Attention Deficit Disorder Essays - Psychiatry,

Attention Deficit Disorder Attention Deficit Disorder Five year old Danny is in kindergarten. It is playtime and he hops from chair to chair, swinging his arms and legs restlessly, and then begins to fiddle with the light switches, turning the lights on and off again to everyone's annoyance--all the while talking nonstop. When his teacher encourages him to join a group of other children busy in the playroom, Danny interrupts a game that was already in progress and takes over, causing the other children to complain of his bossiness and drift away to other activities. Even when Danny has the toys to himself, he fidgets aimlessly with them and seems unable to entertain himself quietly. To many, this may seem like a problem; and it is. Danny most likely suffers from what is called Attention Deficit Disorder. Recent controversy has erupted as to whether Attention Deficit Disorder in fact deserves the title of disorder. Some people, like Thomas Armstrong, a psychologist and educator, believe Attention Deficit Disorder is merely a myth; ...a dumping ground for a heterogeneous group of kids who are hyperactive or inattentive for a number of reasons including underlying anxiety, depression, and stresses in their families, schools , and in our culture. (Armstrong 15) However, he and those who question the validity of Attention Deficit Disorder are mistaken. Attention Deficit Disorder is in fact a disorder because it is recognized as such in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition), it is treatable through prescription medication and therapy and if left untreated inhibits one from functioning properly in society. Before delving into the ways in which Attention Deficit Disorder matches the criteria established for what a disorder is, it is important to first understand the disorder and have some background information on it. The symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD for short) exist on a continuum. Everybody has some of these symptoms some of the time. However, individuals with ADD have more of these symptoms more of the time and to the point that it interferes with their ability to function normally in academics, work and social settings, and to reach their potential. People with ADD are often noted for their inconsistencies. One day they can do it, and the next they cannot. They can have difficulty remembering simple things yet have steel trap memories for complex issues. To avoid disappointment, frustration, and discouragement, do not expect their highest level of competence to be the standard. It is an unrealistic expectation of a person with ADD. What is normal is that they will be inconsistent. Typically, they have problems with following through on instructions, paying attention appropriately to what they need to attend to, seem not to listen, be disorganized, have poor handwriting, miss details, have trouble starting tasks or with tasks that require planning or long-term effort, appear to be easily distracted, or forgetful. In addition, some people with ADD can be fidgety, verbally impulsive, unable to wait their turn, and act on impulse regardless of consequences. However, it is important to remember -- not all people with ADD have all of these difficulties, nor all of the time. Due to the fact that society has traditionally thought of a person with ADD as being hyper, many children who have ADD with no hyperactivity are not being identified or treated. Individuals with ADD without hyperactivity are sometimes thought of as day-dreamers or absent-minded professors. The non-hyperactive children with ADD most often seem to be girls (though girls can have ADD with hyperactivity, and boys can have ADD without hyperactivity). Additionally, because of the ability of an individual with ADD to over-focus, or hyper-focus on something that is of great interest or highly stimulating, many untrained observers assume that this ability to concentrate negates the possibility of ADD being a concern, especially when they see children able to pay attention while working one-on-one with someone, doing something they enjoy, or who can sit and play an electronic game or watch TV for hours on end. ADD is not a learning disability. Although ADD obviously affects the performance of a person in a school setting, it will also affect other domains of life, which can

Plastics essays

Plastics essays In this laboratory there will be a few things tested, and experimentally concluded. There will be a determination of the process window for a specific material/mold/machine combination from data collected from flow simulation software. The material that was used was a Bayer USA ABS. Also, to determine the process window using, mold-area and in-mold rheology diagrams. In test one, the part that was tested using the flow simulation software was drawn in solidworks, and there was a brief overview of moldflow. Test two involved the solidworks part being imported into mold flow and 25 analyses run. The Molding Area Diagram showed that the machine being used would be able to mold all of the parts, achieving the proper temperatures and pressures. Inside the mold area diagram is the optimum processing conditions. All of the points on the graph were feasible on the machine that was being used. The second diagram was the in-mold Rheology diagram which allows one to gauge where the viscosity was the most stable. With this graph, one is able to determine the optimum operating temperature, injection velocity, and melt viscosity. This experiment involved the use of both solidworks and moldflow. Solidworks was used to make the part that was going to be tested. Using line drawings solidworks was able to render a 3-D part. Figure one has a dimensioned drawing of the part including the runner and sprue. Figure One: Dimensioned Part for moldflow. Moldflow version 4.0 was used to run melt flow tests, on the filling portion of the injection process. There were two parameters adjusted, the melt temperature and the injection velocity. At each of the temperatures 200, 210, 220, 230, and 240C five different injection velocities were tested ranging from 1.27 to 6.35 cm/s. At each of the twenty-five tests several parameters were measured including: crossover pressure, location and value of m ...

Analyze a film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analyze a film - Essay Example The education has led to the exclusion of the brothers from the rest of society. Moreover, the community is also shown to be united and caring. The unity is seen in contribution for support of Delbert trial(Berlinger and Sinofsky 1). The community also is seen as caring as one of the neighbors agrees to drive Delbert home to know the sate of his brother (Berlinger and Sinofsky 1). The film creates various perceptions on people. As a result, people are described based on that perception. An example of identity scripts is the depiction of brothers as poor. The brothers are shown living in poor housing conditions (Berlinger and Sinofsky 1). The reflected appraisal is seen as people view the brothers as being dirty and hence unable to have girlfriends. On the other hand, the lack of girlfriends make society views the brothers as practicing incest. Social comparison is seen through lives of the community. The brothers are depicted as less fortunate and hence attract ridicule of the community. On the other hand, the other part of community is depicted as being fortunate in life. The definitions affect identities of individuals involved as perception about them is based on their conditions (Berlinger and Sinofsky 1). In the film, there is a view that lack of relationship in all the brothers is an indication they are gay. As a result, the semen found on William is believed to be because of sexual interaction with the brother (Berlinger and Sinofsky 1). The brothers are affected by this generalization as they go through the rigorous process of trial. On the other hand, the community is affected by trial, as it is perceived to have neglected the brothers. There are variations of the perspectives in the documentary. One of the Views is the local community view that the brothers are wrongly accused (Berlinger and Sinofsky 1). On the other hand, the outsiders see the death as resulting from intimacy. The locals base their

Women in the World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Women in the World - Essay Example The paper also looks at the reasons for the different kinds of oppression faced by women. Basically, in every field where man and women interact, discrimination can be seen in one form or another. This paper tries to bring out the nature of oppression against women, not only in America, but also across the world and across the various religions. It also brings to attention the female oppression in the fields of politics, science and technology. The paper ends in a positive note hoping for the creation of a new horizon for women across the world. Keywords: Women, Discrimination: The fact that discrimination against women still exists in most countries across the globe, is a blemish to humanity. The discrimination â€Å"ranges from tacit male dominance in religion and philosophies to the brutal male oppression, for instance Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) that is still carried out in some communities†(Female Oppression 2008:1). ... After much struggle and strong opposition from the women community and other social organizations, the system of Apartheid is eliminated from Africa. But women in Africa still suffer cruel discrimination.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Poverty and illiteracy of Africa are other major reasons for the unequal treatment of women. South Africa reports the world’s highest number of rape cases, which is about half a million each year. Ironically, the actual number of rape incidents is much larger than the official reports. Even among the many reported cases, only a few receive justice from the court of law. According to a study done on the rape cases in Africa, about 69% of the 394 rape cases that were reported, only 17 cases fetched justice. This is really a pathetic situation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Genital mutilation in Africa is greater than any other continent in the world. The four type of Genital mutilation as per the WHO classifications are practiced in Africa. On the basis of a study about 60% of African women are circumcised. Africa is not only the part of the world where discrimination occurs on such a rampant scale. It is a surprising fact that discrimination against women occurs not only in underdeveloped countries, but also in developed countries like America.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Even in the modern world of technology, the traditional roles of women and men are not still revolutionized. Men are still seen as the breadwinners and women as the homemakers. Even though career oriented women and domestic centered men are present in the modern world, the inequality in the opportunities that both the genders share is still great. There is a wide gap between the positions of men and women in the technically perfect

