Assignment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Assignment - Research Paper Example Therefore, in order for the businesses to remain competitive, advertising and fashion shows have become important activities that aim at attracting the customers. However, the level at which models with low body mass index is used in fashion shows and advertising within the fashion arts is alarming. This paper will therefore discuss reasons why use of models with low body mass index in fashion shows and advertising within the fashion arts should be banned. The largest market segment composes of the young generation. These are people who are willing to use their disposable money on luxurious goods. Therefore, they are easily swayed by the models with low body mass index. With the changing perception concerning the fashion industry, many of the young people want to look like the models that are used in the fashion shows and adverts of the fashion arts. Even though majority of them do not have the knowledge on losing weight, they try to use any means available to look like the fashion models. For instance, research indicates that many turn to diet in order to reduce their body mass index (Perrier 27). This is through reducing the amount of food they take or skipping some of the meals. Majority of these people ends up being malnourished or suffering from diseases that are associated with poor feeding habits. On the other hand, other groups of people have turned their attention to drugs that are perceived to help the users reduce the body mass index. Some of these drugs have devastating side effects. Majority of the users suffer from body reactions that emanates from the use of the drugs. This is because there are no prescribed ways of using them. Furthermore, majority of them are misled and do not have the information on the repercussions of these drugs on their bodies. Therefore, during fashion shows and fashion adverts, models used should be a representative of the whole population. These are people of all body sizes. Nevertheless, during

Impacts on Social Media Essay Example for Free

Impacts on Social Media Essay As we begin to discuss social media and is impact on mass communications as a whole, we must first define what it is and how it came to be. The Dynamics of Mass Communications defines social media as a set of Internet tools that encourages content sharing and community relationships. Users are able to create online communities by exchanging, distributing and receiving content information. Social media has rapidly integrated itself into our personal and professional lives over the past decade or so. Information is more available to the public today because of social media. The history of social media started with the BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the late 70’s. Most BBSs were involved in illegal or other shady practices like adult content, virus codes, and instructions on hacking and phone hacking, but BBSs were the first type of sites that allowed users to log on to it and interact with one another. This interaction was a lot slower than what individuals are used to in today’s society. Genie was created by a General Electric subsidiary (GEIS) in 1985 and was an early online service. It was a text-based service, and was considered the first viable commercial competition to CompuServe. This specific service was created to make use of time-sharing mainframes after normal US. business hours. Not too long after, America Online (AOL) started as an online service and made great strides with making the Internet more universally accessible within the United States. In 1988, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was developed and used for file and link sharing and even keeping in touch with others. Readers could classify it as the father of instant messages as we know it today, though it was limiting access to most people. Touching the topic of early social networks, dating sites are sometimes considered the first social networks. Dating sites began to crop up just as soon as people began to get online with the Internet. These sites allowed users to create profiles with a photo and contact other people. Let’s not forget about Classmates.com, but dating sites and Classmates.com rarely  allowed you to keep a friends list and profiles appeared to be severely limited. The actual social networks like Six Degrees and LiveJournal were a tad bit more advanced than what dating sites had to offer. Six Degrees allowed users to create a basically-static profile while LiveJournal was created in 1999 and was a social network built around blogs that were constantly updated that encouraged other users to follow one another and form groups to interact. It wasn’t soon after that social interaction had found its way to online games. World of Warcraft is one the most famous for allowing players to interact both in the game would and on related forum and community sites. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games became popular in the early 2000’s though there were indeed other role-playing and other games prior to that. Additionally, the early 2000’s brought more advanced social networks and social media to the playing field. Some examples that most people are familiar with would be Friendster (2002), YouTube (2005), MySpace (2006), Facebook (2004), Tumblr (2006), Twitter (2006), and Instagram (2010). All these networks took a toll on millions and billions of people around the globe. People are more connected and up to date because of them. Social Media as a whole has brought a lot of positive effects to the world as we know it today. Social Networks started as a place to connect with your friends in an easy, convenient, and free from charge way. Social networks play an important role with social media. It has allowed individuals to connect with old friends from school, co-workers, and even with complete strangers. It has also provided us with the opportunity to build back a lost relationship or even better relationships with whom that are unable to meet us personally, and involve them with our lives and even take input into their personal lives with specific events that are happening with us. We