Iron Man 3 Movie

Illegal Insider Trading Essays - Stock Market, Insider Trading

Illegal Insider Trading Consider this: "Imagine a boardroom of corporate executives, along with their lawyers, accountants, and investment bankers, plotting to take over a public company. The date is set; an announcement is due within weeks. Meeting adjourned, many of them phone their brokers and load up on the stock of the target company. When the takeover is announced, the share price zooms up and the lucky 'investors' dump their holdings for millions in profits." First things first - insider trading is perfectly legal. Officers and directors who owe a fiduciary duty to stockholders have just as much right to trade a security as the next investor. But the crucial distinction between legal and illegal insider trading lies in intent. What this paper plans to investigate is the illegal aspects of insider trading. What is insider trading? According to Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, it is "any manipulative or deceptive device in connection with the purchase or sale of any security." This ruling served as a deterrent for the early part of this century before the stock market became such a vital part of our lives. But as the 1960's arrived and illegal insider activity began to pick up, courts were handcuffed by this vague definition. So judicial members were forced to interpret "on the fly" since Congress never gave a concrete definition. As a result, two theories of insider trading liability have evolved over the past three decades through judicial and administrative interpretation: the classical theory and the misappropriation theory. The classical theory is the type of illegal activity one usually thinks of when the words "insider trading" are mentioned. The theory's framework emerged from the 1961 SEC administrative case of Cady Roberts. This was the SEC's first attempt to regulate securities trading by corporate insiders. The ruling paved the way for the traditional way we define insider trading - "trading of a firm's stock or derivatives assets by its officers, directors and other key employees on the basis of information not available to the public." The Supreme Court officially recognized the classical theory in the 1980 case U.S. v. Chiarella. U.S. v. Chiarella was the first criminal case of insider trading. Vincent Chiarella was a printer who put together the coded packets used by companies preparing to launch a tender offer for other firms. Chiarella broke the code and bought shares of the target companies based on his knowledge of the takeover bid. He was eventually caught, and his case clarified the terms of what has come to be known as the classical theory of insider trading. However, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction on the grounds that the existing insider trading law only applied to people who owed a fiduciary responsibility to those involved in the transaction. This sent the SEC scrambling to find a way to hold these "outsiders" equally accountable. As a result, the misappropriation theory evolved over the last two decades. It attempted to include these "outsiders" under the broad classifications of insider trading. An outsider is a "person not within or affiliated with the corporation whose stock is traded." Before this theory came into existence, only people who worked for or had a direct legal relationship with a company could be held liable. Now casual investors in possession of sensitive information who were not involved with the company could be held to the same standards as CEOs and directors. This theory stemmed from a 1983 case, Dirks v. SEC, but the existence of the misappropriation theory had not been truly recognized until U.S. v. O'Hagan in 1995. The case - U.S. v. O'Hagan - involved an attorney at a Minneapolis law firm. He learned that a client of his firm (Grand Met) was about to launch a takeover bid for Pillsbury, even though he wasn't directly involved in the deal. The lawyer then bought a very sizable amount of Pillsbury stock options at a price of $39. After Grand Met announced its tender offer, the price of Pillsbury stock rose to nearly $60 a share. When the smoke finally cleared, O'Hagan had made a profit of more than $4.3 million. He was initially convicted, but the verdict was overturned. The case bounced around in the Court of Appeals for several years before it made its way to the Supreme Court. It is there the Supreme Court held that O'Hagan could be prosecuted for using inside information, even if he did not work for Pillsbury or owe any legal duty to the company. In a 6-3 ruling, the court indicted O'Hagan

How Odds Are Related to Probability

How Odds Are Related to Probability Many times the odds of an event occurring are posted. For example, one might say that a particular sports team is a 2:1 favorite to win the big game. What many people do not realize is that odds such as these are really just a restatement of the probability of an event. Probability compares the number of successes to the total number of attempts made. The odds in favor of an event compares the number of successes to the number of failures.  In what follows, we will see what this means in greater detail. First, we consider a little notation. Notation for Odds We express our odds as a ratio of one number to another. Typically we read ratio A:B as A to B. Each number of these ratios can be multiplied by the same number. So the odds 1:2 is equivalent to saying 5:10. Probability to Odds Probability can be carefully defined using set theory and a few axioms, but the basic idea is that probability uses a real number between zero and one to measure the likelihood of an event occurring. There are a variety of ways to think about how to compute this number. One way is to think about performing an experiment several times. We count the number of times that the experiment is successful and then divide this number by the total number of trials of the experiment. If we have A successes out of a total of N trials, then the probability of success is A/N. But if we instead consider the number of successes versus the number of failures, we are now calculating the odds in favor of an event. If there were N trials and A successes, then there were N - A B failures. So the odds in favor are A to B. We can also express this as A:B. An Example of Probability to Odds In the past five seasons, crosstown football rivals the Quakers and the Comets have played each other with the Comets winning twice and the Quakers winning three times. On the basis of these outcomes, we can calculate the probability the Quakers win and the odds in favor of their winning. There was a total of three wins out of five, so the probability of winning this year is 3/5 0.6 60%. Expressed in terms of odds, we have that there were three wins for the Quakers and two losses, so the odds in favor of them winning are 3:2. Odds to Probability The calculation can go the other way. We can start with odds for an event and then derive its probability. If we know that the odds in favor of an event are A to B, then this means that there were A successes for A B trials. This means that the probability of the event is A/(A B ). An Example of Odds to Probability A clinical trial reports that a new drug has odds of 5 to 1 in favor of curing a disease. What is the probability that this drug will cure the disease? Here we say that for every five times that the drug cures a patient, there is one time where it does not. This gives a probability of 5/6 that the drug will cure a given patient. Why Use Odds? Probability is nice, and gets the job done, so why do we have an alternate way to express it? Odds can be helpful when we want to compare how much larger one probability is relative to another. An event with a probability 75% has odds of 75 to 25. We can simplify this to 3 to 1. This means that the event is three times more likely to occur than not occur.

Independence Day Essay Example

Independence Day Essay Example Independence Day Essay Independence Day Essay Independence Day (India) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Fifteenth of August redirects here. For other uses, see August 15. Independence Day The national flag of India, on the Red fort in New Delhi; a common sight on public and private buildings on national holidays like the 15th of August. Also called The Fifteenth of August (Hindi) ( ) (Hindi) Observed by India Type National Significance The day India became independent from British rule. Date August 15 Celebrations Flag hoisting, Parades, Singing patriotic songs, Speech by hePrime Minister, Family reunions,Picnics, Kite flying Independence Day of India is celebrated on Fifteenth of August (8/15/47) to commemorate its independence from British rule and its birth as a sovereignnation in 1947. [1] The day is a national holiday in India. All over the country, flag-hoisting ceremonies are conducted by the local administration inattendance. The main event takes place in New Delhi, the capital city of India, where the Prime Min ister hoists the national flag at the Red Fort and deliversa nationally televised speech from its ramparts. In his speech, he highlights the achievements f his government during the past year, raises important issues and gives a call for further development. The Prime Minister also pays his tribute to leaders of the freedom struggle. The Prime Minister also declares holiday on 15 August. Contents [hide] 1 Backgrou nd 2 Celebrati ons 3 See also 4 Referenc es 5 External links [edit]Background In 1946, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, and conscious that it had neither the mandate at home, the international support, nor the reliability of native orces for continuing to control an increasingly restless India,[2][3] decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948. As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the pr ovinces of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than seven months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders, including Pandit Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, B. R. Ambedkar and Master Tara Singh agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal. Many millions of Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu refugees trekked across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, massive bloodshed followed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhis presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders died in the violence. [4] On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnahsworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. At the stroke of midnight, as India moved into August 15, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, read out the famous Tryst with destiny spee ch proclaiming Indias independence. India, now a smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the first prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its irst Governor General. [edit]Celebrations This section requires expansion. The Indian flag at Delhi Gate The Prime Minister of India hoists the Indian flag on the ramparts of the historical site, Red Fort ( ), Delhi, on August 15. This is telecasted live on the National Channel Doordarshan and many other News Channels all over India. Flag hoisting ceremonies and cultural programs take place in all the state capitals. In the cities around the country the national flag is hoisted by politicians in their constituencies. In various private organisations the flag hoisting is carried out by a senior official of that organisation. All over the country, flags are given out to citizens who wear them proudly to show their patriotism towards India. Schools and colleges around the country organise flag hoisting ceremonies and various tural events within their premises, where younger children in costume do impersonations of their favourite characters of the Independence era. They also have a parade. Families and friends get together for lunch or dinner or for an outing. Housing colonies, cultural centres, clubs and societies hold entertainment programs and competitions, usually based on the Independence Day theme. Most national and regional television channels screen old and new film classics with patriotic themes on Independence Day. Many non-governmental organizations telecast patriotic programs. It is a national festival that is celebrated by every Indian irrespective of religion. 15 , 1947 1857 ? 1830 . , 15 . 15 , . ( ) 15 ( ) ( ) . 15 , , , , , 1947 (8/15/47) . [1 ] . , . , , hoists . , ? . . 15 . [hide] 1 2 ? 3 ? 4 ? 5 [ ] 1946 , , ? , , ? , [2] [3 ] , , . , . , , , , . 1947 , , , , , . , . , . , , , , tempers assuaged , . , 250,000 500,000 . [4] 14 1947, ? , . 15 , 1947 , independence. India, , , , . [ ] . hoists , ( ), , 15 . . . . . , . , impersonations . . . , , , . . . .

