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Saturday, August 31, 2019

Input-Output Multiplier Analysis for Major Industries in the Philippines.Pdf

11th National Convention on Statistics (NCS) EDSA Shangri-La Hotel October 4-5, 2010 INPUT-OUTPUT MULTIPLIER ANALYSIS FOR MAJOR INDUSTRIES IN THE PHILIPPINES by Madeline B. Dumaua For additional information, please contact: Author’s name Designation Affiliation Address Tel. no. E-mail Madeline B. Dumaua Statistician III Statistical Research and Training Center Quezon City +632-4260620 [email  protected] gov. ph INPUT-OUTPUT MULTIPLIER ANALYSIS FOR MAJOR INDUSTRIES IN THE PHILIPPINES1 by Madeline B. Dumaua2 ABSTRACT The study aims to assess the impact of the different major industries of the Philippines using Input-Output Multiplier Analysis. It attempts to do this by using the 2000 Input-Output Accounts of the Philippines (I-O Accounts), the most recently published tables by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB). As the economic importance of the 11 major industries is growing among the policy makers and researchers, this study applied input-output technique in determining economic effects to gauge the significance of these industries in generating output, income and employment. Key sectors are identified in term of multipliers; the higher the multiplier, the stronger is the ability of the corresponding sector to create multiple impacts in the economy. The obtained multipliers showed that among major industries, the Manufacturing Industry showed the highest final demand-to-output multiplier; the Construction Industry gained the highest output-to-output multiplier; and Private Services Industry is found to have the highest income and employment multipliers. KEY WORDS: Input-output, Multiplier 1. Introduction Sectors of an economy are naturally interdependent. An input stimulates production in a sector directly, but it may also stimulate production in other sectors as well, where the intensity can be downgraded. The residual effect of an input beyond the intended sector is called multiplier that describes interrelationships among sectors of the economy. The multiplier effect provides a quantification of the direct and indirect effect on growth of the sector, possibly measured in terms of production output. Different economic multipliers like those for output, income, and employment can be used to determine economic effect for an industry. The Leontieff model or the Input-Output model can be used to track the complex web of production linkages among industries in the country within the framework of interdependencies. This study will assess the impact of the different sectors of the economy in terms of output, income and employment. Thus, Input-Output multiplier analysis was performed to determine the effect of the different major industry groups. 2. Objectives of the Study The study aimed to measure the economic effects of the major industry groups using Input-Output Multiplier Analysis. Specifically, the study intended to: 1. easure the multiplier effect of changes in final demand on the output of individual industries and the whole economy (Final Demand-to-Output Impact Multiplier) 1 2 One of the in-house research undertakings of the Research and Information Technology Division (RITD) of the Statistical Research and Training Center (SRTC) of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Statistician III, Res earch and Information Technology Division (RITD) of the Statistical Research and Training Center (SRTC) of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) 1 2. etermine the impact of changes in each industry’s output on the total output (Outputto-Output Impact Multiplier) 3. find out the impact of changes in each industry’s output on household income (Household Income Multiplier) 4. determine the impact changes of output in an industry on employment (Employment Multiplier) 3. Significance of the Study In economics, the multiplier effect refers to the idea that the initial amount of money invested by government leads to an even greater increase in national income. In other words, an initial change in aggregate demand causes a change in ggregate output of the economy that is multiple of the initial. This measures the degree to which various businesses and households in an economy are interrelated. This measure the impact of a given external change, such as new inv estment, export expansion, start up of a new businesses, on total economic activity in a given community or country, through the respending of new dollars within that economy. The multiplier has been used to justify government spending or taxation relief that will stimulate aggregate demand. Many governments consider spending/tax break as instruments to stimulate aggregate demand. This is usually implemented during a period of recession or economic uncertainty. The money invested by a government is believed to create more jobs, which in turn will mean more spending that further fuel activities in various sectors of the economy. The idea is that the net increase in disposable income by different stakeholders throughout the economy will be greater than the original investment. As this happens, government can increase the gross domestic product by an amount that is greater than an increase in the amount it spends relative to the amount it collects in taxes. Multiplier focuses on the relationship between spending and consumption. It is also referred as expenditure multiplier. The concept holds that a spending, whether initiated by the government, corporations or households, will trigger the national income. Expenditure multiplier does not differentiate between consumption and investment spending. Examples of multipliers include I-O multipliers which are derived from I-O tables and show the impact of spending in certain industry on various economic variable including GDP, employment, output and wages and salaries, etc. . Limitations of the Study The paper makes use of the 2000 Input-Output tables from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB). It only uses I-O multiplier analysis in estimating multipliers. While I-O multipliers can be a rich source of information, they also have some limitations. These include: I-O models treat all inputs as complements and exclude substitutes implying that increases in the demand for one input w ill only lead to demand increases for other inputs. The I-O model does not consider price-adjusting behavior or substitution effects. Because the model is entirely open, there is no scarcity of resources. The economy is assumed to have limitless amounts of all the inputs it requires. 2 I-O models produce a snapshot of the economy at a given point in time. Structural changes in the economy over time will reduce the validity of results produced by I-O models. Analysis based on I-O models does not explicitly consider alternatives and tends to show only benefits of expenditures while ignoring costs. The impacts considered through the I-O model are short-term and at the margin: there is no consideration of whether the economy has the capacity to incorporate the changes and whether changes in production are sustainable or cost competitive. Given these limitations, I-O multipliers can still provide a useful, but rough, initial indication of the economic impact of changes in spending in different industries. 5. Data and Methodology This study was primarily carried out based on the 2000 Input-Output Accounts of the Philippines (I-O Accounts), the most recently published tables by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB). In order to assess the economic effect of all major industries in the whole economy, the Input-Output Multiplier Analysis was used. The major industry groups used in the study include the following: For the employment multiplier analysis, data for the total number of persons employed in each industry was taken from the 2000 Census of Philippine Business and Industry (CPBI) of the National Statistics Office (NSO) while data for the Gross Value-Added (GVA) was taken from 2000 Economic Accounts of the NSCB. Table 1. Major Industry Groups Major Industry Groups Code 01 Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry 02 Mining and Quarrying 03 Manufacturing 04 Construction 05 Electricity, Gas and Water 06 Transportation, Storage and Communication 07 Wholesale and Retail Trade 08 Finance 09 Real Estate 10 Private Services 11 Government Services 5. 1 Computation of Final Demand-to-Output Multiplier The step by step procedure in generating Final Demand-to-Output multiplier analysis is described below: 1. Get the column elements of the inverse matrix for all major industries. 2. Multiply the column elements by the impact variable to get the specific impact on each industry. . Get the total of the column elements of the inverse matrix for all major industries. 4. Multiply the total column elements by the impact variable to get the impact on the entire economy. 3 5. 2 Output-to-Output Multiplier The step by step procedure in generating Output-to-Output multiplier analysis is described below: 1. 2. 3. 4. Obtain the IO inverse matrix for all major industries. Divide each column by its diagonal element. Get the column sums of the output-to-output inverse matrix. The column sums are the output-to-output multipliers for each industry. 5. 3. Household Income Multiplier The step by step procedure in generating Household Income multiplier analysis is described below: 1. Get the household income coefficients of all the major industries in the economy by dividing the compensation of employees by the total input of the corresponding industry. 2. Multiply the column elements of the inverse matrix of all major industries by all the household income coefficients. 3. Add all the products to get the household income multiplier. 5. 4 Employment Multiplier The step by step procedure in generating employment multiplier analysis is described below: 1. Get employment coefficients of all industries in the economy by calculating the employment in each industry and dividing it by gross value-added (GVA). Data for the total number of persons employed in each industry was taken from the 2000 Census of Philippine Business and Industry (CPBI) of the National Statistics Office (NSO). Data for GVA was taken from 2000 Economic Accounts of the NSCB. 2. After getting the employment coefficients, get the employment multiplier. Employment multiplier is computed by multiplying employment coefficient with inverse matrix. This gives the individual effects of construction for each industry. If we sum up the multipliers, this somehow gives an effect of the construction industry in the economy. 3. In doing simulation, i. e. , government increases construction output by One (1) Billion, multiply the 1billion increase to each employment multiplier where the result will provide possible additional jobs in every industry creating a corresponding effect in the whole. 