are now able to communicate our thoughts and perceptions over different topics with a large number of audiences. Our voices are heard louder than ever with the help of social media and social networks. For example, with the Trayvon Martin case, people used social media to conduct marches and protests. On social networks, like Instagram, users blocked out their profile picture to show their involvement for wanting justice for that specific case. We have the option to make groups with people who are like minded and share the  related news with them and ask for their opinion or input about the topic. Far as businesses, they are using social media and social networks to promote their own products and there are a number of customized applications that are being made on social platforms, whose main and only purpose is to promote the product or brand given to them. The negative effects of social media seem to be quite questionable. Studies have shown that the extensive use of social media can quite frankly cause addition to the users. Throughout the day, people tend to feel the need to post something on their pages and check other posts as it has become an important part of everyday life. Extreme usage of social media had resulted in isolation of the individual. The level of human interaction has decreased tremendously and people appear to be less active. Individuals would rather check their smart-phones or tablets than actually picking up a book or a newspaper per say. Interpersonal communication has reduced and there aren’t many face to face communications and meetings being held because many people have lost their full ability to converse while being in the same room. Social Media is also affecting the productivity of people. Users are more distracted. Again, I must state that people are so caught up in texting, blogging, updating a status, and posting any and everything that it to the point where they cannot get specific things done. A prime example would be texting while driving or being on a social network while attempting to write a research paper or even complete homework. According to media bistro, the average person spent three hours and seven minutes online each day in 2012. It appears as online media becomes more popular; other media sources become less popular. People are not reading magazines, newspapers, listening to the radio, or watching television as much as they used to. As the popularity of social networks and online video increases, so does our time online. YouTube has more than one billion users that visit their website each month. Seventy two hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. The list just goes on and this also goes for Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Pinterest, Hulu, and Instagram. It seems nowadays that there are social and user-generated sites for just about every activity you can possibly imagine. There are social shopping sites and social financial planning sites. There are even sites to share goals and meet like-minded people. Sites to plan your travels and share them with others. There are so many apps and sites that accommodate the average person for me to say that social media has indeed made life better for people. Social media has become a huge part of millions of lives worldwide. On the other hand, social media has made everyday life harder or horrific for everyday people. Because social media has grown in popularity and mainstream, it can be used by stalkers to track their victims or even find new ones. Social networks make these privacy settings available to users to help prevent stalkers and predators from being able to see their update. In addition to stalkers, we must also consider cyber-bulling. Cyber-bulling has increased over the years and has affected a lot of social network users. These things can make it harder on individuals. One final thing that needs to be discussed is the fact that the people who have degrees to be covering the news face their job being at risk. News stations and news broadcasts are now up with competition against social media and social networks. This is because people use their mobile devices to obtain the news now a days. This is because it is more convenient to access things from your phone than to take time out to turn on the television or go buy a newspaper. This could make everyday life harder for them if they lose their job. Social media has come a long way since the days of BBSs and IRC charts and social media continues to evolve on a daily basis. With major social networks and social media sites making changes and improvements, it’s sure to keep evolving in the coming years. While in many ways social media has allowed us to share everything from the simplest to most sacred events of our lives with more people in real time, it has also taken away from the action of â€Å"living in the moment.† The one thing we can all conclude is that social media is not just a phase, and it most definitely won’t be going away anytime soon or at least until something better comes along. WORS CITED http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/how-social-media-made-me-better-person http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking/ View as multi-pages

Analysis of the Dar Es Salaam Stock Exchange