Politics of Screen Practise Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Politics of Screen Practise - Essay Example Both Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin that featured the USSR in 1952 and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers that focused on Algeria in 1966 are some of the renowned revolutionary films (Rosenstone, 2002). These films were produced after the occurrence of revolution in the countries. Goskino, the USSR State Committee for cinematography developed The Battleship Potemkin while Casbah Films managed by Saadi Yacef, produced The Battle of Algiers. The films entail of a stage that focuses on revolutionary struggle of battles that were lost. These were essential in the development of a new collective identity and also marked the historic activities that occurred during the period. However we note that despite propagandistic objectives, the films entail of a wide variety of interpretation. The revolutionary films have a fundamental characteristic that focuses on the anti-colonial liberation movements. This develops through a sense of self-assurance and definition of their culture after many years of colonial rule (Rosenstone, 2002). Revolution films are termed to be stocktaking; they have the ability of creating a clear perception of its reflection to the society. This is evident in the scenario where the people protesting in Cair Tahrir square identified themselves on the videos that were projected on large screens in their camps. According to Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein depicts the prior revolution of the Russians that occurred in the year 1905. This was a film that was highly recommended by many individuals. The viewers were captured by the creativity of the film even with the occurrence of the Cold War since it entailed of a mutiny based in czar’s naval vessel. The film focused on a exhilarating description based on combined revolution and a virtual subject describing how the editing of the film executed excitement, sympathy and revolutionary anger. The themes of the film are

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

Character Analysis - Essay Example Their similarities in handling situations in the story were evidently exhibited from the manner by which they apparently lived in secrecy. At the beginning of the story, it was revealed that when Emily Grierson died, the townsfolk, especially women, were immensely curious to see the inside of the house since no one, except â€Å"an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years† (Faulkner 1). Emily, on the other hand, was noted to have been in recluse and has kept â€Å"her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty† (Faulkner 7). These traits exhibited these two characters preference for isolation, secrecy and reclusion by keeping the doors to the house close: â€Å"the front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good† (Faulkner 8). In addition, it was revealed in the story that both characters hardly even talked; either to each other or even with other people. They manifested coldness, indifference, and obliviousness of what other have to say. As cited about Tobe: â€Å"we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse† (Faulkner 8). Of Emily, the townspeople allegedly describe her as passing â€Å"from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse† (Faulkner 8). She apparently had not interacted with any other character in town, except when Emily was visited by the members of the Board of Aldermen to collect taxes; of which, her response were cold and firm, as her actions indicate banishment and indifference to abiding by their purpose. As such, both characters where seen by the townsfolk only as fleeting and described them as aging figures. Tobe was described as frequently seen going in and out of the house; without much interaction and interpersonal relationships wi th the townsfolk. As disclosed, â€Å"daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket† (Faulkner 8). Concurrently, the same physical description was noted for Emily: â€Å"during the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning† (Faulkner 7). Finally, these characters showed similarities in handling challenges and trials in life: they kept everything to themselves and seemingly denying the realities of life. Tobe, who apparently knew everything that was going on in Emily’s house, refused to neither divulge any secrets nor defy the confidence given him by his master. Emily, on the other hand, handled both deaths in her family (through denying his father’s death; and again, for poisoning Homer Barron and keeping his dead body in the house) through fits of denial. It could actually be inferred that Emily could be exhibitin g symptoms of mental illness: â€Å"the inability to either feel or demonstrate appropriate affect, or emotion, that is congruent to a particular situation is one of the

Elaborate sustainable solutions on how to reduce construction waste Essay

Elaborate sustainable solutions on how to reduce construction waste during construction sites in United Arab Emirates - Essay Example and materials which are stored at the construction site are not always stored in the proper manner and as such, cause problems with regards to the performance of the workers and the use of the surrounding amenities. Most of the construction area pollution is being caused by activities such as drilling, piling, cement mixing, etc. which generate immeasurable dust stemming from the construction activities at various locations which utilize machinery in the mixing and exhausting of materials. With dust being pointed to as the major cause of air pollution, it has become quite evident that the chemicals and fuels necessary to proceed with the project need to be considered in terms of storage and use in order to lessen its harmful effects, discomfort, and air pollution at the site . Co2 emissions are normally traced back to the maachinery and stored materials. Over time these emissions affect not only the environment, but the moral of the workers whose productivity is directly tied in with their sick days. More sick days on their part often results on delayed project completion. Due to these aforementioned reasons, it is quite obvious that proper storage, organization, and regulations must be implemented at the construction sites fortheir materials, components, and machinery which can help to lower the pollution generated during the construction period. The sound pollution created by the vibration of the machinery and vehicles at the construction site due to the haphazard use of the equipment or low quality of construction materials used. The soil and heavy materials that move around at the site cause a vibration which create noise that can adversely affect the health and hearing of the workers. As such, a variety of building related illnesses can be noted during this span of time among the workers. Unfortunately, the noise cannot be avoided because of the size of the machinery used and large scale vibration that it creates. However, the noise pollution can be managed

Grammar and Composition Drafting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Grammar and Composition Drafting - Essay Example In my view, technology plays a destructive role in the modern society because it produces weapon with which people kill each other, ruins people’s morality through boosting greed in them, and destroys nature since it is often impossible to control. The middle part of your paper is the body of the paper. It develops the most important points which support your thesis statement. It contains three paragraphs. These paragraphs follow the points listed in the three-step format. Technology produces weapon with which people kill each other. Billions of people have been murdered with the help of technology since the day a shotgun was invented. Patrick Thomson, a Director of the Royal Museum in Sussex, says, â€Å"Who knows how many people would have lived longer but for the ordinary shot gun† (Thomson, â€Å"Destruction Today†). Similarly, Wendy Clifford, an American reporter, believes weapon plays a fatal role in 2 out of 20 domestic conflicts where it is used (Clifford, â€Å"Domestic Violence and Weapon†). Technology ruins human morality through boosting greed in people. When we see new iPads or iPhones advertised on TV, we wish to get these things even if in reality we do not need them. Other examples of greed for more technologically advanced and thus â€Å"better† things include: wishes to change cars, cell phones, software, and television. Technology destroys nature since it is often impossible to control. Nuclear explosions, oil spills, and animal extinction – these are horrible results of technological progress. It seems, if humanity continues to â€Å"develop† with the same pace, our planet Earth will become a deserted place in the following 100 years or even less. All in all, it is hard to find something less ruinous and destructive than technology invented by people. Since weapon kills people, greed for new gadgets â€Å"kills† morality and human inventions destroy nature, technology may be easily believed to play a destructive role in

Sainsbury Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Sainsbury - Case Study Example In 1972 the company was placed on the London stock exchange. The family members maintained eighty five percent of the shares. In 1979 they went into partnership with GB Inn BM a retail company from Belgium. And started a chain store using their Home base. Soon after buying Texas Home care in 1995 the size of home base became tripled. In 2000 Home base was sold by Sainsbury. Currently it is planning to relocate to King cross the support centre store from Holborn. This year it has also added to itself Curley's store from the Irish. It is currently operating eight hundred and twenty three supermarkets and stores. Out of these five hundred and four are supermarkets. While three hundred and nineteen are convenience stores. It is also offering shopping on internet; they have also started a bank in conjunction with a Scottish bank. Its supply chain is also operating in 10 centres of region distribution. The pestel model can be used to analyze the macro environment factors that are likely to affect the business for example the changes in the in taxes imposed, trade laws, change in government policy, and change in population and many more others. The model takes into consideration the following factors; Political, Economic, Social, Technological, environmental and the legal factors. ThPolitical Factors: The Government announced last month that's its intending to decrease the taxes it is imposing to the corporation companies by two percent (from the current thirty percent to twenty eight percent). This will have a big impact to the corporation Sainsbury included they will be able to save a lot of money. The money they will have saved will be allocated to an alternative use. (Department of Treasury 2008). There were allegations in UK about the retailers who were fixing prices. The government has established commission of enquiry. The investigation is mainly done to the biggest four retail industries who have been accused of the malpractices J. Sainsbury included. This is going to affect Sainsbury despite the fact that they have already established themselves with their customer. As many of their customers will have a negative perception about them, they will think that they have all along been cheated. (Doherty 2008 page 15) The good infrastructure which the government has provided like good roads has also impacted positively on them, as this has made their goods to move with ease. In 1997 the government (Labour party) established the Monetary Policy Committee. The body was given the mandate to set the rates of interest. Despite this being political it had an impact on the economy of the country which in turn affected the profits earned by Sainsbury in their banking business. Economic Factors: The food problem that the world is currently undergoing has made the prices of the food to increase. This has greatly increased the cost of expenditure which Sainsbury is using to buy food. Their profit margin is expected to reduce to some small percentage. The prices of most commodities have raised in the supermarket a fact that is attributed to the current food shortages. All these are expected to have an impact on the profit margin that is the profit margin is expected to reduce. (Sir Henry 2007 page 23) The current economic turmoil

ECON WEEK 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

ECON WEEK 2 - Assignment Example GDP and its related concepts [real GDP, GDP per capita etc.] are therefore incomplete measures of an economy’s health, they only account for goods and services with legal monetary value; that is, those produced and sold in legal markets (Ouanes & Thakur, 1997). Accordingly, productive activities such as a businessman fixing own broken machine, literally bypassing market transaction processes, is overlooked. Secondly, it evident that a country producing too much goods and services might actually do so by emitting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus, dampening the quality of life/air within its boundaries. Such negative externalities are always relegated in the periphery in GDP accounting, which by and large reduces the quality of human life (Hunt & Nesiba, 2008). Last but not least, a country’s output increases can be the result of increased hours of work with limited time off duty. Leisure time contributes a great deal to the quality of life that one lives , so much to the extent that it is but a misguided conclusion to assume that more products and services as measured by the GDP translates into a more enjoyable life within an

