Economics Project

Economists have established an informal method for gauging the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two foreign currencies termed as the Big Mac Index. The name taken by the index, Big Mac, was derived from the hamburger sold at the McDonald’s restaurants that are almost in over 120 countries. Pan Woodall an economist is the one who introduced the Big Mac Index in September 1986. Economists have argued that the Big Mac index has proved to be a more accurate financial earmark to have ever been based on food items.A fair bench mark value is the exchange rate that ensures burgers in other parts of the world cost the same as those in the US (Wankel, 2009). A recent research showed Asia to be the cheapest place for one to enjoy a burger. How to arbitrage among burgers in the USA and Britain To arbitrage among burgers in the US and Britain the sellers should consider some of the following factors; Transport costs, costs in transport are very important as far as the transportation o f inputs and outputs is concerned. The costs of access of the premises by customers are also a must consideration in setting up a business.The location that seems to be cheaper and brings high returns to the investor should then have the upper hand. The other factor to consider is trade restrictions put in place by different governments. While differences in transport costs can leave room for arbitrageurs to make good profits, trade restrictions completely wipes off such opportunities. In relation to tariffs, taxes in countries hinder business opportunities in different governments. To arbitrage one should consider a country that does not have high tax rates. Effects of many people arbitragingThe issue of arbitrage serves a very important function in listed option markets. Arbitrage provides an option in secondary markets where he can not be able to exit if need does not occur. Most markets are dictated by the transportation costs, their physical sizes, and physical features that ac t as barriers. Yet with all these barriers, people are still willing to arbitrage. When many people are arbitraging, the market created leads to the attraction of demand (Wankel, 2009). Without them, the net buyers attracted will reduce and be short-lived.With the presence of heavy arbitrageurs in a place, price is affected. This is due to the essence of high supply that results to a negative effect on the prices. This results to an inordinate in stock selling. Reasons for price differentials in Big Macs The differences in prices in Big Macs may be due to various reasons. Some of them include; culture of the people where the restaurants are located, tastes and preferences, price of other related products and . the culture dictates what people should and should not consume.If prices of other products are lower then the demand of Big Mac will be affected negatively. This greatly dictates the price of Big Mac. The cost of producing Big Mac in different place also dictates the price. Ta xes charged in countries of operations also have impacts on price. If taxes charged are high in one region, the prices shoot up as investors try to compensate for these high taxes by charging high taxes. The argument in paragraph two is valid as an increase in imports often affects prices in the importing country negatively.The country spends a lot in terms of importing than it receives from exports. In the third paragraph, it is true that trade in third world countries is poorly organized due to this the economy is so poor. The countries often spend a lot in importing finished goods than it exports. Though the countries are rich in resources both raw and minerals, the countries can not manage them effectively. Instead foreign states manage them and most returns end up benefiting foreign countries than the mother countries. Reference: Wankel, C. (2009). Encyclopedia of Business in Today's World, Volume 1. New York: Sage.

Bill Miller and Value Trust

? Bill Miller and Value Trust Background Information Bill Miller is one of the most renowned professional fund managers. This can be proven by the outperformance of the Value Trust, which is managed by him, compared to its benchmark index, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500), for an astonishing 14 years in a row; and this marked the longest streak of success for any manager in the mutual-fund industry. By the middle of 2005, Value Trust is worth $11. 2-billion. Bill Miller’s approach to investment management was research-intensive and highly concentrated. For instance, nearly 50 percent of Value Trust’s assets were invested in just 10 large-capitalization companies. While most of Bill Miller’s investments were value stocks, he was not averse to taking large positions in the stocks of growth companies. In other words, Bill Miller’s investing style is iconoclastic: â€Å"You simply can’t do what he’s done in the supremely competitive, ultra-efficient world of stock picking by following the pack†¦The fact is that Miller has spent decades studying freethinking overachievers, and along the way he’s become one himself. † Mutual Funds Definition A mutual fund is an investment vehicle that pooled the funds of individual investors to buy a portfolio of securities, stocks, bonds, and money-market instruments to meet specific investment objectives; investors owned a pro rata share of the overall investment portfolio (Bruner, 2007). The various investments included in a fund’s portfolio are handled by professional money managers in line with the stated investment policy of the fund. All mutual funds have a portfolio manager, or investment advisor, who directs the fund’s investments according to explicit investment objectives. Mutual Fund Types Investors have different objectives, so various types of mutual funds are needed to help them achieve their goals. Most mutual funds fit into one of three basic categories: money market mutual funds, bond funds, and stock funds. Money market mutual funds hold cash reserves, or short-term debt investments issued by the government, corporations, or financial institutions (i. e. , U. S. Treasury bills and bank certificates of deposit). Bond funds invest in debt instruments issued by corporations or government agencies. Stock funds are one of the most popular types of mutual funds, ranging from relatively conservative equity income funds to value funds, growth funds, aggressive growth funds, small-company funds, and international funds (Hirschey and Nofsinger, 2008). Advantages of Mutual Funds Diversification Using mutual funds can help an investor diversify their portfolio with a minimum investment. When investing in a single mutual fund, an investor is actually investing in numerous securities and spreading investment across a range of securities can help to reduce risk but will never completely eliminate it. If a few securities in the mutual fund lose value or become worthless, the loss maybe offset by other securities that appreciate in value. Professional Management Mutual funds are managed and supervised by investment professionals. As per the stated objectives set forth in the prospectus, along with prevailing market conditions and other factors, the mutual fund manager will decide when to buy or sell securities. This eliminates the investor of the difficult task of trying to time the market. Furthermore, mutual funds can eliminate the cost an investor would incur when proper due diligence is given to researching securities. Convenience With most mutual funds, buying and selling shares, changing distribution options, and obtaining information can be accomplished conveniently by telephone, by mail, or online. Minimum Initial Investment Most mutual funds have a minimum initial purchase of $2,500 but some are as low as $1,000. Disadvantages of Mutual Funds Risks and Costs Changing market conditions can create fluctuations in the value of a mutual fund investment. There are fees and expenses associated with investing in mutual funds that do not usually occur when purchasing individual securities directly. There are drawbacks associated with mutual funds: No Guarantees. The value of mutual fund investment could fall and be worth less than the principle initially invested. The Diversification â€Å"Penalty†. Diversification can help to reduce your risk of loss from holding a single security, but it limits your potential for a â€Å"home run† if a single security increases dramatically in value. Costs. In some cases, the efficiencies of fund ownership are offset by a combination of sales commissions, redemption fees, and operating expenses. If the fund is purchased in a taxable account, taxes may have to be paid on capital gains. Expenses Because mutual funds are professionally managed investments, there are management fees and operating expenses associated with investing in a fund, which is called expense ratios ranging from 0. 2% to 2. 0%. These fees and expenses charged by the fund are passed onto shareholders and deducted from the fund’s return. Taxes As a fund shareholder, you can be taxed on distributions of dividends and/or capital gains made by the fund and profits you make when you sell the fund shares. Research Hypothesis 1. There is a possibility that his overall performance may be affected because of Bill Miller’s choice of concentrating heavily in certain sectors such as financials, health, consumer goods, and telecommunications. 2. By examining and analyzing various theoretical explanations, we will be able to determine whether Bill Miller’s success is dependent on luck and/or skill and whether it is sustainable or not. Evaluation of Bill Miller’s Performance Bill Miller’s results seemed to contradict conventional theories, which suggested that, in markets characterized by high competition, easy entry, and information efficiency, it would be extremely difficult to beat the market on sustained basis. Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) There are three levels of market efficiency which were distinguished by the degree of information believed to be reflected in current securities’ prices. The weak form of efficiency maintained that all past prices for a tock were impounded into today’s price. The semistrong form of efficiency held that today’s prices reflected not only all past prices, but also all publicly available information. The strong form of efficiency held that today’s stock price reflected all the information that could be acquired through a close analysis of the company and the economy. Many scholars argued that the sock market followed a â€Å"random walk†, where the price movements of tomorrow were essentially uncorrelated with the price movements of today. They argued that capital markets’ information was efficient, and that the insights available to any one fundamental analyst were bound to be impounded quickly into share prices. If EMH were correct and all current prices reflected the true value of the underlying securities, then arguably it would be impossible to beat the market with superior skill or intellect. â€Å"In such a market,† as one economist said, â€Å"We would observe lucky and unlucky investors, but we wouldn’t find any superior investment managers who can consistently beat the market. Yet, Bill Miller, who over long periods, greatly outperformed the market. In reply, Malkiel suggested that beating the market was much like participating in a coin-tossing contest where those who consistently flip heads are the winners. Malkiel suggested that the success of a few superstar portfolio managers could be explained as luck. Similarly, the stock-market crash on October 1987 had also seemed to undermine t he strength of the EMH. Academic research exposed other inconsistencies with the EMH, for example, January effect, blue Monday effect, etc. Those results were inconsistent with a random walk of prices and returns. Bill Miller was an adherent of fundamental analysis; his approach was research-intensive and highly concentrated. Nearly 50% of Value Trust’s asserts were invested in just 10 large-capitalization companies. Analysis of Bill Miller’s Key Strategies Bill Miller, portfolio manager for Legg Mason Value Trust, had a great track record for an astonishing fourteen years in a row. He was the only active mutual fund manager to have consistently beaten the S&P 500 over the last fourteen years. Bill Miller pointed out that his streak was due to luck; 95 percent luck. This section will evaluate Bill Miller’s investment philosophies and whether he is just plain lucky or it is based on luck and sustainability. The figure below lists the categories in which Bill Miller has invested in and the annual returns each category receives: As can be seen in the figure above, Value Trust has a portfolio that is highly volatile. Although highly volatile, the concentrated portfolio still showed outperformance when judged by calendar years, thus giving an ominous sign that the outperformance is not the result of good stock picking, but merely the result of taking on greater risk than the market as a whole. Bill Miller’s investment philosophy to build up Value Trust is to consistently buy cheap stocks, and focused on established companies suffering through periods of poor performance. These judgments resulted in Value Trust’s outperformance for fourteen years. However, taking risks (i. . having a highly concentrated volatile portfolio) and underperforming the value style (i. e. buying cheap stocks from companies suffering through periods of poor performance) is not a good combination and could hurt him later on. One might think that Bill Miller’s investment philosophy could be a â€Å"value trap†, mistaking a more or less permanent change in value or industry conditions for a tempora ry one. The bulk of Bill Miller’s portfolio is from consumer (i. e. homebuilding) and financial categories. These stocks tend to trade at cheap prices. Furthermore, the housing bubble began inflating in mid 1990’s, thus making it an easy way for investors like Bill Miller to make money. This event led to further success of Value Trust despite the high level of volatility. Investment Philosophies Buy low-price, high intrinsic-value stocks Bill Miller tends to invest in stocks that are undervalued by the market. People believe that a business is broken, scandal, but the company is still able to generate positive future cash flows. He buys low and sell high. The market price in long run still imitates the value of the firm. Take heart in pessimistic markets Bill Miller tends to invest in stocks that have the least promising outlook and sell those stocks that have the greatest opportunity for near-term gain. In other words, Bill Miller is investing in stocks that have the greatest opportunity for long-term gain instead of near-term gain. Remember that the lowest average cost wins The lower the shares go, the higher the future rate of return and the more money you should invest in them. When a stock drops and he believes in the fundamentals, the case for future retunes goes up. Again, market price in long run still imitates the value of the firm. Buy low-expectation stocks When the market’s been down for a while, and it looks bad, then you should be more aggressive, and when it’s been up for a while, then you should be less aggressive. Bill Miller thinks buying low-expectation stocks, buying higher dividend-yielding stocks, staying away from things with high expense ratios. Take the long view Bill Miller tends to hold onto stocks he invested in for a long period of time which results in a low portfolio turnover. According to him, the biggest opportunity for investors is really thinking out longer term. Look for cyclical and secular underpricing Bill Miller tends to invest in stocks that are undervalued or mispriced. He believes that most growth people own stocks that are secularly underpriced; things that can grow for long periods of time. Behavioural Finance Bill Miller’s educational background in Philosophy and Economics and his active involvement in the study of Behavioural Finance reflect his investment strategy. During Bill Miller’s Investment Conference in 2004, he remarked that â€Å"I believe that every exploitable anomaly in the market is behaviourally based. This is the only way that sustainable anomalies can be created. These are the anomalies that are not easily arbitraged away. One of the most remarkable behavioural anomalies that we see is that people take today’s data (e. g. , the GDP report, the unemployment report) and concludes that the market is getting ahead of itself. The market does not look at today’s data. It is looking at the data down the road. † This statement demonstrates that his belief that the market reflects the available information fairly accurately in the short term. In addition, he remarked that â€Å"Because the market looks forward, because the market discounts, and because the market prices reflect, in essence, the data refracted through the decision procedures and emotions of investors, then the market will change as the world changes because it is incorporating new information. † With this statement, it appears that Bill Miller expresses a partial belief in the EMH, unlike Warren Buffet. Value Investing As what was stated in the case, Bill Miller has been following an approach to equity investing and followed a number of strategies, specifically Ben Graham’s. Bill Miller analyzes and evaluates the stocks performance in the long run which explains his strategy of buying low, with high intrinsic value. In addition, he has been holding onto stocks for a longer period than an average fund manager, hence a low turn-over rate which explains his strategy of taking the long view. Conclusion By comparing Miller’s investment philosophy with Warren Buffett’s, there is one thing that makes Buffett’s investment philosophy more applicable and Miller’s philosophy a â€Å"swing-for-the-fences† approach. Miller should look at a company’s financials before making an investment. His view of welcoming negative sentiment about companies and buying stocks as their prices fall failed to look at the company’s liquidity. The company could have issues with high levels of debt and poor financials. Even though if for instance, some of his stocks (due to volatility) have failed to meet his expectations (a â€Å"stinker†), the inflated housing bubble that grew during the 1990s caused high levels of annual return could still make the overall performance of Value Trust successful compared to the others. Thus, given the nature of his concentrated portfolio, his long outperformance can be seen as a random variable, or â€Å"luck†. There are approximately 8,044 mutual funds out there; and 4,600 of these were U. S. equity mutual funds. Thus, there is a 50 percent chance of beating the market. Since Bill Miller has outperformed its competitors over fourteen consecutive years, how come no one has followed in his footsteps?

