Thursday, October 31, 2019

Fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali - Research Paper Example Ben Ali was later appointed as the prime minister in October 1980. During this time the ruling president Habib Bourguiba was ill and was unable to rule the country effectively. Murphy (1999) points out that Ben Ali succeeded him in a peaceful coup that saw him in power in November, seven 1980. Elections were later held in 1989 and Ben Ali was the winner with more than 99% of the vote. During his time of reign people expected Ben Ali to take a more moderate approach especially to the religious groups (Kahana & Suwaed, 2009). The Fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Coker and Gauthier-Villars (2011) remarks that, when Ben Ali took over power he banned the Nahdah, which is a renaissance and called for the suppression of all the Islamist militants in the country. At this point in the rule of Ben Ali people started to question Ben Ali’s respect for the human rights. Ben Ali became a dictator and controlled most of the wealth in the country. Through his corrupt ways Ben Ali accumulated a lot of wealth for his family. Through the misappropriation of the states’ wealth different sectors of the economy were weakened. Ben Ali was re-elected back in to government on several occasions toppling his opponents by a big margin. Ben Ali became a tyrant who could not listen to his advisors on matters of national importance (BBC Monitoring Middle East 2011). Hindman (2009) states that in November 2010 there were many protests in the country and many people complained on issues of poverty, unemployment, and the freedom of speech. Ben Ali believed that by suppressing the various fundamentalists groups in the country would help in counter-terrorism. The United States of America accorded Ben Ali more Aid because of his attempts to eliminate terrorists in Tunisia. This brought about discontent among the local citizens. The government’s poor human rights record did not alter the USA’s effort in Aiding Tunisia. Tunisia’s military was offered free training a nd was made a member of the US State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (Wall Street Journal 2011). BBC Monitoring Middle East (2012) agrees that the fall of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was marked by the rise of many protests in the country. Tunisia lacked the freedom of speech and the local citizens could not air their problems freely without being arrested by state police. This made it impossible to address the underlying problems without bias and address them in the right way possible. With the president being reluctant in addressing the most urgent issues, the local citizens decided to apply all means of fighting for their rights. Protests rose in many parts of the country especially on the case of unemployment. The rising costs of living in Tunisia also prompted the local people to hold protests in fighting for their rights. In the town of Sid Bouzid a 26 year vendor who was a university graduate refused to move his grocery stall to another area as dir ected by Sid Bouzid’s municipal regulation service. The municipal council took possession of the vendor’s vegetables which resulted in to the vendor burning himself. The public reacted to the munipal’s act by protesting. Riots erupted between the police and the local people with the police throwing tear gas on the masses (Boyle & Sheen 1997) Following this incident, another unemployed young man named Hussein Nagi Felhi killed himself by climbing a high voltage pole that transmitted electricity

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Political Contributions by Corporations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Political Contributions by Corporations - Essay Example Second, the evidence suggests that in many cases the desired political favors have been and are granted. More specifically, the data demonstrates a correlation between political contributions and benefits allocated among corporations. Finally, with respect to the effect of this link between political contributions and favors granted, the literature suggests some positive characteristics as well as some negative characteristics. Some corporations, for instance, have been granted special access to international markets that generates profits and some employment benefits for Americans whereas some corporations have abused the benefits conferred upon them to the detriment of Americans more generally. This paper will examine the case of Enron because this case is illustrative of the many issues surrounding political contributions by corporations; to be sure, the Enron case is one of extremes, not experienced in all cases, but these extremes demonstrate the dangers inherent in unregulated or poorly regulated systems for dealing with political contributions by corporations. ... From a conceptual framework, scholars have approached connections between corporations and politicians in a variety of ways. Some, for example, have examined how connections to politicians affect a corporation's underlying valuation or stock prices (Faccio and Parsley, 2006). The research has found a correlation between certain connections, whether in the form of lobbying or direct political contributions, and this data is well-known by corporations and corporate decisions makers. Because the value of stock prices can be sustained or increased, to some degree, by pursuing political connections, corporate executives are keen to align themselves with some or many politicians. In addition, scholars have also approached the connections between corporations and politicians by noting which corporations have been bailed out with government funds during periods of economic distress, and the extant of the political contributions made by these bailed-out corporations; interestingly enough, the data demonstrates that corporations with stronger political connections, whether in the form of lobbying or political contributions, are more likely to receive governmental bailouts than corporations with less substantial political connections (Faccio, Masulis, and McConnell, 2006). Two other areas of inquiry, of particular relevance in the Enron case, are how connections between political contributions by corporations to politicians affect its export business and its corporate sales through government contracts (Agrawal and Knoeber, 2001) as well as the ability of such corporations to secure certain tax benefits at the state or federal level (Gupta and Swenson, 2003). A review of the literature, therefore demonstrates that there are many important reasons for corporations to

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Evidence from International Stock Markets