Analysis of the Dar Es Salaam Stock Exchange 3.0 Chapter Three 3.1 Research Methodology This chapter aims at explaining the methodology which has been adopted in this study. Research approaches or style have been categorized into mainly two groups, the phenomenological approach and positivist approach. The phenomenological approach studies the phenomenon through observation, no theory at outset while the positivist approach use an existing theory or develop a new theory and test its validity. Since this study has used the existing theory on market efficiency therefore positivist approach have been adopted with this study, the rationale behind the choice of this approach is due to the nature of the study. 3.2 Research Design Research design can be broadly classified as exploratory research and Conclusive research .This study is conclusive research design because it involves the testing of specific hypothesis and examination of relationships as well as the data analysis is quantitative and research process is formal. 3.3 Data types and sources Two types of data that has been used in this study, the daily closing stock of market index(Dar es salaam Stock Exchange Index-DSEI) and the weekly share prices for a sample of five listed companies from Dar es salaam Stock Exchange. The daily closing stock for market index has covered the period from July 2007 to August 2008 making total number of observation to be 280, excluding public holidays and non trading days. The daily data prior to July 2007 were not found therefore the study had to use the available data . The second type of data that has been used in this study are weekly share prices of the five companies/securities included in the study .The weekly data runs from Jan 2002 to August 2008, which makes the total number of observation to be between 90 and 266. The final date is the same for the all companies but the initial date differs depend on when the company joined the stock market. The weekly data refers to the Wednesdays closing stock price, however if Wednesdays data were not available then Thursday closing price were used, in absence of Thursday data , Tuesday was taken instead, but when both Tuesday and Thursday were not available as well , the data for that week was regarded as a missing data. The use of weekly data is appropriate for this kind of studies as Humphrey and Lont (2005) asserted that weekly data helped to mitigate any non-trading effects and also reduced the effects of noise trading. Even though the stock price was collected for the purpose of performing statistical tests, the actual test was conducted using natural logarithmic of the relative price. The stock return (denoted by R) was calculated by natural logarithmic difference of the weekly stock price given by the following equation = [- )] (1) Where: Rt = Return at time t P = Price at time t The reasons why change in log price was used instead of the normal change in price, has been explain by Fama (1965), he mentioned that logarithms neutralize price level effects as well as producing a series of continuously compounded returns. The daily closing stock for market index (DSEI) was used in performing the parametric serial correlation test and the weekly share prices for five listed companies was used to perform the non parametric runs test .In additional to the primary data (Stock prices) collected from Dar es salaam Stock Exchange, the study has also used the secondary source of data. The secondary data includes academic books, journals and other publications. 3.3.1 Thin Trading As discussed earlier in literature review section, infrequency trading or thin trading is big problem in most of emerging stock market and failure to take into account can results into serious biasness of statistical results. In this study this problem has been taken into account and the weekly data were collected from infrequency trading. The first step taken in controlling the infrequency trading was to eliminate the mostly thin traded securities / companies as Shanken (1987) depicted that some of researchers controls the thin trading problem by eliminating some of thin traded stocks. Initially the study was meant to include all ten companies listed in Dar es salaam Stock Exchange, however five companies were found to be very much affected by infrequency trading therefore were eliminated from the study. The actual correction of weekly data from thin trading for the five companies included in this study was based on approach by Atchison et al (1987) as adjusted by Milambo et al (2003;cited in Mabhunu 2004). They suggested correcting thin trading problem by adjusting approach by Atchison at el (1987) who used uniform process which allocates returns equally over the days in multi -days interval where security not traded. According to Mlambo et al (2003 ;cited in Mabhunu 2004), if a stock is not traded for example after 14 days of non trading, then a single entry given by the following equation (2) should be used as an oppose to 15 entries of equal value. Where: = Length of time between a trade in a period t and previous successive trade = Price of stock at time t = Dividend at time t Therefore the infrequency problem in this study have been controlled by applying equation 2 without taking into account the dividend adjustment as it has been suggested that adjustments of dividend does not have much effects.Also the use of weekly data instead of daily data for individual companies has helped to control this problem. 3.3.1 Test of goodness -of-fit One of the hypothesis in which the random walk has based on is about price changes to conform to some probability distribution. Therefore in testing the efficiency of stock market it is essential to identify the pattern and determine which known statistical distribution the pattern follows. In this study the Jarque-Bera test has beeen employed to test the normality of the stock return. This techniques has been used in several studies, includes the recent study of Market Return and Weak Form Efficiency: The case of Ghana by Frimpong and Oteng (2007). The Jarque-Bera test statistic is given by JB = T(+ ) (3) Where: JB = Test Statistic T = Number of observation S = Sample Skewness K = Sample Kurtosis. Kurtosis which denoted by (K) in equation (3) measures the sharpness / peakness or flatness of the distribution of a series and is given by the following equation K = (4) A normal distributed series has kurtosis of 3, therefore whenever kurtosis of a series exceeds 3, the distribution of that series is regarded as leptokurtic relative to normal and if the kurtosis is less than 3, then the distribution is regarded as platykurtic(flat) relative to normal. The skewness which denoted by (S) and computed by the following equation S = (5) Measures the asymmetric distribution of the series from its mean. A normal distributed series has skewness of zero, therefore if the skewness of the series is positive then the series is concluded to have a heavier right tail and if the skewness is negative the distribution is regarded as having a heavier left tail relative to normal. The results of the Jarque-Bera test together with the skewness and kurtosis of the return series employed in this study have been reported in table 1. 