Banking Crises in UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Banking Crises in UK - Essay Example By doing so, banks are actually diverting their resources to potentially unproductive activities as the regulatory compliance may not directly provide the desired benefits in terms of monetary return. The emerging trends in the regulations in the financial as well as corporate markets are increasing in numbers and intensity as the increasing mismanagement and corporate scandals have forced regulatory authorities to look for the legal frameworks which help achieve the organizations more transparency as well as flexibility in their approach and responsibilities towards all the stakeholders in the firms. Some of the external events like the 9/11 incidents also played a major role in bringing in the new regulations into place so that traditional business channels specially the financial institutions are not being used for potentially harmful activities including terrorism. It was because of these reasons that regulations like BASEL II, Sarbanes Oxley, and The European Commissions Financial Services Action Plan were enforced to rationalize and revamp the existing regulatory framework. Thus the challenges are various to the banking sector as a whole and to the UK financial sector especially as London is now largely being considered as the international hub of the financial activities all over the world. In order to The essay will look into the present crisis banking sector is facing currently all over the world and UK especially. External environment for the UK Banking and Finance Companies In order to analyze the external environment for the UK Banking and finance companies, it is very important that we need to take a very comprehensive view of the factors involved into the overall banking scenario in the world. The globalization is taking its roots on more firm basis and it is because of this reason that the economic resources are being shifting from the more developed countries to the emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India and Russia. The emergence of the BRIC has therefore effectively shifted the economic resources and with it the economic activities therefore now since most of the activities are being performed in those geographical locations therefore like all other businesses, the banks are also shifting themselves to these locations to concentrate on the market development and penetration into these countries. (Hale, 2004). Thus the trends in globalization are forcing banks and other financial institutions in UK to face challenges from the banks working in those areas as most of the international syndications are being done by the regional banks in those regions and the overall market share of the UK Banks is shrinking. Further to this, banking sector over the period of time has seen a period of consolidation allowing a wave of mergers and acquisitions. Banks, over the period of time has improved their competencies by acquiring and merging with more efficient banks in order to gain more and more market space. Further Information technology is a new and emerging trend in the market which suggests that the banks are increasingly becoming more competitive in this area.(Grealish,2004) One of the most important challenges that are being faced by the UK Banks is the fact that the impact of US subprime mortgages is going to hit or have already hit the UK banks. The subprime mortgage crisis which has started into US is slowly being engulfing

Supply chain relationship management Research Proposal

Supply chain relationship management - Research Proposal Example The first benefit is that it results in job creation. Such kind of jobs results in various roles for the employees like managers, sales, distributors, warehousing etc. There are mainly two classification of retailing depending on the identification of products. It was necessary to allow grouping of the products on the basis of the forecast methods, replenishment methods, planning system etc. The two classifications are Functional or staple products and Innovative Products. There are many challenges in retail supply chain. One challenge is that it can be very costly if the supply chain is not properly designed. There are many other glitches which are both external and internal to the business. Another major problem facing them is Suppler Reliability. If any supplier fails to do any of his function then there will be no product for them to sell (Coyle, Langley, Gibson, Novack and Bardi, 2008, p. 211). This can result in result in loss of consumers, lost profits and declining sales turn over. Hence in the process of selection of supplier it is very important to choose any reliable supplier. In today’s scenario, potential markets and outsourcing can have a major impact on the way a retail supply chain is structured. Presence of low cost for innovative products from Asian and China countries has resulted in paradigm shift to global manufacturing from local manufacturing. Hence this affects the supply chain in terms of cost and complexity. Bullying happens in retail sector where the companies like Wal-Mart have been accused of bullying small retail outlets. Retail stores are now taking full potential of the technology by carrying out many of their activities online. Hence such devices have increased the efficiency of small and medium retail business. But the main point of contention is that it could take forever for the company to generate returns on their investment (Mentzer, 2001, p. 186). The data

Assignment (Microeconomics) Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

