and concentration camps slowly began appearing. Soon, people began to realize what they were fighting for and why it was so important to fight that battle. Hitler, with all hope lost, retreated into his bunker in Berlin where he committed suicide during the last few days of the war. Works Cited Mazower, Mark. â€Å"Dark Continent – Europe’s Twentieth Century†. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1998 Wasserstein, Bernard. â€Å"Barbarism & Civilization – A history of Europe in our time†. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007 Wilkinson, James. â€Å"Contemporary Europe, A History Ninth Edition†. New Jersey: Simon & Schuster, 1998 Wright, Mark. â€Å"What they didn’t teach you about World War II†. Navato, CA: Presidio Press, 1998

Border Music by Robert James Waller :: essays research papers

Border Music by Robert James Waller 1.) Title: Boarder Music Published: Warner Books Inc. Author: Robert James Waller Where book was acquired: WBHS Library 2.) What type of book: Fiction 3.) Characters: 1986 1.) Jack Carmine- Is a 48-year-old man who lives an independent life style. Everything he does is a spur of the moment thing. He works all the time, and his jobs are as unpredictable as he is. He originally is from Alpine Texas, but he goes north for the summer. All he wants is to live his life the best he can, and do as much as he can. He also wants to keep Linda with him. 2.) Linda Lobo- She is a 37-year-old single woman with a four-year-old daughter. She was married twice, and both failed to last. She was a dancer at a nightclub in Minnesota, but she is from Iowa. She wants to find a man that will be faithful to her, and support her and her daughter. 3.) Sara Margaret- She is Linda’s four-year-old daughter who lives with Linda’s mother. She gets to be very fond of Jack, but is too young to understand what is going on around her. 4.) Earl- He is Jack’s best friend and houseguest. When Jack is gone, Earl lives in his house for him, and takes care of the farm. He becomes good friends with Sara Margaret, and Linda. He just wants to live his life like any other hard working man. 1993 5.) Vaughn Rhomer- He is Jack’s uncle in his early 60’s. He loves army trinkets and anything to do with the Vietnam War. He worked in the produce section of a grocery store for his whole life, and his son, Nathan, was ashamed of him for this. He lost his nagging wife, Marjorie, a few years earlier, and just wants to finds someone to live the rest of his life with. 6.) Marjorie Rhomer- She was Vaughn’s wife, and was very cranky and bossy. She disliked Jack very much, and didn’t want anything to do with him. All she ever wanted was for her son, Nathan, to never meet Jack. 4.) Two main conflicts: 1.) Jack vs. Self. Jack had episodes, where he couldn’t control what he was doing. He would be back in Vietnam with the other soldiers, and he would relive the day his friends died. He had to over come this, by becoming stronger. When he first started to be with Linda they didn’t happen, but as they grew apart, the episodes became more frequent.

How market structures determine the pricing and output decisions of businesses Essay

3.1 Explain how market structures determine the pricing and output decisions of businesses There are different kinds of markets in different economies/sectors/goods. Accordingly, there are different kinds of output and pricing decisions which take place. Usually, output and pricing decisions are interdependent except for the case of perfectly competitive markets. In perfectly competitive markets, a single firm is so small compared to the market that it cannot affect the prices. In that case, it must take the price as given, and then decide the quantity to be supplied. Price in this market is equal to the marginal cost of production. In monopoly, however, things are different. The monopolist can change the prices, as it is the sole provider of the good and thus has the market power. But here also, if the price increases quantity demanded decreases. Therefore, the monopolist must take under consideration both the positive and negative effects of increase in prices. In another market oligopoly, pricing is a bit more complicated and it depends upon the strategic interaction am ong the firms. Market structure is the number of buyers and sellers in a market. There is different market structures such as Perfect Competition, Monopoly and Oligopoly and are discussed below: A place where different sellers of the same product then the firm’s price purpose and the output decision depends upon the demand for their products. In a competitive market buyers actually decide the price and firm take the output decisions as compare to the demand for the product because every firm tries to offer lower prices to their customer to increase their market share is known as Perfect competition. A scenario/market structure where a sole provider then price determination and output decision lies by the firm because in a monopolistic market the firm is the price maker and they can charge whatever price they want and customer have to pay because customers will not have the choice to buy somewhere else with a lower price, In Pakistan we can find such an example with WAPDA. This is known as a monopoly. Market structure where several sellers of the same products then the sellers have a bit of command over the price due to the ongoing rate for their products. For example they all charge the same price and then it depends upon the customers from whom to buy. Sellers may charge the same price but there will be difference in the way they advertise their products  and attract customers to purchase their products,; known as Oligopoly. 3.2 Illustrate the way in which market forces shape organizational responses using a range of examples Forces that determine the price level in the economy. Market forces can be a number of elements such as demand, supply, internal stakeholders, customers and suppliers. Two things can happen with the demand and the organizations are bound to give. If the demand for product increases the organization’s response for the increased demand will be they will hire more workers and will produce with full capacity. If the demand for the product decrease there will be decrease in cash inflow of organization due to which their costs will exceed than their profit. Organization response for such situation will be that they will cut jobs of their employees to cut their costs. Same as the demand two things can also happen with supply of the products. When there is increase in supply of products the demand will decrease while if there is a decrease in supply of the products the demand will increase. Employee is also the factor that can change the behavior of the organization. If government announces mini wage the organization must accept it and must pay their workers with a minimum wage. If do not pay it to their workers, their employees will leave their jobs and will work for other organizations. Every organization aim is to satisfy their customers with their products. If any organization producing fashion product but they do have continuous interaction with their customers as fashion changes after every specific time period the organization will lose their customers because they won’t be able to fulfill customer requirements and won’t be able to satisfy their customers with their products. An organization is dependent to its supplier and without supplies the production process is unable to run. If supplier increases price for the raw materials it will automatically increase the cost of production of an organization. 