Exam questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Exam questions - Essay Example In addition, exchange rates can make it quite difficult or easier for foreign competition to penetrate the local markets. Exchange rates can also have a direct impact on the losses and profits in a business. Fluctuations in exchange rates can negatively or positively affect both exports and imports. Thus the cost of raw materials that are imported could be more or less on the basis of the exchange rate between two trading nations which may lead to either hard or easy export. When more money is used in producing goods which are exported to a different nation with a less currency rate, it leads to those goods being less priced leading to the business having losses. Because of these changes in exchange rates when importing or exporting, the government gets interested in the exchange rates between currencies of other countries. Thus whenever goods are produced in a different nation, the government concentrates on selling of those goods so as to get more money from other nations from its exports. Production of such goods is usually done at low prices making use of the currency with the country having low currency rate and then profits are gotten by selling the produce in a country having a high currency rate. Such conversion of currencies in the production as well as selling of a similar product is aimed at earning profit. In addition, the government is dependent on some controls that control the exchange rate and these controls are long-term, medium-term and short-term. For instance, in short-term, the major banks like Central Bank operate with foreign markets by either beginning to buy or sell its currency. The interest rate on currency on the medium term can be regulated to make profit only. On the other hand, on the long-term, management of the economy is in such a manner that it results in a direct increase in the demand and value of the products manufactured in the nation (imports) with the demand for foreign currency also increasing. For a country

Introduction Development Economies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Introduction Development Economies - Essay Example Inequality in Human Development Index (HDI) is masked in the human development distribution across the population at the country level. The HDI value of Senegal is 0.470. However, when discounted for inequality, the value reduces to 0.315. This equals a loss of 33% as a result of inequality in distribution of indices of dimension. Uganda and Senegal indicate loses as a result of inequality of 34.2% and 33.9% respectively. The average loss resulting from inequality for Sub-Sahara Africa is 35% and 35% for low HDI countries. ii) Over the last two decades, the GII of Senegal has resulted to a loss in human development following the inequality between achievements made by males and females in the three dimensions of GII. Question 2 i) Poverty level in Senegal is high. Over the past 25 years, the GDP per capita has been declining. Citizens of Senegal spent lots of their money on necessities of life, such as food. The UNDP, an organization which classifies countries according to their scor e in the HDI, estimated that 52% of Senegalese household consumption is food unlike in the U.S, where food averages to 8% of household consumption. ... Due to poor land management, Senegal has experienced and degradation, which has been worsening in the recent years. This has, in turn, increased poverty levels in the country. Education, drinking water, medicine, transport and energy are also major problems in some parts of Senegal. Diseases like malaria, AIDS and cholera are widespread in Senegal thus increasing the cost used on medicine. This raises poverty levels of the country. With regard to human resources, Senegal has a high rate of unemployment and under-employment. The ratio of the employed and the unemployed people is one to five. This suggests that there is high dependency rate, which is one of the issues that impact pressure on working individuals whose chances of falling into monetary poverty becomes high. Highest percentage of unemployment is experienced in rural areas which make the youths and active women to migrate to towns. Since illiteracy levels are high in rural areas, people largely rely on Agriculture as their main economic activity which is, unfortunately, prone to natural hazards like drought. Highest rates of unemployment are found among young graduates. Compared to Senegal, poverty levels in Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda are higher. ii) In the recent 20 years, there has been poverty evolution in Senegal whereby the country has been involved in war against poverty. Over the years, the social and economic policies were prepared to put lots of strain in the labor market, education and health structures, urbanization and low and erratic economic growth. The state has been ensuring that the microeconomic framework is stable by reducing external imbalance and containing public deficit with the aim of raising the living standards of the citizens. There has been trade

STRUCTURAL DESIGN Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

STRUCTURAL DESIGN - Essay Example Proper engineering design is required for all structural work as inferior designs have resulted to many catastrophic accidents such as the collapse of buildings, bridges underground tunnels, roofs and other structures. These collapse lead to heavy loses in terms of materials, finances and loss of lives. It is therefore important to consider all aspects of a building especially in terms of applied loads so as to design a sufficient structure to resist these forces. There are many design consideration that must be taken into account when designing the structural details of any building. After the structural design, the buildings are then constructed. There are many types of materials that are used in the building construction industry. Some of the most common construction material includes wood, steel/iron, masonry and concrete. Plastics are now gaining importance in building and construction especially for interiors design or supporting at points where minimum load resistance is required. The foundation: this structural element supports the whole building. It carries the whole load of the building and distributes the stress to soil or rock layer beneath it. The foundation must be well constructed in order to aid in support of whole structure. Most of the foundation elements are made using reinforced concrete, metal or Masonry. Concrete is highly preferred due to it durability and ability to withstand heavy compressive forces. The type of foundation is greatly determined by type of soil, the size of the building, ground water present and other special design considerations. Some of the common types of foundations include; Different foundations have got different footings. The type, size and materials used for construction of the footing depend upon the type of soil and the load bearing capacity of that soil. The main types of footing commonly used include; The main structural elements used for most of the floors are

