...Investigating Momentum on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange December 1 2010 Hendrik Snyman 14422425 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering (Management) Department of Industrial Engineering University of Stellenbosch An oil prospector had died and gone to heaven. At the gate, he is met by St Peter.‘Well, I checked you out and you meet all of the qualifications. But there’s one problem,’ He said. ‘We have some tough zoning laws up here, and we keep all of our oil prospectors over in that pen. And as you can see, it is absolutely chock-full. There is no room for you.’ And the prospector said, ’Do you mind if I just say four words?’ St Peter said, ‘No harm in that.’ So the prospector cupped his hands and yelled out, ‘Oil discovered in hell!’ And, of course, the lock comes off the cage and all of the oil prospectors start heading straight down. St Peter said, ‘That’s a pretty sick trick. So,‘ he says, ’go in and make yourself at home. All the room in the world.’ The prospector paused for a minute, then said, ‘No, I think I’ll go along with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that rumour after all.’ 1 1 Janet Lowe, The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham: Selected Writings of the Wall Street Legend, Wiley, 1999. I|Page Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to all those people who provided moral and financial support along with particular insight into the weird and wonderful...
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...Evaluating Commercial Spoken Language Translation Software Harold SOMERS and Yuri SUGITA1 Centre for Computational Linguistics UMIST, PO Box 88 Manchester M60 1QD, England Harold.Somers@umist.ac.uk, sugita_yuri@yahoo.co.jp Abstract1 While spoken language translation remains a research goal, a crude form of it is widely available commercially for Japanese–English as a pipeline concatenation of speech-to-text recognition (SR), text-to-text translation (MT) and text-to-speech synthesis (SS). This paper proposes and illustrates an evaluation methodology for this noisy channel which tries to quantify the relative amount of degradation in translation quality due to each of the contributing modules. A small pilot experiment involving word-accuracy rate for the SR, and a fidelity evaluation for the MT and SS modules is proposed in which subjects are asked to paraphrase translated and/or synthesised sentences from a tourist’s phrasebook. Results show (as expected) that MT is the “noisiest” channel, with SS contributing least noise. The concatenation of the three channels is worse than could be predicted from the performance of each as individual tasks. 1. Introduction Evaluation is without doubt a major aspect of language engineering, including Machine Translation (MT). Although it is still true that no consensus exists regarding the best way to evaluate software, there is general agreement about some of the factors that must be taken into account when deciding what form an evaluation...
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...South Wacker Drive Chicago, IL 60606 (312) 706-8684 MARK A. PERRY Counsel of Record PORTER N. WILKINSON GEOFFREY C. WEIEN GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP 1050 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 955-8500 mperry@gibsondunn.com RACHEL S. BRASS GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP 555 Mission Street Suite 3000 San Francisco, CA 94105 (415) 393-8200 Counsel for Respondents QUESTION PRESENTED Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 provides “[w]histleblower protection for employees of publicly traded companies.” 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(a). The question presented is whether this provision covers only employees of public companies. ii LIST OF PARTIES Respondents FMR LLC, Fidelity Management & Research Company, FMR Co., Inc., and Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC disclose the following information: The named defendant FMR Corp. was merged into a limited liability company prior to the filing of the complaints in this action. FMR LLC is the surviving entity; FMR Corp. no longer exists. FMR LLC is the parent of Fidelity Management & Research Company. FMR Co., Inc. and Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC are indirect subsidiaries of FMR LLC. FMR LLC is not publicly held, and no publicly held corporation owns 10% or more of Fidelity Management & Research Company, FMR Co., Inc., or Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page STATEMENT .............................................................. 1 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 5 ARGUMENT...
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...Case Analysis for Culinarian Cookware 2006-2010 |Submitted By: |Andrei Grechko | | |Shane Johnston | | |Nakia Lape | | |Kyle McDaniel | | |Kevin Niehaus | | | | Prepared for Ned Jackson, MKT 625 March 28, 2010 Table of Contents Executive Summary Situational Analysis A. Environment I. Economic conditions and trends As evidenced by the case material, the US cookware market experienced growth by generating approximately $3.36 billion in revenues from 2002 to 2006. However, due to economic recession of the recent years (2008-present), cookware market faced new challenges and opportunities. The following developments appear to create several opportunities for cookware manufacturers. Due to slow economy and unemployment, consumers cut back on dining out and defer back to home meals. According to Cookware Manufacturer’s Association (CMA), consumers have re-discovered their kitchen during 2009. Thus, visits to restaurants, carry-outs and frozen entrees have been replaced by meals prepared in the home kitchen. This trend highlights the possibility of increased demand on cookware products. In the foreseeable future, economists predict growth in private and commercial real-estate markets (by 2013). This potential development...
