Author: chris

Part one

Discussion 1 Acc 577

Receivables” Please respond to the following:

• Analyze the criteria for the sale of receivables. Based on your analysis, propose one (1) method that would achieve the maximum amount of money from the sale. Provide a rationale for your response.

• Based on your analysis of the sale of receivables in Part 1 of this discussion, recommend one (1) strategy that would best protect the seller of receivable. Support your recommendation with at least two (2) examples

Discussion 2 acc 599

“Compensation and Lending Decisions”  Please respond to the following:

• Compare and contrast compensation plans, such as restricted stock and stock appreciation rights, indicating the key differences with the accounting treatment. Determine the option that would have the least impact on a company’s earnings. Recommend the choice that is the most advantageous to an employee. Support your position with examples.

Given the current regulatory environment for financial institutions, analyzing financial statement information is an important process and at the same time, the massive amount of information that creditors have to sort through can become unwieldy. Review the financial ratios in the text, and choose three or four that creditors would mostly likely use to make their lending decisions. Indicate a rationale for choosing each ratio. Discuss at least three ways that management might manipulate the financial data to guarantee that the lending decision will be made in its favor. Provide specific examples

In this learning activity, we will evaluate process improvement plan presentations. Your presentation will be based on the process improvement plan you developed throughout the course.

Your presentation should include:

1. A slide presentation 10-15 slides in length.
2. A 5 to 7 minute narration.
3. Presenter notes.
4. A discussion of the deficiencies in the current processes, your proposal of a new process, the requirements to successfully implement the process, and your plan of action.

The audience for your presentation is the board and stakeholders of the organization implementing the plan.

Assume that Country A has a population of 500,000 and only produces 1 good: cars. Country A produces 100,000 cars per year. The people in Country A purchase 90,000 cars, but there are not enough cars to fulfill all the demand. They decide to import 50,000 more. The government buys 25,000 cars for its police force, and 10,000 cars are bought by companies to transport employees to other locations to work. They also export 65,000 cars to nearby countries for sale. Discuss the following:

• What is Country A’s GDP?
• What is the composition of GDP by percentage?
• What is the GDP per capita?
• How does this relate to Keynesian economics?

Question 1  

Read the Managing Hard Rock’s Rockfest case study on page 97. Which activities have a slack time of eight weeks or more? What are five major challenges a project manager faces in events such as this one?

Your response should be at least 200 words in length. You are required to use at least your textbook as source material for your response. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.

Question 2

How are Gantt charts used in project management? What are their limitations?

Your response should be at least 200 words in length. You are required to use at least your textbook as source material for your response. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.

Question 3

Explain in your own words the meaning of the correlation coefficient. What is the meaning of a negative value of the correlation coefficient?

Your response should be at least 200 words in length. You are required to use at least your textbook as source material for your response. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.

Question 4

Read the Southwestern University (A) case study on page 95. If it is necessary to crash this project to 250 or 240 days, how would Hill do it and at what cost? Include your approach and describe your solution. As noted in the case, assume that optimistic time estimates can be used as crash times.

Your response should be at least 200 words in length. You are required to use at least your textbook as source material for your response. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.

Xpress Mart is a large convenience store chain, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, serving approximately 7.1 million customers a year throughout the North East. The company headquarters houses over 800 employees.

Xpress Mart has recently purchased Dales Outlet stores, and is currently experiencing a seven percent (7%) annual growth. The market plan is to expand its operations by entering into the Midwest, and to eventually become a National chain. The database is growing at a rate of eight and one-half percent (8.5%) per year and will exceed the current hard drive space. The main server is overloaded, resulting in poor performance and long delays.

The company currently has a 4-terabyte Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), database that tracks over four (4) billion transactions each year and pulls the information daily from each store regionally.

Since Xpress Mart is experiencing performance issues, and soon will have issues with capacity, it has decided to upgrade the SQL server to 2012, hiring you as a database consultant.

Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:

1. Assess the physical storage requirements and summarize the initial steps you should take before beginning capacity planning and the upgrade.
2. Outline the foreseeable issues that Xpress Mart may encounter while upgrading from SQL 2008 to SQL 2012.
3. Identify whether the growth of the database or the growth of the business is going to influence your design. Justify your response.
4. Using Visio or a similar drawing program, outline the proposed changes that will accommodate the capacity changes to the database. Note: The graphically depicted solution is not included in the required page length.
5. Recommend a solution for how the company should maintain and monitor the database to ensure proper performance is maintained.
6. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the students name, the professors name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Create an MSSQL database solution to solve a proposed business problem.
• Describe and design physical storage requirements.
• Demonstrate the ability to design and plan the hardware and software infrastructure for database environment.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in the MSSQL environment.
• Write clearly and concisely about advanced database administration topics using proper writing mechanics and technical style conventions.