Increased gas prices in the US compared to the Middle East Essay

Increased gas prices in the US compared to the Middle East - Essay Example The high prices are mainly caused by the supply and demand factor. The demand for crude oil has immensely increased which directly affects the gasoline prices at pumps of USA. The supply has not been increased in that proportion. The consumption of gasoline in developing countries like China and India has been significant as the automobile industry is skyrocketing in these countries. The gasoline consumption in USA is about one quarter of the world’s total production. However supply and demand is not only the factor but the additional cost which includes taxes, cost of refining crude oil, transportation cost, and the profit to the gasoline dealer is also the reason and contributes about increasing the cost less half then cost of gasoline in United States. Rising gas prices is a matter of concern for the USA car manufacturing companies. It is expected that the use of Subways will be increased in the future. This may result in weakening the USA economy as car manufacturers are one of major stakeholders. Last but the most important factor is recent unrest in the Arab World. Although the countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan are not the major crude oil producers but they play significant role in determining the world oil prices. President Obama has put aside the interest shown by some Companies willing to explore oil in Alaska and other areas. The aim of these people was only to increase the domestic exploration. This action of him has resulted in complete shutting down of the present oil drilling infrastructure in USA. It is reported that about 103 permits are in waiting list for review. But the Obama administration has not renewed any single exploratory drilling plan in the Gulf of Mexico. Moreover Obama administration has also put â€Å"7 year ban† on the oil exploration in the coastal waters in Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. According to the experts