(Microeconomics) - Assignment Example It also assists government to take advantages of expenses associated with clerical works. Moreover, government can effectively avert unhealthy market competitions. 3. Utilities such as water, gas, and electricity are some of the examples of natural monopolies. Government must set price ceilings in national monopoly markets since products and services under this category are necessities that people may buy at any higher prices. 4. In both the cases, profit must be zero in long run equilibrium. Firms are affected by changes in demand conditions under both cases. A major similarity between monopolistic competition and perfect competition is that competition in pursuit of profit encourages efficient resource movements. 5. In the case of a monopolistically competitive firm, demand will increase and average cost will increase in the long run. Under such circumstance, monopolistically competitive firms end up making zero economic profits. 6. A monopolistically competitive firm chooses the level of output where marginal cost equals marginal revenue. The firm maximizes its profits so as to achieve this situation; and it is called short run equilibrium of the firm. This condition adds to the price fixation flexibility of the firm. Moreover, it enables the firm to rapidly adjust with unexpected market fluctuations. b. Availability of different varieties of breakfast cereals gives an opportunity for consumers to distinguish them on the ground of their quality and price. It also gives consumers chance to buy their most preferred

Gabriel urbain faure And His requiem mass Essay Example for Free

Gabriel urbain faure And His requiem mass Essay â€Å"Gabriel Faure is regarded as the master of the French art song, or melodie. His works ranged from Classical, when in his early years he emulated the style of Haydn and Mendelssohn, to Romantic, and finally to an ascetic 20th century aesthetic† (â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). Gabriel Urbain Faure was born in 1845 in a town called Pamiers. It has been said that even at an early age, his potentials as a musician were already evident and noticeable. It was not given much attention by his parents, because at that time, they were in the belief that sending Faure to school to receive formal learning was of more importance. In fact, it was Faure’s teacher that noted his talents in music. Consequently, this teacher suggested to Faure’s parents that their child be sent to Paris to study in Niedermeyer, a religious music school. From the age of nine, Faure studied music at the Ecole Niedermeyer, the ‘Ecole de musique religieuse et classique’, where Saint-Saens was a member of staff. Saint-Saens had been lifelong friends with Faure and later said that he owed everything to him, introducing him not only to traditional music and composers such as Mozart and Bach but also to controversial composers such as Wagner whom he admired, but was one of few composers of his generation not to come under his influence and also Lizst. Saint-Saens encouraged and helped him to get his music published. From then on, he was able to meet and encounter different individuals who played major roles in the life of Faure. He served as an organist in one of the churches in Rennes. Then, in 1870, â€Å"the Franco-Prussian War broke out and Faure was enlisted into the First Regiment of the Imperial Light Infantry as a messenger† (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). After the war, Faure was once again an organist, but in another church this time. When Saint-Saens retired in 1877 Faure took over his post as choirmaster. Faure would remain at the Madeleine for almost 20 years. He also taught composition at the Paris Conservatoire, becoming director in 1905, and his pupils included Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger. Gabriel Faure’s Music A perusal of different accounts concerning the life and music of Gabriel Faure would show that he always strived to be different. For instance, in the field of music, regardless of how popular a type of music was, Faure will come in and try to change it, in order for the same to reflect his views and emotions; he wanted to be unique and different from the usual. The subtlety of Faure’s music, and his concentration on the small-scale, led many to criticise him for lacking depth, a judgement based on the mistaken premise that the bigger and bolder a composer’s music the more worthwhile it must be (Bawden J. â€Å"Gabriel Faure). As to what Faure found himself interested in in the field of music, it has been said that The majority of Faures piano music up to 1871 had mainly been romantic songs. Poems by Hugo, Gautier, and Baudelaire, had been recommended to him by his teachers. His early songs hint at his developing originality but were written in the strict classical style he had learned in school. It was characteristic of Faure, however, to constantly renew himself in his compositions. He always wanted to try something new, something different that no one else had done; and he never followed the fads of his day, prefering instead to follow his heart. Thus his songs show a continuous personal and unique evolution (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). It is this courage of his to change things, however, that made him face certain setbacks in his career when he joined the Madeleine as its choirmaster. There are individuals in his field who were not in favor of the changes that Gabriel Faure was introducing into the system. As a choirmaster, Faure would always find himself in disagreement with members of the clergy. â€Å"The clergy were only concerned with keeping the congregation happy; and so their musical preferences were for popular, operatic-styled church music that was all the rage, rather than for enlightening religious music† (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). Hence, it was quite difficult for Faure to introduce the changes that he wanted. As will be discussed further, Gabriel Faure’s most popular work which depicts his love for uniqueness is his Requiem Mass, which totally differs from the traditional Requiem. In fact, In Armand Vivets book on French sacred music he wrote of the first performance, Immediately the ceremony was over. The vicar called Faure into the sacristy and questioned him as follows: What was that mass for the dead youve just conducted? It was a requiem of my own composition. Monsieur Faure, we dont need all these novelties; the Madeleines repertoire is quite rich enough, just content yourself with that. Family and