3.3 Judge how the business and cultural environments shape the behavior of a selected organization Political decisions also have an impact on business activities such as health and education for workers and the infrastructure of the economy. Nokia transferred one of its manufacturing facilities to India, it is important that Nokia have to follow all the rules in regulations set in India. The rules and regulations by India for Nokia may include that Nokia must be aware of the minimum wage, working hours per week and health and safety for workers etc. All the new  law and regulations by the government affect Nokia’s operations. Economic factors may include the economic situations as a whole. These factors include interest rate, exchange rate, inflation and economic development etc. Nokia’s Economic situation in Finland went to recession period once which decreased the level of income and resulted in decrease in demand for Nokia’s product. Due to an increase in costs Nokia cut jobs and unemployed some of their employees. Nokia must be aware of all such economic situations to be ready to handle them well. Social is about the society. Social factors may include change in taste, change in level of income, change in fashion etc. All the above factors affect the demand for the product; normally it happens with Luxury and fashion products. Nokia operates in all over the world with their products and consider the culture of every place they operate, now a day people want to have good looking and smart up to date pho nes, Nokia tries to be aware of every social trends in the society and come up with the demanded products by their customers. Technical; this refers to a change and development in the way of production, as new technology improved the quality of products, increase in productivity etc. Legal; the new laws applied on businesses by the government. Government passes different new laws after every specific time period which increases cost of the businesses. Such laws may include age discrimination, increase in minimum wage etc. For example, Apple operates where it is very difficult to have a product different from its competitors. Environmental factors include a change in weather, climate. Environmental changes affect businesses such as farming and tourism. Environmental factors are the external factors which firms have to consider due to a global change in the economy. Nokia must be friendly with their customers to operate in appropriate manner as they water proof cell phones, phones with a plastic body which can be unbreakable etc. Environmental Culture is the attitude, behavior and the knowledge in a society i s called the cultural environment. Cultural environment can be of two types: Internal Culture – Any attitude, behavior, action or policy developed among people in the company is called the internal culture of the company. Apples internal culture is that there is a team work system among employees and every employee has the freedom to give in input of their ideas for the success of the company. External Culture – company’s own mission and needs of the customers that the company  can quickly respond is called the external culture. Nokia’s external culture is that they give customers service to their customer as their first aim is the customer satisfaction and to achieve such satisfaction they always try to come up with high quality of products. Nokia always have an interaction with their potential customer to gain new ideas from them. Nokia always conduct their business in ethical, legal and socially responsible fashion.

What Is Discrete Mathematics

Mathematical ideas are often divided into two types, those that are continuous, and those that are discrete. An example of continuous is the number line. Between any two points, there are always more points. For discrete sets, this is not true. For instance, in baseball there are four bases. If you get a hit it is either a one-base hit (what we call a single), a two-base hit, a three-base hit, or a home run. There is no such thing as a 2 1/2 base hit. Discrete things are found in bundles or lumps, and you can only have certain numbers of them. Money is another discrete idea because you can not sell anything for $0. 005. Prices can be grouped for specials, like 2 for 99 cents, but if you buy one it is either 49 cents or 50 cents. Discrete does not mean it has to be whole numbers, but it does mean there are only some that can be chosen, and some can not. Discrete sets can be infinite, but they can not be infinitely divisible. For example, the counting numbers from 1 to infinity are discrete, because, like the bases in baseball, you go from one to two and then to three but not the points in between. The number line from 0 to 1 is not discrete but continuous, because between any two points in the set, there is always another point. This is the key that makes the difference. In discrete we can talk about things that are â€Å"next to† each other, with nothing between them, while in continuous sets we cannot.

Facebook Effects on Society Essay

Nowadays, the social networking known also as social media has become a widespread subject among people, especially among teenagers. At its beginning, social media consisted of diverse dating websites. Now, most people consider that having a social media account means that you have a Facebook account. Facebook involves interactivity and the aim of it was, from the very beginning, to be able to add different people as friends and let those people know about the activities of their â€Å"new† friends. It was launched in 2004 and now is one of the most popular social media websites in the entire world. According to the last surveys in the field, Facebook changes and influences social relationships along with people’s ideas, thoughts and actions. There are several negative effects that Facebook has on the society, in general, and on the people, individually. Facebook causes addiction, which implies: less social interaction, distraction from another tasks and health issues. Since for many people searching and posting on Facebook has become one of the main daily activities, less social interaction begin to be one of the main negative effects that Facebook has on its users. Recent data shows that there are over 500 million Facebook users, which means 1 person in every 13 people on Earth uses Facebook. This social media website seems to be for people an escape from real life to a life where everything is fine and organized. In 2010, Pew Research Center created a survey on over 2,000 respondents about social networking influences and demonstrated that 92% of the social networking users have account on Facebook and 52% of them check their Facebook profile at least once a day. Overall, half of the actual Facebook users, which means 250 million people, checks their profile daily. And definitely, those who tend to check their profile many times a day are the ones who tend to get more attracted by the activities on Facebook and so, to be less interested in real life productivity. Christine Rosen, member of the Ethics and Public Policy Center from Washington, says † People who use networks like Facebook have a tendency to describe themselves like products†(BUGEJA 88). That less social interaction will begin once the Facebook users start feeling more connected with the others through Facebook. A research did by Alex Trimpe, student at Columbus College of Art& Design shows that â€Å"57% of people talk more online than they do in real life† (BATTISHILL). In addition, a report in Daily Mail confirmed that more than a third of the respondents spend less time on going out with friends than posting or chatting on Facebook. A percentage of 75 of the surveyed people have fewer friends since they started using Facebook as a way to keep friends updated and even if they realize they need more real meetings, Facebook is still the first choice for â€Å"hanging-out† and for meeting new people. This seems to be a new way of creating and maintaining friendship relations and Steven Strogatz, network science expert and PhD professor at Cornell University, confirms: † The