4. These multipliers are additional jobs aside from the existing employment in the construction. In other words, the multiplier analysis assumes that from start to finish, these additional employments were generated already, or in place. The IO multiplier analysis cannot determine whether these additional jobs happened before, during or after the construction stages. 6. Results and Discussion 6. 1 Summary of Multipliers Following the computation procedure presented above, the I-O multipliers were estimated for output, income and employment in the Philippine economy. An I-O model has the ability to identify the important sectors of an economy at a national (or even at a regional level). Key sectors are identified in term of multipliers; the higher the multiplier, the 4 stronger is the ability of the corresponding sector to create multiple impacts in the economy. The sectoral multipliers are used in the impact analysis to estimate the impacts for policy change in all 11 sectors, see Table 2 for details. Among the 11 major industries, the Manufacturing Industry yields the largest finaldemand to output multiplier of 2. 15. The Construction Industry and the Transportation, Communication and Storage Industry constitute the second and third most important output generating industries with both multipliers of around 1. 93, respectively. However, output-to-output multiplier shows that the Construction Industry yields the highest multiplier of 1. 2, which means that a one-peso change in the output of the Construction Industry generates a 1. 92 pesos worth of additional output in the economy. This is followed by Transportation, Communication and Storage and the Private Services, with multipliers of 1. 85 and 1. 70, respectively. Output-to-output multipliers can be used to measure the impact of a change in output in a particular industry on the output of the whole economy. The Private Services Industry is the most important income generating sector with the highest income multiplier of 0. 39. The second most important sector is the Construction Industry in terms of income generation which is holding an income multiplier of 0. 36. The Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry ranks third among the income generating industries with an income multiplier of 0. 33. 5 Table 2. Summary of the Multipliers: Final Demand-to-Output, Output-to-Output, Household Income, and Employment. Final OutputHousehold Total DemandOutput Income Employment Industry Description Output Multipliers Multiplier Multipliers Multipliers Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry 1. 466693 1. 321942 0. 336922 0. 000001 Mining and Quarrying 1. 702768 1. 647777 0. 235379 0. 00002 Manufacturing 2. 152964 1. 340648 0. 265802 0. 000004 Construction 1. 937681 1. 923491 0. 365889 0. 000003 Electricity, Gas and Water 1. 567449 1. 431400 0. 198316 0. 000002 Transportation, Communication and Storage 1. 937634 1. 859610 0. 256182 0. 000003 Trade 1. 658849 1. 611999 0. 265008 0. 000005 Finance 1. 654636 1. 636633 0. 244516 0. 000003 Real Estate 1. 197308 1. 194264 0. 05703 0. 000004 Private Services 1. 919238 1. 701126 0. 391793 0. 000006 Government Services 1. 533628 1. 533628 0. 080845 0. 000001 6 The number of employment generated for a given unit of expenditure/output can be estimated by employment multiplier. The result shows that the Private Services Industry has the highest employment multiplier of 6Ãâ€"10-6. The second highest important sector in generating employment is the Trade (Wholesale and Retail) Industry with a multiplier of 6Ãâ€"10-5 followed by the Manufacturing and Real Estate Industries with both employment multipliers of around 6Ãâ€"10-5. 6. 2 Final Demand-to-Output Multiplier Effect The final demand-to-output multiplier is used to measure the impact of a change in final demand on the output of individual industries and the whole economy. This tells us about the additional output generated in each industry given an impact increase in the investment in each industry (impact variable). Table 3 shows the impact of a 100 million peso increase the investments in the 11 major industries. Results showed that this spending has the greatest impact in the Manufacturing Industry with an additional generated output of 215 million pesos. This is followed by the Construction Industry and the Transportation, Communication and Storage Industry with both an additional output of approximately 193 million pesos. 7 Table 3. Final Demand-to-Output Multiplier Effect for a 100 Million Investment. Industry Output Multipliers Impact Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry 1. 466693 146,669,300 Mining and Quarrying 1. 702768 170,276,800 Manufacturing 2. 152964 215,296,400 Construction 1. 937681 193,768,100 Electricity, Gas and Water 1. 567449 156,744,900 Transportation, Communication and Storage 1. 937634 193,763,400 Trade 1. 658849 165,884,900 Finance 1. 654636 165,463,600 Real Estate 1. 197308 119,730,800 Private Services 1. 919238 191,923,800 Government Services 1. 533628 153,362,800 8 Table 4 shows the inverse matrices of the 11 major industries, which is the direct and indirect effect of a one-peso change in final demand for a particular industry on the output of other industries and the economy as a whole. The sums of column elements of the inverse matrix for the 11 industries are called final demand-tooutput multipliers. The Manufacturing Industry yields the largest output multiplier of 2. 15 among the 11 major industries. Of its 2. 15 multiplier, the additional output generated in the Manufacturing itself for a peso change in the final demand for Manufacturing Industry is 1. 0; an additional output of 0. 19 in the Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry Industry; and an additional generated output of 0. 13 in the Trade Industry. The Construction Sector, which constitutes the second most important output generating industry, has a multiplier of 1. 93. This shows that a peso change in the final demand for the Construction Industry generates 1. 93 pesos worth of additi onal or incremental output in the economy. Moreover, of this total multiplier, a peso change in the final demand for the Construction Industry generates an additional output of 1. 00, 0. 53 and 0. 0 in the Construction, Manufacturing and in the Transportation, Communication and Storage industries, respectively. 9 Table 4. Final Demand-to-Output Impact Multipliers Code 01 02 03 04 05 06 01 1. 109499 0. 045780 0. 195436 0. 066634 0. 030540 0. 073292 02 0. 013579 1. 033373 0. 084080 0. 055157 0. 086973 0. 031180 03 0. 241695 0. 342875 1. 605913 0. 536138 0. 238312 0. 582694 04 0. 001967 0. 013762 0. 002122 1. 007377 0. 002711 0. 002136 05 0. 018788 0. 073066 0. 045204 0. 021301 1. 095046 0. 023748 06 0. 011616 0. 026676 0. 031898 0. 108802 0. 020999 1. 041957 07 0. 028925 0. 037978 0. 131903 0. 058128 0. 042323 0. 059100 08 0. 13211 0. 025827 0. 020688 0. 028335 0. 008581 0. 042086 09 0. 001723 0. 004155 0. 004100 0. 010400 0. 001524 0. 012501 10 0. 025690 0. 099276 0. 031620 0. 045409 0. 040440 0. 068940 11 Total 1. 466693 1. 702768 2. 152964 1. 937681 1. 567449 1. 937634 Source: Input-Output Accounts of the Philippines 2000, NSCB. 07 0. 058268 0. 023337 0. 313948 0. 001075 0. 016836 0. 125663 1. 029063 0. 043095 0. 009477 0. 038087 1. 658849 08 0. 034172 0. 014104 0. 235991 0. 004210 0. 029420 0. 069130 0. 023819 1. 011000 0. 037840 0. 194950 1. 654636 09 0. 009747 0. 004625 0. 069402 0. 008938 0. 005641 0. 008494 0. 007558 0. 034009 1. 002549 0. 46345 1. 197308 10 0. 091426 0. 028537 0. 491699 0. 000990 0. 049594 0. 030003 0. 053011 0. 033758 0. 012004 1. 128216 1. 919238 11 0. 039646 0. 014503 0. 240350 0. 025834 0. 023496 0. 032847 0. 026221 0. 037171 0. 011392 0. 082168 1. 000000 1. 533628 10 6. 3 Output-to-Output Multiplier Effect In many instances, the impact on the economy comes from a change in output instead of a change in final demand. In this case, an output-to-output multiplier analysis is required. This gives us information that a one-peso or one-u nit change in the industry’s output will generate pesos worth of additional/incremental output in the economy. Table 5 shows the individual and total effects of a one-peso change in the output of a particular industry. Out of the 1. 92 multiplier for the Construction, the Construction, Manufacturing and the Transportation, Communication and Storage industries generated additional outputs of 1. 0, 0. 53, and 0. 10 respectively, for every peso change in the Construction output. 11 Table 5. Output-to-Output Impact Multipliers Code 01 02 03 04 01 1. 000000 0. 044302 0. 121698 0. 066146 02 0. 012239 1. 000000 0. 052357 0. 054753 03 0. 217842 0. 331802 1. 000000 0. 532212 04 0. 001773 0. 013318 0. 001321 1. 000000 05 0. 16934 0. 070706 0. 028148 0. 021145 06 0. 010470 0. 025814 0. 019863 0. 108005 07 0. 026070 0. 036751 0. 082136 0. 057702 08 0. 011907 0. 024993 0. 012882 0. 028128 09 0. 001553 0. 004021 0. 002553 0. 010324 10 0. 023155 0. 096070 0. 019690 0. 045076 11 Total 1. 321942 1. 647777 1. 340648 1. 923491 05 0. 027889 0. 079424 0. 217627 0. 002476 1. 000000 0. 019176 0. 038650 0. 007836 0. 001392 0. 036930 1. 431400 06 0. 070341 0. 029924 0. 559230 0. 002050 0. 022792 1. 000000 0. 056720 0. 040391 0. 011998 0. 066164 1. 859610 07 0. 056622 0. 022678 0. 305081 0. 001045 0. 016361 0. 122114 1. 000000 0. 041878 0. 09209 0. 037011 1. 611999 08 0. 033800 0. 013951 0. 233423 0. 004164 0. 029100 0. 068378 0. 023560 1. 000000 0. 037428 0. 192829 1. 636633 09 0. 009722 0. 004613 0. 069226 0. 008915 0. 005627 0. 008472 0. 007539 0. 033923 1. 000000 0. 046227 1. 194264 10 0. 081036 0. 025294 0. 435820 0. 000877 0. 043958 0. 026593 0. 046987 0. 029922 0. 010640 1. 000000 1. 701126 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 12 6. 4 Household Income Multiplier Effect Moreover, changes in an industry’s output can impact on household income. To quantitavely determine the impact of changes in each industry’s output on household income, a household income ultiplier analysis is needed. This tells us about the additional household income in the whole economy due to a one-peso or one-unit cha nge in final demand for each industry. Table 6 shows the individual and total effect of a one-peso change in the final demand for each major industry. Private Services Industry is found to be the most important income generating sector with the highest income multiplier of 0. 39. This means that a peso increase in final demand of private services implies an increase in household income by 0. 39. For individual effects, additional household income of 0. 29, 0. 02 and 0. 4 are generated in the Private Services itself, Manufacturing, and the Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry respectively, due to a one-peso change in the final demand for Private Services. 13 Table 6. Household Income Multipliers. Code 01 02 03 04 01 0. 293397 0. 012106 0. 051681 0. 017621 02 0. 001810 0. 137770 0. 011210 0. 007354 03 0. 023844 0. 033825 0. 158427 0. 052891 04 0. 000478 0. 003347 0. 000516 0. 244972 05 0. 002275 0. 008849 0. 005475 0. 002580 06 0. 001532 0. 003519 0. 004207 0. 014351 07 0. 005075 0. 0066 64 0. 