Marriage Gabriel Faure was once engaged to Marianne Viadot. In 1877, Faure asked for Marianne’s hand in marriage. It took quite a while, but eventually, the lady gave a positive response to the proposal posted by the bachelor. The problem was Marianne kept on postponing the date of their wedding, and â€Å"this continued delay was more than Faure could handle and he complained vehemently. Marianne used his outburst of frustration as an excuse to break off their engagement for good† (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). True, the failed engagement to Marianne Viardot made Gabriel Faure sad and depressed, but later on, he would find himself recovering from this hurdle and agreeing to his friend, Marguerite Baugnies’ suggestion of being in an arranged marriage. Mme. Baugnies found three possible young ladies who belonged to the artistic world: the daughters of Octave Feuillet and George Feydeau who were both writers; and the daughter of Emmanuel Fremiet, a well-known sculptor of the day. Unable to make up his mind, Faure hastily wrote the names down on slips of paper, placed them in a hat, and randomly picked Marie Fremiet, daughter of the sculptor. After a brief engagement, the wedding took place on March 27th, 1883 in Paris. (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). In 1883 Faure married Marie Fremiet, with whom he had two sons. In order to support his family Faure spent most of his time in organising daily services at the Eglise de la Madeleine and teaching piano and harmony lessons. He only had time to compose during the summers. He earned almost no money from his compositions because his publisher bought them, copyright and all, for 50 francs each. During this period Gabriel Faure wrote several large scale works, in addition to many piano pieces and songs, but he destroyed many of them after a few performances, only retaining a few movements in order to re-use motives(â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). It could be his unique way of choosing his bride that led to an unhappy marriage. Later on, he would find out that he didn’t really share much in common with his wife. They talked less and grew apart despite being gifted with two children. In an account by Martin, she said that the couple would write each other letters to communicate even both of them were in one and the same city. The Latter Part of Faure’s Life â€Å"The last two decades of Gabriel Faures life were marked by his steady rise to fame, his increasing health problems, and the new love in his life. After serving as choirmaster for nineteen years, he became organist at the Madeleine in 1896. In the same year he also became Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire† (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). After his stint as organist, he joined the Paris Conservatoire as its director. It could be said that his success would have continued further, if not for the health problems that Faure had been experiencing. In 1902, Faure was having problems with is hearing. Martin would say that this problem was hereditary as Faure’s brother also had the same problem. His hearing problem, however, was not an obstacle to his finding another chance to love again. The output of Faure had greatly reduced because of his responsibilities at the conservatoire combined with his loss of hearing . during the World War I, he remained in France and retired from the Conservatoire at the age of 75. in the same year he received the Grand-Croix of the Legion d’Honneur, an honor rare for a musician. â€Å"In 1900 at the premiere of Promethee, Faure met and fell in love with Marguerite Hasselmans. She was born in 1876 and even though Faure was the same age as her father, nevertheless, they stayed together until the end of his life in 1924† (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). Gabriel Faure died in Paris from pneumonia in 1924. He was given a state funeral at the Eglise de la Madeleine and is buried in the Cimetiere de Passy in Paris (â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). Legacy as a Composer and Music Teacher Aside from his numerous musical masterpieces described as elegant, introspective and intimate, Faure made an enormous mark on his younger contemporaries as an influential teacher and mentor. One of his students, Nadia Boulanger, herself known arguably as the greatest classical music teacher of all-time, is an achievement enough. Among other distinguished composition students are Ravel, Koechlin and Enescu (â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). â€Å"Although he wrote several works involving a full orchestra, his particular talent lay within the more intimate musical forms – songs, piano music and chamber music. His somewhat austere style and highly individual, impressionistic harmonic language contrasts markedly with the music of the Austro-German tradition which dominated European music from the time of Beethoven until well into the twentieth century†(Bawden, â€Å"Requiem†). â€Å"Gabriel Faure served as inspiration for crafting flexibility into their works. As performers, teachers, talented administrators, and church musicians they understood the fine art of composing pearls with limited forces which could then be jeweled for the concert hall† (McCauley M. , â€Å"Requiem†). The Requiem Mass of Faure â€Å"The Requiem flourished during the Renaissance period, despite during the 14th century when the Roman church limited the amount of times the Requiem was performed and of what chants it consisted† (Green, â€Å"The Requiem Mass†). As earlier pointed out, Faure’s love for trying out new things is best mirrored in his Requiem Mass. His Requiem Mass is different from the traditional Requiem being played in the chapels and churches and that time. â€Å"By the time of the first performance, on January 16 1888, there were five movements: an Introit and Kyrie, the Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, and In Paradisum. To perform the work, Faure called for a mixed choir with divided tenors and basses, a soprano soloist, an orchestra of low strings (violas, cellos, and double basses), harp, timpani, and organ, with a violin solo in the Sanctus. He added an Offertoire in 1889, and added a setting of the Libera Me that he had written for baritone and organ some twelve years earlier. He added horns, trumpets, and trombones to the orchestra, and a baritone soloist, and this version was first performed at the Madeleine in January of 1893† (â€Å"Chorale Music Notes†). Compared to the Missa pro defunctis, Faure changed portions of the text in his setting of the Requiem Mass. In the Libera me and Offertory for example, he left out certain words or repeated others so that the movement became more musically balanced and the words more clearly heard. The Libera me and In Paradisum actually dont belong to the Missa pro defunctis but to the Office for the Dead. Libera me is the prayer for absolution which follows the Requiem Mass; and the In Paradisum is spoken outside the church at the moment of burial. The use of this last text in particular shows how much Faure wanted to break from tradition (Martin, â€Å"Gabriel Faure†). The most important feature of the Requiem mass is the reflection of the emotions and views of Faure towards the idea of death. Faure was recorded to have said My Requiem has been said to express no fear of death; it has been called a lullaby of death. But that is how I feel about death; a happy deliverance, a reaching for a happy deliverance, rather than a mournful passing Perhaps I have sought to depart from what is conventional because for so long I was organist at services of interment. Im fed up with that. I wanted to do something different (â€Å"Requiem-Gabriel Faure†). This kind of view made his Requiem lack the vibe of sadness and terror. In fact, some writers would say that there is a certain tone of sweetness in Faure’s Requiem, something that one cannot normally expect from any form of music associated with death. As confirmed by Bawden, †the prevailing mood is one of peacefulness and serenity, and the work has often been described, quite justly, as a Requiem without the Last Judgement† (â€Å"Requiem†). Faure originally designed this work to be functional for church services with appropriately conservative accompaniment: the organ supplemented by harp, tympani and strings generally omitting violins except in the Sanctus. The technique of backing off the violins for a more somber effect may have been an idea borrowed from Brahms (McCauley, â€Å"Requiem†). Besides numerous motets and a mass written for liturgical use, theres no question that Gabriel Faures best known choral work is the Messe de Requiem. Written between 1887 and 1890, the Requiem was written not for the death of his father, but as another experiment in Faures endless quest to write music that was new and different (â€Å"Requiem†). Despite the discouraging start, Faures Requiem did become popular during his lifetime and was played throughout Europe. Today it is still very popular and has been recorded more than any of his other works. REFERENCE Martin, S. â€Å" Gabriel Faure- A Biography†. http://w3. rz-berlin. mpg. de/cmp/faure. html Green, A. â€Å"The Requiem Mass† http://classicalmusic. about. com/od/classicalmusic101/a/requiemmass. htm â€Å"Online Guide to Requiem† http://requiemonline. tripod. com/ â€Å"Faure, Gabriel- Biography†. http://www. naxos. com/composerinfo/Gabriel_Faure/26049. htm â€Å"Requiem†. http://www. classiccat. net/faure_g/biography. htm â€Å"Gabriel Faure†. http://www. basicfamouspeople. com/index. php? aid=4340 Asiado, T. (2008). â€Å"Gabriel Faure Brief Biography†. http://great-teachers. suite101. com/article. cfm/gabriel_faure_brief_biography â€Å"Masses of Requiem†. http://www. newadvent. org/cathen/12776d. htm â€Å"Requiem†. http://requiemonline. tripod. com/history/masshistory. htm â€Å"Chorale Music Notes†. http://members. macconnect. com/users/j/jimbob/classical/Faure_Requiem. html â€Å"Gabriel Faure- Requiem†. http://www. beijingifc. org/index. php? option=com_contenttask=viewid=28Itemid=36 â€Å"Requiem†. http://www. orbilat. com/Encyclopaedia/R/Requiem. html Bawden, J. (2006). â€Å"Gabriel Faure- Requiem†. http://www. choirs. org. uk/prognotes/faure%20requiem. htm McCauley, M. â€Å"Requiem†. http://www. halway. com/mchorale/faure/program. html

Overview of Portfolio Theories

Overview of Portfolio Theories Introduction The word â€Å"Portfolio† can be defined as; the totality of decisions determining an individuals future prospects† (Sharpe, 1970). Portfolio can consist of many types of assets such as plant, property, real and financial assets (P.A Bowen, 1984). Portfolio theories propose how rational and prudent investors should use their due diligence to diversify their investments to optimize their portfolios, and how a risky asset should be priced as compared to less risky asset. People have been investing in the different assets class since decades but then they realize the importance of risk and its negative implications, if not treated effectively. Every investor has his own tolerance of risk and investors defines it in his ability of taking it. The portfolio theories have been derived over time in order to effectively measure the risk and how it can be reduced by diversify in their asset. Article 1: â€Å"The Legacy of Modern Portfolio Theory† This article covers the highlights of modern portfolio theory, describing how risk and its effects are measured and how planning and asset allocation can help you do something about it. Modern portfolio theory is the theoretical conflicting of conventional stock picking. It is being put forward by the economists, who try to understand the phenomena of the market as a whole, instead of business analysts, who look for individual investment opportunities. Investments are explained statistically, as how much investor expected long-term return rate and their expected short-term volatility. It measures how much expected return can deviate much worse than average an investments bad years are likely to be. The goal of the theory is to identify your adequate level of risk tolerance, and then to come up with a portfolio with the maximum expected return