Evaluate the Current State of the Economy Essay

Labor market conditions are important especially for the following categories, businesses, individuals, and governments. The nation’s labor market conditions are constantly monitored by statistical analysis, unemployment rate being the primary metric. In April of 2014, the unemployment rate fell from 6.7% percent to 6.3% percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics. May 2014), which was the lowest rate since September of 2008. Since January the unemployment rate had been somewhat flat, but in April 2014 it dropped. However in April, the labor force additionally dropped by 806,000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2014) meaning the current ratio drop from 6.7% to 6.3% comparatively remains approximately the same as the constant trend. In other words, because of the decrease in workforce, the drop in unemployment may be partially a result of the decrease in workforce. The consistent level of unemployment makes shifts on AD and AS curve minor. When unemployment decreases, as it did in April, a correlation linking the drop in unemployment to an increased demand of goods and services can be made. This increased demand requires the productivity of companies to increase to meet the supply deficit, creating more jobs for individuals. With a greater demand for goods and services, there is a greater need for people to produce them, therefore a decrease in unemployment. Additionally, the decrease in unemployment means household income will improve, providing them with more disposable income. As noted above, because of the increase in demand (seen in the decline in the unemployment rate), a direct correlation can be made to an increase in supply, though delayed. The increase in supply increases the number of new employees as employers look to meet the demand for goods and services, shifting the AS  curve to the right as well. In most cases unemployment remains constant, but in US, the high unemployment rate (compared to the past) can have a negative effect on the economy. The steady unemployment rate can reduce the supply of labor in the economy, as unemployed people become discouraged and stop looking for jobs. This would shift the aggregate supply curve to the left. Also employers may use the threat of unemployment to cut wages, exploiting their workers. Expectations The great intangible factor directly affecting the economy currently is people’s expectations for future economic growth. These economic expectations influence the economy greatly. If businesses and households are more optimistic about the future of the economy, they are more likely to buy large items and make new investments, increasing the aggregate demand. The AD can change in a variety of ways. Peoples expectations causes them to spend less or be forced to cut spending, it causes the government to cut its spending, and it causes businesses to be more money conscious when choosing what their investment in goods will be from other companies. As a gauge, many people look at the gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic activity, which grew at a 0.1% annual pace in the first quarter of 2014 (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, April 2014). This is slow growth compared to recent annual rates of 2% to 3% (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, April 2014). Many think the slowdown was caused by the long winter felt throughout the country. These slow growth rates shift both the AD and AS curves to the left, as consumers and business feel the affect or people’s â€Å"wait and see† attitude in economy. Assuming this is all weather based, the economy should bounce as household moral improves with the warmer spring and summer weather. Consumer expectations are also reflected in their spending. Consumer spending rose 0.3 percent last month after a downwardly revised gain of 0.2 percent in January (Mutikani, Lucia, March 2014), positive for now, but on a larger scale reports show the slowdown in real GDP growth is reflected in the downturn in exports. The exports of industrial supplies and materials as well as foods, feeds, and beverages  declined after increasing in the fourth quarter of 2013. (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, April 2014). Additionally, imports have also declined by 0.4 percent in April, after increasing 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2014 (Bureau of Labor Statistics. April 2014). The April drop was the first monthly decrease since the index fell 0.9 percent in November 2013 (Bureau of Labor Statistics. April 2014). Import prices also fell 0.3 percent over the past 12 months and have not recorded a year-over-year advance since the index increased 0.9 percent from July 2012 to July 2013 (Bureau of Labor Statistics. April 2014). There drops in the US economy are felt in the household sector through the implementation of monetary and physical policy which are used to combat economic declines which directly affect consumer’s expectation and spending habits. Consumer Income As mentioned above, consumers are still buying things. Consumer spending continues to be a bright spot, growing at a 3% annual pace. (Mutikani, Lucia, March 2014). This occurred even though prices of goods and services bought by U.S. residents rose 1.4 percent in the first quarter, after rising 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. Both energy prices and food prices turned up. Excluding food and energy, prices increased 1.4 percent in the first quarter after rising 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, April 2014). This illustrates the shift in AD tow the right. Meaning consumers are willing to pay higher prices at current production rates. The increase in consumables indicates consumers have more disposable income to spend on goods and services, and they are not choosing to save. Personal income and personal saving statistic showing that personal income adjusted for inflation and taxes increased 1.9 percent in the first quarter, compared with 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 (Mutikani, Lucia, March 2014). Incomes also rose 0.3 percent last month after rising by the same margin in January. Additionally, inflation has remained low. Combining  these factors, consumer spending, price increases, low inflation, increased personal income, will inevitably be forecasted by business as indicators to increase production. Increased production also increase supply, shifting AS to the right as business attempt to meet consumer demand. Interest Rates Interest rates in the United States are the lowest they have been in years. This indicates the policy and stance taken by the government for lending money. The government is trying to entice consumers to file for loans as well as encourage banks to lend and approve loans. With interest rates this low and consumer income increasing, one would expect consumers to increase their buying of more significant items. The aggregate demand curve shows, at various price levels, the quantity of goods and services produced domestically that consumers, businesses, and governments are willing to purchase. The increase in demand for low interest loans would shift the AD curve as a shift to the right. Domestically, the Federal Reserve expected to remain in a â€Å"wait-and-see† mode, hoping to get a clearer picture of U.S.’s future economic strength (Kurtz, Annalyn, April 2014). Moreover, the Federal Reserve has been buying bonds to stimulate the U.S. economy on and off since 2008, but the central bank is now gradually bringing that program to an end. The withdrawal process is expected to reduce bond purchases to around $45 billion a month (Kurtz, Annalyn, April 2014), and this process potentially will shift the nations monetary policy to focus more on interest rates rather than adjustments to the monetary base. These changes to the interest rates will impact capital goods decisions made by consumers and by businesses. Lower interest rates will lower the costs of major products, such as houses, and will increase business capital project spending because of the reduction in long-term investment costs. Such changes will move the aggregate demand curve will down and to the right. But, in the event of an interest rate hike, the higher real interest rates  will make capital goods relatively more expensive and cause the aggregate demand curve to shift up and to the left. Recommendations America’s recent financial crisis and the anticipated future economic outlook can be traced back to 2007 when the U.S. housing bubble burst. The bank failures created a dominos affect, creating an economic meltdown in all sectors of the US economy. Despite government attempts to help the situation, the economy has slowed and has slipped in and out of recession. As a result, the current government policies have not been effective, creating hesitations in consumer spending. Since 2008, the actions taken by the Federal Reserve have put the U.S.’s economy in jeopardy. To stem the economic slide of the U.S. housing collapse, the Federal Reserve has printed off trillions of dollars and has increased government spending in the economy hoping the influx of cash will jump start economic activity. But is has had an inverse affect. This dilution of the monetary base has diluted the value of the U.S. dollar (USD) domestically and internationally and has caused concern of consumer spending in the loanable funds market. Consumer spending is a 69% of the US GDP (The World Bank, 2013). An increase in spending would stimulate additional demand for products. With an increase in demand, business would increase productivity resulting in an improved GDP and lower unemployment. Additionally, in 2014 one of the greatest uses of a consumer’s income is to pay health care costs. The Bureau of Economic Analysis noted that the increase in health care costs was driven primarily by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Removing the Affordable Health Care Act will improve consumer spending, as their disposable income percentage will increase. When the financial crisis began in 2008, the U.S. national debt stood approximately at $10 trillion. Based on the US Treasuries own figures, the national debt will reach be close to $20.0 trillion by the end of this decade (US Treasury Department – Treasury Direct, 2014), greater than our nation’s GDP. Reducing government  debt takes a long time, especially with the current international influences (China, Japan, EU). A fiscal policy to increased taxes and reduced government spending would be a place to start. Additionally, a reduction in monetary base will again, strengthen the USD internationally, helping facilitate and increase import/exports. Part 2: Evaluation of Recommendations Keynesian Perspective: Based upon the thorough analysis completed above, the Keynesian model is an appropriate mechanism for stimulating an economy that is growing but at a much slower rate than what is typical during a period of economic expansion. After a couple of years of substantive growth, the numbers for the first quarter of 2014 showed a GDP increase of just 0.1%. While the unemployment numbers continue to show a decline. While stubbornly remaining at 6.7% nationally through April, the most recent numbers show significant decline to 6.3%. The mortgage interest rates fell recently to 4.29% as the housing market has slowed down recently. While the Fed is beginning to slow down buying treasury bonds, it will continue to keep interest rates low until all signs point to GDP growth returning to a normal rate of 3.28% annually. Those numbers are indicative of annual GDP growth rates from 1948 to 2009. The first quarter of 2009 saw the economy shrink by nearly 5% following the market collapse and the bank bailouts just before President Obama took office. Subsequently, the bailout of GM and Chrysler in 2009 also impacted the economy as well, but was necessary to save the industry and jobs in Detroit and elsewhere for parts manufacturers and suppliers. The risk of course was the loss of more than a million jobs, but in the end the loss was $10.5 billion in taxpayer money not repaid by GM. Classical Macroeconomic theory assumes that market conditions will sort themselves out, but the confluence of catastrophic economic issues such as: the real estate market collapse, bank insolvency, the stock market collapse and the auto industry bailouts meant looking at long-term solutions would  not provide the confidence in the markets and consumers alike. Short-term or stop gap measures needed to stem the downward spiral to depression and economic contraction were and are required to right the economic ship. Keynesian economic theory is more prone to acceptance of government stimulus as it relied on government spending during economic downturns. They Keynesians believe that the economy is made up of consumer spending, business investment and government spending and because of this, Fed monetary policy adjustments should be made to promote banks to make loans, businesses to invest in growth and expansion and consumers to have more buying power due to lower interest rates. When consumer spending is decreasing, the Keynesian theory believes that the government spending can help with economic growth. The current course of action taken by the Fed and the President should be continued for the foreseeable future until economic conditions stabilize back to the norms over the last 60-plus years. Once GDP growth returns to expansionist highs and inflation begins to rise, there may be a need to take corrective action again to slow the economy down, but for now that is not an issue. Since economic growth is lacking, government intervention is needed to help regulate and jumpstart the economy. This will allow banks to lend more, businesses to invest more and households to spend more. It is crucial for these three entities to do as such since it will help the economy grow and progress. Classical Perspective: A portion of the AS curve that is almost vertical is associated with a real GDP rate that fully employs a nation’s resources. At a rate of output, the nation has reached the limitation of its short run capacity, so an attempt to increase employment or output beyond this rat would result only in a higher aver price level. The theory is built on the fact that in the long run, a nations move gradually and automatically moves toward full employment. This inexorable like movement toward full employment is the  result of supply and demand forces that cause prices (wages, interest rates, and exchange rates) to adjust so that markets clear. And after enough time, the market will settle the supply and demand in all markets, and thereby eliminate any imbalances, such as employment. Since many classical economists do not believe that government spending gives power to the public sector and decreasing the private sector, they do not fully agree with too much government spending as it ex ploits a lot of economic resources. Example: â€Å"Suppose a nation had excessive unemployment. Classical economist would agree that a major cause of the unemployment was an average real wage rate that was above equilibrium. At this wage rate the amount of labor supplied exceeds the amount demanded, resulting in unemployment. The excessive supply of labor would put downward pressure on real wages. Falling real wages would then have two reinforcing affects that acted simultaneously to bring the labor market back into equilibrium. First, lower real wages would increase the incentive for businesses to hire workers; second, they would reduce the number of individuals in the workforce. For instance, instead of looking for work, some individuals might stay in school or remain homemakers. If real wages fell the amount of labor supplied would equal the amount demanded and unemployment would be solved.† (Marthinsen, John E. (2007)) The classical perspective emphasizes on the belief that government spending is detrimental to the economy and that the market itself is self-sufficient and can automatically adjust to increases and decrease of employment, consumer spending, business investment and so on. The current government policies have not been effective and when looking at it from this classical perspective, it might be necessary for the government to step back and let the mark equilibrate itself. References: Bureau of Labor Statistics. (April 2014), U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ximpim.nr0.htm Bureau of Labor Statistics. (May 2014), Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey Retrieved from http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 Conerly, Bill (2014) Economic Forecast 2014-2015: Looking Better With Help From Oil And Gas Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2014/01/22/economic-forecast-2014-2015-looking-better-with-help-from-oil-and-gas/ Congressional Budget Office, (February 2014). The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024 Retrieved from http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45010 Kurtz, Annalyn, (April 2014). U.S. Economy Slows to Stall-Speed Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/30/investing/gdp-economy Marthinsen, John E. (2007) Managing in a Global Economy: Demystifying International Macroeconomics. Mason, OH: Thomas Southwestern Mutikani, Lucia (March 2014). U.S. consumers lift spending, but sentiment slips. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/28/us-usa-economy-idUSBREA2R0UB20140328 The World Bank. (2013). Household final consumption expenditure, etc. (% of GDP) Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.PETC.ZS U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, (April 2014). National Income and Product Accounts Gross Domestic Product: First Quarter 2014 (advance estimate). Retrieved from https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm US Treasury Department – Treasury Direct, (2014). Historical Debt Outstanding – Annual 2000 – 2012 Retrieved from http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Erasmus, Praise of Folly Essay