023145 0. 010200 08 0. 001846 0. 003608 0. 002890 0. 003959 09 0. 000043 0. 000104 0. 000102 0. 00259 10 0. 006621 0. 025587 0. 008150 0. 011704 11 Total 0. 336922 0. 235379 0. 265802 0. 365889 05 0. 008076 0. 011595 0. 023510 0. 000659 0. 132620 0. 002770 0. 007426 0. 001199 0. 000038 0. 010423 0. 198316 06 0. 019381 0. 004157 0. 057484 0. 000519 0. 002876 0. 137434 0. 010370 0. 005880 0. 000312 0. 017768 0. 256182 07 0. 015408 0. 003111 0. 030972 0. 000261 0. 002039 0. 016575 0. 180568 0. 006021 0. 000236 0. 009816 0. 265008 08 0. 009036 0. 001880 0. 023281 0. 001024 0. 003563 0. 009118 0. 004179 0. 141245 0. 000943 0. 050246 0. 244516 09 0. 002578 0. 000617 0. 006847 0. 002174 0. 000683 0. 001120 0. 001326 0. 04751 0. 024990 0. 011945 0. 057030 10 0. 024177 0. 003805 0. 048507 0. 000241 0. 006006 0. 003957 0. 009302 0. 004716 0. 000299 0. 290783 0. 391793 11 0. 010484 0. 001934 0. 023711 0. 006282 0. 002846 0. 004333 0. 004601 0. 005193 0. 000284 0. 021178 0. 080845 14 6. 5 Employment Multiplier Effect Changes in every industry’s output can impact on employment. To quantitavely determine the impact changes of output in an industry on employment, an employment multiplier analysis is done. This shows us the additional/incremental employment in the whole economy due to a one-peso or one-unit change in each industry’s output. Given a 100 Billion peso increase in the investment, the number of additional employment generated can be estimated by employment multiplier. The result shows that the Private Services Industry has the highest employment multiplier effect of 572, 637 additional employment in the whole economy due to a 100 billion change in the final demand for Private Services. The second highest important sector in generating employment is the Trade (Wholesale and Retail) Industry with a multiplier effect of 504, 821 followed by the Manufacturing Industry with additional employment of 430, 785. 15 Code 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 Total Table 7. Employment Multiplier Effect Due to a 100 Billion Investment. 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 35,541 1,467 6,261 2,135 978 2,348 1,867 1,108 84,309 6,860 4,500 7,096 2,544 1,904 51,498 73,057 342,175 114,236 50,778 124,156 66,894 194 1,359 209 99,452 268 211 106 1,553 6,039 3,736 1,761 90,508 1,963 1,392 1,758 4,036 4,826 16,463 3,177 157,656 19,014 10,921 14,338 49,800 21,946 15,979 22,313 388,519 2,324 4,542 3,639 4,983 1,509 7,402 7,579 589 1,420 1,401 3,554 521 4,273 3,239 9,651 37,294 11,878 17,058 15,192 25,898 14,308 115,136 227,861 430,785 286,088 186,005 348,762 504,821 08 1,095 1,151 50,283 416 2,432 10,460 8,993 177,811 12,933 73,234 338,807 9 312 377 14,788 882 466 1,285 2,853 5,981 342,644 17,410 387,000 10 2,929 2,328 104,767 98 4,099 4,540 20,014 5,937 4,103 423,823 572,637 11 1,270 1,183 51,212 2,550 1,942 4,970 9,900 6,538 3,893 30,867 114,325 16 7. Conclusion and Recommendation This paper quantified the multipliers of the 11 major industries for the Philippine economy using in put-output technique. As the economic importance of the 11 major industries is growing among the policy makers and researchers, this study applied input-output technique to determine multipliers that will measure the significance of these industries in generating output, income and employment. The obtained multipliers showed that among major industries, the Manufacturing Industry showed the highest output multiplier; Construction Industry yielded the highest output-to-output multiplier; and Private Services Industry is found to have the highest income and employment multipliers. The results of the study will still have to be evaluated when the NSCB will release the latest I-O table. 8. Future Directions Since the study utilized a competitive type of I-O table wherein each cell element does not explicitly distinguish the domesticallyproduced from the imported, the study is bound to construct a noncompetitive or domestic type of IO table wherein the import content of each I-O transaction is netted out. After which, the Leontief inverse matrix will be re-estimated which will be used to calculate domestic multipliers for the major industries. This is important in order to be able to quantify correctly the impact of final demand on the various economic variables. 9. Appendices 9. Input-Output Analysis There are a number of methodologies developed to determine the multipliers. The most widely used approach is the input-output technique. The major strength of the input-output analysis is that it provides detailed information on the direct and indirect effects of spending on all economic measures for different industries in the 17 local economy (Loomis and Walsh, 1997). Th erefore, in order to satisfy the aforementioned objectives, the methodology employed in this paper in based on Leontief input-output techniques where structure of an economy is analyzed in terms of inter-relationships between economic sectors (e. . Miller and Blair, 1985). The inputoutput technique of a particular economy represents the flow of goods and services among its different industries for a particular time period. In the framework of the input-output technique, the relationships between economic sectors can be described in a system of linear equations where total output produced by each sector is either consumed as an intermediate input by other sector, or, sometimes internally by the producing sector itself, or, by the final demand sector, or both. The presentation of the flow of goods and services could be expressed either by physical units or in money terms. To define, let there be an economy with n-producing sectors and a final demand sector. Total output of sector i will be: Supply = Demand n Qi = ? qij + Fi j =1 (1) where Qi = gross output of industry i; qij = the sales of industry i to industry j; Fi = the final demand vector; i = 1, †¦, n. Let ij be the technical (input) coefficient which represents the amount (value) of sector i’s output needed to produce one unit (one peso) of sector j’s output; thus using the assumption of constant production coefficient, we get: a aij = qij Qi or qij = aij Q j This means that the total value of purchases of goods and services by sector j from sector i is aij Q j . Therefore, for a given target of final demand on goods and services, F, this relation defines how much each producing industry must produce in order to satisfy a particular bundle of final demand on goods and services, i. e. , Equation (1) in reduced matrix form can be written as: 18 Q = AQ + F Solving the Equation (2) can be found as: (2) (3) Q = [I ? A] F ? and [I ? A] is the total requirement matrix or mostly known as Leontief inverse matrix. ? In equation (3), Q is the output vector; I is an identity matrix The general solution of Equation (3) determines how much each industry of the economy must produce in order to satisfy a given level of final demand. It is mandatory that [I ? A] should be a equal to zero to have a unique solution in the form of [I ? A] . When ? non-singular matrix meaning that the determinant of [I ? A] does not the Leontief inverse matrix is assumed to be [I ? A]? = Z, then zij ’s stand for the elements of the Leontief inverse matrix. Each element of the Leontief inverse matrix shows the direct and indirect requirements of output sector i per unit of final demand. . 2 Output Multiplier The final demand-to-output multiplier is used to measure the impact of a change in final demand on the output of individual industries and the whole economy. This will tell us about the additional output generated in each industry given an impact increase in the investment in each industry (impact variable). An output multiplier for sector j is defined as the total value of pr oduction in all sectors of the economy that is necessary in order to satisfy a peso’s worth of final demand for sector j’s output. For the simple output multiplier, this total production is the direct and indirect output effect, obtained from a model in which households are exogenous. The initial output effect on the economy is defined to be simply the initial peso’s worth of sector j output needed to satisfy the additional final demand. Then formally, the output multiplier is the ratio of the direct and indirect effect to the initial effect alone. 19 The output multiplier measures the sum of direct and indirect output requirements from all sectors needed to deliver one additional peso of output of i industry to final demand. It is derived by summing the zij ’s or the entries in the column under industry i in the Leontief inverse matrix tables. Although the output multiplier represents total requirements per unit of final output, it is not particularly useful concept except as indicator of the degree of structural interdependence between each sector and the rest of the economy. In economic impact studies we are more usually concerned with income or employment generating effects, and these require income or employment multipliers. 9. 3 Income Multiplier Changes in an ndustry’s output can impact on household income. To quantitatively determine the impact of changes in each industry’s output on household income, a household income multiplier analysis is needed. This tells us about the additional household income in the whole economy due to a one-peso or one-unit change in final demand for each industry. The income multiplier is obtained by multiplying the row vector of income coefficient s, say e with the zij ’s, which are entries in the column under industry i in the Leontief inverse matrix tables. Row vector of income coefficients or e are referred to as salaries and wages (compensation) for each industry divided by the corresponding output. This gives us the following equation for income multiplier: ? ? I = e[I ? A] 9. 4 Employment Multiplier ? ?1 (4) Impact analyses are frequently preoccupied with employmentcreating effects of industrial expansion, because policymakers may be primarily and legitimately concerned in forecasting jobs in a particular area. For this reason, it is often useful to be able to derive not only income multipliers from an I-O model, but as well as employment multipliers. 20 The following method was used to estimate employment multipliers. The employment coefficients, l , defined as employment per million pesos of outputs, was multiplied by the zij ’s, which are entries in the column under industry i in the Leontief inverse matrix tables, in order to obtain the multiplier. Mathematically, employment multi ? plier is expressed as follows: L = l [I ? A] 10. References ? ?1 (5) Miller, Ronald E. and Blair, Peter D. Input-Output Analysis: Foundations and Extensions. Englewoods Cliffs, N. J. Prentice Hall 1985. Thijs Ten Raa. The Economics of Input-Output Analysis. Cambridge University Press 2005. National Statistical Coordination Board. The 2000 Input-Output Accounts of the Philippines. Economics Statistics Office 2000. National Statistics Office. 2000 Census of Philippine Business and Industry. Presentation Material of Dr. Cid L. Terosa, UA&P Professor. 21