Management research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Management research - Essay Example I found this dissertation talked a lot about concepts similar to the business practices of the institution that I own. After reading it I deducted some information I can apply in my trading. In fact Im planning to borrow or photograph the dissertation later to use it in the development of my organization. I am working on how to use the internet in an easy and simple matter within a limited area. In addition to that I read a lot of easy things that will help me greatly in developing my business in a short period time. In fact I cannot evaluate myself currently as either deductive or inductive, but as I said at the outset that I based my reasoning on the deductive dissertation I read. They talk about things that interest me and that had very relevant content. If the dissertation talked about other subjects that do not interest me then my mentality would be inductive. I always find myself interested more in deductive topics than inductive topics. That means my reasoning is deductive in the subjects that interest me and inductive in the subjects which I have no interest in. The second dissertation I read discussed retail trade in India. As I read this dissertation I also found myself applying more deductive than inductive reasoning as I tried hard to understand the subject where the retail trade increased highly in my home country of Saudi Arabia. I liked the conclusions of the main points on the topics and the knowledge of the differences in the retail trade between India and Saudi Arabia. I plan on reading these dissertations again to I can understand them more in order to apply its concepts in my business as well as to continue my deductive reasoning about

Global Automobile Indusry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Global Automobile Indusry - Essay Example There are several automobile companies spread all over the world, in different continents and in distinct countries. Some of them are; Japan, Germany, Italy, France and the United States. These are the heavyweights who work in conjunction with other firms and certified dealers in the developed and still developing countries. Their job hence entails the assembling of parts to come up with a finished product. Some known names include, Toyota, Isuzu, Mercedes, Chevrolet, Citroen, Chrysler, Hummer and many more. The firms involved have put extremely large amounts of capital into the business. This is because, it takes serious investment and taking risks in order to realize good and stable profit margins. Too much work is done to maintain brilliance in this very competitive industry. Good arguments have been tabulated concerning the industrial and market aspects of globalization. Any given manufacturer tries to triumph his competitor using any means possible. Tactics which are applied tend to directly be against the opponent. (Lynch, 2008). The policies formulated have the primary aim of attracting customers, depending on demand, taste, economical growth and preferences. Taking the likelihood of activist groups taking to the streets, it then becomes important for the personnel involved to take into account environmental changes that are might take shape following introduction of their vehicles. In this case analysis, I find it rather important to at look Toyota Company Limited and Volkswagen. Toyota is fast growing and spreading, in fact it's to find their car models in almost the whole world and Volkswagen for being an ancient company that is still taking new shapes in relation to current and latest automobile model. Toyota is always trying to cater for those requirements that suit people of all walks of life. Citing example on the ever unstable crude oil and the resultant product's prices, they create less fuel consuming engines to cater for that economical allowance. Another more evident strategy used to fit in to the system is the variety in strength and capacity that their model can comfortably cope and manage in due time or over range of a given period. Networking with other industries is also an important aspect in order to win that continuity and confidence in customers and clients. It is then definitely a task earn to publicity and goodwill depending on the prevailing market-competitor state. Certain factors have to be considered in order to realize the goals the automakers have in relation to the industry, not forgetting competitors are many. They involve advertisement, marketing, research, public relations, community relations, employee relations, budgeting, evaluations and monitoring of their projects (Corcoran, 2008). It goes to further digging to know who amongst their competitors has connections in the agencies or Companies and their interests. This multinational vehicle company has all this data at its fingertips just incase they need to shift gears which will facilitate their smartness.

In what ways must leaders and leadership, including how they are Essay

In what ways must leaders and leadership, including how they are developed, still adapt to the demands of today - Essay Example Authority and position based leadership can be perceived to be a rather inadequate tool for aiding modern day leadership in effectively tackling the challenges that leaders face today. According to Heifetz (251), this form of leadership is now largely perceived to be the myth of the lone warrior: the rather solitary individual whose individual brilliance and heroism serve to enable him to effectively lead the way, in a flawed notion that reinforces the leader’s isolation. This form of leadership was most often seen to be a characteristic of the autocratic leadership style that saw the leader try to exert individual control over all individual decisions with minimal input from the various group members. This leadership style is also seen to typically requires that the autocratic leaders make choices that are seen to be primarily based on their own individual judgments and ideals while rarely accepting any advice from the followers as the leadership style basically involves auth oritarian, absolute control over a group of individuals (Gitman and McDaniel 162). While the leadership style can at times be beneficial in the case where decisions quickly need to be made without having to consult a large group of people, it is important for authoritative leaders to avoid being excessively dictatorial, bossy or controlling as this can result in various problems resulting in an impediment in their ability to efficiently adapt to the demands of today. Modern leadership is required to have the capacity of helping individuals learn a variety of new ways of solving, understanding and defining the often complex modern day problems and challenges that Heifetz (254) refers to as adaptive challenges. Heifetz, points out that the strategic challenge of modern leadership is seen to entail the giving back of work to people without being perceived to be abandoning them. If people are inadvertently overloaded, they will be seen to avoid learning while under-loading people will c ause them to grow complacent or too dependent. Our world is currently faced with a series of various adoptive challenges that are found to be fundamental issues that communities must learn how to effectively cope with regardless of the actual nature that leadership might happen to take in the next century. Leaders and leadership must adapt and effectively handle these challenges as these challenges are largely not static and new ones always appear. It is thus seen that modern leadership is required to bear the actual weight of problems for considerable time durations. The shouldering of the various uncertainties and pains of an institution or organization, and particularly so, in times of distress is seen to part of the modern approach to leadership and can only be avoided at the institution’s peril (251). While the planned change theory with its premises of a deliberate decision being made to change, might have been appropriate and served to greatly aid leaders and leadershi p during the previous century, future leaders and leadership must essentially adopt the principles laid out in the unplanned change theory that will allow them to quickly react to their current environment and thus be able to adapt in an effective manner to the demands of

NWICO An International Debate on Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

NWICO An International Debate on Culture - Essay Example (Kirkpatrick, 2004. p 235 - 240) In this context, it has been held by people from various quarters that the Third World has been widely ignored on many counts that will be discussed through this essay. The West has been criticised for cultural domination in the operating values of the NWICO. This is a fact that comes across in role played by the U.S. when it comes to the creation and reproduction of this worldwide consumer society. This role might have reduced in significance, but there is still a strong American upper hand in the complementary institutions and the content that is transmitted. In terms of assessing the NWICO's stand regarding the third world criticisms of the cultural domination of the west, this essay tries to look at the justifications for such claims. Through a study of various examples from different areas, I will seek to discuss the options available to study and combat the disbursement of unequal information flow in terms of the results it reaps and the events it triggers. This paper will thus aim at an analysis of the conception of the Western strategy that is targeting the third world nations by giving them "false consolation". ... Origin of the Debate The debate revolving around unequal information flow in different corners of the globe first began in the 1970s. This was an overthrow of the demands by the Third World leaders for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). At that time, these people tried to argue their case by stating that the control of major international information channels and sources is held tightly by the West and its media owing to which the rest of the world ends up being showcased along a disadvantageous line. (Reeves, 1993. p 25 to 44) With the concept of "de facto hegemony", the Tunisian Information Minister Mustapha Masmoudi based demands on the claims that West was ignorant of the aspirations and sentiments that shaped the events and trends in the developing world which led to transmission of information regarding any and every events in a way where emphasis was on the West. This resulted in the McBride Commission which laid down that each nation must have a platform to express itself in terms of relevant transmission of its interests, values and events, so as to command equal respect from all quarters. Therefore, it acknowledged the fact that the West and its monopoly over communication, paid attention only to the political instability and economic backwardness of the Third World. (Reeves, 1993. p 56 to 70) In response, Margaret Thatcher and Ronal Reagan led an attack on the possible reforms for international information flow models with the claim that the third world was simply a throw back on the Soviet syndrome. The fall of the Soviet Union led to a death of the debate. Finally in 1996, information ministers of several non-aligned nations were seen