1.) In Joe Sachs translation of, Aristotle’s on the soul and on Memory and Recollection, we are presented with the idea that our soul is broken up in to the contemplative and the practical forms of intellect. We use our contemplative and practical intellect to identify what is good for us, so that our desires reflect our needs. Although, they both work towards the same goal, both are separate and depend on ineffable forces for success. The contemplative intellect is fueled by our curiosity for knowledge. Aristotle was a major believer in contemplation because he believed that living a contemplative life is how humans should live. A contemplative life allows humans to lead a morally sound life. The more humans engage in contemplation, the closer they are to their gods and the happier they will be. The contemplative intellect is our capacity to determine the potentiality of the practical intellect. The practical intellect is our response to our contemplation. Contemplation can prolong political disasters and prevent us from using practicality. But, we have no choice but to contemplate because to understand we must contemplate and to act morally we must be able to understand. Being able to understand is being able to grasp the potentiality of something. Misunderstanding something’s potentiality is the reason leading a practical life is more difficult. It is human nature to contemplate. Distinguishing the two intellects is tricky because Aristotle stresses that we are one soul part of a larger one. However, if it is the same soul producing practical and contemplative intellect, how can life be divided into these two things? Our individuality controls our actions. So, our contemplative is what makes us what we are and our existence is the reason we act (practical). Practicality and contemplation are distinctions within our intellect. Contemplation is to be looked at as human nature, it helps us understand. Understanding gives way to the practical intellect. These two separate intellects not only involve different unknown forces, but they also utilize different types of motion. Practical is a physical motion, while contemplation is a motion in the sense that whenever we are thinking and contemplating, we/our minds are in motion. The soul seeks truth. Contemplation leads us towards the truth, while practicality is a truth. These intellects are virtues in different parts of the soul. To acquire happiness one must have moral virtue to choose correctly and practicality to choose ‘how.’ For example, one might attain the knowledge, facts, and actuality of how to ride a bike. But, knowing those facts does not determine your potential to ride the bike. Aristotle provides an affective example, â€Å"There is something that has knowledge in the way that we say any human being is a knower, because humanity is part of the class of what knows and has knowledge, but there is also a sense in which we mean by a knower the one who already has, say, grammatical skill; and each of these is in potency but not in the same way, but the former is because his kind and his material are of a certain sort, while the latter is because he is capable of contemplating when he wants to, if nothing outside him prevents it† (417a 23-30 Aristotle). Aristotle tells us the there are different types of potentiality and actuality here. This example demonstrates a ‘knower.’ A knower would be human, know grammar, and talking (exercising knowledge). This example is important in the distinction because it describes the process and the different roles of contemplation and practicality. The contemplative intellect, in this case, would be that the knower is human and has potential without actual knowledge. The knower, with grammatical knowledge, has this knowledge but is not thinking about it. The knower would be exercising knowledge through recognizing grammatical errors in conversation, readings, etc. In the two most previous instances the knower uses their practicality intellect because their actual knowledge of the grammar is their potentiality to think and perform actions. Contemplation allows us to do, think, and imagine anything we want within out minds/soul. â€Å"†¦The soul is a being-at-work-staying-itself in the way that knowledge is, for both sleep and waking are in what belongs to the soul, and waking is analogous to the act of contemplating but sleep to holding the capacity for contemplating while not putting it to work (practical).† (412b 26-30 Aristotle). Practicality can only utilize what is physical and in front of us. Aristotle The connection between these intellects demonstrates Aristotle’s belief that every body contains a soul and the soul is not separate matter. It is a capacity, it doesn’t have a capacity and is inseparable from the body. The soul has no identity. Aristotle believes we are all individual human beings, made up of different forms and matter. But, there is one soul that is in all of us, equally. No one persons soul is ‘better’ than another’s. This is important in the distinction because contemplation takes place in the soul and practicality is what we do with the connection between our soul and body. 2. ) In Erasmus’, Praise of Folly, the character Folly is used to express Erasmus’ philosophy. Folly states that the actions of different people are foolish and she is congratulating them, she calls wisdom foolish and the fools, wise. Throughout the book Folly, with sarcasm and satire, demonstrates the main forms of folly in order to show the importance of folly. Erasmus wanted to share three main forms of folly in his writing. The first form being, the fundamental form of folly, which is the force in our life that is indescribable. This form mainly refers to religion and faith, but also the folly in any belief of a higher/greater good. The second form is the human folly. In this form, Folly mocked those who deem or consider themselves wise or philosophers. She picked on mainly prominent people, anyone who thought they were better because they knew more about something. The third form is best described by egotistical, hypocritical, and greedy folly. This form depicts the folly of the self-centeredness of humans. Erasmus as Folly illustrates how the Christians appear foolish at first, yet actually possesses true wisdom. Folly quotes the Bible repeatedly to prove her point. She uses the passages to show how folly is good. Within these passages, Folly says that the bible, values fools more than the wise. For example, Adam and Everwere forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, but they disobeyed. Thus, knowledge destroyed their happiness. Folly describes the Christian fools as those who, â€Å"squander their possessions, ignore insults, submit to being cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, sustain themselves on fasting, vigils, tears, toil, the humiliations, scorn life, and desire only death – in short, they seem to be dead to any normal feelings, as if their spirit dwelt elsewhere than in their body† (p. 128 Erasmus). Folly deems Christians slightly mad because of their view on life, and how they are so focused on the spiritual and eternal that they barely live. Erasmus contradicts Biblical truths when he is speaking as folly and expresses that life would be meaningless without folly. Our world, especially in the United States, relies on instant gratification, but the Bible clearly teaches that those kinds of things will pass away and are not important. Erasmus challenges Biblical truths when he praises ignorance, self-loveand flattery. This goes directly against the Bible, which speaks out against these kinds of things. He explains that the piousness of Christians is madness. In the second form, Folly takes the prominent professions of her time and shows their folly. She begins with merchants, who she describes as liars and thief’s yet they are still respectable citizens. Next she attacks a grammarian, â€Å"He supposes he’d be perfectly happy if he were allowed to live long enough to define precisely how the eight parts of speech should be distinguished, something in which no one writing in Greek or Latin has ever managed to be entirely successful. And then if anyone treats a conjunction as a word with the force of an adverb, it’s a thing to go to war about† (p. 80 Erasmus). Folly describes the schools as dirty and a waste of time. He believes the teachers teach useless information, but still feel important. He goes on to poets and rhetoricians and deems their professions purposeless. The narrator’s particular target is the church, â€Å"as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not†¦.However, their self-love keeps them happy, and three syllogisms arm them enough to go straight to battle on any subject and with any man† (p. 84 Erasmus). These foolish men explain the ‘mysteries’ of life and the Bible according to themselves. Even the monks exude folly. They take vows of poverty and claim to hate money, but still take part in other vices. This form of folly reminds us to not mask ourselves to make us look better. Just because a merchant is respectable profession, doesn’t make that specific merchant respectable. If a monk gives up his money, does that mean he has no other vices? â€Å"†¦why shouldn’t I rightly be recognized and named the ‘Alpha’ of all gods, when I dispense every benefit to all alike?† (p. 19 Erasmus). Folly allows life to continue because men must become silly fools to do it. Without her, she exclaims, couples would be married, and women would not repeat childbirth. Without the pleasure Folly gives to life, it would not be worth living. Folly accuses the stoics of attempting to keep all the pleasure for themselves while commanding others to avoid it. As an example, Folly uses childhood and old age. Everyone loves children because they are foolish and innocent. Age and life experiences only fade their beauty and charm. Thus, in old age Folly recognizes a second childhood, freeing us from the worries of life. With old age comes foolishness and senility, which allows them to be happy. These silly old people are much more fun to be around, then a wise old person. â€Å"’Folly is the one thing which can halt fleeting youth and ward off the relentless advance of old age’† (p. 25. Erasmus). Folly discovers that we use passion over reason, â€Å"he (Jupiter) confined reason to a cramped corner of the head and left all the rest of the body to the passions. Then he set up two raging tyrants in opposition to reason’s solitary power: anger, which holds sway in the breast and so controls the heart†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (p. 30 Erasmus). Folly is logical, when our human nature puts passion over reason. Folly concludes her praise of folly with a comparison to Plato’s, Allegory of the Cave. A man who lived in a cave by firelight his whole life, one day saw sunlight. But, the two men that remained in the cave, who would seem foolish, are equally as happy with what they believe is real. 3.) Aristotle makes a better case for his outlook on human life. It is important for humans to feel important and feel like they belong and have a purpose. Aristotle’s idea of the one soul, not only offers a sense of unity to the human race but also deepens the mystery of our existence. It is in contemplation that we find happiness, whether we contemplate our future, our past, or the present. Human happiness is rooted in human interaction and contemplation allows us to create commonality and it develops culture. Although the truth of folly is important in understanding human incentives, it is in our intellect that we can find harmony. Folly in itself is a folly. It pokes fun at the ignorance of human lives. Being foolish is innate in our nature. When do people have the best times? When they laugh and feel enjoyment from company. Our folly makes us human, it is necessary for our happiness. Erasmus presents folly as a much more bleak and pessimistic attribute. When Aristotle describes the soul it is much more pleasing. He stresses that sources/forces like God, are ineffable. These higher powers cannot be identified or described, but to believe in it reassures us that we are meant to be here. Without this mysterious force, who are we? Why are we here? It is our nature to feel wanted and have a purpose. We attempt to find this purpose through contemplation. This is a major aspect of human life. It forces us to look deeper and attempt to act morally. Humans are at their highest potential when they contemplate. Contemplation is a completely isolated process and helps us understand and perceive the world. This ability drives us and helps us advance. In personal experience, I find it is important to really think, ponder, and contemplate the things that make me happy. I can then decide if that is a practical thing to do or if I need to change what makes me happy. For example, drugs may make someone happy in their contemplation, but is that really what they want? Erasmus and Aristotle have contrasting outlooks on life. Erasmus is very realistic, sarcastic, and satirical. While Aristotle reaffirms that it is all right to contemplate the unknown. Aristotle brings us to higher level of thinking and helps us strive for a happier and morally active life.

