International diversification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Universal expansion - Essay Example The United States and the two European nations for example Germany and Poland. In the event that we guess that a financial specialist from the UK enhances his arrangement of interests in the securities exchange of these three worldwide nations. The distinctions in the measurements appeared in the Fig1 recommend that the degree of hazard and return would positively shift from nation to nation that will guarantee most extreme returns for investors. International portfolio broadening is exceptionally valuable in a circumstance where the stock trades, financial condition and world of politics of worldwide nations are profoundly unique in relation to one another. Syriopoulos additionally says that â€Å"if comes back from interests in various national financial exchanges are not completely corresponded and the relationship structure is steady, there are possible increases from global portfolio diversification.† (2004, p1254) It is so on the grounds that the enhancement would not yield the ideal outcomes if the conditions and condition in universal nations differ in a similar way as in household economy. On the off chance that the worldwide nations remembered for the portfolio have a monetary, political and speculation condition that varies from that of the household environs, the universal portfolio expansion will harvest huge benefits.The Capital Asset Pricing Model is a powerful device for portfolio the board. In light of the model’s productivity in valuing resources, it is viewed as helpful in assessing danger and profit for different resources in a given portfolio.... rnational portfolio enhancement. (2004, p1254) It is so in light of the fact that the expansion would not yield the ideal outcomes if the conditions and condition in universal nations fluctuate in a similar way as in residential economy. In the event that the global nations remembered for the portfolio have a financial, political and venture condition that varies from that of the residential environs, the universal portfolio broadening will receive noteworthy rewards. Question 2: The Capital Asset Pricing Model is a successful apparatus for portfolio the board. On account of the model's productivity in valuing resources, it is viewed as helpful in assessing danger and profit for different resources in a given portfolio. The most noteworthy convenience of the CAPM in portfolio examination is its viability in enlightening the hazard consider included a portfolio speculation. Andre investigates that the CAPM reveals to us that speculators take care of being undiversified in that they ar e facing challenges for which they are not being redressed. (2004, p19) For un-diversifiable or orderly hazard, this model uses Beta as a way to distinguish the pace of hazard associated with venture. CAPM would thus be able to be valuable for financial specialists in portfolio the board by giving pertinent data concerning the hazard consider included a specific speculation as for the entire market and furthermore lead the speculators to improve their portfolio. With the assistance of the Capital Asset Pricing Model, the financial specialists can undoubtedly decide the necessary pace of come back as for various resources in the portfolio as indicated by their hazard with no endeavors to evaluate incomes and incomes. Andre lights up that all together to locate the normal return of an organization's offers, it is in this manner not important to complete an

Figurative language versus literal language Essay - 1

Allegorical language versus exacting language - Essay Example Similarity is a deduction passed on starting with one individual then onto the next. It is fundamental in taking care of issues (Saeed, 2003). For instance, the announcement ‘I feel like a fish out of water’ implies that an individual isn't quiet in the circumstance. The model fits where an individual isn't acquainted with his setting. The model might be misconstrued speaking with an individual with low keenness. A representation alludes to an interesting expression that clarifies an issue by announcing that it is, when looked at, comparable with an unmistakable thing. For instance, ‘success is a feeling of accomplishment, it's anything but an ill-conceived child’ is an announcement utilized to help the view that individuals need to be licensed for a fruitful circumstance through exertion or incident, and reject it when it comes up short (Crystal, 1997). The model is noteworthy when building up a venture and it might be misconstrued after the result of a circumstance. A comparison is an articulation that exactly thinks about disparate parts, as often as possible by utilizing ‘as or like’ (Jackendoff, 1997). For instance, ‘cute as a kitten’ might be utilized to look at the likenesses between a person’s appearance and a kitten’s appearance. The model might be utilized to portray a kid. It might be misconstrued while clarifying conduct or physical appearance. A clichã © is an interesting expression that starts with a clever proclamation that ends up being recognizable. It features a thought or activity which is unsurprising or expected based on a past occurring (Crystal, 1997). For instance, ‘time will tell’. This states there will be a disclosure after some time. It is fitting when an individual is keeping privileged insights. The model may prompt a misconception during an interpretation. Amphiboly is a befuddling linguistic sythesis inside an amazingly short discussion or sentence (Jackendoff, 1997). For instance, ‘teenagers ought not be allowed to party. It is getting perilous on the streets’. The model is proper where grown-ups are

Selected Sigmund Freud Quotes From His Writings

Selected Sigmund Freud Quotes From His Writings History and Biographies Print Famous Quotes From Sigmund Freud Freuds work furthered our understanding of psychology By Kendra Cherry facebook twitter Kendra Cherry, MS, is an author, educational consultant, and speaker focused on helping students learn about psychology. Learn about our editorial policy Kendra Cherry Updated on November 17, 2018 Authenticated News/Archive Photos/Getty Images More in Psychology History and Biographies Psychotherapy Basics Student Resources Theories Phobias Emotions Sleep and Dreaming In addition to his own psychoanalytic practice, Sigmund Freud was also a prolific writer. Works such as The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) helped establish Freuds psychoanalytic theories and made him a dominating force in psychology during the early 20th-century. His work and writings contributed to our understanding of personality, clinical psychology, human development  and abnormal psychology. Below are just a few quotes from Freuds writings. Selected Sigmund Freud Quotes No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.From Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, 1905.The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is What does a woman want?From Sigmund Freud: Life and Work by Ernest JonesReligion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.From New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1932.Where id is, there shall ego be.From New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1932.One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go.From New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1932.Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.From The Future of an Illusion, 1927.The ego is not master in its own house.From A Difficulty in the Path of Psycho-Analysis, 1917.Our knowledge of the historical worth of certain religious doctrines increases our respect for them but does not invalidate our proposal that they should cease to be put forward as the reasons for the precepts of civilization. On the contrary! Those historical residues have helped us to view religious teachings, as it were, as neurotic relics, and we may now argue that the time has probably come, as it does in an analytic treatmen t, for replacing the effects of repression by the results of the rational operation of the intellect. From The Future of an Illusion, (1927)One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation.From Civilization and Its Discontents, (1930)The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three...The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id.From New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, (1932)Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action.From New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, (1932) Freuds work helped shape our understanding of the human mind. Over 100 years later, his research and findings continue to influence our studies on the human mind.