Explore Dickens presentation of education in Hard Times Essay Example for Free

Explore Dickens presentation of education in Hard Times Essay Explore Dickens’ presentation of education in Hard Times and comment on how this reflects a Dickensian vision of Utilitarianism Dickens’ presents The Victorian education system in ‘Hard Times’ in a fundamentally negative way, Dickens’ expresses the idea that having an imaginative aspect to our education is essential. He does this through satirising the education system and mocking the characters. Throughout the novel, it is a purpose of Dickens being satirical towards the education system. Dickens opens the novel with a satirical description of Thomas Gradgrind and his utilitarian educational methods as he teaches the room full of students â€Å"Facts alone are wanted in life† (9) Dickens satirises Gradgrind’s commitment to an education comprised only of facts as Gradgrind exaggerates that facts are the only essential thing in life. â€Å"Fancy† (14) symbolises imagination and wonder compared to facts. Dickens emphasise â€Å"Fact† more than he does with â€Å"Fancy† he does this by repeating â€Å"fact† itself, sounds more forceful. Gradgrinds view on education is his children are to never imagine or wonder. Gradgrind rejects the concept of fancy or imagination; ‘fancy’ has nothing to contribute to understanding; only things that can be measured are important. Gradgrind’s disapproving rant on fancy â€Å"You don’t walk upon flowers in fact† (14) to the students underlines that fancy is bad and it should be â€Å"facts! † (14) In his satirical description of Gradgrind, Dickens’ aim is of what he experienced in the industrial England during his time when education varied vastly, according to location, gender, and class, meaning that Dickens view on Utilitarianism is shown in a satirical way, and his beliefs stood out throughout the novel, this indicates how the education system was controlled. Dickens uses characters’ names to continue his satire of the utilitarian education system prevalent in Victorian Britain. Mr Gradgrind breaks into the word â€Å"Grind† as a means to crush, signifying his method of grinding down the students’ individuality and any imagination they may have entered the school with. Mr M’Choakumchild, breaks into â€Å"me, choke, child† Dickens’ exaggerates with the name as we don’t think the new teacher is literally choking the children in his care, that this Fact-obsessed creature will only choke imagination and feelings out of them. â€Å"If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better be he might have taught much more! † (15) This highlights that the utilitarianism system would function much better, if it were not so strung on facts. If Mr. M’Choakumchild had learnt less and been practically involved with his students more and would have taught far better. This is criticizing the way the system works. Dickens is suggesting that in the utilitarianism system, suggesting that ramming facts into students might not be the most effective way of teaching them. Not everything can be reduced to facts alone. Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby are the main representations of utilitarianism and followers of the system. In Louisa’s proposed marriage to Bounderby, Dickens shows us a disastrous consequence of Gradgrind’s system that denied everything but facts. â€Å"You have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply as one of tangible Fact† (97) This illustrates that Gradgrind, who is incapable of expressing his emotions effectively toward Louisa, edges her into a marriage with Bounderby by stating various facts and statistics to her. Louisa is hesitant to communicate her feelings towards him â€Å"she returned, without any visible emotion† (96) David Lodge’s ‘How Successful Was Hard Times? ’ (1981) argues that Gradgrind’s ideology in his system is questionable, Lodge explains that it is a â€Å"primary index of what is wrong with his system† Mr Bounderby is also a character with utilitarian beliefs, doubtlessly one of the major characters that has a firm belief in the system, â€Å"you may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never suppress force him to suppress the facts of his life† (23) He signifies the very essence of his ruthless principles that only has room for facts and statistics. ‘Hard Times’ outlines that a utilitarian approach to life is unsuccessful and costs those who follow their imaginations become robotic and inadequate to the system. Imagination and heart is found in the circus where Mr Bounderby and Mr Gradgrind despise â€Å"No young people have circus masters or attend circus lectures about circuses† (23) Gradgrind implies that circuses are not like a practical schoolroom. Dickens represents Sissy Jupe as an influential character of the novel who presents the value of a warm heart and embodies feelings and emotions. She is seen as a complete failure of Gradgrind’s system. However Dickens and the reader judge her as a success. The young innocent girl mocked by the teacher and presented as the dumb girl in the start of the novel, gradually turns out to be the most key character in the whole novel. Since the foundational significance of fact and the removal of fancy that Gradgrinds education obliges, Sissy Jupe will never succeed. Nevertheless, in spite of the education, Sissy becomes a young woman who is able to maintain her own principles and beliefs. The contrasting descriptions of Sissy and Bitzer are shown in their appearance. For example Sissy is described as radiant and warm â€Å"dark eyed and dark haired† (11) referring to her as someone who is the face of vitality. However Bitzer is portrayed as â€Å"what little colour he ever possessed† (11) and â€Å"His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes† (11)) Demonstrating that he is cold and emotionless with no heart and all calculation. Dickens uses Bitzer to demonstrate that other students are influenced by him, showing that he is a follower of Gradgrind’s system, whereas Sissy is the foreigner to the system. The Utilitarian education system relates to the industrial town ‘Coketown’ which consists of factories and â€Å"large streets like one another people equally like one another† (27) The town is linked to a â€Å"painted face of a savage† (27) that is described as barbaric and uncultured, the children are being deprived from the â€Å"ill-smelling dye† (27) Dickens suggests the society that the children/workers are living in is unsanitary â€Å"Jail† (28) indicating that they have no escape from their problems. The utilitarian system stamps out all imagination in the pupils and prepares them perfectly for the life of drudgery. Dickens describes as their lot as ‘hands’ in Coketown’s factories. Education presented in Hard Times is shown as satirical in Dickensian vision of Utilitarianism. This is because Dickens is able to create a fool out of the system cunningly. Furthermore it is certain that what Dickens has presented is humorous and convincing with making the utilitarian ideology seem absurd through the novel. I find David Lodge’s argument towards Dickens opinion as liberal and potent.