Weak Form Efficient Market Hypothesis For Emerging Markets

Weak Form Efficient Market Hypothesis For Emerging Markets Literature Review The issue of market efficiency in emerging markets is of great significance for both foreign investors and policy makers in emerging economies. This project devotes large efforts to produce a thorough and in-depth literature review for this area. This topic is to be investigated from these aspects: theoretical foundation, methodologies of tests and empirical results. Firstly, traditional efficient market hypothesis (Fama, 1970; Makiel, 1973) and behavior finance theories developed in recent decades (Barbris, 1998; Shleifer, 2000) have formed two main schools of thought for the issue of market efficiency. Secondly, the evolution for a series of methodologies is important for testing market efficiency. Thirdly, the empirical evidence is reviewed by consideration three major factors: trade volume and non-linear behavior, structural breaks and market evolution through time. Finally, it also reflects some important policy implications for emerging markets. Many empirical studies have been widely carried to investigate the weak-form efficient market hypothesis for emerging markets, and the results are mixed. Generally, most of emerging markets are found to be inefficient. But for some countries, such as Istanbul, Egypt and Jordan, after correcting for institutional characteristics and trading conditions, such as thin trading and the presence of non-linearity, equity markets are found to be efficient. When structure break factors are taken into account, market efficiency is powerfully rejected for countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Greece and India. There is also evidence showing that initially emerging markets are inefficient, but over time they are moving toward to be more efficient, such as in Estonian, Lithuanian and Russia duo to economic liberalization policies. These results reflect some important policy implications. Infrequent trading and illiquidity of capital markets negatively affects market efficiency, so economic policy makers should devote efforts to minimize the institutional restriction and barriers on capital flow in the financial markets and to impose strict disclosure requirements, so that investors can easily access to high quality and reliable information. Improving liquidity of capital markets can provide lower borrowing costs for investors and greater opportunities for investment diversification with lower systematic risks. In addition, equity market liberalization is important to help achieving market development. It can reduce cost of capital and increase capital productivity with better capital allocation. Introduction: Due to the increasing globalization of financial markets, fast economic growth and adoption of financial liberalization policies for equity markets in emerging economies, it is widely indicated that equity investment in emerging economies can provide superior returns. Past decades have witnessed spectacular growth in both size and relative importance of emerging equity markets. The market capitalization of emerging market economies accounts for twelve percent of world market capitalization and has more than doubled, growing from less than $2 trillion in 1995 to $5 trillion in 2006 (Nally, 2010). By 2015, it is estimated that the combined GDP of emerging-market economies will surpass that of the top 20 developed economies (ibid). In addition, emerging market returns are weakly correlated with returns in developed markets, so international diversification with these emerging equities can give lower portfolio risks (Levy Sarnat, 1970). The potential high rates of returns and diversific ation benefits has attracted large number of foreign fund investors, so the investigation on whether emerging markets function efficiently is significantly important. By knowing degree of market efficiency, economy policy makers and regulators can gain insights to develop right institutional and regulatory frameworks to allocate scare resources efficiently, form favourable investment condition and obtain further economic growth. Therefore, this essay is going to investigate the weak-form market efficiency in emerging markets. The efficient market hypothesis by Fama (1970), Random Walk module by Makiel (1973) and behaviour finance theories are directed related to this issue and form the theoretical foundations. Section 1 will critically give the theoretical review based on the two schools of thought that are EMH and behaviour finance theories. Section 2 will give a brief review of methodologies adopted in literature review. Section 3 will give empirical review of the weak-form EMH for emerging markets. Section 4 will indicate some brief policy implications for emerging economies and section 5 is the conclusion with some directions for further research. Theoretic Review of EMH VS Behaviour Finance Efficient Market Hypothesis Fama (1970) defines an efficient financial market as one in which security prices always instantaneously and fully reflect all available information. No investors can earn expected abnormal return by analysing past known information. Market efficiency is attained by two key forces: investor rationality and arbitrage activities (Fama, 1970). EMH assumes that investors are rational and can process information correctly and efficiently. Although some investors are irrational and may overact or underact to new information, these judgement errors are independent and random, hence can cancel out each other without affecting prices (Fama, 1998). Therefore, on average, the whole market is efficient. In addition, since numerous profit-maximizing investors are competing to analyse, value and trade securities based on all available information to exploit arbitrage opportunities, on aggregate level, security prices are adjusted quickly to reflect the effect of new information (Fama, 1998). Secur ity prices are driven close to intrinsic values. Expected returns implicit in the current price of a security should reflect its underlying risk, and higher returns are earned only as compensations for bearing higher risk. There are two main modules that explain EMH: fair-game model and random walk model (RWM). The fair-game model is expressed as: Zj,t+1 =rj,t+1-E(rj,t+1à ¯Ã‚ ½Ã…“à Ã‚ ¤t), E(Zj,t+1à ¯Ã‚ ½Ã…“à Ã‚ ¤t)=0 (Copeland, Weston Shastri, 2005). Information in à Ã‚ ¤t is fully utilized to determine equilibrium expected returns. On average, the expected return on an asset E(rj,t+1à ¯Ã‚ ½Ã…“à Ã‚ ¤t) equals its actual return (rj,t+1), so that no expected abnormal return can be gained from past information. RWM gives much stronger condition for EMH. It assumes that successive price changes have a same normal distribution and are independent. Its logic is that because new information is unpredictable and reaches market randomly, so under EMH, the resulting security price changes must be also unpredictable and random (Malkiel, 1973; Malkiel, 2003). No profit can be made from past information. There are three sub-hypotheses of EMH depending on the level of available information set (Fa ma, 1991). Firstly, market is weak-form efficient when prices reflect all security market information such as historical prices. Secondly, market is semistrong-form efficient when prices reflect all public information such as corporate news and financial statements. Thirdly, market is strong-form efficient when prices reflect all public and private information. Behaviour Finance Theories Figure1: Conceptual Framework of Behaviour Finance Source: Shleifer (2000) However, behaviour finance challenges EMH because it argues that psychological biases lead to investor irrationality and limits to arbitrage impede exploitation of mispricing opportunities (Shleifer, 2002). Psychological bias results into systematic overreaction or underreacion among investors. Many behaviour finance theories have been successfully developed to explain some market anomalies. Conservatism biases lead people adjust slowly to new information and hence the underreaction to new information leads to short-run momentum, while representativeness heuristic makes investors believe that past good stock performance will continue and people overreact to information (Barberis, Shleifer Vishny, 1998). Additionally, overconfidence causes investors to overestimate the precision of their own analyses and to neglect public signals (Daniel, Hirshleifer Subrahmanyam, 1998). Under positive (negative) private signal (which is shown in following graph), informed investors overreact and se curity is overpriced (underpriced). When public information becomes available, biased self-attribution causes security to be even more overpriced (underpriced). Eventually, public information proves initial investment judgement is wrong, so price is driven back to intrinsic value (Daniel et al, 1998). It explains that overconfidence leads to short-run return momentum and price correction leads to long-run return reversal. Figure 2: Overconfidence and Self-attributed bias Source: Daniel, Hirshleifer Subrahmanyam (1998) Moreover, classification is a human natural instinct to process information (Barberis Shleifer, 2003). Investors naturally classify stocks by styles, so styles returns are highly positive correlated. There are two kinds of investors: style switchers and fundamental traders. Style switchers are unsophisticated investors and chase investment styles based on past relative stock performance. When there is good news about stock X (shown following graph), they will drain funds away from less attractive style Y. It will push up stock Xs price, even higher than its intrinsic value, but further reduce stock Ys price. However, fundamental traders recognize stock Y is underpriced (Barberis et al, 2003). They arbitrage away mispricing opportunities and drive overpriced stocks back toward intrinsic value. Figure 3: Switchers and Fundamental Traders Source: Barberis Shleifer, (2003) On the other hand, limits to arbitrage may obstruct information to be impounded into prices, duo to the fundamental risk and implementation costs. Noise trader risk would prevent rational investors from arbitraging (Delong, Summer Waldmann, 1990). Pessimistic noise trader drive price below intrinsic value, arbitrageurs can buy the asset, but bear risk of further deviation from the intrinsic value when noise traders become even more pessimistic and price goes down even further (Delong et al, 1990). Arbitrageurs usually have short horizon and must liquidate before price recovers, so they will incur loss. The agency problems between professionals and investors also affect arbitrage (Shleifer Vishny, 1997), so not all mispricing would be arbitraged away to lead market become efficient. However, Fama (1998) argues that behaviour finance theories do well only on the anomalies they are specially designed to explain and cannot be generalized to the entire market. Rubinstein (2001) also argues that investor overconfidence would make market à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“hyper-rationalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Methodologies Adopted to Test the Weak-form EMH Empirical researches on testing weak-form EMH can be divided into three broad categories. Firstly, they tests security return independence. If time-series pattern of security returns shows insignificant (significant) autocorrelations, then weak-form EMH holds (is rejected) (Copeland, Weston Shastri, 2005). Secondly, they test return momentum effect. If portfolio of stocks with higher returns in the short past continues to earn higher abnormal returns in the subsequent short term, then short-run past returns contain information that could predict future returns, so EMH will not hold (Copeland et al, 2005). Thirdly, they test technical trading rules. If no trading rules that consistently derive abnormal profits can be found, then weak-form EMH holds. A series of research methodologies have been developed to exam the EMH. The runs test is non-parametric, which is used to determine whether successive prices changes are independent. Unit root tests involve three different methods to test the null hypothesis of a unit root: the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test (1979), the Phillips-Peron (PP) test (1988) and the Kwiatkowski, Phillioh, Achmidt and Shin (KPSS) test (1992). Multiple variance ratio (MVR) tests are adopted to detect autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity in returns (Chow Denning, 1993). Empirical Results of Weak-form EMH for Emerging Markets The research results for testing weak-form efficiency on the emerging markets are mixed. World Bank study reports significant market inefficiency for 19 emerging equity markets (Claessens, Dasgupta Glen, 1995). Latin American emerging markets of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico are weak-form EMH (Urrutia, 1995), but under the variance ratio test, RWH is rejected (Ojah Karemera, 1999). Under ADF test, EMH is also generally supported for six Latin American stock markets (Choundhry, 1997). For the emerging markets in Asia, major Asian markets are weak-form inefficient, such as Korea and Taiwan (Cheung, Wong Ho, 1993), Singpore and Thiland (Huang, 1995), but some find it is efficient for Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan (Chan, Gup Pan, 1992). When the observed index levels are used, both RWH and EMH are rejected for three equity markets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain after adjusting for infrequent trading , but when the corrected true indices are used, RWH is accepted (Abraha m et al, 2002). RWH is rejected in five Middle Eastern emerging markets, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey (Omran and Farrar, 2001). Weak-form efficiency is rejected for Saudi and Palestinian financial market and inefficiency might be due to delay in operations and high transaction cost, thinness of trading and illiquidity in the market (Nourredine Kababa, 1998; Award Daraghma, 2009). Many researches find that emerging markets are becoming more efficient due to the liberalization policies. Istanbul stock exchange was inefficient in the early times but it becomes more efficient as the country started liberalization and deregulation (Antonios, Ergul Holmes, 1997). 