The Golden flute Review Essay Example

The Golden flute Review Paper Essay on The Golden flute I still read, read, read and read the Golden Svirel. And I think that is not never finish reading. Very often I have such thoughts have visited in the first half of the book. Well, yes, and if, after the first third of the story I have not appeared a paper book instead of e certainly would not read While that certainly I -. Like the lyrical, leisurely female fantasy in Russian and got this very full program It is very leisurely and very lyrical, yes. With the Russian language, however, is not so simple. From some multi-storey verbal author turns (most of them occurred in the first half, it seems) drops in out of history. Im not sure what they were so necessary. In this case, the style of heroes, though laid out, periodically runs thorough raw, everyday language. Very often it is suffering Lesta. We will write a custom essay sample on The Golden flute Review specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Golden flute Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Golden flute Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer But this is so, carping. I can compare only to that of Alex Kosh and Olga Gromyko. Compared to the first, Kuznetsova simply Tolstoy and Shakespeare rolled into one. Before stylistically adjusted Gromyko, Kuznetsova lacks a bit of experience, I guess. And a good editor, particularly In the rest -.. 4 of 5 dragged immediately, but was involved and it was interesting. Even more it was unusual and beautiful Pleasantly surprised by the ending very right, completes the story and letting the heroes live on, leaving a pleasant aftertaste PS:.. Separately, by the way, I want to write about published book. If you omit the strange serial cover its a complete delight! Smooth white paper, beautiful design chapters, quality printing. Its a pleasure to hold in their hands, and she did not even think to fall apart.

The Top Five Factors Contributing to American Ignorance essays

The Top Five Factors Contributing to American Ignorance essays Americans have become not only ignorant about their own country and its political affairs but also have been blind to the impact of five factors that contribute to this ignorance. The influence of family, the media, education, popular culture, and one's own environment are the five sources that have caused the people of the United states to be ill-informed about political affairs. "NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take Americas official citizenship test. Twenty-nine percent could not name the vice president(Romano). Many families in the United States derive their main source of information on political matters from their own family members and their family's opinions. They rely upon their family's political party preference or what they learned about politics at home to make their political decisions. But these opinions are not necessarily being based upon what is best for the country but instead are based upon family tradition, such as whether the family identifies with being a democrat or republican, with being a conservative or liberal, or even with being of the middle class, the poor, or of the wealthy of society. Americans have taken for granted that they live in a democracy, and we have become ignorant about our own country because we suffer from a lack of information rather than a lack of ability (Romano. The media is obviously the first place most people think to turn for information on political affairs. What most Americans have not realized is that the prominent news networks most widely watched today are controlled. We are heading towards an election, what they learn about the candidates will be what the media shows them tells them, decides not to show, not to tell (Outfoxed). Fox News is one of the most popular twenty-four hour news networks watched for political opinions and for all-around information on politics. To the public's surprise, several former employe...

Digital technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Digital technology - Essay Example With his Star Wars prequel trilogy and his special effects company Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) he has pounded the movie industry over the head with an abundance (in some cases an overabundance) of digital effects. Nearly every shot in each of the three movies contains some kind of digital effect. The volume of work that was produced might lead people to expect a diminished quality of the work since there is so much that was being attempted. But the truth is that the art form of digital effects was improved by leaps and bounds. Beginning with Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the animation and rendering of skin and texture on digital characters and environments was a huge leap. The techniques that were developed in that movie seem to have inspired many filmmakers since to use similar methods. Suddenly, things that were thought to have been impossible to do in a movie were now possible. Filmmaker Peter Jackson realized this, which was one of the reasons why he decided to make The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Digital effects aided him immensely in making his own trilogy. Another way that the methods of George Lucas aided Peter Jackson's team was in previsualization. Previz, as it is usually called, allows a director and effects team to see what shots in the movie will look like before actual shooting begins. Previz used to only consist of storyboards, hand drawn pictures of the shots that didn't move. But Lucas invited Jackson and his team to Skywalker Ranch to have a look at their previz department, which was using computer aided storyboards. They were crude computer models, lesser versions of what would appear on screen, but they allowed for moving pictures instead of the still photos that drawn storyboards are. Based on this one could conclude that The Lord of the Rings movies almost couldn't have been created without the pioneering of George Lucas. This is true, but only in some ways. The work begun by ILM did enable Weta to have a beginning point but they did not simply slavishly copy the techniques. Peter Jackson encouraged Weta to develop their own techniques that built upon the ones achieved by ILM. The main difference between the techniques of both effects houses is the creation of their digital characters. Both effects houses were faced with the daunting tasks of creating digital characters that were important parts of the story and had to give actual performances. ILM had to create Jar Jar Binks and later Yoda while Weta had to create Gollum and Treebeard. But while ILM mainly stuck with the process of key frame animation for creating their characters (with the exception of using the actor Ahmed Best for some motion capture and on set work), Weta used a variety of techniques to bring their characters to life. They used Andy Serkis as an on set actor while filming to give the animators a reference for what Gollum would be like as a character and how he would move around. This also helped with the interaction between the digital character and the actors on set. After filming was completed Andy was put into a motion capture suit to record his movements for the computer. This helped immensely with the animation because every movement did not have to be controlled and created by the animators. It already existed from Andy Serkis' performance. Another method they used was to scan Serkis' face and use it as a model to design the face of the character. Since Gollum retained Serkis' facial characteristics the