Evidence from International Stock Markets Portfolio Selection with Four Moments: Evidence from International Stock Markets Despite the international diversification suggested by several researchers (e.g. Grulbel, 1968; Levy and Sarnat, 1970; Solnik, 1974) and the increased integration of capital markets, the home bias has not decreased (Thomas et. al., 2004 and Coeurdacier and Rey, 2013) and there is no complete explanation of this puzzle. Furthermore, there are the fastgrowing concerns of investor for extreme risks[1] and the investors preference toward odd moments (e.g. mean and skewness) and an aversion toward even moments (e.g. variance and kurtosis) considered by numerous studies (e.g. Levy, 1969; Arditti, 1967 and 1971; Jurczenko and Maillet, 2006). According to these reasons, this paper propose to investigate whether the incorporation of investor preferences in the higher moments into the international asset allocation problem can help explain the home bias puzzle. The study will allow investor preferences to depend not only the first two moments (i.e. mean and variance) but also on the higher moments, such as skewness and kurtosis, by using the polynomial goal programming (PGP) approach and then generate the three-dimensional efficient frontier. The main objective of the proposed study is to investigate whether the incorporation of skewness and kurtosis into the international stock portfolio selection causes these issues: The changes in the construction of optimal portfolios, the patterns of relationships between moments, and the less diversification compared to the mean-variance model. Since several researchers (e.g. Grulbel, 1968; Levy and Sarnat, 1970; Solnik, 1974) suggest that investment in a portfolio of equities across foreign markets provide great diversification opportunities, then investors should rebalance there portfolio away from domestic toward foreign equities. However, US investors continue to hold equity portfolios that are largely dominated by domestic assets. Thomas et. al. (2004) reported that by the end of 2003 US investors held only 14 percent of their equity portfolios in foreign stocks. Furthermore, Coeurdacier and Rey (2013) also reported that in 2007, US investors hold more than 80 percent of domestic equities. Many explanations have been recommended in the literature to explain this home bias puzzle include direct barriers such as capital controls and transaction costs (e.g. Stulz, 1981; Black, 1990; Chaieb and Errunza, 2007), and indirect barriers such as information costs and higher estimation uncertainty for foreign than domestic equities (e.g. Brennan and Cao, 1997; Guidolin, 2005; Ahearne et. al., 2004). Nevertheless, several studies (e.g. Karolyi and Stulz, 1996; Lewis, 1999) suggests that these explanations are weakened since the direct costs to international investment have come down significantly overtime and the financial globalization by electronic trading increases exchanges of information and decreases uncertainty across markets. Since the modern portfolio theory of Markowitz (1952) indicates how risk-averse investors can construct optimal portfolios based upon mean-variance trade-off, there are numerous studies on portfolio selection in the framework of the first two moments of the return distributions. However, as many researchers (e.g., Kendall and Hill, 1953; Mandelbrot, 1963a and 1963b; Fama, 1965) discovered that the presence of significant skewness and excess kurtosis in asset return distributions, there is a great concern that highermoments than the variance should be accounted in portfolio selection. The motivation for the generalization to higher moments arises from the theoretical work of Levy (1969) provided the cubic utility function depending on the first three moments. Later, the empirical works of Arditti (1967 and 1971) documented the investors preference for positive skewness and aversion negative skewness in return distributions of individual stocks and mutual funds, respectively. Even Markowitz (1959) himself also supports this aspect by suggesting that a mean-semi-variance trade-off [2], which gives priority to avoiding downside risk, would be superior to the original mean-variance approach. While the importance of the first three moments was recognized, there were some arguments on the incorporation of higher moments than the third into the analysis. First, Arditti (1967) suggested that most of the information about any probability distribution is contained in its first three moments. Later, Levy (1969) argued that even the higher moments are approximately functions of the first moments, but not that they are small in magnitude. Several authors (Levy, 1969; Samuelson, 1970; Rubinstein, 1973) also recommend that in general the higher moments than the variance cannot be neglected, except when at least one of the following conditions must be true: All the higher moments beyond the first are zero. The derivatives of utility function are zero for the higher moments beyond the second. The distributions of asset returns are normal or the utility functions are quadratic. However, ample evidence (e.g., Kendall and Hill, 1953; Mandelbrot, 1963a and 1963b; Fama, 1965) presented not only the higher moments beyond the first and their derivatives of the utility function are not zero, but also the asset returns are not normally distributed. Furthermore, several researchers (Tobin, 1958; Pratt, 1964; Samuelson, 1970; Levy and Sarnat, 1972) indicate that the assumption of quadratic utility function is appropriate only when return distributions are compact. Therefore, the higher moments of return distributions, such as skewness, are relevant to the investors decision on portfolio selection and cannot be ignored. In the field of portfolio theory with higher moments, Samuelson (1970) was the first author who recommends the importance of higher moments than the second for portfolio analysis. He shows that when the investment decision restrict to the finite time horizon, the use of mean-variance analysis becomes insufficient and the higher moments than the variance become more relevant in portfolio selection. Therefore, he developed three-moment model based on the cubic utility function which expressed by Levy (1969)3. Following Samuelson (1970), number of studies (e.g. Jean, 1971, 1972 and 1973; Ingersoll, 1975; and Schweser, 1978) explained the importance of skewness in security returns, derived the risk premium as functions of the first three moments, and generated the three-dimensional efficient frontier with a risk-free asset. Later, Diacogiannis (1994) proposed the multi-moment portfolio optimization programme by minimizing variance at any given level of expected return and skewness. Consequently, Athayde and Flores (1997) developed portfolio theory taking the higher moments than the variance into consideration in a utility maximizing context. The expressions in this paper greatly simplified the numerical solutions of the multi-moment portfolio optimal asset allocation problems4. 23 Levy (1969) defines the cubic utility function as U(x) which has the form: U(x) = ax + bx + cx , where x is a random variable and a,b,c are coefficients. This function is concave in a certain range but convex in another. Jurczenko, E. and Maillet, B. (2006) Multi-Moment Asset Allocation and Pricing Models, Wiley Finance, p. xxii. Different approaches have been developed to incorporate the individual preferences for higher-order moments into portfolio optimization. These approaches can be divided into two main groups, the primal and dual approaches. The dual approach starts from a specification of the higher-moment utility function by using the Taylors series expansion to link between the utility function and the moments of the return distribution. Then, the dual approaches will determine the optimal portfolio via its parameters reflecting preferences for the moments of asset return distribution. Harvey et. al. (2004) uses this approach to construct the set of the three-moment efficient frontier by using two sets of returns[3]. The results show that as the investors preference in skewness increases, there are sudden change points in the expected utility that lead to dramatically modifications in the allocation of the optimal portfolio. Jondeau and Rockinger (2003 and 2006) and Guidolin and Timmermann (2008) extend the dual approach in portfolio selection from three- to four-moment framework. A shortcoming of this dual approach is that the Taylor series expansion may converge to the expected utility under restrictive conditions. That is for some utility functions (e.g. the exponential function), the expansion converges for all possible levels of return, whereas for some types of utility function (e.g. the logarithm-power function), the convergence of Taylor series expansion to the expected utility is ensured only over a restricted range6. Furthermore, since Taylor series expansion have an infinite number of terms, then using a finite number of terms creates the truncation error. To circumvent these problems, the primal approach parameters that used to weight the moment deviations are not relate precisely to the utility function. Tayi and Leonard (1988) introduced the Polynomial Goal Programming (PGP), which is a primal approach to solve the goal in portfolio optimization by trade-off between competing and conflicting objectives. Later, Lai (1991) is the first researcher who proposed this method to solve the multiple objectives determining the set of the mean-variance-skewness efficient portfolios. He illustrated the three-moment portfolio selection with three objectives, which are maximizing both the expected return and the skewness, and minimizing the variance of asset returns. Follows Lai (1991) who uses a sample of five stocks and a risk-free asset, Chunhachinda et. al. (1997) and Prakash et. al. (2003) examines three-moment portfolio selection by using international stock indices. Regarding the under-diversification, many studies (e.g. Simkowitz and Beedles, 1978; Mitton and Vorkink, 2004; and Briec et. al., 2007) suggested that incorporation of the higher moments in the investors objective functions can explain portfolio under-diversification. Home bias puzzle is one of the under-diversification. It is a tendency to invest in a large proportion in domestic securities, even there are potential gains from diversification of investment portfolios across national markets. Guidolin and Timmermann (2008)[4] indicate that home bias in US can be explained by incorporate the higher moments (i.e. skewness and kurtosis) with distinct bull and bear regimes in the investors objective functions. Several researchers use the primal and the dual approaches to examine the  international portfolio selection. Jondeau and Rockinger (2003 and 2006) and Guidolin and Timmermann (2008) applied the dual approaches using a higher-order Taylor expansion of the utility function. They provide the empirical evidence that under large departure from normality of the return distribution, the higher-moment optimization is more efficient than the mean-variance framework. Chunhachinda et. al. (1997) and Prakash (2003) applied the Polynomial Goal Programming (PGP), which is a primal approach, to determine the optimal portfolios of international stock indices. Their results indicated that the incorporation of skewness into the portfolio selection problem causes a major change in the allocation of the optimal portfolio and the trade-off between expected return and skewness of the efficient portfolio. Appendix 1 presents methodology and data of the previous papers that study international portfolio selection with higher moments. In the proposed study, I will extend PGP approach to the mean-variance-skewnesskurtosis framework and investigate the international asset allocation problem that whether the incorporation of investor preferences in the higher moments of stock return distributions returns can help explain the home bias puzzle. Since previous research (e.g. Levy, 1972; Singleton and Wingerder, 1986) points out that the estimated values of the moments of the asset return distribution sensitive to the choices of an investment horizon, I will examine daily, weekly, and monthly data sets in the study[5]. The sample data will consist of daily, weekly, and monthly rates of return of five international indices for all available data from January 1975 to December 2016. These five indices cover the stock markets in the main geographical areas, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Pacific region (excluding Japan), and Europe (excluding United Kingdom)[6]. Moreover, the study also use three-month US Treasury bill rates as the existence of the risk-free asset in order that the investor is not restricted to invest only in risky assets. The data source of these indices is the Morgan Stanley Capital International Index (MSCI) who reports these international price indices as converted into US dollar at the spot foreign exchange rate. The MSCI stock price indices and T-bill rates are available in Datastream. The methodology proposed in the study consists of two parts. First, the rate of return distribution of each international index will be tested for normality by using the Shapiro-Wilk test. Then, the PGP approach will be utilized to determine the optimal portfolio in the fourmoment framework. 4.1 Testing for normality of return distribution At the beginning of the empirical work, I will test the normality of return distributions of international stock indices and the US T-bill rates. This test provides the foundation for examine the portfolio selection problem in the mean-variance-skewness-kurtosis framework. Although several methods are developed, there is an ample evidence that the ShapiroWilk is the best choice for evaluating normality of data under various specifications of the probability distribution. Shapiro et. al. (1968) provide an empirical sampling study of the sensitivities of nine normality-testing procedures and concluded that among those procedures, the Shapiro-Wilk statistic is a generally superior measure of non-normality. More recently, Razali and Wah (2011) compared the power of four statistical tests of normality via Monte Carlo simulation of sample data generated from various alternation distributions. Their results support that Shapiro-Wilk test is the most powerful normality test for all types of the distributions and sample sizes. The Shapiro-Wilk statistic is defined as where is the i th order statistic (rate of returns), à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ã‚ ¯ . à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ã‚ ¯ / is the sample mean, are the expected values of the order statistics of independent and identically distributed random variables sampled from the standard normal, and V is the covariance matrix of those order statistics. Note that the values of are provided in Shapiro-Wilk (1965) table based on the order i. The Shapiro-Wilk tests the null hypothesis of normality: H0: The population is normally distributed. H1: The population is not normally distributed.    If the p-value is less than the significant level (i.e. 1%, 5%, or 10%), then the null hypothesis of normal distribution is rejected. Thus, there is statistical evidence that the sample return distribution does not came from a normally distributed population. On the other hand, if the p-value is greater than the chosen alpha level, then the null hypothesis that the return distribution came from a normally distributed population cannot be rejected. 4.2 Solving for the multi-objective portfolio problem Following Lai (1991) and Chunhachinda et. al. (1997), the multi-objective portfolio selection with higher momentscan be examined based on the following assumptions: Investors are risk-averse individuals who maximize the expected utility of their end-ofperiod wealth. There are n + 1 assets and the (n + 1)th asset is the risk-free asset. All assets are marketable, perfectly divisible, and have limited liability. The borrowing and lending rates are equal to the rate of return r on the risk-free asset. The capital market is perfect, there are no taxes and transaction costs. Unlimited short sales of all assets with full use of the proceeds are allowed. The mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis of the rate of return on asset are assumed to exist for all risky assets for 1,2, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ . Then, I define the variables in the analysis as = ,, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ , be the transpose of portfolio component , where is the percentage of wealth invested in the th risky asset, = ,, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ , be the transpose of whose mean denoted by , = the rate of return on the th risky asset, = the rate of return on the risk-free asset, = a (n x 1) vector of expected excess rates of return, = the expectation operator, = the (n x 1) vector of ones, = the variance-covariance (n x n) matrix of , = the skewness-coskewness (n x n2) matrix of ,= the kurtosis-cokurtosis (n x n3) matrix of . Then, the mean, the variance, the skewness, and the kurtosis of the portfolio returns can be defined as:[7] , , à ¢Ã…  -,[8] Kurtosis = = à ¢Ã…  - à ¢Ã…  - . Note that because of certain symmetries, only ((n+1)*n)/2 elements of the skewnesscoskewness matrix and ((n+2)*(n+1)*n)/6 elements of the kurtosis-cokurtosis matrix must be computed. The components of the variance-covariance matrix, the skewness-coskewness matrix, and the kurtosis-cokurtosis matrix can be computed as follows: à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ, à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ, à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ, à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ, à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ, à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ. Therefore, the optimal solution is to select a portfolio component . The portfolio selection can be determined by solving the following multiple objectives, which are maximizing the expected return and the skewness while minimizing the variance and the kurtosis: , , à ¢Ã…  -, = à ¢Ã…  - à ¢Ã…  - . subject to 1. Since the percentage invested in each asset is the main concern of the portfolio decision, Lai (1991) suggests that the portfolio choice can be rescaled and restricted on the unit variance space (i.e. | 1 ). Under the condition of unit variance, the portfolio selection problem with skewness and kurtosis (P1) can be formulated as follows: , à ¢Ã…  -, (P1) = à ¢Ã…  - à ¢Ã…  - , subject to 1 , 1 . Usually, the solution of the problem (P1) does not satisfy three objectives (, , ) simultaneously. As a result, the above multi-objective problem (P1) involves a two-step procedure. First, a set of non-dominated solutions independent of investors preferences is developed. Then, the next step can be accomplished by incorporating investors preferences for objectives into the construction of a polynomial goal programming (PGP). Consequently, portfolio selection by satisfying the multiple objectives that is the solution of PGP can be achieved. In PGP the objective function ( ) does not contain a portfolio component , it contains deviational variables ( , , ) which represent deviations between goals and what can be achieved, given a set of constrains. Therefore, the objective function ( ) is minimization of the deviation variables ( , , ) to determine the portfolio component . Moreover, if the goals are at the same priority level, the deviations from the goals ( , , ) are non-negative variables. Given an investors preferences among mean, skewness, and kurtosis ( , , ), a PGP model can be expressed as: . subject to à ¢Ã‹â€ - , à ¢Ã…  -à ¢Ã‹â€ - , (P2) à ¢Ã…  - à ¢Ã…  - = à ¢Ã‹â€ - , 1 , 1 , ,, 0 . where à ¢Ã‹â€ - = the extreme value of objective when they are optimized individually, then à ¢Ã‹â€ - |1 , à ¢Ã‹â€ - |1 , and à ¢Ã‹â€ - |1 , = the non-negative variables which represent the deviation of and à ¢Ã‹â€ -, = the non-negative parameters representing the investors subjective degree of preferences between objectives, The combinations of represent different preferences of the mean, the skewness, and the kurtosis of a portfolio return. For example, the higher , the more important the mean (skewness or kurtosis) of the portfolio return is to the investor. Thus, the efficient portfolios are the solutions of problem (P2) for various combinations of preferences . The expected results provided in this section refer to two parts of methodology, the normality test and the international portfolio optimization in four-moment framework. 5.1 The expected results of the normality test Many researches examine the international stock indices and found that most of the stock return distributions exhibit skewness and their excess kurtosis are far from zero. For instance, in the work of Chunhachinda et. al. (1997), the Shapiro-Wilk statistics indicate 5 markets and 11 markets reject the null hypothesis of normal distribution at ten percent significant level, for weekly and monthly data, respectively. Prakash et. al. (2003) use the Jarque-Bera test to trial the normality of each international stock index, their results indicate that for 17 markets for weekly returns and 10 markets for monthly returns reject the null hypothesis of normal distribution five percent significant level. Therefore, I expected that the Shapiro-Wilk tests in the proposed study will be significant and reject the null hypothesis of normality. In other words, the return distributions of international stock markets during the period under study are expected to be non-normal. 5.2 The expected results of the multi-objective portfolio selection 5.2.1 The changes in the allocation of optimal portfolios Chunhachinda et. al. (1997) and Prakash et. al. (2003) both indicated that the incorporation of skewness into the portfolio selection problem causes a major change in the allocation of the optimal portfolio. However, their definitions of a major change are different. Chunhachinda et. al. (1997) found that there is a modification in the allocation when they compare between the mean-variance and the mean-variance-skewness efficient portfolios. However, both types of portfolios are dominated by the investment components of only four markets[9]. On the other hand, Prakash (2003) results show that the structural weights of the mean-variance and the mean-variance-skewness optimal portfolios are dominated by different markets. Therefore, I expected that when I compare between of the mean-variance efficient portfolios, the three-moment efficient portfolios, and the mean-variance efficient portfolios, the percentage invested in each asset will be different in magnitude and ranking. 5.2.2 The trade-off between expected return and skewness Most of the studies of international portfolio selection with higher moments (e.g. Chunhachinda et. al., 1997; Prakash et. al., 2003; Jondeau and Rockinger, 2003 and 2006) reported that the mean-variance efficient portfolios have the higher expected return while the three-moment efficient portfolios have greater skewness. Thus, they indicated that after incorporation of skewness into portfolio selection problem, the investor will trade the expected return of the portfolio for the skewness. More recently, Davies et. al. (2005) applied PGP to determine the set of the four-moment efficient funds of hedge funds and found not only the trade-off between the mean and the skewness, but also the trade-off between the variance and the kurtosis. Thus, I expected to discover the trade-off between the expected return and the skewness and the trade-off between the variance and the kurtosis. In addition, I will also investigate other relationships between the moments of return distribution and report them in both numerical and graphical ways. 5.2.3 The less diversification compared to the mean-variance model. To investigate whether the incorporation of higher moments than the second (i.e. skewness and kurtosis) can help explain the home bias puzzle, I will examine the hypothesis: H0: ZMV à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ ZMVSK. H1: ZMV > ZMVSK. where ZMV and ZMVSK are the number of nonzero weights of the mean-variance efficient portfolios and the four-moment efficient portfolios, respectively. If the number of nonzero weights of the mean-variance efficient portfolios (ZMV) is greater than the number of nonzero weights of the four-moment efficient portfolios (ZMVSK), then I will rejected the null hypothesis. This implies that the incorporation of the higher moments into the portfolio decision can help explain the home bias puzzle. However, the results from the literature are mixed. On one hand, several researchers (e.g. Prakash et. al., 2003; Briec et. al., 2007; Guidolin and Timmermann, 2008) provided the evidence that the incorporation of skewness into the portfolio selection causes the less diversification in the efficient portfolio. On the other hand, the results of some studies (e.g. Chunhachinda et. al., 1997; Jondeau and Rockinger, 2003 and 2006) found that when compare with the mean-variance efficient portfolios, the diversification of the higher-moment efficient portfolios seem to be same or even became more diversify. I expected the results to show that the four-moment efficient portfolio is less diversified than the mean-variance one. In other words, the incorporation of the skewness and the kurtosis into the international portfolio selection can help explain the home bias. [1] Jurczenko, E. and Maillet, B. (2006) Multi-Moment Asset Allocation and Pricing Models, Wiley Finance, p. xxii. [2] Semi-variance is a measure of the dispersion of all observations that fall below the average or target value of a data set. [3] The first set consists of four stocks and the second set consists of four equity indices, two commodities, and a risk-free asset. 6 Jurczenko, E. Maillet, B., and Merlin, P. (2006) Multi-Moment Asset Allocation and Pricing Models, Wiley Finance, p. 52. [4] Guidolin and Timmermann (2008) analyze the portfolio selection problem by using the dual approach. [5] Chunhachinda et. al. (1997) and Prakash et. al. (2003) studied the portfolio selection across national stock markets by using two data sets, weekly and monthly data. [6] Guidolin and Timmermann (2008) reported that these markets represent roughly 97% of the world equity market capitalization. [7] I use the derivations of skewness and kurtosis as provided in the textbook Multi-Moment Asset Allocation and Pricing Models of Jurczenko and Maillet (2006) to transform the expectation operators into the matrix terms. [8] Let A be an (nÃÆ'-p) matrix and B an (mÃÆ'-q) matrix. The (mnÃÆ'-pq) matrix Aà ¢Ã…  -B is called the of matrix A and matrix B: [9] The four markets are Hong Kong, Netherlands, Singapore, and Switzerland. These markets have high rankings of the coefficient of variation under the sample period.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Diversity: Individual Behavior Impact Essay -- Work Diverse Behavior