Teleological Argument on the Existence of God

Teleological Argument on the Existence of God In todays society there are many arguments surrounding the question does God exist?. One of these is the teleological argument. The world around us is very intricate, from snowflakes to plain old rocks, much like the items we ourselves create. Many people nowadays and throughout history (myself included) noticed this trend and think about how our world is structured and detailed in a way that when studied closely, looks as though it mustve been designed in order to exist at all. Nothing we create that is complex (a computer chip/watch) is there by chance, they had to be designed, it had to be intricately placed together in order to create said object. If this is true of manmade objects, then surely everything that surrounds has to be created by an intelligent being too? These thoughts were brought together by William Paley and form what is known as the teleological argument in philosophy. A rock is just as complicated and mosaic like as a watch that has been painstakingly designed by hand when viewed on a quantum level, this idea is fully explained and examined in the watchmakers analogy which suggests that if a watch was designed, then surely all that is intricate in nature must surely have an ultimate creator. Paley himself began to consider this argument while thinking about religion, how God fits into the creation of the universe and everything in it. The theory that all things must be created, otherwise known as the intelligent design theory, has been debated and supported by numerous philosophers throughout the ages, from St Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, through the movement in the 16th and 17th centuries led by the likes of William Derham, to modern day philosophical theorists and evolutionary biologists such as eminent atheist Richard Dawkins. The earliest cited versions of this argument are associated with Socrates in ancient Greece, although it has bee n argued that his ideas were influenced by earlier philosophical arguments. Plato, his student, and Aristotle, developed complex methodologies around the idea that the universe has an intelligent designer. William Paley was an English churchman and Christian apologist who lived in the mid-18th century to the early 19th century, his treatise and lectures (that were delivered to such notable philosophers as John Locke) on moral philosophy, concerned themselves with proving the existence of God. He believed that the complexity and order of all things could not have come about as a matter of chance, and that all things within the universe seem to have been designed with a purpose in mind. In Paleys mind the only thing that would make sense in order to explain this would be a God, the Christian God of his religion. This is in direct opposition to Darwins theory of natural selection and evolution. Using the watchmakers analogy Paley suggested The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is GOD. In this theory the watch is a metaphor for the universe; God is to the universe as Watchmaker is to the watch. Even if we didnt know where the watch from the analogy came from, we could still infer that it was made by someone or something with a specific purpose in mind because of its complexity and function. This can be transferred to the origin/creation of the universe and things we cant yet explain and since we have no definitive answers as to how to universe was created, we can assume the same. Paley did not accept that the existence of things such as natural disasters or immorality in the world as a counter argument for his theory or as evidence of a creators malicious intent or bad design. After all, even the most intricately designed things can be broken or go wrong in certain circumstances. A watch, despite its intricate design might sometimes malfunction which does not disprove the fact it had been created with intent and purpose. He believed that everything in the universe (natural or man-made) has an order. For example, the galaxy orbits its centre, just as the planets orbit the sun and an electron orbits an atom. Everything has a pattern, a structure, no matter how simple or intricate it is; they are in everything you look at or do. This order, Paley argued, is proof of his argument saying that God exists and is the ultimate creator of everything. The Scottish philosopher David Hume, who was a relative contemporary to Paley, disagreed with the idea of the intelligent design argument being proof of Gods existence, which he thought had a complete lack of evidence. Hume strongly believed in empiricism (that everything comes from our senses) and thought that rational thought and the laws of nature proved that miracles werent a possibility. He also argued that an orderly universe was not proof of a creator and that even if there was a God, supreme deity or designer we couldnt possibly know anything about it or prove its existence. He thought that if there was a creator, why did it have to be God? Could there be more than one creator/God? The design argument does nothing to prove the existence of God in the traditional sense, that being a God who is omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence (all good, all knowing and always there). Perhaps this deity isnt the ultimate being and the design argument does nothing to either prove or di sprove the existence of an all-powerful God. The fact that evil exists in any form and is everywhere, suggests that God is either all-powerful but not completely good or he has good intentions but is not able to eradicate evil and isnt all-powerful. Hume uses this as counter-argument to the idea of an omniscient God as an all-good and kind god wouldnt inflict needless pain on people/sentient beings that have done nothing wrong. It doesnt make sense, why would God make us with the ability to choose good or evil in order to allow us to receive eternal life and then punish us as soon as we make our own choices? If God existed (in the traditional sense) then the existence of evil, even in the tiniest amount, would contradict what the traditional Christian God is known as and stands for because you cannot be all-good, all-powerful and all-present if you allow evil and suffering to occur. Whilst Paleys theory attempts to explain the existence of an ordered and complex universe via his intelligent design argument many other philosophers have disagreed and came up with their own theories (Hume) which counter what Paley argued and tried to explain. Hume doesnt deny that there is a God or intelligent designer, but he discredits Paley by talking about rational thought and the problem of evil which seems to further pull apart Paleys already rather flawed argument. He also disputed the assumption that everything that exists must have a creator or a cause for existence. Primarily, Hume argued that a theory represented as a best possible explanation, such as Paleys, showed a complete lack of evidence to support it and instead raised many more questions than it answered. To conclude, I do not believe that the teleological argument proves or disproves the existence of God, I do however believe that it is a matter of perspective and personal judgement when it comes down to which side to believe/be on. Humes argument seems to me to be the more logical argument between the two, as it has less loopholes and flaws when compared to the teleological side. However, contrary to his reputation as The Great Infidel, Hume did nor categorically deny the existence of God, but argued that it cannot either be proved, nor disproved, which allows room for interpretation depending on your viewpoint.