Chronic Eczema Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chronic Eczema - Essay Example For instance, the methods of treating Chronic Eczema may change, hence rendering the previous routines useless. For example, a new method of diagnosing Chronic Eczema may be discovered, and hence taking of picture of the affected part by the patient and sending it to the Dermatologist becomes less useful. The technologies available to different patients are varied. The knowledge to make proper use of the technologies available to the patient are also not guaranteed. For instance, relying on the photos taken by the patient may not give a clear picture of the intensity of the infection, especially if the focus of the photos is not good. For this reason, relying on the patient’s technologies may impair the process of offering equitable health services. For equitability in health service delivery, practices such as diagnosis should be uniform across the patients. The virtual support hinders the patient from accessing quality services, which would be offered in the event of the patient visiting the GP and hospitals. It is likely that if the patient gets virtual support, he/ she doesn’t enjoy some of the services, which are difficult to implement in the online support

The effects of weather and terrain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The effects of weather and terrain - Essay Example The nature of a given terrain is likely to affect the visibility of certain areas. For instance, highly mountainous areas may not be easily to view. As a result, commanders may need to apply technology to enable viewing of such areas and make their operations possible. Similarly, some areas tend to have very tall trees and thick vegetations which are likely to hinder the visibility of a given region1. Due to the challenges presented by this type of topography the commanders should invest in technology that enables them to avoid such challenges, for instance, satellite. Invisible regions of electromagnetic continuum, magnetic forces as well as radiations affect the means of communication in the context of war. For instance mountainous areas may affect the issue of communication network. In such a case, military commanders are likely to face challenges when giving orders to their forces. As a result, the concept of airmobile has been introduced to overcome the challenge of such terrain s. The transportation of war materials and troops is highly affected by the topography of an area. For instance, areas surrounded by oceans, that is, islands will not favor on-ground transport such as trains. Similarly, landlocked regions do not allow movement of troops by the sea or ocean. Moreover, mountainous areas require physically fit soldiers who can operate in such areas. This is because; the challenge lies in transporting the soldiers up and down in such steep and varied terrains areas as suggested by Keating2. During the civil war, maps on the topography were regularly supplied in order to make operations of the war possible. This is because the presence of inaccurate maps would proof a challenge in planning and coordinating the operations of the war. However, knowledge of topography ensured the union blockade of ports, control of the Mississippi river and control of higher grounds.