for that level of standard deviation (risk). The portfolio it assumes that the investment universe consists only of two market securities, the risk free asset and risky assets. But the actual investment universe is much broader than that being put forward. The optimal level of investment is to invest on efficient frontier but doing this would mean to calculate the millions of covariance among the securities. This calculation could make the life of analyst as difficult as one could have ever imagined. To think practically, its better to put portfolio theory to work means investing in a limited number of index securities rather than a huge number of individual stocks and bonds. Index investing is the point the where portfolio theory starts to rely on the efficient market hypothesis. When you buy an index based portfolio strategy youre allocating your money the same way the whole market is which is a high-quality thing if you believe the market has a plan and it is efficient. This is why portfolio theory is one of the branches of economics rather than finance: instead of only studying financial statements and different financial ratios, you study the aggregate behavior of investors, some of whom seemingly have studied financial statements so that market valuations will reflect their due diligence and prudence. Article 2: â€Å"Theory of portfolio and risk based on incremental entropy† The article has used incremental entropy to optimize the portfolios. This novel portfolio theory has been based on incremental entropy that carries on some facet of Markowitzs (1959, 1991) theory, but it highlights that the incremental speed of capital is a more objective criterion for assessing portfolios. The performance of the portfolio just cannot be justified with the returns because we have to keep in mind the risk of achieving those returns. Given the probability forecasts of returns, we can obtain the best possible investment ratio. Combining the new portfolio theory and the general theory of information, we can approach a meaning-explicit measure, which represents the increment of capital-increasing speed after information is provided. The article has used example to make it more clear that as we try to become rich within days there involve high risk of even losing those money which we at-least own at present. The ineffective investment is like a coin toss either you have al l the money in your pocket or you end having nothing in your pocket. The same being very risk averse would not help you become rich. You there has to be a balance in selecting the portfolio and this article explain the optimal investment ratio. (pg 1) Markowitz explains us that an efficient portfolio is either a portfolio that offers the maximum expected return for a given level of risk, or one with the minimum level of risk for a given expected return. There is no objective criterion to define the maximum effectiveness of a portfolio given the expected return and risk level and different expects have different view about it. The Markowitzs efficient portfolio tells us about the indifference curve of the investor and about the market portfolio. It is not the portfolio which we need for the fastest increment of capital. So, this article has derived a new mathematical model. The model explains that when gain and loss are have equal chance of occurring, if the loss is up to 100 percent, one should not risk more than 50 percent of fund no matter how lofty the possible gain might be. This conclusion has a great importance and significant for risky investments, such as futures, options, etc. Most of the new investors of future markets lose all of their money very fast because the investment ratios are not well controlled and generally too large. we can obtain the optimal ratios of investments in different securities or assets when probability forecasts of returns are given. Comparison with Markowitzs theory The new theory supports Markowitzs conclusions that investment risk can be reduced by effective portfolio, but there are some obvious differences: The new theory uses geometric mean return as the objective criterion for optimizing portfolio and gives some formulas for optimizing investment ratios; and . The new theory makes use of extent and possibility of gain and loss rather than expectation of return and standard deviation (risk) of the return to explain investment value. Article 3: â€Å"On the competitive theory and practice of portfolio selection† To select an optimal level of portfolio has always been a basic and fundamental problem in the field of computation finance. There are lots of securities are available including the cash and the basic online problem is to agree on a portfolio for the ith trading period based on the series of price for the scheduled i-1 trading period. There has been increasing interest but also mounting uncertainty relating to the value of competitive theory of online portfolio selection algorithms. Competitive analysis is based on the worst and most unexpected case scenarios and viewpoint; such a point of view is conflicting with the most widely used analysis and theories being adopted by the investors based on the statistical models and assumptions. Surprisingly in some of the initial experiments result shows that some algorithms which have enjoyed a highly regarded repute seems to outperform the historical sequence of data when seen in relation to competitive worst case scenarios. The emerging com petitive theory and the algorithms are directly related to the studies in information theory and computational learning theory, in fact some of the algorithms have been the broken new ground and set new standards within the information and computational theory learning based communities. The one of the primary goal and objective of this paper is understand the extent to which competitive portfolio algorithms are in reality learning and are they really contributing to the welfare of the investor. In order to find out so they have used set of different strategies this can be adapted to data sequence. This is being presented in a mixture of both strong