4.1 Thin Trading and Non-linearity It is argued that such mixed evidences of the weak-form EMH in emerging markets are only reliable if the methodologies adopted take accounts for the institutional characteristics and trading conditions of the markets, such as thin trading and the presence of non-linearity (Antoniou, Ergul Holmes, 1997). Ignoring these factors may lead to statistical illusions regarding efficiency. The conventional tests of efficiency based on linear model have been developed to test markets with high levels of liquidity, sophisticated investors with access to reliable information and few institutional impediments (Antoniou, Ergul Holmes, 1997). Therefore they are not suitable for testing EMH for emerging markets with characteristics of thin trading, low liquidity and less well informed investors with access to unreliable information. Thin trading will bring serious serial correlation (Fisher, 1996), so the observed dependence does not necessarily represent serial correlation among securities return s. In addition, prices responds to information in a non-linear behavior especially during the early development stages of emerging markets (Schatzberg Reiber, 1992), so if the return generating process is non-linear but a linear model is used to test efficiency, then EMH may be wrongly accepted. This is because non-linear systems such as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“chaoticà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? ones look very similar to a random walk (Savit, 1988). However, the conventional tests cannot recognize this problem. There are several reasons for the existence of non-linear reaction of price to information in emerging markets. Transaction costs are high, information is relatively not reliable and market is illiquid or there are restrictions on trading (Stoll Whaley, 1990). As a result, investors do not always respond instantaneously to the information, which contradicts the assumptions of investor rationality and linear response of price. Scheinkman and LeBaron (1989) and Peters (1991) also empirically support th e non-linearity of stock returns. A number of studies have researched the impact of thin trading (Fisher, 1966; Dimson, 1979; Cohen, 1978; Lo Mackinlay, 1990). Many empirical studies also have taken account of the non-linearity in price series and remove the impact of thin trading by the AR (1) model proposed by Miller (1994). Antoniou, Ergul and Holmes (1997) find that there is apparent predictability of stock returns for Istanbul stock market, but after considering the impact of thin trading, the random walk hypothesis is accepted and the market is informationally efficient for 1990 onwards. Abuzarour (2005) examines the effect of non-trading on market efficiency for three emerging Arabian equity markets: Jordan, Egypt and Palestine using the variance ratio test and the run test during the period of 1992 and 2004. Both random walk hypothesis and weak form efficiency are rejected when the observed index levels are used. However, when the indices are corrected by the Miller, Muthuswamy and Whaley methodologies (1994 ) to take account for thin trading, weak-form EMH is accepted for Egypt and Jordan stock market but it is still rejected for Palestine. All these empirical researches suggest that markets become more efficient when trading volume is high, information is much reliable and institutional frameworks are appropriate. 4.2 Structural Breaks Research on efficiency for emerging markets should not only take account for institutional characteristics and trading conditions, but also should take account for the structural breaks in the underlying series that arise from the liberalization. Ignoring structural breaks can lead to wrong inference that these indices are following random walks. Many emerging countries are liberalizing their financial markets with various degrees (IFC, 1997) and such structure changes would have affected their equity markets (Bekaert et al, 2002; Henry 2000). For instance, huge shocks occurred for equity index level for Greece, Malaysia and Philippines in late 1980s and early 1990s, which are around the same year of their market liberalization. As Perron (1989) have demonstrated that traditional standard tests for RWH in stock prices have low power against the alternative hypothesis in small samples, and the problem is especially serious when structural changes are involved. Thus failure to consider these breaking points may wrongly support the RWH. Therefore, many empirical researches try to incorporate the structural breaks factor by more powerful test methods, such as the Zivot- Andrew sequential test (Zivot Andrew, 1992). Chaudhuri and Wu (2001) adopt both the standard ADF test and Zivot- Andrew sequential method to test the EMH in seventeen emerging markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Greece, India, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. Results for the ADF test without breaks to each series tend to show non-rejection of the RWH. However, results for the Zivot- Andrew test with structural breaks show that RWH can be powerfully rejected at the one percent significant level in ten markets: Argentina, Brazil, Greece, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Taiwan and Zimbabwe (Chaudhuri Wu, 2001). 4.3 Market Evolution Although structural breaks have been taken into account in many researches, it is argued that standard techniques are still not fit to test the weak-form EHM for emerging market, because they are not able to evaluate the evolving efficiency in emerging markets. It is also argued that methods such as a time varying parameter model and Kalman Filter technique not only can indicate the movement of stock returns from inefficiency to efficiency, but also can measure the timing of the movement towards full efficiency(Rockinger Urga, 2000; Zalewska-Mitura Hall, 1999). It is generally agreed that emerging markets are evolving from inefficiency to efficiency with the higher disclosure degree of firm practices, high trading volume and lower institutional barriers to trade (Cornelius, 1994). According to Laurence (1986), the methods of OLS or GMM test market efficiency over the whole period and hardly capture the tendency towards efficiency, so under these methods, early inefficiency would wr ongly lead to the conclusion that there are profit opportunities based on the past asset price movement. In addition, the variance of the error process in the conventional test models is not constant over time, so if this changing variance structure is omitted and has a serial correlation property, then market efficiency would be incorrectly rejected (Hall Urga, G2002). Hall and Urga (2002) deal with these problems by using the Kalman Filter and combing the time varying parameter model with a standard GARCH-M model (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity in mean). They apply this procedure to the two indexes of Russian stock market from 1995 to 2000. And find that with regard to RTS index (Russian Trading System), the market is initially inefficient and it takes about two and a half years to become efficient, while for the ASPGEN Index (Skate Press Agency General), the market is still predictable. There is evidence of a tendency towards being efficient. Kvedaras and Basdevant (2002) also investigate the market efficiency in the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by using the time-varying variance ratio statistic robust to heteroscedasticity based on time-varying autocorrelations. They find a clear trajectory to weak-form efficiency in the Estonian and Lithuanian capital markets. Its relatively small inefficiency ca n be explained by transaction costs and information acquiring costs (Grossman and Stiglitz, 1980). In the Latvian market, it is inefficient even at the very end of the analyzed period. Policy Implications These results have some important implications for developing effective institutional and regulatory frameworks. Since infrequent trading negatively affects market efficiency and liquidity in emerging markets, economic policy makers should pay attention to minimize the institutional restriction and barriers on capital flow in the financial markets, impose strict disclosure requirements and ensure that investors can easily access to high quality and reliable information. Improving liquidity of capital markets can provide lower borrowing costs for investors and greater opportunities for investment diversification with lower systematic risks. In addition, equity market liberalization is important to help achieving market development. It can reduce cost of capital and increase capital productivity with better capital allocation. Conclusion 6.1 Short Summary In conclusion, as two main schools of thought in modern financial theories, there is a hot debate between efficient market hypothesis and behaviour finance. EMH asserts that financial markets are informationally efficient and equity stock prices instantaneously and fully reflect all known information. While behaviour finance argues that psychological biases lead to investor irrationality and limits to arbitrage impede exploitation of mispricing opportunities, so market is not efficient. There are wide empirical researches on the issue of market efficiency in emerging markets with mixed results. It is generally found that most of emerging markets are still inefficient, but after correcting for institutional characteristics and trading conditions, such as thin trading and the presence of non-linearity, some researches find that equity markets are efficient for some countries such as for Istanbul, Egypt and Jordan. When structure break factors are taken into account, market efficiency i s powerfully rejected for most emerging countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Greece and India. There are also some evidence shows that duo to economic liberalization policies, many emerging markets are moving towards more efficiency such as Estonian, Lithuanian and Russia. 