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...Case Analysis for Culinarian Cookware 2006-2010 March 28, 2010 Table of Contents Executive Summary Situational Analysis A. Environment I. Economic conditions and trends As evidenced by the case material, the US cookware market experienced growth by generating approximately $3.36 billion in revenues from 2002 to 2006. However, due to economic recession of the recent years (2008-present), cookware market faced new challenges and opportunities. The following developments appear to create several opportunities for cookware manufacturers. Due to slow economy and unemployment, consumers cut back on dining out and defer back to home meals. According to Cookware Manufacturer’s Association (CMA), consumers have re-discovered their kitchen during 2009. Thus, visits to restaurants, carry-outs and frozen entrees have been replaced by meals prepared in the home kitchen. This trend highlights the possibility of increased demand on cookware products. In the foreseeable future, economists predict growth in private and commercial real-estate markets (by 2013). This potential development could boost demand for cookware when consumers, for example, start to move in to newly bought houses. However, the demand for cookware products would not move in the same direction for all price ranges. Due to elastic demand for high-end and luxurious products, it is reasonable to expect that consumers will try to either buy less of premium priced items, or try to shift their preferences...
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...VOLUME EDITOR S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins, wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow. SERIES EDITOR FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). P H I L O S O P H Y F O R E V E RYO N E Series editor: Fritz Allhoff Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking.Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too.This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious. Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind Edited by Michael W. Austin Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking Edited by Fritz Allhoff Food & Philosophy: Eat,Think and Be Merry Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking Edited by Steven D. Hales Whiskey & Philosophy:...
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...Statistical Databases Jaideep Srivastava and Hung Q. Ngo, Department of Computer Science, University of Minnesota, 200 Union street, EE/CS Building, room 4-192, Minneapolis, MN 55455 e-mail: srivasta, hngo @cs.umn.edu, ¡ 1 Introduction A statistical database management system (SDBMS) is a database management system that can model, store and manipulate data in a manner well suited to the needs of users who want to perform statistical analyses on the data. Statistical databases have some special characteristics and requirements that are not supported by existing commercial database management systems. For example, while basic aggregation operations like SUM and AVG are part of SQL, there is no support for other commonly used operations like variance and co-variance. Such computations, as well as more advanced ones like regression and principal component analysis, are usually performed using statistical packages and libraries, such as SAS [1] and SPSS [2]. From the end user’s perspective, whether the statistical calculations are being performed in the database or in a statistical package can be quite transparent, especially from a functionality viewpoint. However, once the datasets to be analyzed grow beyond a certain size, the statistical package approach becomes infeasible, either due to its inability to handle large volumes of data, or the unacceptable computation times which make interactive analysis impossible. With the increasing sophistication of data collection instrumentation...
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...Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 17, Number 2—Spring 2003—Pages 3–26 The Fall of Enron Paul M. Healy and Krishna G. Palepu F rom the start of the 1990s until year-end 1998, Enron’s stock rose by 311 percent, only modestly higher than the rate of growth in the Standard & Poor’s 500. But then the stock soared. It increased by 56 percent in 1999 and a further 87 percent in 2000, compared to a 20 percent increase and a 10 percent decline for the index during the same years. By December 31, 2000, Enron’s stock was priced at $83.13, and its market capitalization exceeded $60 billion, 70 times earnings and six times book value, an indication of the stock market’s high expectations about its future prospects. Enron was rated the most innovative large company in America in Fortune magazine’s survey of Most Admired Companies. Yet within a year, Enron’s image was in tatters and its stock price had plummeted nearly to zero. Exhibit 1 lists some of the critical events for Enron between August and December 2001—a saga of document shredding, restatements of earnings, regulatory investigations, a failed merger and the company ling for bankruptcy. We will assess how governance and incentive problems contributed to Enron’s rise and fall. A well-functioning capital market creates appropriate linkages of information, incentives and governance between managers and investors. This process is supposed to be carried out through a network of intermediaries that include professional...