Diversity: Individual Behavior Impact   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Individual behavior is the pattern of behavior, thought, and emotion, unique to an individual, and the ways he or she interact to help or hinder the adjustment of a person to other people and situations (The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2001). Within organizations, diversity can positively or negatively impact the behavior of individuals. Organizations are responsible and held accountable for making the overall work environment conducive for all within the diversified setting. Diversity is shaped and informed by a variety of characteristics including age, ethnicity, gender, disability, language, religion beliefs, life stages, education, career responsibilities, sexual orientation, personality traits, and marital status. Workplace diversity is about acknowledging differences and adapting work practices to create an inclusive environment in which one?s diverse skills, perspectives, and backgrounds, are valued (Workplace Diversity Strategy, 2003). There are many diversity issues within the workplace however, age, gender, personality traits, and religion highly impacts individual behaviors within an organization. Age   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  ?The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA)?, states the unlawfulness of discriminating against a person because of his or her age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment; including, but not limited to, hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training (Age Diversity, 1997). Age diversity at work means employing people of all ages, and not discriminating against someone because of how old he or she is. Age discrimination can take place as a result of the organization or from the different generational differences that make-up the organization. Generational differences can have many diverse impacts on individual behavior with regard to age differences. These differences can become a big distraction, hurt morale, and teamwork, unless managers learn how to accommodate the uniqueness of each group (Gomolski, 2001). Typically older persons tend to take his or her work related responsibilities very serious unlike their younger counterparts. Older employees take pride in doing a job well whereas younger employees want to just get the job done and move on to the next assignment. Although each person is working toward the same organ... ...997). Age Diversity: Facts about Age Discrimination. Retrieved from www.eeoc.gov/policy/adea.html on August 4, 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Author unknown (2005). The Workplace Religion Freedom Act. Your Gateway to the Jewish Internet, 2005. Retrieved from www.ou.org on August 7, 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Author unknown (date). Workplace Diversity Strategy (2003-2005). Retrieved from www.dewr.gov.au/publications on August 4, 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  BSR Staff (1999). Religion in the Workplace. Business for Social Responsibility. 2001-2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gomoliski, B. (2001). Managing age diversity in the workplace. Computerworld Inc., 2005. Retrieved from www.computerworld.com on August 6, 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hahn, S., Litwin, A. (1995). Women and Men Understanding and Respecting Gender Differences in the Workplace. Anne Litwin & Associates, 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  McInnes, R. (1999). Workforce Diversity: Changing the Way You Do Business. Diversity World, 1999-2005. Retrieved from www.diversityworld.com August 4, 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (2001). Columbia University Press, 2001-2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  William, S. (2005). Appreciating Personality Diversity. Retrieved from www.wright.edu/~scott.williams on August 4, 2005.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Civil War Dbq