Friday, August 30, 2019

Grade Inquiry Essay

Project context Innovation have made possible for the operations of the computer easy enough in processing records system such as, creation of data, storing, filing and retrieval of data. This Online Grade inquiry with subject evaluation and SMS notification is a process whereby a department head input the grades of the students who are enrolled to the said department and evaluates what subjects should they be taking after they passed their current enrolled subject for them to take their proceeding subject to the next semester after the input of data to the system. The system sends also the grades to the students via SMS every end of the trinal exam who is enrolled to the said department before that they will give first the data to the registrar in order to send the data to the students because the registrar clarify first the data because one of the foremost responsibilities of the registrar office is to keep the student’s grades data secured for their records and purposes. The head of the sa id department may now easily encode the data to the system and give the standing records to their students without a consuming a lot of time and gives convenient kind of servicing to the student. The system basically keeps all the records of the students about their grades and class subjects and it will determine if a particular student passed or fail the subject and it also display announcements like meetings and dates of signing of clearances etc. Purpose and Description Our project focuses mainly on keep in track of the students grade and subject and also sending the grade of the student via SMS who are enrolled to the said department. This system on the other hand can display important announcement like meetings and news. By this, the head of the department can easily gives the grades of a student by just encoding the grades of the students into the system. And also if the head of the department has special announcements to make to the said department, the students can easily read the announcement made by the dean even if they are not in the school. Statement of the problem General: The manual submission and distribution of the grades in the department (BSBA) or in the registrar (NDKC). The time consuming of subject evaluation at the registrar’s office. Specific:Â  The students need to go directly to their respective department or at the school registrar to inquire their grades. The long processes of inquiry of grades are inconvenient, tiresome, and some instances are time consuming. Objectives General: To develop an online grade encoding, inquiry and evaluation system. To develop a system that will lessen the registrar’s tasks in encoding of grades. Specific: To develop a system that can able to send grades automatically via SMS. To develop a system that is convenient and less effort to inquire the grades of the student. Scope and Limitations The proposed system is concerned in sending SMS about the student’s grades and displays the evaluation of a student and announcement. This covers only the grade data; their class subjects to evaluate; and announcements to post and only limited to the following: 1. Send SMS about students Grade; 2. Displays evaluation of the student and the announcement of the dean; 3. Control the records of the students; 4. Update the records; 5. Organize new coming data; Scope The request of the grades can be done through any network of mobile phones/ cellular phones. The head of the department only has the authority to the system. The head of the department can encode grades of the students through online. The system automatically back-up the records being encoded. The device use in the system is for inquiry only. The head of the department can print the summary of grades and also the subjects taken by the students. Limitations It cannot be used for conversation. The system has no capability of handling delayed messages. If the responsible of inputting grades submitted a wrong grade of a student, the system is not reliable of human error. The system cannot accept landline number in registration for the students as their contact number. The system can be accessed by internet connection only. Significance of the study: This study was made to find out the use of online – based system that will lessen the time for transaction, accommodation and convenience of releasing the grades of the students. The college of Business of Administration which is one of the top departments of NDKC with high population which is fit to this project for us to cope/manage all the records about their student grades class subject evaluation and announcement using the said system. Through this project the said department can easily organize all the records of the students and keep in track in its database. The department would have a website that can easily use and can interact between the department and with their students. The system provides accessibility to the head of the department only and can update the grades and give evaluation to the subjects taken to the certain student. Students can receive their grades via SMS, view their evaluation subject and also can see what their head of the department announcement s. The said department will be assured of an accurate, high performance and a high level of security using the system. One benefit is that the students will know the announcements of their college dean and receive or to know their grades anywhere, as long as they are connected to the internet.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Cleopatra Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cleopatra - Essay Example To draw the comparison of Cleopatra’s portrait figured in films during 1963 and late twentieth and early twenty-first century, it is quite essential to draw the reference and go through a thorough analysis for the first appearance and portrayal of the image of the oriental queen on the silver screen. Cleopatra was first unveiled as a queen on the silver screen, in the year 1917. The first role of Cleopatra was played by Theda Bara where she was projected as an enchantress and iconic figure of mysterious orient with all her mystical aura which culminated into a figure that was sexually manipulative, threatening to be married and abandoned men with all her exotic appeal. The press clubbed this exotic predator as â€Å"the torpedo of domesticity† Here the intention and the objective for the portrayal of the oriental queen were transparent and evident. She was projected as the mistress of oriental extravaganza and empress of a mystic land with an aura half-veiled around her . This iconic portrayal of the queen became analogous with her name until in the year 1934, Cleopatra was reincarnated as a modern brand queen in the epic of Cecil B De Mille. Cleopatra revisited the minds of her audience as a flirtatious queen gazing at the hollow pomp of the Caesar and is less threatening.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Palestine State Today Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Palestine State Today - Essay Example Since 1947, to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, the text of General Assembly Resolution No. (181) of the United Nations provides the establishing of Palestine State. Unfortunately, Palestine State had not been established yet. Palestinians have suffered decades of displacement, exclusion and systematized deprivation of their national and human inalienable rights, which embodies their right to self-determination and establish their independent state. Since the start of the peace process in 1993, it has been reiterated that the international community emphasizes that the only solution to the conflict in the Middle East lies in the two-state solution, a solution that necessarily requires the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, sovereign and viable. In 2009, the international community supported the Palestinians to build their future state institutions, which will be completed in September 2011. The international community has recognized that the Palestinians are ready t o establish their independent state. They also recognized in the international institutions that the only obstacle to a Palestinian state is the continuation of Israeli occupation. * Recognizing the Palestine State stresses the important decisions made by the United Nations and international agreements Recognition of the international community, represented by the United Nations, is against the Palestinian people to self-determination as the position of an established state repeatedly in several resolutions, including resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations 3236, which recognizes the Palestinian right to independence of their state. This is a right that is inalienable, and the Palestinian people have the right to establish their own "sovereign and independent state." It also confirmed the decision of the General Assembly of the United Nations (2649) on the right of Palestinian people to self-determination, affirming the decision (2672) that respected the rights of t he Palestinian people to their inalienable forms as an integral part of reaching a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. Moreover, the Court of International Justice in its Opinion Advisory issued in 2004 on the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory stated that the actions carried out by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories undermine the right of Palestinians to a homeland, which severely impedes the exercise of the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination, and therefore a breach by Israel of its obligation to respect that right. The recognition of the Palestine State is in line with the core principles underlying the Oslo interim agreement, including starters two-state solution and the resolutions of relevant United Nations resolutions, primarily resolutions 242 and 338. Unfortunately, it has been over twenty years since the signing of the Interim Agreement and the first of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, and the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources are more deeply rooted. For example, the number of settlers living in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, has doubled since 1993. During the same time period, they continued to suffer due to the policy of demolishing Palestinian homes, which reached its peak in the last few years. In the same context, the Palestinian economy continued to suffer from the additional burdens and the potential regime of closures and checkpoints in the West Bank and the unjust inhumane blockade in

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Streptococcus pyogenes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Streptococcus pyogenes - Essay Example Most types need an enriched media (blood agar). They spread through respiratory secretions. In human- beings, Streptococci causing diseases generally occur in the respiratory tract, bloodstream or appear as skin diseases. If it is a respiratory infection, then its habitat would be the pharyngitis or tonsillitis but in case of a skin infection it occurs as pyoderma. Streptococcus Pyogenes creates inflammatory lesions at the portal of its entry which is most often the upper portion of the respiratory tract. At times it infects the lower respiratory tract and causes infections of the sinuses (sinusitis), or lungs (pneumonia) or the middle ear (otitis media), Streptococci are both useful as well as harmful. They are essential and are used as indicators of pollution and in various dairy and industrial processes. But beside its good side, it also has a dangerous side to it. Of all bacterial pathogens that attack humans, streptococcus A causes the most number of diseases. It is harmful and causes many significant diseases among which are – rheumatic heart, impetigo, scarlet fever glomerulonephritis, and pneumococcal pneumonia, bacteremia, meningitis, periodontal disease and pneumonia. For the past several decades scientists and researchers have focused their attention on two primary species which cause severe infections: They are - S pyogenes (group A streptococci) and S pneumoniae (pneumococci). Streptococcus pyogenes is a common and clinically important human bacterial pathogen causing a wide range of invasive and non-invasive disease, as well as non-suppurative sequelae. (Cunningham, M. W. (2000) Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 13, 470–511). This bacteria attacks the inner lining of the throat and is highly contagious. Symptoms include severe pain and redness of the throat. The patient experiences swelling within the throat and has difficulty in swallowing. This is accompanied by fever and uneasiness. It is very difficult to diagnose

Monday, August 26, 2019

Ratio Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ratio Analysis - Essay Example Suppose we want to assess the financial health of a very large or small firm, how can we analyze the firm so our analysis can provide an insight into the basic prospects for profitability of a firm? Is the firm losing or is it profitable? Are there prospects for making the firm profitable? Is the firm worth buying? Should we sell the firm? If we are to sell the firm, at what price should our purchase price be? How large are the firm’s debts? What are its prospects for profitability? What is the firm’s net worth? These are some of the questions in which ratio analysis can help provide an answer. Gibson (1982, p. 18) pointed out that the financial â€Å"ratios can be grouped into four categories: liquidity, debt, profitability, and other† financial ratios. The liquidity ratios include the working capital ratio, and the current ratio (Gibson 1982, pp. 18-19). Some of the broad debt ratios include the debt-to-capital and the debt-to-equity ratios. The debt-to-capital ratios used by many firms include the long term debt-to-long term debt plus stockholders’ equity, short term debt plus long-term debt-to-short term debt plus long-term debt plus stockholders’ equity, and several other ratios (Gibson 1982, p. 22). ... It also plausible that ratios can be devised based on one’s objectives although there are financial ratios that are conventionally or more popularly used to assess firm performance and status. As pointed out by Gibson (1982, p. 22), for example, â€Å"firm executives have many different opinions on how a firm debt position should be determined from the balanced sheet.† Profitability ratios include measures for earnings per share, return on equity, profit margin, return on capital, return on assets, gross margin, pre-tax margin, and operating margin (Gibson 1982, p. 23). Each type of ratio on profitability can include several specific types of measures. For example, the specific measures or ratios for profit margin include net income-to-sales, income from continuing operations-to-sales, income before minority share-to-sales, net income-to-total revenues, income before extraordinary item-to-sales, income from continuing operations and before extraordinary item-to-sales, a nd income before cumulative effect of change in accounting principle-to-sales (Gibson 1982, p. 24). The tone of Gibson (1982) indicates that a financial analyst may improvise ratios or measures as long as they are helpful to analysis but there are ratios that are conventionally or more popularly used by analysts for assessing liquidity, profitability, debt, or other aspects of firm or business operations. The formulas of the more popular ratios are contained in financial and accounting textbooks. Meanwhile, the ratios identified by Gibson (1982) for drawing insights on firm or business operations include dividend per share, book value per share, effective tax rate, dividend payout, price earnings ratio, and labour per hour. However, surely there are other measures that can be developed depending