distinction between genuine friends and acquaintances is becoming blurred. Users are spending time maintaining relationships with people they don’t really care about†. (JARVIS) Another of Facebook’s negative effects on society is the distraction from important tasks, which increases the inability to control important occupations such as working or studying. Michael Bugeja, professor and director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Iowa, named this generation † The Facebook Generation’ who text-message during class, talk on their cellphones during labs, and listen to iPods rather than guest speakers in the wireless hall†(Bugeja 85). Due to this extended presence on Facebook, the students encounter issues on tasks’ performances or in respecting due dates. For instance, a psychologist of the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies at Open University, Paul Kirschnera, and Aryn Karpinskib, a professor at Ohio State University, did a survey that shows that the average GPA of students without a Facebook account is around 3.86 while the Facebook users have a GPA of 3.06 (Choney). Paul Kirschnera affirmed in a Daily Mail article: â€Å"The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks†(Fleming). Facebook has a well developed entertainment value and, also, an informative value and both make people get involved in discussions or any other activities allowed on this website. Their curiosity or pleasure in what they see or read encourages them to spend more time â€Å"facebooking†. For example, checking the last posts on their friends’ walls, changing constantly their status or using Facebook chat. Any social media activity longer than a few minutes interferes with people’s main occupation, in students’ case, homework, and it makes difficult to keep them focused on what is really important. The experts advice Facebook users to take â€Å"tech breaks† and check their profiles after at least 15 minutes of working on other different tasks. Last, but definitely one of the most dangerous effects of Facebook on society is that it brings a series of health risks. According to a Daily Mail report, people who often use social media tend to be more isolated, and they find it difficult to communicate in person. Doctor Aric Sigman, member of The Institute of Biology, says in The Biologist, â€Å"This [isolated behavior] can increase the risk of health problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart diseases, and dementia† (BBC News). These health issues are more likely to appear in someone who spends more time socializing online than he does on face-to-face contacts. In addition, Dr Sigman underlines that some hormones such as stress released or oxytocin hormones, which help people to start and maintain social relationships, are altered in the people who do not have an active social life and who share their emotions and thoughts through Internet. It explains why many people who overuse Facebook are more vulnerable to stress, nervousness and isolation. Another health risk caused by an excessive use of Facebook is the chaotic habit of eating that people have, especially teenagers. If they spend most of their time on Facebook, they tend to skip meals or eating unhealthy food. According to researchers, these habits could lead to diseases like bulimia or anorexia. A survey based on a sample of 600 Facebook users with ages between 16-40 and done by The Center for Eating Disorders, reports that 75% of the respondents do not like how their body looks and 51% of them compare their bodies with their Facebook friends’ bodies (Cowden). Doctor Harry Brandt, director of The Center for Eating Disorders mentions, â€Å"Facebook is making it easier for people to spend more time and energy criticizing their own bodies and wishing they looked like someone else [†¦] In this age of modern technology and constant access to SmartPhones and the internet, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to remove themselves from images and other triggers that promote negative body image, low self-esteem and may ultimately contribute to eating disorders† (Shaffer). Many people become obsessed with that ideal thin body and the results of the survey mentioned above underlines that people tend to pursue a weight-loss diet because they draw a negative image of their bodies when comparing with other users’ images. It is clear that, at one point, Facebook is enjoyable and its policy is not other than to bring people together faster and easier, though it still affects people’s lives in many ways. Some people are more liable to be isolated from real life, which include â€Å"in person† connections and real entertainment activities. Others end up losing their jobs or getting low grades, in students’ cases, because of the time spent on Facebook. Some could become sick because of the obsession of having that perfect body image, which Facebook promotes, and they start pursuing wrong diets plans, which lead to improper meals. A large numbers of surveys show the negative effects of Facebook to society and the doctors are also worried about the approach that society have for social media websites, especially Facebook. Generally speaking, Facebook mostly affects many people because they neglect real life and spend way too much time on chatting, posting on and checking their profile. The risks and the negative sides of social media will be reduced if the people will use a lower amount of virtual socializing. WORKS CITED BBC, News â€Å"Online networking ‘harms health’.† N.p 09.02.2009. Web. 18 Apr 2012. . Black, Nathan. â€Å"‘Facebook Depression’ Affecting Teens, Report Says.† Christian Post 29 March 2011, n. pag. Print. Bugeja, Michael. â€Å"Facing the Facebook.† Chronicle of Higher Education 27 February 2006, Daily Ed. n. pag. Print. Choney, Suzanne. â€Å"Facebook use can lower grades by 20 percent, study says.† N.p., 2010. Web.

Honest Abe Abe Lincoln essays

Honest Abe Abe Lincoln essays Abraham Lincoln, Honest Abe, is one of the greatest American Presidents. He is known today for his Presidency in which he fought the Confederacy during the Civil War and abolished slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation and later the Thirteenth Amendment. He was an intelligent, honest, and just leader who governed at a critical time in American history. Lincoln was born on the twelfth of February 1809 in a cabin three miles outside of Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was later forced to move to Indiana. As a child Lincoln worked on his familys farm clearing fields and tending crops. He liked to read but unfortunately received hardly any formal education. In fact, his entire schooling only amounted to about one year of attendance. (Brit. 23) In 1830 Lincolns family moved to Illinois. Lincoln didnt want to be a farmer, so he tried other professions: rail-splitter, flatboat man, storekeeper, postmaster, surveyor, an army man, and a profession in Law. In 1932 Lincoln, at twenty-three years old, decided to run for the Illinois State legislature. Lincoln was to campaign for local improvements such as better roads and canals. However, a war with the Indians broke out before Lincolns campaign could get going. In response, he joined the Army. After his short wartime, Lincoln returned to politics and lost the race of Illinois Legislature. In 1834 he ran again and was elected- second of thirteen. At the age of 25 Lincoln was a member of the Illinois Legislature. After his term in the legislature, Lincoln found he needed more money. So, he started studying law on his own. He accepted a job in Springfield at John Todd Stuarts practice. In the late 1830s Lincoln found the love of his life, Mary Ann Todd, the daughter of a rich banker. She got engaged to Abe in 1840 and the two were married in 1842. They had thee children together, Willie and Tad Lincoln. In 1946 Lincoln won...