Medical Data Analytics Using R

Medical Data Analytics Using R 1.) R for Recency => months since last donation, 2.) F for Frequency => total number of donation, 3.) M for Monetary => total amount of blood donated in c.c., 4.) T for Time => months since first donation and 5.) Binary variable => 1 -> donated blood, 0-> didnt donate blood. The main idea behind this dataset is the concept of relationship management CRM. Based on three metrics: Recency, Frequency and Monetary (RFM) which are 3 out of the 5 attributes of the dataset, we would be able to predict whether a customer is likely to donate blood again based to a marketing campaign. For example, customers who have donated or visited more currently (Recency), more frequently (Frequency) or made higher monetary values (Monetary) are more likely to respond to a marketing effort. Customers with less RFM score are less likely to react. It is also known in customer behavior, that the time of the first positive interaction (donation, purchase) is not significant. However, the Recency of the last donation is very important. In the traditional RFM implementation each customer is ranked based on his RFM value parameters against all the other customers and that develops a score for every customer. Customers with bigger scores are more likely to react in a positive way for example (visit again or donate). The model constructs the formula which could predict the following problem. Keep in repository only customers that are more likely to continue donating in the future and remove those who are less likely to donate, given a certain period of time. The previous statement also determines the problem which will be trained and tested in this project. Firstly, I created a .csv file and generated 748 unique random numbers in Excel in the domain [1,748] in the first column, which corresponds to the customers or users ID. Then I transferred the whole data from the .txt file (transfusion.data) to the .csv file in excel by using the delimited (,) option. Then I randomly split it in a train file and a test file. The train file contains the 530 instances and the test file has the 218 instances. Afterwards, I read both the training dataset and the test dataset. From the previous results, we can see that we have no missing or invalid values. Data ranges and units seem reasonable. Figure 1 above depicts boxplots of all the attributes and for both train and test datasets. By examining the figure, we notice that both datasets have similar distributions and there are some outliers (Monetary > 2,500) that are visible. The volume of blood variable has a high correlation with frequency. Because the volume of blood that is donated each time is fixed, the Monetary value is proportional to the Frequency (number of donations) each person gave. For example, if the amount of blood drawn in each person was 250 ml/bag (Taiwan Blood Services Foundation 2007) March then Monetary = 250*Frequency. This is also why in the predictive model we will not consider the Monetary attribute in the implementation. So, it is reasonable to expect that customers with higher frequency will have a lot higher Monetary value. This can be verified also visually by examining the Monetary outliers for the train set. We retrieve back 83 instances. In order, to understand better the statistical dispersion of the whole dataset (748 instances) we will look at the standard deviation (SD) between the Recency and the variable whether customer has donated blood (Binary variable) and the SD between the Frequency and the Binary variable.The distribution of scores around the mean is small, which means the data is concentrated. This can also be noticed from the plots. From this correlation matrix, we can verify what was stated above, that the frequency and the monetary values are proportional inputs, which can be noticed from their high correlation. Another observation is that the various Recency numbers are not factors of 3. This goes to opposition with what the description said about the data being collected every 3 months. Additionally, there is always a maximum number of times you can donate blood per certain period (e.g. 1 time per month), but the data shows that. 36 customers donated blood more than once and 6 customers had donated 3 or more times in the same month. The features that will be used to calculate the prediction of whether a customer is likely to donate again are 2, the Recency and the Frequency (RF). The Monetary feature will be dropped. The number of categories for R and F attributes will be 3. The highest RF score will be 33 equivalent to 6 when added together and the lowest will be 11 equivalent to 2 when added together. The threshold for the added score to determine whether a customer is more likely to donate blood again or not, will be set to 4 which is the median value. The users will be assigned to categories by sorting on RF attributes as well as their scores. The file with the donators will be sorted on Recency first (in ascending order) because we want to see which customers have donated blood more recently. Then it will be sorted on frequency (in descending order this time because we want to see which customers have donated more times) in each Recency category. Apart from sorting, we will need to apply some business rules that have occurred after multiple tests: For Recency (Business rule 1): If the Recency in months is less than 15 months, then these customers will be assigned to category 3. If the Recency in months is equal or greater than 15 months and less than 26 months, then these customers will be assigned to category 2. Otherwise, if the Recency in months is equal or greater than 26 months, then these customers will be assigned to category 1 And for Frequency (Business rule 2): If the Frequency is equal or greater than 25 times, then these customers will be assigned to category 3. If the Frequency is less than 25 times or greater than 15 months, then these customers will be assigned to category 2. If the Frequency is equal or less than 15 times, then these customers will be assigned to category 1 RESULTS The output of the program are two smaller files that have resulted from the train file and the other one from the test file, that have excluded several customers that should not be considered future targets and kept those that are likely to respond. Some statistics about the precision, recall and the balanced F-score of the train and test file have been calculated and printed. Furthermore, we compute the absolute difference between the results retrieved from the train and test file to get the offset error between these statistics. By doing this and verifying that the error numbers are negligible, we validate the consistency of the model implemented. Moreover, we depict two confusion matrices one for the test and one for the training by calculating the true positives, false negatives, false positives and true negatives. In our case, true positives correspond to the customers (who donated on March 2007) and were classified as future possible donators. False negatives correspond to the customers (who donated on March 2007) but were not classified as future possible targets for marketing campaigns. False positives correlate to customers (who did not donate on March 2007) and were incorrectly classified as possible future targets. Lastly, true negatives which are customers (who did not donate on March 2007) and were correctly classified as not plausible future donators and therefore removed from the data file. By classification we mean the application of the threshold (4) to separate those customers who are more likely and less likely to donate again in a certain future period. Lastly, we calculate 2 more single value metrics for both train and test files the Kappa Statistic (general statistic used for classification systems) and Matthews Correlation Coefficient or cost/reward measure. Both are normalized statistics for classification systems, its values never exceed 1, so the same statistic can be used even as the number of observations grows. The error for both measures are MCC error: 0.002577   and Kappa error:   0.002808, which is very small (negligible), similarly with all the previous measures. REFERENCES UCI Machine Learning Repository (2008) UCI machine learning repository: Blood transfusion service center data set. Available at: http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Blood+Transfusion+Service+Center (Accessed: 30 January 2017). Fundation, T.B.S. (2015) Operation department. Available at: http://www.blood.org.tw/Internet/english/docDetail.aspx?uid=7741pid=7681docid=37144 (Accessed: 31 January 2017). The Appendix with the code starts below. However the whole code has been uploaded on my Git Hub profile and this is the link where it can be accessed. https://github.com/it21208/RassignmentDataAnalysis/blob/master/RassignmentDataAnalysis.R library(ggplot2) library(car)   # read training and testing datasets traindata à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   read.csv(C:/Users/Alexandros/Dropbox/MSc/2nd Semester/Data analysis/Assignment/transfusion.csv) testdata à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   read.csv(C:/Users/Alexandros/Dropbox/MSc/2nd Semester/Data analysis/Assignment/test.csv) # assigning the datasets to dataframes dftrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(traindata) dftest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(testdata) sapply(dftrain, typeof) # give better names to columns names(dftrain)[1] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ ID names(dftrain)[2] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ recency names(dftrain)[3]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸frequency names(dftrain)[4]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸cc names(dftrain)[5]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸time names(dftrain)[6]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸donated # names(dftest)[1]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ID names(dftest)[2]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸recency names(dftest)[3]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸frequency names(dftest)[4]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸cc names(dftest)[5]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸time names(dftest)[6]à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸donated # drop time column from both files dftrain$time à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ NULL dftest$time à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ NULL #   sort (train) dataframe on Recency in ascending order sorted_dftrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ dftrain[ order( dftrain[,2] ), ] #   add column in (train) dataframe -   hold score (rank) of Recency for each customer sorted_dftrain[ , Rrank] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 #   convert train file from dataframe format to matrix matrix_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftrain, as.numeric)) #   sort (test) dataframe on Recency in ascending order sorted_dftest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ dftest[ order( dftest[,2] ), ] #   add column in (test) dataframe -hold score (rank) of Recency for each customer sorted_dftest[ , Rrank] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 #   convert train file from dataframe format to matrix matrix_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftest, as.numeric)) # categorize matrix_train and add scores for Recency apply business rule for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_train)) { if (matrix_train [i,2]   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_train [i,6] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 3 } else if ((matrix_train [i,2] = 15)) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_train [i,6] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 2 } else {   matrix_train [i,6] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 1   }   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   } # categorize matrix_test and add scores for Recency apply business rule for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_test)) { if (matrix_test [i,2]   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_test [i,6] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 3 } else if ((matrix_test [i,2] = 15)) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_test [i,6] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 2 } else {   matrix_test [i,6] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 1 }   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   } # convert matrix_train back to dataframe sorted_dftrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_train) # sort dataframe 1rst by Recency Rank (desc.) then by Frequency (desc.) sorted_dftrain_2à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ sorted_dftrain[order(-sorted_dftrain[,6], -sorted_dftrain[,3] ), ] # add column in train dataframe- hold Frequency score (rank) for each customer sorted_dftrain_2[ , Frank] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 # convert dataframe to matrix matrix_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftrain_2, as.numeric)) # convert matrix_test back to dataframe sorted_dftest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_test) # sort dataframe 1rst by Recency Rank (desc.) then by Frequency (desc.) sorted_dftest2 à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ sorted_dftest[ order( -sorted_dftest[,6], -sorted_dftest[,3] ), ] # add column in test dataframe- hold Frequency score (rank) for each customer sorted_dftest2[ , Frank] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 # convert dataframe to matrix matrix_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftest2, as.numeric)) #categorize matrix_train, add scores for Frequency for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_train)){    if (matrix_train[i,3] >= 25) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_train[i,7] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 3    } else if ((matrix_train[i,3] > 15) (matrix_train[i,3]   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_train[i,7] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 2    } else {   matrix_train[i,7] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 1   }   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   } #categorize matrix_test, add scores for Frequency for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_test)){    if (matrix_test[i,3] >= 25) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_test[i,7] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 