Anomalous Resistance Behavior in Bilayer Graphene

Anomalous Resistance Behavior in Bilayer Graphene Observation of Anomalous Resistance Behavior in Bilayer Graphene Yanping Liu 1,2, Wen Siang Lew 2,*and Zongwen Liu 3,* Abstract Our measurement results have shown that bilayer graphene exhibits an unexpected sharp transition of the resistance value in the temperature region 200~250K. We argue that this behavior originates from the interlayer ripple scattering effect between the top and bottom ripple graphene layer. The inter-scattering can mimic the Coulomb scattering, but is strongly dependent on temperature. The observed behavior is consistent with the theoretical prediction that charged impurities are the dominant scatters in bilayer graphene. The resistance increase with increasing perpendicular magnetic field strongly supports the postulate that magnetic field induces an excitonic gap in bilayer graphene. Our results reveal that the relative change of resistance induced by magnetic field in the bilayer graphene shows an anomalous thermally activated property. ______________________________________ Introduction: The electronic properties of monolayer graphene have been extensively studied due to its intriguing energy band structure with linear dispersion around the Dirac point and chirality exhibiting Berry phase of [1]. There is a zero-energy Landau level (LL) with four-fold degeneracy due to interactions between electron spins and valleys in the magnetic field [2-4]. Recently, bilayer graphene became a subject of intense research due to the low energy Hamiltonian of chiral quasiparticles and a Berry phase of [5-8]. It has a double-degeneracy zero-energy Landau level that incorporates two different orbital states with the same energy under an external magnetic field. The bilayer graphene with a Bernal (A-B) configuration loses some features of monolayer graphene and has a unique band structure where the conduction and valence bands are in contact with a nearly quadratic dispersion [5]. In bilayer graphene, a parabolic band structure ( ) with an effective mass m*=0.037, has been calculated by using the interlayer coupling model [9-14]. What makes bilayer graphene an interesting material for study is that the interlayer potential asymmetry can be controlled by an electric field, thus opening an energy gap between the conduction and valence bands [16-18]. Various applications for bilayer graphene are possible due to the fact that its band gap can be modulated by using an external out-of-plane electric field and chemical doping. There is intensive research on bilayer graphene under the application of a perpendicular electric field, however, experimental reports on magnetic transport properties of bilayer graphene are not as well-studied. Recent theoretical work reports on excitonic condensation and quantum Hall ferromagnetism in bilayer graphene [22]. There are interesting features in bilayer graphene due to its extra twofold orbital degeneracy in the LL spectrum, which results in an eightfold -degenerate LL at zero energy. The scattering mechanism of graphene is current ly a subject of intense research and debate. The problem of magneto-transport properties in the presence of Coulomb impurities is still an open research problem. Our understanding of the nature of the disorder and how the mesoscopic ripple effect affects the transport properties still need improvement; hence, a better understanding on the general electric and magnetic transport properties of bilayer graphene is necessary. In this paper, we have systematically investigated the charge transport properties in bilayer graphene as a function of temperature, magnetic field, and electric field. Our measurement results have shown that bilayer graphene exhibits a semi-metallic R-T property and an unexpected sharp transition of the resistance value in the temperature region 200~250K. The longitudinal resistance decreases with increasing temperature and electric field, a behavior that is markedly different from the experimental reports of monolayer graphene. Our results reveal that the energy gap in the bilayer graphene shows an anomalous thermally activated property and increases with. We have shown that this phenomenon originates from a tuneable band structure behavior that can be controlled by a magnetic field, a property that had never previously been observed in bilayer graphene. It has been shown that Raman spectroscopy is a reliable, non-destructive tool for identifying the number of graphene layers and it can be done through the 2D-band deconvolution procedure [23-25]. The Raman spectra of our graphene structure were measured at room temperature using a WITEC CRM200 instrument at 532 nm excitation wavelength in the backscattering configuration [26-28]. Fig.1a shows the characteristic Raman spectrum with a clearly distinguishable G peak and 2D band. The two most intense features are the G peak and the 2D band which is sensitive to the number of layers of graphene. The position of the G peak and the shape of the 2D band confirm the number of layers of graphene. Additionally, the number of layers of graphene can be easily distinguished from the full width half maximum of the 2D band, as its mode changes from a narrow and symmetric feature for monolayer graphene to an asymmetric distribution on the high-energy side for bilayer graphene [27]. The 2D band inset in Fig.1a shows that the Raman spectrum of bilayer graphene is red-shifted and broadened with respect to that of the monolayer graphene. Fig. 1b shows the four terminal resistance as a function of carrier-density n, and the sample shows a pronounced peak at density . Note that the sharp peak in resistance at low n is enhanced by the opening of the small energy gap owing to disorder-induced differences in carrier density between the top and the bottom layers of the flake. We have characterized the current (I)-voltage (V) characteristics of the bilayer graphene via four-terminal measurement, at different temperatures and magnetic fields. Shown in Fig. 2a are the I-V curves for bilayer graphene under the application of various magnetic fields at three different temperatures: 2 K, 200 K and 340 K. The magnetic field is applied in the perpendicular direction to the plane of the graphene. For all the temperatures and magnetic field strengths, the bilayer graphene exhibits a linear I-V curve. This implies that the graphene layer is ohmic in nature. We observed that for a fixed magnetic field, the I-V curve displays a larger gradient at higher temperature than at lower temperature. Interestingly, the gradient of the I-V curve decreases with increasing magnetic field. In our structure, the gradient of the curve corresponds to the conductivity of the graphene layer. Such temperature and magnetic field dependent behaviour of conductivity is characteristic of an intrinsic semiconductor. The decrease in the conductivity of the bilayer graphene with increasing magnetic field is attributed to the excitonic energy gap induced by the magnetic field. This conductivity dependence on the magnetic field suggests that the resistance () of graphene is a qualitative fingerprint of its band gap. In the absence of a magnetic field, the band structure of the bilayer graphene at the Dirac valley has a parabolic dispersion relation. When a magnetic field is present, the band structure is changed to a split Landau level structure [19-21]. Fig. 2(b) is an illustration of the bilayer bandgap and Landau level splitting under the influence of a magnetic field. Inset shows an optical image of the bilayer graphene with the metal contact electrodes. In Fig.2(c) we plot the resistance of the bilayer graphene, as extracted from the I-V curve, as a function of magnetic field for three different temperatures. As the magnetic field was increased in a step of 4T, the resistance increase for each step was different, resulting in a non-linear relationship between the resistance and magnetic field. Interestingly, the observed non-line relationship is markedly different from Zeeman spin-splitting theoretical model with the line relationship, where gap with a free-electron g-factor g=2, where is the Bohr magneton. This potentially indicates sublattice symmetry breaking and gap formation due to many-body correction in this LL [32-34]. This is further confirmation that magnetic field opens an excitonic gap in the bilayer graphene. The temperature dependence of monolayer graphene resistance is mainly attributed to the different scattering mechanisms: Coulomb scattering [35-36], short range scattering [37], and phonon scattering [38-39]. However, the temperature dependence of bilayer graphene resistance has not been established yet. Shown in Fig.3a are the temperature dependence of the resistance of the bilayer graphene under the application of a magnetic field 0T and 12T, respectively. The results show that the resistance of the bilayer graphene drops following non-metallic behaviour as temperature increases from 2K to 340 K. This implies that the bilayer graphene resistors have intrinsic semiconductor properties as mentioned earlier. This can be explained by the decrease in Coulomb scattering with temperature for bilayer graphene due to its parabolic band structure. For B=12T, a similar trend as B=0T is obtained in Fig 3a, where the resistance decreases with increasing temperature. However, the resistance for the entire temperature range is much larger than for B=0T. This indicates that the magnetic field opens an excitonic gap in the bilayer graphene that is thermally activated due to the Coulomb interaction ion-driven electronic instabilities [20, 31]. Ripples are a common feature of cleaved graphene because it is never atomically flat, as it is placed on a substrate such as SiO2 in the term of nanometre-scale deformations or ripples [40-42]. Despite the magnitude of the ripples being quite small, it is still believed to be responsible for the unusual transport behaviour of graphene, also susceptible to adsorbed impurities, defects and the roughness of the underlying substrate [40-43]. On the other hand, it has been shown that suspended graphene films are corrugated on a mesoscopic scale, with out-of-plane deformations up to 1 nm [44-45]. The deformation is a typically smaller than the Fermi wavelengthand these ripples induce predominantly short-range scattering. The observed height variation shows that the surface roughness beyond the atomic-level is intrinsically present in bilayer graphene. Hence, one of the interesting features of corrugation of graphene is that it offers a new experimental opportunity to study how the corrugat ion-induced scattering impacts the transport properties of graphene. It is important to mention that there is a strange sharp threshold like decrease in resistance observed above 200K. The strong temperature dependence is inconsistent with scattering by acoustic phonons. One possible explanation is that the flexural phonons confined within ripples between the top and bottom layer causes the scattering. The presence of the ripple effect exhibits local out-of-plane ripples [44]. Theoretical calculations[41,46] show that the scattering rates for interripple flexural phonons with respect to two-phonon scattering process as, where is the flexural-phonon frequency, the derivative of the nearest-neighbour hopping integral with respect to deformation, a the lattice constant, , and the mass of carbon atom [46]. For low temperatures T () , few flexural modes can be excited inside ripples (). The conductivity of the surface roughness model at the limit at low temperature is[45-46]. As the t emperature increases and typical wavelengths become shorter, short-range scattering excites the flexural phonons. For the high temperature limit, based on the above expression, we can estimate that , which yields ~100 to 1000 at T=300K. The model of quenched-ripple disorder [46] suggested that the electron scattering of the static ripples quenched from the flexural phonon disorder can mimic Coulomb scattering when at room temperature. One should also note that the model predicts stronger temperature dependence (above a certain quenching temperature of about 100K) which is close to our experimental result at about 200K. However, the ripple effect normally leads to a rapid increase in the R-T curve rather than the sudden decrease in R-T as observed for our bilayer graphene. In the absence of a theory to explain the stronger temperature dependence behaviour, we propose that the behaviour is consistent with the ripple effect interlayer scattering instead of interlayer scattering. Fig. 3b shows the schematically illustration of scattering mechanisms in bilayer graphene. For a bilayer graphene, the interlayer scattering between the top and bottom ripple graphene layer is similar to coulomb scattering with stronger dependence on temperature. The rapid decrease in R-T above 200K can be attributed to the transition between the low- and high-T limits in the interlayer ripple effect scattering. On the other hand, it was suggested that the observed strong T dependence could be explained by thermally excited surface polar phonons of the SiO2 substrate [35-38]. The SiO2 optical phonons at the substrate-graphene interface induce an electric field which couples to the carriers in graphene due to it modulating the polarizability [38-39]. However, Coulomb scattering is dominant for bilayer graphene and the substrate surface polar phonon induced field is to some extent screened by the additional graphene layers [39]. Recently it has been shown that the substrate dielectric constant plays an important role in scattering in graphene. Theoretical predictions show that for dielectric constant , Coulomb scattering dominates, while for dielectric constant , short-range scattering dominates, as Coulomb scattering is more strongly screened for materials with a larger dielectric constant. In fact, our observed behaviour is consistent with the theory suggesting that scattering from charged impurities is dominant in graphene. We introduce a relaxation-time approximation and treat the unscreened Coulomb potential as [1,5] where Q is the charge of impurities. Based on the Boltzmann transport theory, we can obtain the bilayer graphene resistivity with massless Dirac-fermions (MDF) at low energies as. For high temperature , , we can obtain the bilayer graphene resistivity as[47], where is the density of impurities per unit volume, is the permittivity of the semiconductor, and is the charge state of the impurity. This shows that the resistance of bilayer graphene limited by Coulomb scattering increases as increases and decreases with increasing temperature. Considering the above analysis, we deduce that the temperature dependence of resistance in bilayer graphene is mainly determined by Coulomb scattering. The short-range scattering is independent of temperature for bilayer graphene, as the density-of-states, the matrix element and the screening function are all energy independent. As a result of the parab olic band structure of bilayer graphene, the energy averaging of the Coulomb scattering time can give rise to the resistivity decreasing proportionality to temperature : . Based on the above discussion, we fit the measured resistance in Fig.3a by using the following model for bilayer graphene:, where and are the resistance due to the Coulomb and short-range scatterings, respectively. Fig.3b shows the relative resistance change under the biased and unbiased magnetic field as a function of temperature, and the dotted line is the fit following the equation , where is the energy gap. The opening of the energy gap due to a potential difference between the two layers and Coulomb interactions could be a cause for this. These considerations explain qualitatively why the resistance of bilayer graphene decreases with increasing temperature. Note that the relative resistance change is a strong function of temperature. At temperatures of 2Kà ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ­180K and 220Kà ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ­250K, the relative resistance strongly increases as temperature increases, indicating that an energy gap forms due to many-body correction in Landau Level. When the temperature incr eases to T >250K, the relative resistance is roughly independent of the increasing temperature; this indicates that the energy gap is mostly stable at high temperatures. On the other hand, with the temperature increase from 180K to 220K, the relative resistance dependence of temperature shows a sharp decrease, which indicates that the energy gap shows an anomalous thermally activated behaviour as a function of temperature. For zero gate voltage (i.e., neutrality point), we measured changes in longitudinal resistance as a function of applied perpendicular field B. Fig. 4a shows the four-terminal longitudinal resistance of bilayer graphene as a function of magnetic field at T= 2K at the charge-neutrality point. We have plotted the resistance per square, because it is independent of a size effect of the sample. As seen from Fig. 4a, the resistance increases nonlinearly with the magnetic field strength followed by a plateau-like phase. One should note that the plateau-like phase in Fig. 4b disappears at higher temperatures. One possible explanation is the augmented sublattice spin-splitting due to the high surface-impurity concentration of the graphene layer [18]. The origin of the nonlinear magnetoresistance increment behaviour is the splitting of Landau level that gives rise to a bandgap opening at the zero energy level [32-34]. In our measurements, we fit our results to an analytical approximation for the non-linear resistance , where is the Boltzmann constant. We found that our results are in good agreement with this equation. These considerations explain qualitatively why the nonlinear resistance increases with the magnetic field. Fig. 5 shows the resistance of bilayer graphene as a function of electric field (E) under different magnetic fields. The dependent characteristics are symmetric due to the chirality of graphene electrons when an applied electric field changes from E to E. The normalized resistance curve describes the response under the applied magnetic field in the range of B=0T to B=12T and the temperatures of 2-340K. The results demonstrate that when the magnetic field increases from 0T to 12T at low temperatures (2à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ­200K) and low electric field (E), the resistance of bilayer graphene drops significantly. The larger slump in the resistance at lower temperature T=2K and low electric field as the increasing of electric field are due to Coulomb scattering by impurities, which is a strong function of temperature. On the other hand, at high temperatures (T >200K) and electric fields (E>0.01 ), the resistance of bilayer graphene show a linear decrease. This can be explained by the scatteri ng from thermally excited surface polar phonons of the substrate being screened by the additional top graphene layers [39]. This further confirms that at high temperatures, the scattering induced by the electric field on the substrate surface polar phonons is significantly screened between top and bottom layers in bilayer graphene. In our experiment, temperature and magnetic field dependence of resistance of bilayer graphene was investigated. Intrinsic semiconductor behaviour at the range of temperature is 2K-340K was observed. The strange sharp threshold-like decrease in resistance around 200K is unexpected, and we attribute it to the presence of mesoscopic ripples between the top and bottom layer. Our results reveal that the energy gap in the bilayer graphene is thermally dependent. This potentially indicates the sublattice symmetry breaking and an energy gap formation due to Landau Level splits. The obtained results are important for the better understanding of magnetic field induced high resistance and provide indications of a theoretically predicted magnetic field induced excitonic gap. Acknowledgements Y. L would like to thank Prof. Wang and Prof. Yao for his useful discussions. This work was supported in part by the NRF-CRP program (Multifunctional Spintronic Materials and Devices) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) SERC grant (082 101 0015). The authors thank Sun Li and Li Yuanqing for their assistance in experimental measurements. Experimental section The bilayer graphene samples for this study were prepared using mechanical exfoliation techniques [2] from the bulk highly oriented pyrolitic graphite (grade ZYA, SPI Supplies) and transferred onto the surface of a lightly doped silicon substrate covered with a 300-nm thick layer of thermally grown , The doped silicon substrate and were used as back-gate and gate dielectric, respectively. Graphene electrical electrodes were patterned using photolithography techniques. A pair of ohmic Cr/Au (5nm/100nm) contacts were deposited via thermal evaporation at a background pressure of 10à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ­7 mbar and subsequently lifted off in warm acetone. Electronic transport measurements have been carried out on multiple samples, using PPMS (Quantum Design) with a fixed excitation current of 10 . Electrical measurements were performed in the temperature range 2K ~340K and a magnetic field up to 12T was applied. In order to enhance electrical transport, the sample was cleaned in situ by the mag netic and electric field. Four-terminal electrical measurements were used for transport characterization. References          Geim, A. K.; Novoselov, K. S, The rise of graphene. Nature Materials 2007, 6, 183-91. Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov, S. V.; Jiang, D.; Zhang, Y.; Dubonos, S. V.; Grigorieva, I. V.; Firsov, A. A., Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films. Science 2004, 306, 666-9. Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov, S. V.; Jiang, D.; Katsnelson, M. I.; Grigorieva, I. M.; Dubonos, S. V.; Firsov, A. A., Two-dimensional gas of massless Dirac fermions in graphene. Nature 2005, 438 , 197-200. Novoselov, K. S.; Jiang, Z.; Zhang, Y.; Morozov, S. V.; Stormer, H. L.; Zeitler, U.; Maan, J. C.; Boebinger, G. S.; Kim, P.; Geim, A. K., Room-Temperature Quantum Hall Effect in Graphene. Science 2007, 1137201. Peres, N. M. R., The electronic properties of graphene and its bilayer. Vacuum 2009, 83 1248-52. Wallace, P. R, The Band Theory of Graphite. Physical Review 1947, 71, 622. Semenoff, G. W, Condensed-Matter Simulation of a Three-Dimensional Anomaly. Physical Review Letters 1984, 53, 2449. Geim, A. K, Graphene: Status and Prospects. Science 2009, 324 (5934), 1530-1534. Kim, K. S; Zhao, Y.; Jang, H.; Lee, S. Y.; Kim, J. M.; Ahn, J. H.; Kim, P.; Choi, J. Y.; Hong, B. H., Large-scale pattern growth of graphene films for stretchable transparent electrodes. Nature 2009, 457 (7230), 706-710. Shen, T; Gu, J. J.; Xu, M.; Wu, Y. Q.; Bolen, M. L.; Capano, M. A.; Engel, L. W.; Ye, P. D., Observation of quantum-Hall effect in gated epitaxial graphene grown on SiC (0001). Applied Physics Letters 2009, 95 (17). Wu, X. .; Hu, Y. K.; Ruan, M.; Madiomanana, N. K.; Hankinson, J.; Sprinkle, M.; Berger, C.; de Heer, W. A., Half integer quantum Hall effect in high mobility single layer epitaxial graphene. Applied Physics Letters 2009, 95 (22). Meyer, J. C; Geim, A. K.; Katsnelson, M. I.; Novoselov, K. S.; Booth, T. J.; Roth, S., The structure of suspended graphene sheets. Nature 2007, 446, 60-3. Barone, V; Hod, O.; Scuseria, G. E., Electronic structure and stability of semiconducting graphene nanoribbons. Nano Letters 2006, 6 (12), 2748-2754. Han, M. Y; Ozyilmaz, B; Zhang, Y. B; Kim, P., Energy band-gap engineering of graphene nanoribbons. Physical Review Letters 2007, 98 (20). Wang, Z. F.; Shi, Q. W.; Li, Q. X.; Wang, X. P.; Hou, J. G.; Zheng, H. X.; Yao, Y.; Chen, J., Z-shaped graphene nanoribbon quantum dot device. Applied Physics Letters 2007, 91 (5). Zhang, Y; Tang, T.-T.; Girit, C.; Hao, Z.; Martin, M. C.; Zettl, A.; Crommie, M. F.; Shen, Y. R.; Wang, F., Direct observation of a widely tunable bandgap in bilayer graphene. Nature 2009, 459 (7248), 820-823. Kuzmenko, A. B.; Crassee, I.; van der Marel, D.; Blake, P.; Novoselov, K. S., Determination of the gate-tunable band gap and tight-binding parameters in bilayer graphene using infrared spectroscopy. Physical Review B 2009, 80, 165406. Morozov, S. V.; Novoselov, K. S.; Katsnelson, M. I.; Schedin, F.; Elias, D. C.; Jaszczak, J. A.; Geim, A. K., Giant intrinsic carrier mobilities in graphene and its bilayer. Physical Review Letters 2008, 100 (1). Barlas, Y; Cote, R.; Nomura, K.; MacDonald, A. H., Inter-Landau-level cyclotron resonance in bilayer graphene. Physical Review Letters 2008, 101 (9). KrsticÃÅ' , V; Obergfell, D.; Hansel, S.; Rikken, G. L. J. A.; Blokland, J. H.; Ferreira, M. S.; Roth, S., Grapheneà ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Metal Interface: Two-Terminal Resistance of Low-Mobility Graphene in High Magnetic Fields. Nano Letters 2008, 8 (6), 1700-1703. Bisti, V. E.; Kirova, N. N., Charge Density Excitations in Bilayer Graphene in High Magnetic Field. Jetp Lett. 2009, 90 (2), 120-123. Nomura, K; MacDonald, A. H. Physical Review Letters2006, 96, (25), 256602. Malard, L. M; Pimenta, M. A.; Dresselhaus, G.; Dresselhaus, M. S., Raman spectroscopy in graphene. Physics Reports 2009, 473, 51-87. Calizo, I; Bejenari, I.; Rahman, M.; Guanxiong, L.; Balandin, A. A., Ultraviolet Raman microscopy of single and multilayer graphene. Journal of Applied Physics 2009, 106, 043509 (5 pp.). Hao, Y. F; Wang, Y. Y.; Wang, L.; Ni, Z. H.; Wang, Z. Q.; Wang, R.; Koo, C. K.; Shen, Z. X.; Thong, J. T. L., Probing Layer Number and Stacking Order of Few-Layer Graphene by Raman Spectroscopy. Small 2010, 6 (2), 195-200. Ni, Z. H.; Wang, Y. Y.; Yu, T.; Shen, Z. X., Raman Spectroscopy and Imaging of Graphene. Nano Res. 2008, 1 (4), 273-291. Ferrari, A. C.; Meyer, J. C.; Scardaci, V.; Casiraghi, C.; Lazzeri, M.; Mauri, F.; Piscanec, S.; Jiang, D.; Novoselov, K. S.; Roth, S.; Geim, A. K., Raman Spectrum of Graphene and Graphene Layers. Physical Review Letters 2006, 97, 187401. Ni, Z. H.; Wang, H. M.; Kasim, J.; Feng, H. Y. P.; Shen, Z. X., Graphene thickness determination using reflection and contrast spectroscopy. Nano Letters 2007, 7, 2758-63. Zhang, C. H.; Joglekar, Y. N. Physical Review B 2008, 77, (23), 233405. Ezawa, M., Intrinsic Zeeman effect in graphene. Journal of the Physical Society of Japan 2007, 76 (9). Barlas, Y.; Cà ´tà ©, R.; Nomura, K.; MacDonald, A. H. Physical Review Letters