The Modigliani And Miller Theory Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 15 Words: 4645 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? The Modigliani Miller Theorem is a linchpin of modern corporate finance. At its core, the theorem is an irrelevance proposition: The Modigliani Miller Theorem provides circumstances under which an enterprises financial decisions are independent on its value. Modigliani (1980, pxiii) explains the Theorem as follows: ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ with well-functioning markets (and neutral taxes) and rational investors, who can undo the corporate financial structure by holding positive or negative amounts of debt, the market value of the firm debt plus equity depends only on the income stream generated by its assets. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Modigliani And Miller Theory Finance Essay" essay for you Create order It follows, in particular, that the value of the firm should not be affected by the share of debt in its financial structure or by what will be done with the returns paid out as dividends or reinvested (profitably). There are four distinct results that are understood from the Modigliani Miller Theorem and they are as follow: The debt-equity ratio does not affect its market value under certain conditions. The second proposition inculcates that a firms debt-equity ratio is unaffected by its weighted average cost of capital that is the cost of equity capital is a linear function of leverage. Firms market value is sovereign of its dividend policy. Stock-holders are non-chalant about the firms financial policy. The modern theory of capital structure started with Modigliani Miller(1958) on the plight of capital structure irrelevance. The distinct results shown above were based on the following assumptions: Market prices cannot be influenced by scale of an individuals transactions that is all investors are price-takers. Firms and investors being market participants can lend or borrow at the same riskless rate. Income taxes are neither paid on the corporate level nor at a personal level. There are no transaction charges or allowances. Investors are all rational wealth-suitors. Enterprises are grouped into homogeneous risk classes such that all members of the group obtain the same return. Similar expectations about future company earnings are formulated by investors ( normal probability distribution). The assets of a company that can no longer carry out its business( insolvent) can be sold at full market values. Criticism of the Modigliani and Miller theory There is a common argument that Modigliani Miller provides a means of finding reasons why financing may matter but does not provide a reasonable description of how firms finance their operations. This is supported by a number of researchers such as Hamada (1969) and Stigiltz (1974). The theorem has given rise to a lot of questions. How do firms choose their capital structure? Do firms have target leverage? What are the determinants of firm capital structure decisions? Many researchers have tried to answer these questions in their studies but the results are still enigmatic. The most frequent hypotheses used to address capital structure are static trade-off, pecking order and market timing theory and many others. The criticism against this theorem can be grouped into two types: Papers that deal with the limitations of the arbitrage conditions. Arbitrage process is the operational justification for Modigliani and Miller hypothesis. Arbitraging can be defined as the process o f buying a security in a market where the price is low and selling the security in another market where the price is higher. In so doing, an equilibrium is achieved and it implies that the security cannot be sold at different prices. According to the MM hypothesis, the total value of homogeneous firm that differ only in the debt-equity ratio will be similar due to the artibraging condition. The later is no longer smooth due to institutional restrictions and it is also affected by transaction cost due to the limitations of the MM hypothesis. The MM leverage irrelevance proposition bumped much controversy and criticism on the methodology section. Their proofs are based on a more appropriate and fundamental notion than a competitive equilibrium. This is where the arbitrage argument comes into play. When the arbitrage is absent, the economy becomes standard to price repetitive securities and Black Scholes (1973) depended on the MM- type arbitrage argument which was rather clumsy as i t was engaged with the comparision of firms whose cash flows had similar risk characteristics. According to Stiglitz ( 1969)  [1]  , firms do not issue much debt as there is the consequence of bankruptcy. The focus switched from the idea of risk class to the importance of bankruptcy. Studies that analyse the effect of market imperfections on the firms choice of capital structure. Taxes, bankrypcy costs, transaction costs, adverse selection and agency conflicts are all part of the major explanation for the use of debt in corporate. Trade-off Theory The various costs and benefits of an alternative leverage plans are assessed by a decision maker who runs a firm. The trade-off theory is originated from a debate over the Modigliani and Miller theory. This is due to the addition of corporate taxes to the primitive irrelevance proposition. A debt benefit is seen to be created which serve as a shield before the takes. Bankruptcy is the offsetting cost of debt that is needed. The optimal debt-equity ratio mirrors a trade-off between the tax benefits of debt and deadweight costs of bankruptcy Myers (1984). A firm that anchors a target leverage ratio and gradually moves towards the target is a firm that follows the trade-off theory. The determination of the target is made by stabilizing the tax shields against the cost of bankruptcy Jensen and Meckling (1977); Harris and Raviv (1990); Taggart (1977). It also weighs up the advantages and disadvantages of using debt. As discussed earlier, there is a shield benefit that acts as a barrier to taxes DeAngelo and Masulis (1980). In addition, there is a reduction of the free cash flow problem Stulz (1990). However, the pitfalls of debt include the feasible cost of financial distress Kraus and Litzenberger (1973); Kim (1978) and the agency cost arising between the shareholders and the creditors. Frank and Goyal (2005  [2]  ) take the Myers earlier notion of trade-off to a new position namely the static trade-off theory determined within a single period and a target adjustment behavior. Agency Cost Theory Jensen and Meckling (1976) launched the agency cost of free cash flow theory. The theory is hinged on the conflict between managers, outside shareholders and bondholders. The conflicts can be either between the bondholders and shareholders which is a result of moral hazards or between managers and shareholders.. According to this theory, the managers do not always use the funds of the firm for the benefit of the company but rather for their own benefits. The managers exploit the powers they have and the abuse can be categorized in three different varieties. Foremost, managers possess ground on which they can enjoy the full value of anything they get from the firm such as private jets since they hold only a fraction of these allowances on the job consumption. Second, they might assay for the entire building as large firms have a tendency to give managers prestige, power and compensation for the work they do just to encourage them. Lastly, they have the power to tyrannise the firm ac cording to their own preferences and make themselves prerequisites by investing in projects which others cannot manage. This negates the wealth of the shareholders.. Harris and Raviv (1990); Bodie and Merton (2000) agency cost is seen to be more relevant to firms in mature industries. As these firms tend to generate cash which exceeds their investment needs. The availability of free cash in mature industries is higher and easily used for the management of the firms. Nyborg (2010). Therefore, it is true to say that agency cost is more relevant to larger firms. Market Timing Theory The market timing theory is based on the fact that enterprises prefer to issue stocks when the prices of the stocks are high and repurchase the stocks when the prices are falling. The assumption they make is that the market can be timed and managers really try to time market. The issue of debt and new equity can be made based on past price movements Marsh (1982). In a survey of British firms, CFOs harbor that they try to time the equity market. Those who considered the issue of shares reported that the amount by which the stocks are undervalued and overvalued is an important factor Graham and Harvey (2001). The shocks of equity price have an inexhaustible effect on the corporate capital structure. Following increments in stock prices, firms tend to issue equity and repurchase shares when the stock prices decline which is actually the opposite of what one might expect if corporate tended to equalize their structures towards a target Welch (2004). Fischer, Heinkel and Zechner, (19 89) observed that with new debt and equity issues over time, firms tend to return to their preferred leverage range. More specifically, firms are forced to march out from the preferred level of debt to equity ratio by embrassing more debt as a source of financing to new projects or as a way to self- defend themselves against take-overs show a transcendence to paying down debt to rebound to a more acceptable mix of leverage. Muscarella and vetsuypens, 1990. The Pecking Order Theory Donaldson (1961) had been the first one to describe the prominent story based on a financing pecking order. He monitored: Management strongly favoured internal generation as a source of new funds even to the exclusion of external funds except for occasional unavoidable bulges in the need for funds.  [3]  According to the picture that Donaldson framed, companies quietly complied retained earnings, becoming less tilted when they are lucrative and gather debt, becoming more uplifted when they are unprofitable. If companies are otherwise heedless about their capital structures as suggested by Miller (1977) then they will not make future capital structure selections which compensate the effect of their earnings history. But the common pecking order theory branches out from Myers (1984). A firm pursues the pecking order if it prefers  [4]  internal financing and debt equity if the external financing is used. The pecking order theory is proposed by Myers and Maljuf (1984) and is an application of asymmetric information theory. Following this theory, the managers of a firm who are considered as insiders are likely to posses private information about the firms quality and investment projects. Ergo, the choice of a firms capital structure strikes the outsiders who are actually the investors the information to managers. Because outsiders have less information than the managers regarding the value of the firm, the issued equity will be underpriced by the market. Financing the project through a security will prevent such a situation to crop up that is the security will not be undervalued by the market. The securities used can be in the form of retained earnings as internal funds and risk-less debts. Hinged by the argument set by Myers and Maljuf (1984) , Myers (1984) suggested that the pecking order theory propose that firms finance their projects by firstly using internal funds in the form of retained earnings, secondly through the utility of debts ( risk-les s debts are used first and when there is a shortage or there is no more of the risk-less debt, risky debts are used) and finally equity is issued. Pecking Oder Theory speculates that managers do not take into consideration an optimal capital structure when making financial decisions.  [5]  They unpretentiously choose what seem to be the low cost financing devices. Why do firms prefer debt to equity? In corporate finance, asymmetric information refers to the fact that firm insiders, routinely the managers have better information than market actors on the value of their firms asset and investment opportunities. The possibility that the market will wrongly price the firms claim is created by this asymmetry thus providing a positive role for financing decisions of companies. Let us think of a firm who wants to make new investments by making use of its growth possibilities. Given that this firm solicits to supply the resources, it needs to issue stocks. The stocks cannot be fully valued by the investors Myers (2001). Pecking order theory is born due to mispricing which comes to light as a consequence of not knowing the actual values of equity. The existence of asymmetric information lies in the middle of mispricing Halov N and Heider F (2005). As a result of the asymmetric information, the firms quality as good issue stock to find resources, the issued equity are undervalued by investors koupoulos (2006). Since a price cut is liked to be observed from the investors and to avoid this situation internal resources are preferred rather than issuing equity to finance investment without incurring any cost that arises from asymmetric information. Fama and French (2002) found that later supply resources used in investment financing are debts as they bear a low risk. Due to the problems that are initiated by asymmetric information, firms hash external resources use as a cheaper policy as compared to the issuance of equity. There are several reasons why firms consider external financing as a better option to finance investment. One of them is the position of organizational sales. Enterprises with sturdy sales line gives the supremacy to finance through debt for their needs by availing form market trust towards them. These firms, therefore, have no trouble in repaying their debts due to the stable sales and their earnings. They are also liable to having recours e to debt more easily. Additionally, size and structure of firms is another factor to be considered. Firms having more accessorized assets put borrowing first in line of their resources list since they will easily get debt. Tax advantage is as well a factor that can be added to the above list as it prioritize debt financing. A correction on the original model has been suggested by Modigliani and Miller (1963). In the new model, they clearly incorporate the corporate income tax, while the other assumptions were kept untouched. Assuming ceteris paribus, the value of the firm (VL) will be maximized as it is a function of the market value of debt. In theory when the levered firm reaches its maximum market value as it is financed entirely by debt. To finance