3    } else if ((matrix_test[i,3] > 15) (matrix_test[i,3]   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_test[i,7] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 2    } else {  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   matrix_test[i,7] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 1   } } #   convert matrix test back to dataframe sorted_dftrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_train) # sort (train) dataframe 1rst on Recency rank (desc.) 2nd Frequency rank (desc.) sorted_dftrain_2 à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ sorted_dftrain[ order( -sorted_dftrain[,6], -sorted_dftrain[,7] ), ] # add another column for the Sum of Recency rank and Frequency rank sorted_dftrain_2[ , SumRankRAndF] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 # convert dataframe to matrix matrix_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftrain_2, as.numeric)) #   convert matrix test back to dataframe sorted_dftest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_test) # sort (train) dataframe 1rst on Recency rank (desc.) 2nd Frequency rank (desc.) sorted_dftest2 à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ sorted_dftest[ order( -sorted_dftest[,6],   -sorted_dftest[,7] ), ] # add another column for the Sum of Recency rank and Frequency rank sorted_dftest2[ , SumRankRAndF] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 # convert dataframe to matrix matrix_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftest2, as.numeric)) # sum Recency rank and Frequency rank for train file for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_train)) { matrix_train[i,8] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ matrix_train[i,6] + matrix_train[i,7] } # sum Recency rank and Frequency rank for test file for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_test)) { matrix_test[i,8] à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ matrix_test[i,6] + matrix_test[i,7] } # convert matrix_train back to dataframe sorted_dftrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_train) # sort train dataframe according to total rank in descending order sorted_dftrain_2 à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ sorted_dftrain[ order( -sorted_dftrain[,8] ), ] # convert sorted train dataframe matrix_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftrain_2, as.numeric)) # convert matrix_test back to dataframe sorted_dftest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_test) # sort test dataframe according to total rank in descending order sorted_dftest2 à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ sorted_dftest[ order( -sorted_dftest[,8] ), ] # convert sorted test dataframe to matrix matrix_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ as.matrix(sapply(sorted_dftest2, as.numeric)) # apply business rule check count customers whose score >= 4 and that Have Donated, train file # check count for all customers that have donated in the train dataset count_train_predicted_donations à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 counter_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 number_donation_instances_whole_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 false_positives_train_counter à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_train)) {    if ((matrix_train[i,8] >= 4) (matrix_train[i,5] == 1)) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   count_train_predicted_donations = count_train_predicted_donations + 1   } if ((matrix_train[i,8] >= 4) (matrix_train[i,5] == 0)) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   false_positives_train_counter = false_positives_train_counter + 1}    if (matrix_train[i,8] >= 4) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   counter_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ counter_train + 1   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   }    if (matrix_train[i,5] == 1) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   number_donation_instances_whole_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ number_donation_instances_whole_train + 1    } } # apply business rule check count customers whose score >= 4 and that Have Donated, test file # check count for all customers that have donated in the test dataset count_test_predicted_donations à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 counter_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 number_donation_instances_whole_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 false_positives_test_counter à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 0 for(i in 1:nrow(matrix_test)) {    if ((matrix_test[i,8] >= 4) (matrix_test[i,5] == 1)) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   count_test_predicted_donations = count_test_predicted_donations + 1   } if ((matrix_test[i,8] >= 4) (matrix_test[i,5] == 0)) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   false_positives_test_counter = false_positives_test_counter + 1}    if (matrix_test[i,8] >= 4) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   counter_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ counter_test + 1   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   }    if (matrix_test[i,5] == 1) {   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   number_donation_instances_whole_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ number_donation_instances_whole_test + 1   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   } } # convert matrix_train to dataframe dftrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_train) # remove the group of customers who are less likely to donate again in the future from train file dftrain_final à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ dftrain[c(1:counter_train),1:8] # convert matrix_train to dataframe dftest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(matrix_test) # remove the group of customers who are less likely to donate again in the future from test file dftest_final à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ dftest[c(1:counter_test),1:8] # save final train dataframe as a CSV in the specified directory reduced target future customers write.csv(dftrain_final, file = C:\Users\Alexandros\Dropbox\MSc\2nd Semester\Data analysis\Assignment\train_output.csv, row.names = FALSE) #save final test dataframe as a CSV in the specified directory reduced target future customers write.csv(dftest_final, file = C:\Users\Alexandros\Dropbox\MSc\2nd Semester\Data analysis\Assignment\test_output.csv, row.names = FALSE) #train precision=number of relevant instances retrieved / number of retrieved instances collect.530 precision_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   count_train_predicted_donations / counter_train # train recall = number of relevant instances retrieved / number of relevant instances in collect.530 recall_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ count_train_predicted_donations / number_donation_instances_whole_train # measure combines PrecisionRecall is harmonic mean of PrecisionRecall balanced F-score for # train file f_balanced_score_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 2*(precision_train*recall_train)/(precision_train+recall_train) # test precision precision_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ count_test_predicted_donations / counter_test # test recall recall_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ count_test_predicted_donations / number_donation_instances_whole_test # the balanced F-score for test file f_balanced_score_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ 2*(precision_test*recall_test)/(precision_test+recall_test) # error in precision error_precision à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ abs(precision_train-precision_test) # error in recall error_recall à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ abs(recall_train-recall_test) # error in f-balanced scores error_f_balanced_scores à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ abs(f_balanced_score_train-f_balanced_score_test) # Print Statistics for verification and validation cat(Precision with training dataset: , precision_train) cat(Recall with training dataset: , recall_train) cat(Precision with testing dataset: , precision_test) cat(Recall with testing dataset: , recall_test) cat(The F-balanced scores with training dataset: , f_balanced_score_train) cat(The F-balanced scores with testing dataset:   , f_balanced_score_test) cat(Error in precision: , error_precision) cat(Error in recall: , error_recall) cat(Error in F-balanced scores: , error_f_balanced_scores) # confusion matrix (true positives, false positives, false negatives, true negatives) # calculate true positives for train which is the variable count_train_predicted_donations # calculate false positives for train which is the variable false_positives_train_counter # calculate false negatives for train false_negatives_for_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ number_donation_instances_whole_train count_train_predicted_donations # calculate true negatives for train true_negatives_for_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ (nrow(matrix_train) number_donation_instances_whole_train) false_positives_train_counter collect_trainà ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸c(false_positives_train_counter, true_negatives_for_train, count_train_predicted_donations, false_negatives_for_train) # calculate true positives for test which is the variable count_test_predicted_donations # calculate false positives for test which is the variable false_positives_test_counter # calculate false negatives for test false_negatives_for_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ number_donation_instances_whole_test count_test_predicted_donations # calculate true negatives for test true_negatives_for_testà ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸(nrow(matrix_test)-number_donation_instances_whole_test)- false_positives_test_counter collect_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ c(false_positives_test_counter, true_negatives_for_test, count_test_predicted_donations, false_negatives_for_test) TrueCondition à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ factor(c(0, 0, 1, 1)) PredictedCondition à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ factor(c(1, 0, 1, 0)) # print confusion matrix for train df_conf_mat_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(TrueCondition,PredictedCondition,collect_train) ggplot(data = df_conf_mat_train, mapping = aes(x = PredictedCondition, y = TrueCondition)) +    geom_tile(aes(fill = collect_train), colour = white) +    geom_text(aes(label = sprintf(%1.0f, collect_train)), vjust = 1) +    scale_fill_gradient(low = blue, high = red) +    theme_bw() + theme(legend.position = none) #   print confusion matrix for test df_conf_mat_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ data.frame(TrueCondition,PredictedCondition,collect_test) ggplot(data =   df_conf_mat_test, mapping = aes(x = PredictedCondition, y = TrueCondition)) +    geom_tile(aes(fill = collect_test), colour = white) +    geom_text(aes(label = sprintf(%1.0f, collect_test)), vjust = 1) +    scale_fill_gradient(low = blue, high = red) +    theme_bw() + theme(legend.position = none) # MCC = (TP * TN FP * FN)/sqrt((TP+FP) (TP+FN) (FP+TN) (TN+FN)) for train values mcc_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ ((count_train_predicted_donations * true_negatives_for_train) (false_positives_train_counter * false_negatives_for_train))/sqrt((count_train_predicted_donations+false_positives_train_counter)*(count_train_predicted_donations+false_negatives_for_train)*(false_positives_train_counter+true_negatives_for_train)*(true_negatives_for_train+false_negatives_for_train)) # print MCC for train cat(Matthews Correlation Coefficient for train: ,mcc_train) # MCC = (TP * TN FP * FN)/sqrt((TP+FP) (TP+FN) (FP+TN) (TN+FN)) for test values mcc_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ ((count_test_predicted_donations * true_negatives_for_test) (false_positives_test_counter * false_negatives_for_test))/sqrt((count_test_predicted_donations+false_positives_test_counter)*(count_test_predicted_donations+false_negatives_for_test)*(false_positives_test_counter+true_negatives_for_test)*(true_negatives_for_test+false_negatives_for_test)) # print MCC for test cat(Matthews Correlation Coefficient for test: ,mcc_test) # print MCC err between train and err cat(Matthews Correlation Coefficient error: ,abs(mcc_train-mcc_test)) # Total = TP + TN + FP + FN for train total_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ count_train_predicted_donations + true_negatives_for_train + false_positives_train_counter + false_negatives_for_train # Total = TP + TN + FP + FN for test   total_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ count_test_predicted_donations + true_negatives_for_test + false_positives_test_counter + false_negatives_for_test # totalAccuracy = (TP + TN) / Total for train values totalAccuracyTrain à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ (count_train_predicted_donations + true_negatives_for_train)/ total_train # totalAccuracy = (TP + TN) / Total for test values totalAccuracyTest à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ (count_test_predicted_donations + true_negatives_for_test)/ total_test # randomAccuracy = ((TN+FP)*(TN+FN)+(FN+TP)*(FP+TP)) / (Total*Total)   for train values randomAccuracyTrainà ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸((true_negatives_for_train+false_positives_train_counter)*(true_negatives_for_train+false_negatives_for_train)+(false_negatives_for_train+count_train_predicted_donations)*(false_positives_train_counter+count_train_predicted_donations))/(total_train*total_train) # randomAccuracy = ((TN+FP)*(TN+FN)+(FN+TP)*(FP+TP)) / (Total*Total)   for test values randomAccuracyTestà ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸((true_negatives_for_test+false_positives_test_counter)*(true_negatives_for_test+false_negatives_for_test)+(false_negatives_for_test+count_test_predicted_donations)*(false_positives_test_counter+count_test_predicted_donations))/(total_test*total_test) # kappa = (totalAccuracy randomAccuracy) / (1 randomAccuracy) for train kappa_train à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ (totalAccuracyTrain-randomAccuracyTrain)/(1-randomAccuracyTrain) # kappa = (totalAccuracy randomAccuracy) / (1 randomAccuracy) for test kappa_test à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸ (totalAccuracyTest-randomAccuracyTest)/(1-randomAccuracyTest) # print kappa error cat(Kappa error: ,abs(kappa_train-kappa_test))