The modern finance theory is based on the capital asset pricing model The WritePass Journal

The modern finance theory is based on the capital asset pricing model Abstract The modern finance theory is based on the capital asset pricing model AbstractIntroductionTheory2.1 Prospect Theory2.1.1Certainty Effect2.1.2 Reflection Effect2.1.3 Isolation Effect2.2 Behavioural Capital Asset Pricing Theory2.3 Behavioral Portfolio TheorySome Models3.1 DSSW Model3.2 BSV Model3.3 DHS Model3.4 HS ModelAnomalies4.1 Closed-end fund puzzle4.2 the equity premium puzzleConclusionReferenceRelated Abstract As some anomalies are hardly explained by the traditional finance, the behaviour finance is introduced. It was first introduced by Kahneman and Tversky (1979), which they presented the prospect theory. In fact, investors’ behaviour often violates the expected utility theory, some of them trade irrrationally. Then Shefrin and Statman (1994) base on the CAPM, and put investor sentiment into the model to make the BAPM. They thought noise traders and information traders would interact and influenced the price setting, including the noise traders’ behaviour in the BAPM let the asset pricing more precise. Another important theory is the behavioral portfolio theory. The theory states that when investors choose portfolios, they on the one hand want to be security, while on the other hand they potentially also want to reach aspiration levels. So it lets BPT investors to choose bonds and lottery tickets together come true. According to these phenomenon which happen to investorsâ €™ portfolio selection, many researchers give their explaination. Generally speaking, bahaviour finance is based on two theories, which is limits of arbitrage and investor sentiment. DSSW model is based on the former theory while BSW model, DHS model and HS model are based on the latter one. There are also some more models in the behaviour finance area. These models can explain some anomalies, such as Closed-end fund puzzle and the equity premium puzzle. In this paper these two anomalies would be treated as examples to explain how behaviour finance explain these anomalies. Introduction The modern finance theory is based on the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), Markowitz’s Portfolio Theory, Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT). The model CAPM is introduced by Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), and Black (1972). It provides the pricing mechanism of capital assets and the decision factor of risk isÃŽ ²(the relationship between firm returns and market returns). These theories are based on the Efficiency market hypothesis (EMH) and the CAPM can be used to test the EMH. While its analysis framework confined within the scope of rational analysis, when more and more anomalies arise in the market, they are hard to be explained by standard finance which is based on the EMH. In this situation, the questioning of modern finance beginned when the prospect theory is introduced by Kahneman and Tversky (1979). And then the behavioural finance is introduced to explain these snomalies. The definition of behavioural finance is that â€Å"Behavioural finance- that is, finance from a broader social science perspective including psychology and sociology- is now one of the most vital research programs, and it stands in sharp contradiction to much of efficient markets theory.† (Shiller, 2003 p83) It is a Marginal subject and opposite to the traditional finance, and it tries to explain the importance of investors’ emotion and mental mistakes, which would influence their decision-making process (Ricciardi and Simon, 2000). At first, behaviour finance is marginalized as â€Å" anomalies literature† (Frankfurter and McGoun, 2000).it has been researched for a long time, and then it has been accepted after more and more journals focusing on the discussion of anomalies. Section 2 of the paper explains three main theories of behaviour finance, which are prospect theory, behavioural capital asset pricing theory and behavioral portfolio theory. Section 3 presents some models which provided by the behaviour finance. Section 4 discusses the application of behaviour finance to explain anomalies. Section 6 concludes. Theory 2.1 Prospect Theory Prospect theory is the one of the most important theory in the behavioural finance. Investors   usually do not perform rationally, and prospect theory handles this issue. Expected Utility Theory is a kind of desceiptive model which is used to make decisions under risks, and the result is a criteria for investors to choose. While a large number of experimental research shows that investors choices are inconsistent with the basic tenets of utility theory. Kahneman and Tversky (1979) classify these differences into some areas, which is certainty effect, reflection effect and isolation effect. 2.1.1Certainty Effect Certainty effect is people often underestimate outcomes which are probable when compare outcomes which are received with certainty (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). In order to demonstrate this issue, Allais (1953) gives a series of choice problems. On of the problem is that: Option 1: 2,500 with probability   0.33 2,400 with probability   0.66 0 with probability  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   0.01 Option 2: 2,400 with certainty The question is which option would give you the best chance to maximize your profits? The result shows that 82% people choose the option 2 among 72 people, most of them violated expected utility theory. According to the expected utility theory, the profit in option 1 (2500*0.33+ 2400*0.66+ 0*0.01= 2409) is greater than the option 2 (2400), while people prefer choosing the profit which is certain rather than choosing the profit which is risk. 2.1.2 Reflection Effect While when gains are replaced by loses, the result would be that the risk preference of people is contrary to the positive prospects, it transfers from risk aversion to risk seeking, and this is labeled as the reflection effect. For example, 92% people choose a probobility of 80% to loss 4000 when they are offered another choice which is a certainty loss of 3000. This example also shows that not only the positive domain violate the expected utility theory, but also the negative domain violate it in the same manner. 