Sunday, August 25, 2019

The Story of an immigrants life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Story of an immigrants life - Essay Example The reasons why people change the place of their living are very different. In some cases it is connected with financial problems, in others with various types of segregation and so forth. The most important thing is that change of the familiar atmosphere may bring the person to the change of all his values and purposes. The aim of this work is to analyze the cultural event connected with the history of my family and include the detailed reflection on how this story affected the sense of my identity. My story starts with the city of Bangladesh, which declared its independence in December 16, 1971. The new country faced constant contradictions between the official authorities and the ambitious struggle to move forward and achieve the success. In 1995, my uncle Ahmadur Rahman moved to the USA with his family in order to provide his children with the better life conditions. His family would have never left Bangladesh, if they knew about all troubles outside the city.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Ethogram project Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ethogram project - Assignment Example the warthog despite the presence of other animals such as the buffalo (Bubalus, Syncerus, Bos 13), giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), and the antelopes (Antilocapra americana) in the areas where the warthogs were grazing. Early that morning (10.00AM), the adult warthogs (Phacochoerus africanus) cleaned the skin of their offspring using their teeth. Some warthogs were also moving from place to place. At noon (12.00PM), the sun became very hot making the warthogs graze while kneeling and other warthogs moving from one point to another in search of shelter as well as grass. In the afternoon (2.00PM), the temperature was extremely hot making majority of the warthogs to sleep and a few to spend their time cleaning the fur of others via use of their teeth. Some warthogs that were active however ran in one a large group from one place to another when they saw us driving across where they were grazing. While running, they occasionally stopped and looked at us. The choice of this hypothesis is in tandem with the assumption that warthogs move in groups in order to locate food resources. Although male warthogs often love solitary life; they move alone from one place to another, majority of the people believe that warthogs move in groups so as to minimize the rate of their predation by predators. The testing of this hypothesis will enable one understand the lifestyle of warthogs as well as the factors that contribute to their movement in groups. The causal question and the hypothesis for this study will expound on the ultimate cause of warthogs social behavior. The social behavior of the warthogs is likely to have evolved with time because of decrease in food resources as well as increase in the rate of predation. Test for the hypothesis: Information regarding the population of the warthogs in the San Diego zoo will be collected in four different times in a year and their number tabulated for future reference. The information to be documented will include the groups of

Friday, August 23, 2019

Information Technology Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Information Technology - Coursework Example Apart from Windows, temporary files are detected and cleaned for most of popularly used software like Office, various media players, downloading utilities, and others. It also checks and cleans the history and temporary internet files left by browsers. For advanced users, CCleaner also offers a comprehensive registry cleaner. Finally, a tool is available within the utility to permanently delete files without trace which is useful for a security conscious user. Tools also exist to check enable or disable programs that run at system startup. System Requirements: Windows 7, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows XP (â€Å"CCleaner specs†). For networks, server support is for Windows 2008 RC2, 2008 and 2003 (â€Å"CCleaner Network Edition†). Other information is not available. How easy is the program to use?: The program has a very intuitive interface and very simple to use. Pressing a single â€Å"Analyze† button does a complete diagnosis of the system and pressing a single â€Å"Run Cleaner† button cleans it. Areas to check within the system can be selected by simple check boxes. It is however advised that the registry cleaner option is used by knowledgeable users only. Cost: The single user version of the software is free. For use on a network, the prices start from $199 for 10 users to $3200 for 500 users.

Characteristics of Personal Mastery and Effective Team Learning Essay - 1

Characteristics of Personal Mastery and Effective Team Learning - Essay Example As the paper stresses learning organizations help all people to continuously expand their capacities to create results that they truly desire, and new and extensive ways of thinking are nourished, facilitates collective aspirations and constant learning to learn together. Thus, contemporary management believes that organizational learning is a multidimensional process, and is not possible through traditional one-way thinking. Personal mastery and team learning are two competencies that help employees to improve their awareness and realization of management tasks and decision making. This awareness and learning will further help managers to maximize the potential of their employees; to achieve optimum results; encourage employees to think creatively and analyse situations from different perspectives. From the report it is clear that the concept of personal mastery involves cultivation of personal impetus to continually learn how actions affect an individual’s external and internal world. Without an attempt to gain personal mastery, individuals will never realize the root cause of issues and problems that do not seem to have any solution; individuals tend to view these issues and problems as highly complex and intertwined and impossible to understand or resolve. Learning is the fundamental ground to personal mastery, which should eventually and continually lead to re-creating oneself. A continuous process of learning helps individuals to bring about a paradigm shift in their thinking and approach, and help in achieving goals that once seemed unachievable.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Observation of a Toddler (Lifespan) Essay Example for Free

Observation of a Toddler (Lifespan) Essay Abstract I observed Harper, a 23 month old little girl that is full of energy. Also participating in the interaction with Harper was her mother and five year old sister, Mya. Harper is very friendly and outgoing. She is very interested â€Å"reading books† and loves to be read to. She enjoys helping her mother clean and do simple tasks. She seems to be very confident with and without her mother in her sight. Harper’s father is not actively involved in her life because he lives in another state. Observation of a Toddler 1. Harper is a 23 month old little girl. She is 34 inches tall and weighs approximately 27 pounds. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and a very pretty smile. 2. Harper’s gross motor skills are normative. She is able to walk, squat and run with ease. She can go up and down stairs one at a time all by herself and according to her mother she is â€Å"reasonably bowel trained† although she has nighttime accidents. Harper’s fine motor skills are also normative. She can throw a ball overhand, handle a spoon well, turns pages in her book and washes her hands. The skills Harper has are normative because they are in sync with other toddlers her age. Our book states â€Å"By 18-24 months, toddlers can walk quickly or run stiffly for short distance, walk backward without losing their balance, stand and kick a ball without falling, stand and throw a ball and jump in place†(Santrock, 2011, p. 129). a. Harper ZPD was in the upper limit. She had to be told to pull down her pants when she went to potty; but didn’t need to be told to wipe and pull her pants up. Her mother scaffolded by telling her what to do initially and letting her figure the rest out for herself. 3. Harper has mastered five substages. She is currently in Piaget’s sixth substage of sensorimotor development, Internalization of schemes. She loves to play with her kitchen and pretends to do dishes. She has learned this from watching her mother. She also engages in imaginative play with her sister. 4. Harper is very vocal and expresses herself very well. She has trouble with the L phenome and pronounces the letter L as a W. Example: She says wap instead of lap. She likes to listen to stories and responds with â€Å"what’s that?† and â€Å"Why†. She uses syntax. She understands the meaning of most words. Example: Her mother said â€Å"do you love mommy† and Haper replied â€Å"yes† the mother asked â€Å"how much† and Harper replied â€Å"sixty dollars†. 5. Harper had an easy temperament. She was very happy and easy to please. She was also easily redirected when her sister took her toy. 6. Harper was gender type was supported because she loves to wear dresses, play with dolls, loves the color pink, and loves princesses. While Harper is quite the girly girl she also likes to get dirty and kick the ball with her neighbor. 7. I would describe Harper as a securely attached child. When her mother left to run to the store to give me some alone time with her she seemed a little scared and wanted to go with her mother. Her mother was gone for approximately 15 minutes and Harper was fine after her mother was out of sight and didn’t seem to notice much when her mother returned. She continued to play with her toys and barely looked up. 8. When Harper hit her sister Harper’s mother used negative punishment to discipline her. She made her sit in a time out for two minutes and she was unable to play with her sister or her toys. She was also told if she hit her sister again she would have to go to bed immediately and would not be able to play with her sister for the rest of the night. Harper’s mother also used positive punishment by telling Harper that only mean girls hit and that she was being bad. At first, Harper responded by crying. However, she displayed compliance by sitting her in time out chair by herself and staying there until her mother told her that is was okay for her to get up. This combination of negative and positive punishment seemed to work as there no more episodes of bad behavior during my observation. 9. Harper is currently in the stage of Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. In this stage â€Å"The child is developing physically and becoming more mobile. Between the ages of one and three, children begin to assert their independence, by walking away from their mother, picking which toy to play with, and making choices about what they like to wear, to eat, etc†(McLeod, 2008, para. 4). Harper likes to pick out her own clothes and expresses that she likes dolls and the color pink and that she does not like to eat beans. She is on her way to achieving the virtue of will by expressing her likes and dislikes. Harper has mastered the previous stage of Trust vs. Mistrust and has achieved the virtue of hope. She is very comfortable with her surroundings and a very easy child. She does not appear to have a heightened anxiety or agitation even when her mother in out of her sight. She easily warms up to others and has a very sunny disposition. References McLeod, S. A. (2008). Psychosocial stages. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html Santrock, J. W. (2011). Life-Span development (13th ed.). Ny, Ny: McGraw-Hill.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Marketing Plan For Fragrance Direct Marketing Essay