Placebos: Can a Sugar Pill Cure? :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Placebos: Can a Sugar Pill Cure? Placebo: the word is Latin for "I will please." Originally it started the Vespers for the dead, often sung by hired mourners, and eventually "to sing placebos" came to mean to flatter or placate (1). Later, the term was used for any kind of quack medicine. Today, it is a medicine that has no value in itself, but improves a patient's condition because the patient believes it to be potent. Belief in a swallowed sugar pill or saline injection has been shown to produce real reactions. 80% of patients given sugar water and told it is an emetic respond by vomiting (1). People often show an allergic response to something they believe they are allergic to, even if it is only plastic flowers. Does this strong reaction hold true for more serious medical conditions, then? There are three explanations as to why placebos may work. The first, called the opoid model, says that the positive response is a result of endorphins released in response to swallowing a pill, etc. The second is the conditioning model, which holds that the important factor is not the medicine, but contact with a medical professional. Because patients are used to getting better after they go into a doctor's office and talk to someone in a white coat, they are psychologically conditioned to get better after contact with the medical environment. The last is the expectancy model, in which patients improve because they expect the placebo to have a certain effect. There are even more arguments, though, as to how the placebo effect has been exaggerated or fabricated. Some studies include additional treatment along with the medication, sosimply being in a study may produce results (1). Some studies on placebos often show similar rates of success for a drug and a placebo, but do not include a control in which no treatment is used. In such studies, it is impossible to tell what improvement was actually due to the placebo and what would have happened anyway (3). Patients may also tend to report improvement because they think this is what is expected. This is especially true with poorly designed response forms with more options for improvement than worsening. Many illnesses, like colds, improve by themselves given time. Others, like depression and chronic pain, fluctuate. Thus improvement in these types of illness might well have happened without any medicine or placebo.

Essay --

Lisette Galvan Outlining - Position Paper Title: Should the Level of Immigration Be Heightened and Border Security Tightened? Thesis statement : I truly believe that the level of immigration should be increased but only with the exception that border security should be better utilized. If people from other countries want to better their lives here and agree to â€Å"play by the rules† then it should be allowed and put into law. Immigration seems to a big issue these days in America.The main concern that many Americans have is that immigrants will swipe the available jobs that are offered here and will consequently leave the natural born citizens with nothing. The idea that drug dealers and terrorists are more prevalent to enter the country is also a strong fear. There are obviously many in the U.S. who are here illegally that should not be but there should be a way that they can earn citizenship. Essay Map If someone is not of Native American descent, their ancestors are immigrants. The economy will improve Border Security needs to be stronger. Immigration reform should be put in...