2.1.3 Isolation Effect When people choose one investment between alternatives, they usually exclude the common factors to consider, and focus on their different components. This division would lead to different reslults, for the same pair of investments can be divided into common and distinctive components in many different ways. This phenomenon is called the isolation effect. For example there is two-stage choice problem, the first stage is that people have a probability of 0.25 to go to the second stage, and in the second stage, you have to have a choice between the winning 3,000 of certainty and winning 4,000 of 0.8 probobility. The result states that 78% of 141 people choose the former one. While in this game, people should have had a choice between 0.25* 0.8= 0.2 possibility to win 4,000, and a 0.25* 1.0= 0.25 possibility to win 3,000, and this choice was demotrated by Allais (1953) that a marjor of people would choose a 0.2 chance to win 4,000. so in this situation, people ignore the first stage and based on the second stage to choose prospect. Prospect theory divides the choice process into two phases, one is editing and the other one is evaluation. Editing phase is used to analyse the options in order to get the simplified result, evaluation is to evaluate the edited prospects and choose one which has highest value. Editing includes four operations which are coding, combination, segregation and cancellation. According to the prospect theory, if a prospect is regular (p + q 1, or x ≠¥ 0 ≠¥ y, or x ≠¤ 0 ≠¤ y ), which also means neither strictly positive nor strictly negative, the equation would be: (1)  Ã‚   V(x, p; y, q) = Ï€(p) v(x) +Ï€(q) v(y) In this equation, the total value of an edited prospect is denoted V, and   it is expressed by two scales. The first scaleÏ€is connected with each possibility p and the decision weight isÏ€(p), the other scale is v, which the outcome is v(x) with a number x. the value of prospect in Equation (1) is the same as the result of expected utility theory. While if the prospects are strictly positive or strictly negative, they must use another rule. When prospects are in the editing phase, they are often divided into two parts, which is the riskless part and the risky part. The evaluation would use the next equation: If p + q = 1 and either x y 0 or x y 0, then (2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   V(x, p; y, q) = v(y) +Ï€(p) [v(x) – v(y)] It means that the value of a strictly positive or strictly negative prospect is the same as the sum of the value of the riskless part and the value-difference between the outcomes multipling the weight associated with the more extreme outcome. Investors evaluation base on the value function and weighting function (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). Prospect theory uses value function to explain the same meaning of utility. There are two arguments in the value function, the first one is the asset position which can be treated as reference point, and the other one is the magnitude of the change from the reference point. Value function normally concave for positive outcome and convex for negative outcome, and the losses is steeper than the gains. When the value approachs to the reference point, the value fuction is steepest, and the whole value fuction is S-shaped. Decision weights are usually different from the probability axioms, investors often overestimate the small probabilities, this situation often happens in gambling and insurance. While for other situations, decision weights are commonly lower than the corresponding probabilities However, there are two drawbacks existing in the prospect theory. Firstly, it uses the value function and weighting function to evaluate theory, while there are no specific functions and instead using examples to explain. It is a kind of experimental process. Secondly, there is no specific standard for reference point, it makes the theory not so pricise. 2.2 Behavioural Capital Asset Pricing Theory The behavioural capital asset pricing theory is based on the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and the difference is that the behavioural capital asset pricing theory consider the behaviour of traders. It focuses on the market which noise traders and information traders affect each other. Information traders are traders in the condition of CAPM, they obey the Bayesian learning rule to evaluate the returns and most importantly, they never make cognitive errors. However, noise traders are contrary to information traders, they commit cognitive errors and break the Bayesian rules. These two traders interact and determine the asset price. Market is efficient when information traders are dominant in the market, while if dominant traders are noise traders, market is inefficient. What is the difference between markets in which prices are efficient and markets in which prices are not efficient? The main difference is that there is a single driver property existing the market which prices are efficient. As Shefrin and Statman (1994, p345) said, â€Å"This single driver drives the mean-variance efficient frontier, the return distribution of the market portfolio, the premium for risk, the term structure, and the price of options.† It satisfies the minimun information which required to cause the changes to the outcome distribution of the market portfolio. While a second driver is introduced to the market by noise traders, and it let the price far away from the price efficiency. They often creat some abnormal returns to particular securities. The expected return of security is determined by behavioural ÃŽ ², which is the ÃŽ ² of tangent mean variance efficient asset portfolio. Noise traders’ action let the relationship between security returns and bet a weaker. While at the same time, they built a positive relationship between abnormal returns and beta (Chopra, Lakonishok, and Ritter, 1992). When the prices are efficient in the market, price efficiency protects particular noise traders. At that time, the function of noise traders is to rise the trading volume. However, if the prices are not efficient, new information cannot be a sufficient statistic. Yet prices, volatility, the premium for risk, option prices and the term structure are still influenced by old information. Noise traders affect the return of securities through the term structure and they can arouse inefficient inversion which exists in the term structure. The behaviourÃŽ ² is introduced by the behavioural asset pricing model (BAPM), when the noise traders are included in the model, the behaviourÃŽ ² represents a lower risk than the traditionalÃŽ ². The BAPM research a series of issues such as risk premium, the term structure, and option prices in the situation of existing noise traders. The BAPM not only considers the performance characteristics of value, but also includes the characteristics of utility, therefore, on the one hand it has to accept the market efficiency when considering the unbeatable market, on the other hand it must reject the market efficiency when consider the irrational behaviours. This contradiction lead the finance to further research. 