Propaganda and Mass Media Obstacles and Best Conditions for Propagandist

Profile of Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize Winning Novelist Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931, to August 5, 2019) was an American writer, editorial manager, and teacher whose books concentrated on the experience of dark Americans, especially accentuating dark womens involvement with an unfair society and the quest for social character. In her composition, she slyly utilized dream and legendary components alongside reasonable portrayals of racial, sex and class strife. In 1993, she turned into the principal African American lady to be granted the Nobel Prize in Literature. Quick Facts: Toni Morrison Known For: American writer, proofreader, and educatorAlso Known As: Chloe Anthony Wofford (given name at birth)Born: February 18, 1931 in Lorain, OhioDied: August 5, 2019 in The Bronx, New York City (pneumonia)Parents: Ramah and George WoffordEducation: Howard University (BA), Cornell University (MA)Noted Works: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, ParadiseKey Awards: Pulitzer Prize for fiction (1987), Nobel Prize in Literature (1993), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012)Spouse: Harold MorrisonChildren: children Harold Ford Morrison, Slade MorrisonNotable Quote: â€Å"If you’re going to hold somebody down you’re must hang on by the opposite finish of the chain. You are bound by your own repression.† Alongside the Nobel Prize, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for her 1987 novel Beloved, and in 1996, she was chosen for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. government’s most noteworthy respect for accomplishment in the humanities. On May 29, 2012, she was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Early Life, Education, and Teaching Career Toni Morrison was conceived Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, on February 18, 1931, to Ramah and George Wofford. Growing up during the financial difficulty of the Great Depression, Morrison’s father, a previous tenant farmer, worked at three occupations to help the family. It was from her family that Morrison acquired her profound gratefulness for all parts of dark culture. Morrison earned Bachelor of Arts degrees from Howard University in 1952 and a Masters certificate from Cornell University in 1955. After school, she changed her first name to Toni and instructed at Texas Southern University until 1957. From 1957 to 1964, she educated at Howard University, where she wedded Jamaican modeler Harold Morrison. Before separating in 1964, the couple had two children together, Harold Ford Morrison and Slade Morrison. Among her understudies at Howard were future Civil Rights Movement pioneer Stokely Carmichael and Claude Brown, creator of Manchild in the Promised Land. In 1965, Toni Morrison went to function as a proofreader at book distributer Random House, turning into the principal dark lady senior supervisor in the fiction office in 1967. Subsequent to coming back to educating at State University of New York at Albany from 1984 to 1989, she instructed at Princeton University until she resigned in 2006. Composing Career While functioning as a senior supervisor at Random House, Morrison additionally began sending her own compositions to distributers. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was distributed in 1970 when Morrison was 39. Bluest Eye recounted to the account of a deceived youthful dark young lady whose fixation on her concept of white magnificence drove her yearning for blue eyes. Her subsequent novel, Sula, portraying the companionship between two dark ladies, was distributed in 1973, while she was instructing at State University of New York. While educating at Yale in 1977, Morrison’s third novel, Song of Solomon, was distributed. The book increased basic and famous praise, winning the 1977 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Her next novel, Tar Baby, investigating the contentions of race, class, and sex, was distributed in 1981 and prompted her being acknowledged as an individual from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Morrison’s first play, Dreaming Emmett, about the 1955 lynching of dark adolescent Emmett Till, debuted in 1986. The Beloved Trilogy Distributed in 1987, Morrison’s most praised novel, Beloved, was enlivened by the biography of Margaret Garner, a subjugated African American lady. Staying on the New York Times blockbuster list for 25 weeks, Beloved won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In 1998, Beloved was made into an element film featuring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.â The second book in what Morrison called her â€Å"Beloved trilogy,† Jazz, turned out in 1992. Written in a style mimicking the rhythms of jazz music, Jazz delineates an adoration triangle during New York City’s Harlem Renaissance time of the 1920s. Basic approval from Jazz brought about Morrison turning into the primary African American lady to be granted the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Distributed in 1997, the third book of Morrison’s Beloved set of three, Paradise, centers around the residents of an anecdotal all-dark town. In proposing that Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise ought to be perused all together, Morrison clarified, â€Å"The applied association is the quest for the cherished the piece of the self that is you, and adores you, and is consistently there for you.† In her 1993 Nobel Prize acknowledgment discourse, Morrison clarified the wellspring of her motivation to delineate the dark experience by recounting to the account of an old, visually impaired, dark lady who is stood up to by a gathering of dark young people who ask her, â€Å"Is there no setting for our lives? No melody, no writing, no sonnet loaded with nutrients, no history associated with experience that you can go along to assist us with beginning solid? †¦ Think of our lives and disclose to us your particularized world. Make up a story.† Last Years and the Writing of Home In her later life, Morrison composed children’s books with her more youthful child, Slade Morrison, a painter and an artist. When Slade passed on of pancreatic disease in December 2010, one of Morrison’s last books, Home, was half-finished. She said at that point, â€Å"I quit composing until I started to figure, he would be truly put out in the event that he imagined that he had made me stop. ‘Please, Mom, Im dead, would you be able to prop up . . . ?’† Morrison did â€Å"keep on going† and completed Home, devoting it to Slade. Distributed in 2012, Home recounts to the tale of a dark Korean War veteran living in the isolated United States of the 1950s, who battles to spare his sister from fierce clinical tests performed on her by a supremacist white specialist. In a 2008 meeting with NPR’s Michel Martin, Morrison tended to the eventual fate of prejudice: â€Å"Racism will vanish when [it is] not, at this point gainful and not, at this point mentally valuable. At the point when that occurs, it’ll be gone.† Today, Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio, is the home of the Toni Morrison Society, a global scholarly society committed to instructing, perusing, and exploring crafted by Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison kicked the bucket at age 88 from intricacies of pneumonia at the Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx, New York City, on August 5, 2019. Refreshed by Robert Longley Sources and Further Reference .†Toni Morrison Fast Factsâ€Å" CNN Library. (August 6, 2019).Duvall, John N. (2000). â€Å".†The Identifying Fictions of Toni Morrison: Modernist Authenticity and Postmodern Blackness Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-23402-7.Fox, Margalit (August 6, 2019). â€Å".†Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88 The New York Times.Ghansah, Rachel Kaadzi (April 8, 2015). â€Å".†The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331..†Ghosts in the House: How Toni Morrison Fostered a Generation of Black Writersâ€Å" The New Yorker. October 27, 2003.