Alternative Volatility Forecasting Method Evaluation

Alternative Volatility Forecasting Method Evaluation For many financial market applications, including option pricing and investment decisions, volatility forecasting is crucial. Therefore, the research of volatility forecasting has been an active area of study since the past years. In recent years, the emergence of many financial time series methods for volatility forecasting has proved the importance of understanding the nature of volatility in any financial instruments. Often, people will think price is used as an indicator of the stock market performance. Due to the non-stationary nature of price series of the stock market, most researchers actually transformed series of price change (return) or absolute price changes (absolute return) in their studies. There is a difference between the term return and the term volatility. The term volatility is used as a crude measure of the total risk of financial assets. Actually, volatility is the standard deviation or the variance of returns whereas return is merely the changes of prices. An increasingly commonly adopted tool for the measurement of the risk exposure associated with a particular portfolio of assets known as Value at Risk (VaR) involves calculation of the expected losses that might result from changes in the market prices of particular securities (Jorion, 2001; Bessis, 2002). Thus, the VaR of a particular portfolio is defined as the maximum loss on a portfolio occurring within a specified time and with a given (small) probability. Under this approach, the validity of a banks internally modeled VaR is backtested by comparing actual daily trading gains or losses with the estimated VaR and noting the number of exceptions occurring, in the sense of days when the VaR estimate was insufficient to cover actual trading losses, with concerns naturally arising where such exceptions frequently occur, and that can result in a range of penalties for the financial institution concerned (Saunders Cornett, 2003). A crucial parameter in the implementation of parametric VaR calculation methods is an estimate of the volatility parameter that describes the asset or portfolio, or more accurately a forecast of that volatility where the simplifying assumption of constancy is relaxed and time-varying volatility is acknowledged. While it has long been recognized that returns volatility exhibits clustering, such that large (small) returns follow large (small) returns of random sign (Mandelbrot, 1963; Fama, 1965), it is only following the introduction of the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model (Engle, 1982; Bollerslev, 1986) that financial economists have modeled and forecast these temporal dependencies using econometric techniques, and a variety of adaptations of the basic GARCH framework are now widely used in modeling time-varying volatility. In particular, the significance of asymmetric effects in stock index returns has been widely documented, such that equity re turn volatility increases by a greater amount following positive shocks, usually associated with the leverage effect, whereby a firms debt-to-equity ratio increases when equity values decline, and holders of that equity perceive future income streams of the firm as being more risky (Black, 1976; Christie, 1982). Such variance asymmetry has been successfully modeled and forecast in a variety of market contexts (Henry, 1998) using the threshold-GARCH (TGARCH) model (Glosten et al., 1993), and the exponential-GARCH (EGARCH) model (Nelson, 1991) in particular. Problem Statement While risk management practises in financial institutions often rely on simpler volatility forecasting approaches based on heuristics and moving average, smoothing or RiskMetrics techniques, symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models have also recently begun to be considered in the VaR context. However, the standard GARCH model and variants within that class of model impose rapid exponential decay in the effect of shocks on conditional variance. In contrast, empirical evidence has suggested that volatility tends to change slowly and that shocks take a considerable time to decay (Ding et al., 1993). The fractionally integrated-GARCH (FIGARCH) model (Baillie et al., 1996; Chung, 1999) has provided a popular means of capturing and forecasting such non-integrated but highly persistent long memory dynamics in volatility in the recent empirical literature, as well as its exponential (FIEGARCH) variant (Bollerslev Mikkelsen, 1996) which parallels the EGARCH extension of the basic GARCH form, an d therefore provides a generalization capable of capturing both the volatility asymmetry and long memory in volatility which are potential characteristics of emerging equity markets. Research Objectives This paper therefore seeks to extend previous research concerned with the evaluation of alternative volatility forecasting methods under VaR modeling in the context of the Basle Committee criterion for determining the adequacy of the resulting VaR estimates in two ways. First, by broadening the class of GARCH models under consideration to include more recently proposed models such as the FIGARCH and FIEGARCH representations described above, which are capable of accommodating potential fractional integration and the associated long memory characteristics of return volatility, as well as the more simple and computationally less intensive methods commonly used in financial institutions. Second, extending the scope of previous research through evaluative application of these methods to daily index data of nine stock market indexes. Significance of this study The extensive research of volatility forecasting plays an important role for investment, financial risk management, security valuation, and also business decision-making process. Without a proper forecasting tools and research on this field, many financial decision making process will be difficult and risky to be implemented. The positive contribution of volatility forecasting in the field of finance is no doubt a fact as it given many practitioners a mean of guidelines to estimate their management risk such as option pricing, hedging and estimating investment risk. Therefore, it is crucial to study on the performance of different approaches and methods of forecast model to determine the best suitable practical application for different situation. The most common form of financial instrument is the stock market. The stock indices consist of a particular countrys most prominent stocks. Thus, in this study our aim is to focus on forecasting the stock indices volatility of eight different stock indices that provide us the ability to test the forecast approaches. There are quite a number of forecast models since the recent years. However, the new concern is on the performance of these forecast model when incorporated with higher frequency data with the realized volatility method. There are still gap for researching the intra-day data effects on forecasting model which is comparative new as compared to daily data volatility forecasting. The significant role of this study also include whether intra-day data can really help at improving the performance of forecast model to estimate volatility for the stock index. Review of Chapters In this proposal, the report is mainly subdivided into three chapters. Chapter 1 is about the overview of this research which includes the background of the study, the research objective, problem statement, and the significance of this study. Chapter 2 presents the literature review of volatility forecasting, GARCH models, exponentially smoothing and realized volatility. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Volatility forecasting Volatility forecasts are produced by either market-based or time-series methods. Market-based forecasting involves the calculation of implied volatility from current option prices by solving the Black and Scholes option pricing model for the volatility that results in a price equal to the market price. In this paper, our focus is on the development of a new time series method. These methods provide estimates of the conditional variance, à Ã†â€™2t = var(rt | It-1), of the log return, rt, at time t conditional on It à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1, the information set of all observed returns up to time t à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1. This can be viewed as the variance of an error (or residual) term, ÃŽÂ µt, defined by ÃŽÂ µt = rt à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" E(rt | It à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1 ), where E(rt | It à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1 ) is a conditional mean term, which is often assumed to be zero or a constant. ÃŽÂ µt is often referred to as the price à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“shockà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“newsà ƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. 