3.4 Methods employed As mentioned earlier this study aimed at achieving three main objectives, first to find empirical evidence of weak form efficiency hypothesis for Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, secondly to identify the main barriers for the development of the Dar es salaam Stock Exchange i.e. the factors that hampers the growth of DSE and lastly to identify the quality of information available to investors at Dar es salaam Stock Exchange. Therefore in this chapter the methods used in achieving each objective have been explained in detail, starting with the first objective. 3.4.1 Objective 1: Empirical evidence for weak form efficiency hypothesis. In achieving the first objective, the study intended to answer the following two specific questions Is the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange weak-form efficient? Do the stock prices in Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange follow the random walk? The study was guided by the following hypothesis Dar es salaam Stock Exchange is weak form market efficient. Stock price follows a random walk Various techniques have been used so far in testing for weak form hypothesis by different researcher as depicted in literature review section, the techniques includes the statistical test of independence and trading rules. In determining whether a stock market is a weak form or not using statistical test, the correlation / relationship between stock price and return over the successive time interval is identified. If no significant correlation found then the market is regarded as weak form market as past return can not be used to determine future return. The market will be regarded as weak form inefficient if significant correlation will be found. In testing our first null hypothesis, one statistical test of independence have been employed, the serial correlation test . The non parametric runs test was employed to test our second null hypothesis, the random walk hypothesis. The following is the explanation of each statistical test employed in this study. Serial correlation test It is among the widely used test of independence .The serial correlation test measures the correlation of a variable over consecutive time interval e.g. at time t and time t-1.The reasons why this approach have been chosen to be used in this study is because of its familiarity in this kind of study. Several studies have employed this technique for example Vaidyanathan (1994) in the study of efficiency of the Indian capital market employed this approach. Similarly, Baral and Shrestha (2006) studying the daily stock behavior of commercial banks in Nepal, used the same approach. In testing the weak form efficiency of the stock market using this approach, the correlation of log price/return series is determined, if autocorrelation is found the assumptions will be that the series does not follow the random walk, meaning that the stock price are not independent, past return can be used to determine the future return and hence the market is weak form inefficient. The test statistic for the serial correlation coefficient for lag p can be express as p = (5) Similarly written as P = (6) In determining the autocorrelation of the return in this study, the Ljung-Box test was used. This is a portmanteau test which measures the autocorrelation of the variable. The Ljung-Box test statistic is given by =T(T+2) (7) Where by: = Test Statistic T = Number of observations = Is the jth autocorrelation or autocorrelation coefficient (for lag j) K = Number of coefficients to test autocorrelation, in other words the number of lag to be Tested. Given the value of obtained from the test, the conclusion on the randomness of the log price/return can be reached if > , K at significance level ÃŽ ±, where by , K means the ÃŽ ±-quantile of the Chi-square distribution with K degrees of freedom. Alternatively if the p-value obtained from the statistical test is less than 0.05,then the test is significant at 95% level of confidence and therefore the null hypothesis of zero auto correction can be rejected. The results for this test have been reported in figure 1in the next chapter. Runs test This is the second test that had been employed in this study to test for the second null hypothesis. Unlike parametric tests such as serial correlation, a runs test is a non-parametric test which means that it does not require the normal distribution of the series. This is one of the advantage of using this approach and it is also the reason why this technique has been adopted in our study. A run can be define as a set of identical (or related) symbols contained between two different symbols or no symbol (such as at the beginning or end of the sequence)Spiegel et al (2000.p366). In performing this test, each change in return/price is classified as positive (+), negative (-) and zero change (0). Alternatively change in return could be classified alphabetically for example A ,could be each return that equal or exceeds the mean value and B could be each return that are below mean value. The test can be executed to obtained the actual number of runs (denoted by V), and then the actual number of runs (V) can be compared with the expected number of runs () which is given by the following equation = (8) Where = Expected number of runs N = Total number of return observations = Sample size of each category of price change If actual number of runs will be greater than expected runs, it will be indications of negative serial correlation and if actual runs fall below expected return it will indicate the positive serial correlation of the return. Alternatively the p-value obtained can be used to conclude on the results of this test, if p-value is less than 0.05, then the test is significant at 95% level of confidence and therefore the null hypothesis of randomness can be rejected. For a large sample i.e (N>30), the sampling distribution of V is approximately corresponds to a normal distribution and thus Z = (9) Where: Z = Z-Test Statistic V = Actual return = Expected return = Standard deviation given by the following