Quartet For the End of Time Abyss of the Birds free essay sample

Group of four for the End of Time: Abyss of the Birds The Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen, is a multi-development piece composed for the instrumentation of a piano, violin, cello, and clarinet. While the instrumentation is odd and unprecedented, it is inconceivably fitting for the piece after knowing the foundation. Olivier Messiaen was a French warrior back in World War II who was caught by the Germans and held in a camp for detainees of war. He made this piece to perform with three different artists of the camp. Because of the cutoff points he confronted with the artists, the group of four must be composed for explicit nstruments. In any case, the instrumentation is apparently ideal for the climate and temperament that the piece ought to incite. Messiaen experienced a great deal of enduring during his timespan, and it is plainly obvious in the music. All through each development, you can hear the anguish and hopelessness that he trusted the music would deliver. The title of the piece, Quartet for the End of Time additionally incorporates a smart two sided connotation. It implies the apocalypse, just as the way that Messiaen played with time and musicality not at all like different writers of his time or before him, including the absence of a showed time signature during specific segments. This is especially significant in the third development, the Abime des oiseaux, or Abyss of the Birds. The third segment of the group of four stands apart in light of the fact that it is a performance piece for the clarinet. It is intended to be played as a detailed cadenza, where the time and expressing is totally up to the translation of the entertainer. There is no demonstrated time signature, just rhythm markings. The rhythm changes happen with the presentation of another segment. The piece begins agonizingly delayed at 44 eighth notes for each moment, yet presents a principle subject from the absolute first expression in mm1-2. The principal subject (introduced underneath) is then rehashed before it proceeds onward for additional turn of events. It utilizes notes totally from the 12 octatonic scale, as wraps up of the main segment. The 12 octatonic scale additionally is supported by Messiaen, and his subsequent mode. After a couple of more bans from the redundancy of the initial song, it is reintroduced with a marginally unique mood toward the finish of mml 1 . The initial area extremely just has those three repeating spots in those initial 12 measures. The other material introduced in those measures contrasts pretty radically from the fundamental heme. The principle subject comprises for the most part of half advances, entire advances, and minor 3rds intervallically, yet the intervallic structure of the other material has practically no relationship because of the huge disjunct movement that it contains. After the reiteration of the initial subject, the piece moves onto an alternate area with an alternate, a lot quicker rhythm. This piece is significantly more exuberant and free, and is the title of the piece. It is realized that Messiaen had a liking for birdsong and got a kick out of the chance to join it into his music, and it is exceptionally pervasive in this subsequent area. It is layed inadequately, with quick diving and climbing runs that are once in a while rehashed after one is introduced, much like the manner in which flying creatures would regularly speak with one another. An expression is introduced, and afterward impersonated following as though the clarinet was in certainty 2 winged creatures carrying on a discussion. Sometimes these expressions will be transposed duplicates, or even altered duplicates. Different occasions the expression will be near the first, however may rehash one note too much, making it an alternate sort of harmony that isnt a precise intervallically or melodically of the relating material. For example, a plummeting trichord demonstrated as follows) trailed by a jump of a significant seventh is seen in mm15, and it very well may be seen later in the piece at mm23 transposed down a fourth. There is likewise a lot of three tetrachords with a prime type of 0137 (demonstrated as follows) in mm18 that are largely transpositions of one another. The second tetrachord is transposed a stage down from the first (A=T2B), and the third is transposed down a fourth (A=T5C). Inside a similar measure (mm18), we are given a huge nonachord, (demonstrated as follows) which returns as a reversal (A=T14B) two estimates later in mm20. The last harmony referenced is additionally a significant harmony for the remainder of this area, ecause it presents one of the principle topics for the second segment of the piece. For the following hardly any measures Messiaen toys with this concept of a rising octachord with a slipping fourth as the last note, finishing the nonachord. He utilizes this thought in five back to back entries, however they arent all duplicates of each other. While the harmonies all have nine unmistakable notes, a portion of the harmonies rehash notes in various octaves, in this way we can't characterize it as a nonachord since there arent 9 distinct notes included. In any case, the nonachords in mm 26 and mm 28 are in certainty transpositions of ach other (A=TeB). After completion the playful and energetic B area, we are come back to the A segment with some additional material. The rhythm drops definitely indeed, and we progress into the last A segment through an expanding automaton of an a strategy that is utilized as a change between each area of this development. It causes to notice the F# as a central pitch. After the F# completions and we proceed onward, we see the fundamental topic from the principal measure rehashed once. After it is introduced, Messiaen floats away from that plan to investigate others for what appears the remainder of the development.