2.2 Overview of standard volatility forecast model 2.2.1 GARCH model GARCH models (Engle, 1982; Bollersle, 1986) are the most widely used statistical models for volatility. GARCH models express the conditional variance as a linear function of lagged squared error terms and lagged conditional variance terms. For example, the GARCH(1, 1) model is shown in the following expression: à Ã†â€™2t = à Ã¢â‚¬ ° + ÃŽÂ ±ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ µ2t à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1 + ÃŽÂ ²Ãƒ Ã†â€™2t à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1, where à Ã¢â‚¬ °, ÃŽÂ ±, and ÃŽÂ ² are parameters. The multiperiod variance forecast, , is calculated as the sum of the variance forecasts for each of the k periods making up the holding period: where is the one-step-ahead variance forecast. Empirical results for the GARCH(1, 1) model have shown that often ÃŽÂ ² à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‹â€  (1 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" ÃŽÂ ±). The model in which ÃŽÂ ² = (1 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" ÃŽÂ ±) is term integrated GARCH (IGARCH) (Nelson, 1990). Exponential smoothing has the same formulation as the IGARCH(1, 1) model with the additional restriction that à Ã¢â‚¬ ° = 0. The IGARCH(1, 1) multiperiod forecast is written as Stock return volatility is often found to be greater following a negative return than a positive return of equal size. This leverage effect has promted the development of a number of GARCH models that allow for asymmetry. The first asymmetric formulation was the exponential GARCH model of Nelson (1991). In this log formulation for volatility, the impact of lagged squared residuals is exponential, which may exaggerate the impact of large shocks. A simpler asymmetric model is the GJRGARCH model of Glosten et al. (1993). The GJRGARCH(1, 1) model is given by , where à Ã¢â‚¬ °, ÃŽÂ ±, ÃŽÂ ³, and ÃŽÂ ² are parameters; and I[.] is the indicator function. Typically, it is found that ÃŽÂ ± > ÃŽÂ ³, which indicates the presence of the leverage effect. The assumption that the median of the distribution of ÃŽÂ µt is zero implies that the expectation of the indicator function is 0.5, which enables the derivation of the following multiperiod forecast expression: GARCH parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood, which requires the assumption that the standardized errors, ÃŽÂ µt / à Ã†â€™t, are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). Although a Gaussian assumption is common, the distribution is often fat tailed, which has prompted the use of the Student-t distribution (Bollerslev, 1987) and the generalized error distribution (Nelson, 1991). Stochastic volatility models provide an alternative statistical volatility modelling approach (Ghysels et al., 1996). However, estimation of these models has proved difficult and, consequently, they are not as widely used as GARCH models. Andersen et al. (2003) show how daily exchange rate volatility can be forecasted by fitting long-memory, or fractionally integrated, autoregressive and vector autoregressive models to the log realized daily volatility constructed from half-hourly returns. Although results for this approach are impressive, such high frequency data are not available to many forecasters, so there is still great interest in methods applied to daily data. A useful review of the volatility forecasting literature is provided by Poon and Granger (2003). 2.2.2 Exponentially Smoothing Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) is simple and well-known volatility forecast method. The method is based on the simple average of past squared residuals to estimate its variance forecasts. The EWMA allows the latest observations to have a stronger weighted impact on the volatility forecast of past data observations. The equation for the EWMA is shown and written as exponential smoothing in recursive form. The ÃŽÂ ± parameter is the smoothing parameter. The equation: There is no proper guideline or statistic model for exponential smoothing. Generally, literature suggested using reduction in the sum of in-sample one-step-ahead estimation of errors (Taylor, 2004 cited from Gardner, 1985). In RiskMetrics (1996), volatility forecasting for exponential smoothing is recommended to use the following minimisation: In the above equation, ÃŽÂ µ2t is the in-sample squared error which acted as the proxy for actual variance whereby it is said to be not observable. By using ÃŽÂ µ2t as a proxy for variance, the actual squared residual, ÃŽÂ µ2t, is said to be biased and noisy. In Andersen et al. (1998), the research showed the evaluation of variance forecasts using realised volatility as a more accurate proxy. The next section would discuss more on the literature of realised volatility. The usage of high frequency data for realised volatility in forecast evaluation can be applied in parameter estimation for exponential smoothing with the following minimisation expression: . 2.2.3 Realised volatility The recent researchs interest in using a comparative volatility estimator as an alternative has emerged a significant literatures on volatility models that incorporated high frequency data. One of the emerging theories for a comparative volatility estimator is the so called Realized Volatility. Realized volatility is referred as the volatility calculated using a short period time series or using higher frequency periods. In Andersen and Bollerslev (1998) showed that high frequency data can be used to compute daily realize volatility which showed a better true variance than the usual daily return variance. This concept is adopted in Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold Labys (2003) to forecast the daily stock volatility which found that the additional intraday information are provide better result in forecasting low volume and up market day. The application of realized volatility has also been employed by Taylor (2004) in parameters estimation for weekly volatility forecasting using realised volatility derived from daily data. An encouraging result were showed by using the smooth transition exponential smoothing method whereby the research used eight stock indices to compare the weekly volatility forecast of this method with other GARCH models (Taylor, 2004). The concept of realized volatility has been employed by many researchers in forecasting of many other financial assets such as foreign exchange rates, individual stocks, stock indices and etcetera. One of the early application of realized volatility concept has used spot exchange rates of Deutschemark-US dollar and Japanese Yen-US dollar to show the superiority of using intraday data as realized volatility measure. The sum of squared five-minute high frequency returns incorporated in the forecasting model proved to outperform the daily squared returns as a volatility measure (Andersen et al., 1998). Another similar study done by Martens (2001) has adopted realized volatility in forecasting daily exchange rate volatility using intraday returns. The results showed that using highest available frequency of intraday returns leads to superior daily volatility forecast. Furthermore, realized volatility approach has also been extended to studies for risk and return trade-off using high frequency data. In Bali et al. (2005), the research provided strong positive correlation between risk and return for stock market using high frequency data. The usage of daily realized which incorporated valuable information from intraday returns produce more accurate measure of market risk. In addition to this study, Tzang et al. (2009) as applied the realized volatility approach as a proxy for market volatility rather than squared daily returns to assess the efficiency of various model based volatility forecast. Finally, the findings from a research done by Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold Labys (2001) shown that realized volatility in certain conditions is free for measurement error and unbiased estimator for return volatility. The proven research has prompted many recent works in forecasting intra-day volatility to applied realized volatility for their studies. This can be observed in McMillan Garcia (2009), Fuertes et al. (2009), Frijns et al.