Flow Past Aerofoil

ME2135E Lab Report Flow Past an Aerofoil by LIN SHAODUN Lab Group Date A0066078X 2B 10th Feb 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXPERIMENTAL DATA – TABLE 1, 2, 3 2 GRAPH – ? 4 GRAPH – ? 5 GRAPH – 6 SAMPLE CALCULATION 7 DISCUSSION 8 1 EXPERIMENTAL DATA Table 1: Coordinate of Pressure Tapping Tapping No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Note: Table 2: Pressure Readings Manometer inclination: Pressure Readings Pitot Pressure Static Pressure Atmospheric Pressure Atmospheric Temperature Stall angle: At the end of the experiment 474 mm 497 mm 500 mm 29 °C (mm) 0. 0 2. 5 5. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 (mm) 0. 000 3. 268 4. 443 5. 853 7. 172 7. 502 7. 254 6. 617 5. 04 4. 580 3. 279 0 0. 025 0. 049 0. 098 0. 197 0. 295 0. 394 0. 492 0. 591 0. 689 0. 787 0 0. 032 0. 044 0. 058 0. 071 0. 074 0. 071 0. 065 0. 056 0. 045 0. 032 At the beginning of the experiment 474 mm 497 mm 500 mm 29 °C 2 Manometer Readings at various Tapping 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 478 489 494 501 505 506 506 505 502 501 500 496 478 484 492 498 500 502 502 500 499 499 495 475 478 486 494 497 499 500 498 498 498 493 476 475 480 488 493 495 498 496 496 498 486 540 532 528 522 518 516 514 507 503 502 509 562 550 546 526 522 518 514 508 504 502 495 523 520 520 518 517 516 516 515 515 515 498 516 514 515 516 515 514 514 512 513 514Table 3: Pressure Coefficients ( ) Free Stream Velocity v v v ( ) Reynolds Number 3 Coefficients at various Tapping 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 -0. 956 -0. 478 -0. 261 0. 043 0. 217 0. 261 0. 261 0. 217 0. 087 0. 043 0. 000 -0. 174 -0. 956 -0. 696 -0. 348 -0. 087 0. 000 0. 087 0. 087 0. 000 -0. 043 -0. 043 0. 783 -1. 087 -0. 956 -0. 609 -0. 261 -0. 130 -0. 043 0. 000 -0. 087 -0. 087 -0. 087 2. 174 -1. 043 -1. 087 -0. 869 -0. 522 -0. 304 -0. 217 -0. 087 -0. 174 -0. 174 -0. 087 -0. 609 1. 739 1. 391 1. 217 0. 956 0. 783 0. 696 0. 609 0. 304 0. 130 0. 087 0. 391 2. 695 2. 74 2. 000 1. 130 0. 956 0. 783 0. 609 0. 348 0. 174 0. 087 -0. 217 1. 000 0. 869 0. 869 0. 783 0. 739 0. 696 0 . 696 0. 652 0. 652 0. 652 -0. 087 0. 696 0. 609 0. 652 0. 696 0. 652 0. 609 0. 609 0. 522 0. 565 0. 609 GRAPH ? 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPL , CPU against X/C @ 4 ° Cpl 3. 0 2. 5 CPL , CPU against X/C @ 8 ° Cpl Cpu 2. 0 1. 5 Cpu CPL ,CPU CPL ,CPU 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 -1. 5 0. 0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 0. 9 1. 0 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 X/C -1. 0 -1. 5 0. 0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 X/C 0. 9 1. 0 Area = 0. 437 Area = 0. 813 4 3. 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPL , CPU against X/C @ 12 ° 3. 0 2. 5 CPL , CPU against X/C @ 16 ° Cpl Cpu 2. 0 1. 5 Cpl Cpu CPL ,CPU CPL ,CPU X/C 0. 0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 0. 9 1. 0 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 -1. 5 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 -1. 5 0. 0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 X/C 0. 9 1. 0 Area = 0. 858 GRAPH ? Area = 0. 729 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPF , CPR against Y/C @ 4 ° Cpf Cpr 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPF , CPR against Y/C @ 8 ° Cpf Cpr CPF ,CPR 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 CPU ,CPR Y/C 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0 . 5 -1. 0 Y/C -1. 5 -0. 10 -0. 08 -0. 06 -0. 4 -0. 02 0. 00 0. 02 0. 04 0. 06 0. 08 0. 10 -1. 5 -0. 10 -0. 08 -0. 06 -0. 04 -0. 02 0. 00 0. 02 0. 04 0. 06 0. 08 0. 10 Area = 0. 032 Area = 0. 079 5 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 CPF , CPR against Y/C @ 12 ° Cpf Cpr 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPF , CPR against Y/C @ 16 ° Cpf Cpr 1. 5 CPL ,CPU CPL ,CPU Y/C 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 Y/C -1. 5 -0. 10 -0. 08 -0. 06 -0. 04 -0. 02 0. 00 0. 02 0. 04 0. 06 0. 08 0. 10 -1. 5 -0. 10 -0. 08 -0. 06 -0. 04 -0. 02 0. 00 0. 02 0. 04 0. 06 0. 08 0. 10 Area = -0. 038 GRAPH Area = -0. 053 0. 437 0. 813 0. 858 0. 729 0. 32 0. 079 -0. 038 -0. 053 0. 434 0. 794 0. 847 0. 715 0. 062 0. 191 0. 141 0. 150 0. 439 0. 877 1. 316 1. 755 1. 8 1. 6 1. 4 1. 2 Cl Cd CL , CD against ? CL,CD, 2 1. 0 0. 8 0. 6 0. 4 0. 2 0. 0 2*Pi*a -0. 2 0. 0 2. 0 4. 0 6. 0 8. 0 ? 10. 0 12. 0 14. 0 16. 0 6 SAMPLE CALCULATION The sample calculation is based on Tapping 2 & Table 1: Coordinate of Pressure Tapping Table 3: Pressur e Coefficients 1. Air Density at 29 °C ( ) ( ) 2. Free Stream Velocity v v v ( ) 3. Reynolds Number 4. Pressure Coefficient ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) 5. Lift and Drag Coefficient 7 DISCUSSION 1.Plot CL and CD against Please refer to Page 6. on the same graph. 2. Compare the experimentally measured CL with the Thin Aerofoil Theory prediction of . Discuss the similarity and discrepancy observed. The graph shows at small attack angle (4 ° and 8 °), the measured Lift coefficient is quite close to theoretical predicted value , this is because at small attack angle, air stream flows along the aerofoil surface smoothly without flow separation, which fulfills the basic assumption of Thin Aerofoil Theory, hence the experimental result matches with theoretical value well.When further increase attack angle, the streamline become highly curved, until at certain angle the streamline is no longer attached to the aerofoil surface and flow separation is occurred, massive turbulence wake appears on aero foil upper surface, which greatly reduce the lift. At this moment aerofoil is actually â€Å"blocking† the air flow, hence the Lift coefficient is significantly reduced after reach Stall angle, and can no long follow the theoretical predicted value . 3.What would you expect the lift and drag force to be when At , since the 0015 aerofoil is symmetrical, the pressure on upper and lower surface of aerofoil is the same, hence it will not produce any lift force. The of 0015 aerofoil is 0. 0147 at (when Re=80000), so there is small drag force even at 8 4. Does the why. which you have obtained gives the total drag on the aerofoil? Explain Total Drag of aerofoil is contributed by Parasite Drag and Induced Drag, the Parasite Drag is related to , while Induce drag is a byproduct of lift.Induce drag is a drag force occurs when aerofoil redirects the airflow coming at it. Refer to below diagram, the lift force is normal to chord of aerofoil, when decompose the lift force to horizontal an d vertical component, the horizontal component , which is in the same direction of drag. 5. Explain from the pressure distribution why there is a lift force. Using as example, the pressure distribution diagram shows the lower surface of aerofoil has lesser pressure drop ? igher pressure, while upper surface of aerofoil has much higher pressure drop, result in lower pressure. The integration of pressure drop along the aerofoil is the area under the curve, which represents force in a unit length of aerofoil, compare the area enclosed for upper and lower surface, we can see the there is a resultant lift force produced. 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPL , CPU against X/C @ 8 ° Cpl Cpu CPL ,CPU 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 -1. 5 0. 0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 0. 9 1. 0 X/C 9 6. Comment on the pressure distribution on the aerofoil when stall is reached. Using as example, when stall angle is reached, the pressure drop of upper surface become insignificant due to massive turbulent wake, h ence the lift force is greatly reduce and stall happens. 3. 0 2. 5 2. 0 1. 5 CPL , CPU against X/C @ 16 ° Cpl Cpu CPL ,CPU 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 -0. 5 -1. 0 -1. 5 0. 0 0. 1 0. 2 0. 3 0. 4 0. 5 0. 6 0. 7 0. 8 X/C 0. 9 1. 0 10

