Author: chris

1. Go to “FRB: Press Release—FOMC statement—December 16, 2009.”
2.  You should now find a press release from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, dated December 16, 2009, which discusses the decisions of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) for that date.

This release also states that the Federal Reserve is in the process of purchasing $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and about $175 billion of agency debt. Additionally, the release states that the FOMC has decided to gradually reduce “the pace” of such Fed purchases. Discuss why you believe that the FOMC has made such a decision, and explain the consequences of such a decision on the economy.

In your answer, discuss the Federal Reserve’s use of open-market operations to influence the money supply and the respective consequences of such actions. Include a discussion of the money multiplier effect in your response. Justify your conclusions and provide appropriate examples.

Using Microsoft Word, submit your responses in the form of a short paper (1 ½ – 2 pages).

In order to answer this question you will need to have the text book, Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, 11th Edition by Stephen A. Ross, Randolph W. Westerfield, Bradford D. Jordan. The question is below.

1.An NPV profile graphs the relationship between a projects’s NPV and the discount rate (see Figure 5.6 in Chapter 5). The NPV profiles of mutually exclusive projects highlight the possible conflict in the decisions made by NPV and IRR and the importance of the crossover point. Construct the NPV profiles for the two projects. Identify the IRR for both projects on the graph and explain the relevance of the crossover point. At the cost of capital,which projects would the NPV and IRR decision rules accept? Tim wants to point out to the board that NPV is an absolute measure of the monetary impact of a project on shareholder value and IRR is a relative value that evaluates the project’s return per dollar invested. What argument can Tim advance to convince the Board that the NPV decisions are always consistent with maximizing shareholder value?

There are indications that ocean debris is becoming a problem caused by our disposable society, especially so for the use of plastics. Watch the seven minute video on ocean debris by copying and pasting the following URL into your internet browser.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html.

Answer the following questions on the video information. Answer in complete sentences, with proper grammar, by number in the submissions box.

1) Describe what the problems with throwaway plastics are?

2) Where does the throwaway trash end up? Explain fully.

3) Identify and describe the major plastic trash in the ocean debris?

4) Trace (outline) the path of American plastic trash in the oceans, identifying its possible source and final repository. Provide specifics.

5) Describe the effect of the trash on aquatic life?

6) Explain how the samples are analyzed?

7) Reflect on your life activities and indicate if you have ever contributed to this debris. Explain.

Complete each of the seven tasks and then in the submission box below, give your response next to the number using complete sentences, correct grammar and spelling.

List 2 successes of the Industrial-Organization movement. List 1 of the failures of the Industrial-Organization movement. What do you fell are some of the long term contributions that the Industrial-Organization movement made to today’s organization?

Geert Hofstede has argued that differences among cultures can be explained according to four dimensions of culture: individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, time orientation, and masculinity. In comparison with the U.S., determine where your selected country (CHINA)  is positioned on each of these points and identify specific changes that an American business will need to make when doing business in your country?

1. Implement both algorithms using C++; for Strassen’s Algorithm, implement the one that copies the submatrices. 2. Experimental Results: Run your program on different size of matrices, whose entries are randomly generated integers between 1 and 100. The sizes you must include are: 64, 128, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192. The time unit is micro second. 3. Describe in tabular form the running time of your implementation for each input instance. Find out when Strassen’s algorithm outperforms the classical algorithm. For extra credit, also implement the Strassen’s Algorithm using index range to identify the sub-matrices. Compare that with the version that uses copies of the sub-matrices. Does the copy of sub-matrices make much difference on the running time?

Using the simplified OOD methodology:

1. Write down a detailed description of the problem.
2. Identify all the (relevant) nouns and verbs.
3. From the list of nouns, select the objects. Identify the data components of each object.
4. From the list of verbs, select the operations.

Write a short paper in response to the following prompt:

Your local police department wants to design new software to keep track of people, property, and criminal activity. List at least three classes you think should be in the design. For each class, identify some data members and methods.

Discuss why some students cheat and others don’t?

Assignment 2: Pavlov’s Dog: An Example of Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is an important theory of learning within the behavioral perspective of learning that you explored in Module 1. The key to classical conditioning is that we learn through association, which is quite different from operant conditioning in which we learn through consequence.

When Ivan Pavlov was studying the process of salivation in dogs, he made an accidental, but really important discovery—classical conditioning. He discovered that after pairing the appearance of the researcher with the delivery of food a number of times, the dogs began to salivate as soon as the researcher walked into the room even when he or she was not carrying any food.

Here is a list of the steps of the classically conditioned learning process:

Stimulus / Response	Event	Outcome
Neutral stimulus (NS)	The researcher enters the room—prior to the dog learning that the researcher is associated with food.	There is no response.
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)	Food—the dog naturally responds to the food.	No learning needed.
Unconditioned response (UCR)	The dog salivates because of the food.	The dog did not need to be taught to salivate.
Conditioned stimulus (CS)	The researcher enters the room.	Now, after being paired with the food, the appearance of the researcher has become a learned stimulus.
Conditioned response (CR)	Salivation now occurs because of the researcher.	The dog has now learned to salivate in response to the mere presence of the researcher.

Here is another example of the steps of the classical conditioning process:

You have moved into a new apartment building. The first time you take a shower happens to correspond with the time when someone flushes the toilet. As a result of this flushing, the water in the shower becomes very hot. Now, because of this experience, each time you hear the toilet flush, you jump out of the shower before the temperature of the water changes.

• NS: Sound of the flushing of the toilet
• UCS: Hot water
• UCR: Jumping out of the shower because of the hot water
• CS: Sound of the flushing of the toilet
• CR: Jumping out of the shower because of the sound of the flushing toilet

Now, complete the following:

Part 1

Think of a classically conditioned response you have experienced and describe the process of learning this response (what was the process you went through in becoming classically conditioned in this response). Be sure to identify the following:

• Neutral stimulus (NS)
• Unconditional stimulus (UCS)
• Unconditional response (UCR)
• Conditioned stimulus (CS)
• Conditioned response (CR)

Part 2

Address the following questions:

• Describe a practical application that demonstrates this classically conditioned association from your own life. What function does this classically conditioned association serve?
• Explain what would happen if you no longer responded to this conditioned stimulus.
• Describe the manner in which generalization works to maintain classical conditioning.
• Identify the stimulus that has been generalized or could be generalized in your classically conditioned response.