APA Format Table of Contents

APA Format Table of Contents October 21, 2019 APA format does not require a table of contents, but there are cases where you may need to include one. For example, your instructor may specify that your paper must be submitted with a table of contents. A table of contents can be particularly helpful in cases where your paper is lengthy or covers a lot of material, such as a thesis paper or dissertation. Research papers, in particular, may benefit from the addition of a table of contents. APA format is the official publication style of the American Psychological Association. APA format is used in psychology courses as well as other social science classes including those in social science, behavioral sciences, and education. General Guidelines The table of contents serves as a basic roadmap of your paper. It should list all of the major headings and subheadings within the body of your paper. For a standard psychology paper, it might include listings for the introduction, method, results, and discussion sections of your paper. While the APA may not specify guidelines for a table of contents, you should also use basic APA format for page formatting: Use one-inch margins on all sidesUse 12-point Times New Roman fontDouble-space Since APA does not require a table of contents, you should always refer to your instructor’s guidelines when deciding whether or not to include one. It is also important to note that the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association was published in October of 2020, a decade after the release of the previous edition. The 7th edition includes updated guidelines on many topics. Ask your instructor which version of the style manual you should adhere to when writing your paper until the latest version has been fully adopted. Also note, while the previous edition of the style manual required a running head on each page of a paper, the 7th edition has eliminated that requirement on student papers unless your instructor specifies to include it. Always ask first. Sections If you are using a standard APA paper format, your table of contents should include the following sections: IntroductionMethodResultsDiscussionReferences However, the sections of your paper may be different depending on the type of paper you are writing. While the above format may work well for a standard lab report or experimental paper, your table of contents will look much different if you are writing something such as a critique, essay, research paper, or case study. How to Write a Psychology Research Paper Location The exact order of your paper depends largely on the type of paper you are writing. In general, your paper should be presented in the following order: Title PageTable of ContentsAbstractMain Body of PaperReferencesAppendix Table of Contents Format Because there is no standard format for a table of contents in APA style, you should always defer to the provided guidelines for your assignment. If your instructor does not have a preferred format, consider using the following: Title the page “Table of Contents” and center the title at the top of the page.Use an outline format for the different sections of your paper. For the main headings, use Roman numerals. Follow by using Arabic numerals to list any sub-level headings. If you have lower-level headings, list them using lower-case letters.  All main headings should be flush-left.Sub-headings should be indented five spaces.  All entries should use title case.Identity the page number where each heading and subheading begin flush-right. Include dot leaders between the headings and the page number to improve readability. Tips While you might not think that following APA format is important, it is one of those areas where students can lose points for making small errors. It pays to spend a little extra time and attention making sure that your paper is formatted in proper APA style. If you need help, you can get assistance from your schools writing lab.Getting your own copy of the latest edition of the APA publication manual can be very helpful. Always refer to any instructions or guidelines that were provided by your course instructor. For those writing a paper to submit for publication, check with the publisher for any specific formatting requirements that they may have. Basic Rules for Writing in APA Format

How Soap Works

Soaps are sodium or potassium fatty acids salts, produced from the hydrolysis of fats in a chemical reaction called saponification. Each soap molecule has a long hydrocarbon chain, sometimes called its tail, with a carboxylate head. In water, the sodium or potassium ions float free, leaving a negatively-charged head. Key Takeaways: Soap Soap is a fatty acid of a salt.Soaps are used as cleansers and lubricants.Soap cleans by acting as a surfactant and emulsifier. It can surround oil, making it easier to rinse it away with water. How Soap Cleans Soap is an excellent cleanser because of its ability to act as an emulsifying agent. An emulsifier is capable of dispersing one liquid into another immiscible liquid. This means that while oil (which attracts dirt) doesnt naturally mix with water, soap can suspend oil/dirt in such a way that it can be removed. The organic part of natural soap is a negatively-charged, polar molecule. Its hydrophilic (water-loving) carboxylate group (-CO2) interacts with water molecules via ion-dipole interactions and hydrogen bonding. The hydrophobic (water-fearing) part of a soap molecule, its long, nonpolar hydrocarbon chain, does not interact with water molecules. The hydrocarbon chains are attracted to each other by dispersion forces and cluster together, forming structures called micelles. In these micelles, the carboxylate groups form a negatively-charged spherical surface, with the hydrocarbon chains inside the sphere. Because they are negatively charged, soap micelles repel each other and remain dispersed in water. Grease and oil are nonpolar and insoluble in water. When soap and soiling oils are mixed, the nonpolar hydrocarbon portion of the micelles break up the nonpolar oil molecules. A different type of micelle then forms, with nonpolar soiling molecules in the center. Thus, grease and oil and the dirt attached to them are caught inside the micelle and can be rinsed away. The Disadvantage of Soap Although soaps are excellent cleansers, they do have disadvantages. As salts of weak acids, they are converted by mineral acids into free fatty acids: CH3(CH2)16CO2-Na HCl → CH3(CH2)16CO2H Na Cl- These fatty acids are less soluble than the sodium or potassium salts and form a precipitate or soap scum. Because of this, soaps are ineffective in acidic water. Also, soaps form insoluble salts in hard water, such as water containing magnesium, calcium, or iron. 2 CH3(CH2)16CO2-Na Mg2 → [CH3(CH2)16CO2-]2Mg2 2 Na The insoluble salts form bathtub rings, leave films that reduce hair luster, and gray/roughen textiles after repeated washings. Synthetic detergents, however, may be soluble in both acidic and alkaline solutions and dont form insoluble precipitates in hard water. But that is a different story... Sources IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the Gold Book). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997).  Archived. Klaus Schumann, Kurt Siekmann (2005). Soaps.  Ullmanns Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH.   Thorsten Bartels et al. (2005). Lubricants and Lubrication.  Ullmanns Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH.​

Property Type Focus For Public Equity Reits Performance Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2280 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) allow all investors, as opposed to only the most affluent ones to invest in real estate. Apart from this, shares in REITs are more liquid than actual property. Finally, double taxation is avoided, because REITs are exempt from corporate taxes if they distribute 90% of their taxable income in form of dividends  [1]  (among other conditions). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Property Type Focus For Public Equity Reits Performance Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The rapid expansion of equity REITs started in early 1990s and peaked in 2006 with about $400bn market capitalisation.  [2] Given the apparent popularity, it is increasingly important to better understand this asset class. The aim of this paper is to find whether there are any differences in performance across REITs with different property-type focus. If there are no differences, investors would be wasting resources by analysing each REIT type separately. However, if the reverse is true, excess returns could be earned by increasing the share of a particular type in the portfolio. It would also be interesting, because it would violate the efficient market hypothesis. This study contributes to the existing discussion by investigating whether differences between property types emerged (or got amplified) in the recent market collapse. There is a number or reasons why this could be the case. For example, decrease of home-ownership rate resulting from the mortgage-crisis could have in duced people to move to the rental sector. For residential REITs this would provide a cushion in form of an influx of extra demand for rented accommodation. As it can be seen from Figures 2 and 3, homeownership in the US fell below 67% in 2011 from almost 69% before the crisis. Rental vacancy rates increased during the crisis but this increase was not unprecedented. Possibly, if it was not for the ex-home-owners, the recent increase could have been more dramatic. Figure 2  [3] This effect is likely to be much lower for commercial real estate, as firms often prefer to rent rather than own their premises even in the favourable economic conditions, as this prevents tying up substantial amounts of capital  [4]  . As a result, when the crisis starts, they already were renters. As it can be seen from Figure 4, vacancies in the office sector almost doubled between 2007 and 2009 and net absorption was negative for two years. Also, it is often commercial real estate is more correlated with the unemployment rate and more vulnerable to shocks to the economy. By having a weaker link to the unemployment and GDP, residential REITs could have suffered less. Figure 4  [5] Industrial real estate faces also extra risk due to lack of tenant diversification. Warehouses and industrial premises tend to be large and typically occupied by a small number of tenants. Industrial REITs could have suffered from this problem in a downturn. Another major category is healthcare REITs. With increasingly aging population this seems to be an attractive investment. Nevertheless, any effect seen in the total returns data could be simply due to the 2010 healthcare reform, which implies that more people will be covered by the insurance in the US and therefore investors could expect more demand for healthcare property. On the other hand, healthcare REITs even before the reform had one of the lowest debt/capitalisation ratios (28.8% in 2009 compared to the average of 44.76% for all REITs) and offered relatively high returns.  [6]  More leveraged sectors could have found themselves is more trouble when the crisis started. Some researchers find that the type of REIT indeed determines the returns to investor. For example, Gyourko and Nelling (1996) regress betas on the percentage of properties of each type and find that retail REITs had significantly higher market sensitivity than industrial and warehouse REITs in the period of 1988-1992. Kim et al (2002) use Jensen index and perform ANOVA and find that hotel REITs underperformed other types. Redman and Manakyan (1995) regress Sharpe ratios of REITs on their characteristics. They find that property type focus together with geographical location and financial parameters are significant determinants of REITs risk adjusted returns. Finally, Benefield, Anderson, Zupano (2009) calculate Treynor measure and Jensen alphas and test their significance using both parametric and non-parametric tests. They find that REITs with diversified portfolio of properties (with respect to property type) perform better when the market conditions are good. In the downturn, there is however little evidence of superiori ty of diversified REITs. However, other strands of research suggest that property type does not matter for the return. For example, Young (2000) finds that randomly chosen portfolios that do not take property type into account perform in the same way as property-type specific portfolios. This analysis was applied to 1989-98 data. Chiang et al (n. d.) use three models CAPM, Fama-French and Cahart and apply it to data in the