History, strength of provisional government Essay

How far was the provisional government responsible for its own downfall? During the brief period of rule by The Provisional Government, Russia was troubled by several domestic issues that the provisional Government failed to sufficiently deal with when eventually led to their down fall in 1917. Their failure to fulfil the needs of the peasants, which was a big domestic issue, was a factor that led to their loss of support and in addition their failure to suppress the opposition led to their downfall. The instantaneous cause for their collapse was the fierce take over from the Bolsheviks led by Lenin. However the main factors that led to their downfall was their decision to continue in the war because it has worsened the issues that The Provisional Government failed to tackle which then led to loss of support from the bulk of the population and more importantly the army which they relied upon to defend The Provisional Government such as the July Days. In addition their decision to delay the elections gave the Bolsheviks a chance to take power. As a result, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were able to increase their support rapidly and take over so therefore The Provisional Government can be largely held responsible for their own downfall. Russia’s continuation in the war after the abdication of the tsar was the main reason for the down fall of The Provisional Government because it increased the issues that Russia faced already which worsened their respect and support as it was their decision to do so. As a result of this, they lost support of the army because they were losing in the war as they lost territory, soldiers and unprepared to go to battle. This decreased the soldier’s moral which eventually led to the breakdown of military discipline. This eventually led to radical parties having an increase of support because they were against the continuation of the war such as the Bolsheviks because they promised to end Russia’s involvement in the war. In addition, the continuation of the war meant that the issue of food shortages caused unrest amongst the population towards The Provisional Government. The Provisional Government also had little control over the countryside and also lacked the ability to impose their authority in its outside cities and towns. As a result the peasants took action which therefore undermined The  Provisional Governments authority. Many peasants took land from landowner’s whilst some engaged in violence. The Provisional Government was losing its authority in parts of Russia. The main reason for the lack of control was because The provisional Government lacked in legitimacy and due to this the public turned away and went to more radical parties such as the Bolsheviks. The peasants turned to the Bolsheviks because in the April Thesis, Lenin promised to address the land issue which The Provisional Government failed to do. And due to his, The Provisional Government support decreased and Bolsheviks support increased. The authority of The Provisional Government significantly weakened in June when they launched an attack on the Austro-Hungarian army. This was a utter failure and led to the breakdown of the Russian army. The soldiers leaving the front lines met and formed an Anti-Government rally in which they demanded all political power should be handed to the soviets. Furthermore other troops formed a Provisional Revolutionary Committee to campaign against the government. In addition only the government can be blamed for the events of the â€Å"July Days† because it was them who’s idea it was of the June offensive and therefore as a result, the July Days. By August 1917 Russia seemed on the verge of chaos because peasants were seizing land, industrial production was failing and soldiers were rebelling. Although the Provisional Government had survived, the demonstrations of the July Days brought a fatal blow to the position of The Provisional Government. Kornilov had feared a â€Å"coup d’à ©tat† and released imprisoned Bolsheviks and armed them to help the government. This was a blow as Bolsheviks membership increased and now they were given weapons, they did not give them back. The Kornilov Affair made the Bolsheviks look like the â€Å"defenders of Petrograd† so their numbers increased. As a result of The Provisional Government continuing in the war, opposition towards them grew. They also failed to suppress the opposition which led to opposition (Bolshevik) increase support. The Provisional Government also failed to meet the demands of the public so therefore making them turn to more extreme parties. The Bolsheviks were the biggest threat to the government because of their popularity, aims, guidance and methods. Overall, although The provisional Government had face many problems, it was the Bolsheviks that caused the eventual downfall of the government. It is not wholly The Provisional Governments fault for their own downfall because some of the problems they had inherited and as soon as they came into power they were already un-liked despite them playing a major part in it. The country side was already in chaos so that was not their fault and the April Thesis, Lenin’s speech, they could not be held responsible for that either. On the other hand, The Kornilov Affair, The June Offensive and the domestic issues were their fault as they did not address the issue leading to the radicalisation of the public. The Provisional Government did have a huge part to play in their own downfall because of their decision t continue in the war which enhanced/intensified the present issues.

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P1- There are many legal requirements to an inclusive practice in a pre-school these are:  ·Inclusion-special Educational needs code of practice and SEN DFES 2002  ·Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001  ·The National Care Standards 2001  ·Convention for the Rights of children 1999  ·Human Rights Act 1998  ·Disability Discrimination Act 1995, 2005 section 1 (1)  ·The Beginning of statementing –the Education Act 1981  ·supporting children under5 years, extending parents and publishing codes of practice- education Act 1996  ·children’s Act 1989  ·The criminal Law 1967 (2000)  ·Race Relations Act 1976 Sex discrimination Act 2000  ·The Equality Act 2006  ·Standard 9 of the National Standards  ·The disability Discrimination Act 1995  ·The UN Convention on the rights of the child- to be protected from all forms of discrimination  ·NCPCC  ·Education Act 1996 To protect the children and their families within the setting from discrim ination and their human rights, practitioners will need to organise and plan the setting and activities, for an inclusive practice. Practitioners have a responsibility to help children and their families to resect and value each other within the setting. P2- The importance for a setting to have an inclusive practice is every child and their family is legal entitlement to have access to an inclusive education, what every their gender, age, accomplishment, ethnicity, special educational needs, or ability in spoken English. All Early years settings are required to develop and promote an inclusive policy and encourage children, parents the community and practitioners in sharing values of every individual in the setting and to adapt the setting to include everyone, so they discover and play and be supported by a key worker. P3 – the policies required to provide a healthy pre-school setting are:  · Risk assessment  ·Food and drink  ·Infection control  ·Fire safety  ·Accidents and emergencies  ·Evacuation of medicine  ·Hygiene and health safety  ·First aid  ·EYFS  ·Safeguarding children  ·Behavior management and bullying  ·Sickness  ·Safety of adult  ·Complaints procedures  ·Equipment and resources  ·Intruder  ·Lost child  ·Special Educational needs/ disability  ·Staffing and employment  ·Student placement  ·Parental involvement  ·Curriculum planning  · Emergency closure  ·Confidentiality  ·Nappy and soiled clothes changing No smoking  ·Valuing diversity  ·Record keeping  ·Child protection  ·Accident book  ·Hygiene  ·Windows, doors, floors and security  ·Outdoor area  ·Insurance  ·Safety on outings  · Pets in the sessions  ·Signing in and out the setting  ·Children’s and staff allergies P4- practitioners should have He alth and Safety training and regularly update their knowladge and the understanding. The pre-school should display the necessary health and safety posters prominently in the main room and control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH) certificate were needed to make aware to all. There are Five steps to sensible risk assessment:  · Identification of risk or hazards Before pre-school starts a daily risk assessment should be done, checking each room all the equipment that is out of the session making sure there is no hazards. The outside area practitioners need to vigilante to make sure that no animals have got in to the garden and the plants are safe. Using the risk assessment check sheet when you have passed a hazard.  ·Decide who is at risk- Basically anyone that is in the setting, if you share the setting with someone else their need to be informed about the risk. Evaluate the risks decide on precautions: Make a plain of action and implement further action and implement further safety measures. Grade the risk High risk, medium risk, and low risk.  ·Recording the risk- if the setting has more than five members of staff you need to record the risk. Although if the setting has less than five it still makes good practice to record the findings.  ·Monito ring and review- how do you know if what has been decided is working, or is through enough? If it is not working, it will need to be amended. P5- Providing an environment to promote emotional security for babies is important as they need to feel secure, safe and happy so there will be able to grow and develop and can reach their full development potential. A key worker is allocated to each child that starts at the setting, the key people’s role is to ensure that the child and their parent are settled and understand the key person’s role. This is a good way for each child and parent to see a familiar face and the parent can be reassured that their child is going to get temporary security from the key worker when the parent eaves the child at the setting. A variety of experiences should be on offer to help the babies’ emotional security:  ·Mirrors  ·Baby gym  ·Eye contact  ·Smiles  ·Rattles and mobiles  ·Talking  ·Gentle handling  ·Holding the baby whilst feeding  ·Bright color books  ·Encourage laughing Staff needed to be attentive of the signs when a baby’s low self-esteem, k eep praising the child, creating a happy relaxing atmosphere with lots of physical reassurances. P6-

Fall Of Russian Communism Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers

Fall Of Russian Communism Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers Fall Of Russian Communism The Reasons for the fall of Socialism/Communism and the Troubles of Starting the New Democratic System in the Russian Federation Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky. Boris Yeltsin (b. 1931), Russian politician, president. Remark during a visit to the U.S. Quoted in: Independent (London, 13 Sept. 1989). The fall of the Communist regime in the Soviet Union was more than a political event. The powerful bond between economics and politics that was the integral characteristic of the state socialist system created a situation that was unique for the successor states of the Soviet Union. The Communist regime was so ingrain in every aspect of Soviet life that the Russian people were left with little democratic tradition. Russia faces the seemingly impracticable task of economic liberalization and democratization. This is combined with the fact that the new administration must address human rights issues, such as living conditions and the supply of staple goods in this new form of administration makes the prospect of a full democratic switch seemingly impossible. To fully understand the scope of the transference of governing power in the Russian Federation, one must first look at the old Socialist/Communist regime, to see the circumstances under which it fell gives a good view of why this transference is almost impossible. In the beginning Communism seemed to the people of Russia as a utopian ideal. The promise of the elimination of classes, of guaranteed employment , The creation of a comprehensive social security and welfare system for all citizens that would end the misery of workers once and for all. Lenin's own interpretation of the Marxian critique was that to achieve Communism there would first have to be a socialist dictatorship to first suppress any dissent or protest. Through coercive tactics this new government seized power and in 1917 Lenin came to power. Under his rule the Soviet Union underwent radical changes in it's economic doctrines adopting a mixed economy which was termed the New Economic Policy also referred to as NEP, this economy called for some private ownership of the means of production, but the majority of industry was made property of the people, which meant the majority of the means of production was controlled by the government. Lenin's government made many achievements. It ended a long civil war against the remnants of the old Czarist military system and established institutions in government. During this period, and in fact throughout the majority of the Communist rule, censorship and the subordination of interest groups such as trade unions was imposed to stop dissension and increase conformity to the new governments policies. Lenin died in 1924, and was quickly followed by Joseph Stalin as head of the Soviet Communist Party, the oppressive reforms started by Lenin were continued and at length became completely totalitarian. Stalin became the most powerful man in Russia. He controlled to bulk of all the political power and with that he started a ruthless campaign of removing all opposition to the Communist rule. During this period called the Great Purge Stalin systemically executed anyone who stood in his path. Millions of people were arrested and either harassed or killed. The economic status of the Soviet Union was yet again changed and the entire system became controlled by the government. All private ownership ended. A mass program of industrialization was commenced, and the strength of the Soviet Military was substantially increased. The citizens during this period endured great hardship. Agricultural production output diminished resulting in food shortages, these shortages were enha! nce by the mass exportation of food, this was done to pay for industrial imports. Stalin also put the production of what he called production goods such as manufacturing machinery over basic consumer goods such as clothes and other staples. During this period the Second World War broke out and drained most of what was left of the already impoverished state. Yet after the war national unity was strengthened as well is the Soviet military machine. The Soviet Union became a super power, the U.S. being the only country more powerful than it. After the death of Stalin in 1953 Nikita Khrushchev became First Secretary of the Communist party. Stalin's death marked

Explore the opportunities for a company looking into international expansion to grow its foods and confectioneries business overseas The WritePass Journal