The Power of Green Party Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Power of Green Party - Essay Example On a greater level, many political parties have been linked with chaos in the country, breakdown in systems that are of benefit to the ordinary citizens, as well as inadequate provision of social services to the citizens. Tracing its roots in 1990s, the party has indeed developed, despite the wrangles and conflicts of interests that might have entangled the process of development of the party. This party is keen on the traditions of the ‘Green politics’ and strongly adheres to social progressivism. In an attempt to understand the place of the Green party in UK, it is vital to note that the party is the largest party in UK, comprising of a number of divisions all over the country. Through the party, Caroline Lucas has emerged as a Member of Parliament, representing Bright Pavilion. Caroline is also the leader of the refined party, who leads the 147 groups of councils, both in England and Wales. Conversely, an understanding of the party’s prominence cannot be unders tood without putting into consideration the fact that, the party has managed to establish good relations with other parties and states, inclusive of Scotland and Ireland. It is almost obvious that it is only through good relations with other parties that a party thrives. ... By 1999, the party had gained momentum in an attempt to ‘sell’ its policies to the common citizens. In this case, the party saw election of two MPs, at that particular year. In the year 2000, the party managed to grab a seat in the House of Commons after the general election. This is an indication of how the party, not only gained popularity, but also was beginning to acquire a huge follow up and prominence in the country. In the contemporary setting the Green party enjoys great prominence in the country (Beetham & Weir, 1999, pp.53). This essay shall aim at evaluating the power of the Green party in Britain by highlighting its policies, and the willingness by its members to push for reforms in the country. 2.0. Body The principles of the Green Party have contributed greatly in the party’s ability to gain prominence in the Britain’s politics. Carter (2007, pp.99) indicates that the core values of Britain‘s Green Party, has led to the party being label ed as a novel and radical party, that is fit in the contemporary politics of the country. From an analysis of the party’s principles, it is obvious that the party is bound to attract a huge follow up on its side. On one angle, the Green Party considers the natural world being the major reason behind existence of the party, and that the human existence cannot exist independently of the natural existence. This is an interpretation of the fact that, the physical resources of a country must at all times be maintained and sustained, so as to survive in the future. In relation to the principle on maintaining sustainability of the environment, as some analysts would put it, the Green Party has claimed its power in the country

Strategic Role of Human Resource Management Assignment

Strategic Role of Human Resource Management - Assignment Example A good place to start this was in the business of home textiles, as the firm successfully established its first renowned brand in the home textiles market in Turkey. Earlier in 1990s, the firm managed to engage itself in the business of electronics after acquiring Vestel Electronics. Zorlu aimed further to expand by taking the plunge into the energy sector in 1996. After ten years, the firm started to initiate another business in the real estate. Today, in Vestel Electronics alone, Zorlu is employing more than 15,000 people, and having 1,050 sales points and 400 after-sales service centres. Having almost 50 companies, Zorlu has now become home to around 30,000 employees who manage to work with the company for the future of providing highly improved quality of life for all. Prior to the actual recognition of potential applicants who would make it through the entire recruitment process, the Zorlu Group is adhering to its policy to select the human resource having a heart to live in its core values. On its website for its Human Resource Policy, the firm states, â€Å"We expect every employee to commit to our group’s shared values† (Zorlu Holding, 2013). This shows that Zorlu would want to become effective in employing its corporate culture and strategy by making sure that the human resource has the adherence to its core values. After passing the tests, the successful applicants would proceed to series of at least 2 or 3 interviews with the HR or the executives in relevant departments who would initiate at some point a competency-based interview (Zorlu, 2009). Those who would make it all the way from the general tests to interviews proceed to offer stage. This is the final part of the recruitment process where the applicants would receive employment contracts if they accept the offer (Zorlu, 2009). This process is a clear indication of optimising the human resource’s potential contribution for organisational benefit (Compton et al., 2009). This also paves the

Description and comparison of Women's colonial dresses for daily work Essay

Description and comparison of Women's colonial dresses for daily work and outings - Essay Example They often put on a shawl to hide a part of the exposed neckline. The lower garment was very heavy and full. During the earlier period, women used to put on one or more petticoats underneath the dress to give it the characteristic wide shape. Petticoats were worn to offer warmth. There was a turn in the 1700`s, women began to put on hoops which had been made of whalebone underneath these skirts and dresses. For the next couple of years that followed, hoops of diverse forms were a frequent phenomenon of women’s clothing (Erickson 125). Characteristically long dresses also referred to as Mantua were worn during this time. They were mostly put on during the evening for charity events, balls and when on outings. These gowns were comprised of a bodice that enclosed a corset. In addition, ribbons, nettings and laces decorated the dresses. Mature women wore short-sleeved dresses that were low cut thus revealing the bosom. On the other hand, young girls were often advised not to reveal their cleavage. The skirts and dresses were ankle long and covered the petticoat though it was still visible at the hemline. Whenever women were outdoord, flat hats with wide brims and bonnets were worn. The very first Mantua’s emerged during the late 17th century as a more comfortable option to the separate skirts and the boned bodices that were popular at the time. Its basic features were cuffed sleeves, elbow length and the overskirt was characteristically drawn back over the hips to reveal the petticoat underneath. In the mid 1700s, the Mantua had changed to a more official variation that was worn for court dress. The overskirt draping became progressively more stylized, and the back panel nearly became hidden (Fisher 56). Even though the woman`s dress was basically and widely worn, it had quite a number of variations. For the women who worked, theirs was a plainer garment that was made of wool, linen, or heavy cotton. This was so because these fabrics

Strategic Plan for Abercrombie & Fitch Case Study

Strategic Plan for Abercrombie & Fitch - Case Study Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) operates under three offshoot brands namely Gilly Hicks, Hollister Company and Abercrombie Kids. The mission of the company is to develop innovative and high-quality merchandise that has the ability to satisfy customers and style them appropriately. They also aim at discovering new styles so that they can distinguish themselves from the competitors. The sales of personal care and apparel through the stores are extremely competitive as there are numerous participants in the retail industry. However, the company has diversified its products by innovating new trends in clothing and has adopted the changing demands of the consumers better than their competitors. It has developed and maintained a strong brand image in the United States by marketing its products to the different parts of the diversified demographic markets. A&F undertakes aggressive promotional activities without harming the inspirational nature of th e brand equity. The sales objective of the company is to create string direct-to-consumer sales channels so as to facilitate growth. A&F believes in increasing sales by innovating and creating new casual wears are preferred by the younger generation. Though the changing taste and preferences of the individuals have affected the company sales to a great extent, the company has tried its best to meet the demand of the market. A&F positions itself as a premium brand, which focuses on its styles. Its main objective is centered on revenue and growth, which is achieved through sales. The brand name enables the company to grow and create endless opportunities for growth. It also employs the most talented youths around the globe. It permits higher profit margins and encounters lesser risk for entering into new business concepts. It encourages innovation and ensures profitability through it. A&F prides in creating classic, casual and â€Å"All-American lifestyle brand of clothing†. Th e company employs a proactive approach in order to combat the challenges. The customers praise our brand as it not only gives them comfort but also satisfy them by fulfilling their demands.