(2008) and Martens (2001). Many researchers exploit the advantage of realised volatility as an unbiased estimators measure for intra-day data and also as a simplified way to incorporated additional information into other forecast models. McMillan et al. (2009) utilised realised volatility to capture intraday volatilities itself as opposed to most researchers that uses realised volatility for daily realised approach. The study showed Hyperbolic Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasity (HYGARCH) as the best forecast model of intra-day volatility. 2.3 Forecast Models used in this study The forecast models that are presented in this study include: Random Walk (RW) 30 days Moving Average (MA30) Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) with =0.06 (RiskMetrics) Exponentially Smoothing with ÃŽÂ ± optimised (ES) Integrated General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic using daily data (IGARCH) Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (Riskmetrics) on daily realised volatility calculated from intraday data. (EWMA-RV) Exponentially Smoothing with ÃŽÂ ± optimised on daily realised volatility calculated from intraday data. (ES-RV) General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity model with intraday data using realised volatility approach (INTRAGARCH) Integrated General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with intraday data using realised volatility approach (IGARCH) General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with daily realised volatility (RV-GARCH) CHAPTER 3: DATA AND METHODOLOGY 3.1 Sample selection and description of the study Various comparative forecast models are used in order to evaluate the performance of incorporating intraday data. This study used dataset from nine stock indices include Malaysia (FTSE-BMKLCI), Singapore (STI), Frankfurt-Germany (DAX30), Hong Kong (Hang Seng Index), London-United Kingdom (FTSE100), France (CAC40), Shanghai-China (SSE), Shenzhen-China (SZSE), and United States (SP 100). These series consisted of daily closing prices and also the intraday hourly last price of their respective indices. The daily closing prices were retrieved using à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“DataStream Advance 4.0à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? and also from Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com). Whereas, the hourly intraday last prices of these stock indices were retrieved from Bloomberg Terminal from Bursa Malaysia. Each stock index has their respective trading hours last price which produced a different number of observations for each series. The total number of trading hours within the day differed among different stock index. However, the sample period used in this study spanned approximately for 300 trading days, from 15 October 2009 to 15 March 2011. In order to simplify the study, the focus is based on a one-step-ahead volatility forecast. The first 200 trading days log returns were applied to estimate the parameters for various forecast models which is known as the in-sample forecast. The remaining 100 trading days log returns were used for post-sample evaluation. This study aimed to forecast volatility in daily log returns for various forecasting methods and used daily realised volatility as proxy for actual volatility. The next subsections presented the data description and the 10 forecast methods which will be considered in the study. 3.2 Data Analysis 3.2.1 Forecasting Methods This subsection describes the methodology to forecast the in-sample and out-sample performance of various forecast models. The forecast model includes Random Walk (RW), Moving Average, GARCH models, and Exponential smoothing techniques. 3.2.1.1 Standard volatility forecast model using daily returns This project paper adopted the simple moving average of squared residuals from the recent past 30 daily observations which is labelled as MA30 and the Random Walk (RW) for the standard volatility forecast model as performance benchmark. The 30 day simple moving average is given by: Whereby, ÃŽÂ µ2 = (rt ÃŽÂ ¼)2 shown in the previous section. The moving average is able to smooth out the short running fluctuations and emphasize on the long run trends or cycles through a series of averaging different subsets of datasets. On the other hand, the Random Walk (RW) is explained as the forecast result is equal to the actual value of the recent period. The actual value in this study used is the squared residual denoted as, ÃŽÂ µ2t. The equation is as shown below:à ¯? ¥ Tomorrows forecasted value = yesterday actual value ()à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ½ 3.2.1.2 GARCH models for hourly and daily returns There are many different GARCH models for forecasting volatility that can be included in this research. However, the consideration in this study is limited to 2 forecast GARCH models which are the GARCH and IGARCH for practicality. The GARCH models in this study have applied GARCH (1, 1) specifications. The three forecast model used were labelled as IGARCH, INTRA-IGARCH, and INTRA-GARCH models. The IGARCH model is estimated using daily residuals as daily data is easily obtained from the source mentioned above. The general IGARCH forecast model used is given by: à ¯? ¢Ãƒ ¯? ¥ à ¯? ³ But, the parameter estimate generate by EVIEW 7 will be using the following expression: à ¯? ³ à ¯? ¢ à ¯? ¡Ãƒ ¯? ¥ à ¯? ³ However, the INTRA-IGARCH and INTRA-GARCH models used hourly residual data to estimate the forecast for daily realised volatility. The forecast for volatility of these models over an N-trading hours span period would be recognised as the forecast of daily volatility. The N trading hours span period is dependent on the trading hours of a specified stock index. In order to calculate the daily realised volatility, the equation is for N trading hours in a day for a particular stock index is given by: Where period i is the higher frequency of hourly data and the ÃŽÂ µ2t, is the squared residual of the particular hour. For example, if KLCI index has a 7 trading hours per day, the realised daily volatility is calculated from the sum of squared residual of these 7 hours. Additionally, forecast models such as INTRA-IGARCH and INTRA-GARCH applied equation 3 to obtain the daily realised volatility by replacing the squared residual, ÃŽÂ µ2t with values that is forecasted using these models. 3.2.1.3 GARCH model using realised volatility The GARCH model can be estimated using daily realised volatility which is derived from the hourly squared residual with equation 3. In order to apply RV for GARCH forecast model, equation 3 has to be modified to be squared root to be able to obtain the parameter estimates that is needed using EVIEW 6. The equation is as follow: As for this project paper, the GARCH model that used daily realised volatility as input data is labelled as RV-GARCH. 3.2.1.4 Exponential smoothing and EWMA methods The forecast model for exponential smoothing method has been implemented into two approaches. The first is by using minimisation of equation 3 to optimise the parameter and it is labelled as ES for this project paper. The actual value (squared residual), ÃŽÂ µ2t is obtained from the daily data. The second approach which is said to be the better proxy variance forecast has applied equation 4 for the minimisation. The forecast model for this exponential smoothing method is termed as ES-RV which adopted daily realised volatility from hourly data. Apart from that, the study also considered the smoothing parameter ÃŽÂ ± as a fixed value of 0.06 as recommended by RiskMetrics (1996) for model using daily data and daily realised volatility data derived from hourly data. The forecast model is termed as EWMA and EWMA-RV respectively. By using equation 2 as shown previously, the EWMA used daily squared residual as ÃŽÂ µ2t 1 parameter input while the EWMA-RV used the daily realised volatility as the ÃŽÂ µ2t 1 parameter input. 3.3 Research Design (Gantt Chart) Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Literature Review Methodology Research proposal Data collection Data analysis Discussion and conclusion