2.3 Behavioral Portfolio Theory The behavioural portfolio theory (BPT) is introduced by Shefrin and Statman (2000) and it is based on the SP/A theory (Lopes, 1987) and Safety-First Portfolio theory (Roy, 1952). Roy’s (1952) safety-first theory and Markowitz’s (1952a) mean-variance portfolio theory are introduced at the same year, however their opinion are different to the Friedman-Savage puzzle. The former theory is consistent with the puzzle while the latter one is not. SP/A theory is a psychological theory and it has been a choice framework. Security, potential and aspiration are the meaning of letters SP/A and they also reflect investors’ choice under uncertainty. The efficient frontier of BPT is different from the mean-variance efficient frontier, and the optimal portfolios of BPT and CAPM are not the same. BPT investors think about the expected wealth when they select portfolios. On the one hand, they want portfolios to be security, on the other hand they potentially want to reach aspiration levels. So BPT investors combine bonds and lottery tickets together. The BPT is classified into two versions, a single mental account version (BPT-SA) and a multiple mental account version (BPT-MA). Their differences are that BPT-SA investors use a single mental account to manage their portfolios while BPT-MA investors use several mental accounts to integrate their portfolios. So BPT investors are the same as investors in the Friedman-Savage puzzle, they both present risk averse and risk seeking. They buy risk-free investments for the low aspiration mental account and buy speculative bonds for the high aspiration mental account. BPT-SA investors treat the portfolio as a whole like mean-variance investors, and they also take covariances into consideration. So the framework of choosing portfolio are similar between BPT-SA and mean-variance theory, the difference is that their efficient portfolios are not the same. Portfolios in the BPT-MA is like layered pyramids, and every layer has its own aspiration level. The bottom layer is designed to protect investors from poverty and the top layer let investors have a chance becoming rich. BPT-MA investors are quite different from BPT-SA investors, they ignore covariances and treat portfolios separately in to different mental accounts. Because BPT-MA investors ignore covariance between layers, there is a risk that they may put the same security but with different positions into different layers. The similar evidence is provided by Jorion (1994), he finds that when investors invest globally, they put securities and currencies into different layers of the pyramid, while he thinks the overlay structure is not so useful, because it overlooks covariances between securities and currencies and it leads to 40 basis points loss of efficiency. Some Models 3.1 DSSW Model Behaviour finance is based on two theories, which is limits of arbitrage and investor sentiment. According to the tradition finance, arbitrage plays a key role in achieving the market efficiency. Its basic point is that even irrational investors exist in the market and let prices deviate their value, rational investors would eliminate their influence to prices, and finally prices and the value are consistent. However, behaviour finance thinks arbitrage is not unlimited, one of the reason is that arbitrageurs are risk averse and have resonably short horizons, its posibility to be dominant is small. For example, when arbitrageurs sell assets short, they first must know noise traders are bullish and they must be bullish in the future, And then noise traders would buy back the stock. While it is hard to predict noise traders thought, so arbitrageurs have to bear the risk and this would limit their willingness to take position against noise traders. The model consists of noise traders and sophisticated investors. There are some investors not following economists’ advice to invest, and they only trust their own research. So Black (1986) called these investors who have no private information and irrationally act â€Å"noise traders†. Noise traders obtain lots of information which comes from technical analysts, economic consultants and stockbrokers and they falsely believe this information is useful to predict the future price of risky asset. So noise traders choose portfolios according to such incorrect beliefs Alpert and Raiffa (1982). On the contrary, sophisticated traders make use of noise traders’ irrational misperceptions. They buy stocks when noise traders depress prices, while they sell stocks when noise traders think prices would be bullish. According to the risk of noise traders, the model can explain some financial market anomalies. These anomalies are the excess volatility of and mean reversion in stock market price, the Mehra-Prescott equity premium, the closed-end fund puzzles and some other anomalies. However, there is a drawback existing in the model, which is that it can not explain how investors make decisions. The assumption is that investors base on the behaviour portfolio theory to choose their portfolios, according to the different layers, they make different investment choices even for same assets. 3.2 BSV Model A huge amount of empirical evidence have shown two kinds of pervasive phenomenon, which are underreaction and overreaction of stock prices. Underreaction means that investors predict higher average return than the actual average return when good news are announced. in other words, the stock underreacts to the good news. if the average return comes from a series of announcements of good news and it is lower when compared with the average return coming from a series of bad news announcements, it is defined as overreaction (Barberis, Shleffer, and Vishny, 1998). BSV model is introduced by Barberis, Shleffer, and Vishny (1998). Investors often present two phenomena, which is conservatism and representativeness heuristic. Conservatism can be defined that people often react slowly when people encounter new evidence (Edwards, 1968). When investors face evidence which has high weigh but low strength, they do not care much about the low strenngh and react moderately to the evidence. While if the evidence has high strength but low weight, they overreact it like representativeness. Representativeness heuristic is the second important psychological phenomenon (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974). It means that investors focus on recent patterns in the data while give little weight to the properties of the population which generates the data (Fama, 1998). In the situation of representativeness heuristic, if a company performs well in the past and has a high growth, investor would ignore the truth that this well perform would hardly repeat itself. The result would be that they overestimate the value of the company and be disappointed when the expected growth does not come true. The BSV model bases on the two phenomena, and explain how investors decision-making model leads to the market price deviating the efficient market. The model also deals with the problem why arbitrage is limited, the reason it that investors’ sentiment are hard to forcast. The more extreme of investorsà ¢â‚¬â„¢ sentiment, the more further of price away from the actual value. It is known that earnings are a random walk, while investors falsely classify them into two earnings regimes. They underreact or overreact to a change in earnings, these lead to short-term momentum in stock returns and long-term reversal. The BSV model perform well on the anomalies it was designed to explain, while the forcast of long-term return reversal is not so good. 3.3 DHS Model Daniel et al. (1998) also provide a model which includes investor sentiment to deal with the situation of overreaction and underreaction. They try to use psychological theory to support their framework and classify investors’ sentiment into overconfidence and biased self-attribution. Overconfidence is defined that investors often overestimate their forecast ability when they have more significant information than others, so they often overlook their prediction errors. Biased self-attribution is investors feel confident when they find