AP US History This DBQ received a 7 Civil War DBQ As American settlers stretched westward in the 1850’s, the ambiguity of the Constitution framed 60 years earlier increased sectional tension over the topic of slavery. Initially, the framers of the constitution left the issue of slavery to be worked out in the country’s future. This in turn convinced the Southern states that their â€Å"peculiar institution† would be â€Å"respected and maintained. However, as years passed, the United States acquired more territory, and as more territories applied for statehood, the issue arose whether or not the new states would be admitted as a Slave State or Free State. Americans also disputed the very status of a slave, and whether or not a fugitive slave in the Northern Free States was guaranteed his or her freedom from their masters down south. It was debates like these, due to the vague details of the constitution, that created enormous repercussions– ones that wou ld trigger a series of Slavery related legislation, and ultimately the destruction the union.Following President Polk’s successful victory against the young Republic of Mexico, Americans gained a significant amount of western land including Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and most importantly the promising, golden coastal territory of California. To pacify the growing discord between North and South, the Democratic Senator, Stephan Douglas of Illinois, combined 5 Bills that would secure California as a Free State and would abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It also included the Fugitive Slave Act. In addition, Utah and New Mexico would grant its citizens popular sovereignty.This was the Compromise of 1850. As a result, New Mexico and Utah became slave states. Due to the Federal Constitution’s vagueness, this compromise allowed states to decide for themselves the issue of slavery. Consequently, the most favorable and democratic solution seemed Louis Cassâ₠¬â„¢s idea of popular sovereignty. Four years later, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress, which again allowed popular sovereignty in the Nebraska Territory. This also repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery north of the 36-30 degree of latitude. As a result, Nebraska became a slave state.However, in the fear of losing Kansas to Anti-Slavery settlers, Pro-Slavery Missourians flooded Kansas to overwhelm the polls on Election Day. Though Slavery had passed in Kansas, it was charged a fraud. In 1856, this erupted into the infamous conflict between the Pro-Slavery â€Å"Border Ruffians† and the John Brown supporters of abolitionism. Nicknamed â€Å"Bleeding Kansas,† it was America’s first violent conflict over the unsettled issue of slavery. As a lame duck, Pro-Slavery President Pierce, relied on settling the conflict with the LeCompton Constitution of 1857—a constitution that would legalize slavery in Kansas.Buchanan, soo n after, took office just before congress voted. Though passed by the Senate, the LeCompton Constitution failed in the House of Representatives because Northern Democrats fled to the Republican Party. Pierce’s failure to recognize the depth of the Free-Soiler’s sentiment in the North led the historic Midterm Elections of 1858. Republicans, the Anti-Slavery party established only four years prior, took a plurality in the House of Representatives, foreshadowing Lincoln’s election in 1861 and ultimately, Southern succession.As the creation of Slave and Free States spurred political debate, the individual status of a slave remained questionable due to legislation being nonexistent in the Constitution. Following the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act pressured Northerns to recapture and return slaves that fled north. This mandate became the first constitutional law that limited the rights of slaves, nonetheless â€Å"forcing slavery down the throats† o f Free Soilers in the north. Northerns could now no longer ride the fence, because now they were coerced by law to act.This also strengthened the Abolitionist movement led by William Lloyd Garrison, which had already picked up momentum from Harriett Beacher Stowe’s best-selling novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852. Another historic event that resulted in the Constitution’s ambiguity was the Supreme Court case Scott v. Sanford. Being a former slave residing in the free-state of Wisconsin, Dred Scott sued for his freedom. However, in 1857 Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled by â€Å"majority opinion† that any blacks, regardless of their territory, possessed no right to sue.They had rights. This decision angered many Northerns because the ruling was based off opinion alone. There was no clear Constitutional law that had justified prohibiting the rights of Northern free black. Moreover, to maintain national unity, the original absence of any constitutio nal restriction or protection of the institution of slavery led to sectional discord. Such tension between North and South, due to their polarizing philosophical views on slavery, led individual states to decide whether or not they were Pro- or Anti-Slavery.In addition, Federal (Pro-Slavery) legislation ironically began to deny the citizenship of even Free Blacks within Free States, which seems almost hypocritical for the Pro-Slavery leaders to proclaim States’ Rights to justify their succession. However, because there was no constitutional restriction, Southerns lawfully claimed had the right to succeed from the Union, and did so in 1861 out fear of Lincoln’s Freeport Doctrine. Therefore, because the constitution circumvented the issue of slavery to achieve national unity, the addition of new states reintroduced the sectional discord rooted in slavery, which ultimately dissolved the union.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Family Health Assessment Essay

The emphasis of Gordon’s functional health patterns concentrates on 11 categories which include: health perception/management, nutritional/metabolic, elimination, activity/exercise, cognitive/perceptual, sleep/rest, self perception/self concept, role/relationship, sexuality/reproductive, coping/stress tolerance, and value/beliefs (Nursing Planet, 2013). These series of questions are effective when accumulating data that can be interpreted and diagnoses can be applied for actual, as well as potential issues. Issues are identified, decisions on interventions, education, and promotion of a realistic, as well as a practical lifestyle (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014) can be chosen. Discussion in detail of the interview from the Gouker family assessment follows. They have six daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Gouker have been married for 40 years. Utilizing the 11 functional health patterns by Gordon, a family assessment was completed on the Gouker family. The emphasis of health perception/promotion centers on the individuals’ impression of their wellness and how they govern their health (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). Due to their age, the Gouker family’s health perception presently revolves around their yearly health examinations and eating healthy. Mr. Gouker is 74 years old and Mrs. Gouker is 68. Mr. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) revealed that only after having experienced weakness did he begin having annual examinations, as he had been healthy his entire life. Mr. Gouker does not take any prescribed medications. Mrs. Gouker participates in yearly examinations and currently has blood work completed every six months due to her chronic diabetes mellitus. Mrs. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) currently takes daily medications for this condition. Since Mrs. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) shops for the family, she stated that they only consume chicken and fish, which is broiled, and scarcely eats beef or pork. She also prepares vegetables with the evening meal. Snacks consist of fresh fruits. The primary meal is dinner, which is eaten together. Mr. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) states that breakfast consists of coffee and rarely has time for lunchtime. Mrs. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) eats breakfast daily which consists of coffee and toast, whereas lunch consists of a salad. Mrs. Gouker has scheduled dentist visits every six months, whereas Mr. Gouker only schedules dental visits every year. According to Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle (2014), elimination pivots around the expulsion of contents in the bowel and bladder, but also includes the skin. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gouker prefer to drink water and they frequently urinate. Mr. Gouker (personal communication, March 21, 2014) states, that he has multiple bowel movements daily, whereas Mrs. Gouker has daily bowel movements. Mr. and Mrs. Gouker bathe daily. As stated by Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle (2014), activity and exercise concentrates on the patterns pertaining to activity, exercise, recreation, and leisure. Mrs. Gouker is retired and Mr. Gouker owns a business. Mrs. Gouker utilizes the treadmill for walking. Leisure and recreational activities include yearly travel, and attending professional sporting events. The main focus of cognitive and perceptions are patterns seen in regards to cognition, perception, and the senses (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). Mr. Gouker has an Associate’s degree in business administration, whereas Mrs. Gouker graduated high school. When expressing his views on pain management, Mr. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) stated he rarely experiences pain, but if the situation arises he will take an Aleve. Mrs. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) expressed that she only takes Aleve for pain or discomfort. Mrs. Gouker finds satisfaction in reading and completing crossword puzzles, whereas Mr. Gouker manages the business. The main concept of sleep and rest centers on patterns which give priority to sleep, rest, and relaxation (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). Mr. Gouker sleeps four to seven hours per night while Mrs. Gouker sleeps seven to eight hours per night. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) state they unwind by watching their favorite television programs or sitting in their rocking chairs on the porch. According to Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle (2014), the focal point of self perception and self concept is on the persons’ viewpoint of themselves which correlate to their self esteem, their self worth, and body appearance. Mr. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) believes that he can accomplish anything he so chooses. He believes that whether a person is a success or failure depends upon your state of mind. Mrs. Gouker perceives herself as a kindhearted woman and views herself as a genuine individual who is helpful to those around her. With regards to body image, Mr. Gouker stands five foot nine inches tall and weighs 175 lbs and is aware that he is overweight. Mrs. Gouker is five foot four inches tall and weighs 182 pounds and perceives herself as slovenly. The focal point of the role and relationship patterns centers on the persons role in the family and the relationship they have with the other family members (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). Mrs. Gouker cherishes being a mother and wife. Mr. Gouker (personal communication, March 11, 2014) states that he is blessed. He loves being a father and provider to all his children. Both Mrs. and Mrs. Gouker are content with their personal relationships with family and friends. According to Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle (2014), the patterns of sexuality and reproduction center on the individuals’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their sexual style. Mrs. Gouker was modest when speaking of their sexual relationship, yet Mr. Gouker was open. Both parties are content with their sexual relationship and have no complaints concerning sex. The focus of coping and stress tolerance pertains to how the individual detects stress and the techniques utilized when encountering stressful events (Edelman, Zudzma & Mandl, 2014). This family has always used communication skills to rectify any problems. Prayer is utilized and their faith that God’s guidance assists them. Edelman, Zudzma & Mandle (2014) noted that patterns in relation to values and beliefs focus on spiritual beliefs, values, and goals that direct those choices. The Gouker’s are Lutheran and attend services weekly. Upon interview completion of the Gouker family, two wellness and family diagnoses are: Both are at risk for imbalanced nutrition: more than body requirements since their individual body mass index (BMI) both exceed 20 percent. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gouker are at risk for body images disturbance. Education for the Gouker’s included the impact of exercise and how this will decrease their body mass index. It is evident that nurses impact the lives of those being cared for regardless of the setting. Education is instrumental is assisting patients and their families to make positive changes in promoting a healthier lifestyle. References Edelman, C. , Kudzma, C. & Mandle, C. L. (2014). Health Promotion Throughout the Life Span (8 ed. ). : VitalSource Bookshelf. Nursing Plant. (2013). Functional Health Patterns. Retrieved March 11, 2014 from www. nursingplanet. com/theory/functional_health_patterns. html Appendix 1)Health prevention and health management. a. How do you feel about keeping your regular doctor visits? b. What, as an individual, do you do to support your health? 2)Nutritional and metabolic a. Regarding your dental needs, what are your oral habits? b. What are your nutritional practices like in general? c. What sort of foods do you consistently eat? 3)Elimination a. How do you manage your bladder and bowel habits? b. What do you do to take care of your skin? 4)Activity and exercise a. How do you spend your time off from work? b. When participating in leisure interests, how many hours do you devote on a weekly basis? c. What do you do for getaways? 5)Cognitive and perceptual a. How do you manage pain? b. What exercises do you do participate in to improve your memory? 6)Sleep and rest a. As an individual, how do you relax? b. On average, how many hours do you sleep at night and what are your sleeping patterns like? 7 )Self perception and self concept a. What is your prospective on your self image today? . In regards to your body image, how do you view your body image? 8)Role and relationships a. As an individual within your family, what is your position in the family? b. In your current position within your family, what makes you satisfied or dissatisfied? 9)Sexual and reproduction a. With your current sexual relationship, are both individuals satisfied or unsatisfied? 10) Coping and stress tolerance a. How do you handle stress? b. When managing situations that are stressful, what do you do? 11)Value and beliefs a. What is your religious denomination? b. In regards to your religion, what guides you towards your goals?