period of 1994-2005 and they conclude that there is no statistically significant differential in the risk adjusted performance of various types of REITs. DATA Data on monthly returns on 130 US public equity REITs was obtained from SNL Financial. SNL REIT indices were used to group REITs into types. Details of what exact companies each type includes are available in Appendix 1. The returns include both: capital gains and the dividends. The types of REITs considered are the following: healthcare, hotels, industrial, diversified/other, office, retail, residential and self-storage. SNL US Equity REIT is an index that includes all publicly traded REITs. Measure of market portfolio used in this study is SP 500. Monthly total returns on this index also come from the SNL Financial. Risk free rate and Fama-French factors were obtained from Kenneth R. Frenchs  [7]  website. The factors are difference in returns on big and small stocks (SMB) and difference in returns on stocks with high and low book-to-value ratio (HML). Data covers April 2003 January 2011 The frequency of the data is monthly, to clean the noise that can be found in the dai ly data. Also, this frequency is mostly used in the literature, so the study will be more comparable to others. Finally, yearly data would produce only few observations, which could raise concerns that the results are not reliable. In terms of the reliability of data, SNL Financial seems to be a relatively safe source, widely used by numerous investment banks. The only problem with the SNL is that it does not cover the pre-2000 period. No comparison with the previous periods can be therefore made. The last issue is that of division of data into PRE-CRISIS and CRISIS periods. 30 April 2007 was chosen as the division-point. The decision was based on the fact that most REITs started to offer negative returns at this time. Finally, it could be claimed that CRISIS covers the recovery time (when the recession ended). This is simply a nomenclature issue and inclusion of the recovery time is the intention of the author, as it is assumed that the crisis could have some long-lasting eff ects on the ability of certain REIT types to outperform others. Descriptive statistics for the period of April 2003 April 2007 (referred to as PRE-CRISIS from now on), period of May 2007 January 2011 (referred to as CRISIS) are presented in Tables 1-2. The mean return for most REITs was higher than that of SP 500. However SP 500 also carried lower risk. Among REIT types, self-storage had the highest mean return of almost 2.48% per month, but the standard deviation of those returns was also relatively large. Healthcare REITs offered large returns as well. The lowest mean return was on residential type 2.06% per month. What strikes here is that the means do not seem to differ dramatically across types. Simple comparison of returns is not an appropriate method of investigating the problem. Higher return could be just a reward for a higher risk. There are three most popular risk-adjusted measures of performance: Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen alpha. They all benefit from having an intuitive interpretation. Sharpe and Treynor ratios are similar they are simply excess return divided by risk. Risk in the Sharpe ratio is the total risk, while Treynor ratio only takes into account market risk. Jensen alpha, on the other hand, informs of the extra return that cannot be explained by the market excess returns. In the downturn, Sharpe and Treynor ratio can be negative, which makes results difficult to interpret. Furthermore, Sharpe ratio does not control for size or any other characteristics. Jensen alpha is much more flexible in that respect, because different models can be used to estimate it. For example, Fama-French three factor model, which controls for size and book to equity values. The shortcoming of both Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha is that they assume well diversified portfolios. However, Jensen alpha seems an attractive measure, because, as mentioned in Kim et al (2002), unlike other measures it can be tested for statistical significance. F inally, Jensen alpha is the most popular measure in the literature. Taking all the above into consideration, it seems most reasonable to rely on the Jensen alphas. However, the Sharpe ratios were also calculated to see whether they offer similar results. First, Sharpe ratios were computed for all types of REITs and for both periods, using the following formula (based on Sharpe (1964)): The higher the ratio, the better the performance, because a higher return was achieved at a lower risk. The main performance measure is Jensen alpha (Jensen (1968)). Positive (negative) Jensen alpha indicates a superior (inferior) performance relative to the market. Jensen alphas were obtained for each REIT type from two different models: standard CAPM and Fama-French. The latter is preferred, as it was found that it captures the nature of REITs more accurately (for example: Chiang et al (n. d.)). The constant term from each model is the Jensen alpha. The above discussed models are as follows : a) Standard CAPM: The notation is the same as before and is the return on market portfolio at time t b) Fama-French model: Differences in Jensen alphas need to be then tested for statistical significance. First single-factor ANOVA was calculated. After this, non-parametric Moods Median was used to check for robustness (following Benefield et al 2009). The method comes from Brown and Mood (1948). First, Jensen alphas were calculated for each REIT individually and these alphas then entered the ANOVA and Moods tests. Moods test consists in simply calculating how many stocks within each type have a higher or lower/equal Jensen alpha than the overall median of the REIT market. Then a simple ÃÆ' Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¡2 test with observed and expected values is calculated to test the null hypothesis that medians of Jensen alphas are the same across REIT types. RESULTS Results of the point estimates of Sharpe ratios (using type-portfolios) are presented in Table 3. Sharpe ratios fell dramatically for all REIT types in the CRISIS period, which was expected. Second, rankings for the two periods differ. For example, hotel REITs appear to be the best performing in the PRE-CRISIS period, but they are only 5th