theoretical and experimental results. It has also been compared with the performance of existing and new algorithms and respects to standard series of the historical sequence data and it also present the experiments from other three data sequence. It is being concluded that there is huge potential for selecting portfolio through algorith ms that are being derived from competitive force and as well as derived from the statistical properties of data. Article 4: â€Å"International property Portfolio Strategies† The article talks about the investment decisions regarding real estate, and try to put in the Markowitz mean variance formula to analyze the real estate market. They are not confined only to local real estate diversification but they are also including international diversification. Markowitz mean variance continuum and graph is useful in analyzing the efficient securities, and they help in the selection of an optimal portfolio on envelope curve taking into account the risk preferences of an investor. But when analysts try to incorporate real estate market to the Markowitz theory the major problems regarding liquidity, heterogeneity, indivisibility and information are faced by them which restrict them from further optimal analysis. Many investors have tried to support the theory to make a portfolio by considering property as asset like equity and bond investments; although there are a lot of differences among the characteristics of assets discussed above, but one can diversify its portfolio by investing in real assets, analysts argue. The discussion was dominated by the concept of international diversification of assets including real estate. To support the analysis in UK the (Sweeney , 1988-1989) work in cited most of the times, he came up with the famous model of real estate to come up with efficient diversification strategy, he used rental value of for different countries and came up with the model of risk return theory; after that a lot of analysts including: [Baum and Schofield (1991), Brà ¼hl and Lizieri (1994), Gordon (1991), Hartzell et al. (1993), Johnson (1993), Sweeney (1993), Vo(1993) and Wurtzebach (1990)], have come up with analysis to support international diversification; but the result was som ehow was not justifying the inculcation of real estate to portfolio theory, because those assets were not correlated at all when inspected for the risk return behavior during last decade or so. This can be attributed to the failure of mean variance model to produce results, the main problems facing would be regarding data collection, technicalities, omitted categories, and ex post analysis. This is almost irrational and impossible to find the most efficient way to diversify a portfolio by including real asset as a separate asset, because of area problems, different locality, pricing conditions, economic conditions, liquidity differences, and data collection problems. As real estate market is highly uncorrelated even within the industry so the data sets are very difficult to find for analysis because of lack of empirical data on this market. Article 5: â€Å"Different risk measures: different portfolio compositions?† Choosing the suitable portfolio of assets in which to invest is an essential component of fund management. A large percentage of portfolio selection decisions were based on a qualitative basis, however quantitative approaches to selection are increasingly being employed. Markowitz (1952) established a quantitative framework for asset selection into a portfolio that is now well known. The measure of risk used in portfolio optimization models is the variance. Variance calculates how much deviation could be expected from the set of portfolio. The alternative methods of risk have their own theoretical and practical advantages and it is atypical that they are not used widely by investors. One of the reason may be because of the difficulty and complexity of understanding such models and then practically implementing those models and to decide in which measure of risk is best and gives the most realistic and useful results. It is important to identify the common risk measure and without doi ng so any attempt to measure the risk would be useless exercise. In order to cope with this, another approach is considered that is to comparing the portfolio holdings produced by different risk measures, rather than the traditional risk return trade-off. It is than being observed that whether the risk measures used produce asset allocations that are essentially the same or very different. In order to probe this concern this study tested the proposition that different measures of risk produce minimum risk portfolios that are essentially the same in terms of asset allocations, using monthly data over the period January 1987 to December 2002. The results show that the optimal portfolio compositions formed by different risk measures vary quite noticeably from measure to measure. These finding are very useful and have a practical implication for the investors because it recommend that the choice of risk model depends entirely on the individuals attitude to risk rather than any theoretic al or practical advantages of one model over another. It has been concluded that different investors have they indifference curve different from other and some of them like to take more risk as compare to other who are happy at earning low but safe returns. Conclusion It is being concluded that risk is more of a subjective term and different analysts and investor measures and perceive it in their own way. In todays word not even a single person can underestimate the importance of risk in selecting a security and emphasized is been given to diversification through proper portfolio selection process and everyone tries to optimize their returns given a certain level of risk. In order to do so they are using different statistical measures those have been derived over time to calculate risk. So selection of such method is limited to the understanding of a certain method to a certain investor and their effectiveness of results as compare to other methods.