Awarding Six Medals to the Three Released POW S :: Free Essay Writer

Awarding Six Medals to the Three Released POWS The military has lost its mind by awarding six medals to the three released P.O.W.s. I do not mean to rag on the three troops -- although one did write a "Thank You" note to his prison guards for his swell Motel 6 treatment, but more to the point is the damage such giveaway policies do to our military awards programs. Remember what Napoleon said about awards: "Give me enough ribbon and I will conquer the world." So that all of you have a complete list of the awards the three "heroes" got, I will list them for you: Purple Heart Army Commendation Medal P.O.W. Medal Armed Forces Medal United Nations Medal NATO Medal The Purple Heart is awarded for wounds suffered while in armed combat with an opposing force, for wounds received while in combat "operations" in a combat zone or for wounds received from terrorist acts while in the military. It is also awarded to the next of kin when someone is KIA or dies as the result of wounds received. How can the Pentagon give out Purple Hearts for injuries received that are no worse than those received in a H.S. football game? Yes, they were soldiers; yes, they were on a mission and yes, they were "treated roughly" -- broken noses, cracked ribs, chipped teeth, cuts and abrasions. Is the Army telling me that the same award for being killed, maimed or shot-up in a firefight is the same award for taking a fist to the chops -- "treated roughly"? I propose a new award -- the "Black & Blue Device." It would resemble the old W.W.II ruptured duck or just be a plain Red Cross on a white background the International Sign for First Aid. And by the way, it was the President himself who referred to them as detainees and stated that they "weren't in a war zone." Now they're hailed as conquering heroes and given combat awards for sterling performance in a war zone.

Brain Development And Early Childhood Education Essay

Babies begin to learn about the world around them from a very early age. Children’s early experiences – the bonds they form with their parents and their first learning experiences – deeply affect their future physical, cognitive, emotional and social development. Learning starts in infancy, long before formal education begins, and continues throughout life. A young child’s brain needs certain types of stimulation to develop properly. Without that stimulation, certain types of learning will not be possible when the child enters school. Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don’t begin thinking about education in the early years, our children are at risk of falling behind by the time they start Kindergarten. This is why Early Childhood Education is so important. Infants and toddlers learn about themselves and their world during interactions with others. Brain connections that lead to later success grow out of nurturing, supportive and predictable care. This type of caregiving fosters child curiosity, creativity and self-confidence. Young  children need safety, love, conversation and a stimulating environment to develop and keep important synapses in the brain. During the first 3 years of life, children experience the world in a more complete way than children of any other age. The brain takes in the external world through its system of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. This means that infant social, emotional, cognitive, physical and language development are stimulated during multisensory experiences. Infants and toddlers need the opportunity to participate in a world filled with  stimulating sights, sounds and people. Before children are able to talk, emotional expressions are the language of relationships. Research shows that infants’ positive and negative emotions, and caregivers’ sensitive responsiveness to them, can help early brain development. For example, shared positive emotion between a caregiver and an infant, such as laughter and smiling, engages brain activity in good ways and promotes feelings of security. Also, when interactions are accompanied by lots of emotion, they are more readily remembered and recalled. The primary giver, when providing consistent and predictable nurturing to the infant creates what is known as a â€Å"secure† attachment. This is accomplished in that rhythmic dance between infant and caregiver; the loving cuddles, hugs, smiles and noises that pass between caregiver and infant. Should this dance be out of step, unpredictable, highly inconsistent or chaotic an â€Å"insecure† attachment is formed. When attachments are secure the infant learns that it is lovable and loved, that adults will provide nurture and care and that the world is a safe place. When attachment is insecure the infant learns the opposite. As the child grows from a base of secure attachment he or she becomes ready to love and be a friend. A secure attachment creates the capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional bonds with another. Attachment is the template through which we view the world and people in it. The brain grows from the bottom to the top. Each of the core strengths is related to a stage and site of brain growth. In infancy attachment bonds are acquired and lay down emotional signals deep within the brain. At the same time the brain stem is seeing to it that bodily functions can be self-regulated. Later on in childhood the emotional centers of the brain come under increasing control so temper tantrums disappear and the child controls their emotional life. In mid-childhood the child’s brain begins to develop the capacity to think and reflect on the external environment. It is at this stage when the frontal areas of the brain begin to mature and it is at this stage in brain growth when the core strengths of affiliation, attunement, tolerance and respect can mature as well. Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read. Babies show excitement by widening their eyes and moving their arms and legs when looking at a book with pictures of babies or other familiar objects. Babies learn from conversations even when they cannot understand what you are saying. When babies hear the same words over and over, the parts of the brain that handle speech and language develop. Talk to them as you are changing their diaper or feeding them. Get down on the floor with them when they are playing. Use this opportunity to talk about the different toys they have. You can talk about the color of the object or make noises, such as a car goes vroom, vroom. In infancy and early childhood, play is the activity through which children learn to recog- nize colors and shapes, tastes and sounds‚ the very building blocks of reality. Play also provides pathways to love and social connection. In early childhood, play helps children develop skills they can’t get in any other way. Babbling, for example, is a self-initiated form of play through  which infants create the sounds they need to learn the language of their parents. Likewise, chil- dren teach themselves to crawl, stand, and walk through repetitious practice play. At the preschool level, children engage in dramatic play and learn who is a leader, who is a follower, who is outgoing, who is shy. They also learn to negotiate their own conflicts. Study after study explicitly and unambiguously documents that what happens during the early years is critical to a child’s long-term cognitive and behavioral development, physical growth in childhood, and health in adulthood. Modern brain and child development research supports the need to provide nurturing, educationally stimulating, safe environments and experiences in the early years. A strong and nurturing relationship between children and adults is the most basic ingredient for growing up healthy. Supporting the whole child – physically, socially, and emotionally – provides a baseline for positive experiences from which the child can learn, grow, and thrive. These experiences shape a child’s life and create a strong, foundational web of support that positively contributes to their future.