their needs of financing, the firm should use as much debt as possible. To further relax the Modigliani-Millers assumption, Miller (1977) introduced personal taxes together with corporate taxes into the model assuming that all ent erprises have similar tax rates. According to him, the relatively higher personal income tax paid on bonds by firms should be grossed up by any differential that bondholders will pay on their interest income otherwise, bonds will have no value and no one would want to hold bonds. Therefore, in equilibrium the debt advantage is negligible. De Angelo and Masulis (1980) brought in the recognition of the existence of a non- identical marginal tax rates among different firms and the outcome of tax-shield items in the financial statement other than interest expenses. As far as capital structure is concerned, they brought in two implications. First, in equilibrium a firm who is considered as a borrower benefits from a positive gain from leverage if the tax rate is higher than the marginal firm because of a low pre-paid interest rate they pay. Moreover, items such as depreciation, oil depletion allowances and investment tax credits are defacto non cash charges. They predicted that there is a positive relationship between the level of debt and the effective tax rate and a negative relationship to the amount of non debt tax shields available to them. The interest rate of debt users is deductible from tax base which in turn relinquishes the importance to debt instead of equity. Equity financing confers rise to transaction costs and to avoid this problem financing through debt is viewed as another reason Fama and French (2004). In addition to that, uncertainty of control that might be experienced in enterprises is seen as a plausible factor. The presence of new shareholders confirms the fact that they will prefer stock financing as a lack of resources and will eventually give rise to risk of management control in firm whilst in financing via debt, there is no such risk of control loss. Lamont (1997) evaluates that more than three-quarter of corporate investments in US are made through internal financing. Further, Fazzari, Hubbard and Perterse  [6]  n (1988) has shown the delicacy of investment to internal cash flow, accenting the cost advantage of internal resources and thus explaining the fact why firms have recourse to external funds. Leary and Roberts (2005) also found that firms will not have recourse to external capital markets if they have sufficient internal funds but they are more likely to make use of the external funds when they have big investment needs. Event studies also provide a significant amount of evidence indicating that information is conveyed. Repurchases made through debt had larger announcement returns than those financed with cash thus representing larger increases in financial leverages Masulis (1980) and Vermaelen (1981) ). Heinkel and Zechner (1990) analysed an expanded catalogue of risky securities that include preferred stocks. Assuming a given capital structure and asymmetric information about investment quality, they showed that in an amalgamated equilibrium, all stock firms tend to overinvest and accepted some negative NPV projects. The overinvestment can be eliminated by issuing an initial debt which resulted in an optimal leverage ratio. Besides, an underinvestment problem is created if managers make use of more debts considering the tax advantage of debt. Nevertheless, a kindred issue of preferred stocks will enable the firm to issue a higher level of debt desired without creating the problem of underinvestment. Therefore, managers develop an optimal capital structure with debt, preferred stocks and common r which is consistent with the pecking order theory. There are also researchers that went through adjustments of capital structure around long run optima.  [7]  Marsh (1982) was one of them as he predicted that firms that have a leverage ratio below the average for the last 10 years are more likely to issue debt. Jalilvand and Harris (1984) is consistent with the results of Marsh (1982) as he shows that 108 of US manufacturing firms tend to issue long term debt when the long term debts are below average. The Pecking order theory is tested on both large firms and small firms. Most of the studies have been carried out on large firms. Few studies focused on small and medium sized firms. Since SMEs confront more information asymmetry problem, it is said that the financing decisions of SMEs are better explained by the pecking order theory. Consequently recent studies have attempted to explain the financing decisions of small firms in the context of the pecking order theory. They also argue that there is a lot of differences between large and small firms. It is not only a matter of size, this is why accurate models are used to study the decisions of the latter. The problem of information asymmetry is more persistent within small firms than in large firms. This is due to the scarcity and informality of information that is available. The financing structure of small firms is explained by using a financial growth cycle by Berger and Udell (1998). (ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦) in which financial needs and option change as the business grows, gains furthe r experience, and becomes less informationally opaque. For the first two years namely the initial stage or the infant stage, companies face more information asymmetries as their main source of funds are from friends and relatives, trade credit and investors. As the age and size of companies become large enough, credit from financial institutions become more available. This is a typical view of pecking order where the degree of information asymmetry decreases as the firms grow in size and experience. Small firms find external equity costly due to the fixed costs of initial public offerings. Chittenden et al (1996). A SME pecking order was described by Zoppa and Mc Mahon (2002).  [8]  As pecking order theory prescribes, the internal funding is the first choice. In second position, the company uses short -term debt which includes trade credit and personal loans. Long-term debts are then used which include loans from owners, family and relatives. The last alternative is equity . The study of Gebru (2009) is found to be consistent with other studies as pecking order theory holds to be true for SMEs. The sample used is from Tigray and it is seen that the educational level of owners decreases and there is less intrusion in the form of ownership. Ownership type, acquisition type and owners level of education are found to be the major determinants of MSE financing preferences. However, Murray and Goyal (2003) demonstrated that pecking order theory fails where actually it should be liable and this applies for small firms where the main problem is information asymmetry. Various studies have been carried out to test the validity of pecking order theory. Evidences have shown that many researchers are for the theory and the others are against and they are as follow: Shyam- Sunder and Myers (1999) proposed to investigate the pecking order theory in the US market. According to them, the pecking order was described as an excellent first order caption for financial behaviors of companies. The slope of a firms deficit is alleged to be equal to one and the coefficient of the intercept is zero if the pecking order holds. The regression is made to the change of debt in year t. Besides, results unveil that pecking order shows a greater confidence when tested with the target adjustment model. However Chirinko and Singha (2000) examined the interpretation of Shyam- Sunder and Myers (1999) regression test as it showed that the hypothesis test used by the later suffered from statistical power problems. These problems mustered the questions about the validity of inferences hinged on their new testing strategy. The former found out that the assumption of the slope of the deficit being one was not a necessary assumption for pecking order theory to be valid. T he slope coefficient would equal to one if pecking order holds and will fall short to unity if the pecking order is not valid. Coupled with the above, the importance of information asymmetry as a determinant of capital structure as proposed by pecking order theory is tested by Bharath, Pasquariello and Wu (2009). It is seen that for the period, the test was carried out, information asymmetry did actually affect the capital structure decisions of US firms. They estimated that for every dollar of financing deficit to cover, firms in highest adverse selection decile issue more debt than those in the lowest decile. They also found out that its only when information asymmetry is to its minimum that firms will prefer to issue equity. These evidences explain the partial relevance of pecking order theory. Besides, Lemmon and Zender (2006) tested the modified version of pecking order theory. The debt capacity of a firm is taken into consideration. They wrangled that the financing choic e of firms may depend on its debt capacity. This is because they believe that to fulfill financing needs, some firms may save on the debt capacity. Internal funds remain first on the financing list for all firms. Firms that are flexible to debt capacity will chiefly use debt to fill their financing deficit. Hinged on these findings, they came to the conclusion that the firms debt capacity is a good descriptor of financial behavior and goes along with the modified version of pecking order theory. Tong et al (2011) tested the static trade off theory against the pecking order theory for US firms. According to them, pecking order theory produces issuance of debt until the debt capacity is attained. Their evidence indicated that pecking order is a better headline for US firms issue decisions than the static trade off theory. The Australian case was evaluated by Suchard and Singh ( 2006). The Australian market can be distinguished from typical US and European markets as it has many distinct characteristics. They found out that listed debt market was limited. This is mostly where firms obtained bank debt, debts that are convertible but not callable and stand alone warrants which are used to raise capital. They examined the determinants of security choice for hybrid issuers based on these differences and claimed that the results supported the pecking order theory. Coupled with the above, the linkage between managerial optimisim and corporate financial decisions was verified by Lin et al (2008)  [9]  . The evaluation was carried out by testing the Heatons (2002) model. Apart from information asymmetry, managerial optimism also contributes in the pecking order theory. Lin et al (2008) wanted to know if the pecking order preference was better when the managers were more optimistic. Listed Taiwanese companies were used in their sample and a stronger relationship was found between the issuance of debt and the financial deficit which is consistent with the mode l used by Lin et al (2008). In contrast, Faulkender and Wang (2006) provide restrained evidence for the pecking order theory. According to them, approximately a value of $1.43 is placed on companies cash holdings by investors of equity firms. This is done as it prevents a company from paying costs when raising capital in the market. Since, external financing becomes more difficult and costly to obtain, the cash value is higher for firms facing hindrance on additional financing. However, the cash value decreases as cash holdings become larger, high leverage, better cash to capital markets and larger cash distributions through dividends rather than the repurchase of shares. Next, many individual financing decisions of firms were screened by Fama and French (2005).  [10]  They found that these decisions were in contradiction with the important prognosis of pecking order theory. To give an example of the contradictions, pecking order theory states that equity issues should be the last option to be used but yet, it is observed that most firms issue some sort of stocks annually. Leary and Robert (2010) contended that pecking order theory was no way able to meticulously classify more than half of the observed financing decisions of US firms. They also suggested that the little pecking order behavior that was seen was due to incentive conflicts rather than information asymmetry. Further, Gonenc (2008) studied to verify the extent to which pecking order theory was incorporated in corporations in the US, the UK, Germany and Japan. They speculated that investors from the UK and US had an asymmetric information problem which was caused by the large spread of equity being owned. He proponed that in these countries, two managers and insiders have more information than outsider investors. German and Japanese investors faced the same asymmetric information problem mainly due to the less information flows. But evidences have shown that US, UK and Germany firms were not very supportive when it came to the pecking order theory while Japan supported the pecking order theory during the 1980s and 1990s. The impact of industry membership on the capital structure dynamics were scrutinized by Tucker and Stoja (2011) over the period from 1968 to 2006. They recommended that pecking order theory could explain only a few aspects of UK corporations capital structure policies, but it does not give an adequate explanation of their behaviours in the real world. More explicitly, they perceived that in the short run, old economy firms followed the standard pecking order theory but the new economy corporations prefer equity to debt when external funds are required. The incremental financing decision for 150 Dutch firms was estimated for the period of 1984 to 1997 by Haan and Hinloopen (2003). A distinction is made between internal financing and three types of external funds: bank borrowing, debt issues and equity issues. They concluded that Dutch comp anies had ingrained financing preferences namely, internal financing was preferred in the first position, bank loans are used secondly, thirdly equity are issued and finally bonds are issued. In addition, an investigation was carried out by Delcore (2007)  [11]  as to whether capital structure determinants in emerging Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries followed the traditional capital structure theory. The explanation of capital structures in CEE cannot be made by the pecking order theory. They came to the conclusion that there are factors that influenced the leverage decisions for CEE countries and they were: the difference of banking systems, disparity in legal systems governing corporate operations, shareholders and bondholders rights protection and corporate governance.