equation = [{+ N (N+1)} 2N (10) Therefore at appropriate level of significance, the Z-statistic can be used to test for independence of return series. The reason why the randomness tests such as non parametric runs test are used to test for the efficiency of the stock market is because efficiency of the stock market is determined by the way information are incorporated in current stock price. For a well efficient market , new information is incorporated instantaneously and spontaneously and therefore no arbitrage opportunity can exist. Since new information is incorporated instantaneously and spontaneously in current stock price then stock price/returns will be generated in random fashion i.e there will be no any pattern. In relation to the weak form efficient market all past information is expected to be incorporated in current stock price in such a way that a positive change in returns is not expected to be followed by positive change in return or negative to be followed by negative as the returns generated randomly. However, for the weak inefficient market all past information are not incorporated instantaneously and spontaneously as the results the change in returns is generated in a pattern which can lead to opportunity of making fortune. Therefore testing of randomness helps to reveal the how new information is incorporated in current stock price and the way returns are generated, if its in a random fashion or with pattern. This helps in drawing conclusion regarding the efficiency of a stock market. The results for this non parametric runs test are shown in table 2 3 and discussed in the next chapter. Objective 2:Factors affecting the growth/ development of Dar es salaam Stock Exchange Despite aim of finding empirical evidence of weak form hypothesis, also the second objective of this study was to identify and discuss major factors/ challenges that have been affecting the development and progress of Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. April 2008, the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange celebrated its tenth years anniversary, however for the period of its ten years of operations; we have witness the slow growth / development of the stock market, only few companies have been listed so far. But what are the main causes of this slow growth? in terms of listing of companies?, what are the challenges faced by the stock market?. Further more the numbers of individuals participating in the market as investors is not so impressive, in a speech by the minister of finance and economic affairs on 10th anniversary of DSE , he said the market so far DSE has enable more than 116,651 Tanzanians to own shares. This is small figure to be as a minimum figure for the country with population of approximately 39.4 million people, we would expect a good number of individual to be aware of operations of the stock market and hence participating and a minimum figure could have been a million and above, however the situation is different then what is the real problem?, are there any efforts by the market authority to ensure the general public is aware of the stock market operations and hence increase the number of investors in the market?. Despite of the barriers and challenges for its growth, what measures have been and will be taken to ensure the stock market is growing? .What are the future prospects of the market? . In achieving our second objective the above mentioned questions will be addressed and discussed. This was done through reviewing and studying of the existing literature and publications regarding Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange and African stock markets in general, since most of the emerging African stock markets share the same kind of the obstacle/ challenges. The findings and discussion of these issues have been presented the following chapter. Objective 3: The quality of information to investor and other stakeholders at DSE. The last objective was to determine the quality of information available to investors and other stakeholders at Dar es Salaam Stock Market. There various sources of information for investors in any stock market and one of the sources is financial statements. Even though financial statements are sometimes subjective to the manipulation of management and by the time financial statements are published some changes might have already happen, yet financial statements remains to be crucial source of information for investors and analysts. Normally the existing investors as well as potential investors would like to know how the investment have been well managed as this will give them the overall picture on how safe investing in the company has been or will be. Using the published financial statements, investors and analysts can acquire valuable information which can help in their decision making. However, investors will be deprived from using this type of source of information, if the information provided with the financial statements are not of good quality and required standard. According to Benston (2003), if the information provided by financial statements is not useful and accurate then its reception will not give investors the kind of insight they wanted and as the results investors will incur costs to find information somewhere else. Therefore with this objective, the quality of information available to investors in DSE was determined and discussed. This was achieved through a comparison of financial statement of Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL)- a company listed in Dar es salaam Stock Exchange and Sanisbury PLC a company listed in London Stock Exchange. The aim of the comparison was to determine if an investor in DSE using financial statement will get the same quality of information similar to an investor in London Stock Exchange. In this comparison in additional of looking the contents and standards in which these annual report have been prepared also the study looked at the general accessibility of the annual report and other companys information which might be helpful to investors between these company .Also the general overview of corporate governance between these two companies was analyzed and discussed. The results and discussions of this comparison have been presented in the following chapter. 