Prince of Persia Essay Example

Prince of Persia Essay Example Prince of Persia Essay Prince of Persia Essay and the relationship is at its final moments. Dastan faced Garsiv there and proposed to him that he was innocent for his father’s murder. The moment his brother realized his uncle’s plan, he is fatally wounded by incoming shards of metal. The Hannassins successfully retrieved the dagger and retreated back to Nizam. Dastan and his companions crept their way inside Alamut to inform Tus and take possession of the dagger. Right here, Dastan and Tamina are at Stage 4: Integrating. Dastan desired to do most things with her and they reflect most common experiences. They also talk and behave similar as if they are one person. Tamina and Dastan are both willing to risk their lives for the sake of Persia and its inhabitants. As they approach Alamut, Seso, one of the allies, volunteered to retrieve the dagger from the Hannassin guard. Seso was able to win back the dagger, but in doing so, his life is lost. Dastan encountered his brother Tus, told him about Nisam’s evil endeavors, and unraveled the dagger and its secret. Dastan impales himself in the heart, hoping that Tus will use the dagger to travel back in time to believe his dying words. Nizam entered the room seeing that Dastan is lying dead in the ground. Nizam demanded the dagger from Tus, but Tus refused and activated the dagger. Through empathy, Tus is able to recognize and share the exact feelings by listening to Dastan’s dying words. Tus went back in time right before Dastan stabbed himself, and they hug momentarily before Nizam appeared and sliced Tus in the throat. This is the first time Dastan and Tus truly shared a â€Å"bonding† moment. Nizam regained the dagger and goes to the bottom of Alamut where he can retrieve unlimited sand to power the dagger to bring him back to a time in which he could become ruler of Persia. Nizam’s relationship with his family utilizes a cost and reward system. For the cost of his brother’s death (King Sharaman) and the nonexistence of his nephews, he will be rewarded with the Crown of Persia. Dastan and Tamina chase after Nizam. The princess lead Dastan to a secret entrance to the Sands of Time, but on their way they encounter many foes. Dastan desperately fought to fend them off. He is nearly defeated, until Tamina boldy emerged for the rescue. Dastan and Tamina finally completed all five stages of Coming Together with Stage 5: Bonding perfectly executed. At the bottom of Alamut, holds a pillar that is made of the Sands of Time. If the dagger were to be stabbed into the pillar, time would rewind until the dagger is removed. Dastan and Tamina strived to stop Nizam from striking a blow to the pillar, but it’s too late. Nizam knocked Tamina into a bottomless pit, and Nizam fused the sacred blade with the sand. Dastan gallantly rushed to the pillar and took hold of the dagger as it bent back time. Luckily, Dastan managed to remove the dagger. After a brief moment, Dastan opened his eyes and was at the gates of Alamut. The attack had been followed through with yet, and was pending until Dastan’s orders were made. Dastan immediately exposed his Uncle Nizam’s betrayal and was able to convince Tus and his army. Nizam is outraged and slipped out a dagger at Dastan’s back. Quickly, Tus whipped out his broad sword into Nizam’s stomach. The future was altered. Now, the relationship of each brother evolved to Stage 5: Bonding of Coming Together, while the dead uncle obviously sat beyond Stage 5: Terminating of Coming Apart. Dastan brought the dagger to Princess Tamina, and all the land was saved by the Prince of Persia. Prince of Persia displays the stages and steps of Coming Together and Coming Apart. Also, the movie points out that a relationship can be gained and reunited through interpersonal concepts and if possible, time travel.