Essay about Oedipus - Don Taylor Adaption - 1286 Words

Place yourself back in to the times of Greek tragedy and culture, the glorious palace doors overlooking the Kingdom and the elegant, admirable robes. Here you will find the setting of â€Å"Oedipus the King† written by Sophocles, adapted in 1986 by Don Taylor. Taylor adapts this version extremely well, highlighting the main themes and significant symbolising Sophocles would have used in the play outstandingly. Also he still keeps the reflection of the Greek culture of the play too. Like all Greek tragedies Oedipus is set around only one setting, here it’s outside the Kingdom where the citizens of Thebes and the chorus of the Theban councillors all gather in hope of Oedipus’s wisdom. The stage is set out in a fixed stage, with the kingdom†¦show more content†¦When he talks you can feel a sense of trust as Michael Pennington presents Oedipus as such a loud fluent speaker, but the use of Sophocles puns add a tone of dramatic irony to the play for instance his last line ‘I see it all’ just before he plunges his own eyes out.. Throughout the play the use of dramatic irony is used to a wide extent, adding to this is the use of realism, focusing on the words. We are introduced the chorus in the first Parodos, they all look fairly identical dressed in black and white symbolising knowledge and wisdom. Don Taylor has used the chorus very well in this version of Oedipus; they always seemed to be making distinctive sharp shapes and movements in order. The chorus are directly speaking to the Gods, visually portraying this by focusing on the heavens above when they spoke. Don Taylor modernises them to seem like jury, at the end of each episode reflecting upon the events happening. Their language and the way they are presented are fast pasted and have a very flowing rhythm. The music from the beginning always seems to be on in the background, sensory supplementing the themes of the play, mystery. In episode 1 it seems to becoming brighter emphasising the unity of time in the play. We are also introduced to Teiresias who enters from stage left towards the Kingdom, the chorus stand around the main centre in a semi-circle whilst Teiresias enters and takes a standstill in the

Autonomous Vehicles and Software Architectures Free Essays

Author: Anonymous Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 10:07:54 AM EDT Subject:Week 1 Discussion 2 â€Å"Autonomous Vehicles and Software Architectures † Please respond to the following: * Autonomous vehicles utilize integrated imaging and vision systems, sensor systems, and control systems to â€Å"drive a car†. Determine what you believe are the top-five challenges of integrating these systems. Provide one example for each challenge and explain why you believe it is a challenge. We will write a custom essay sample on Autonomous Vehicles and Software Architectures or any similar topic only for you Order Now * Explain whether you believe there is a difference between designing and developing software for distributed architectures and stand-alone essay writer help, non-distributed systems. Provide at least five reasons to support your position. Autonomous Vehicles and Top-Five Challenges 1. ) Just for starters, who would be responsible for accidents? Software used in such cars would have to have the same basic reactions as humans, and if there is a computational fault that causes a crash, would the driver or the software-making firm be at fault? Not only this, but vehicle safety standards would have to be assessed and potentially rewritten to account for electronics as well as mechanics — and knowing how governments work, this could take a while. . ) No system is faultless, and everything has a chance of failure. But if a computer system fails when you’re on the highway, not only could it prove more dangerous than usual — as your attention is unlikely to be fully on the road if something else is in control — and so a self-driving car would have to come with a plethora of safety mechanisms in place to cater for these issues. Not only this, bu t such a system would have to be able to react to unexpected situations. For example, how would an autonomous car react if a child ran out into a road? The technology may be shiny and new, but safety will prove a massive challenge before this kind of technology will be allowed to see the light of day when it comes down to the general public. Specifically, driving in snow is proving challenging because the snow covers the markers and visual cues that the autonomous sensor technology relies on to pilot a vehicle on its own. 3. ) There also may be problems with new roads or changes in street names as well as with situations in which police are manually directing traffic. 4. Another challenge is driving through construction zones, accident zones, or other situations in which a human is directing traffic with hand signals. The cars are excellent at observing stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, the behavior of other cars, and other common cues that human drivers use to figure out how fast to go and where and when to turn. But when a human is directing traffic with hand signals–and especially when these hand signals conflict w ith a traffic light or stop sign–the cars get confused. 5. Data Challenges: An enormous amount of data will become available for alternative usage, which is likely to present challenges and opportunities pertaining to data security, privacy concerns, and data analytics and aggregation. Privacy concerns must be resolved to enable the deployment of integrated sensor-based and cooperative vehicle technologies. A balance between privacy protection interests and other affected interests is essential to resolve conflicts between the stakeholders who will make decisions about how information is collected, archived, and distributed. Potential stakeholder concerns are numerous: disclosure of vehicle data could reveal trade secrets; public personalities, such as politicians and celebrities, could be connected to potentially embarrassing locations or routes; and ordinary citizens could find themselves spammed or stalked as the data enables a variety of harmful applications such a as commercial misuse, public corruption, and identity theft. And what’s to prevent nefarious governments from using the expanded surveillance capabilities to spy on their citizens? Data Security: Numerous security threats will arise once personal mobility is dominated by self-driving vehicles. Unauthorized parties, hackers, or even terrorists could capture data, alter records, instigate attacks on systems, compromise driver privacy by tracking individual vehicles, or identify residences. They could provide bogus information to drivers, masquerade as a different vehicle, or use denial-of-service attacks to bring down the network. The nefarious possibilities are mind-boggling—the stuff of sci-fi thrillers. But system security will undoubtedly become a paramount issue for transportation systems with the successful deployment of integrated sensor based and cooperative vehicles. Difference Between Distributed and Non-Distributed Systems A distributed system is a computing system in which a number of components cooperate by communicating over a network. Computer software traditionally ran in stand-alone systems, where the user interface, application ‘business’ processing, and persistent data resided in one computer, with peripherals attached to it by buses or cables. Inherent complexities, which arise from fundamental domain challenges: E. g. , components of a distributed system often reside in separate address spaces on separate nodes, so inter-node communication needs different mechanisms, policies, and protocols than those used for intra-node communication in a stand-alone systems. Likewise, synchronization and coordination is more complicated in a distributed system since components may run in parallel and network communication can be asynchronous and non-deterministic. The networks that connect components in distributed systems introduce additional forces, such as latency, jitter, transient failures, and overload, with corresponding impact on system efficiency, predictability, and availability [VKZ04]. †¢ Accidental complexities, which arise from limitations with software tools and development techniques, such as non-portable programming APIs and poor distributed debuggers. Ironically, many accidental complexities stem from deliberate choices made by developers who favor low-level languages and platforms, such as C and C-based operating system APIs and libraries, that scale up poorly when applied to distributed systems. As the complexity of application requirements increases, moreover, new layers of distributed infrastructure are conceived and released, not all of which are equally mature or capable, which complicates development, integration, and evolution of working systems. †¢ Inadequate methods and techniques. Popular software analysis methods and design techniques have focused on constructing single-process, single-threaded applications with ‘best-effort’ quality of service (QoS) requirements. The development of high-quality distributed systems—particularly those with stringent performance requirements, such as video-conferencing or air traffic control systems—has been left to the expertise of skilled software architects and engineers. Moreover, it has been hard to gain experience with software techniques for distributed systems without spending much time wrestling with platform-specific details and fixing mistakes by costly trial and error. Continuous re-invention and re-discovery of core concepts and techniques. The software industry has a long history of recreating incompatible solutions to problems that have already been solved. There are dozens of general-purpose and real-time operating systems that manage the same hardware resources. Similarly, there are d ozens of incompatible operating system encapsulation libraries, virtual machines, and middleware that provide slightly different APIs that implement essentially the same features and services. If effort had instead been focused on rapidly by reusing common tools and standard platforms and components. Distributed Systems Therefore, distributed and non-distributed computer system are different in these ways. * Distributed architecture has the ability to scale out and load balance business logic independently. * Distributed architecture has separate server resources that are available for separate layers. * Distributed architecture is flexible. * Distributed architecture has additional serialization and network latency overheads due to remote calls. * Distributed architecture is potentially more complex and more expensive in terms of total cost of ownership. Non-Distributed Systems Non-distributed architecture is less complex than distributed architecture. * Non-distributed architecture has performance advantages gained through local calls. * With non-distributed architecture, it is difficult to share business logic with other applications. * With non-distributed architecture, server resources are shared across layers. This can be good or bad — layers may work well together a nd result in optimized usage because one of them is always busy. However, if one layer requires disproportionately more resources, another layer may be starved of resources. How to cite Autonomous Vehicles and Software Architectures, Papers