Holocaust Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

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Why was the civil war significant Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Strategic Management Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

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Bond and Curve Essay Example for Free

Bond and Curve Essay The first tool that we want to use to look at news, news for fixed income. So what we’ll do is we’ll navigate down to the bottom of the menu, and we’ll click on 14 NBOND for bond news. Clicking that, it’ll load a very familiar page for you. This is the news categories. And you’ll notice on the top left in the toolbar it says bonds. So now we have our top bond news. This isn’t just our top bond news, but also we can choose popular news, and we can also see all news for bonds. You can customize the type of fixed income news by either clicking on customize and choosing from there, or if you click new search you can also type in additional fixed income topics like credit markets, municipal bonds, additional categories that I already have in my particular monitor here. Now for the next screen that we would like to look at is economic calendar. 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If you want to see any additional information from those, you can actually click on the name of the country, and that’ll take you into a deeper level menu where now you can see the different tenors of that curve. You can see the curve spreads, butterflies, additional information there that you can explore. Let’s hit the menu key. We also have two additional tabs. If you click on spreads, that’ll give you spreads relative to the country you have selected. If you want to see spreads relative to Italy, we can choose Italy from the list. And now it’s giving you the spread of Italy versus the United States in blue. Additionally, you have the spread chart and the historical comparison available just like in the bonds tab. Lastly, we have the curves tab. And what that’s doing is it’s letting you compare all these countries with a side by side of each point on that curve so you can get a quick and real-time update of those curves and how they’re moving. 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You can change your country on the top left and then navigate based on the region and choose the country directly from there. Now we have rates from – deposit rates, all of our benchmark rates. It also includes treasury rates on the left side, as well as even the gold spot rate and equity index futures. This is a great way for market players and for you to get a pulse in real time what the rates are as they change in the market. To conduct curve comparison, to look at a curve for a particular country, to look at their CDS curve, rate curve, we can look at all those by typing CRVFgo for curve finder. Within the curve finder, along the top the tabs will show you what types of curves we have available. Within those, we can navigate by country. We can also look on the far side and see based on those countries what we have available. Now in our example, let’s search for the A US corporate curve. If we go to credit and then we look at industrial, we can then select the A. And we wanted to see this in US dollars, so we can click on US industrials A BVAL curve. Now that we have selected that curve, we can go to the bottom right and click show selected curves. Now we can see the curve for the US industrial A curve where we have the one-year through 30-year rate. These are the yields of the curve, and we also have some additional curves on the far right that I’ve added in the past. But right now we’re only seeing the industrial A curve. We have the yields down here on the bottom, and if we want to see this as of a historical date, then we can see how did that curve look one week ago. If we click on the one W at the top, now we can see the current curve versus the curve of one week ago, and then the spread between those two. If we want to enter a custom date instead, we can enter those dates here by clicking, and then we can put in the dates on the top. Now if we want to specify a custom date, we can go to the more tab. Then once we select, we can drop the custom date and then enter, let’s say, March 9, 2012. When we click update, now our curve will show March 9, 2012, along with the other dates there. If we want to add another curve and see how does this industrial curve compare to, maybe we could use the US swap curve here, we can just check that curve. And now you’ll see the other curve is in a different color and you can see them charted against each other. You can always unselect – you can always remove those curves as you like. If you want to add a curve that’s specific, you can click to browse, and then use that same menu and navigation to go to your next curve. The last thing I want to show you with the curve is to click menu to go back. And we can see these data points numerically in a table if we scroll our mouse or hit the page forward key on our keyboard, which is the green key next to our menu key that you used before. Now you can see for each curve what that historical date was in the table. All the applications we’ve discussed today have all been market monitors and broad-level overview. Now let’s move into actually finding a screen for securities. Then we’ll close with looking at individual security applications. Now, to start, the easiest application that we have to do a security find is to actually use SECF, go. SECF is our security finder. And what that allows you to do is to browse Bloomberg’s universe of securities and statistics. Now the security finder is really in two sections. The top is our control area, which allows you to look at the individual tabs by asset class, as well as the search tool at the very top left. The second half is really the output section, the section that’s going to show you the results in a table, and then it’ll let you search by relevancy. Now let’s say that we have an example where we want to search for a bond from IBM. We can click on 32FI, and then notice that we have always additional buttons across the bottom. Now we have this for corporates, but in addition, if you happen to look for bond futures, interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, loans, those are available there too. For IBM, we’ll stay on corporate. And then in the issuer name, we can type in IBM for International Business Machines. Alternatively, you could also type in IBM as the ticker since that’s the actual corporate ticker for IBM. Here we can actually look through the list and search what coupon we were looking for. We can do that, or we can actually narrow it out and type in 7.5 and – if that’s the coupon we’re looking for – and then it’ll show it right there. It’ll give us brief statistics in that list. And then when you’re ready to actually load that security for analysis, then you can actually click on that security and it’ll launch that for you. Now if you would rather use the search box instead of narrowing it down through these filters, you can clear that from the list. And then in the top where it says search, you can type IBM. We were looking at the 7.5 percent coupon. When we hit go, then again it’ll show us our result here. If you wish to do a more sophisticated search, you can definitely do that within Bloomberg. In order to do that search, you would type SRCH and then hit go. Within SRCH, you can do an advanced search for corporates and government bonds. To do so, start out with clicking on the top red – top right red advanced search button. Now you’ll see your difference choices on the left for your filtering. If you wish to specify an issue date or a maturity date, you can go into issuance information 2, click there, and then you can enter that information here. Additionally, covenants. You can definitely select any one of these check boxes. You can just definitely notice these gray tabs as you scroll across the top. This is where you’re going to get your additional information. You can narrow it down by credit ratings and choose. Let’s say you want to use SP ratings and you want to include only investment grade in your search. Now you can either individually select, or you can click investment grade and then click update. You can also – if you want to specify a particular range of yields or a particular price range, you can click 7, inventory and analytical data. And then down here in the middle you can specify your prices or your yields. We’ll make our search very broad and we’ll put in 1 to 10 percent, and then click update. This is – this is not the exhaustive list. You can click any one of these. And you’ll notice that we also again have additional tabs here if you want to sort by sector. The list goes on. Now let’s click 1 go. The way to see your search results is to click 1, go to search. Notice that we have over 30,000 results. We’ll only see 5,000 of those results in this screen. In addition, if you were to export this to Excel, which you can definitely do, that will also be limited to a maximum of 5,000 results, just as – as a note for that. You can also save this search. If this is a search that you need to run again, then you can go to options, save search, and then you can come back to this search in the future and rerun it. And in the future, you may have – you’ll have the opportunity to have those different results. Now let’s – let’s look at screens that pertain to individual securities. Before we were looking at a bond with a 7.5 percent coupon from IBM. We can type IBM at the top, and then 7.5. Notice that our auto complete helps find that security. So you can use SECF that we discussed before, or you can use auto complete to type in your security if you have the – the information here, like we do. You can that to select your security, or you can also type it in as your CUSIP (ph) or other identifier there and it’ll help find it for you. We’ll click it from that list, and that automatically loads the security for us. You’ll notice that we have this menu of applications that we can run. And we won’t have time to discuss these today, but definitely explore these for your analytics for relative value hedging, things that you can look forward to in the future. The particular screen that we’re looking for right now is the description page. So click on 16 DES on the top right. Now notice on the description page we have the core information, including issuer, the type of issuer it is, the sector that they’re in. We have the coupon – coupon frequency, core information about that security. On the left side, we have navigation. We can look at information such as covenants. We can look at bond ratings. If you want to see historical bond ratings for this issuer, then you can actually click on the expansion tabs to see those right in the screen. In addition to that, you can also see if there’s multiple coupons or if there’s a schedule, if it’s callable or puttable, things like that. You can click into schedules. It’s grayed out if it’s not available. In addition to the information that we have in the bond description, we also have a tab for issuer-level information. Let’s click on 22 issuer description. And particularly, we can look at 4 debt summary to look at their distribution. Now here we have nice charts and breakdowns, but note that in these individual tabs on the left we can also launch the individual applications directly by clicking on them. If we expand this window, now we can see the full application for our debt distribution. And here we can see IBM, and then we can also see the companies that are part of that business where we can see the issuer and subsidiaries. As we scroll down, we can see that entire list. One additional note is that you can also group your debt distribution by whether it’s just the issuer – only obligations of the current issuer. You can narrow down that debt based on its group. Let’s close that. Notice that we have more than just the debt distribution. We also have major creditors who own that bond, credit health as in financial ratios to give you a better perspective on not just that particular issue, but also that issuer. Now, to move from core information – core descriptive information to actual analytics to run yield analysis on this particular security, we can type YA and hit go for yield analysis. On this page, you can see that we have additional tabs, one for yield and spread. We can then move to pricing to see descriptive information. But let’s stay on the yield and spread tab just for a moment. The yield and spread analysis screen will let you price a fixed income security, calculate risk, hedge amounts, and see market data. You can input custom spreads. So in this case it’s the spread to bench, and it’ll reprice your security based on your input. So here we put a spread to bench of 20 basis points and it recalculated our price and yield. In addition, we can change how we calculate our yield if it’s yield to worse (ph), or yield to maturity, or yield to a custom date. We can also enter in historical dates in our historical settle (ph), and you just type that in here. We have our spreads. You won’t need to know – if you’re not familiar with these types of spreads, if you hover your mouse over them, it’ll give you a brief description of what those are. On the right side, we have our risk measures, risk and convexity. We have our risk hedge. These are against the benchmark that you select here. And then also, it calculates our accrued interest and all-in price. We can move across the tabs along the top, and now we can pricing. Pricing based on what’s available on the market from the trace reporting, from our runs messages, things like that, descriptive information or snapshots from what we had on the description page that we looked at just prior to this screen. We have relative value graphs to see not just what it is today, but how that’s changed over time. And then custom gives you full customization of what type of information you want to see on each page. You can click into any one of these tabs to then launch that individual analysis within that section of the screen. If you like this custom tab or any of these tabs, you can change the order by dropping it across, and then it’ll set that way for you going forward. The final screen we’d like to discuss today is a credit monitor that you can type GCDS. Notice again we used auto complete. We can select it here or hit go. And what GCDS does is it shows you credit default swap spreads based on the sectors that you choose.gcds You can set it by region. You can import a portfolio or – based on an equity index, a launch pad monitor. It gives you a very wide range of sources to pull that from, as well as the full customization of what spreads you wish to see. In my setup here, we can look at it by region. We have it set up for the Americas, although we can set it for global. Here I have listed for banks, but we can choose by any sector listed in this drop menu. We can choose to sort out whether we want to see investment grade or high yield. And then we can choose which tenor of the CDS curve we wish to view. And lastly, we can choose which pricing source we want to narrow that down by. We can choose CMA New York, for example, or we can also use a Bloomberg composite price here, which is what we’ll use going forward here. Now, on the right-hand column are all securities or all the issuers where we have CDS pricing based on our selections up here. If we choose to check off the box, then it’ll add that – that name to that chart, and you’ll notice it’s added that in the legend if it’s available. We also can see the average spread for all 35, or we can do – we can click on average of selected ancd then see that charted. So we can say which names are above the average, which names are below the average. To conclude that example, notice that our highest spread on the chart is currently Morgan Stanley. Notice that on the legend it highlights the name. That is currently trading above the average, which is 201. Notice that if I put my cursor on the actual – the average of selected, then it also highlights which line that is. The average is at 201. So GCS is a great tool to not just narrow out the individual names that you want to chart on a graph, but also let’s you easily compare those not just against each other but also against as a group average. And just as a note, if you never get your mouse to the very top right hand corner, you can see that there’s an icon with a green arrow. You can click on this green arrow and drag that into Excel, and that’ll move the information from the screen into Excel for you. This concludes are session on fixed income essentials. If you need any future assistance, please feel free to hit the help key twice for immediate assistance from our 24/7 global help desk.