during the CRISIS. Nevertheless, no conclusion can be drawn, because no information is available about the statistical significance of these results. Before the crisis all alphas were positive, which indicates superior performance of REITs compared to the market. However only hotel and retail REITs have (marginally) significant alphas and that significance only persists for hotel REITs when Fama-French model is used instead of the CAPM. After/during the crisis all alphas (except the one for industrial REITs) were positive but insignificant at any conventional level. Furthermore, betas are higher for the CRISIS period, regardless of which model is used. In addition, results are similar to Sharpe ratios. The differences between point estimates across types need to be tested for statistical significance. Jensen alpha for each individual REIT were calculated. Then ANOVA and Moods Median test were carried out. In case of ANOVA, the null hypothesis is that mean excess returns are equal across types. In case of Moods test, the null hypothesis is that median excess returns are equal across types. Both tests give similar results the hypothesis that there are no differences in performance across REIT types cannot be rejected for the PRE-CRISIS period at the conventional 5% level. However for the CRISIS period, both tests suggest that the null hypothesis of no differences in performance across types can be rejected at the 5% level. The above is true regardless of whether CAPM or Fama-French model is used. For the analysis to be complete, it is reasonable to check which REIT types are different. Moods Median Test for each pai r of REIT types in the CRISIS period was performed. The null hypothesis in each case is that there is no difference in median Jensen alphas (from the Fama-French model). The results can be found in Table 9. This study investigates whether there are any differences in the performance of different property-types of REITs. The contribution of this paper is to analyse the question in the light of the recent crisis and compare the results to the ones obtained for the preceding period. Two measures of performance were used: Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha. In order to test the significance of the differences across types, ANOVA and Moods Median Test methodologies were used. In addition, Jensen alpha was obtained from two models CAPM and Fama-French. Sharpe ratios seem to indicate different rankings of different types of REITs before and during/after the crisis. Jensen alphas are mostly positive in both periods, but many of them are insignificant. The results suggest no differences in pe rformance across property-types of REITs before the crisis. However during and after the crisis, healthcare and residential REITs outperform other types. Future research could focus on understanding the exact causes of these results. For example it could be resolved whether low levels of debt or the healthcare reform were the causes of healthcare REITs performance. Moreover, types could be broken down into subtypes to better understand the nature of the problem.

A Passing of the Torch; Europe from 1500-1800 Free Essays

A Passing of the Torch; Europe from 1500-1800 When you step back and observe history from afar you’re missing part of the story. Observing the rise of Europe, you cannot simply take into account it happened. To understand the past you need to look into past, in documents and first-hand accounts to observe the underlining issues. We will write a custom essay sample on A Passing of the Torch; Europe from 1500-1800 or any similar topic only for you Order Now To best explain the major shift in energy from the Indian Ocean Basin to the North Atlantic in 1500 to 1800 you have to observe the world and the people in context. Europe is an underdog to rise to the top. Having just experiencing the worst of the Black Death wiping out a majority of its populations, a tragedy in all senses, turned into a blessing. It sparked the scientific revolution; inspiring the Europeans to shift their views towards knowledge and discovery (Reilly, 434) . Sprinting ahead, Europe took the world by surprise. With their footing in a ‘new world’ the opportunities were endless. Exhausting their colonies at its full potential, with the cash crop, sugar they were able to revolutionize commerce into a representative model of modern trade. The Europeans weren’t the only ones making radical changes in the era. The Confucian Scholars were forcing Chinese to push inward and were eliminating commerce (Kristof, 551). Shifting of energy from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean; Europe gained power in the era through two main triggers, the scientific revolution and the developments of the sugar plantations in the new world. To better understand what’s happening with Europe in the 1500’s and later you need to also look back at the past and see where they have been and the events leading up to the beginning of a new era in European success and discovery. When you examine Europe today they are one of the world’s leaders, less than a thousand years ago the now prominent country was spiraling down, on the brink of demise. In the mid-fourteenth century the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, originated somewhere in Asia and progressively spread though out Europe, the Near East and North Africa. Without doubt it became the greatest health disaster to date; mass graves were being dug to compensate for the dead. The Plague spread like wildfire wiping out an estimated one-fourth to one-third of the population (Reilly, 436). With no known source of treatment available or why the disease was spreading the Europeans turned to what they knew best, Religion. The Christian consensus was that God had bestowed the plague as a devastating judgment with the meaning of punishing the inflicted for his sins. People tried anything to avoid their seeming inevitable deaths, from walking around with incense to mask the wreaking stench of death, fleeing from their homes to find unaffiliated areas, or most commonly turning to God. The priest with the duty of serving the people, considered holy and without sin, were the main care takers of the stricken. Unsurprisingly, they too needed to be cared for, for they as well, contracted the disease joining their following to the death beds. We know