Marketing Strategy and Plan for Uber - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theMarketing Strategy and Planfor Uber. Answer: Target Segmentation Uber is a very reputed organization that supplies cars for the customers that serves as a cab. People use these cars for going to some places they want to. In this process, the customer needs to have a smart phone in which he has to download the Uber application software and then book the cars for travelling (Riefler, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2012). Uber uses both the drivers and the customers for their target segment. It operates in almost 400 cities more than 50+ countries. The potential target candidates are those who use smart phone and have access to internet. The consumers are those who are without cars and those who have their own cars, are drivers (Wedel and Kamakura 2012). Target Marketing There are several strategies by which Uber attracts their customers. They offer their customers with many special offers, discounts, coupons to regular customers and the journey credit that are offered to the passengers for long journeys. The drivers of the cars receive vehicle finance and attractive incentives on health care. Uber is an effective medium of reaching their customer base and they maintain long lasting customer relationships. There are varieties of operating modes that they have adopted to reach their customers. They also bring new methods in the market to reach to those new customers. Positioning Strategies Marketing strategies of Uber can be reflected by shifting the focus on the Four Ps of marketing (Kotler 2012). Product: Uber is a reputed, well-maintained transportation service industry operating in many countries in the world. Price: The mode of price in Uber is the surge pricing. In it, the rates or the fares of transportation rise automatically when more passengers are available. On the contrary, it comes down with lesser passengers. Place: The aspect of place can be understood in the geographic segmentation criteria. Uber always has a tendency to operate on the metropolitan cities of the countries because in the metropolitan cities, the passengers are easily available in big numbers and they like to avail luxury transportation. There are more drivers available as well. Promotion: Uber makes its promotion campaigns by word-of-mouth. They have collaborated their services with Google, Microsoft Outlook and restaurants as well (UberEATS) (Lambert 2016). Marketing Strategy of Uber Uber has been operating in many countries across the world and the demands have been various according to the areas of operation. So Uber has to adopt a marketing strategy that will cater to the needs and requirements of their customers. They have adopted a single segment basis marketing strategy (Fifield 2012). They want to assure the customers that all the demographic details are looked into with detail. Their highest priority lies in the customer feedback and their simple behavior (Cronin-Gilmore 2012) Recommendations It can be recommended from the above study that if a company like Uber wants to improve they have to look on various things. They have to reduce the driver downtime. They also have to allow scheduled pick-ups for their customers. The company has to launch loyalty programs towards their customers i.e. riders. They have to customize the experience of their customers as well. References Cronin-Gilmore, J., 2012. Exploring marketing strategies in small businesses.Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, vol.6, no. 1, p.96 Fifield, P., 2012.Marketing strategy. Routledge, Woburn.. Kotler, P., 2012.Kotler on marketing. Simon and Schuster New York. Lambert, J., 2016.Microsoft Outlook 2016 Step by Step. Microsoft Press Washington.. Riefler, P., Diamantopoulos, A. and Siguaw, J.A., 2012. Cosmopolitan consumers as a target group for segmentation.Journal of International Business Studies,vol.43 no.3, pp.285-305. Wedel, M. and Kamakura, W.A., 2012.Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations,Vol. 8. New York: Springer Science Business Media.

Research Paper on Americans with Disabilities Act free essay sample

Before starting this class and especially the research paper, I knew very little about the ADA. During the period of research and writing the paper I hope to obtain a better grasp on the ADA in general. But I also hope to learn some things that my current place of employment can improve our standards when it comes to those with disabilities. The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990 by then President George H. W. Bush. It prohibits discrimination based on disability and only disability. It is fairly similar to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We will write a custom essay sample on Research Paper on Americans with Disabilities Act or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Blackwell Publishing. General Discussion Analysis The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is a civil-rights law that was passed on July 26, 1990 (Acemoglu). Kathryn Moss suggests that the ADA is arguably the most important civil rights law for people with disabilities and the most significant since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ADA is a federal legislation that forbids discrimination of various sorts and allows the 43 million Americans with disabilities an equal opportunity for employment and services. It provides fairly similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines being disabled as â€Å"incapacitated by illness or injury; also physically or mentally impaired in a way that substantially limits activity especially in relation to employment or education. The law was written enable people with disabilities to not only enter the job market but to also remain employed. In the late 1980’s, a House of Representatives report came to a conclusion that more than 8. 2 million disabled individuals were unemployed despite their desire to work. Also, those disabled individuals earned 36 to 38 percent less than their counterparts (Faillace). According to Gary Dessler, â€Å"employers with 15 or more workers are prohibited from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities with regard to applications, hiring, discharge, compensation, advancement, training, or other terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. It also says that employers must make ‘reasonable accommodations’ for physical or mental limitations unless doing so imposes an ‘undue hardship’ on the business. † It not only prohibits discrimination in employment but also outlaws most physical barriers in public accommodations, transportation, telecommunications, and government services. Although the ADA does not specifically list any disabilities, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) guidelines state that when an individual has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity then the individual is in fact disabled. It goes on to state that impairments can include any physiological disorder or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of several body systems, or any mental or psychological disorder (Dessler). Among the protected classes are persons with AIDS and substance abusers who are in treatment. Some 50 million current or potential workers are estimated to be covered by the laws provisions (Columbia Encyclopedia). However, the act does list some conditions that are not to be considered as disabilities. These include â€Å"homosexuality, bisexuality, voyeurism, compulsive gambling, pyromania, and certain disorders resulting from the current illegal use of drugs† (Dessler). The act has already been much litigated. In 1999, for instance, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that correctable conditions like eyesight requiring the use of glasses do not qualify as disabilities under the act, and a 2002 decision established that a disability must limit a persons ability to perform tasks of central importance not just in the workplace but in daily life (Fielder). Studies suggest that the number of disabled persons entering the workforce has not improved significantly, and that a contributing factor may be their reluctance to lose other benefits available to them on the basis of their disabilities (DeLiere). Although the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities reports that the cost of making an accommodation for an employee with a disability averages around $200 per employee with many costing less than $50. But espite this relatively small cost, many employers are still stereotyping disabled individuals and fear that the accommodations may disrupt the workplace (Blanck). Dale Brown states there are several myths regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act. He says the â€Å"ADA does not give you the right to a job because you have a disability. You must be qualified and compete and you may be rejected from a job just like anyone else. It does not give extra points in getting a job, the ADA is not an affirmativ e action statute. That is, its not intended to make up for past discrimination by requiring the employers hire a certain number of people with disabilities or giving them incentives to do so. It also does not allow any special privileges on the job. Although sometimes reasonable accommodation might look like special privileges to other people, you have the same responsibilities and challenges as your fellow employees. † In essence, you still must be as qualified or more qualified than a fellow prospective job applicant in order to receive the position. There will be no punishment for the employer if the disabled applicant is not hired because of the two applicant’s qualifications. TITLE I-Employment Title I of the ADA contains the law’s employment provisions. This is where the law states that private employers (the exact term in the law is covered entity) with 15 or more employees must not discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities. A qualified individual is a person that can perform the essential duties and functions of a job or position with reasonable accommodations. One may see a potential loophole with the act based on those two words â€Å"reasonable accommodations. † The definition of reasonable accommodations along with any other possible complaint against a company is taking on a case by case basis. But such accommodations are required only if making them does not place an undue hardship on the employer (Moss). Title I applies to all aspects of one’s job including application procedures, hiring, promotion and discharge, worker’s compensation, job training, and more (Blanck). Another aspect of the job that is covered under the ADA is if a prospective job applicant is related o or associated with a person who has a disability. For example, if an employer will not hire someone because they may think the prospective applicant would be too consumed with taking care of the disabled person, it would be illegal for the employer to not hire the applicant for that reason (Brown). Cases filed against employers regarding Title I te nd to be not cases about fact but rather about personal and social attitudes because they tend to involve the â€Å"states of mind of the various players in the story† (Krieger). Krieger goes on to state that juries and judges are asked to imagine the state of mind of an employer who was faced with hiring an applicant or not hiring an applicant that is, for example, obese. Or to fire an employee who has â€Å"nonsymptomatic AIDS. † In many cases it comes down to the personality and presentation of the person or persons under trial rather than the facts, because there may not be any facts, just allegations. An employee must perform the essential functions, those activities that are intrinsic to a job. The essential functions are determined individually for each job. However, an employee is still considered as a qualified candidate or employee if it only takes reasonable accommodation to meet the functions of the job. According to Dale Brown, making reasonable accommodations usually means â€Å"removing obstacles from the job, the workplace, or the terms and conditions of employment that would otherwise prevent an otherwise qualified person with a disability from doing the job. † He goes on to give an example of what reasonable accommodation may be. He states that computers and calculators are reasonable accommodations that may help many people whom have learning disabilities or dyslexia with routine arithmetic and proofreading functions. Also, in order for an employer to make these reasonable accommodations to the workplace, they must have knowledge of the disability of the applicant or employee. If the employer is not made aware of the disability they may not be held responsible for any discrimination. The discrimination can not take place until the disability is actually disclosed. Even then, the employer is legally allowed to ask for medical documentation and evaluate it before they determine whether or not the request is appropriate (West). Meaning, the burden of proof that the disability substantially limits a major life role lies on the applicant or employee along with their health provider. Not only must the health care provider and applicant or employee prove that a disability is present, but must also prove that the requested accommodation is a necessity to perform their job. If the employer will not make the accommodations, the applicant or employee can pay for the accommodation out of their own pocket. Ruth Colker states that if an applicant or employee offers to pay for the accommodation, the employer can not say no unless it is disruptive. So again, it is up to the jury or judge to determine what is and what is not disruptive. This is again why each ADA case or complaint is handled differently and there is no real precedent in these cases. TITLE II-Public Services Title II has two different sections. One that covers public entities and the other is specific to public transportation provided by public entities. The section that covers public agencies includes local, county, state government and their departments and agencies. Title II covers all activities, services, and programs of the public entities (Americans). The first section includes entities like schools, city governments, and fire stations. Accessibility means that each program is readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. Program accessibility is necessary not only for individuals with mobility impairments, but also for individuals with vision and hearing impairments (Americans). Meaning leaders of the entities need to consider not only physical obstructions such as doors and restrooms but also visual and hearing barriers such as accessible building signage, public telephones and alarms with visible signals. The second section, which covers the public transportation of the aforementioned public entities, includes services operated by state and local government by regulations of the Department of Transportation. It also includes facilities used for the public transportation systems such as bus stations, railway stations and airports along with vehicles used in public transportation (Americans). Again, the basis for this title is that no qualified individual with a disability will be subjected to any sort of discrimination by a public entity. It also states that the individual not be deprived of any benefits of services or activities of the public entity due to the disability as well. Any sort of accessibility or service that is lacking from any of the public entities can be considered discrimination regardless of who it actually affects. TITLE III- Public Accommodations Title III of the ADA is the title that applies to private entities such as hotels, stores, gas stations, etc. It is very similar to Title II just in regards to the different type of business entity that it covers. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by public accommodations and also in commercial facilities (Brown). It also prohibits the discrimination on the basis of disability by any person who owns or operates a place of public accommodation. However, entities that are controlled by religious organizations, including places of worship, and private clubs are both not covered by Title III. Although private clubs are not covered, their facilities are made available to customers of a place of public accommodation (West). The public accommodations must also provide auxiliary aids and services when they are necessary to ensure effective communication with those with hearing, vision, speech, or similar impairments. TITLE IV- Telecommunications Title IV of the ADA requires that all United States based local or long distance telephone services must provide a relay service for those individuals that are deaf or hard of hearing along with those with speech impediments. Also, people with TDD’s (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf ) and TTY’s (Teletypewriter) who are calling those with out TDD’s or TTY’s and vice versa can make a call through a relay service. The relay service will transmit the call using TDD/TTY or voice depending on the need (Joffee). Today, there are multiple sources of TDD’s and TTY’s available through the internet using broadband connections. TITLE V-Miscellaneous Provisions Title V includes miscellaneous provisions that relate to the application of the ADA. Some of the more notable provisions are: †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"The ADA shall not be construed to apply a lesser standard than that already in existence under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or to invalidate any state or local laws which have stricter provisions. †¢The ADA will not prohibit an insurance company from using sound actuarial data to administer risks, even if the effect is that people with disabilities will be charged more or denied coverage, but it must not be used as a subterfuge to deny coverage. †¢The ADA shall not be construed to require a person to accept an accommodation† (Acemoglu). Conclusion The ADA was instituted to help even the playing field for those with disabilities. But in some ways it has actually discouraged employers from hiring candidates with disabilities due to the perceived extra cost and effort it would take to hire a disabled person. Another reason for criticism is that many lawyers have made a living out of suing non-compliant businesses. There has also been research that concludes the number of disabled employed has actually declined significantly since the passage of the ADA. So while the ADA was instituted for all the right reasons, maybe the plan hasn’t been perfected and it is lacking some effectiveness to date.