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...Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 17, Number 2—Spring 2003—Pages 3–26 The Fall of Enron Paul M. Healy and Krishna G. Palepu F rom the start of the 1990s until year-end 1998, Enron’s stock rose by 311 percent, only modestly higher than the rate of growth in the Standard & Poor’s 500. But then the stock soared. It increased by 56 percent in 1999 and a further 87 percent in 2000, compared to a 20 percent increase and a 10 percent decline for the index during the same years. By December 31, 2000, Enron’s stock was priced at $83.13, and its market capitalization exceeded $60 billion, 70 times earnings and six times book value, an indication of the stock market’s high expectations about its future prospects. Enron was rated the most innovative large company in America in Fortune magazine’s survey of Most Admired Companies. Yet within a year, Enron’s image was in tatters and its stock price had plummeted nearly to zero. Exhibit 1 lists some of the critical events for Enron between August and December 2001—a saga of document shredding, restatements of earnings, regulatory investigations, a failed merger and the company filing for bankruptcy. We will assess how governance and incentive problems contributed to Enron’s rise and fall. A well-functioning capital market creates appropriate linkages of information, incentives and governance between managers and investors. This process is supposed to be carried out through a network of intermediaries that include professional...
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...Introduction 1.1. The 2009 Belgian Code on Corporate Governance The corporate governance practices of Anheuser-Busch InBev are reflected in its Corporate Governance Charter, which is available on www.ab-inbev.com/go/Corporate_governance. The Charter is regularly updated. As a company incorporated under Belgian law and listed on Euronext Brussels, Anheuser-Busch InBev adheres to the principles and provisions of the Belgian Corporate Governance Code, published in March 2009 (www.corporategovernancecommittee.be). However, in order to reflect Anheuser-Busch InBev’s specific shareholding structure and the global nature of its operations, the Board of directors has adopted certain rules which depart from the Belgian Corporate Governance Code. In summary, these rules are the following: Principle 5.3./1 (Appendix D) of the Code: “the Board should set up a nomination committee composed of a majority of independent non-executive directors”: The Board of directors appoints the chairman and members of the Nomination Committee from among the directors, including at least one member from among the independent directors. As the committee is composed exclusively of non-executive directors who are independent of management and free from any business relationship that could materially interfere with the exercise of their independent judgment, the Board considers that the composition of this committee achieves the Code’s aim. Principle 7.7. of the Code:...
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...HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 vii Organization 1 Clarity 11 Word Choice 21 Mechanics 39 Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 55 Untimed Essay Writing Strategies 67 Timed Essay Writing Strategies 85 Sample Essay Prompts and Essays 97 Resources 111 CONTENTS HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS v Introduction n your preparations for college, you may find yourself facing a handful of high-stakes essays. Your college application requires at least one, and the SAT requires another. Depending upon the high school you attend, or the state you reside in, you may need to write an exit essay, or take the Regents Exam. This book includes specific strategies to help you write great essays, no matter which type you write. In contrast to basic writing guides that contain plenty of information you don’t need, How to Write Great Essays focuses on the topics most important to you now. You won’t find a comprehensive guide to mechanics, but instead you will get short but thorough lessons on the most common errors made in grammar, spelling, usage, and how to prevent and correct these errors. Every chapter is designed to relate directly to your essay, giving you the knowledge and the know-how you need to succeed. The book is divided into seven chapters, with the first five covering different aspects of the writing process: I Introduction ...
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...The media’s watching Vault! Here’s a sampling of our coverage. “For those hoping to climb the ladder of success, [Vault's] insights are priceless.” – Money magazine “The best place on the web to prepare for a job search.” – Fortune “[Vault guides] make for excellent starting points for job hunters and should be purchased by academic libraries for their career sections [and] university career centers.” – Library Journal “The granddaddy of worker sites.” – US News and World Report “A killer app.” – New York Times One of Forbes' 33 “Favorite Sites” – Forbes “To get the unvarnished scoop, check out Vault.” – Smart Money Magazine “Vault has a wealth of information about major employers and jobsearching strategies as well as comments from workers about their experiences at specific companies.” – The Washington Post “A key reference for those who want to know what it takes to get hired by a law firm and what to expect once they get there.” – New York Law Journal “Vault [provides] the skinny on working conditions at all kinds of companies from current and former employees.” – USA Today VAULT GUIDE TO RESUMES, COVER LETTERS & INTERVIEWS © 2003 Vault Inc. VAULT GUIDE TO RESUMES, COVER LETTERS & INTERVIEWS HOWARD LEIFMAN, PhD, MARCY LERNER AND THE STAFF OF VAULT © 2003 Vault Inc. Copyright © 2003 by Vault Inc. All rights reserved. All information in this book is subject to change without notice. Vault makes no claims as to the accuracy and reliability...