6.2 Limitations of Empirical Researches and Proposed Further Research However, there are some limitations involved in these empirical researches. Some researches ignore whether the distribution is normal or not. Others using equally weighted indices may bias the results. The possible auto-correlation might be due to the noise traders but doesnt imply return predictability (Cuthberston, 1996). Most of these studies focus on the test of time series of equity return to investigate EMH, but don not investigate the momentum effect or the profitability of technical trading to earn abnormal return. Therefore, further research can be extended in several dimensions. Firstly, it suggests trying to combine the tests of momentum effect or technical trading rules with the time series tests to make more robust conclusions. Secondly, since most of researches focus on traditional EMH, it can consider the factors of investor behaviour, such as psychologies bias and limits to arbitrage to do further in-depth testing of EMH. Finally, further researches for more novel and accurate methodologies of testing EMH are significantly essential. Weak Form Efficient Market Hypothesis For Emerging Markets Weak Form Efficient Market Hypothesis For Emerging Markets Literature Review The issue of market efficiency in emerging markets is of great significance for both foreign investors and policy makers in emerging economies. This project devotes large efforts to produce a thorough and in-depth literature review for this area. This topic is to be investigated from these aspects: theoretical foundation, methodologies of tests and empirical results. Firstly, traditional efficient market hypothesis (Fama, 1970; Makiel, 1973) and behavior finance theories developed in recent decades (Barbris, 1998; Shleifer, 2000) have formed two main schools of thought for the issue of market efficiency. Secondly, the evolution for a series of methodologies is important for testing market efficiency. Thirdly, the empirical evidence is reviewed by consideration three major factors: trade volume and non-linear behavior, structural breaks and market evolution through time. Finally, it also reflects some important policy implications for emerging markets. Many empirical studies have been widely carried to investigate the weak-form efficient market hypothesis for emerging markets, and the results are mixed. Generally, most of emerging markets are found to be inefficient. But for some countries, such as Istanbul, Egypt and Jordan, after correcting for institutional characteristics and trading conditions, such as thin trading and the presence of non-linearity, equity markets are found to be efficient. When structure break factors are taken into account, market efficiency is powerfully rejected for countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Greece and India. There is also evidence showing that initially emerging markets are inefficient, but over time they are moving toward to be more efficient, such as in Estonian, Lithuanian and Russia duo to economic liberalization policies. These results reflect some important policy implications. Infrequent trading and illiquidity of capital markets negatively affects market efficiency, so economic policy makers should devote efforts to minimize the institutional restriction and barriers on capital flow in the financial markets and to impose strict disclosure requirements, so that investors can easily access to high quality and reliable information. Improving liquidity of capital markets can provide lower borrowing costs for investors and greater opportunities for investment diversification with lower systematic risks. In addition, equity market liberalization is important to help achieving market development. It can reduce cost of capital and increase capital productivity with better capital allocation. Introduction: Due to the increasing globalization of financial markets, fast economic growth and adoption of financial liberalization policies for equity markets in emerging economies, it is widely indicated that equity investment in emerging economies can provide superior returns. Past decades have witnessed spectacular growth in both size and relative importance of emerging equity markets. The market capitalization of emerging market economies accounts for twelve percent of world market capitalization and has more than doubled, growing from less than $2 trillion in 1995 to $5 trillion in 2006 (Nally, 2010). By 2015, it is estimated that the combined GDP of emerging-market economies will surpass that of the top 20 developed economies (ibid). In addition, emerging market returns are weakly correlated with returns in developed markets, so international diversification with these emerging equities can give lower portfolio risks (Levy Sarnat, 1970). The potential high rates of returns and diversific ation benefits has attracted large number of foreign fund investors, so the investigation on whether emerging markets function efficiently is significantly important. By knowing degree of market efficiency, economy policy makers and regulators can gain insights to develop right institutional and regulatory frameworks to allocate scare resources efficiently, form favourable investment condition and obtain further economic growth. Therefore, this essay is going to investigate the weak-form market efficiency in emerging markets. The efficient market hypothesis by Fama (1970), Random Walk module by Makiel (1973) and behaviour finance theories are directed related to this issue and form the theoretical foundations. Section 1 will critically give the theoretical review based on the two schools of thought that are EMH and behaviour finance theories. Section 2 will give a brief review of methodologies adopted in literature review. Section 3 will give empirical review of the weak-form EMH for emerging markets. Section 4 will indicate some brief policy implications for emerging economies and section 5 is the conclusion with some directions for further research. Theoretic Review of EMH VS Behaviour Finance Efficient Market Hypothesis Fama (1970) defines an efficient financial market as one in which security prices always instantaneously and fully reflect all available information. No investors can earn expected abnormal return by analysing past known information. Market efficiency is attained by two key forces: investor rationality and arbitrage activities (Fama, 1970). EMH assumes that investors are rational and can process information correctly and efficiently. Although some investors are irrational and may overact or underact to new information, these judgement errors are independent and random, hence can cancel out each other without affecting prices (Fama, 1998). Therefore, on average, the whole market is efficient. In addition, since numerous profit-maximizing investors are competing to analyse, value and trade securities based on all available information to exploit arbitrage opportunities, on aggregate level, security prices are adjusted quickly to reflect the effect of new information (Fama, 1998). Secur ity prices are driven close to intrinsic values. Expected returns implicit in the current price of a security should reflect its underlying risk, and higher returns are earned only as compensations for bearing higher risk. There are two main modules that explain EMH: fair-game model and random walk model (RWM). The fair-game model is expressed as: Zj,t+1 =rj,t+1-E(rj,t+1à ¯Ã‚ ½Ã…“à Ã‚ ¤t), E(Zj,t+1à ¯Ã‚ ½Ã…“à Ã‚ ¤t)=0 (Copeland, Weston Shastri, 2005). Information in à Ã‚ ¤t is fully utilized to determine equilibrium expected returns. On average, the expected return on an asset E(rj,t+1à ¯Ã‚ ½Ã…“à Ã‚ ¤t) equals its actual return (rj,t+1), so that no expected abnormal return can be gained from past information. RWM gives much stronger condition for EMH. It assumes that successive price changes have a same normal distribution and are independent. Its logic is that because new information is unpredictable and reaches market randomly, so under EMH, the resulting security price changes must be also unpredictable and random (Malkiel, 1973; Malkiel, 2003). No profit can be made from past information. There are three sub-hypotheses of EMH depending on the level of available information set (Fa ma, 1991). Firstly, market is weak-form efficient when prices reflect all security market information such as historical prices. Secondly, market is semistrong-form efficient when prices reflect all public information such as corporate news and financial statements. Thirdly, market is strong-form efficient when prices reflect all public and private information. Behaviour Finance Theories Figure1: Conceptual Framework of Behaviour Finance Source: Shleifer (2000) However, behaviour finance challenges EMH because it argues that psychological biases lead to investor irrationality and limits to arbitrage impede exploitation of mispricing opportunities (Shleifer, 2002). Psychological bias results into systematic overreaction or underreacion among investors. Many behaviour finance theories have been successfully developed to explain some market anomalies. Conservatism biases lead people adjust slowly to new information and hence the underreaction to new information leads to short-run momentum, while representativeness heuristic makes investors believe that past good stock performance will continue and people overreact to information (Barberis, Shleifer Vishny, 1998). Additionally, overconfidence causes investors to overestimate the precision of their own analyses and to neglect public signals (Daniel, Hirshleifer Subrahmanyam, 1998). Under positive (negative) private signal (which is shown in following graph), informed investors overreact and se curity is overpriced (underpriced). When public information becomes available, biased self-attribution causes security to be even more overpriced (underpriced). Eventually, public information proves initial investment judgement is wrong, so price is driven back to intrinsic value (Daniel et al, 1998). It explains that overconfidence leads to short-run return momentum and price correction leads to long-run return reversal. Figure 2: Overconfidence and Self-attributed bias Source: Daniel, Hirshleifer Subrahmanyam (1998) Moreover, classification is a human natural instinct to process information (Barberis Shleifer, 2003). Investors naturally classify stocks by styles, so styles returns are highly positive correlated. There are two kinds of investors: style switchers and fundamental traders. Style switchers are unsophisticated investors and chase investment styles based on past relative stock performance. When there is good news about stock X (shown following graph), they will drain funds away from less attractive style Y. It will push up stock Xs price, even higher than its intrinsic value, but further reduce stock Ys price. However, fundamental traders recognize stock Y is underpriced (Barberis et al, 2003). They arbitrage away mispricing opportunities and drive overpriced stocks back toward intrinsic value. Figure 3: Switchers and Fundamental Traders Source: Barberis Shleifer, (2003) On the other hand, limits to arbitrage may obstruct information to be impounded into prices, duo to the fundamental risk and implementation costs. Noise trader risk would prevent rational investors from arbitraging (Delong, Summer Waldmann, 1990). Pessimistic noise trader drive price below intrinsic value, arbitrageurs can buy the asset, but bear risk of further deviation from the intrinsic value when noise traders become even more pessimistic and price goes down even further (Delong et al, 1990). Arbitrageurs usually have short horizon and must liquidate before price recovers, so they will incur loss. The agency problems between professionals and investors also affect arbitrage (Shleifer Vishny, 1997), so not all mispricing would be arbitraged away to lead market become efficient. However, Fama (1998) argues that behaviour finance theories do well only on the anomalies they are specially designed to explain and cannot be generalized to the entire market. Rubinstein (2001) also argues that investor overconfidence would make market à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“hyper-rationalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Methodologies Adopted to Test the Weak-form EMH Empirical researches on testing weak-form EMH can be divided into three broad categories. Firstly, they tests security return independence. If time-series pattern of security returns shows insignificant (significant) autocorrelations, then weak-form EMH holds (is rejected) (Copeland, Weston Shastri, 2005). Secondly, they test return momentum effect. If portfolio of stocks with higher returns in the short past continues to earn higher abnormal returns in the subsequent short term, then short-run past returns contain information that could predict future returns, so EMH will not hold (Copeland et al, 2005). Thirdly, they test technical trading rules. If no trading rules that consistently derive abnormal profits can be found, then weak-form EMH holds. A series of research methodologies have been developed to exam the EMH. The runs test is non-parametric, which is used to determine whether successive prices changes are independent. Unit root tests involve three different methods to test the null hypothesis of a unit root: the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test (1979), the Phillips-Peron (PP) test (1988) and the Kwiatkowski, Phillioh, Achmidt and Shin (KPSS) test (1992). Multiple variance ratio (MVR) tests are adopted to detect autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity in returns (Chow Denning, 1993). Empirical Results of Weak-form EMH for Emerging Markets The research results for testing weak-form efficiency on the emerging markets are mixed. World Bank study reports significant market inefficiency for 19 emerging equity markets (Claessens, Dasgupta Glen, 1995). Latin American emerging markets of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico are weak-form EMH (Urrutia, 1995), but under the variance ratio test, RWH is rejected (Ojah Karemera, 1999). Under ADF test, EMH is also generally supported for six Latin American stock markets (Choundhry, 1997). For the emerging markets in Asia, major Asian markets are weak-form inefficient, such as Korea and Taiwan (Cheung, Wong Ho, 1993), Singpore and Thiland (Huang, 1995), but some find it is efficient for Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan (Chan, Gup Pan, 1992). When the observed index levels are used, both RWH and EMH are rejected for three equity markets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain after adjusting for infrequent trading , but when the corrected true indices are used, RWH is accepted (Abraha m et al, 2002). RWH is rejected in five Middle Eastern emerging markets, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey (Omran and Farrar, 2001). Weak-form efficiency is rejected for Saudi and Palestinian financial market and inefficiency might be due to delay in operations and high transaction cost, thinness of trading and illiquidity in the market (Nourredine Kababa, 1998; Award Daraghma, 2009). Many researches find that emerging markets are becoming more efficient due to the liberalization policies. Istanbul stock exchange was inefficient in the early times but it becomes more efficient as the country started liberalization and deregulation (Antonios, Ergul Holmes, 1997). 