Bigger Better Faster Foundations of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke essays

Bigger Better Faster Foundations of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke essays Man has always longed to build things, and as time goes on, man feels the need to outdo all previous achievements. Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Foundations of Paradise is a good example of this human characteristic. Vannevar Morgan is an engineer living in the twenty second century, and is known by his peers to be one of the greatest engineers in the world. The creation that gave Morgan this title was the Gibraltar Bridge, connecting Europe to Africa. This bridge is situated five kilometers above the water of the Mediterranean Sea. Dr. Morgan has in his head yet another idea that will become his final and greatest mark on the world. A new substance has been developed through years of research. It is a microcrystaline fiber that is extraordinarily strong and ten times narrower than a human hair. Morgan's idea is to use this material to build an elevator to hoist things into orbit of the Earth. This way, no rockets will be needed to blast things into orbit. Much money will be saved, along with a dramatic decrease in pollution. Morgan knows many people who have faith in his plan, including the World Bank, although many doubt the feasibility of his ideas. I can relate to this because I tend to "dream big" also. Many of my ideas are very grandiose and many times, I have a hard time explaining them to other people. I have found though, like Vannevar Morgan, if I keep one of my ideas in my mind for long enough and think it out, it has a good chance of coming true. It seems like the number of difficulties encountered when an idea is put into place is directly relative to the outcome of the completed idea. A simple idea with little benefit will typically not encounter many problems in production. A grandiose idea with earth-shaking benefits, on the other hand, will have many obstacles to overcome before completion. This rule applies very heavily to the space elevator concept. It turns out that the place on which the ...

Poem analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Poem analysis - Essay Example The poem has no specific setting since it describes the struggles of a man rather than where he is, but it could be argued that the setting is that of a house since that is where the author would feel most lonely without the presence of his wife. From this poem is it clear that no matter how attached or how much pain we experience after losing a loved one, we eventually learn to live without them. The poem talks about the author’s grief for his dead wife and how he finally managed to cope with his loss. The whole poem is one huge metaphor of a man stressed with the weight of the box on him while in the real sense the whole scenario actually represents the author struggling with his grief over losing his wife. All 13 lines of the poem are metaphors describing the grief of the author. For example, the author says, â€Å"He manages like somebody carrying a box that is too heavy, first with his arms underneath† (line 1-3). The writer vividly explains how he managed to get on with his daily routines after his wife died, how hard it was to live a normal life with her around. The author uses hyperbole when he says that he managed to life but like someone carrying a box that is too heavy for him such that he has to use his entire body to hold the weight. He uses this exaggeration to help the reader understand the intensity of his pain and grief. The author carries on with the metaphor until the finale of the poem where he says â€Å"but now, the man can hold underneath again, so th at he can go on without putting the box down† (line 11-13). The author simply says that after much struggle with his grief he eventually learned to deal and handle it so well that he could almost live a normal life without sadness and a sense of loss. By symbolizing his experience with grief with a man struggling with a heavy box, the author has managed to make the reader experience his

Accounting education and the developement of ethical maturity Essay

Accounting education and the developement of ethical maturity - Essay Example One has to wonder if accounting firms whose parent company has a business relationship with a company they are auditing have lost the true meaning of independence when conducting those audits. The current trend toward corporate acquisitions of CPA firms poses potential threats to the autonomy and ethical standards of public accounting professionals. This recent consolidation movement suggests that for the first time a significant number of public accounting professionals are subject to the supervision and control of nonprofessionals. (Shafer, Lowe and Fogarty 2002: 109) The question becomes are professional charted accountants prepared to handle these areas of ethical behaviour, have they been sufficiently trained to do so? In this new millennium even the practice of business has undergone drastic changes of focus that need to be addressed by the educational model. The focus of this research will be to analyse the old and new models and fathom what current education has done to address this situation. On of the difficulties in this area is that research in accounting ethics, as previously noted may not be getting the equal treatment it deserves in the educational setting. There is evidence in the research supporting the theory that ethics in academia is not perceived to be an important area to the majority of accounting educators. Therefore ethics in education is in jeopardy of not receiving the necessary level of effort and interest needed for it to become a primary pillar in the academic accounting community. It has been noted that, ‘†¦ accounting ethics research has traditionally been undervalued due to the use of a different research methodology and its relatively recent entry as an appropriate topic for accounting researchers.’ (Bernardi 2004: 145) The first strategy is to view ethics not as a subfield of