Marketing Plan For Fragrance Direct Marketing Essay Fragrance Direct is a toiletries retailer who sells branded, discounted perfumes, aftershaves, cosmetics,hair care, skincare, cosmetics and beauty products. This report investigates and discusses the Fragrance Directs current marketing situation in an intensively competitive marketplace and to prepare an appropriate two-year marketing plan which could lead the company to increase its market share. The report was prepared after critically considering all marketing theories and tactics in context of Fragrance Direct like e-business strategies, product development, marketing decision making and organizational strategy, marketing segmentation and positioning, SOSTAC planning model etc. A projected budget was prepared and justified for the projected marketing plan. Marketing plan Regardless of types of business, any business needs a concrete marketing plan if they were to succeed. Brassington Pettit (2006) define, Marketing plan is a detailed, written statement specifying target markets, marketing programmes, responsibilities, timescales and resources to be used, within defined budgets. A two-year marketing plan is made for Fragrance Direct which could aim to help them to achieve a growth in market share. SOSTAC planning model Many approaches can be used to make a marketing plan. SOSTAC planning model is the one which includes all essential marketing plan and it is the most useful one. Here I used Smiths (1997, pp 32) SOSTAC planning model to make a two-year strategic marketing plan for Fragrance Direct: S- Situation Analysis (where are we now?) At present, direct selling businesses are booming due to increased home broadband services. The case suggests that Fragrance Direct is one of a number of specialist internet-based retailers at the moment. Their strength is they can sell products cheaper than any other competitors who trade through physical stores. According to their website, they are able to offer highly competitive prices and this is done by keeping overheads low. There is no shop, no middlemen as they supply their products directly to the customer ( Fragrance Direct, 2009). So the company is in a good shape and has the ability to grow even further. O-Objectives (where do we want to go?) Though the company has been growing rapidly but according to the case scenerio in order to achieve their medium-term growth targets they need a major push to broaden their customer base and increase market share. There is opportunity for the company to do that. So the key objectives Fragrance Directs management should adopt right now are to target new segment while maintaining existing products portfolio and develop new products for the targeted segments. This way they can manage to retain the present market share as well as there is possibility to increase their customer base with the help of launched products. S-Strategy (how do we want to go there?) Selecting the correct segment and correct proposition is the key to success. Kotler Armstrong (2006) point out that the market consists of many types of customers, products and need. The marketer has to determine which segments offer the best opportunity for achieving company objectives. Traditionally Fragrance Direct have not focused in male grooming audience yet although the case report suggests mens fragrace market is worth over 500 million US dollars and the demand is steadily increasing. So as an existing market player this the segment where Fragrance Direct should exploit if they want to increase their market share. Most of the existing toiletries market players targeted young man while the report indicates this segment is declining. On the other hand older segment is increasing so Fragrance Direct should target this segment with widen products base. Market segmentation is important for any company like Fragment Direct as it helps to target its marketing mix more closely and p recisely. T-Tactics (the details of strategy) Tactics tend to be short term and flexible, whereas strategy is longer term and more enduring. When strategy is agreed the next job for marketers to develop tactics. Smith Chaffey, (2005) hinted that E-marketing tactics focuses on deciding the optimum marketing mix (pp 338). Marketing mix The marketing mix concept is one of the core concepts for marketing. 7Ps framework for marketing has achieved high degree of acceptance. Armstrong Kotler (2007) define A marketing mix is the set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. Here, the 7Ps marketing mix tactic has been discussed in context of Fragrance direct: 1. Product: Products should be developed in accordance with customer demand and developed products should meet the need of targeted segment of the market. At present the male grooming product market is confined with aftershave fragrances and a limited range of hair care products. So there is scope to broaden the sell of different others new products like mens bath and body, mens skin care, mens sun care, mens accessory etc. as the demand is consistently increasing. 2. Price: When determining the price it is important to remember that whether customers are willing to pay the price or not; they have the ability or not. Wrong pricing could lead the market failure. According the companys website their one of the aims is To keep prices as low as possible to make high street shopping a thing of the past. However they are under intense compitition from traditional sellers lke chains of chemists (pharmacists, drugstore) and supermarket chains who have started selling health and beauty products thorough their physical stores as well as through internet and they are capable to offer cheaper price. So new products should be priced as cheap as as possible as a penetrating price while continue to offer existing cheap price for others products. 3. Place: The place is where customers buy the product. For Fragrance Direct place is internet from where customers by their products. Products must be delivered in right time, and in the right quantity in order to maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction. Fragrance Direct aims to make shopping online quick, easy and convenient and to provide an excellent level of customer service. They also aim to make their site fun, interesting with bargains and a range of products (Fragrance Direct, 2009). To mainten these services storage, inventories and distribution should be maintained appropriately. 4. Promotion: Through promotion activities a company delivers messages to its cusomers about the products, brands using variety of media and communication tools. Smith Chaffey (2005) suggests that the ten promotional mix (advertising, selling, sales promotion, PR, sponsorship, direct mail, exhibitions, merchandising, packing and word of mouth) -can be used to communicate or promote in the online or offline world (pp 54). Fragrance Direct should use all of these means to fulfill their mission-To be the first name you think of when buying fragrance and cosmetics on the internet. The case article suggests that male style magazines such as GQ, FHM and Loaded have huge impact on male in the UK so they should specially promote the site with those magazines. 5. People: We could assume the online business as service marketing. In service marketing people or staff is a very important part of marketing mix. The challenge for Fragrant Direct is to continue recruiting right people, train them and reward them appropriately. 6. Process: Process in a web-based company includes internal and external process as well as transactions, internal communications etc which are necessary to run a business. All processes have to be executed excellently to make the business a success. Fragrance Direct must keep an efficient process by keeping site updated to indicate if any number in stock changed, product specification, price change, dealing with customers e-mail enquiries, product dispatch etc. 7. Physical evidence: In an online business, the quality of the site is the physical evidence (Smith Chaffey; 2005, pp. 66). Normally customers buy intangible services from Fragrance Direct through their site so there is an amount of uncertainty in the process. So Fragrance Direct must ensure customers buying the services must meets acceptable standards of speed and ease of use. A- Action (or implementations-putting the plans to work) Smith Chaffey (2005) states that action stage reveals the details of tactics. Actions implement the tactics. Any kind of project action plan can be used like critical patch or Grant chart. Following is the Grant chart which reflects a two-year action plan for Fragrance Direct: Table 1. Grant chart for Fragrance Direct Activity April 2009 June 2009 July 2009 Dec 2009 Jan 2010 March 2010 April 2010 September 2010 Oct. 2010 Dec. 2010 Jan 2010 March 2011 Get approval for new product development Product development Build information/brochure Run banner campaign on website Offline press launch of new products Website update C- Control (measurement, monitoring, reviewing and modifying). In any marketing planning, details should be added about how the plan would be monitored, measured and controlled. If any components of the plan are not working it should be reviewed, modified if necessary even should be stopped. The following diagram shows a two-year Control system for Fragrance Direct: Table 2. Model of Control systems for Fragrance Direct (two-years) Quantified objectives Means of measuring Frequency of measurement (quarterly) Accountability Cost Action (Who needs to be alerted?) Building information/brochure June 2009 Marketing executive  £2000 Marketing executive à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Sept. 2009 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Dec. 2009 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. March 2010 June 2010 Sept. 2010 Dec. 2009 March 2011 The 3Ms In any marketing plan all company resources required to be included. Smith Taylor (1997) state that the three resources, 3Ms, cover: 1. Men/Women (the human resources) Skilled professionals (men/women) need to brought in to make the organization run as well as existing human resources need to be retained with training, rewarding. However it was discussed before in the marketing mix people section. 2. Money (budget) 3. Minutes (time) These two points are discussed in the later section. Timeframe Any e-marketing plan must contain timescales, schedules and deadlines. It must take time for Fragrance Direct to analyze their recent market situation, targeting, segmentation, new product development, promotion campaign etc. So everything should be done according to timeframe as time seems often the most tight of the resources. Without a proper timeframe the marketing plan may get uncontrollable. There is a time frame for fragrance Direct: Table 3. Timeframe Activity Timing Market research 6 month Product development 3 month à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. Projected budget An adequate budget is required in order to achieve the plan. Like any other retailer Fragrance Direct now have to face the tough competition from competitors. Retailers are cutting prices in a desperate bid to sell their goods. A research by Ramasesham (2000) found that even prices are cut to a level where extra sales are made at a tiny gross margin. At the same time retailers are facing cost rises which are in many cases higher than the rise in selling prices. The following projected budget is made according to Ramasesham (2000) research where he investigated from marketing budget how much money should be spent in different marketing activities e.g. 33% of total marketing budget should be spent for advertising and so on. Table 4. Projected marketing budget Item of Percentage of total marketing expenditure accounted for by item Advertising 33 Promotion 15 Personal selling 28 Storage 2 Order filling 4 Delivery 2 Clerical sales, accounting 5 General and administrative 5 Research 1 Credit 1 Others 4 Total 100 Recommendations conclusion Fragrance direct is a successful company who posseses the ability to offer products at great prices, whilst still concentrating on a high level of service. So it is possible for them to out perform their rival and increase market share if they have been able to follow a perfect strategic marketing plan. It is strongly recommended that they strictly follow the suggested two-year strategic marketing paln in accordane with tight controlling measures. It is also recommened that this is the time to concentratte on suggested marketing segment, penetrate the market with new developed products and apprppriate marketing mix. References Armstrong, G. Kotler, P. (2007) Marketing: An introduction. New Jersey, USA: Pearson Prentice Hall Brassington, F. Pettitt, S. (2006) Principles of Marketing. 4th edition. England: Pearson Education Limited Fragrance Direct (2009) About Us [online] http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/Customer-Services/About-Us/page/aboutus [accessed 9 April, 2009] Kotler, P. Armstrong, G. (2006) Principles of Marketing. 11th edition. New Jersey, USA: Pearson Prentice Hall Ramasesham, B. (2000) Research Note: Marketing Budgeting Practices of Retailers Retailers Marketing Budgeting. Smith, P. R. Chaffey, D. (2005) e Marketing eXcellence. 2nd edition. Oxford, England: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann Smith, P. R. Taylor, J. (1997) Marketing Communications. 4th edition. London: Kogan Page

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Contemporary Issues In The Hotel Industry Information Technology Essay