Graduation Speech: Make Your Own Rules :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

Good evening my name is Ben Rood I would like to share with you something that Michael Konda once said: "The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by your own." I couldn't agree more. I am standing here today because for the last four years I have unknowingly followed this advice. It started my freshman year when I was in the right place at the right time. Due to the overcrowding here at AHS the Microsoft Windows NT class was changed to an after-school class. This normally full class now had empty seats. As a freshman I did not meet the prerequisites for the NT class so I quietly slipped into one of the empty seats as a pass/fail student. As the year progressed I slowly moved away from the rules and took the class for a grade and as you can see it paid off with "A's". By the end of the year I was able to pass the Microsoft Certified Professional exam at age 14 and land a job at Microsoft. I would not have been able to do all of this and more during my freshman year had I "played by somebody else's rules." I continued to bend and break the rules both silently and blatantly. Through Microsoft I was able to participate in and manage conferences for any where from a hundred and fifty to 10,000 attendees. Interns are not generally invited to help with conferences, but I was fortunate enough to start with a manager who "(looked) as if (he were) playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by (his) own." In school I broke away from the crowd a little more obviously. After individual debates in English class our teacher invited us to debate the different topics as a class. One of these topics was where our "new" school should be located. I was the only one in my class who didn't agree with the bond being presented to the public. While I listened to the points made by my peers and the teacher I still maintained my points and did not jump on the bandwagon. As many of you know I spend much of my time at a computer. Some would say that's because I'm a computer geek. Well I may be a computer geek because I spend lots of time at the computer, but I spend it there because it is much easier to bend the rules of the computer than it is to bend the laws of physics.