The Issue of Informatized Conflict

The Issue of Informatized Conflict Charles H. Rybeck, Lanny R. Cornwell, Philip M. Sagan It took the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 to awaken many to the threat of the Nazis. In 1957, it took Sputnik to awaken the US to the Soviet threat in space. It took 9/11 to awaken many to the threat of violent Islamist extremism. And it took the Underwear Bomber of Christmas Day 2009 to awaken the White House to the inadequacy of the way the US used its Terrorism Watchlist. What will it take to awaken us to the threat of what the Chinese insightfully call Informatized Conflict[1]? Will we embolden our adversaries through an ineffectual response as the world did when facing the emerging Nazi threat? Or will we respond as decisively and with as much foresight as we did to Sputnik? What will it take to align the United States Government (USG, used here as synonymous with whole of Government as an enterprise construct) and its allies to take effective countermeasures to prevail in Informatized Conflict? In this article, we outline a non-partisan, USG-led strategy for security in the face of that challenge. Information Technology, the quaint and already outdated concept of IT, fails to capture the digital dimension of our world in the Information Age. The concept harkens back to the now-distant days when IT was a sequestered, relatively unimportant, compartment of our world. CIOs reported to CFOs because CEOs pigeonholed computers as simple aids to accounting. In reality, though, as anyone with a smart phone knows, the digital dimension is now integral to every aspect of business and societal interaction on a global scale. Each day we wake up in a world of active Informatized Conflict. Unseen battles are being waged all around us. After the Chinese penetrated our military weapons supply chain, after the North Koreans exposed our corporate vulnerabilities, and after the Russians influenced our national media in the 2016 Presidential Election, how is it that we havent responded strategically to this clear and present danger? What catastrophe would we have to experience to take the steps necessary for our own defense? Sadly, the USG and our entire National Security Enterprise (which includes all stakeholders, public and private) are failing to directly confront the digital threat because it is not constituted to see this issue. Our institutions look at the world as it was, not as it is, and not as it is inevitably becoming in the rapidly emerging world of the Internet of Things (IoT), where machine learning will play an essential role in organizing the growing sea of information in which we live. Every tool we use in national security (from weapons to intelligence to diplomacy), in commerce, and in governance now rests on a rapidly evolving digital foundation. Today we must run to keep up, and tomorrow we will be required to run even faster. This challenge to run is, unfortunately, in an area where we have seldom managed to crawl and our nations leaders have not fully recognized that reality at the highest levels. Senior executives are only beginning to realize that our digital challenges have become mission-critical, that they defy our routine acquisition processes, and that they are too consequential to be left to technologists and acquisition specialists, alone. The pressing need for consideration of Informatized Conflict by non-technologists prompted us to translate what have been internal Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC), IT-based debates into unclassified laymens terms for consideration by informed influencers. This article was written to (1) identify key, progress-limiting issues on which the Executive Branch and Congress need to act, (2) offer a unifying and non-partisan strategy to protect Security and Freedom. In Part II of this series uses two specific examples to illustrate the execution of this proposed strategy. Responding to Global Disruption: How do We Need to Change the Way We Fulfill our National Security Mission? The digital dimension is enhancing and disrupting the fabric of life in every society where modern technology is present. Walter Russell Meads Blue Social Model[2] describes the slow-motion collapse of that part of the 20th Centurys legacy is now accelerating in ways that will likely usher in an historic realignment. This realignment will, of necessity, change the frameworks within which America provides for its security, including how it acquires the goods and services it uses in that effort. 2017s national and international news is unfolding so feverishly that the non-partisan Joint action recommended in this article is in constant jeopardy of becoming overcome by events. As Mead points out, Donald Trumps election can best be understood as part of the Blue Social Models collapse. TAI readers will not be shocked to hear that Government, Industry, and Labor leaders have all, in their rush to preserve the old order, ignored the digital dimensions National Security imperatives. Despite all the Governments talk about the Internet Cybersecurity and all its investment in IT Cyber, our National Security Enterprise has yet to reorient its priorities or its budget to prepare for Informatized Conflict. Right now, our Government has a unique opportunity to reorient the structure, flow, and management of the information for the National Security Enterprise in ways that both ensure the security of our future and reduce the cost of our defense.[3] We have not yet recognized that-even though our challenges have their roots in the technology arena-business-as-usual technological solutions alone will not address these challenges. USG decision makers and influencers, from the Executive Branch to Congress to our citizenry as a whole, will have to consider and adopt a Joint strategy in order to realize the benefits of this digital reorientation. Of course, this will take us outside our national comfort zone, but, given the Informatized Conflict threat, the alternative of continuing with business-as-usual is unthinkable. Wise observers have pointed out that overreaction to catastrophic attack is likely to jeopardize our democracy. So, prevention of such attacks should be a rallying point for citizens of every political persuasion. And we should protect our capacity for non-partisan and bipartisan cooperation on confronting our vulnerabilities as one of our strongest National Security assets. Only the Trump Administrations actions to preserve and rebuild trust across the National Security Enterprise can make that cooperation possible. Vision for a New National Security Jointness: Figure 1: The Joint National Security Enterprise: Combining Capabilities of the DoD, IC, and International Partners Source: USD(I) In the US, we entrust our frontline National Defense leadership to the DoD and the IC, two interconnected but separate chains of command. These entities are chartered to deliver kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities.   Only the Commander-in-Chief (POTUS) controls both. In 2009, Lt Gen James Clapper, as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence [USD(I)] combined his focus on Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) with all projections of national power that are informed by ISR in a vision for Jointness. This vision (see Figure 1.) has yet to be implemented, but it provides the basis necessary for C4ISR Fusion (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). This vision summarizes what the DoD and the IC agree on in theory. They agree on Jointness and Fusion in the fields of intelligence, military operations, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism.[4] Jointness has a proud and successful history as a strategy for the US Armed Forces. But here we use the term Joint to refer not only to the combined Armed Services but to the unified actions of all the DoD, IC, and other stakeholders-and ever-shifting alliances-whose efforts combine in pursuit of National Security with all the instruments of national power. Fusion here combines data, data science, and data services to achieve security objectives first outlined by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. We depend on this Fusion at every stage of conflict. For example, modern ISR depends on Upstream Data Fusion (UDF), not always having to wait for cumbersome sequences to produce a fully-vetted finished document. Similarly, active conflict with near-peer adversaries demands kinetic responses only possible via Fusion-based, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interoperability. A concerted national application of Jointness and Fusion can break the deadlock that is keeping us from doing what we know we need to do at the enterprise-level to defend ourselves in a world of Informatized Conflict. That Jointness can only be achieved by bringing together the appropriate teams, at the appropriate levels, to ensure a clear commanders intent is realized. Our Three Indispensable Mission-Critical Teams   Ã‚   Figure 2: The National Security Enterprises Three Mission-Critical Teams Source: DMI Three Mission-Critical Teams combine to form the National Security Enterprise and fulfill its mission. The Government teams (Governance Budget, Mission Execution, and Technology) perform functions analogous to their three familiar private sector equivalents (i.e., the CEO, COO, and CIO organizations). The obvious differences between the Governments organization and the private sector (for example, the shared powers of Congress and POTUS) are useful in understanding why common-sense solutions and efficiencies adopted almost universally in the private sector have been rejected within the Government. C4ISR Fusion connects the three Mission-Critical Teams for Informatized Conflict. Acquisition to Support USG Innovation? Eisenhowers farewell address cautioned us to be wary as well as transparent in how we contract with the military-industrial base to improve capabilities. Despite yeoman efforts by the Executive Branch and Congress, Americas system for acquisition has not matched Eisenhowers challenge nor has it kept up with technologys structural transformation. Platforms, sensors, and systems are undergoing widely reported changes, but the USG meet the current acquisition challenge only by understanding the molecular structure of the information or digital substrate underlying them all. Without the discipline imposed by what the private sector calls a business case, the USG has become famous for failed large-scale technology initiatives.[5] Fortunately, though, new, private-sector innovations are creating opportunities to change how the Government conducts its National Security business. Industry observers are all aware that software development has undergone an historic transformation from grand, multi-year Waterfalls to modest, short-term Agile sprints. DevOps is now coming into use to describe software DEVelopment and information technology OPerationS as a way of accelerating the building, testing, and releasing software. Famously taking advantage of microservices and as-a-service infrastructure, private sector leaders (such as Netflix and Uber) are currently showing how new software can be delivered hourly. In contrast, fielding software enhancements in National Security now typically takes years. The USG is adopting Agile development-but within enterprise strictures that are preventing the implementation of many of its most potent benefits. Responding to these global, private sector-led changes, Congress has mandated acquisition change in the National Defense Authorization Acts of 2016 and 2017. [6]   Although such reform has been a perennial subject of conversation, Secretary of Defense Mattis has an opportunity to work with a receptive Administration and Congressional leaders like the Chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), to fundamentally reorient acquisition. In the past, the USG focused primarily on procuring existing products, services, and capabilities to meet known requirements. Now, the USG needs to build the inherently Governmental internal competency to lead a new way of doing business: continuous engineering to take advantage of evolving technology in a data-centric context and to confront evolving threats. In confronting the current strategic and acquisition challenge, the Trump Administration will need to avoid the pitfalls of commercial conflicts of interest, bureaucratic overreach, and unnecessary partisanship. In a dynamic commercial environment involving many vendors offering to sell partial solutions to the USG, the Administration will need to improve its acquisition and orchestration functions. What does an informed USG senior executive need to know about the infinite array of National Security technological and programmatic detail in order to affect such a consequential change? At one level, it is quite simple: Private Sector best practices can guide, regulate, and execute the many functions that are not unique to the USG. Key mission areas, in contrast, demand unique and USG-specific intervention. US law often refers to this as inherently Governmental and specifies how it needs to be handled. Private Sector best practices, here, are inadequate to meet USG needs. This simple distinction can be usefully applied to our current Informatized Conflict challenge. Commanders Intent/ Congressional Intent/ National Strategy:  We Already Know What Works The Trump Administration should begin immediately to remedy the gridlock inherent in so much of the USGs preparation for Informatized Conflict. The Executive Office of the President (EOP) could mobilize the leaders of Governments three Mission-Critical Teams (Governance Budget, Mission Execution, and Technology) across the entire National Security Enterprise. Together, the three Mission-Critical Teams could champion Tightly Aligned core capabilities to enable enterprise functionality and innovation at the Loosely Coupled edge. Figure 3: Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled as an alternative to todays dysfunction and as a Winning Joint Strategy in Informatized Conflict While the Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled approach originated as an engineering concept, it has been successfully applied in concert by the three private sector equivalents of the Mission-Critical Teams to guide similar foundational, Internet-dependent initiatives. Major retailers and service delivery firms (famously, Wal-Mart in the 1990s and Netflix in the 2000s, for example) rebuilt their supply chains using this approach. The Google Android used on smartphones, tablets, and other devices-the operating system (OS) with the worlds largest installed base-is an open source example of