4.1 Thin Trading and Non-linearity It is argued that such mixed evidences of the weak-form EMH in emerging markets are only reliable if the methodologies adopted take accounts for the institutional characteristics and trading conditions of the markets, such as thin trading and the presence of non-linearity (Antoniou, Ergul Holmes, 1997). Ignoring these factors may lead to statistical illusions regarding efficiency. The conventional tests of efficiency based on linear model have been developed to test markets with high levels of liquidity, sophisticated investors with access to reliable information and few institutional impediments (Antoniou, Ergul Holmes, 1997). Therefore they are not suitable for testing EMH for emerging markets with characteristics of thin trading, low liquidity and less well informed investors with access to unreliable information. Thin trading will bring serious serial correlation (Fisher, 1996), so the observed dependence does not necessarily represent serial correlation among securities return s. In addition, prices responds to information in a non-linear behavior especially during the early development stages of emerging markets (Schatzberg Reiber, 1992), so if the return generating process is non-linear but a linear model is used to test efficiency, then EMH may be wrongly accepted. This is because non-linear systems such as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“chaoticà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? ones look very similar to a random walk (Savit, 1988). However, the conventional tests cannot recognize this problem. There are several reasons for the existence of non-linear reaction of price to information in emerging markets. Transaction costs are high, information is relatively not reliable and market is illiquid or there are restrictions on trading (Stoll Whaley, 1990). As a result, investors do not always respond instantaneously to the information, which contradicts the assumptions of investor rationality and linear response of price. Scheinkman and LeBaron (1989) and Peters (1991) also empirically support th e non-linearity of stock returns. A number of studies have researched the impact of thin trading (Fisher, 1966; Dimson, 1979; Cohen, 1978; Lo Mackinlay, 1990). Many empirical studies also have taken account of the non-linearity in price series and remove the impact of thin trading by the AR (1) model proposed by Miller (1994). Antoniou, Ergul and Holmes (1997) find that there is apparent predictability of stock returns for Istanbul stock market, but after considering the impact of thin trading, the random walk hypothesis is accepted and the market is informationally efficient for 1990 onwards. Abuzarour (2005) examines the effect of non-trading on market efficiency for three emerging Arabian equity markets: Jordan, Egypt and Palestine using the variance ratio test and the run test during the period of 1992 and 2004. Both random walk hypothesis and weak form efficiency are rejected when the observed index levels are used. However, when the indices are corrected by the Miller, Muthuswamy and Whaley methodologies (1994 ) to take account for thin trading, weak-form EMH is accepted for Egypt and Jordan stock market but it is still rejected for Palestine. All these empirical researches suggest that markets become more efficient when trading volume is high, information is much reliable and institutional frameworks are appropriate. 4.2 Structural Breaks Research on efficiency for emerging markets should not only take account for institutional characteristics and trading conditions, but also should take account for the structural breaks in the underlying series that arise from the liberalization. Ignoring structural breaks can lead to wrong inference that these indices are following random walks. Many emerging countries are liberalizing their financial markets with various degrees (IFC, 1997) and such structure changes would have affected their equity markets (Bekaert et al, 2002; Henry 2000). For instance, huge shocks occurred for equity index level for Greece, Malaysia and Philippines in late 1980s and early 1990s, which are around the same year of their market liberalization. As Perron (1989) have demonstrated that traditional standard tests for RWH in stock prices have low power against the alternative hypothesis in small samples, and the problem is especially serious when structural changes are involved. Thus failure to consider these breaking points may wrongly support the RWH. Therefore, many empirical researches try to incorporate the structural breaks factor by more powerful test methods, such as the Zivot- Andrew sequential test (Zivot Andrew, 1992). Chaudhuri and Wu (2001) adopt both the standard ADF test and Zivot- Andrew sequential method to test the EMH in seventeen emerging markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Greece, India, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. Results for the ADF test without breaks to each series tend to show non-rejection of the RWH. However, results for the Zivot- Andrew test with structural breaks show that RWH can be powerfully rejected at the one percent significant level in ten markets: Argentina, Brazil, Greece, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Taiwan and Zimbabwe (Chaudhuri Wu, 2001). 4.3 Market Evolution Although structural breaks have been taken into account in many researches, it is argued that standard techniques are still not fit to test the weak-form EHM for emerging market, because they are not able to evaluate the evolving efficiency in emerging markets. It is also argued that methods such as a time varying parameter model and Kalman Filter technique not only can indicate the movement of stock returns from inefficiency to efficiency, but also can measure the timing of the movement towards full efficiency(Rockinger Urga, 2000; Zalewska-Mitura Hall, 1999). It is generally agreed that emerging markets are evolving from inefficiency to efficiency with the higher disclosure degree of firm practices, high trading volume and lower institutional barriers to trade (Cornelius, 1994). According to Laurence (1986), the methods of OLS or GMM test market efficiency over the whole period and hardly capture the tendency towards efficiency, so under these methods, early inefficiency would wr ongly lead to the conclusion that there are profit opportunities based on the past asset price movement. In addition, the variance of the error process in the conventional test models is not constant over time, so if this changing variance structure is omitted and has a serial correlation property, then market efficiency would be incorrectly rejected (Hall Urga, G2002). Hall and Urga (2002) deal with these problems by using the Kalman Filter and combing the time varying parameter model with a standard GARCH-M model (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity in mean). They apply this procedure to the two indexes of Russian stock market from 1995 to 2000. And find that with regard to RTS index (Russian Trading System), the market is initially inefficient and it takes about two and a half years to become efficient, while for the ASPGEN Index (Skate Press Agency General), the market is still predictable. There is evidence of a tendency towards being efficient. Kvedaras and Basdevant (2002) also investigate the market efficiency in the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by using the time-varying variance ratio statistic robust to heteroscedasticity based on time-varying autocorrelations. They find a clear trajectory to weak-form efficiency in the Estonian and Lithuanian capital markets. Its relatively small inefficiency ca n be explained by transaction costs and information acquiring costs (Grossman and Stiglitz, 1980). In the Latvian market, it is inefficient even at the very end of the analyzed period. Policy Implications These results have some important implications for developing effective institutional and regulatory frameworks. Since infrequent trading negatively affects market efficiency and liquidity in emerging markets, economic policy makers should pay attention to minimize the institutional restriction and barriers on capital flow in the financial markets, impose strict disclosure requirements and ensure that investors can easily access to high quality and reliable information. Improving liquidity of capital markets can provide lower borrowing costs for investors and greater opportunities for investment diversification with lower systematic risks. In addition, equity market liberalization is important to help achieving market development. It can reduce cost of capital and increase capital productivity with better capital allocation. Conclusion 6.1 Short Summary In conclusion, as two main schools of thought in modern financial theories, there is a hot debate between efficient market hypothesis and behaviour finance. EMH asserts that financial markets are informationally efficient and equity stock prices instantaneously and fully reflect all known information. While behaviour finance argues that psychological biases lead to investor irrationality and limits to arbitrage impede exploitation of mispricing opportunities, so market is not efficient. There are wide empirical researches on the issue of market efficiency in emerging markets with mixed results. It is generally found that most of emerging markets are still inefficient, but after correcting for institutional characteristics and trading conditions, such as thin trading and the presence of non-linearity, some researches find that equity markets are efficient for some countries such as for Istanbul, Egypt and Jordan. When structure break factors are taken into account, market efficiency i s powerfully rejected for most emerging countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Greece and India. There are also some evidence shows that duo to economic liberalization policies, many emerging markets are moving towards more efficiency such as Estonian, Lithuanian and Russia. 6.2 Limitations of Empirical Researches and Proposed Further Research However, there are some limitations involved in these empirical researches. Some researches ignore whether the distribution is normal or not. Others using equally weighted indices may bias the results. The possible auto-correlation might be due to the noise traders but doesnt imply return predictability (Cuthberston, 1996). Most of these studies focus on the test of time series of equity return to investigate EMH, but don not investigate the momentum effect or the profitability of technical trading to earn abnormal return. Therefore, further research can be extended in several dimensions. Firstly, it suggests trying to combine the tests of momentum effect or technical trading rules with the time series tests to make more robust conclusions. Secondly, since most of researches focus on traditional EMH, it can consider the factors of investor behaviour, such as psychologies bias and limits to arbitrage to do further in-depth testing of EMH. Finally, further researches for more novel and accurate methodologies of testing EMH are significantly essential.