Affects on New Englands and the Chesapeakes Culture essays

Affects on New England's and the Chesapeakes Culture essays New England and the Chesapeakes citizens may have the same English origin, but they each have very distinct, tightly knit societies. Every region has their own separate way of running their colony that causes differences in development to occur. So no matter where their origin, their new home decides their religion, government, and culture. Religion was an important factor in New England and they took it very seriously. When people like John Calvin and Anne Hutchinson came along bringing their beliefs of predestination with them, it usually led to banishment. New England wanted to lay down their laws so they formed the Church of England in 1530. Some of the regulations associated with the Church upset some puritans and they tried to break away. The people of New England were such firm believers in their religion, sometimes leading to extremes of obsessive fear, which resulted in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Religion was somewhat intertwined with the government in New England. At least one intelligent, religious person was trying to make the rules better. For example, John Winthrop. He came to the realization that in order to be united and respected, they must be considered higher. This concept was referred to as the city upon a hill (Document A). Another attempt to create a better society happened in 1639 when the first constitution in American history was drafted. It was controlled by substantial citizens and based on the consent of the people. Many other laws and standards were created during this time, trying to start effective colonizations based on Godly faith and morals (Document D). The one thing that made New Englands government strong was their ability to try. Religion and government did take up most of New Englands time but culture was a big part of their life also. They had such an eager focus on the subject of education that their first college, Harvard, was foun...

Cultural profile Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Cultural profile - Essay Example Social groups mostly share a number of characteristics including involving the use of a common language, sharing cultural values and also sharing norms and traditional values (Chelidze 12). The Muslim based believers are also mostly portrayed badly as well as negatively by the media systems in the society (Chelidze 10). For example, I totally support Muslim faiths, and I have experience a number of discrimination and prejudices in the society. This usually provides bad relationship and poor interaction between Muslim individuals and other people the society. Stereotypes, discrimination, as well as prejudices based on individual cultural identities and ethnicity systems, form some of the problems that the Islamic-based religious individuals are facing in the United States (Chelidze 13). According to recent religious studies and reports, racial group, ethnicity as well as religious group of an individual role play a greater role towards various social activities in their life including their marriage practices, communication practices and their perceptions about life in general (Verkuyten 357). Therefore, the main aim and purpose of this paper is to discuss various social identities and religious beliefs and values including the Caucasian ethnicity, as well as the Islamic religion. The paper will specifically deal with the social identities covering ascription as well as avowal identity systems and how it influences my social interaction with others in the society The Caucasian race is mostly found in North America, Europe, parts of Asia as well as in some regions in Africa. Historically, various historians believed that there were two races especially the Mongolians and the Caucasians. According to these anthropologists, the Caucasians were more likeable and intelligent than Mongolians especially due to their light skin and moral values (Verkuyten 355). The Caucasian group was also closely associated with individuals

PESTEL analysis Courier and Delivery market UK Essay

PESTEL analysis Courier and Delivery market UK - Essay Example The economic factors in the United Kingdom courier industry constitute a substantial reason for the general outlook to same (MSI 2000). To expound on this, the courier industry in the United Kingdom operates in different places around the globe. There are many companies from the United Kingdom which command global influence (Campbell 2001). This has necessitated the companies to look for choices that facilitate smooth interactions between their choices (Monaghan 1998). The courier industries in the United Kingdom have an unusually high demand, and this had caused the economic landscape of the United Kingdom courier industry to keep changing. This has caused the airline industry in the United Kingdom to have an economic boom. In the delivery of documents and packages, speed is vital (Crew & Kleindorfer 1999). The environmental factors in the United Kingdom courier industry cover the governmental legislation and regulation. This is because the policies of the government in United Kingdom have created a favourable business environment for the rise of the industry or vice versa. Some government believes in subsidizing local industries with an aim of increasing their effectiveness and global influence (Luff 2009). When the government policies and legislation proposes heavy taxation of local courier industry in the United Kingdom, then the business environment of the industry is altered, and the companies begin to strain (Campbell 2001). According to Campbell, the environmental factors include the population gross domestic product, GDP. This affects the competitiveness of the industry. When ordinary citizens have a string purchasing power, then they are likely to hire the services of the courier industry in the United Kingdom which raises their turnover (Luff 2009). The competition of the cour ier industry in the United Kingdom is exceptionally high (MSI 2000). The recent spread of recession of the economy that was spread from the United States of America affected the courier industry in the United Kingdom (Monaghan 1998). This indicates that the health of ht economy is extremely crucial for the growth of the industry in the United Kingdom (Crew & Kleindorfer 1999). The rise of oil prices caused many airline industries t cut down the size of their fleet, which affected many courier industries in the United Kingdom. In extreme cases, this led to the closure of some courier companies which could not meet the demands of the industry. Therefore, the company could not be operational (Monaghan 1998). Many others were forced to downsize their workforce, and this affected their capability. This has forced managers to take appropriate actions to make sure their industries maintain a competitive edge over their competitors. Many courier industries in the United Kingdom operate in o ver 200 countries around the globe. Each country has a different business atmosphere with because of the territorial difference in terms of regulations and rules. Each and every country has different barriers when it comes to new entrants (MSI 2000). For instance, china has extraordinarily high barriers to new entrants compared to countries like Kuwait and Sri-lanka which have low barriers. When it comes to foreign direct investments, many countries have different