this strategy in action. The Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled strategy applied to the USGs digital assets can be what Ernest May and Philip Zelikow called a Capital P Policy[7], a redirection around which the country unites over a long timespan and across political divides. This and subsequent Administrations will need a rigorous Mission/Business Case to sustain alignment among these three Mission-Critical Teams. Fortunately, the mission benefits are so powerful and the cost savings so dramatic that the Mission/Business Case could be strong enough to overcome the entrenched interests who will, of course, fight it with all the tools at their disposal. The essence of the Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled strategy is to agree on those few principles, policies, and standards necessary for the enterprise to function as a unified whole. Then operational units and individual programs can be freed to innovate at the edge in whatever ways best serve their individual missions. Who Needs to Do What? What we are proposing is an approach inspired by extraordinary systems thinkers from each of the three Mission-Critical Teams. Here we give examples with an emphasis on those representing the Governance Budget and Mission Execution teams. The only technologist listed here is Dr. Cerf: Andy Marshall (retired leader of the Defense Departments Office of Net Assessment) Gen Mike Hayden (retired after leading NSA and CIA) Philip Zelikow (former executive director of both the Markle Foundation task force on National Security in the Information Age and then the 9/11 Commission; later Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Condoleezza Rice) The late Ernie May (senior advisor to the 9/11 Commission) Michà ¨le Flournoy (former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and now head of the Center for a New American Security) Gen Paul Selva (the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Vint Cerf (the co-inventor of TCP/IP, the messaging protocol that underlies the entire Internet) They and we have found that few Government executives have the cross-functional experience to fully appreciate their counterparts frames of reference. But the kind of changes that the USG needs now can only be made by aligning the strategies of all of the three Mission-Critical Teams. Figure 4: Aligning the Three Mission-Critical Teams Source: DMI The three Mission-Critical Teams bring very different foci, levers, and artifacts to the fight. These, in turn, depend on distinctive disciplines, equities, goals, methodologies, timetables, and metrics. In order for the teams to align, each need to accommodate the others demands and battle rhythms. A Call to Action President Dwight Eisenhower personally led the response to Sputnik. Among a series of coordinated initiatives, he formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which changed the Governments approach to procurement of high risk, high payoff advanced technology, ensured US leadership in the Space Race, and funded what eventually became the Internet. Eisenhower demonstrated the power of senior executive decisions in combining the three Mission-Critical Teams under the coordination of the EOP. This article has proposed how the three Mission-Critical Teams Necessary for Security (Governance Budget, Mission Execution, and Technology) can mobilize around a Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled strategy. We have specified roles and responsibilities in language understandable to each of those teams. We have proposed a framework that enables serious, public consideration of issues that have been ignored, enables senior executives to take decisive Joint action, and enables them to authorize unclassified metrics for assessing progress in classified realms.[8] Do we have to wait until adversaries inflict catastrophic damage before we take the steps that we already know we need? Will we allow ourselves to be incapacitated by internal divisions?   In advance of the unthinkable, can we do what it takes to provide for the common defense in this Age of Informatized Conflict? Charles H. Rybeck, Lanny R. Cornwell, and Philip M. Sagan are Senior Advisors to the Intelligence Community and the Defense Department on Enterprise Engineering issues. They are CEO, COO, and CTO of Digital Mobilizations, Inc. (DMI). This is Part II of an Occasional Special Series DRAFT IN PROCESS: Not Releasable in Any Form This requires Prepublication Review before official submission The Figures are in this draft for content only. They are being recreated in forms suitable for publication. This is a continuation of theWhat Will It Take? Part I of an Occasional TAI Special Series. Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled Strategy in Action: Two Illustrative Examples Charles H. Rybeck, Lanny R. Cornwell, Philip M. Sagan The Tightly Aligned/ Loosely Coupled strategy calls for budgetary, operational, and technology changes, but in this article, we only introduce the strategy in broad outline using two representative examples of where the USG has already successfully begun. These two examples underscore the role of the combined three Mission-Critical Teams within the Government in initiatives that require broad popular support. Below we explore two examples in order to illustrate the challenge facing the USG, to show how pockets of excellence within the USG have already pointed the way forward, to demonstrate how the challenge of the digital dimension demands different USG responses, and to underscore what, concretely, will need to be done by the USG. Many achievements are classified, legitimately and necessarily protected from public discussion. But any digital strategy for National Security can and must be agreed upon at the unclassified level, sustaining widespread public support on the basis of sound arguments that include a full defense of our privacy and civil liberties. For that reason, we consider two pathfinding efforts, acknowledging their strengths and sketching what needs to be done next. Our System Can Work: Weve Shown We Can Crawl We assess the US response to the challenge of the digital dimension as requiring a progression from Crawl to Walk to Run. US visions for future defense such as the Third Offset, Integrated Intelligence, Cyber Security, Data-to-Decisions (D2D), and Fusion Warfare all depend on this digital foundation. For the last decade, for example, the DoD has been guided by the Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) construct in planning to confront near-peer adversaries. A2/AD will also need to adjust its view of platforms, sensors, and weapons to accommodate the kinetic and non-kinetic implications of this new digital foundation. Fortunately, much groundwork for this mobilization is already being laid at the Federal level. We can already point to many successes at the Crawl stage. Two examples can illuminate how consequential these decisions can be, how the role of the USG will need to be tailored to the problems, and how much further we have to go in order to Walk and Run. Example #1 Modernizing Infrastructure: In 2012, the IC recognized how it was consuming and delivering IT hardware, software, and services in ways that were unnecessarily inferior to the private sector. They awoke to the fact that the Governments acquisition approach was handcuffing every aspect of National Security. The Congress, the IC, and the Administration supported the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in taking the lead in this initiative. They all deserve credit for the joint effort. The CIA reoriented its office of the CIO. It created a Commercial Cloud Services (C2S) contract to end CIA reliance on internal, outmoded expenditures and shift to purchasing infrastructure services as a utility. And it put the CIO under a new Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) to better link it with Mission functions. The contract enables a new, market-based model for acquiring enterprise-level software. C2S-based applications are licensed with fees to software vendors paid on the basis of the utilization of their products. This marketplace allows competing products to be evaluated and adopted by users in their day-to-day decisions as to how best meet the requirements of a specific problem. In the rapidly evolving data craft of the Internet, this method is far more adaptive and effective than a pre-determined, one size fits all solution imposed by a centralized bureaucracy. In technical terms, the IC is shifting much of its infrastructure costs from CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) to OPEX (Operational Expenditure), eliminating recurring CAPEX, paying only for services as needed, and arranging to stay current with hardware and software innovation in ways that were impossible in the old business model. The success of the CIAs C2S initiative results from the Agencys recognition that the effective use of commercial market investments, technologies, and business processes can result in highly effective application of all too precious tax-payer capital, avoiding ineffective, costly duplication. The result of the Agencys strategy has been improved mission effectiveness while freeing scarce technology development funds to meet those needs that are truly unique to the Agencys mission. Example #2 Modernizing Knowledge Management (KM): In marked contrast to Infrastructure, the management of information within Federal systems was recognized by the IC as an inherently Governmental function, a core competence that should not be outsourced. Accepting that responsibility, the National Security Agency (NSA) took the lead in the Smart Data Initiative to identify what standardized labeling of packets of information are necessary in a modern digital environment. The first results, an Enterprise Data Header (EDH), was a signal achievement, admittedly and intentionally minimalist, but sufficient to enable the IC Cloud in its Crawl phase. In both these examples, Infrastructure and KM, success was achieved only because the organizations involved, specifically the Congress, the Administration, ODNI, CIA, and NSA all aligned their three Mission-Critical Teams in the service of a new strategic direction. But Can We Walk Run?    In order to achieve mission benefits well need to stop mistaking Easy for Hard and Complex for Simple. We have selected these two specific Crawl success stories because they also illustrate the executive decisions that need to be made today if we are going to Walk and Run tomorrow. In the case of infrastructure-which can best be thought of as plumbing-something relatively straightforward is being made unnecessarily complex within the DoD acquisition and planning apparatus. In the case of KM, many USG Departments Agencies-including the IC DoD-are mistaking KM as a simple issue. The USG is failing to come to grips with something inherently difficult by, in some cases, inaccurately imagining it is easy: if we just build the plumbing, everything else will take care of itself. It is only by effectively structuring and managing information (KM) that the USG will induce the digital dimension to yield its mission benefits. In both cases (Infrastructure and KM) necessary but insufficient actions have been taken. Creating Cloud repositories for data and minimal metadata standards are achievements, but, in themselves, they cannot produce the Mission Benefits that are needed and that have been promised. Sadly, many executives have bought into an automagic fallacy that these Crawl phase activities would automagically produce Walk and Run results. Figure 5: What is a Responsible Executive to Do? Source: DMI Lower level Government employees are left holding the bag. They are forced to describe classic Quick Wins and low-hanging fruit because it is only their boss bosses who are empowered to make the tough choices and substantial investments that will be required to produce the promised Mission Benefits. In the Agile development environment, where development of software continues apace as long as lower level Government product owners approve incremental progress, mission-critical decisions and investments are often postponed indefinitely. The impediments to the High Road are so formidable that thousands of National Security employees and contractors have adopted the Low Road. The distinction depicted in Figure 5. has actually been rejected by USG employees because it disparages the Low Road. That is the strategy weve adopted, and we need to promote it. Example #1 Enterprise Infrastructure: Private Sector Best Practices Leading the Way for Government Action Due to the disconnect between the DoD and the IC, Infrastructure Modernization is currently being held back at the National Security Enterprise level. Private sector solutions will need to drive this partnership. The DoD and its Armed Services are resisting the massive budgetary/acquisition changes needed to implement the CIA-led strategy. Only the Commanders Intent will be strong enough to clear this impediment. POTUS does not need to wait for a catastrophe to prompt this solution. Example #2 Enterprise Knowledge Management (KM): Government Active Management of a Modularized, Multi-Vendor Competitive Environment for Innovation At the same time that a sound foundation for KM was being laid through the establishment of IC data standards in the EDH, two basic strategies for the acquisition of knowledge exploitation technology were utilized. Weve termed the first approach The Hedgehog and the second The Fox in honor of Berlins 1953 essay on Tolstoy and the philosophy of history, which begins quoting the ancient Greek poet, Archilochus, who wrote The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. The Hedgehog. The hedgehog strategy entailed the acquisition of an all-inclusive solution from a single vendor, what we can think of as a highly-advanced knowledge appliance[9], a comprehensive solution that combined hardware, software, and a particular way of thinking about knowledge, problems, questions, and answers. This approach outsourced all to a single supplier. It fit the existing procurement system well because it focused on a single, big procurement decision. The Fox. The fox strategy entailed the acquisition of a collection of modularized[10], best of breed, highly-advanced devices, each of which solved parts of problems and in combination formed a system capable of solving a particular problem. Hardware, software, and way of thinking about knowledge, problems, questions, and answers could be quickly re-configured as better technologies came along or needs changed a critical capability given the ferment of Internet technologies and applications. This approach limited the amount of hardwa