Explore the opportunities for a company looking into international expansion to grow its foods and confectioneries business overseas INTRODUCTION Explore the opportunities for a company looking into international expansion to grow its foods and confectioneries business overseas INTRODUCTIONBACKGROUND.PUSH AND PULL FACTORSWHY DO LIDL NEED TO ENTER BRAZIL?SWOT ANALYSISENTRY STARTEGYBIBLIOGRAPHYRelated INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study is to explore the opportunities for a company looking into international expansion to grow its foods and confectioneries business overseas. Some relevant models will be used to assess the industrial analysis, country’s attractiveness, and risks. I will also look into some strategies it can use to survive after it enters into the country. Based on my analysis, I will identify and evaluate opportunities and at the conclusion recommend the necessary entry strategy to be used by the company to enter the new country. BACKGROUND. The sector that will be examined is the food and beverages sector. The sector to be considered is the food and beverages sector that has different industries in its sector and   the value chain of this sector has Farming that deals with raw agricultural commodities, then the processing industry that is into food beverages and confectioneries likewise   distribution which deals with groceries, quick service, and casual restaurant. Based on the value chains, the processing can be classified as food, beverages, and confectioneries. The top key players are Nestle, Kraft foods, Unilever and Cragill. In terms of groceries, top players are Asda, Tesco, Iceland and some other (Food and Beverages Global Report 2010 A-i). Pfitzer, M et al (2007) reckoned that, ‘the food and beverage industry has a distinctive role in escalating economic prospect because it is universal to human life and health.’ In 2008, food and beverages was valued at $5.7T while food processing generated revenue of $3.2t. In 2008, food processing consumption constitutes 58% of the developing countries. It was anticipated that by 2013/2014 food and beverages projected value will be at $7t while estimated revenue will be at   food estimated revenue @$4t (SOURCE: FB GLOBAL REPORT 2010, A-i). Amongst all the firms under the food sector, I will be considering LIDL because it does not yet exist in Brazil. It will be very vital to consider what their culture is like in this country.   LIDL is one of the successful chains of grocery stores expanding strongly throughout Europe and beyond the borders. LIDL takes pride in providing top quality products at the lowest possible prices to all our customers across Europe and the UK. It has its headquarter in Germany. Their products are groceries, drinks, confectioneries and so on and LIDL will continue to play a major role in the exploration of new markets in Europe and beyond. As a multinational company, they are aware of their size and presence of operations. They also respect cultural variety and recognise differences in values and traditions. (LIDL official website). If a company decides to enter another country in the process of raising awareness of the presence of their operations, it is imperative for the company to decide which country it wants to enter. Kedia L.B et al (2002) concluded that, ‘some organizations focus primarily on domestic operations and export products or services, while other firms establish subsidiaries or business units of varying autonomy in host countries that concentrate on the specific needs of those particular markets.’ This is what LIDL needs to consider before entering into Brazil by looking into the market, culture, economy. It should enter to concentrate on the specific needs of those particular markets, which needs to be tapped into. According to Radebaugh et al(2003 p.3), they concluded that, ‘ a company working in the international business field will engage in modes of business such as exporting and importing, that differs from those familiar with a domestic level.’ It is very clear that this company is one of these types of company as it has grown even with the economic recession in the past, it has thrived and succeeded, and it is still growing. Looking into the Brazil, It is South America’s most influential country, one of world’s biggest democracies. Brazil’s culture reflects from Population, cuisine, religion to art. The major religion in Brazil is Christianity with population confirmed by united Nation as 195.4 million. (BBC NEWS) The expectations of consumers cannot be overlooked when considering going abroad. Segal-horn, S. et al (1999 P. 61) claimed that, ‘the necessities and welfares of consumers are becoming progressively consistent all over the world.’ Therefore, customers’ expectations repeatedly changes temporarily . The table below will show customers’ expectations in relation to customers and the overall individuals in the world. TABLE 1: CONSUMERS’ EXPECTATIONS   COMMUNITARIANISM SECURITY TASTE CHOICE FRESHNESS FUNCTIONAL NATURALITY CONVENIENCE HEALTH ARTIFICIAL ENVIRONMENT SOURCE: FOOD INTELLIGENCE REPORT. (2007) Consumers’ expectations are becoming very high, as they want good taste, fresh, and natural foods/groceries to buy. Consumers also wish their environment could be a friendly environment that they will be able to adapt themselves to the environment easily and enjoy convenience and security in the environment. Customers are now very conscious of their health, which create chances available for any company going abroad. PUSH AND PULL FACTORS The factors that influence Multinational companies are the pull factor, push factor and facilitating factors. The Pull factors are the proactive factors that drive people to a new place, Push factors are the reactive factors, which drive people to leave their home country. These factors will help to evaluate Brazil Market attractiveness as these factors have effect on all Multi-national food companies that are under the food sector. Therefore, all these factors are considered in table 2 below. TABLE 2: FACTORS INFLUENCING INTERNATIONALISATION PUSH FACTOR (REACTIVE) PULL FACTOR (PROACTIVE) FACILITATING FACTORS Spreading of risk Unexploited markets Lower Tariffs Increased taxes Thinking ahead of rivals Lower Labour standard. Economic conditions High Profit Margins Removal of barriers to entry Domestic Market   Saturation Reduced Labour and Overhead cost Relaxed regulations Consolidation of Buying Power Population Inducement to enter New markets Public Buying Policy Entrepreneurial Vision SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM WRIGLEY AND LOWE (2002) WHY DO LIDL NEED TO ENTER BRAZIL? There has been increased growth in international business in this century we are now. Companies have moved from competing glocally to global competition. According to Deacon, J. H (2011) Glocally means business carried out among companies at the local level or in their home country.’ The company needs to enter Brazil as they have a different culture compared to other various countries that exist currently. It needs to consider the population of people, their culture, the lifestyle of the people, taste, and their cuisines and so on. However, a large population as mentioned above does not mean LIDL can be successful if it goes to Brazil because even in the international business environment, the market place is complex, interdependent, and dynamic. It needs to make a wise choice of entry strategy that will help them to gain a strong ground in another country. LIDL has subsidiaries in over 22 countries around the world and will even continue to gain more ground due to global comp etition. Based on these, the strategy to be used to enter these countries will be in accordance to their culture and some other factors. LIDL need to go to Brazil to increase its sales, acquire more resources, and diversify their sources of sales. Due to too much competition in the countries where they exist already, they still need to look for other countries to invest and grow in order to spread their risks.   Radebaugh et al (2001 p.7) concluded that , ‘motives for industries pursuing international business then could also have been to increase sales, attain resources, diversify source of sales and supplies and minimise competitive risk.’ Realistically, some things must have happened in the recent decades we are now to have brought about increased growth in international business. Companies do not just go global but some factors motivate them to go. There are some basic drivers and customers’ expectations needs to be well considered as customers are very vital in any organisation. Radebaugh et al concluded that, ’each nation possess certain demographic, human and behavioural characteristics that constitute its identity and that may affect a company’s method of conducting business effectively in that country. With respect to LIDL’s statement that, ‘they respect cultural variety and recognise differences in values and traditions.’ LIDL needs to consider these factors by aligning their mission with what they will be delivering to their customers. This is why it is also important to do a thorough RD about a market before going there. Most people are conscious of their health these days and would want to buy foods that will benefit their health. Considering the EXTERNAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT The environment of this company will be analysed by using PESTLE analysis that means Political, Environmental, Social, and Technological. Political factors Changes in government laws and regulations Changes in government   policies Political instability   in developing countries Economic factors Consumer purchasing power Foreign exchange rates Tax regimes in different locations Social factors Increase in world population – Demographic change Changing in consumer taste Awareness on   consumer health – Obesity, Diabetics Low per capital income – Developing   country Technological factors Dynamic technology – equipment and information system. Considering the external environments, Radebaugh L. H (2001) argued that, ‘these affects how a company operates and the amount of adjustments of adjustments it must take to its operations in a particular country in relation to how it produces and market its products, staff its operations maintain other things. The amount of adjustments is influenced by how much the environments of home and host countries resemble each other.’ SWOT ANALYSIS This will help to know how they position themselves in the market and how they are able to satisfy their customers in a competitive environment. LIDL SWOT ANALYSIS STRENGHT Good   supporting infrastructures Leading Global discounter Environmental friendly operations Leading global discounter Rapid expansion in existing markets Low cost operating model Unique ownership model Varied portfolio Centralised buying operation Discount range adaptation OPPORTUNITIES Increase in   Food demand   and varieties Health-related products e.g. low calories food Increase in low income customers Further domestic discount expansion. Further international expansion Expanding product offering, especially fresh foods WEAKNESSES Weak cultural understanding Norway   Reliance on a discount format   Relations with some branded manufacturers   Sales performance per store   Domestic customer loyalty THREATS Rivalry from competitors Threats of new entrants Sole focus on low price. Retailer consolidation.   Increased complexity of operating model.   Price retaliation from other retailers.   Local opposition to central buying. Competition from discount operators. Managers need to analyse the business environment for the company’s survival and success of business strategy for the coming future. The business is affected by the investors, customers, suppliers, and competitors impacts a company on a daily basis. KEY SUCCESS FACTORS AND CORE COMPETNECIES KEY SUCCESS FACTORS.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Quality products   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Good   supporting infrastructures   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Low price   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Understanding of Culture Adaptation CORE COMPETENCIES  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Nutritional food production   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Cheap products   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Production innovation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Operational excellence   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Global supply chain ENTRY STARTEGY Having undertaken the analysis of the country’s attractiveness and decided positively to enter, it is important to work out an entry strategy that covers entry objectives, timing entry, and mode of entry to enter a new country. Mata, J and PORTUGAL, P. (2000) cites the work of Beamish and Makimo (1998) that, ‘One of the crucial decisions when deciding to expand into a new market is the decision on whether to set up a new venture or to acquire an existing ï ¬ rm.’ It is very vital for LIDL to make a wise decision about its entry into Brazil. With reference to Table 1 and 2, they have to continue improving their market and gain entrance to important assets, and possibly continue to gain knowledge. Radebaugh et al (1999 p. 4) argued that four major objectives that influence companies to engage in international business are to expand sales, acquire resources, to diversify sources of sales and minimise competitive risks.’ All these are important but some other thing is missing. Does it mean knowledge and learning is not needed as part of their objectives influencing their entering a country? No. I disagree with this author’s conclusion because for a company to achieve all objectives that influence their entering a country there is need for knowledge and learning. Knowledge of the market they are entering into, knowledge to manage risks. In support of my argument, LASSERRE, PHILIPPE (2007 p.191) concluded that, ‘a company going into another country wants to develop the market, access critical resources, ca pture knowledge available in the country and to finally set up a global centre for coordinating various activities.’ It is very important for a multinational company to manage knowledge even at a global level. SEGAL-HORN,S and FAULKNER,D (1999 p.126) cites the work of NONAKA(1989) where she talks of the need to manage globalization as a self-renewing process in which information is the key to success. She also inferred that, ‘globalisation comes about through the interaction of articulated globalized knowledge and tacit localized knowledge, partly through the hybridization of personnel and consequent internationalization of learning.’   Learning is very essential for the success of a multinational company.   Johnson, G et al (2011 p. 94) agreed that, ‘as organisations become larger and more complex, the need to share what people know becomes more and more important but increasingly challenging. So, organisations that can share knowledge exceptionally may gain competitive advantage over those that do not.’ Lasserree, P(2010 p.193) reasoned that, ‘learning objectives are the basis of investments in countries where the industry is state of the art and in which a foreign investor gains knowledge and competencies by being present, even if the long-term market prospect is not favourable.’   There is a saying that, knowledge rules the world. In my own understanding, knowledge rules the world but what about other things that is needed to compliment these resources, which are the other objectives of a company entering into a country. Lasserre, P (2007) also concluded that, ‘resources access based on the presence of a key resource such as human, agricultural and mineral which contributes to competitive advantage. He also said that a country offering size and growth is an opportunity with good co-ordination of their activities’ Brazil has key resources such as mining, agricultural that could be tapped. Based on the various objectives that influence entry of a company to another country, the timing factor is very important for companies to look into the current economy that might help them decide on which mode of entry to adopt. It cannot take a first mover advantage because competitive companies are there already. Looking into the Brazil economy, some factors influence the entry mode such as country risks (political and operational risks), opportunities, companies’ internal capabilities, time pressure and governments’ requirements and corporate global strategy. Even though, the recession is still battling with all the economy. Jansen Robert(2010) said that, ‘the new economic dynamics will not only help revive investments in infrastructure, but above all it   means that instead of going abroad to obtain cheaper money and longer term loans, now local companies can just go around   in the country corner.’   Creating bigger companies in the information technology sector is considered one of the greatest strategic challenges for the Brazilian IT industry, which is very dynamic, but also very fragmented. Now is the time to take advantage of all the converging positive elements. It is an opportunity that cannot be afforded to lose.’ The government, investment entities, and companies are well aware of the window of opportunity in Brazil and are working towards building the proper framework that will help stimulate the necessary consolidation initiatives. This shows there is an opportunity for them to tap into as they are recovering back from the recession. It will be advisable for LIDL to use Acquisition strategies. I think entering through acquisitions because it will give them access to markets when other opportunities are closed, there is also immediate availability of resources. Lasserre, P (2007) construed that, ‘This will also give them immediate availability of resources, assets and competencies; high control and penetration into the market and low technological leak.’   There is nothing beneficial that does not have a limitation. Using this entry mode, its limitations are that the acquiring company may not possess cross-cultural integration skills. This is why understanding of culture is very important and LIDL needs to find a way to turn it into strength. In considering the push and pull factors, the market is saturated with competitors in the country which means the company needs to use this factors to tap into their culture. Ferraro, G.P (p.134) concluded that, ‘when negotiating within our own culture, there is every possibility of operating effectively at the intuitive level or unconscious level but when we leave our known cultural context to enter into international business, the scene changes dramatically. Different cultures have different values, attitudes, morals, behaviours and linguistic styles.’ It is very vital for them to negotiate across Brazil’s culture by communicating and interacting with people who have been there or are still living there. The aspect of culture should not be overlooked because Brazil is different from Germany, UK and other countries and this will enhance the result of their proposed entry. It is also important they have a clue about the culture and after succeeding in entering, they should ensure they build a long-term relationship with their customers and all other stakeholders. Ferraro, G.P (2010) also consented that, ‘companies should avoid cultural cluelessness and concentrate on long term relationships because when negotiating with people from very different cultural backgrounds, the chances of misunderstanding increase enormously. For example, LIDL failed in Norway and people interview there think they did not understand their culture very well and their values. According to a research carried out by a student, who looked into LIDL by taking a stakeholder approach. He said, some Norwegians believed that they ignored Labour unions.   Some will tell you that they never shopped there, because they didn’t want to support a foreign company that ignored the labour unions, build large and unattractive buildings in their towns, only had unfamiliar food in the shelves and who sent the profit out of the country.’ LIDL needs to be careful when they enter into Brazil and ensure they put goods consumed by Brazilians on the shelf.   Ferrarro, G.P (2010) concluded that, ‘successful international business negotiating is conducted in a cooperative climate in which the needs of both sides are met and in which both sides can emerge as winners. He said it is only under this circumstance that a business relationship will have a chance of lasting well into the future.’ Considering the Hofstede’s framework, Power distance, and uncertainty avoidance is very high and it is much of Masculine is very high. The only limitation of hofstede’s framework is that it was done through survey in different countries. Power distance affects culture and the way we communicate, so in Brazil, Power distance is very high which reflects that there is distance between the rich and the poor. This is why Attitude really matters when considering the culture of an organisation. It reflects underlying values.   WILD, J.J et al (2010) concluded that, ‘just like values, attitudes are learned from role models and differs from one country to another because they are formed within a cultural context. He also said that people in the Latin America and Mediterranean cultures are casual about their use of time, they maintain flexible schedules and would rather enjoy their time than sacrificing it to unbending efficiency.’ Organisations should be able to bring in place things that will reflect values and customs of people.   Laura Luo (2011) concluded in his lecture that, ‘Major   problems of cultural collision are likely to occur if a firm implements practices that do not reflect local customs and values and/or employees are unable to accept or adjust to foreign customs and that religion can be a powerful cultural force in societies of all levels of economic development.’   It is vital for organisations to consider the main religion in a country. Brazil’s main religion is Christianity.’ According to Pew Global Attitudes projects in 2002 researched that Number of respondents saying religion is very important in their lives are 80%. This shows there is opportunity for LIDL here unlike Malaysia that is constituted mostly with Muslims and they mostly rely on Halal products. Some other limitation is that nationalities may view acquisition by foreigners unfavourably and costly which often associated with high acquisition premiums and high political risks. Food production will be there always because people eat and it will not die but innovation of new ideas is needed. If an organisation cannot lead change, then they should be managing to catch up. Is it risky? No, it is not risky since it can continue, just that it can change. There is existence of political risks and economic risks are very high. If risk is high, we need to avoid risk and risk avoidance is the key factor. Low risk means more attractiveness. Brazil market is a growing market, and then it is attractive Despite all the attractiveness, there is tendency of some risks either economic/operational risk or political risks. This is why it is important for multi-national companies to look into the timing factor and see what is currently happening in the country they intend going. It is important for LIDL to consider their capabilities, scan the external environment to compliment whether they should go or not. It is important for companies to take risk because it means they are so confident that even though the future is uncertain. This is why the proactive issues were explained above.   Looking into Brazil, Lasserre, P (2007) concluded that, ‘operational risks directly affect some countries because government regulations and bureaucracies add costly taxation or constraints to foreign investors or because the infrastructure is not reliable.’ Considering the Brazil, John Paul Rathbone(2011) said in the report that, ‘Cheaper imports have made Brazilians feel richer, feeding a consumer boom but domestic manufacturers have appealed for help and the same kind of tariff protections that characterised the doomed economic model of bygone years. Finally, to deal with the global financial crisis, the government opened up the taps and has only just started to withdraw the stimulus. Ultra-low interest rate in the United States, Europe, and Japan has flooded the country with capital, pumping up the economy further. Bank credit is now growing at a 20 per cent annual clip.’ This implies some of the economic factors In BBC news, the political factors determine the risks of doing business in a country. In January, there was a change in government on Brazil where Ms Rousseff Dilma was sworn in as the first woman president of Brazil.   Rousseff singled out his work over the last eight years to reduce poverty and promote economic prosperity. The most determined struggle will be to eradicate extreme poverty.’ We can be a more developed and fairer country.   Hill, C. W (2011) argued that, political forces cause a drastic change in a country’s business environment that adversely affect profit and other goals of a company. He later said political risk tends to be greater in countries experiencing social unrest and disorder. A change in political regime can result in the enactment of laws that are less favourable to international business. Since LIDL has strengths in providing low cost products and the newly elected president believes there is still poverty and some people are suffering , it is an opportunity for this company. Considering the core competences of LIDL, which are Nutritional food productions, cheap products Production innovation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Operational excellence, Global supply chain. Paula A. I (2011) reported that Jacques Sarfatti, from recruiter Russell Reynolds said that, ‘Europeans have been coming to Brazil, but not Americans and are seeing opportunities there and that one of the key sectors for foreigners is energy, mostly because of the countrys expanding oil and gas exploration industries. There are also opportunities in infrastructure, mining, retail, and finance. Interest in Brazil is increasing as the country gears up to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later.’ This shows that there are opportunities for this company entering into the country as it is now recovering well. Considering the above discussion, it is important for this company to use a model that will fit into the culture of Brazil. Then, how about marketing internationally? If LIDL is entering through acquisition into Brazil, it should consider how to market its product internationally. This will depend on the segments they are targeting in the country because marketing strategies depends upon a firm’s marketing orientation and targets markets because what sells in one company does not mean it will be bought in another company. The best ways to identify consumer market segments within and across countries include demographics (Gender, Religion, Income and age) and Psychographics (lifestyles, values, and attitude). However, there might be some challenges to global brands such as language factors, brand acquisitions, country of origin images, internet, and electronic commerce. In conclusion, sometimes when a company is just entering into another country, products needs to be changed to suit the culture. There might be some alterations in the product policy due to some legal reasons, cultural reasons, and economic reasons. In addition, when using an entry strategy, they should choose a price strategy that will suit them and considering brands, currency value and inflation rates. I belief with the discussion made, going through an acquisition of a company already in existence in Brazil will give them the chance to understand the culture better and produce products that will meet the needs of the society rather than putting things they would not buy on shelf. 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