A Diagnosis for Mr. Fix-it Essay -- Medical Research

Mr. Fix-it is a 59 year old man with a history of alcohol abuse and diabetic hypertension. Mr. Fix-it has been currently experiencing symptoms such as: rambling speech, poor short-term memory, weakness on the left side of his body, neglects both visual and auditory stimuli to his left side, difficulty with rapid visual scanning, difficulty with complex visual, perceptual and constructional tasks, unable to recall nonverbal materials, and mild articulatory problems. The diagnosis for Mr. Fix-it’s problem is most likely a right-hemisphere stroke. A right-hemisphere stroke is occurs when a blood clot blocks a vessel in the brain, or when there is a torn vessel bleeding into the brain. â€Å"A right-hemisphere stroke is common in adults who have diabetes and who are over the age of 55†, similar to Mr. Fix-it (Kluwer, 2012). In addition, Mr. Fix-it has a history of alcohol abuse in which it could have also increased his chances of experiencing a right-hemisphere stroke. The symptoms of a right-hemisphere stroke are very much similar like the symptoms Mr. Fix-it is experiencing. For example, both suggest that functions on the left side of the body are completely neglected; therefore, the left visual section of the body does not respond effectively to stimuli due to the neglect. Damage to the right occipital lobe is very likely. The patient may have experienced some damage to areas 18 and 19 of the occipital lobe. â€Å"Damage to these association areas resulted in the patient’s failure to recognize items even when they have been seen before†, such as Mr. Fix-it’s deficiency to recognize geometric shapes (Carlson, 2010). Moreover, the patient could have also experience damage in the frontal lobe, specifically on area 8, in which it could have r... ...lood pressure medication in order to keep his blood pressure in the normal state of 120/80. Other than taking medications, there is another alternative such as surgery, such as â€Å"ventriculosmy, craniotomy, and carotid endarterectomy† (Kluwer, 2012). The patient also has the option of going to a rehabilitation center where the patient may be able to receive speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. In addition, the rehabilitation center may also include â€Å"functional electrical stimulation† (Kluwer, 2012). Works Cited Carlson, N. R. (2010). Physiology of behavior. (10 ed., pp. 69-101). Boston, MA: Pearson. Hemiparesis. (2011). Retrieved February 9, 2012, from http://www.stroke.org/site/PageServer?pagename=hemiparesis Kluwer, W. (2012).Right hemispheric stroke. Retrieved February 6, 2012, from http://www.drugs.com/cg/right-hemispheric-stroke.html

Airline Marketing Plan Essay

Executive Summary 1. 0 Executive Summary Puddle Jumpers Airlines, Inc. is a new consumer airline in its formative stages. It is being organized to take advantage of a specific gap in the short-haul domestic travel market. The gap exists in low cost service out of Anytown, U. S. A. The gap in the availability of low cost service in and out of the Anytown hub coupled with the demand for passenger travel on selected routes from Anytown indicates that a new entrant airline could be expected to capture a significant portion of current air travel business at that hub. The management of Puddle Jumpers is experienced in airline start-ups. Previously management grew Private Jet Airlines from a single Boeing 727 to a fleet of 16 MD80 series aircraft. Revenues grew to $130 million in a two year period from 1992 through 1993. Our research and projections indicate that air travel to and from Anytown is sufficient to provide a new carrier with revenues of $110 million dollars in its first full year of operations, utilizing six aircraft and selected short-haul routes. These sales figures are based upon load factors of only 55% in year one. Second year revenues are expected to exceed $216 million dollars with additional aircraft and expanded routes. Load factors for year two are 62%. The Puddle Jumpers plan has the potential for a more rapid ramp-up than was the case with Private Jet due to the nature of the routes and the demand for travel currently in the targeted markets served. In short, the frequency of flights needed to serve Puddle Jumpers’s target market exceeds the demand that dictated Private Jet’s growth. These sales levels will produce net profit of just over $1 million in the first operational year and $21. 4 million dollars in flight year two. Profits in year one will be 1% of sales and will improve to 10% of sales with the economies gained in year two. The over-all operational long term profit target will be 16% of sales as net profit in years three, four, and five. The company’s long term plan is part of the due diligence package. The first operational year is actually fiscal year two in this plan. The first year of formative operations will burn cash until revenue can commence. This is due to the organizational and regulatory obligations of a new air carrier. Investment activity is needed to handle the expenses of this phase of the business. The following chart illustrates the over-all highlights of our business plan over the first three years. Gross Margin here is approximately 87% of sales since the only costs included in this calculation are travel agent commissions, credit card discounts, and federal excise taxes. Travel agent commissions are calculated on 30% of sales even though management feels the actual number will not exceed 10% of sales. NOTE: For display purposes in this sample plan, numerical values in tables and charts are shown in thousands (000’s). Highlights 1. 1 Objectives The Company has the following objectives: 1. To obtain required D. O. T. and F. A. A. certifications on or before March 1, 1997. 2. To commence revenue service on or before July 1, 1997. 3. To raise sufficient â€Å"seed† and â€Å"bridge† capital in a timely fashion to financially enable these objectives. 4. To commence operations with two McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 series aircraft in month one, four by end of month four, and six by end of month six. 5. To add one aircraft per month during year two for a total of 18 at year two end. 1. 2 Mission Puddle Jumpers International Airlines, Inc. has a mission to provide safe, efficient, low-cost consumer air travel service. Our service will emphasize safety as its highest priority. We will operate the newest and best maintained aircraft available. We will never skimp on maintenance in any fashion whatsoever. We will strive to operate our flights on time. We will provide friendly and courteous â€Å"no frill† service. 1. 3 Keys to Success The keys to success are: Obtaining the required governmental approvals. Securing financing. Experienced management. (Already in place). Marketing; either dealing with channel problems and barriers to entry; or solving problems with major advertising and promotion budgets. Targeted market share must be achieved even amidst expected competition. Product quality. Always with safety foremost. Services delivered on time, costs controlled, marketing budgets managed. There is a temptation to fix on growth at the expense of profits. Also, rapid growth will be curtailed in order to keep maintenance standards both strict and measurable. Cost control. The over-all cost per ASM (available seat mile) is pegged at 7. 0 cents or less in 1996 dollars. This ASM factor places Puddle Jumpers in a grouping of the lowest four in the airline industry within the short-haul market. (US Air, the dominate carrier in the Anytown market, averages 12. 0 cents per ASM by comparison). The only three airlines with lower operating costs also operate older and less reliable equipment, and even then the lowest short-haul cost in the airline industry is currently Southwest at 6. 43 cents per ASM. Company Summary 2. 0 Company Summary Puddle Jumpers International Airlines is being formed in July, 1996 as a South State Corporation. Its offices will be in Anytown, Georgia. The founder of Puddle Jumpers is Kenneth D. Smith. Mr. Smith has extensive experience in consumer aviation. His bio as well as the backgrounds of all the members of Puddle Jumpers’s management team are enclosed herein. 2. 1 Company Ownership Puddle Jumpers International Airlines, Inc. will authorize 20,000,000 shares of common stock. 1,000,000 shares are to be set aside as founder’s stock to be divided among key management personnel. It is also expected that management stock options will be made available to key management personnel after operations commence. It is expected that founders stock plus option stock will not total more than 15% of authorized shares. Initial â€Å"seed† capital is to be attracted via a convertible debenture sold by Private Placement. This round of funding will have premium conversion privileges vs. later rounds and â€Å"bridge† capital.

Standard Deviation Abstract Example

Standard Deviation Abstract Example Standard Deviation Abstract – Article Example An from an Article Involving Present Weather Anomalies under Different Climatic Conditions The paper will discuss different patterns of skewness and standard deviation of the average summer temperature of everyday and monthly was analyzed using the climate model for 3 scenarios from the fourth version of Institute of Numerical Mathematics Climate Model. There was consequence of quadrupling carbon II oxide concentrations and simulation of both the preindustrial climate and momentary climate changes from 1850 to 2100. Hot periods are experienced in the areas with high skewness of replicated preindustrial climate exceeding the expected number for the usual distribution ranging from 2 to 8. In the scenario where carbon II oxide concentrations were recorded, the standard deviation had increased and northward side of the area had shifted with optimistic skewness as compared with the case of preindustrial. Subtropical areas were found to have experienced highest increase in summer average t emperatures. Thirty percent of days were the highest average increase in temperature about 500000 meters to the northward area of highest average increase of seasonal temperature where the standard deviation of the area was increased. 0.1 % of the warmest days were the highest average increase in temperature about 500000 meters again in north where the region had increased skweness. In the simulation of the climate change for 1850-2100, the areas with increased skewness were noticed to have increased temperature during the warm days above the summer average temperature. The regions which had decreased skewness, either a small increase in temperature were noticed or there were no temperature rising at all during warm days under ephemeral global warming. The three scenarios will be elaborated further in the rest of the papers where there will be different variations of summer average temperatures in different climatic regions (Volodin & Yurova, 2013). ReferencesVolodin, E. M., & Yurov a, A. Y. (2013). Summer temperature standard deviation, skewness and strong positive temperature anomalies in the present day climate and under global warming conditions. Climate Dynamics 40(5-6), 1387-1398.