Critical Approaches to Literature Should Not be Required of English Majors :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Critical Approaches to Literature Should Not be Required of English Majors In the controversy that surrounds the issue of requiring English majors to take Critical Approaches to Literature, it is not important whether the course is academically justifiable, but whether requiring English majors to take it is justifiable. By thinking about this issue in this way, I have concluded that Critical Approaches to Literature should not be required of English majors. The main reason for including Critical Approaches to Literature as a required course for English majors is to incorporate a sense of multi-culturalism and feminism into the English major. I would be the first to agree that writers such as Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Beth Bryant, and Sherman Alexie should be required reading for all English majors at some point in their education because these authors and their works do bring a dimension of multi-cultural appreciation and feminist understanding to the student's literary background. However, the Critical Approaches to Literature class that I attended did not teach me to appreciate the literature of other cultures; instead, it taught me how to analyze Western Literature as if I were a sociologist or psychologist. In this class, I began to feel that there was a hidden agenda imbedded within the course's objectives. This agenda was to destroy the literature, which I am familiar with, of the culture I have grown up in, and to force me to appreciate the literature of other cultures along the way. It did not work. By saying, "It did not work," I do not mean that I have no appreciation for the literature of cultures other than my own. What I do mean is that if I had not already possessed an appreciation for Multi-cultural and Women's Literature, Critical Approaches to Literature would not have conveyed this appreciation to me. I firmly believe that the poetry of Maurice Kenny is some of the most powerful poetry that I have ever read, and Duan Niatum's love-poem "Round Dance" is comparable to the best poetry that Western Literature has to offer. These are authors I know and love not because I have taken Critical Approaches to Literature, but because I have read these authors' works in a Native American Literature course. This is one reason why Critical Approaches to Literature should not be

Financial Analysis of Agl Limited

GAL has a current ratio of less than 2 and less than PAP in 2012 meaning it does not have a satisfactory amount of current asset to cover its current liabilities. However, when it comes to 2012, both current ratio and quick ratio has a positive improvement showing GAL did not improve its short-term liquidity by stocking high level of inventory but really increased its level of cash and receivables. On the other hand, the operating cash flow ratio of GAL has reduced in 2012 meanings the decrease of ability to generate cash from operation.The increased amount of cash but decrease amount of ability to generate cash reveals that GAL increase its amount of cash by financing activities like issue of shares and borrowing. This activity makes Debt and coverage There are five ratios measuring the debt and coverage of a company. They are three debt ratios, Liabilities to Equity ratio, Debt to Equity Ratio and Capital Structure Leverage, Interest Coverage and Operating Cash Flow Ratio. All debt ratios of GAL have a sudden and great increase in 2012.It indicates that GAL increase its cash mainly by borrowing rather than issue share. This practice calling debt financing can get tax deduction which is more beneficial than equity financing. The company's interest coverage has dropped significantly discloses the decline of ability to pay interest due to the great amount of borrowing. However, when compared to PAP, the debt ratios of GAL still are not as great as that of PAP and GAL has higher interest coverage. This shows GAL is not in a very bad situation in borrowing.Efficiency The efficiency of GAL has decreased compared to last two year showing by the remover ratio such as Account Receivable, Inventory and Fixed Asset turnover. Nevertheless, the turnover rates of GAL are still greater than PAP and that of PAP are at the same time decrease. This may expose the fact that the efficiency of the industry is lower in 2012. Overall, GAL has a very poor performance in 2012. Althou gh this may be due to the low efficiency of the industry, the main reason is the low profitability of GAL together with the huge borrowing. The fact that GAL did not make the best use of the borrowing is brought to light.

School Physical Plant Management

School Physical Plant Management What do you understand with the term school plant? The school plant is the totality of all things that make up a school system. It involves the physical and material facilities in form of buildings, school site and the environment that embody the school. Moreover, a school plants include the site, the building and equipment and this include the permanent structures like workshop, libraries, classrooms, laboratories and semi permanent structures like the educational system itself.The school facilities consist of all types of buildings for academic and non-academic activities, equipment for academic and non- academic activities, areas for sports and games, landscape, farms and gardens including trees, roads and paths. Others include furniture and toilet facilities, lighting, acoustics, storage facilities and packing lot, security, transportation, ICT, cleaning materials, food services, and special facilities for the physically challenged persons. Descri be the 2 major functions of school plant?An Environment to Facilitate Learning The primary purpose of the teaching and learning process is to bring about in the learner desirable change in behavior through critical thinking. This process does not take place in a vacuum but rather in an environment structured to facilitate learning. Hence, this environment of an organization as all elements relevant to its operation and they include direct and indirect action elements. School facilities, constitute the major components of both direct and indirect action elements in the environment of learning. Feature Article –Â  Country School – Allen CurnowThese facilities play pivotal role in the actualization of the educational goals and objectives by satisfying the physical and emotional needs of the staff and students of the school. Knezevich (1975, p. 563) emphasized that the physical needs are met through provision of safe structure, adequate sanitary facilities, a balanced visual environment, appropriate thermal environment, and sufficient shelter space for his work and play. His emotional needs are met by creating pleasant surrounding, a friendly atmosphere, and an inspiring environment.The educational system has undergone tremendous changes in the form of its philosophy, broadened goals and objectives, new approaches to service delivery and architectural design, quantum leap in school enrolment, multiplicity of curricula programmes and extra-curricula activities, introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and expanded academic support services such as guidance services to students, teachers and the community, integration of the school and community. 3. In what ways does instructional program influence the nature of school plant? Schools exist for the purpose of teaching and learning.Human and material resources are deployed for this purpose. School facilities are the material resources provided for staff and students to optimize their productivity in the teaching and learning process. The realization that the transfer of knowledge does not only take place in the four walls of the classroom from the teacher to the students but rather that learning takes place through discovery, exploration, interaction with the internal and external environment has necessitated the creative and innovative development of teaching and learning facilities that reflect these changes.Schools exist to serve socio-economic and political needs of the ever-changing society, consequently, they are in constant interaction with their external environm ent. They receive inputs from the external environment in the form of human and material resources, processes them and empty same into the society as finished products and services. The quality of the products bears a direct relationship with the quality of the facilities deployed in the process of the production.This demands that state of the art facilities are provided in schools to prepare school leavers for life in the global village. Several studies have shown that a close relationship exists between the physical environment and the academic performance of students. Nwagwu (1978) and Ogunsaju (1980) maintained that the quality of education that children receive bears direct relevance to the availability or lack thereof of physical facilities and overall atmosphere in which learning takes place.For example, research findings have shown that students learn better when a combination of methods and materials are employed during teaching. Furthermore, emphasis has shifted towards gi ving individual attention to students as against teaching large classes which presupposes that all students in a class have the ability to learn at the same pace. The implication of the foregoing is that in designing school plant, provision should be made for individual and small group interaction and for large groups for academic and social activities.

The Value of Life: Pro Life

The Value of Life Imagine 3,700 children murdered in one day; their bodies torn, bruised, or poisoned. Sadly, this Is no sick fantasy, but a procedure called abortion, defined as an operation to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus from Its mother's womb (â€Å"Choose† sec 1). In the united States alone, approximately 1. 37 million abortions occur per year. Late term abortions, or post first-term abortions, are known to cause serious health problems such as mental issues and moral dilemmas because the fetus has taken the shape ofa baby and thus is a viable human being.Abortion has een debated for centuries because of its political and social ramifications, and the correctness or lack of correctness. Both sides have strong arguments, but either way, late-term abortion should be made illegal in the United States because of its health risks, viability, and prevalence in society (â€Å"Statistics† sec 1). Late- term abortions damage both the mother's mental and ph ysical health dramatically. Once a fetus has taken a babys shape, the most common form of abortion Is using the combination of drugs and medicines.Methotrexate Is a drug that Is designed to kill the fetus Inside he mother's womb; Misoprostol Is a llquld substance that Is also Involved with this abortion process. It Is used subsequent to Methotrexate and empties the uterus of the child. Medicines, like those mentioned above, are unsafe and unstable, putting the mother's health at risk. For example, Methotrexate is known to be harmful to both the fetus and its mother (â€Å"Statistics† sec. 3). The primary use of this drug is to poison the fetus. A problem that can occur in this medicine, typically used for chemotherapy, is it can be toxic.In the case that the drug is toxic, the use in abortion can result in eath of both mother and fetus. In addition to drug toxicity, there are also many mental issues that can arise in the mother (â€Å"Abortion† sec. 3). Many become dep ressed because of their decision to abort; others contemplate suicide. Additionally, anxiety has affected many women who have had abortions. In a study of the after effects of abortion, 40% to 60% of women questioned gave negative reactions. This survey was done eight weeks subsequent to the procedure (â€Å"Abortion† sec. 3). Out of that percentage, 55% of them felt guilty. 4% claim they experienced ervous disorders, sleeping disorders had occurred in 36% of the women, and not surprisingly, 31% admitted feelings of regret. had to be prescribed with psychotropic pills. The high percentages of metal issues show that abortions cause serious health risks to the mothers. Adding on to mental health problems, physical complications can arise after an abortion (â€Å"Abortion† sec. 1). There are a multitude of â€Å"minor side effects from abortion. Small infections are a result of abortions. Many women become sick by a fever. Others experience gastrointestinal problems. Ble eding Is a very common outcome of this procedure.In the same study, women reported chronic abdominal pain, and also excessive vomltlng. Not including minor conditions, there are over 100 major problems recorded that women have faced. A DlocKage 0T an artery or emoollsm can result Trom aoortlon. some experience aeatnly infections. Hemorrhaging, or excessive bleeding, occurs in many. Ripping, or perforation of the uterus, is an excruciatingly painful result of the practice. Women can also experience anesthesia complications. In addition, cervical injury injuries are common. An astounding 5% become sterile, or unable to get pregnant again.Ectopic pregnancies may occur after one obtains an abortion (â€Å"Abortion† sec. 1). In a study of the National Rights to life Committee, two hundred and fifty-five deaths to mother's having an abortion occur per year (McKeegan 123). Studies have shown that legal abortion is no safer than illegal, back-alley abortions. One 43year old woman ble d to death during an abortion; another woman's uterus perforated and she also passed. In addition, an eighteen year old girl had a blood infection that was fatal (Curie 52). All these major problems and more occur every year for women who abort.Although the viability of a fetus is debatable, many scientists and doctors concur that with todays modern technology, the week that a fetus becomes viable is becoming progressively earlier (Currie 26). All late-term abortions, or those occurring after twenty weeks of the pregnancy, are killing a viable fetus. Studies also show fetuses feel pain, as proven by the fact that they twisting in agony and display painful looks when aborted. Another way to show how the fetus is Just an unborn baby is the fact that its internal and external organs are the same. The fetus also performs many aby-like functions.Statistics from highly knowledgeable people have also back up the theory that a fetus is viable in post- first term state. The internal and exte rnal features show that the fetus is the same as a human, Just not as mature (â€Å"WPClinic†, sec 2). A viable fetus has the same external features of any newborn. With few exceptions, the human is made up of many different body parts such as a head, body, eyes, mouth, sex organs, hair, etc. A fetus, post-first term, has all of these typical parts and thus resembles a child. In addition to their exterior, fetuses also have the same nternal organs.They have a fully developed brain at 13-16 weeks-which is at the beginning of late 1st term. All organs are working at this point. In the latter weeks, its nervous system can even control functions (â€Å"WPClinic†, sec 2). These features prove that the fetus is Just like a newborn. Not only does the fetus resemble a newborn, it also acts like one. â€Å"The baby plays so to speak, now†¦ We know what he feels and have listened to what he hears† (McBride 34). This quote shows that a fetus is no different than a new born baby, for it performs the same functions; the fetus is Just perhaps ot as mature.Some normal procedures the fetus performs include swallowing, making breathing sounds, recognizing its mother's voice, blinking, grasping, kicking, and somersaulting. Physicians also say a fetus feels pain around twenty weeks (McBride 64). Today, physicians give women pamphlets to let them know their fetus will feel pain when it is aborted. Studies support this through the fact that the fetus twists in agony and shows painful looks when it is aborted (McKeegan 112). The facts prove that the fetus acts and plays like a newborn, so it should have the same rights s well.