3.5 Data Analysis Since the study had involve the statistical tests, therefore data was analyzed with the help of statistical packages. The parametric serial correction test and parametric runs test was performed using SPSS (Statistical Package For Social Science) and the Jarque -Bera test was performed using EVIEWS .Both quantitative and qualitative approach have been used in interpreting the results of analysis 4.0 Chapter Four: Data Analysis, Presentation Discussion of Findings 4.1 Introduction The aim of this chapter is to present the analysis and discuss the findings of the study. The chapter have been divided in three main part (A, B, C). The first part (A), reports the results and the discussions from statistical tests relating to the first objective of this study. Part B and C report the findings and discussions relating to the second and third objectives respectively . 4.2 Part A : Empirical evidence for weak form efficiency hypothesis In finding the empirical evidence for weak form efficiency hypothesis in Dar es salaam Stock Exchange ,three main statistical tests were performed , firstly the normality test i.e the Jarque Bera test, parametric serial correlation test and non parametric runs test, the findings of these test are presented in that order. 4.2.1 Test of goodness of- fit Since it is essential to determine the probability distribution of the series when performing efficiency tests /statistical tests, therefore the returns for the stock market index(DSEI) as well as the returns for the five companies used in the study were firstly analyzed to determine if the return series follows the normal distribution. The result of nomality test are shown in table 1 Table 1: Jarque- Bera Test DAHACO DSEI SIMBA TBL TCC TWIGA Mean 0.002166 0.000227 0.006390 0.002727 0.000724 0.008349 Median 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 Maximum 0.141970 0.021668 0.277632 0.202941 0.074108 0.287682 Minimum -0.182322 -0.024520 -0.253781 -0.146093 -0.117783 -0.072759 Std. Dev. 0.028979 0.002794 0.045971 0.027860 0.021852 0.040065 Skewness -0.462822 -0.623957 0.863549 2.133508 -0.934278 4.314131 Kurtosis 15.81011 39.73707 17.61886 23.35083 11.19382 29.39428 Jarque-Bera 1216.549 15707.35 1751.608 4792.031 532.6697 2891.643 Probability 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 Sum 0.383447 0.063240 1.239581 0.725336 0.130979 0.751392 Sum Sq. Dev. 0.147799 0.002170 0.407877 0.205694 0.085951 0.142861 Observations 177 279 194 266 181 90 Source : Analyzed data As shown in the table 1, the p-value of the jarque -bera test for stock market index series(DSEI) and the p-value for the five individual companies is below 0.05 i.e p-value As depicted in the table 1 above, the return for the market index(DSEI), TCC Ltd and DAHACO/SWISSPORT Ltd are negatively skew(heavier left tail) as their skewness less than zero. I,e skewness 0) which means that their returns are positively skew( a heavier right tail) relative to normal. A perfectly symmetrical distribution such as normal distribution has skewness which equal to zero. Regarding the kurtosis which describe the flatness or peaknedness of the distribution the results shows that the returns of both market index and individual companies have kurtosis greater than three i.e kurtosis > 3, which implies that the distribution of the returns are sharply peaked (leptokurtic) relative to normal. The p-value from test statistic, kurtosis and skewness indicates the rejection of normality for the returns so the general conclusion which can be drawn from the test of goodness-of-fit is that the returns employed in this study are not normally distributed and therefore non parametric statistical tests are more appropriate to be used than parametric statistical tests. 4.2.2 Results of Serial Correlations/ Autocorrelation Test Though it has been suggested that when the series is not normally distributed then non parametric tests wo

Presidential Power :: essays research papers

Richard E. Neustadt, the author of Presidential Power, addresses the politics of leadership and how the citizens of the United States rate the performance of the president's term. We measure his leadership by saying that he is either "weak or "strong" and Neustadt argues that we have the right to do so, because his office has become the focal point of politics and policy in our political system. Neustadt brings to light three main points: how we measure the president, his strategy of presidential influence, and how to study them both. Today we deal with the President himself and with his influence on government action. The president now includes about 2000 men and women, the president is only one of them, but his performance can not be measured without focusing on himself. Richard Neustadt today is a professor of politics and has written many books on subjects pertaining to government and the inter workings of governments. He has many years of personal experience working with the government along with the knowledge of what makes a president powerful. He has worked under President Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. His credibility of politics has enhanced his respect in the field of politics. His works are studied in many Universities and he is considered well versed in his opinions of many different presidents. It is true that he seems to use Truman and Eisenhower as the main examples in this book and does show the reader the mistakes he believes were made along the way in achieving power. Neustagt begins with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he believes is the one president that knew how best to yield his power. He uses other examples throughout the book of Presidents from FDR to Reagan and endeavors to show the reader the ways in which power and persuasion was used in order for the presidents too perform at the best of their ability and still retain the power to persuade in order to govern the country and appease the public. Neustadt points out to the reader his opinion of the ways the president power is seen by others and how affective it is when certain strategies are applied correctly.