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

How to Write a Dissertation in Criminal Law Easy Guide

How to Write a Dissertation in Criminal Law Easy Guide Writing a dissertation can be a daunting task for any student, especially those who study criminal law. When writing a dissertation in criminal law, you need to meticulously examine all facts which you found during your research before you can frame any research questions. The process is rather time-consuming and you need to have the perfect knowledge of legal terms in order to appropriately use them in the text of your criminal law dissertation. But the main problem is that no dissertation can be written in a couple of weeks because it requires plenty of time for formulating a research question, doing research, planning your draft, writing, and revising. You need to stay organized while you are working on this complex project so you need guidance on how to do it right. To help you get started, we created a step-by-step guide on how to write a dissertation in criminal law which covers all essential aspects of the writing process. And if you need help with any other college project, we offer you full guides to all writing assignments out there. What Is a Dissertation in Criminal Law? As a student, you have written a variety of papers but the dissertation in criminal law is a completely new experience because this project is much larger and more independent than your previous academic work. Many scholars compare writing a dissertation to writing a book because it is a self-directed process. No one tells you what to do, you do it on your own and the writing process is much longer than when you are working on other coursework assignments. It’s a stressful but at the same time, rewarding experience because you will build valuable research and writing skills that you will use throughout your career. Dissertation in criminal law is a long project of 100 to 200 pages so you should start working on it as early as possible. And the first important step is choosing a good topic. Let’s discuss this step in detail. Choosing a Topic for a Dissertation in Criminal Law It’s important to choose your dissertation topic wisely because it’s a large project that accounts for a major part of your degree. Here are some suggestions: Pick a topic that interests you. You will work on your dissertation for many weeks. It will be easier for you to stay motivated if you like what you do. Or you may choose a topic which will be related to your future career. Try to find something unique. It’s not easy to find really original topic but you can try to look at a popular research topic from another angle. Be objective with your research topic. Analyze the idea you like from the outsider’s perspective and try to understand the scope of your topic. Don’t choose too broad topic. If your idea is too broad, you won’t be able to explore it in a given word count and come to convincing conclusions. Don’t pick a topic if it’s too narrow. You won’t be able to expand your argument and meet requirement for a certain word count. Still not sure how to come up with a good topic for a dissertation in criminal law? Here are some interesting ideas for your inspiration: Causes of College Violence; Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony in Court; Scope of Capital Punishment in Law; Criminal Insanity and Mental Health; Domestic Abuse Legislation; The #MeToo Movement vs the Presumption of Innocence; Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard; Anti-abortion Legislation in US; Gun Control Debate; Illegal Drug Trade in Colombia; Harvey Weinstein Sexual Abuse Allegations; Prostitution and Human Trafficking in India; False Confessions and Wrongfully Convicted; Cybercrimes and National Security; Anti-terrorism Legislation. Writing a Research Proposal for Your Dissertation in Criminal Law After you choose and topic and narrow it down, it’s time to start a formal research. That’s why you need a research proposal. The purpose of writing a research proposal is to show that you have an expertise to conduct your proposed area of research. It’s an important document that gives a concise and logical summary of your proposed research and demonstrates its originality. Your research proposal should be about 2,500 – 3,500 words in length and include the following basic parts: Title should include the key question of your proposed research; Background: issues of the research you propose, review of existing literature, brief summary of key debates in the field; Research question – explain what issues you want to explore and why they are important; Methodology section should explain your choice of specific methods for doing research; Plan of work – outline stages of your research with corresponding time lines; Bibliography – you need to include a list of articles that you discuss in your proposal and a list of resources that are appropriate for your research. Keep in mind that before you start doing a research, you need to formulate your research questions that have not been answered in the previous research. For example, if the topic of your dissertation in criminal law is sentencing trends in environmental crimes, your research question may look like this one: ‘What are criminal sentence variations for environmental crimes according to data from EPA Criminal Online databases?’ How to Structure a Dissertation in Criminal Law There are specific conventions that determine the general structure of a dissertation in each discipline. A typical dissertation may consist of the following essential parts: Abstract gives a summary of your dissertation findings; Introduction sets the context of your criminal law dissertation and explains what issues you are going to investigate and why; Literature review provides theoretical foundation for your approach, establishes gaps in existing research, and connects your research question with the gaps; Methodology section tells about methods that you will use for gathering data; Findings show the data you have gathered during the investigation; Discussion interprets and analyzes the collected data; Conclusion answers the question â€Å"so what?† and tell about the significance of your investigation. Steps in Writing a Draft of Your Dissertation in Criminal Law After your topic has been approved by the committee, you need to start working on your project. First you should start doing research and collecting data and document your findings as you proceed. When the research stage is over, the writing process begins. It can be divided into several steps and each step requires considerable work so the key factor to succeed is time management. You should write chapter after chapter and submit them to your mentor for approval. Let’s discuss the content of different chapters in detail. Introduction This is the first chapter so it has to provide background information for your research, describe the research problem, and provides reasoning behind it. You should speak about the significance of the problem, include theoretical definitions of important terms, identify research questions and hypothesis, and speak about the limitations of your study. The chapter may be about 600-700 words in length although for some topics, the introduction can be longer Literature review Literature review sets the context of your study. Your task is to describe the current state of research in your field area, and determine an existing gap where you think further research may solve the existing problems. You should also explain how you are going to address the existing gap. This can help in formulating problems or/and research questions you will be exploring in your criminal law dissertation. You can present your literature review in the form of classification, critical analysis or comparison. This chapter should justify the purpose of your research and your research question. The length of this chapter may be 3,000-4,000 words. Methodology First, state the objectives of your research. Then you need to introduce the methods you have chosen for doing research and tell about the philosophy behind each method. Every time you choose a new method or technique, you need to explain why you made this choice and why you rejected other methods. The length of this chapter should be about 1,000-2,000 words. In the sections of this chapter, you may write about participants, materials, procedure, and analysis. You should also provide a general description of research design in accepted terminology. Findings The chapter presents results of your research and analyses. Keep in mind that you should present the results without interpretation because you will interpret them in the next chapter. You should present data as answers to research questions and hypothesis and organize the material into table and figures. Don’t forget to reference all your tables and figures in the text. Discussion Now it’s time to interpret results in the light of research questions and discuss how they relate to the existing literature. It would be a mistake to analyze data that are interesting in a general way but are not linked to original hypothesis and research questions. You can include that data into an appendix. You need to apply your analytical and critical thinking skills and highlight where your data differ from the literature or is similar to it. Conclusion Use the evidence from your dissertation to form conclusions but don’t use any new material. Make sure that all the claims you make here are supported by evidence that you presented in the previous chapters. This chapter should also include suggestions for further research but you should also speak about limitations. Abstract Write an abstract of about 250-300 words to give a brief summary of your findings. This section allows people to learn about your research without reading the full paper. You need to include information about your research objectives, methods you used, your key findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Revise, Edit, and Proofread Your Dissertation in Criminal Law When you finish your dissertation in criminal law, you need to put it aside for a couple of days and then revise it and improve the content and logic by adding or deleting some material or making changes. Editing and proofreading are often neglected but in fact, good writing is actually the results of good editing so you should devote substantial amount of time to ensure that your project is clear, concise, and error-free. First, you read your dissertation aloud and should focus on a big picture to improve logic, flow, and sentence structure, eliminate wordiness and inappropriately elevated language, and make sure you use precise words (use thesaurus and a good dictionary for that). After that, you can start fixing grammar and words in separate sentences. You should look for confused or misused words, typos and misspelling, minor grammar mistakes. Finally, you should your formatting for consistent use of the same citation style. Useful Tips for Writing Consistently Now you know what to do and have created a schedule but when you sit down to write, you can’t write a single word. Here are some tips on what you should do when you don’t feel like writing. Create a list of little things you need to do for a specific section of your criminal law dissertation. When you feel that you don’t want to work on your arguments during the scheduled time, you can do something from that list. Freewrite about how tired you are of your project. Expressing your emotions will help you overcome the writers’ block and find some creative solution. Work on your acknowledgements section. Think about all people who helped you and you may feel more inclined to work on your project. It’s the independence of work that makes a dissertation in criminal law a daunting and stressful project but you are sure to cope with it if you follow our guidelines. Know that you are contributing new knowledge to the field of criminal law and that will help you stay motivated.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Four Approaches to Community sociology essays