public information is the same as their information, but the confidence would not decrease proportionately when public information is opposite to their private information. According to the DHS model, it has been known that investors overreact to private information, while on the contrary investors underreact to public information signals. When public information signals eliminate behaviour bias, this would lead to short-term momentum of stock returns while long-run reversal. The model can reconcile this situation, it transfers the wealth from imperfect rational traders (e.g. noise traders) to rational traders and then price setting is dominated by rational traders. While even in this situation, rational traders could not be predominance in the long term. De Long et al. (1991) state that noise traders are risk averse and they prefer investing more money to risky, high expected return assets, if they overconfident about the true information signals, they would obtain more profits than those rrational investors. The forcasts of DHS are similar with BSV, they share the same empirical successes and failures. And this comment can also apply to Hong and Stein (1997). 3.4 HS Model The model is provided by Hong and Stein (1999) in 1999, it also called the unified behaviour model. The model is different from BSV model and DHS model, it classifies agents into newswatchers and momentum traders. Each of them are restricted rational. Newswatchers making investment dicisions base on private information signals of movement of future values. Their drawback is that they do not use the current or past prices to choose portfolios. While on the contrary, momentum traders mainly base on the movement of past prices changes to invest. However, they also have limitations, which their forecasts should be â€Å"simple† function of the history of past prices. In this model, there is one more assumption, which is private information would spread slowly in the newswatcher group. The underreaction and overreaction are based on the private information spread slowly across the newswatcher population. As first, newswatchers underreact to the private information, then momentum tr aders try to make use of it to arbitrage, while it leads to overreaction. Anomalies 4.1 Closed-end fund puzzle There are some anomalies existing in the financial market, one of them is closed-end fund puzzle. The definition of it is that: â€Å"The closed-end fund puzzle is the empirical finding that closed-end fun shares typically sell at prices not equal to the per share market value of assets the fund holds† (Shleifer and Thaler, 1992, p. 75). The puzzle is that closed-end funds are sold with 10 percent premium at first, while after around 120 days, the premium of 10 percent moves to a discount of over 10 percent (Weiss, 1989). And then discounts fluctuate over the period of funds, they would narrow and then disappear until the closed-end funds terminate. This proposition has been researched in the past, they pointed out that the value of securities maybe overstate when compared with their true value of the assets. And they provided three explainations, which are agency costs, tax liabilities and illiquidity of assets. Generally speaking, agency costs are constant, it cannot let prices fluctuate. Moreover, it even cannot explain why rational invettors buy funds at a premium initially and finally sell them at a discount. Restricted stock and block discount hypotheses are two versions of asset illiquidity, they explain the reason to sell stocks at a discount, that is, trading fees are expensive. The tax liabilities’ explaination is that the gain tax has included in the funds, so discounts happen. while these three standard explanations cannot explain the puzzle together or separately. Another explaination is provided by De long, Shleifer, Summers and Waldmann (1990) (DSSW). They develop DSSW model to explain rational investors and noise traders interact in financial markets, and the key point is that noise traders’ sentiment are unpredictable. So the noise traders’ sentiment influence the demand of closed-end fund shares and then influence the changes in discounts. The model makes two hypotheses, they assume rational investors are short horizons, they focus on the interim resale of prices rather than the present values of dividends. The other assumption is that noise traders’ sentiment is stochastic and hard to predicted by rational investors. If investors are optimistic about the return of funds, funds will be sold at premia or only a little discounts. While if noise traders are pessimistic, it will result of a large discounts. There are two kinds of risk when investors hold closed-end funds, which are the risk of holding the fund’s portfolio and the risk of noise traders’ sentiment causing prices changes. If noise traders become continuously pessimistic about closed-end funds, this risk would be systematic. And then its influence will not be restricted in the closed-end funds. According to this aituation, it is easy to find that holding the fund is risker than holding its portfolio, and then prices of closed-end funds wou ld be lower than their true value. There is a fact that closed-end funds are mainly traded by individual investors. And individual investors also invest small stocks. According to the empirical evidence which researched by Shleifer and Thaler (1992), it shows that the performance of small stocks also influence the changes of discounts. If the small stocks do well, the discounts of closed-end funds would be narrow. 4.2 the equity premium puzzle When researchers observed the economy of the United States during 1889 to 1979, they found that the annual return of stocks was seven percent, however, the return of treasury bills was less than 1 percent after 1926. Mehra and Prescott (1985) stated that this huge gap causes from the huge difference of risk aversion. They explained the high equity premium with having excess of 30 risk aversion. While the actual figure observed is only close to 1. so it is a problem that why is the equity premium so large. Benartzi and Thaler (1995) gived two concepts which comes from the psychology of decision-making. The first one is loss aversion, and the other one is mental accounting. Loss aversion is similar with the Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) descriptive theory. It becomes more sensitive to loss money rather than increase wealth. It is also opposite to the expected utility theory. Mental accounting is defined that â€Å"mental accounting refers to the implicit methods individuals use to code and evaluate financial outcomes: transactions, investments, gambles, etc† (Benartzi and Thaler, 1995, p.74). Investors are loss aversion, so if they invest stocks, they would care about the security of portfolios. While stock prices are fluctuated, frequent performance evaluation would make investors feel loss. So stocks are less attracted by investors. Only when the return of stocks keeps a high level, investors would replace bonds with stocks. Barberis, Huang and Santos (2001) explain this puzzle in another aspect and they introduce a model. The model not only bases on the onsumption but also bases on fluctuations of investors’ loss averse. As it is known to all, investors are sensitive to their decrease of wealth rather than to increase. And The changes of loss aversion depends on investors’ prior investment performance. If investors are profit in the prior period, they would become less loss averse. While if the loss is over the profit, or there existing loss in the prior period, investors would become more loss averse. According to this situation ,it needs a large premium to let investors hold stocks. However, the conclusion is made under some conditions. Firstly, researchers only use a single risky asset to do research for the sake of simplicity. So in the real economy which has lots of risky assets, it is not easy to identify what investors are loss averse about. Another one is that it is not clear to what range the preferences can interpret financial data and risky gambles. Conclusion The behaviour finance as a Marginal subject has been developed quickly during the recent years. It combines the finance, psychology, sociology and anthropology to explain finance. According to the empirical research of the finance market, some anomalies cannot be explained by the traditional finance. While the behaviour finance use a unique aspect to systematically explain these anomalies, such as Closed-end fund puzzle and the equity premium puzzle. compared with the traditional finance, the behaviour finance does not have a complete systematic theory. However, the prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), the behavioural capital asset pricing theory (Shefrin and Statman, 1994) and the behavioral portfolio theory (Shefrin and Statman, 2000) constitute the fundamental systematic behaviour finance theory. They introduce an evidence that investors not always perform as rational traders, there are a part of traders perform irrrationally. Traders do not obey the expected utility theo ry. Then talking about the prices setting, the original CAPM model which is used to set prices of asset is not appropriate, noise traders often commit cognitive errors and their actions would influence the price setting. So the BAPM model which includes the investors influence can make prices more real. The main point of BPT theory is that investors choose portfolios basing their different layers of needs. The bottom layer is designed to protect investors from poverty and the top layer let investors have a chance becoming rich. In order to explain anomalies, some models have been introduced. For example, DSSW, BSV, DHS and HS models. They investigate the influence of investors’ sentiment from two aspects, which are limits of arbitrage and investor sentiment. However, the behaviour finance has its inherent drawbacks. As Fama (1998) states that even the behaviour finance can explain some anomolies existing in the capital market, it does not mean market efficiency should be abandoned. The data shows that the frequency of overreaction of stock prices is the same as underreaction, so it can be seen that anomalies are chance results in the market efficiency hypothesis. Moreover, anomalies existing in the long-term return are fragile, they tend to be a reasonable changes. Behaviour finance is the sum of anomolies which EMH and CAPM cannot explain, And it does not have its own independent evidence. So the development of behaviour finance needs further research. Reference Shiller, R. J. 2003. From efficient markets theory to behavioral finance. Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, pp. 83-104. Ricciardi, V. and Simon, H. K. 2000. What is behavioral finance. Business, Education and Technology Journal, fall. Frankfurter, G. M., McGoun, E. G. 2000. Market efficiency and behavioral finance: the nature of the debate. The Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets 1, pp. 200–210. Allais, M. 1953. Le Comportement de 1Homme Rationnel devant le Risque, Critique des Postulats et Axiomes de 1Ecole Americaine. Econometrica 21, pp. 503-546. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1979. Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47(2), pp. 263-292. Chopra, N., Lakonishok, J. and Ritter, J. 1992. Performance measurement methodology and the question of whether stocks overreact. Journal of Financial Economics 31, pp. 235-268. Shefrin, H. and Statman. M. 1994. Behavioral capital asset pricing theory. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 29(3), pp. 323-349. Lopes, L. 1987. Between hope and fear: the psychology of risk. Advances in Experimental   Social Psychology 20, pp. 255-295 Roy, A. D. 1952. Safety-First and the holding of assets. Econometrica 20, pp. 431-449. Markowitz, H. 1952. Portfolio selection. Journal of Finance 6, pp. 77-91. Jorion, P. 1994. Mean-Variance analysis of currency overlays. Financial Analysts Journal 50, pp. 48-56. Shefrin, H. and Statman, M. 2000. Behavioural portfolio theory. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 35(2), pp. 127-151. De Long, J. B., Shleifer, A., Summers, L. H. and Waldmann, R. J. 1990. Noise trader risk in financial markets. Journal of Political Economy 98(4), pp. 703-738. Alpert, M. and Raiffa, H. 1982. A progress report on the training of probability assessors. In Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, edited by Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic,   and Amos Tversky. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Samuelson, P. A. 1958. An exact consumption-loan model of interest with or without the social contrivance of money. J.P.E. 66, pp. 467-82. Black, F. 1986. Noise. Journal of Finance 41, pp. 529-543. Edwards, W. 1968. Conservatism in human information processing. In: Kleinmutz, B. (Ed.), Formal Representation of Human Judgment. John Wiley and Sons, New York, pp. 17-52. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1974. Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science 185, pp. 1124-1131. Barberis, N., Shleifer, A. and Vishny, R. 1998. A   model of investor sentiment. Journal of Financial Economics 49, pp. 307-343. Fama, E. F. 1998. Market efficiency, long-term returns, and behavioral finance. Journal of Financial Economics 49, pp. 283-306. De Long, J. B., Shleifer, A., Summers, L. H. and Waldmann, R. J. 1991. The survival of noise traders in financial markets. Journal of Business 64, pp. 1-20. Daniel, K., Hirshleifer, D. and Subrahmanyam, A. 1998. Investor psychology and security market under and overreactions. Journal of Finance 53(6), pp. 1839-1885. Weiss, K. 1989. The post-offering price performance of closed-end funds. Financial Management Autumn, pp. 57-67. Shleifer, A. and Thaler, R. H. 1991. Investor sentiment and the closed- end fund puzzle. Journal of Finance 46(1), pp. 75-109. Mehra, R. and Prescott, E. R. 1985. The equity premium puzzle. Journal of Monetary Economics, pp. 145-161. Benartzi, S. and Thaler, R. H. 1995. Myopic loss aversion and the equity puzzle. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 110(1), pp. 73-92. Barberis, N., Huang, M. and Santos, T. 2001. Prospect theory and asset prices. The Quarterly Journal of Economics February. Hong, H. and Stein, J. C. 1999. A unified theory of underreaction, momentum trading, and overreaction in asset markets. Journal of Finance 54(6), pp. 2143-2184.