Cyber Bullying Essay Example for Free

Cyber Bullying Essay Walking through the school door, she feels the sweat dripping down the side of her cheeks. Her stomach flips and flops, and her hands have an obvious tremble. The slamming lockers and running footsteps are enough to make her eyes swell with tears. The snickers behind her are all too familiar, but she is not prepared for the shove to the back and degrading names that follow. In a split second, her mind is made up. She turns around, heads out the door, and doesn’t look back. The computer, her cell phone, and now school. The cyber-bullies have stepped out of the screen and into face-to-face contact. With this new kind of bully on the rise and ruthless, is she the school’s responsibility? Schools should be held responsible for cyber bullying because the crime extends from the computer to the school setting. Studies indicate that cyber-bullying incidents have quadrupled in past five years (Ross). Cyber-bullying has become a huge issue recently. Every time you turn on the news there is another bullying, or a suicide related to bullying, incident being reported. Love is louder† has been a common phrase among celebrities and influential figures lately. They are trying to send out a message to their followers saying that bullying is not right and should not be tolerated. The expansion of communication technologies is widening the way bully’s can torture their victims. The fact of the matter is, technology is not going anywhere, so we need to figure out a way to put an end to cyber-bullies. Cyber-bullying is becoming a major problem and we all need to do our parts in figuring out what can be done to stop cyber-bullies in their tracks. Cyber-bullies will continue to be a threat to today’s youth until we take preventative measures against them. Before putting a stop to cyber-bullying we must understand why and how a cyber-bully works. After researching and analyzing informative articles on the topic, this research paper aims to inform and answer questions such as: what a cyber-bully is, how they work, whom they target, and how to stop them. By understanding how a cyber-bully works we will be able to better protect youth populations as technology grows. Approximately half of U. S. students are impacted by traditional bullying each school day (Ross). Cyber-bullying is technology powered and as technology expands it is getting harder and harder to see and prevent bullying from happening. Bullying over the Internet makes it easy for the tormenter to get away with their destructive behavior without any consequences. The article, â€Å"What is Cyberbullying: Bullying Comes Home† states, â€Å"Bullying is not new but thanks to the Internet teens are now being bullied at home. Online harassment is a serious problem† (Hardcaslte). Although the Internet has opened many doors to new opportunities, it has unfortunately taken bullying to another level. As the article, â€Å"Cyber Bullying Facts† states, â€Å"as the number of households with Internet access approaches saturation and cell phone ownership expands to the 100 million mark, so do the ways kids bully each other† (Ross). Anything sent out into cyberspace is very difficult, sometimes impossible, to remove. Therefore, being cyber-bullied can sometimes be much more severe than traditional bullying. Ann Frisen in the article, â€Å"Cyber-bullying: A Growing Problem† states, â€Å"This type of bullying can be more serious than conventional bullying. At least with conventional bullying the victim is left alone on evenings and weekends† (ScienceDaily). What exactly is ‘cyber-bulling’? The author of the article, â€Å"What is Cyberbullying: Bullying Comes Home† explains it as, â€Å"any harassment that occurs via the Internet† (Hardcastle). Cyber-bulling messages can be communicated through text, e-mails, instant messaging, web pages, blogs, chat rooms, or any other information communication technologies. For example, Michigan’s assistant attorney general, who is a grown adult, has been harassing the University of Michigan’s openly gay student body president. Andrew Shirvell, assistant Michigan attorney general, created a blog in April of 2010 targeting Chris Armstrong, University of Michigan’s student body president. On this blog he has posted many rude, untrue, and unnecessary comments towards Chris Armstrong, along with distorted pictures. According to the article, â€Å"Assistant Michigan AG targets openly gay college student† the author states, â€Å"Shirvell has published blog posts that accuse Armstrong of engaging in ‘flagrant sexual promiscuity’ with another male member of the student government; sexually seducing and influencing ‘a previously conservative male student’ so much so that the student, according to Shirvell, ‘morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda’† (Steward). Mr. Shirvell is clearly a first-hand example of a cyber-bully and this article goes to show that it’s not just kids bullying each other in school anymore; it’s much bigger than that. There have been at least three teen suicides in September after experiencing homophobic cyber-bullying. Who are the main victims targeted by cyber-bullies? According to the article, â€Å"Cyber-bullying Facts† Middle school and High school girls are twice as likely as boys to display cyber-bullying behaviors in the form of email, text, and chat, and only 20% of cyber-bullying victims tell their parents about the incident (Ross). Cyber-bullies target students, coworkers, neighbors, and even friends. Lately, there have been many reports of suicides related to bullying. For example, the recent death of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, is an extreme case of cyber-bullying. The article, â€Å"Rutgers student death: Has Digital Age made students callous† informs, â€Å"Mr. Clementi killed himself on September 22nd, 2010. According to prosecutors, a few days earlier his roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another student, Molley Wei, used a Web cam to secretly transmit images of a sexual encounter between Clementi and another man. They intended to do so again on September 21† (Khadaroo). With cyber-bullying a bully can pick on people with less risk of being caught. People who you would not see bullying someone in school don’t have a problem using the Internet to bully their victims because you can’t see their initial reaction. Bullying cannot only hurt the victim emotionally it can also cause them to have frequent headaches, indigestion and vomiting, loss of sleep, loss of appetite, paranoia, and suicide. In Tyler Clementi’s case he was so overwhelmed by what had been done to him that he jumped off of the George-Washington Bridge. It is important for college campuses to promote tolerance for differences, including homosexuality. From the article, â€Å"Rutgers student death: Has Digital Age made students callous† the author states, â€Å"We are tempted to think that social-media technology drove the behavior, but as a truly ethical matter, the behavior has to be and should be considered human-driven, not technology driven† (Foulkrod). Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania recently blocked the use of social media for a week to prompt discussions about its role in everyday life. Nobody wants to see this happen again; therefore, we need to come up with a solution to the problem. Some observers of today’s youth and media culture believe that today’s media environment could be desensitizing young people to the hurtful effects of their actions. What can be done to prevent cyber-bullying? Parents can start by talking specifically about yber-bullying and explain that is harmful and unacceptable behavior. Talk regularly with your child about on-line activities he or she is involved in, keep your home computer in easily viewable places, such as a family room or kitchen, and consider installing a filtering or blocking system (Ross). Also, you can â€Å"outline your expectations for responsible online behavior and clearly explain the consequences for inappropriate behavior† (Ross). The most important thing that can be done to stop a cyber-bully harassing you is to just not respond to the bully. Do not play into the bully’s games. Ignore the bully and tell a parent or teacher. While ignoring the bullying make sure to save all of the evidence so that if police need to be involved you will have it ready. In the article, â€Å"What is Cyberbullying: Bullying Comes Home† states, â€Å"Repeated or excessive harassment via email, forums or chat rooms is harassment and should involve the police. Threats of violence should also be reported to the police. Try to save all messages as evidence† (Hardcastle). Treat a cyber-bully like you would any other bully and they will lose their power. Another important way to prevent cyber-bullying attacks is if you see something going on don’t just be a bystander and let it happen, report it before anyone gets hurt. In conclusion, with the expansion of the Internet and social networking technologies cyber-bullying is becoming more common and more severe. The information presented in this research paper should give people a better understanding of what a cyber-bully is, how harmful they can really be, and how to prevent cyber-bullying from happening. This paper can be used to help victims realize they are not alone and should not give into a bully’s dangerous behaviors. This research paper is to inform society about what has been going on lately and how unacceptable and dangerous it is. Kids are killing themselves over photos, web posts, and videos posted by bullies using the Internet. Cyber-bullying is technology powered and will only get worse as technology becomes more widespread. Hopefully, this paper will help to inform today’s youth and parents. If you see any kind of bullying happening in front of you, stop it if possible, and then report it. Conclusion Cyberbullying is a growing issue in schools. Students have been in fights, brought guns to school, and even committed suicide because of being cyberbullied. This is an issue which is a growing problem and must be addressed. It is serious. By helping students research the issues around cyberbullying, it raises awareness for both students and staff. A WebQuest like this can make a real difference in school climate and student relations. Take a stand against cyberbullying with your classmates. Students will listen to other students more quickly than they will listen to an adult.