Four Approaches to Community sociology essays The four approaches to community sociology include: Typological, ecological, systems, and theory. They all have some influence on how we see the world today in a community based realm. The typological approach begins with the ideas of Tonnies. His foundation began with the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Tonnies explains that there has been a transition in the world from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. The rise in industrialization and social change identifies this transition. Tonnies unlike his predecessors has actually done field research on the matter to prove his theory. Basically, individualistic and capitalistic attitudes developed. Some strengths of this idea include empirical research has proven that there are differences in areas of a city or country. People in different areas see things differently and depending on the length of residency in that area makes a difference in their outlook. Another strong point about Tonnies theory is that it has allowed for change to occur in the areas where it was possible for change to better the economy and living conditions. Some weaknesses of this theory are the fact that it isnt very broad in the sense t hat there are so many other possibilities to explain why areas and the economy have changed so much over the years. This approach seems to focus on the micro-level of sociology. Dewey explains that it is too narrow of a subject and it cant move any farther. He says that it is time to move on to the broader areas of what sociology really should focus on, the big picture. This theory separates and breaks down certain areas to examine the people and their way of life in that area. It doesnt show how it affects them in the broader scheme of things. the real query is, do we have a better initial answer than the folk-urban continuum to the general question of how to account for the similarities and differences observable among societies...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Being successful in college

The most difficult part of an academic career is not producing scholarship, not teaching courses as effectively as possible, and not the service required of all faculty members. The most difficult part of a career is balancing the three. The most difficult part of a career is, in my experience, time management. Essentially, these are the three categories of labor in all academic careers: teaching, research/scholarship, and service. How much a faculty member is expected to contribute in each category will vary dramatically from institution to institution. If you’re lucky, when you begin an academic appointment your expected contributions within each category will be clearly articulated in writing, possibly in your contract, in your department’s tenure requirements, or in college and university policies. But whether or not your own departments expectations for teaching, research, and service are explicitly articulated, each activity will require different commitments of time and energy at different times. All three activities will persistently compete with one another for your Read more: http://www. insidehighered. The most difficult part of an academic career is not producing scholarship, not teaching courses as effectively as possible, and not the service required of all faculty members. The most difficult part of a career is balancing the three. The most difficult part of a career is, in my experience, time management. Essentially, these are the three categories of labor in all academic careers: teaching, research/scholarship, and service. How much a faculty member is expected to contribute in each category will vary dramatically from institution to institution. If you’re lucky, when you begin an academic appointment your expected contributions within each category will be clearly articulated in writing, possibly in your contract, in your department’s tenure requirements, or in college and university policies. But whether or not your own departments expectations for teaching, research, and service are explicitly articulated, each activity will require different commitments of time and energy at different times. All three activities will persistently compete with one another for your Read more: http://www. insidehighered. The most difficult part of an academic career is not producing scholarship, not teaching courses as effectively as possible, and not the service required of all faculty members. The most difficult part of a career is balancing the three. The most difficult part of a career is, in my experience, time management. Essentially, these are the three categories of labor in all academic careers: teaching, research/scholarship, and service. How much a faculty member is expected to contribute in each category will vary dramatically from institution to institution. If you’re lucky, when you begin an academic appointment your expected contributions within each category will be clearly articulated in writing, possibly in your contract, in your department’s tenure requirements, or in college and university policies. But whether or not your own departments expectations for teaching, research, and service are explicitly articulated, each activity will require different commitments of time and energy at different times. All three activities will persistently compete with one another for your.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - Essay Example Yet it also finds that few hospitals to date have any such written policies and standards. The paper thus recommends that a more inclusive information system be instilled in the healthcare system such that family members of such threatened patients be presented with the option to witness these procedures. It also recommends that healthcare providers of such procedures, if they feel constrained in any manner by such witnessing, may be assisted to change their viewpoints or overcome their constraints in such a manner that their comfort at work is not compromised by such witnessing. This paper contrives to seek out, from the nursing point of view, whether family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation and invasive procedures is really necessary and helpful without being an impedance to the relevant nursing staff. In a life-threatening situation (meriting Code Blue status) where patient breathing stops under unnatural or suspicious circumstances cardiopulmonary resuscitation is applied by the present nursing staff with immediate notification to a physician and the nursing supervisor. The same applies for invasive procedures to a large extent. ... ften find themselves in the midst of an ethical dilemma where, on the one side, there are the family members of patient liable to CPR or invasive procedure and, on the other, those physicians and healthcare professionals applying the resuscitation measures (Nibert, 2005) or invasive procedure measures. There are reports of nurses subjected to such dilemmas conceding that they have received no instructional advice in their training programs to allow them to resolve and mitigate such ethical problems (Nibert, 2005). Thus, this paper's intention to investigate various positions on this issue is deemed important and crucial to dispensation of care to critically-ill patients. Background As early as 1987, Doyle et al, in a pioneering study, decided to allow family presence during CPR at their institution (McClenathan et al, 2002). Since then more studies have proceeded and the research findings, instead of conclusively providing evidence to one side, have added to the present state of controversy where there is no general consensus on whether such family presence during this crucial life-supporting and invasive procedure is either beneficial or essential. In the August 22, 2000, issue of 'Circulation' the American Heart Association published its guidelines for family-witnessed resuscitation procedures (McClenathan et al, 2002). It is also noted that the 'Emergency Nurses Association' has since endorsed family-witnessed CPR and recommend that hospitals develop concomitant policies accordingly (Critchell and Marik, 2007). Other healthcare professional bodies similar to these have followed suit but, to date, there are very few hospitals that have actually and actively e xerted themselves in this direction and set

Government and politics Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Government and politics - Term Paper Example Firstly, in order to understand the way in which the executive branch has changed, it is necessary to begin the analysis by stating that the Constitution of the United States expressly prohibits the President from declaring war. As such, this particular process is one that is supposedly only allowed to be engaged by the Congress. However, ever since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the president has been able to allocate military resources and all but declare war. Though the Constitution has placed the executive branch in direct charge of the military and all actions related to them, the informal and circuitous manner by which the executive branch has engaged in war over the past 60+ years has meant that this particular dynamic of executive power has grown precipitously (Galbraith, 2013). Although this has been much discussed throughout society and opposing candidates of both parties have promised to close the loopholes by which such decisions are made, little actual traction has been made on this issue. Further, if any one of the three has most certainly lost power, it can be determined to be the Supreme Court. This supposedly supra-political entity has increasingly shown signs of operating at the behest of the executive branch and/or merely upholding policies or legislation of the Congress. Evidence of this can of course be seen with regards to the way in which the Supreme Court chosen to behave with relation to the Bush v. Gore crisis of 2000 and the decision to allow the continued suspension of habeas corpus with regards to the detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay (Alternman, 2000). Further, increased political pressures have kept the Supreme Court from ruling on warrantless wiretapping from the Patriot Act, clearly an unconstitutional practice, or the torture practices that certain branches of the military and intelligence community has been known to exercise over those whom it suspects of anti-American activities or sentiments. Whereas corporate interests nec essarily factor heavily into the decisions of governance, no more so can this be seen as with respect to the degree and extent to which the legislative branch has grown and evolved over time. Whereas several decades ago an individual of relatively meager means could run for Congress, the manner through which the system operates currently ensures that only those who are heavily funded, oftentimes by corporate or special interest groups, has any chance of actually attaining office (Bradley & Morrison, 2012). This has meant that the Congress does not serve as a primary mechanism for representing the will of the people; rather, it is oftentimes a mechanism through which back door deals, corporate cronyism, and other crooked practices are more and more likely to take place. Further, from pressure from the executive branch, the legislative has been seen time and time again to yield and favor a particular piece of legislation that has clearly not been in the best interests of the entire po pulation. Evidence of this can be seen with respect to the funding for the Iraq War, financial bailouts which were hastily agreed upon with little if any oversight or discussion, and a

Why Study the History of Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Why Study the History of Philosophy - Essay Example Philosophy is the art of rational thought that is unique from the other disciplines in that it relies on the application of logic and reason to generate knowledge. Most people’s failure to understand philosophy is related to their attitude of viewing it as a mere thought about knowledge or language. The intellectuals that discover philosophy develops the curiosity to dig deeper into the historical books to understand its beginnings. A philosopher must have the ability to reason and possess a rational faith. The knowledge of the historical perspective of philosophy proves that the modern philosophical circumstances have been crafted by changing times. It is only through understanding this interlink between the history of philosophy and the modern human life that learners can truly appreciate the discipline, otherwise, they would view the discipline as a mere art. This paper is seeks to explain the significance of the study of the history of philosophy. The discussion will be ba sed on the relation between the study of history of philosophy and modern philosophy, and the value of studying the history of philosophy. History of Philosophy Philosophy emanates from thoughts related to information gaps that do not satisfactorily explain situations. Philosophy contributes in filling these gaps through suggestion of theories meant to resolve these problems. The study of history of philosophy enables learners to understand the meaning associated with the philosophical concepts suggested by rationalists such as Spinoza, and empiricists such as Locke.1 For instance, Spinoza believed that existence is determined by a shared substance and that a free man is always honest in his deeds. Berkeley downplayed the possibility of the existence of an external world. Leibniz argued that an empty space is imaginary and all substances are mirrors of God. This helps the modern philosophers to combine the traditional concepts of philosophy with the scientific allusion of nature. Ph ilosophy is an art of expression of human faith. The discipline extends into every aspect of human life. Socrates asserts that life is not worth living without self reflection or personal examination. This implies that most people understand their life better if they know how to philosophize. However, according to John Stuart Mill, philosophy is not an ultimate path for contentment.2 Although philosophical studies have clarified problems such as the definition of truth, freedom of will and the nature of time, most of its concepts appear to ignore solutions to some problems. According to Tan, those who do not understand the historical concepts of philosophy postulates that the discipline is a mere opinion held by every individual in relation to past experiences.3 This notion makes these people assume that traditional perspective is not applicable in modern life. However, historical studies proves that historicism in philosophical studies is the benchmark for the validity of the moder n perspective. The knowledge of the historical perspective of philosophy proves that circumstances have been crafted by changing times. Just like in the modern times, various people applied different mechanisms in improving and advancing knowledge. The history of philosophy outlines these mechanisms and enable the modern people apply them in advancing their understanding of philosophy. Benefits Knowledge and Reality The study of the history of philosophy seems like an art in the early stages of learning but progresses into a discipline requiring the application of knowledge when grappling philosophical problems.4 The knowledge and reality associated with ancient philosophy encourages people to not only analyze the views of the philosophers, but also