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...HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS Lauren Starkey ® NEW YORK Copyright © 2004 LearningExpress All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Learning Express, LLC, New York. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Starkey, Lauren B., 1962– How to write great essays / Lauren Starkey. —1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 1-57685-521-X 1. English language—Rhetoric—Problems, exercises, etc. 2. Essay—Authorship—Problems, exercises, etc. 3. Report writing—Problems, exercises, etc. I. Title. PE1471.S83 2004 808'.042—dc22 2004003384 Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition ISBN 1-57685-521-X For more information or to place an order, contact LearningExpress at: 55 Broadway 8th Floor New York, NY 10006 Or visit us at: www.learnatest.com Contents Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 vii Organization 1 Clarity 11 Word Choice 21 Mechanics 39 Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 55 Untimed Essay Writing Strategies 67 Timed Essay Writing Strategies 85 Sample Essay Prompts and Essays 97 Resources 111 CONTENTS HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS v Introduction n your preparations for college, you may find yourself facing a handful of high-stakes essays. Your college application requires at least one, and the SAT requires another. Depending upon the high...
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...School Scholarship Repository. http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr A PATTERN-ORIENTED APPROACH TO FAIR USE MICHAEL J. MADISON* ABSTRACT More than 150 years into development of the doctrineof "fairuse" in American copyright law, there is no end to legislative,judicial, and academic efforts to rationalizethe doctrine. Its codification in the 1976 CopyrightAct appearsto have contributedto its fragmentation, rather than to its coherence. As did much of copyright law, fair use originated as a judicially unacknowledged effort via the law to validate certain favored practicesand patterns.In the main, it has continued to be applied as such, though too often courts mask their implicit validation of these patterns in the now-conventional "caseby-case" application of the statutoryfair use "factors"to the defendant's use of the copyrighted work in question. A more explicit acknowledgment of the role of these patterns in fair use analysis would be consistent with fair use, copyright policy, and tradition. Importantly, such an acknowledgment would help to bridge the often difficult conceptual gap between fair use claims asserted by individual defendants and the social and cultural implications of accepting or rejecting those claims. In immediate terms, the approach should lead to a more consistent and predictable fair use jurisprudence.When viewed in light of recent research by cognitive psychologists and other social scientists on patternsand creativity, in broader terms, the approach should...
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...SCHOOL Summer 2015 Advanced Corporate Finance IIIFrontiers of Valuation B62 FIN 534C Professor Todd Milbourn B62 MGT 534C Advanced Corporate Finance III – Frontiers of Valuation Summer 2015 Professor Todd Milbourn The Olin Business School Table of Contents 1. Valmont Industries HBP Case # UVA-F-1191 ............................................................................... 1 2. Super Project HBP Case # 9-112-034 ........................................................................................... 21 3. Calaveras Vineyards HBP Case # UVA-F-1094 ........................................................................... 37 4. Paginas Amarelas HBP Case # UVA-F-1210 ............................................................................... 63 5. Using Crystal Ball HBP Case # UVA-QA-0561 .......................................................................... 89 6. Valuation in Emerging Markets HBP Case # UVA-F-1455 ......................................................... 95 7. Project Valuation in Emerging Markets HBP Case # 9-702-077 ............................................... 113 8. Valuing Companies in Corporate Restructurings HBP Case # 9-201-073 ................................. 131 UVA-F-1191 Rev. Feb. 1, 2011 VALMONT INDUSTRI V IES, INC. Forty years ago, we made our fi F m irst center p pivot irriga ation system It was m. es ssentially a long steel pipe resting upon a set of wheels th would tr p hat ravel...
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