Aligning Business Strategies and Project Management

Aligning Business Strategies and Project Management Project management has become very important topic all over the world. Literature shows that more than 30 companies fail to accomplish its project with success due to misalignment between business strategies and project management. Many companies face this problem of missing link of business strategies and project management. Alignment is necessary for getting competitive advantage and goals of its business. Top management also play important role in alignment of business strategies and Project management. Keywords: Business strategies, project management, alignment, project portfolio management Introduction: Project management has become very important and also serves as core function in many organizations. Projects are any temporary activities that have starting and finish point, it has performance parameters. Projects face triple constrains (1) time (2) budget and (3) performance. It was assumed that for attainment of organizational goals one has to meet triple constraints of time, budget and performance. Project management plays a vital role in achieving organizational goals and considered as backbone of organization. Project management is knowledge that meets the requirements of projects. Project management plays important role in accomplishing strategies, business goals and desired outcomes. Organizations link their projects with business strategies to achieve the goals and objectives. Strategies are activities that guide and direct the use of the resources to accomplish the organizations vision and goals and sustainable competitive advantage. Mostly these components comprising the strategies of the business like internal analysis, organizational structures, control systems have strong links to project management processes and activities. Project management includes project portfolio management (PPM). PPM is about how organizations controls its projects and align them with business strategies. Many organizations are working on numerous projects and they are conscious to get maximum return of their business. PPM also includes the maximization profit which is main objective of all organization. Basically projects are bases of any organization to build up business strategy and project management relation. When organizations link their projects to their business strategy, they are better able to accomplish their organizational goals. Companies should align their business strategy with the project management action to implement the strategies in the projects. Such alignments are difficult because the objectives of business strategy are sometime not clear and well-communicated with project management. Misalignment may cause an organization to missing goals, communication gap and missing link of business strategy and project management. The lack of alignment of business strategy to the project management leads to the project failure and has adverse effects on organization performance as well. . There is need of systemic approach to align the projects with business strategy. So important in managerial challenges involved that aligning project management and business strategy and encouraging individuals to participate in using emerging strategies to create new ideas and renew existing strategies. Literature indicates that some factors that helps in creating link between business strategy and project management if there is any gap between the bridge of business strategy and project management that should be filled to achieve high returns and competitive advantages. As literature shows that SPL elements such as spirit, strategy, organization, tools and processes that elements should be align between business strategies and project management and in depth understanding of factors that are missing and relationship of these factors with business strategies and project management. Portfolio management play important role in project management and business strategy linking. Implementation of strategies with formulation, receive less attention than formulation so there should be proper emphasis on the implementation as well as. Therefore, this paper examines the linkage between business strategy, project portfolio management, and business success to finish the gap between strategy formulation and implementation and linking them in a bridge. There is seen a lot of importance of project portfolio management in evaluating, prioritizing and selecting projects in line with business strategy. It is choosing the right projects and important part of strategic management in organizations. So there are a few studies exploring single aspects of the linkage between strategies, project portfolio management. Business strategy describes the way in which a firm decides to compete in the market compared to its competitors and close the gap of these strategies with project management. Project Management: Project management has become an important issue for many corporations worldwide. Many implementations of project management have been successful, while others have been considered as failure. Projects in any organization have clearly became a central activity in many companies and considered as a backbone of organization and its success means a lot for an organization to prevail in the competitive arena. A project can be defined as a planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations. Project management is often termed as the science and art of organizing the different project phases which may be launch of new service, a marketing campaign, building a an entire new floor of a building or a wedding. According to Milosevic and Srivannaboon (2006), the essence of project management is to support the execution of an organizations competitive strategy to deliver a desired outcome. Project management is defined as management that supports the execution of an organizations competitive strategy to deliver a desired outcome. Six-step approach can be helpful course that avoids the worst storms: Step 1: Identify the project Step 2: Determine the desired outcome Step 3: Describe each of the projects component tasks Step 4: Identify the key players. Step 5: Determine a time lines for each project component. Step 6: Review, revise and reallocate. Successful initiation of projects and its execution mostly depends upon strategy. Many companies are suffering from misaligned projects and a lack of a systematic approach to align project management with the business strategy. When organizations link their projects to their business strategy, they are better able to accomplish their organizational goals. Project strategy should be related to the projects goals and objectives in order to attain the preferred position in its competitive environment. Business Strategy: Strategy is defined by Patton White (2002) as a comprehensive set of actions or activities, which guide and direct the use of the firms resources to accomplish the organizations vision and goals and enable sustainable competitive advantage. Turning strategy into action to operationalize strategic objectives to achieve competitive advantage includes in the strategic management. Several scholars suggest that the success of project should be considered in the context of the achievement of the strategic goals of the organization (Dietrich Lehtonen, 2005; Kenny, 2006) and that organizations are better able to accomplish their goals when they link their projects to their business strategy. To ensure strategies are translated into actions they should be operational and includes some of the characteristics like structuring an organization to support successful performance and enabling success through the way in which the various resource areas like people, information, Finance, IT, etc. of an organization. Better implementation of strategic plans results in the better performance of sales growth, earnings growth, deposits growth, return on assets, return on equity, return on sales and return on total invested capital than those companies that do not implement their strategic plans. However, in any organization there are different levels of strategies presented by different level of a business which includes Corporate Strategy: It involves high level of strategic decision making and purpose of this strategy is to achieve the expectations of the stakeholders. Business Unit Strategy: The purpose of this strategy is to achieve the competitive advantage for the services and products which are produced and the decisions in this level is concerned with the choice of products, gaining competitive advantage, to meet the needs of the customers and create new opportunities. Operational Strategy: Its concerned with the coordination and improvement of resources which results in the effective and efficient implementation of the business unit level strategy. Implementation of strategies requires actions and completing tasks, and should focus on how to realize these strategies. Implementation must include attention to the following key points: Executing the work requires allocation of resources such as funds, people, and equipment. Organizational resources are limited. Implementation process requires project supportive organizational structure. A project selection and priority system to ensure strong linking between projects and the strategic plan. Managerial challenges involves aligning project management and business strategy which encourages individuals to participate in using emerging strategies to create new ideas and renew existing strategies. There is no such research regarding the framework for aligning project management and business strategy comprehensively. The literature has highlighted that there are many projects which have been executed without implementing the strategies as it has been formulated by executives in the corporations level without the involvement of the project manager. Aligning Business Strategy and Projects: Aligning the companys projects to maximize their contributions to strategic objectives takes a highly coordinated effort. Integration requires a process for prioritizing projects by their contribution to the strategic plan. The organizations to become more competitive, efficient and profitable they will need a business and project management experts working together to attain the business goals. Both, business and project management experts will work towards aligning projects with business strategy. Alignment of business strategy and project management is a major concern for any organization. Such alignments are challenging because the objectives of business strategy are not always clear or well-communicated or consistent with project management actions. Misalignment may cause an organization to miss goals and objectives. Understanding the alignment may be one of the major challenges to effective project management process. Alignment is not a onetime task but it is achieved through p rogression, which demands dominant leadership, top management support, efficient communication, collaborative work environment, trust, proper prioritization, technological setup and comprehensive knowledge about the operations of the business (Luftman, 2000). In order to achieve desired outputs from the selected projects organization should have the ability to build up competencies and then allocate those competences to the preferred projects. To help make sure the corporate projects are aligned to corporate strategy following can be kept in mind: Is the corporation committed to using project management strategically? In most companies, hundreds of projects are underway at any given time so there must be corporate commitment to the art and science of managing projects Is there a policy of formally preparing project charters? Since projects are the means by which corporate strategies are executed, it is critical that they be guided by the original corporate philosophy, strategy, and intent. Project charters are the instrument for doing this. Is there synergy between the business group and those responsible for project implementation? There needs to be early involvement by project implementation people. While this principle may seem sound, the practice of it presents a challenge. First, business planning people may prefer to plan without the help of perceived outsiders. Then, theres a good likelihood that the right project people might not be sitting about just waiting to brainstorm and analyze the early stages of a business proposal. The value for the organization to aligning projects with business strategy in a research by the Athabasca University was conducted in more than 60 organizations around the world and results showed that there were some benefits the organizations which include: Saved money and resources Increased profitability Retained customers Increased market share Prioritizing a project on the bases of its contribution to strategic achievement does not provide guarantee of project success but consistent allocation of resources is also a major task (Hrebiniak, 2006). A key point to make sure the alignment between project management and strategy included as: to carry out the appropriately chosen projects in an efficient ways organizations should make sure that have ability to do deliver the projects and programs. Top management plays a major role in projects alignment. Role of Management: Management is of central importance for the success of projects. Pinto and Slevin (1998) suggested that all the researchers agree that absence of support from management especially top management and by important stakeholder are most important among all other factors. Hacker and Doolen (2007) role of top management was studied in the perspectives of vision of the project and alignment of the scope with business strategy and project sponsorship and its impact on the triple constraint of the project i.e. cost, performance and cost. Researchers various different views about the extent of knowledge of senior managers should be in relation to project management. Some researchers suggest to the technical expertise and knowledge about the projects necessary for senior managers to develop and implement projects. Others felt that determine the line of control and to make available all relevant resources for project managers are the main functions of the senior management. There are different methods of how senior managers can be involved in the project management process. One of the approaches is not to interfere in which the project manager to all the rights of the planning to the implementation of projects. Responsibilities of project managers and executive managers is that project managers are primarily responsible for projects that are being implemented while the executives of the strategic alignment of business functions and projects with the organizations goals. Top managers should possess same skills and expertise as do the project managers Top management must carefully analyze which project should be prioritized in the allocation of resources. Resource allocation is one of the critical parts of the project management. These resources include financial, human and other resources necessary for the successful completion of the projects. Top management should carefully analyze which project should be prioritized in terms of resource allocation. Resources must be allocated to projects that are aligned with corporate strategies of the organization. More simple criteria for prioritizing compliance can be or should do projects should receive the highest priority, then the strategic projects, and then the other. With the start