Verb And Argument English Language Essay

Verb And Argument English Language Essay Abstract: This paper examines thematic/argument structure of the predicate used in the sentences, the sentences were constructed by a researcher on a random basis, and the focus of the study was on the thematic structure and theta role of verbs used in this sentences, more specifically the thematic /argument structure of the verbs used in main clauses of the report. Objectives of the study: Indentifying the thematic structure of the verbs used in this sentences Identifying the argument structure(theta role) of the predicate in this sentences Questions of the study: What are the thematic structure of the verbs used in this sentences What are theta roles of these arguments? Scope of the study: This study aims to identify thematic/argument structure of the predicates used in the following sentences: Mary plants her flowers in the garden by the lake The professor of syntax told a story to his students The boy laughed in the classroom They cut it with a knife The old building of the congress collapsed at 02:00 PM Your head master is buying you a laptop in your birthday The doctor came yesterday The ball fell down The focus of the analysis will be on thematic/argument structure of verbs used in these sentences. Literature review: Verb and argument: Mark Newson (2006) stated that, to explain and understand the difference between lexical and functional categories, we need to know and introduce concepts related with how the part of the sentence related to each other to complete the meaning of that sentence the following example explains that the Professor teaches the students here in this sentence there is an event which can be described as (teaching), and this event is involving two individuals or participants, the professor and the students, and this participants related in a particular way, so the professor is the one doing the teaching and the students are the one getting taught. Thus the verb describes the character of event and both the professor and the students refer to the elements participated in this event, so the word functions as the verb is so called predicate whereas the one functions as nouns is so called argument, thus what participants (arguments) can be involved in the sentence or event is determined by the meaning of a particular sentence like take for example the following examples: Stephen is sleeping John gives Mary some flowers In these sentence Stephen is only one participant in the event of sleeping, so one argument, but in the second sentence consist three participants which are John, Mary and some flowers, thus three arguments, it clear that from the examples verb like sleep takes only one argument whereas verb like give takes at least three arguments to complete its meaning. Bas Aerts (2001) posited that English sentences can be described in two ways, functionally and formally, for example the sentence the boy eats banana consist of subject which is the boy and predicator (verb) which is eats and direct object which is a banana, so the subject and direct object are filled by noun phrases whereas the predicator is filled by a verb, so the verb eats cannot form a sentence by itself, but it needs other elements to construct a meaningful sentence, as it clear that from above sentence that eat needs who was done the act of eating something and was being eaten, thus the one who does the of eating and something that was being eaten are so called arguments or participants. Leonad H. Babby (2009) explained that, one of the most important theories of generative syntax is dealing with the notion that syntax is a projection of the lexicon, mainly to propose explicit theories of the construction between the semantics and morphosytactic structure, he added that it is correct if by lexicon we understand predicate argument structure so the sentences main syntactic structure (vP) is immediately projection of verb (v) argument structure, or the argument structure of any sentence based on grammatical (syntactic) relation is determined by the verb (v). Thete-roles David Adger (2002) stated that the word like teach does not express a complete thought on its own, minimally the word teach expresses a relationship between objects, which one teaches other, in comparison with the word like sleep which needs only one object, the object that sleeps, teach and sleep in contrast with word like gives, which involves three objects, someone gives something to someone, these words express concepts which some of these concepts are necessary to human computational system that related to the meaning of the words, so a predicate can be used in characterization of a situation, but this predicate needs other linguistics elements to complete the thought as explained above with teach, sleep and give. When a predicate involves one other element to complete the thought then a predicate is one-place predicate like in sleep, and when it needs two or three, then a predicate is two-place or three-place predicate. By going back to the words sleep, teach and give, we can combine these verbs with other participants to construct the following sentences: John sleeps Ali is teaching the girl Mary gives Nina a pen In the first sentence the predicate is combined with the theme which is one-place predicate, in the second one the predicate combined with agent and benefactive which