Lester B. Pearson and the Suez Canal Crisis

The Suez crisis was a conflict that could have easily turned into a third World War. With a battle between the Israelis and Egyptians at Sinai, the British and French invasion of Egypt, and nuclear threats from the Soviet Union, all of the elements were present to escalate the conflict and pull other countries into the fray. Canada had no direct ties to the Suez crisis, in terms of control or economic interest. However, Canadian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lester B. Pearson, persuaded the UN General Assembly to send in the United Nations Emergency Force. Even thoughLester B. Pearson dismayed the Commonwealth with his measures for peace, Canada was recognized for starting the first ever United Nations Peacekeeping mission. In the 1950s the Middle East was affected by four different conflicts; each one separate, but relating in many ways. The first was the rush for geopolitical dominance between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Middle East was one of the regions that were disputed. The second confrontation was between a various Arabian nationalists against the two residual Imperial powers of Britain and France.The third was the ongoing Arab-Israeli dispute, and the fourth was the push by many Arab nations for the control of the Arab world. The tension over the Suez Canal began long before the actual combat. These four conflicts all came into focus during the Suez Canal crisis. Long before the Second World War, Britain saw a bright economic future for the Middle East, mostly due to its valuable oil reserves. The Canal was a vital trade route in the eastern world, as cargo ships could pass though the Suez, from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, without circumnavigating Africa.The Suez Canal's eo-strategic importance during the Cold War prompted Britain to strengthen its position there. However, it became a topic of controversy in the English and Egyptian relations. On June 23, 1956 an ultra-nationalist by the name of Gamal Abdel Nasser is voted into power, winning 99 percent of the vote. This does not concern Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister of England, as Egypt was always part of Britain's world of influence in the Middle East. As the British Broadcasting Corporation quoted, â€Å"Even though Egypt became independent in 1922, Egyptian kings and presidents have always done whatBritish leaders have told them to do. † However, Eden was unaware of the radical change in Egyptian government, which wanted nothing to do with the oppression of the British. In the 1950s, France was quick to assist its Imperial ally Britain in the occupation of the canal. France was to supply Israel with fghter Jets and weapons in a secret plan to invade and overthrow the dangerous radical government. To Egyptian President Nasser, it looks like a very powerful enemy is at the gate of his country. In light of this, Nasser looks abroad for arms. Just like the loan for the Aswan Dam, he looks upon theUnited States tor the supply ot weapons. Nasser knew i t US Presi en d t Dwight Eisenhower rejected this request, he could turn to their enemy and ask the Soviet Union for weapons. Once the Soviet Union did agree to help, Eisenhower and Anthony Eden saw Nasser as communist for cutting such a deal with the Soviets. As a result, they punished him by putting sanctions on Egypt, cutting off military supply and cancelling the financing of the Aswan dam, in attempt to destroy Nasser's dream of building an independent state. Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956.This infuriates Eden and he wants to invade Egypt. Nasser then issues a statement claiming that he did this to generate revenue for the construction of the Aswan dam. False intelligence relayed from M16 to Anthony Eden tells him what he wants to hear, saying that Nasser is a pawn of the Soviet Union and the Egyptian people would welcome his overthrow. Diplomacy between US, Soviet Union, Britain, France, Israel and Egypt failed, and in the fall of 1956, Britain, France and Israel secretly plan to attack Egypt. Israel, as planned, made the first assault through the Sinai region to the east of Egypt, onOctober 29, advancing in a single day to within 42 km of the canal. The Israeli advance towards the canal is a fake to show the world that Egypt in danger of being overthrown by the Israelis. The British and French then dissimulate as peacekeepers, trying to diffuse then tension between Egypt and Israel. They offer Nasser an ultimatum: â€Å"Israel and Egypt are to cease fighting or the two Western powers will intervene†. On the 31st of October this ultimatum expires and France and Britain attack, bombing Alexandria and sending in thousands of troops. Russia then threatens Britain and France with Nuclear weapons.At this point it looks as though the world is on the brink of another World War. Canada had no interest to the Suez crisis, in terms of control, economic or military interest, but Lester B. Pearson saw an o pportunity to intervene. While the Cabinet in Ottawa debated about the attack on Egypt, the UN Security Council met in New York. Even though Canada did not have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, Lester B. Pearson and the Foreign Affairs delegation of Canada worked towards building an agreement for the proposal to the I-IN, on the Suez Crisis.Encouraged by the US, Yugoslavia makes a