Alfred Lubrano How College Corrupts

Alfred Lubrano How College Corrupts BY robn215 College is the next stepping stone to better or advance ones social standing in life, whether it is moving from a blue collar lifestyle to white collar, or to continue to further their career path. However, it comes with an â€Å"unavoidable result. † Alfred Lubrano discusses this â€Å"unavoidable result† in his text â€Å"The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts. † Lubrano discusses the topic of how furthering ones education opens more possibilities but at the same time distances those held most dearly.He explains that the more knowledge gained, the bigger the gap caused between friends and family due to differences in levels of knowledge. That distance is greatly increase if one comes from a poorer region where blue collar workers are the social norm. For instance, conversations within lower class households come off more militaristic due to the fact that all opinions are â€Å"dictated by group consensus,â⠂¬  where what the class says is so. Juxtaposed to the middle class household where they are talked to as adults..Lubrano does not try to dissuade one from attending college, he simply shines a light onto a hidden matter that is not discussed when continuing ones education. Lubrano hits the nail on the head about the distance gained when continuing ones education with friends and family, but does not consider the fact about that distance being magnified as a first generation American. One of Alfred Lubrano's main points was how college distanced childhood friends as well as loved ones.He describes how he learned to â€Å"self-censor† himself nd only discussed â€Å"general stuff,† because it was undiscerning to his father, a blue collar working man. Not to mention that listening to a freshman discuss the topics of race, equality, or politics, was as unsettling as â€Å"riding in a car with a new driver. † In fact, Lubrano's professor himself told his class not to discuss what they have learned in class, Marxist theory, because it would â€Å"mess up the holiday. † Under those circumstances, one can only imagine the distance lost trying to elaborate the topics discussed.Lubrano does an excellent Job of demonstrating the distance gained from the sheer fact of furthering ones education but does not consider the aloofness of first generation students trying to advance their educational life. I am a first generation college student and my parents were nothing but proud of me when I talked to them about continuing my education, as a matter of fact, they even bragged about it to other family members as well as bought me new items for school, clothes, shoes, and a laptop.But, neither they nor I was prepared for the detachment that as brought upon by trying to further ones education. During my first year of college I was exposed to the lifestyle of being completely â€Å"free. † I had attended Penn State University, which is about fo ur and a half hours away from Philadelphia, and during that time I had become wild and rambunctious. This was mainly due to the fact that within Asian households, the children are raised and taught in a completely different manner than an American household even though I was born and raised in Philadelphia.However, I was raised both by Vietnamese standards of discipline and espect without questioning authority, whilst also being raised on American standards of critical thinking and questioning everything. As you can tell those two standards of living are not exactly compatible. So, when college presented itself with the opportunity ot finding oneselt, I indulged As a consequence ot turtnering my education, I had lost some of my Asian roots and as you can tell; when I returned home I was not the same person. I was a smarmy freshman with a year of college under my belt with the mindset of being a completely independent adult.Causing omplications within my family and distancing ourselv es from one another. It was even more difficult because I could not discuss exactly what was affecting my relationship with my parents due to a language barrier. Granted, I did know how to speak to them in Vietnamese, but not without struggle. This due to the fact that as a child, I was more interested in watching Saturday morning cartoons than talking to my family. Alfred Lubrano does a good Job of describing exactly how furthering ones education causes a divide between friends and family.For example, he had to â€Å"self- ensor† his thoughts and separates which topics he talked about in order to not upset his family. However, he does not discuss the topic of how being a first generation college student can cause an even bigger divide between family due to different cultural beliefs and the language barrier. Again, Alfred Lubrano does not try to dissuade one from continuing ones education whatsoever, in fact he encourages it. Lubrano Just tries to expose a hidden agenda that most people do not discuss about, and that is how college causes a divide between family and friends.

Restructuring Costs Essay

Pharma Co. is a U.S. subsidiary of a U.K. entity that prepares its financial statements in accordance with (1) U.S. GAAP for reporting to its U.S.-based lender and (2) IFRSs in reporting to its parent. Pharma Co. is considering the relocation of a manufacturing operation from its present location to a new facility in a different geographic area as part of the restructuring a business line. The relocation plan related to the following facts: Facts Financial affection Dec 15, 2010, issued a press release to terminate the lease of the old facility. Jan 31,2011,at which time it will sign the lease termination agreement, Pharma Co. plans to vacate the Plant A facility. The lease is an operating lease with termination fee is $1.3M. The lease was entered into in Feb 2004 with a term of 10 years. The written notice is required for early termination. Dec 27, 2010, communicated the main features of a one-time, nonvoluntary termination plan to its employees. The reduction includes approximately 120 employees, which represents 10 percent of workforce without identified the specific employees. The workforce reduction is expected to be completed by Jan 31, 2011, and is expected to cost approximately $3 million. Pharma Co. has entered into irrevocable contracts with certain other relevant parties to affect the restructuring plan. Relocation cost: $500,000 Staff training cost: $1.5M. Pharma Co. stated its intention to dismantle the existing operation. The cost to dismantle the existing manufacturing operation is estimated to be $1M. There is no legal obligation for dismantling plants when abandoned. Issue How should Pharma Co. account for the restructuring program for the year  ended Dec 31, 2010 under U.S. GAAP? Analysis FASB Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Subtopic 420-10 Exit or Disposal Cost Obligations presents the relevant guidance on cost obligations. Per ASC 420-10-25-12, Contract Termination Costs include: â€Å"A liability for costs to terminate a contract before the end of its term shall be recognized when the entity terminates the contract in accordance with the contract terms ( for example, when the entity gives written notice to the counterparty within the notification period specified by the contract or has otherwise negotiated a termination with the counterparty)† Although Pharma Co. issued a press release to terminate the lease at Dec 15, 2010, this fact did not reach an agreement. So Pharma Co. do not need record the $1.3 termination fee until Jan 31,2011, which was the date sign the termination agreement. One-time employee termination benefits Under ASC 420-10-25-4 requirement, an arrangement for one-time employee termination benefits should meet all the following requirements: â€Å"a. Management, having the authority to approve the action, commits to a plan of termination. b. The plan identifies the number of employees to be terminated, their job classifications or functions and their location, and the expected completion date. c. The plan establishes the terms of the benefit arrangement, including the benefits that employees will receive upon termination (including but not limited to cash payments). In sufficient detail to enable employee to determine the type and amount of benefits they will receive if they are involuntarily terminated. d. Actions required to complete the plan indicate that it is unlikely that significant changes to the plan will be made or that the plan will be withdrawn.† Pharma Co. already approved the employee termination plan in the appendix B with 120 employees at current location. This wo rkforce reduction was expected to be completed by Jan 31, 2011. Although there is no details in appendix B, employees still can information of termination benefit from communication with CEO. Since this is a nonvoluntary termination plan, we are sure that Pharma Co. should recognize the one-time employee termination benefits for the year ended Dec 31, 2010 under GAAP requirement. One-time employee termination benefitsAs the appendix B posted, the employees are not terminated their service or received their benefits. According to the ASC  420-10-30-5, â€Å" If employees are not required to render service until they are terminated in order to receive the termination benefits (that if, is employees are entitled to receive the termination benefits regardless of when they leave) or if employees will not be retained to render service beyond the minimum retention period, a liability for the termination benefits shall be measured at its fair value at the communication date.† Therefore, $3M approximately cost could not record instead of its fair value at Dec 27, 2010. Relocation Cost and Staff Training Cost Although Pharma Co. has entered into irrevocable contracts with certain other relevant parties, since they do not mention the specific time to start the relocation program, it is not need to recognized those future expense until it is really paid. Dismantling Cost As ASC 420-10-25-15 notes about associated costs, â€Å"The liability shall not be recognized before it is incurred, even if the costs are incremental to other operating costs and will be incurred as a direct result of a plan. A liability for other costs associated with an exit or disposal activity shall be recognized in the period in which the liability is incurred (generally, when goods or services associated with the activity are received).† So the main point here is whether the dismantling activates happened, not what it is related to. Therefore, Pharma Co. should not recognize the dismantling cost for the year ended Dec 31, 2010.