is two-place predicate, and for the last one the predicate is combined with source, benefactive and theme which is three-place predicate, Thus these properties are linguistically so called thematic roles or theta roles which related to the lexicon semantics, so if someone talks about the number of thematic roles that a predicate assigns, he refers to theta roles and each theta roles assigns only one role in the sentence. Martin Haiden (2005) added that according to Chomsky (1981) each argument assigns only one theta role, and each theta role assigns only one argument. List of theta roles Radford (2009) listed the theta roles as: Theme: shows the effect of someones action e.g. the ball fell down Agent: shows someone does the action e.g. Kim is swimming Experience: shows the entity experiencing the psychological state e.g. they love Mary Locative: shows the place which something situated or takes place e.g. he rolled the ball down the hill Goal: shows the distinction of some other entity e.g. the student lives in KL Source: which shows the entity from which something moves e.g. Mona came from London Instrument: shows the instrument used to do some action e.g. Ahmed opened the door with key. Data analysis This involved indentifying the thematic/argument structure of the predicates used in the sentences The first procedure in analyzing the data involved indentifying the thematic structure of the predicates in this sentences The next step is identifying the theta roles of the predicate arguments. Identification of argument structure: The arguments of the verb are those phrases which complete the meaning of verb. Identification of thematic structure: Thematic structure (theta-role) is the role in which the argument of the verb played. Findings: According to the analysis, verbs differ in the they employ the argument and thematic structure, each verb needs only a limited number of argument, thereby English verbs can be classified according to the argument and thematic structure to: first: accusative verb, which is verb with tow arguments e.g. the verb plant and buy, the second: ditransitive verb, which is a verb with three arguments e.g. the verb told, the third type of the verb is unergative which is verb with one argument and this argument must assign the role of agent, the fourth type is unaccusative which is the verb with one argument and this argument must assign the role as theme thus can differ it from unergative, and the last type is instrument verb which is the verb with instrument as one of its arguments, this classification is based on the data only, more specifically these types are only the types used in this study.

Comparing Sexuality in Greys Riders of the Purple Sage and Doctorows

Sexuality of the Frontierswoman in Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage and Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times The presentation of femininity in Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times is a strong departure from the heroine of Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage. Through the metaphor of the gun as the embodiment of masculinity, both authors closely examine the complexities of the sexualized relationship of a frontierswoman to the men of her society. Doctorow mirrors the tensions present in Grey's novel though Molly acts as an extraordinarily different vision of what the West required of a woman than Jane Withersteen. Both novels reach a sexual climax as the heroine engages the men of her society in a violent action of blood and birth. Though it is a more desolate and harsh portrayal of a woman's station, Doctorow places Molly in a similar situation as the victim of her society to the more traditional Riders of the Purple Sage. While Jane Withersteen is certainly not subjected to violence in the same way that the Bad Man from Bodie raped, beat and nearly killed Molly, Jane is still victimized by her community. Doctorow's portrayal of the conflict is abstracted in ways that Grey's is not. In choosing to call Turner "The Bad Man from Bodie" for the majority of the novel, Doctorow makes him more an abstract notion of violence rather than the more human figure of jealousy Mormon Elder, Tull. However, in spite of the abstractness in Doctorow's characterization, Jane is presented as an outsider in her community and is offered up as a sacrifice to the peace, much in the same way that Blue exhorts Molly to reenter Avery's saloon. From this communal point of victimization, however, Doctorow departs from the gender conventions es... ... Pass. The falling rubble acts as the hymen restored, preserving Jane and Lassiter and Fay inside the womb, inside Eden. Thus, both novels examine the highly sexual tensions between the predominate female figures and the idea of masculinity as encapsulated by the gun, or more abstractly a weapon. Doctorow, though the tensions parallel Grey's, counters the older work on nearly every point, finally culminating in a recognition of the horror that frontier society creates. Much like the action of his novel, Grey retreats into a more idyllic vision of the West. However, he does admit the complexity of the gendered roles in the Western, though not to the extent that Doctorow casts the action in an Oedipal drama. Works Cited Doctorow, E. L. Welcome to Hard Times. New York: Penguin, 1998. Grey, Zane. Riders of the Purple Sage. New York: Penguin, 1990.