of the training programs, coaching and mentoring for project managers, top management can help build leadership skills, so that they can manage project activities responsibly and effectively. Problems of Alignment: Often projects fail to support business strategies and business goals it is due to the missing link, so that it should be align. Some processes factors that affect the business strategies and projects linking such as communication, top management support, competency of project manager are some of the major factors are the necessary ones to consider which solves or even creates hurdles in the alignment process. Business directors and top management are responsible for the three processes such as business planning, portfolio management and prioritizing projects while the project managers are responsible for the process of planning and executing the projects. Prioritizing projects Portfolio management Business planning Project Project portfolio management, business planning and support of business manager to the project manager while project manager is responsible to handling the projects. Choosing project from the AMCs projects and aligning that project with the business plans and top managers suggestions. When these processes are aligned the strategic elements like goals, objectives, vision, mission, values and norms feeds the portfolio element, the portfolio element feeds the project management element like strategies, organization processes, culture, and the project management element feeds projects and the teams execution of project. But in many cases, these processes are not aligned; as a result, organizations may fail to tie their projects either to their business strategy or to their portfolio, which may cause them to terminate the project or to continue executing projects that do not contribute to the organizations goals, thus wasting important organizational resources. Project Portfolio Management: The project portfolio is defined as a group of projects that compete for scarce resources and are conducted under the sponsorship or management of a particular organization. The three main well-known objectives of portfolio management are, the following: maximizing the value of the portfolio, linking the portfolio to the strategy and the continuous monitoring/assessment of the portfolio. Project portfolio selection is an important management task activity of the organization, the project team should consider all details carefully to enhance performance of organizational assets and customize them with the strategic objectives of the organization, although there are usually several projects available for selection than can be completed within the physical and financial limitations of fixed, so choices must be made to make up a suitable project. Management problems are related to the following factors, selecting, portfolio strategy and appropriate plans. The following reasons can be related with the difficulties on managing, and on selecting, the proper projects to the portfolio a) no relationship between project selection: projects entirely with the organizations strategic goals are not related to the impact on organization performance b) poor quality portfolios: organizations, generally, applicable to underdeveloped ideas for projects selected is not fair quality. To work on the building, d) scarce resources, lack of attention and executive skills, resources properly balance, often causing pressure to multitask ; f) Information overflow and lacking quality of information: Regardless of the quality and sophistication of the portfolio selection and decision tools, it is fundamental to obtain the proper information to make accurate decisions; g) Decision making based in power: Usually the decision is an exercise of power, whi ch means that there may be situations in organizations where decisions tend not to reflect the organizational future success. The portfolio management team is normally concerned and overwhelmed with issues like the prioritization of projects and the continuous distribution of personnel from the different projects to overcome the urgent crises. Although, most of the time, however, there are no resources available and when they were redistributed it often produced negative effects on unexpected places in the project portfolio. Project Selection There are more than one hundred tools and techniques for project portfolio selection hence it is not difficult for organizations to select suitable tools. It is important to adapt or develop an appropriate framework to evaluate project proposals and select a project portfolio which is aligned with the corporate strategy. Recent literature focuses on approaches rather than tools and techniques. Common principles from these approaches can be described as followings: Firstly, they suggest dividing the project proposals into subsets (Englund Graham, 1999; Sommer 1999; Cooper et al., 2001a; Rădulescu1 Rădulescu 2001; and Crawford etal., 2006). Each project subset can be a group of projects which will share the same strategic buck as discussed by Cooper et al (2001a) or different categories of projects which have similar characteristics (Crawford et al., 2005, 2006). This will help the organization easily compare projects by same criteria or same tools and techniques. T his is similarly applicable to ensure the balance of the project portfolio. Framework by Englund Graham (1999) 4 steps producing interrelated outputs make this approach truly systematic. The 4 steps are described as follows: a. What the organization should do: Upon identified to lead the process, the team members start listing newly proposed and on-going projects. They, then, clarify or develop the expected goals of projects, taking into consideration of organizational strategies (vision, mission, objectives) and current as well as potential capabilities (either developed or acquired). It is advisable to classify projects into categories for the benefit of looking at projects from the view of big picture inclusive of out-of- the- box thinking, completeness, gaps, opportunities and compliance with strategy. Projects classified/organized into the strategic buckets (e.g. extent of product change: new- enhancement; and extent of process change: new incremental) enable the team focus efforts on selecting the best set of projects within the categories, which constitute the right and balance mix. In order to facility decision making process, a set of criteria with weight or score reflecting requirements of orga nizational objectives (e.g. market positioning, available capacity, etc.) should be determined, modified and agreed upon for comparison and choices of projects. b. What the organization can do: the team members critically screen and evaluate projects based on consolidation and analysis of current or historical data, as a result certain new projects will be eliminated and ongoing projects will be adjusted or terminated in respect of strategic priorities; availability of resources and technology challenges, etc. The authors describe the critical few with n screen subject to criteria sets agreed upon in step 1 e.g. screen 1- fit to goals; screen 2 market size, competence etc. c. Analyze and decide on projects: based on the comparison between resources available and resources required, projects are analyzed, prioritized and selected. The team should consider opportunity costs, project benefits before costs, return value when making decisions. With the sets of criteria agreed upon in step 1, the AHP (Analytical Hierarchy is recommended. Dedicated resources and contingencies should be committed to ensure the successful implementation of selected projects. Besides, communication loop should be developed and utilized to keep changes updated. d. Implement the plan: staffing and allocating committed resources for implementation selected projects. A database should be created for monitoring, reporting and sharing. The plan is used as a communication tool to help management team and those who are involved quickly respond to change and take corrective actions in terms of identifying new opportunities and leveraging resources. It can be interpreted that completion of the first 3 steps in this process reflects the achievement of the three goals determined in the project portfolio selection by Cooper (2005): step 1 with should representing project portfolio in alignment with strategy; step 2 with can representing portfolio value maximization using most effectively its resource and capability; step 3 analyze and decide representing right balance and mix of projects; and step 4 with implement belonging to the next phase of execution and management in project portfolio management. The 4 steps reveal a loop of continuous stages, which is recognized as systematic approach. Challenges in Project Portfolio Selection Organizations face many problems such as lack of information, unreliable data of cost, time to completion, availabilities of resource, and benefits of projects. Project proposals are randomly arriving, not at one time. This requires the model or process to be flexible so that organizations can select projects without waiting until annual planning meetings. In large organizations with many business units, each business unit has its own list of priority and preferences. Besides, project portfolio selection is not always rational but it is biased by human being factor such as lobbying. People resist when there is absence of strategy or vague strategy or they find difficulties in pursuing the strategies. Changes necessary for the aligning the projects with the strategy might win approval of all the members of the organization, but when it comes to implementation, no one will be ready to take the lead. Ten Reasons why Strategy Implementation Efforts Can Fail: 1. The so-called strategic plan is nothing more than a collection of budgets and vague directions that do not provide clear guidelines for action. 2. The strategy does not correspond to market realities because it has been developed by strategic planners with no grass roots input. 3. The strategy does not enjoy support from and commitment by the majority of employees and middle management because they do not feel consulted in the development of the strategy. 4. Middle management does not think the strategy is the right one, or does not feel it has the requisite skills to implement it, so it sabotages the implementation. 5. Insufficient top management time is spent on communicating about, selling the new strategic direction, and managing the organizational changes involved. 6. No provision is made for developing the new skills and competencies required by the employees successfully to make the transition and operate within the new strategic direction. 7. No provision is made for instituting the appropriate organizational systems for the selection, motivation and reward of people in accordance with the new strategy. 8. No provision is made for creating a close fit or coherence between the business-level strategy and the various functional-level strategies that can operationalize it. 9. There are factions in the organization which disagree with the strategy because if implemented it would reduce their power and influence, so they sabotage it by deliberate actions or inactions. 10. No attempt is made to analyze the culture of the organization and identify Literature review examines four selected models that assist organizations in bridging the gap between organizational strategic objectives and project management: Model #1 Model of strategic project management is comprised of four main aspects of higher-level project management practices: 1. Strategic alignment of project: This practice refers to the extent to which an organization ensures that the projects it pursues are directly tied to the organizational strategy. This is very important in terms to see whether the project going to start is intact with the strategies of the organization for its successful implementation. 2. Project portfolio management. This practice refers to the identification of a project investment categorization scheme to assist the organization with prioritizing projects. Project portfolio management forms one of the building blocks in relating projects to strategy and can be considered as a key driver for aligning projects or programs to organizational objectives. It also helps in prioritizing and in the selection process of a project for its successful alignment. 3. Program management. The Project Management Institute (2004) defines the concept of program management as the centralized coordinated management of groups of projects to achieve the programs strategic objectives and benefits. Program management practices are inherent within the pursuit of strategic project management and are demonstrated as the management of groups of projects and the management of interactions between projects (portfolio coordination). 4. The business results of projects. Since projects are financial investments, organizations should estimate and measure project impacts on organizations from a business results perspective which may include return on investment, sales growth etc. Model #2: Project managers contribute to competitive advantage due to their skills in managing relationships and an organizational willingness to foster these skills and leverage them throughout the organization, and learn from them how to manage people and relationships across organizational functions and boundaries. Greens model of strategic project management is based on the constructs of competitive advantage, strategic capabilities and tacit knowledge management. Model #3: Model suggests that adopting strategic project management to select, manage and support multiple projects gives companies the best chance of moving the organization forward by keeping the company vibrant in the marketplace and returning maximum value for shareholders. Further, it identifies the following key characteristics of strategic project management: 1. Alignment of the following key business processes: strategic planning, strategic goal setting, and enterprise project management 2. Functions as a well-managed portfolio of investments as it: (a) allows for the most effective use of constrained resources; (b) ensures a high return on investment since projects are managed collectively; (c) it maintains alignment between the projects and the organizations short, medium and long term goals 3. A new management process embedded between strategic planning and project execution that manages project investments strategically and combines business planning and management with project management best practices Model #4: The term strategic project management as the management of those projects which are of critical importance to enable the organization as a whole to have competitive advantage There is a gap between aligning project management competencies to the selection of projects that will give organizations a competitive edge. Specifically, strategy is formulated at the senior management level and for it to be implemented; it should be broken down into discrete projects. Project management becomes a source of competitive advantage when an organization outperforms other companies through the experience and knowledge built up over time through managing projects. Also, project management yields competitive advantage through the actual selection and prioritization of projects that organizations engage in and secondly, through implementation and execution of the projects. Furthermore, project portfolio management is essential and the prioritization of projects should be based