â€Å"Uniting for Peace resolution†, which enables a debate to be moved to the General Assembly. The I-JK and France do not block this, however, negative votes would not constitute a veto. The Suez Canal debate is then moved to the general assembly. This is critical moment for Pearson as Canada can now get involved in the debate. Pearson's team began to work on November 1st and labored desperately for four straight days. The first proposal made by Pearson was to change the French and British soldiers in Egypt into actual peacekeepers with a UN mandate.However, the fury of the General Assembly would not allow this to happen. Pearson met with US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and they discussed many ideas but it was Pearson's idea of the International police force that they would finally agree upon. Dulles tells Pearson to propose it to the I-IN, and on November 4th, 1956 Pearson d the first ever nited U Nations Peacekeeping torce. The UN General propose Assembly gave support to the proposal made by Pearson as 57 nations voted for and no country voted Against. Lester B. Pearson would deliver this quote in his proposal â€Å"We eed action not only to end the fghting, but to make peace†¦My own government would be glad to recommend Canadian participation in such a United Nations Force, a truly international peace and police force†. After two weeks The UNEF units come into effect in the Suez region. The Peacekeepers would be placed between enemy forces until a cease-fire or settlement was worked out. The members of the UNEF were drawn from middle powers that had no individual interest in the dispute. The force was composed of 6000 soldiers, 1000 of which were Canadians including Major General E. LM Burns of Canada who commanded the UN Force. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRv7G7WpOoUhttp://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/suez-crisis/ http://www. suezcrisis. ca/http://www.torontosun.com/http://interactivetimeline.com/306/the-united-nations-and-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/10.phphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

Top 10 Ways to Get Into a Top College - Things Colleges Watch Out For

Top 10 Ways to Get Into a Top College - Things Colleges Watch Out For The 2010 survey of independent college consultants was released in June 2010 and highlights theâ€Å"Top Ten Strengths and Experiences Colleges Look for in High School Students.†Ã‚   The list changes every time it’s compiled, an event that occurs every few years.   Your grades, test scores, and the rigor of your high school curriculum still top the list.   But there are some changes from prior years. Guess what?   The importance of the application essay has moved up in the list    from #7 to #6 since the last survey!   Part of the reason for this is that many colleges have begun to make the SAT and ACT optional with â€Å"test optional† policies.   The admissions essay continues to be more important to private liberal arts colleges than it is at large state universities, so if you are targeting Ivy League and other top private schools, put some focused attention on the essay part of your application. It’s hard to write a good essay without good material.   Not surprisingly, factors #4 and #7-10 are all essay-related as well.   â€Å"Passionate involvement in a few activities, demonstrating leadership and initiative,† which ranks #4, gives you great essay material.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Special talents or experiences† comes in at #7 and is also fodder for an outstanding essay, as is â€Å"demonstrated leadership in activities† (#8), a factor that showed up for the first time on the list this year. It is crystal clear from this list that schools are not looking for well-rounded students – they are looking for leaders.   It is much more important to get deeply involved in a few activities than to do a little of everything.   And you’ll have a lot more to write about in your college application essay if you take on leadership positions that require you to manage people, organize big projects and events, and grow as a person. Note that succeeding in these areas requires some planning ahead.   If you are not a harp player already by the time you are entering your senior year of high school, it is unlikely that you will become one.   If you haven’t been deeply involved in a student organization, it might be difficult to take on leadership suddenly.   It’s more important than ever to find your passion early and follow it. Finally, â€Å"demonstrated enthusiasm to attend† ranked #10 in the survey.   Take this factor under advisement as you write your college essay.   You would do well to write something about why you want to attend a particular school, especially if it’s your first or second choice.   Just make sure to send the correct essay to each school, mentioning the school you’re applying to and not another school!   Mixing this one up is a great way to get yourself into the â€Å"no† pile (and it happens all the time). Thankfully, you have a lot of guidance about how to get into the â€Å"yes† pile.   Determine where you will most stand out as an interesting candidate with leadership abilities, and write a great essay about it. For help on your college essay from The Essay Expert, contact us at info@TheEssayExpert.com or by phone at 608-467-0067 OR 717-390-6696. Category:College AdmissionsBy Brenda BernsteinAugust 5, 2010