today that the Black Death was not a punishment from god, but at the time, they had only to believe what the church told them (Reilly, 460). As priest died alongside the commoners their belief system was shattered. It was common of the time to believe what the church had told them and take it as true. For instance the church stated that the earth was the center of the universe, and it was heresy to state otherwise. With the church being proven wrong, people began to look outward for new knowledge. â€Å"Without visiting a deep ravine, one cannot understand how deep the earth is†¦ ,† just like Emperor Taizong said Europe began looking at the world to discover the truths; what is now known as the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of their restoration. Today, it is impossible to think about Modern Times and the way we live without thinking about science. We have pushed the scientific front to our limits, and now reap the benefits, from cars, phones, to healthcare. The scientific revolution truly lives up to its name. It truly was revolutionary, the standard of knowledge in the Modern world. The revolution can be traced back to Europe in a dispirit search for new understanding. Looking outward for answers from other countries such as the Muslim world and China, who already had beginnings of scientific thought, a sense of discovery and development; inspired the Europeans. In the year 1492, sailing in search of new discovery, specifically a new trade route to China, Columbus had stumbled on a seemingly endless supply of natural resources, land, and opportunity. It was called America. Entirely changing the way the ancient Greeks had depicted the world, helping enlighten the people that common knowledge was wrong (Goldstone 715-716). The Scientific Revolution and the desire to reach for new understanding that came with it pushed the Europeans. Now doubting all they had been taught before tested the fabrics of their society, the discovery of America was the most significant aspect of the shift of energy into the Atlantic Ocean. This was exactly what Europe needed. Now having the mass amounts of resources, to utilize the discovery they required manpower. Slaves were the perfect tool for procuring the workforces they required. Where better to look than Africa? Packed with able bodied men, the African tribes lacking in the ability to retaliate, found their freedom relinquished; crammed into unsanitary, overcrowded slave ships (Mintz, 47). Martinique, a sugar plantation located on the island Lesser Antilles located in the Caribbean Sea, is an example of where they could have landed (Martinique, 628). In the drawing, Field Gang, you can see the sugar plantation, a large field being worked by a multitude of black workers and one controlling master watching over them, the multitude of slaves. To compensate for the disparity in the work force, the plantation owners had revolutionized the process in which they operated their plantations. Specialized tasks were given to each worker to increase efficiency. This specialization resembled the earliest forms of assembly line. However, instead of the machines we have today, they had an agro energy focus. This means that the plantations shifted toward the use of human energy over the use of machinery (In Class). Unknowingly the systems used on plantations translated directly to the factories which began to pop up in the urban cities. At the end of the Black Death, Europe was a country in chaotic state. They were looking for a change and this desire paved the way. With a lack of populous, the lords of the current system, serfdom collapsed with little to no one to work the fields. Unlike their competitors Europe moved into the cities in search of opportunity (In Class). Drawing from their experiences in the sugar plantation, and the slave trade the Europeans became the frontier in production. Springing up in the industrial cities, factories played a large part of the shifting of energy to Europe, with them, goods and services could be provided with a significantly lower cost and at more efficient rates. This without a doubt gave them an edge over the competition. With the coming times, Europe in the sense of the world scope began to break into the picture. The Transatlantic Trade, shipping of goods between Europe and its colonies, set the stage for the shift of energy to the Atlantic Ocean. Allowed access to the resources in the ‘New World’ causality benefited the colonizers with the cheapest production of desirables. It also set for a sense of manifest destiny for the country (In Class). In conclusion this marked the beginnings of modern society developing. The question of the era is why Europe? A country stricken by plague, the collapse of feudalism, and lacking in internal stability in the form of natural resources or people; happens to be the perfect candidate. The desire for knowledge and their desire to look outward fit the bill perfectly. To make the circumstances even more perfect China lost its edge in the commerce propelling Europe ahead. David Christian writes in his essay World History in Context â€Å"One of the aims of world history is to see the history of human beings as a single, coherent story, rather than as a collection of the particular stories of different communities. † When looking at the rise of Europe as a superpower in the world, you can’t focus on the singular efforts and happenings of Europe. The rest of the world had an influence on the future. The shift in energy wasn’t only accountable to the success of Europe, notably looking at China you can see the ties between the two. For Centuries China had been a leader in commerce and trade. They assembled the largest fleet known to date consisting of over 3500 ships which had the capabilities to sail across the Pacific enabling the most secure and cost efficient form of trade. The Merchants of this era were prospering but all good things have to come to an end. After the death of the Yongle Empire in 1424, a struggle for power out broke internally. Under suspicious circumstances the successor to the empire who was selected to rule the country died. The Confusion Scholars ceased control of the country introducing new policy and deep-rooted idealisms of their ancestors. Trying to turn the focus of the country inward by 1500 they dissembled the entire fleet, destroyed the