Gr6 Essay- Human activity and endangered species B Essays

Gr6 Essay- Human activity and endangered species B Essays Gr6 Essay- Human activity and endangered species By Emilia Quinlan "An endangered species is a species of wild animal or plant that is in danger of extinction through out all or a significant portion of its range" (About Education) http://endangeredspecies.about.com/od/endangeredspecies101/a/What-Does-Endangered-Mean.htm In this Essay I will be choosing two endangered species. I will choose one endangered animal and one endangered plant. The endangered animal that I will be talking about is a Cross river gorilla (gorilla gorilla dielhi). The endangered plant that I will be talking about is a Rafflesia flower (Rafflesia arnoldii). Cross River Gorilla A cross river gorilla was very hard to study until the past decade or so. Because they were thought to be extinct by many scientists. "Cross river gorillas are scattered in at least 11 groups across the lowland montane forests and rainforests of Cameroon and Nigeria, an area of 3,000 square miles, or about twice the size of Rhode island." (WWF) Physical Description: "The Cross River gorilla is a subspecies of the western gorilla." It also comes from the other subspecies, Western lowland gorilla, it has a similar skull and tooth dimensions.(WWF) Food chain; Sun - flowers - cross river gorilla - leopard Another food chain; Sun - leaves - cross river gorilla - humans Last food chain; Sun - fruit - cross river gorilla- crocodile Population: 200 to 300 individuals. (WWF) Habitats: Forest habitat(WWF) Status: Critically endangered The cross river gorilla's scientific name is Gorilla gorilla diehli .(WWF) Main Threats: Habitat loss- The cross river gorilla group, manly live in unprotected forests and face the threat of habitat loss through logging and as local people treat their habitat bad and clear the land for agriculture and cattle grazing.(WWF) Hunting- The cross river gorilla's are being hunted due to hunters moving in. (illegally) (WWF) Low reproduction- The cross river gorilla has very low reproduction due to hunters and habitat loss. This means that there is a very low population and is very hard to reproduce therefore they will become more endangered and eventually extinct. Conclusion My conclusion for the cross river gorilla is help them by leaving there habitat alone and going somewhere else to log and agriculture. Another point is to stop hunting so they can not become extinct and they can have more cross river gorillas across Africa and the world. Rafflesia flower The Rafflesia flower does not have leaves, a steam, a root and is the biggest flower on earth. It is very rare and critically endangered. It is indeed the most magnificent and largest flower in the world. It was discovered in 1818 by Sir Stamford Raffles and "was mostly named after him self and his companion, surgeon-naturalist Dr James Arnold."( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) " Raflesia ." Rafflesia , The World's Largest Bloom, www.rafflesiaflower.com/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017. (bibliography for worlds largest bloom) This jungle flower of south-east Asia holds the all time record-breaking bloom of 106.7 centimeters (3ft 6 inches) diameter and in fact 11 kg (24 lb ) weight and the petals are an inch thick. ( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) The Rafflesia flower is one of the rarest flowers in the world and is critically endangered therefore on its way to extinction.( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) The scientific name for the Rafflesia flower is Rafflesia arnoldii after a man called Dr James Arnold discovered it and called it that in 1818. ( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) A common name that people call it is the corpse flower because apparently it smells like rotten flesh.(Kew Royal botanic gardens ) Main Threats A main threat is that people are building a highway for more human access and is killing the Rafflesia flower habitat also humans are clearing out land to plant banana trees therefore the Rafflesia flower is losing their habitat and the population continues to decrease so they are in danger. (Red list) Another threat is that the Rafflesia flower has an extremally unbalanced sex ratio and there is more males then females so when it comes to reproduction it is very hard to find another male flower close by and if not the petals eventually die and decreases the population. (

A contrast essay in which you explain the major differences between

A contrast in which you explain the major differences between mens and womens business ventures - Essay Example Men have more access to capital than women do. This is because majority lack assets similar to the men which they can use to acquire loans with. The men can acquire capital through loans, inheritance as well as selling of property. This therefore means that the women will have less money to start up a business and will therefore opt to go for smaller and more sustainable business. The men will go for the exact opposite as they have a large capital base and can always top it up easier than women can. An example is in the primary research which stated that â€Å"only 35% of women sought external funding compared to 45% of men†¦women paid significantly higher interest rates than men if granted a loan (Coleman, 1999).† Men are natural-born risk takers unlike women and this starts from a very young age. It therefore does not come as a surprise that women will venture into the less risky businesses mostly in the social field while men will take the higher risk jobs just to seek the thrill and challenges that come with it. According to research by the Guardian, men carry out extensive research on a business potential growth and opportunities and risks embracing it for the end goal while women research on the stable jobs that would allow them balance work and family (Kubski & Skodova, 2013). Lastly is the issue of confidence. Majority of women due to the socialization given to them from birth lacks confidence in doing much on their own. They are socialized to be delicate and always have others (the male figures in their lives) doing everything for them. The lack of confidence in their abilities and talents as well as in anything they do leads to them choosing the kind of business ventures they do. The men on the other hand have over confidence with their abilities limit. This overconfidence combined with inflated male ego makes them delve into the kind of business ventures they

How Can Political Factors Affect Finance In Kuwait Research Paper

How Can Political Factors Affect Finance In Kuwait - Research Paper Example The wave of democracy in this country is based on the decision to control oil companies. This is because over 35 percent of the world’s energy consumption is based oil fuels. It is believed that the pivotal factor affecting democratization in Kuwait is the production of oil. This is because the entire economy of Kuwait revolves around oil and other hydrocarbons investments. In addition, the government provides security and employment of people because of acceptance in the recent political order. However, it is also clear that royal Al-Sabah family has ruled the country with an iron fist without detaching themselves from the society and its people due to their vast wealth. The factors of democratization engage in recreation, an essential responsibility in the society of Kuwait. This means that the stronger these institutional factors are entrenched into Kuwaiti’s society the more democracy is achieved. Due to these democratic elements, Kuwait is the chosen country of res earch on how political factors affect finance in Kuwait. The investigative factors in Kuwait go beyond state model. This is because oil factor in this country together with other extreme generous welfares gives the basic reasons why the current state of Kuwait is not developed into a democracy nation. In this research paper, I will investigate how the political system in Kuwait has affected its finance and economy. Democratization in Kuwait Over the years, Kuwait has achieved a transition from non-democratic to a democratic system. However, in order to achieve full democratization in this country, some degree of liberation must occur in the economy. In addition, political liberation must be achieved in order to have economic growth and development. This means the expansion of public space through recognizing and protecting civil and political liberties. In Kuwait, the line between democratization and liberalization is always vague to an extent of confusion (Thuroczy 2010). Although Kuwait has stable political system with citizens voting for their preferred candidate in free and fair elections, the country faces some limitations on how oil is managed. This is because the government collects no key taxes from other resources and thus relies on income achieved from oil and other foreign investments. The effect of oil in this country is therefore, considered the main cause of lack of economic and political reforms. Additionally, other aspects are overlooked and play a great role in the development of politics in Kuwait (Thuroczy 2010). According to UN’s development index, Kuwait is a highly developed country compared to other countries along the Persian Gulf. Although there is no doubt that oil in this country has increased education and income levels of people in this country, there are massive troubles in the welfare of the state (Thuroczy 2010). In addition, there is no maximum guarantee in the employment of the youths in this country. This indicates tha t oil in this country is the biggest hindrance to the progress of democracy and economic growth. Political Analysis It is worth noting that common stock refers to the stake that a person or a registered company owns in a given organization. Such stake gives such a person or organization the power to make important decisions such as voting in the organization. The difference between common stock and preferred stock is that every stakeholder in case of bankruptcy has to be paid first before the common stock holder receives anything. Politics play a critical role in the success of any given organization. This can be attributed to the fact that all actions of an organization have to adhere to the