Discussion 1

1. Steps of Control

   Explain why the four steps involved in the controlling function are important.  Why is a good understanding of the various ratios used by accountants and managers important to the controlling function?  Give specific examples. Respond substantively to two other learners.

Guided Response:

Your initial post should be at least 200 words in length. Support your claims with examples from required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Respond substantively to at least two of your classmates’ posts.

Discussion 2

1. Changes in Management

   Of the five management functions, which do you expect will experience the most dramatic changes in the next decade? Defend your answer. Which will have the least amount of change? Explain your answer. Respond substantively to two other learners.

Guided Response:

Your initial post should be at least 200 words in length. Support your claims with examples from required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Respond substantively to at least two of your classmates’ posts.

FINAL PAPER

Focus of the Final Paper

This assignment focuses on how the management practices of planning, leading, organizing, staffing, and controlling are implemented in your workplace. If you are not currently working, you may use a previous employer. In this assignment, you must:

• Analyze the application of these management concepts to your place of work; the paper will not simply be a report on the five functions in general.
• Identify specific examples and explain of how each applies to the functions practiced in your place of work.

Be sure to integrate vocabulary learned throughout this course and citations from the text to support your analysis. The paper should be five to six pages in length and formatted according APA style guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Writing the Final Paper

The Final Paper:

1. Must be five to six double-spaced pages in length, excluding the title and reference pages, and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
2. Must include a title page with the following:
   1. Title of paper
   2. Student’s name
   3. Course name and number
   4. Instructor’s name
   5. Date submitted
3. Must begin with an introductory paragraph that has a succinct thesis statement.
4. Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
5. Must end with a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.
6. Must use at least five scholarly sources, including a minimum of three from the Ashford University Library, in addition to the course textbook.
7. Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
8. Must include a separate reference page, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Watch movie “Tokyo Sonata”  of Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and write a movie critical review

Format and Guidelines:

➢First and foremost, please refer to the course syllabus and the readings listed on the course website and class notes and discussions.

➢The purpose of a Critical Review Essay is to evaluate the work/film and provide a critical commentary on its contents. A synopsis is not necessary.

Format of the Review.

1.Introduction: Identify the film you are going to review. The director, title, date and place of production may be placed at the beginning of the essay in the form of a “bibliographic” citation. Then state what the director’s goal was in writing and or directing the film. For example, Why did the director choose this specific subject? What contribution to our understanding of history, culture and society did the director, and actors intend to make? How do we appreciate more Japanese culture? And …

2. Brief Summary:   In the main body of the review, you should begin by briefly describing content and organization, along with the most important evidence used. Do not get bogged down in details here; this section is only intended to prepare the reader for the critical assessment to follow. Again, a detailed synopsis is not necessary.

3. Critical Assessment: Evaluate the work’s contribution to our understanding of history, culture and society. There are several things you should look for:

a) Identify a central argument, or thesis. The thesis is not the topic of the film but a specific argument that the author/director has expressed about the subject. Sometimes, it is stated in the introduction, sometimes in the conclusion. Feel free to review these sections first to determine the main argument. Knowing the main argument will help guide you through the rest of the film. The focus at certain points highlights the director’s intentions.

b) Identify perspective, point of view, or purpose. This can be approached in a number of different ways. Ask yourself whether there is a particular emphasis, such as economic, social or humanitarian. Is the film informed by a social, historical, or political ideology? If the film describes a conflict, does the director, either explicitly or subtly, favor one side over the other?

c) Look at the director’s evidence: what sources are used? Are those sources balanced, reliable, and legitimate?

4. Conclusion: Assess the overall quality of the film. Does the style or content of the film recommend it to a specific audience? Offer a final evaluation: How valuable is it? How important is it? Please do not “recommend” the film.

5. Final Evaluation: How does this work contribute to the field of study? Was the film successful in realizing the objective and targeted audience?

Consider this scenario: You are working as an aide for a representative in your state legislature, and he or she has asked you for a summary of information on a particular interest group. Use the following to prepare your Microsoft^® PowerPoint^® or Prezi presentation to the representative:

Identify and provide a description of one interest group.

Discuss its connection or relationship to each of the two major political parties in your state.

Analyze the interest group’s relationship with the two major political parties by addressing these questions:

• How does the group influence the state government?
• What techniques does the group use?
• How important is the interest group to your representative?

Summarize the information you found regarding this interest group and provide a recommendation to the representative for responding to the issue with which the interest group is most concerned.

Include at least 8 to 10 slides. Provide detailed speaker notes in the presentation file or in a separate document.