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Small Scale Industries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Small Scale Industries - Essay Example As an example consider the case of Jordan. The strength of SSI in Jordan was 84% of the total established industries during the period of 1990-1998 which escalated to almost 90% of the total industries during the period of1999-2006 (Hachure cited in Lozi, 2008).Contrary to this , the Mexican experience shows that only 70.000 projects go to the second year from 200,000 started annually. (Bencivenga, V. Bruce, S. and Starr, R. 1995). Different countries have different ceiling of labor size for an industry to be labeled as small scale. For e. g. 15 workers in Iraq and Ghana, while Egypt, Belgium and Denmark have raised the ceiling for labor not exceeding 50 workers. In contrast , countries such as France and Italy adopted the criterion of 500 workers to distinguish between small-scale and other industries But in Japan and in the United States the total number of workers working in small scale industries was set at 300 in Japan and 1000 workers in the United States(Subramanian 1995). The globally important sector has not been free from dilemma and troubles in the post-reforms period; whether it is lack of infrastructure, technology or is of credit crunch. The present research is an attempt to analyze national policy decisions and industry initiatives affecting the sector, particularly in the developing nations where these industry have considerable economic importance.. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Pre-liberalization factors affecting SSI In the developing countries, Small scale Industries (SSI) have been pioneer in generating employment. These have greater advantage compared to the large enterprises in manufacturing especially in items that involve a larger share of value added from labor. The SSIs employ not only skilled but semiskilled and even unskilled labor. Manufacturing sector has better prospects in the trade particularly if the product is competitive, durable and upto the standards (Morris and Basant, 2006)). The SSIs were contributing to GDP considerably prior to liberalization also (Table -1) (World Bank, 1986). Morris and Basant (2006) have critically analyzed some of the areas that have affected growth of SSI in India. These are: The researchers have found policies based on reservations, duty concessions, directed credit, and government regulation, controls, and extension and such short sighted policies began initially for SSI; the macro- economy favoring policies such as monetary, fiscal, infrastructure and development oriented remained inadequately addressed. The non-affordability of infrastructure by SSIs is a deterrent to their expansion and survival in this liberalization period. SSIs have capacity to grow upward provided given impetus Table -1. The Japanese experiment has shown the way as to how the traditional industries, producing a wide variety of consumer products, could evolve into small and medium enterprises (SMEs) when these are able to renew technology and do not have financial crunch. India, of all the developing nations, was at greatest advantage to cash on falling tariffs under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in textile and many light engineering, handicraft and other manufacturing units.

Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Assessment - Essay Example The research teams have extensive experience in relevant fields hence they can conduct efficient studies and collect relevant disease data of all patients. They are conversant with patient recruitment and retention. The health personnel use both innovative and remote methods to recruit and retain patients to be enrolled for data collection. This body is very important since it has improved the living standards of patients through ethical and up to standard medical research due the professionalism practiced. It is also referred to as Shadow records. Physicians, pharmacists, psychologists and other health professionals maintained records of patients they attend. These records include copies of patient care information cards. The health record departments receive documents that carry information about a particular patient. Records received from Unit Medical Record (UMR) are forwarded to the health professionals to keep together with other patients’ records. All these comprise CMR and should not have any original document other than copies of the originals. CMR can also be Common Medical Record and this represents patient health history. It is mandatory that all health organizations in the Federal government synthesize health history of all patients. CMR is very valuable when health sector or organizations are tracing the root cause of diseases (Kominski, 2000). Health organizations process and reimburse claims. The organization billing departments are responsible for processing claims of third party payers, verification of insurance coverage and billing of Medicare. This process requires that health organizations maintain substantial information. The type of the service provided to the patient determines the type of billing forms that the third party payer will be issued with. The most common standard forms used by health organizations in United States of America are CMS-1450 and UB-92. These forms are submitted to third party

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Complete a literature review on an area of your choice Essay

Complete a literature review on an area of your choice - Essay Example The review includes three parts. There is the literature reviewed on the effects of education in eradicating poverty. The second part will review literature on improving the outcomes of adults and the outcome on the lives of children. The last part will review literature on the benefits and effects of education. It will investigate the impact of education on an individual’s work. The last part of the review will include the conclusions drawn from the review. In most countries, it is a fact that education will increase the chances of someone securing employment. The level of education largely determines the wages that one will be able to get. Government policies determine largely what the families will be able to attain. The government is allowed to intervene on the various measures that the income can have. For instance, the government can reduce the amount of taxes that families below a certain pay grade can attain. The cost of reducing poverty among children through education is very high. It is more sustainable to think of education as a long-term goal where people are educated from a young age so that it becomes part of the culture. There is a lot of evidence that more years of schooling results in higher wages. The most recent focus on this issue is that there is the same degree in the level of education and the returns. Academic qualifications enable an individual to earn much more than any type of vocational training (Dearden et al. 2002) and (Sianesi 2003). The main point is to differentiate between the causative influences of qualification from any other type of qualification that may not be considered. According to Blundell et al. (2005), it is important to distinguish individuals who earn a higher salary because of their academic qualifications and individuals who choose to continue their education because of their well-paying jobs. This will be dealt with by trying to

Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Assessment - Essay Example The research teams have extensive experience in relevant fields hence they can conduct efficient studies and collect relevant disease data of all patients. They are conversant with patient recruitment and retention. The health personnel use both innovative and remote methods to recruit and retain patients to be enrolled for data collection. This body is very important since it has improved the living standards of patients through ethical and up to standard medical research due the professionalism practiced. It is also referred to as Shadow records. Physicians, pharmacists, psychologists and other health professionals maintained records of patients they attend. These records include copies of patient care information cards. The health record departments receive documents that carry information about a particular patient. Records received from Unit Medical Record (UMR) are forwarded to the health professionals to keep together with other patients’ records. All these comprise CMR and should not have any original document other than copies of the originals. CMR can also be Common Medical Record and this represents patient health history. It is mandatory that all health organizations in the Federal government synthesize health history of all patients. CMR is very valuable when health sector or organizations are tracing the root cause of diseases (Kominski, 2000). Health organizations process and reimburse claims. The organization billing departments are responsible for processing claims of third party payers, verification of insurance coverage and billing of Medicare. This process requires that health organizations maintain substantial information. The type of the service provided to the patient determines the type of billing forms that the third party payer will be issued with. The most common standard forms used by health organizations in United States of America are CMS-1450 and UB-92. These forms are submitted to third party