records, and made it illegal for any ship to be constructed with more than two masts. By 1525 any ocean going ship had to be destroyed. Along with the disappearance of a great Chinese fleet the ports in India, it marked one of history’s biggest lost opportunities. Without the ability of merchants to export their goods, they fell from their former glory. To add burden to this the Scholars viewed them as â€Å"necessary evils at best† (Kristoff, 555-556). Also their country already vastly spread out over thousands of miles of land, contained almost all the necessary natural resources to self-sustain itself and found no need to search elsewhere for goods. Europe on the other hand, lacked in many natural resources, which cause the need for colonization and expansion of their limits. China’s unwillingness to become a global market, unlike Europe, hurt their chances of being at the top of the era (In Class). Instigating the shift in power during the era in question, the scientific revolution and developments made in the New World, lead to a drastic change in history. Imagine if Europe had not been affected by the Bubonic Plague. We might never have explored outwards to the Americas leaving the Native population to expand. It serves evidence to the fact that changing parts of the past would alter the future. If it wasn’t for the fact that Europe had rose to power. It is not irrational to assume many of the discoveries made in this time would differ. We live in the world we do today, because the shift in energy brought about from the scientific revolution and the developments with the sugar plantations, lead to the passing of the torch from China to Europe. How to cite A Passing of the Torch; Europe from 1500-1800, Papers

Decision Making Paper free essay sample

This paper examines the correlation between personal, organizational and cultural values. The paper also discusses how these values affect the decision making in individual’s personal and professional lives. Value is a social principal goal or standard held by an individual, class or society. Values are shaped by surrounding situations. Normally the three values are accepted in society such as Personal Value, Organizational Value and Cultural Value. Personal Values are the principals that define human as an individual. Personal values, such as honesty, reliability and trust determine how one will face the world and relate with people. It also consists of caring, courage, creativity, friendliness, honesty, honour, independence, integrity and spirituality. Organizational values are the principals that guide human’s behavior in professional contexts. They define how person work and how he or she relate to co-workers, managers and clients. They also reveal person’s potential of advancement. It also consists of autonomy, competitiveness, conscientiousness, dedication, ethics, loyalty, professionalism, punctuality and team player. We will write a custom essay sample on Decision Making Paper or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Cultural values, like practice of the faith and customs, are principals that sustain connections with person’s cultural roots. They help person feel connected to a larger community of people with similar backgrounds. It also consists of celebration of diversity, ethnic roots, faith, linguistic ties, national ties, regional ties and tradition. Personal, professional and cultural values are connected to each other. These values are something that affects every area of person’s personal and professional lives. In our daily routine we interact with these values very often especially personal values. Personal values are something which we are learning from our childhood. Our parents are the pioneers of these values. They teach us what is correct and what is wrong. As we grow, we take our own decisions but our parents have a great influence in our thought process. I believe this is how we learn how to respect our own personal value when we grow as an adult. Next one is professional values. We begin to learn this value as soon as we enter into the world of independence. Each organization has its own set of rules and regulations. We need to follow those while taking care of our own personal values. At workplace the main important thing is how we interact with co-workers, managers and clients. How you present yourself with others is also very important. Cultural values are something again goes with the personal values. They give importance to the tradition, cultural ethics and your opinion of relating those to the workplace and personal life. In society sometimes people with same backgrounds come together and form a group and share their cultural values. At workplace also sometimes we notice people with same cultural values come together and have better understanding between them. Finding balance between personal, organization and cultural values is very crucial. Many times in our life we need to fight to take the decision based on these three values. For example for me as a woman find the right balance between my personal life with family and professional life is very difficult. Family (kids) comes first while taking any decision for myself even when to decide the right career path and when to start it. For working mother balance between these values plays an important role while taking any decisions. Many times I noticed that one needs to give up on something in order to achieve on whatever he or she wants. Same principal applies to the values. Sometimes professional values overcome personal values but if we can manage both of them and achieve the result we want then that will be a big success. Resolving a conflict by analyzing the situation needs practice but one will achieve this by paying attention and keeping balance between the values. Decision making is a very important process. â€Å"Decision making is the study of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values and preferences of the decision maker. † (Harris Robert, 1997). I believe if we give respect to all the three values equally and give importance to all of them while making a decision then our decision making process will be much easier than we expected and we can keep the right balance in the personal and professional life. We will be able to take correct decisions in life if we start appreciating these values more significantly.