Contemporary Issues In The Hotel Industry Information Technology Essay A hotel industry also represents the service profession. In fact, the hotel is like a market where there is demand and supply. It is a place where people stay, eat and visit. However, there are many contemporary issues that happened in the hotel operations. This is the reason why this study is made to find out the problems as well as give recommendations for further improvement in the hotel industry. Contemporary Issue 1 Salary Gap Between Hotel And Other Industry In the hotel industry, some organization resisted addressing this in an attempt to lower costs. Founders have focused on the firms culture in the process of keeping the industry creative. This is a method to retain and get workers as well as increasing production. The problem which lies here is the thing doesnt always go the way it is expected. The starting pay is not very high and there are many options for potential employees to seek for elsewhere. In the hotel industry, there are many opportunities of job in different departments. As an example, the human resource department, marketing department, food and beverages department and others. There are many other related opportunities in other industry but this is not the reason for employees to leave. These things are considered to be famous benefits in organizations like Google, but the only difference is the greater salary package. This is where it follows the Maslows hierarchy of needs. Rewards in monetary is a huge motivator for people nowadays in the early stage of career and they need it to establish themselves in terms of financial before able to fit into the role in such an organization. Contemporary Issue 2 Lack of Systematic Management System For the hotel industry, this is very common but if it happens together with other issues, then it must be something that needs to be solved. A clear and understood management system is able to give a coherent objective to all the staffs in the organization. If the structures are made properly, all the initiatives and measurements for staffs can be ensured following the goals and objectives of the organization. This is pay-related issue as well because it can lead to a climate of fairness due to the employees being evaluated using the similar criteria. They participate in the evaluation and are done by their supervisors on an informal basis which can be very subjective as it doesnt help to retain employees. Contemporary Issue 3 Lack Of Promotion Opportunities There appear to be an issue with the potential for promotion within the company that limits the opportunities for new employees to progress within the company. The employees who joined in the first year the company was established appeared to have a close relationship amongst themselves and with the founders. As a result, these employees hold the key executive and management positions within the company. This limits the opportunities for new employees to progress within the company. Contemporary Issue 4 Lack or Poor Quality of Internet Connection In the hotel industry, there are many lower class hotels which dont have the internet convenience for their customers. The internet has become such an important part of our lives that many cannot imagine life without it. Every day, millions of users rely on internet to help them navigate through the trillions of websites to locate the website or information they want. Most people who utilize the internet connection in the hotel will basically need the search engine. There are many search engines, but the most popular are Google, Yahoo and MSN Search. Search engines help people locate websites to shop online, to find a destination or to check facts. Academic research has been greatly assisted by the internet for it has enabled vast quantities of information to be obtained effortlessly. A search engine can be defined as a website that helps users search for information on the World Wide Web (Battelle, 2005). Search results are normally displayed in a list of results that are termed hits. The results yield information in the form of web pages, information, images and other types of files such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint or PDF. Some search engines also mine data provided in open directories or databases. Search engines work when humans enter input which is then processed algorithmically. While each search engine has its own features and operating system, all conduct searches in the following order web crawling, indexing and searching (Vise and Malseed, 2005). Information about web pages is stored by search engines. Information is then retrieved by a web crawler or spider, which is an automated web browser that follows every link on the site (Capron, 2006). Contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how they should be indexed and an index database is created for future use in queries. A query is the input typed by the user and it can be as simple as a single word. The index is then activated to permit information to be found in the shortest time. When a user enters a query into a search engine, such as key words, the engine examines its index and provides a list that best matches the search criteria. The search engine looks for the words or phrases exactly as entered. The list contains a short summary of the documents title and perhaps parts of the text. The index created from the information stored with the data and the way in which the information is indexed. How useful a search engine is depends on the relevance of the results it provides. While some key words may yield millions of results (for instance the word Monday), the key is to provide a list that is most relevant and useful to the users needs. Generally, search engines rank results to provide the most relevant first, though they vary from search engine to search engine. This is why Google has a leading edge because users find the results to be most relevant. Recommendation Employee Remuneration The hotel industry has to develop remuneration policies that improve the staff behavior and also enable the organizations to understand their objectives. The employment of such a practice is for the hotel industry to achieve competitive advantage which can encourage the potential employee behavior for the following reasons: To promote employees identification with the organization objectives The hotel industry should keep track on the attention of their employees towards the objectives of the business by relating the achievements of objectives to rewards. Such a step will increase the employees commitments while increase the success rate of the organization. The method to do so can be creating an incentive plan which includes annual bonus and profit sharing. Such method will show the employees that they will be rewarded if they give good performance. To encourage individual team of business unit performance The hotel industry should give a different type of scheme such as sales commission and production piece-rates. The reason is to ensure employees can understand they can earn more than what they are getting in their regular salary. Reward Schuster and Zingheim (1992) emphasized that people are the principle variable in organizational success. The hotel industry should develop process and policies to reward employees based on their contribution, skills and competences. The reward and solution is to improve the employees turnover in the hotel industry. It should have an aligned strategic approach with the industry in congruent with their culture. It is also better to have the policies and processes of reward modified according to the changes in the hotel industry. Employees should be valued according to their contribution, skills and competences. Sometimes, employees must be treated as a family in the organization where they can make representations on any area of reward that affects their interest. Branching Out For the hotel industry to sustain its competitive advantage, it needs to build on its strengths. These include the companys reputation and familiarity for users. Hence, companies in the industry should leverage on its brand name. Branching out are ways in which the company diversifies through its brand name. Another major strength of the hotel industry is the customer relationship management and services provided. They need to constantly formulate new ways of improving the industry and spends billions on development. This is crucial to ensure that the company stays ahead of the pack. One constant fear is that a rival that is better will emerge. Improve The Search Engine No industry is perfect and the lack or poor quality of internet connection in the hotel industry needs to be solved. For example, the content of searches is arbitrary. The user may not get the information that he is looking for. Also, there is the risk of dead ends. For instance, the user may find the citation to the article or web page, but cannot access the full page (Stross, 2008). This may not be entirely the hotel industrys fault, but it can be frustrating to users. Furthermore, searches are done by computers and results are obtained mathematically. There is no expert search feature which would enhance the process. The list of search results is based on popularity and not quality. This puts customers at a disadvantage. Finally, Googles search engine is in English. People who cannot read English (and they number in the billions) cannot use Google and this represents a loss of market share. While Google currently has a language tool that translates text into 35 languages, it may n ot be of good quality sometimes. If Google could make multilingual versions of its search engine the way Wikipedia does for its online encyclopaedia, the company could prevent loss of users to other search engines that cater to their linguistic abilities. Cloud Computing The hotel industry should implement cloud computing. Cloud computing is a recent development and refers to computing through the internet. Currently, computing is computer based as it relies on hardware and software that are stored on a PC (New York Times, 2008). Therefore, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure and rent it from third party providers. Rental is charged in the manner of utilities or on a subscription basis with few or no upfront charges. This represents tremendous cost savings to businesses which no longer need to incur massive capital expenditure on computer infrastructure. The appeal of cloud computing is that data can be accessed anywhere with internet connection. This is in contrast to the current way in which data is stored on a computer hard drive which does not permit mobile users to access data. Conclusion As a conclusion, there are more than the issues mentioned above that happened in the hotel industry. It is an industry that problems cannot be predicted and also changing from time to time. The hotel operation is the key to success and issues that happened must be successfully solved before able to move one step ahead of others in the industry.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Multiple Personalities: Do They Really Exist :: essays research papers

Multiple Personalities: Do They Really Exist Multiple personalities- the existence of two or more distinct personalities or personality states within one person. In actuality, up to ten or even more personalities can coexist within one person, some documented cases have revealed over one hundred. But, the question remains, what exactly is the multiple personality disorder (MPD)? First I will look at what exactly the disorder is. It is, in simple terms, many complex personalities all inhabiting the same body. At any given time, one of those personalities is in control of the body. Each one has different tastes, style, thought process, and many other things that define a person. However, research has proven even more than that. In clinical studies it has been found that of the different personalities of one person, the eye prescription, allergies, athletic ability, and even diabetes can exist in one of the personalities and not the others. The person can switch at any given time from one personality to another, often not realizing it. This can account for memory loss and time loss in the primary personality, who often does not have access to the memories of the other personalities. A common misconception among the general public is the confusion of MPD with the disease of schizophrenia. Schizophrenics do NOT have distinct personalities, rather, they have hallucinations of voices outside their heads. Schizophrenia is caused by brain malfunctions and can be treated with drugs, whereas suffers of MPD cannot because MPD is an almost purely psychological disorder. MPD seems to be caused mainly by incredibly violent and terrible childhood abuse. In fact, about 98% of MPD sufferers were abused as children. The disorder also occurs between three to nine times more in women than men, the person being abused creates other personalities to handle the pain. In the case of a man named Milligan, his father beat him and sexually abused him. Then he forced the boy to dig his own grave, burying him alive with only a stove pipe to breath through. Then the father urinated into the pipe onto the boy's face. With that kind of abuse, you either go crazy, die, or develop other personalities. That is why, in many people with MPD, there are agitated and distracted child personalities. These personalities were created in order to suffer the pain of abuse. When the abuse was over, their call was no longer needed and the primary personality could resume control, dropping with that second personality all memory of the event and continuing as if nothing happened. This type of personality exists in almost all MPD sufferers. Another common personality is the

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Epistemological Development Essay -- Religion, Bible, Truth

Everything in education is impacted by the perspective of a biblical worldview because educating a child is teaching them to know and find truth. According to Knight, â€Å"Much truth exists outside of the Bible, but no truth exists outside the metaphysical framework of the Bible.† (2006, p. 226). The concepts of the Bible are used to give a unifying foundation for all subjects taught. The Bible also becomes the integration point. All content knowledge is contextually interpreted with the Bible because God is the source of all truth and the one who unifies all truth in Himself. The Bible can be compared to leaven that permeates all subjects. This gives all subjects significance and all subjects then give significance to a child’s life. Therefore, teaching from a biblical worldview provides an epistemological, interpretive framework that adds meaning to otherwise insignificant details. It becomes the focal point that unifies our curriculum. As Augustine states, we must seek to integrate our faith with learning because â€Å"Faith is understanding’s step and understanding is faith’s reward.† (Holmes, 2008, p. 27). Several quantitative studies have examined the worldview of students using worldview surveys such as Nehemiah Institute’s PEERS (2003). Fyock (2008) in his dissertation on the effect of an instructor’s biblical worldview gave high school seniors the PEERS survey before and after instruction from a teacher with a biblical worldview. While this was an excellent measurement tool for worldview assessment, it is not oriented toward epistemology, so would not be adequate for this research. Postmodernism It is important to understand the postmodern worldview because its conception of truth is contrary to that found in a bib... ...reasoning will be used to understand and evaluate their internal motivations and bring greater consistency to their underlining suppositions. The individual may develop to the point of self-authoring their worldview, by using self reflection and meta cognition to examine their worldview, and each of its components, in the light of their philosophical or theological beliefs. In this context, self-authoring does not imply the individual authors their own salvation or their own truth regarding salvation. Rather, they discover truth for themselves through a process of critically examining their worldview and comparing it to the worldview discovered in the Bible, the source of ultimate Truth. As an individual develops through worldview formation stages different methods of acquiring and confirming their concept of truth will be important (Mansfield & Clinchy, 2002).