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

View from a Bridge - Arthur Miller Essay Example for Free

View from a Bridge Arthur Miller Essay Choose a play in which there is a scene involving intense emotion. Show how the dramatist makes you aware of the intensity of the emotion in the scene and discuss the importance of the scene to the drama as a whole. In his play A View from the Bridge, Arthur Miller successfully conveys to the audience the tensions, jealousy, hostility and raw emotions between the characters in one particular scene at the end of Act 1 in his play. A View from the Bridge centres round the Carbone family who stay in Brooklyn New York, Eddie the head of the family is an ordinary man part of the local Italian community who is master in his own house. Eddie believes that it is a mans place to look after and protect his family and as head of the household he is used to laying down the rules. Eddie and his wife Beatrice take on the responsibility of looking after Eddies late sisters daughter Catherine who Eddie brings up as if she was his own but it soon becomes clear that Eddies feelings are deeper than those of a protective uncle, he is in love with his niece. The arrival of two of his wifes relatives from Italy, Marco and Rodolpho is at first welcomed by Eddie, he is happy to hide the illegal immigrants. However when Rodolpho starts to show an interest in Catherine, Eddie becomes increasingly jealous and hostile towards both men, in particular Rodolpho, but he bottles up his feelings. At the end of the first Act things come to a head and his jealousy, hostility and obsession with Catherine is made obvious when he finally realises that his efforts to stop Catherine and Rodolpho marrying are going nowhere. Eddie resorts to violence under the pretence of teaching Rodolpho to box merely as an excuse to hit him. Forced to watch Catherine and Rodolpho getting close as they dance together Eddies sarcastic comments about Rodolphos manliness clearly show his hostility to Rodolpho He sings, he cooks, he could make dresses I cant cook, I cant sing, I cant make dresses, so Im on the water front. But if I could cook, if I could sing, if I could make dresses, I wouldnt be on the water front. The stage direction tells us that Eddie has been unconsciously twisting the newspaper he is tense, like a spring waiting to uncoil and this finally happens and things are brought to a head when he offers to teach Rodolpho to box and what starts out as a seemingly harmless sparring session leads to Eddie hitting his opponent with needless force a fact which is noticed by everybody in the room. Marco rises from his seat and Catherine quickly rushes to Rodolphos side Eddie aware that he has taken things a step to far and tries to cover his tracks by saying that he punched too hard by accident I didnt hurt him. Did I hurt you, kid? However Eddie has overstepped the mark and in an attempt to humiliate Rodolpho he angers Marco who is careful not to verbally threaten his host, actions speak louder than words. Marco challenges Eddie to lift a chair when it is in a certain position but Eddie fails the challenge. Marco then successfully lifts the chair above his head powering over a frightened Eddie. The stage directions describe Marco as He kneels, grasps and with strain slowly raises the chair higher and higher, getting to his feet they go on to describe how Marco is face to face with Eddie, a strained tension gripping his eyes and jaw, his neck stiff, the chair raised like a weapon over Eddies head-and he transforms what might appear to be a glare of warning into a smile of triumph Marco is obviously giving a warning to Eddie to not continue to mess around, and make fun of his brother by showing him the danger he invites. The audience can tell at once that this is a very dramatic point in the play; Catherine and Rodolpho who have resumed dancing immediately stop. The stage direction Rodolpho and Catherine have stopped dancing in the middle of this hostile situation shows that they are aware that Marco has also taken things a little too far. Miller also describes Eddie when Marco is glaring at him His grin vanishes as he absorbs his look this action by Eddie clearly shown both Marco and the audience that Marco has achieved what he set out to do, give Eddie a warning and this is highlighted by the fact that as soon as Eddies expression turns to one of fear Marco looks at him and his own expression changes into a victorious smile. The feelings revealed in this act of the play an important part in the relationships between the characters in the remainder of the play. The hostility and anger felt by Eddie magnifies. Eddies obsession with his niece finally leads him to hit Rodolpho when he becomes aware that the two have slept together. In the end Catherine finally decides to marry Rodolpho and Eddie decides that he has no choice but to inform the Immigration Bureau that he has been hiding two illegal immigrants. Eddie takes this action despite earlier comments that Its an honour to give the men refuge. In breaking his code of honour Eddie loses everything the respect of his neighbours, his friends and his family and in the final scenes of the play he comes head to head with and angry and betrayed Marco, cowardly brandishing a knife Eddie attacks Marco but in self defence Marco turns the knife on Eddie fatally stabbing him. Arthur Miller cleverly sets the tone of the play during the hostile scene in Act 1. The domestic harmony that exists at the start disappears and the audience learns quickly about Eddies obsession and his obvious frustration and anger towards his nieces admirer. Miller uses stage direction to show the audience the true extent of the raw emotions felt by the characters and to show the drama and crisis which finally climaxes in the death of the main character. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Arthur Miller section.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Carbon Nanotubes Uses and Properties

Carbon Nanotubes Uses and Properties ABSTRACT: For the first time in the human history, we are close to being able to manipulate the basic forms of all the things, living and inanimate, take them apart and put them together in almost anyway the mind can imagine. The sophistication with which scientists are learning to engineer matter at the nanometer scale is giving us unprecedented mastery of a large part of our environment. The world of the future will be defined by how we use this mastery. Nanotechnology is engineering at the molecular (groups of atoms) level. It is the collective term for a range of technologies, techniques and processes that involve the manipulation of matter at the smallest scale(from 1 to 100 nm2). Carbon nanotubes have been under scientific investigation for more than fifteen years because of their unique properties that predestine them for many potential applications. The field of nanotechnology and nanoscience push their investigation forward to produce carbon nanotubes with suitable parameters for future applications. Carbon nanotubes are one of the most commonly mentioned building blocks of nanotechnology. With one hundred times the tensile strength of steel, thermal conductivity better than all but the purest diamond and electrical conductivity similar to copper, but with the ability to carry much higher currents, they seem to be a wonder material. Field effect transistors using carbon nanotubes came into existence, these have a extremely good properties. CARBON NANOTUBES: Evolution of Nano Importance of Nano in present day scenario Moores Law Greatness of Carbon Graphene Carbon nanotube Synthesis of CNT Properties of CNT Purification methods Real time applications GREATNESS OF CARBON: Carbon is the 4th most abundant element in the Universe by mass after( Hydrogen, Helium and Oxygen). Forms more compounds that any other element, with almost 10 million pure organic compounds. Abundance, unique diversity and unusual polymer forming ability at the temperatures makes the element the chemical basis of life. CARBON NANOTUBES: Carbon nanotubes are long, thin cylinders of carbon which were discovered in 1991 by Sumio Iijima. A sheet of graphene rolled in cylindrical structure results in Carbon nanotube of 1 atom thickness and diameter in nano scale. Nanotubes have a very broad range of electronic, thermal, and structural properties that changes due to change in length, diameter and chirality or twist. Types of Carbon Nano Tubes: Single walled: In these single walled nano tubes are narrower than the multi walled nano tubes ,the diameters typically in the range of 1-2nm ,and tend to be curved rather than straight. In these SWNT only single layer of grephene .Catalyst is required for synthesis .Bulk synthesis is difficult as it requires proper control over growth and atmospheric condition .In these SWNT Purity is poor and less accumulation in body .Characterization and evaluation is easy .It can be easily twisted and are more pliable. These tubes are used to make super strong amour bodies .These single walled nano tubes are used as elastic property and used to make bullet proof vests. Multi walled: Multi walled nano tubes consists of multiple layers of graphite rolled in on themselves to for a tube shape .There are two models which can be used to describe the structures of multi walled nano tubes .In these MWNT multiple layer of grephene and can be produced without catalyst Bulk synthesis is easy .Purity is high ,more accumulation in body .It has very complex structure .It can not be easily twisted. Synthesis: Laser ablation: A pulsed or continuous laser is used which will vaporize a graphite target in an oven at 1200c . Oven is filled with helium argon gas .In order to keep the pressure at 500 torr ,Since the optimum background gas as catalyst mixture is the same as in the arc discharge process Laser ablation method is similar to arc discharge method .This method is vey expensive so it is mainly used for SWNT’s laser vapourization results in higher yield of SWNT’s with narrow size distribution than those produced in arc discharge process .Catalyst used for SWNT is NI:Y (4.2:1 At%). Arc Discharge Method: Arc Discharge method has been reported for producing carbon nano tubes .In these method nano tubes are produced through arc vapourization of two carbon rods placed end to end with a distance of 1mm in an environment of inert gases such as helium argon at pressure b/w 50 to 100 amps driven by 20v which will create high temperature discharge b/w two electrodes ,due to this anode wil get evaporated and rod shaped tubes will be deposited on cathode.Bulk production of CNT’s depends on uniformity of plasma arc and temperature of depositon The Main principle is carbon nano fibres are good at absorbing energy so they can absorb the energy coming from the bullet .The inherent property of elasticity makes the bullet to rebound .Its is 100% stronger thean steel.Lighter than aluminium.Conduct electricity as copper .These fibres can be used as space elevators . Purification Of CNT’s: Nanotubes usually contain a large amount of impurities such as metal particles ,amorphous carbon ,and multishell .These are different steps in purification of nano tubes . Air Oxidation: The Carbon nano tubes are having less purity ,the average purity is about 5-10%.So,Purification is needed before attachment of drugs onto CNT’s .Air oxidation is useful in Reducing the amount of amorphous carbon and metal catalyst particles (Ni,Y). Acid Reflexing: Refluxing the sample in strong acid is effective in reducing the amount of metal particles and amorphous carbon ,different acids used were hydrochloric acid (HCL),nitric acid(HNO3)and sulphuric acid (H2so4)bt HCL is identified to e ideal reflexing acid . Surfactant aided sonication, filtration and annealing: After the acid reflexing ,the CNT’s were purer but ,tubes were entagled together ,trapping most of the impurities,such as carbon particles and catalyst particles ,which were difficult to remove with flitration .so,surfactant –aided sonication was carried out .sodium dodecyl benezene sulphonate (SDBS) aided sonication with ethanol or methanol ,as organic solvent were preferred cz it took the longest ime time fr CNTS to settle down ,indicating an even suspension state was achieved .The sample was then filtered with un ultra filtration unit and annealed at 1273k in N2 for 4H .Annealing is effective in optimizing the CNT structures .It was provided the surfactant –aided sonication is effective to untangle CNT’s thus to free the particulate impurities embedded in the entanglement .Nano tube can also be purified by multistep purification method . Real time applications: Carrier for drug delivery: Carbon Horns (CNHs) are the speherical aggregates of CNT’s with irregular Horn like shape .Research studies have proved CNT’s CNH’s as a potential carrier for drug delivery system . Genetic Engineering: In Genetic engineering ,CNT’s and CNH’s are used to manipulate genes and atoms in the development of bio imaging geneomas protemics and tissue engineering .The unwound DNA (single stranded )winds around SWNT by connecting its specific neucletoids and causes change in its electrostatic property .this creates its potential application diagnostics and in therapeutics Nano tubes and nanohorn’s can adehere various antigens on their surface ,hence act as source of antigen in vaccines .Hence by use of nanotubes ,use of dead bacteria as source for antigen which is sometimes dangerous can be avoided . Pseudo spark switches: These are switches which work upon principle of field emission, this emission is achieved by triggering. Generally the triggering methods are Surface discharge triggering Optical triggering Pulsed low-current glow discharge triggering But cnt’s have a good emitting properties when compared from above methods. For field emission cnt’s are used as cold cathode emitters. The field emission characteristics of cnt’s are mostly reported at high vacuum pressures of 10^-6 and 10^-7 torr. Usage of cnt’s for field emission resulted in good properties and working of pseudo spark switches in both high pressure and low pressure vacuum..