Edgar Allan Poe Essay -- English Literature

Edgar Allan Poe Essay How does E.A. Poe explore the themes of horror and obsession in his short stories? In Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories the black cat and The Tell Tale Heart, both terrify the reader by making them believe they are the person going through these terrifying tales, as they believe they can hear the heart pound under the floor boards as in The Tell Tale Heart. Or they feel very cocky as showing the police round the basement 2 – 3 times until it all goes wrong, they feel it was them who committed these awful crimes. In the Black cat short story, it is the madness of the characters that creates the perfect scary story, the man trying to kill the cat and eventually killing his wife. Poe creates an atmosphere of horror by making the reader feel they are the main character, that they have just driven an axe in to there wives head. He wants the reader to feel scared and unsure, to be scared next time they hear a soft beating sound that is unexplainable, to remember the story and haunt you for as long as you live. The techniques he uses to do this are simple, but very, very affective, he repeats words and describes the most minute thing, for example, â€Å"It was open – wide, wide open – and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness – all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.† That shows how he describes almost everything giving you a great idea of what was happening and how he repeated words to give a incredible sense of fear. Another method used by Edgar Allan Poe to illustrate the obsessions of his characters is that they all were slightly ... ...es the perfect horror story of his time. As the when the story’s are read in the present they do not scare us as we have seen horror films with people having objects rammed through there heads and horrible things that would scare the hair of a little child’s back. But even how descriptive the story is it wouldn’t scare you because of our modern day society. The techniques used by Edgar Allan Poe created tension and fear, wanting to know what happened next. And that is what happened. Edgar Allan Poe is successful through being able to reflect his life into his work, create new techniques for generations onwards to use, he gave some of the best examples of narrative stories and created some of the most describing pieces of work ever. In most peoples eyes he succeeded in being one of the top horror writers of all time, if not the most remembered and the best.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Working in a group Essay

As noted in the lead group’s forum, â€Å"through observation, [Florence Nightingale] collected empirical evidence that supported her environmental theory and used it to develop evidence-based guidelines that other nurses faced with similar circumstances might find useful† (Selanders, 2010). Nightingale, in essence, was a pioneer to evidence-based nursing practice. She focused on the patient’s symptoms and examined possible environmental causes of these symptoms to steer the care given. McCurry, Revell, and Roy (2009) state that â€Å"nursing as a profession has a social mandate to contribute to the good of society through knowledge-based practice† (p. 42). No moves, however, can be made without a vision, or a formulation of what is wanted as the end result. This vision starts the process of producing a thought, or a philosophy; which can advance to a theory. Silva (1977) examines the research process by exploring the relationships among philosophy, science and theory. As a result of this analysis, she suggests that all nursing theory and research derives from our leads, or data, to philosophy. Silva also argues that information gleaned from philosophical introspection and intuition should be valued as much as that provided by scientific experimentation. Silva proposes that philosophical intuition is gained by having a thorough understanding of a subject; it is not simply a belief or idea without evidence. This is supported by advances in other fields, such as mathematics, that rely on reasoning, experience and logic and not solely on observation or experimentation. As a result, philosophical intuition can complement the scientific method and serve as another valid and promising means to obtain nursing knowledge. These steps are all intertwined to form future nursing care. Knowledge is built upon theories, for as Lauden (1984) noted, â€Å"problems constitute the questions of science, but theories constitute the answers† (McCurry et. al 2009, pg. 42). Theories are based on a hypothesis, data and research, as well as formulated models, or in essence paradigms. Whall and Hicks (2002) assert that for the discipline of nursing to maximize its research potential, multiple paradigms should be considered. Recognition of the value of philosophy in nursing is an important first step, after which the choice of how to use philosophical paradigms to frame research efforts can be made. As argued by the authors, the current generation of nursing students is integral in affecting change from a rigid either/or approach to positivist and postmodern influence in research to a more applicable both/and approach. Nursing affords researchers and clinicians the opportunity to appreciate the positivist medical model- A leads to B leads to C- while maintaining that each situation is subject to circumstance, culture, and an endless array of nuances, and these variables must be considered in research. Thus, the most appropriate approach is flexibility and utilization of both positivist and postmodernist philosophies, which will yield the most pertinent scientific results to apply to clinical settings. Experience in clinical settings will then inform philosophical approaches and theory development to facilitate best practice research. Despite the inarguable necessity of implementing well-researched, knowledge-based evidence in clinical practice, these readings suggest the importance of maintaining the holistic approach that defines nursing care throughout the process. References McCurry, M. K., Hunter Revell, S. M., Callista Roy, S. (2009). Knowledge for the good of the individual and society: linking philosophy, disciplinary goals, theory, and practice. Nursing Philosophy, 11(1), 42-52. Selanders, L. C. (2010). The power of the environmental adaptation: Florence Nightingale’s original theory for nursing practice. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 28(1), 81-88. Silva, M. (1977). Philosophy, science, theory: Interrelationships and implications for nursing research. Image, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 29(3), 210-3. Whall, A.L., & Hicks, F.D. (2002). The unrecognized paradigm shift within nursing: implications, problems, and possibilities. Nursing Outlook, 50(2), 72-6.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Referee Report for Economics Manuscript Essay

â€Å"Different Risk-Adjusted Fund Performance Measures: A Comparison† Summary This paper compares various risk-adjusted performance measures for a set of mutual funds. The authors argue that performance measures based on Value-at-Risk (VaR) or Extreme Value Theory (EVT) are more appropriate than other popular performance measures such as the Sharpe ratio (SR), the Treynor index (TI) or Jensen ´s Alpha (JA) . They propose a performance index similar to the SR and the TI based on losses calculated by means of VaR together with EVT. They find that EVT-VaR measures are more appropriate in the presence of non-normal data. Main Comments The topic of the paper is of relevance for financial practitioners as well as academics and it is certainly applicable to the current financial stability context. The paper is also generally wellwritten. However, I have some comments for its improvement. 1. The contribution of the paper is not clearly stated. In the 6th paragraph of the introduction, the authors suggest that their main contribution is the construction of a performance index based on EVT-VAR. However, it is not very clear why the new proposed measure should be better in relation to existing measures as it is now explained. It is true that VaR or EVT should be more reliable measures for extreme events but when looking at formula (13) it is not apparent why this measure should be more reliable than the traditional measures. The denominator has, in fact, an â€Å"extreme return† as opposed to the SR or TI which have strictly second moments, so it is not very straight forward to relate these measures. A better job should be done at explaining the implications of such VaR based measure, how it relates to other measures and why it should be better. 2. Why have the measures been compared only in a â€Å"static† way? It is widely known in the finance literature that asset return volatility is time-varying, and to some extent, also expected returns. It would be possible to go around the latter by arguing market efficiency (which is also questionable) but it is certainly much more difficult to argue against time-variability of the standard deviation in the VaR measures (or in the SA and TI ratios). This is very important as the â€Å"good† or â€Å"bad† applicability of a particular performance measure could be sample dependent and as it is now with unconditional measures, this is hard to uncover. For instance, while the authors account for nonnormality of returns in the modified-VaR measure by means of a Corner-Fisher quantile, they assume a constant standard deviation which means that in periods of high volatility they could still understate the VaR. So at the minimum, the performance comparisons should be done for the full sample and different sub-samples and it should be tested whether the measures obtained are significantly different over different samples. 3. The authors concentrate on top 10 and bottom 10 funds for their analysis and discarded the other funds â€Å"for the sake of simplicity†. However, by choosing only the â€Å"tail† funds, the authors are giving from the start an advantage to EVT or VaR measures. It would be more appropriate to also report results on (say) 10 â€Å"mid† funds. 4. It is not very clear why the top 10 funds â€Å"show more departures from normality† in relation to bottom funds. This finding should be expanded and the intuition behind it should be better explained. One could argue that â€Å"losers† could be more volatile than â€Å"winners† as the level of uncertainty with respect to the fund might increase which could lead to more extreme returns. In fact, in the 3rd paragraph of the empirical result section it says â€Å"the bottom 10 funds have, in general, higher VaR values than the top ones, which means that they are more susceptible to extreme events† which is somewhat contradictory with the finding that the top 10 funds exhibit more departures from normality. Moreover, one of the main findings of the study is that the VaR and EVT performance measures perform best in relation to other measures when there are more departures from normality in returns. A better attempt to reconcile the findings of nonnormality, the â€Å"winner vs. looser† funds and the results on the performance measures with some previous studies or satisfactory intuition should be done. Other comments 1. The contributions of the paper should be stated earlier in the paper and not almost at the end of the introduction as it is now. The contributions should be clearer (see also point 1 above) and should be better related to the existing relevant literature. 2. The conclusion is too long. The concluding remarks should be much shorter and should only summarize the main findings and reconcile them with the issues raised in the introduction as well as highlight possible extensions for future work. 3. The tables should also be improved. They should have a short description of the contents to facilitate reading. As it is now, the reader has to constantly come back to the main text to find out what the contents mean. 4. The figures are hardly visible, they should also be improved and a short explanation should be given.