Isaac Newton :: Essays Papers

Sir Isaac Newton developed calculus, natural forces, and optics. Newton was born on Christmas Day in 1642. His father had died before he was born, but he was still given his father's name (Westfall 17). Isaac stayed with his grandparents when his mother went to live with her second husband. While living with his grandparents he attended day school nearby (Westfall 17). After his grandmother died and Newton was seventeen, his mother took him out of school and brought him back to the family farm. She tried to teach him how to run the farm and manage the estate; this was a failure. In all of his spare time he returned to inventing and building machines. Newton's uncle and old schoolmaster saw that he was in the wrong trade and urged his mother to prepare him to attend the University. His uncle's efforts paid off; in 1660 he returned to Grantham to finish grammar school and prepare for the university. In June of 1661 Newton entered Trinity College, Cambridge (Westfall 17). At Cambridge Newton studied mathematics. This is when Newton first started to make many discoveries. He made most of his important discoveries there: pure mathematics, theory of gravitation, and optics, all before he even graduated college. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics. Modern study of aerodynamics and the science of hydrodynamics would be impossible without the principles of the calculus. Newton wrote Philosophiae Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), which is usually known by the last two words. "In the book Newton codified Galileo's findings into the three laws of motion." (Wilson online). Newton formulated three laws of motion, and resulting from them the law of universal gravitation. His laws of motion are the natural laws of mechanics. Newton's three laws of motion are: 1. The law of Inertia- an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. 2. 2nd Law- an unbalanced force applied to an object will result in the acceleration if the object. There was an equation that went along with this law which is F=ma.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain :: essays research papers

It is my opinion that the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain should be taught in schools because this book is very well written and can teach many lessons. I think that the people in today's world, or maybe just the USA, try to be censor and shelter the children. I think that it is wrong to censor things, this book is supposedly wrong because it says the word nigger a lot and has death in it. I think that although the word nigger was used frequently in this book it showed the separation between the slaves and the owners and how Huck overcame this separation and saw through the societies views on niggers . Racism is now a very big issue but when the book was written African Americans didn't have the rights they have today and racism didn't exist. Twain wrote this book not having to worry about racism. In our day and time they want to censor out the words like nigger but that really would be wrong because it wouldn't be realistic, people need to know what it was truly like. Sheltering people from the truth Is the worst thing you can do. If kids don't learn about how slavery was then they won't truly understand where racism comes from. In the book there is much violence. "It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy naked, too. He's been shot in de back."(pg. 50) The book is better with violence because it becomes more interesting to the reader. It becomes more of a real life situation than just a fairy tale world where nothing goes wrong, because in real life things do go wrong and people do get shot and killed. It is hard to read these kinds of things with death that are gruesome but it helps form feelings for the characters. Also it was necessary for them to find the dead man so that Huck didn't have to worry about pap taking his money. In the scene where Jim finds pap we learn more about Jim and that he is a sensitive person and was cautious not to upset Huck by letting him see pap's body. Many people could have been offended by the stereotypes in this book. For example, "I see it warn't no use wasting words—you can't learn a nigger to argue."(pg. 78) In this example Huck stereotypes Jim as being a stupid nigger that can't learn anything.

Mananaging finance

This report will concentrate on the performance of the two aviation companies, Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Ltd. and Singapore-based Singapore Airlines. The report will try to help the potential investor in the Asian airline industry to assess the prospects of both companies and their riskiness in regard to each other and the industry as a whole as well as the returns both companies have to offer to compensate for the risk of their financial position. 1. Profitability, growth, return on investment Profitability of the company is indicated by the return on equity ratio that shows the dollar return on each dollar of investment: Return on equity (ROE) = net income/ stockholders’ equity Cathay has a ROE of 1,604/ 31,052 = 5.16% Singapore Airlines’ ROE is 849.3/ 11,455.1 = 7.4% SA provides a better return on equity than Cathay, although the decrease in the annual income at Singapore Airlines in 2003 from 2002 represents a threat to its future earnings and return on equity while Cathay’s results demonstrate improved performance. Return on assets demonstrates how many dollars of income were generated by each dollar of investment and is calculated in the following way: Return on assets = net income/ total assets For Cathay Pacific Ltd. this figure is 1,604/ (54,686 + 20,351) = 1,604 / 75,037 = 2.14% For Singapore Airlines, return on assets is at 849.3/ 16,558.4 = 5.13% Thus Singapore Airlines is more efficient in using its assets and offers a better return on the funds tied up in assets. Another profitability measure is the operating margin that expresses operating profit as a percentage of the revenue. For Singapore Airlines, the operating margin is 680.4/ 9,761.9 = 6.97% For Cathay Pacific Ltd., this ratio is 285/ 2,393=11.9% As for growth, SIA’s revenue dropped in the 2003-2004 fiscal year to $9,761.9 million from $10,515.0 million, which represents a 7.7% decrease in revenue. The company executives explain this plunge with the effects of the SARS outbreak in the Asian region that had a devastating impact in the airline industry. Cathay’ revenue has as well shown a 11.9% decrease in revenue to $3,792 million from $4,242 million. The drop in revenue was reflected in the net income. At Cathay Pacific Ltd., net income was $167 million as opposed to $511 the year before which is a drop of 67.3%. The income dropped as the company was unable to drastically reduce its operating expenses or finance charges in the light of lower revenue. At Singapore Airlines, net income was down 20.2 % at   $849.3 million as compared to $1,064.8 million for 2002-2003 fiscal year. 2. Current financial position, liquidity, both long and short term, sources of finance The liquidity of the company is most often assessed in terms of the current ratio: Current ratio = current assets / current liabilities For Cathay Pacific Ltd. current ratio = 20,351/ 14,520 = 1.4 For Singapore Airlines, current ratio = 3,121.9/ 3,401.6 = 0.92 Usually companies are expected to have a current ratio that is no higher than 2.0, otherwise the company is believed to be in financial trouble. However, due to advances in information technology has enabled a lot of companies to minimize the need to hold cash, inventories and other liquid assets. As a result, a lot of successful companies are content to keep their current ratios lower than 1.0. This allows us to conclude that although Cathay seems to be in a better position in terms of short-term liquidity, SIA’a lower ratio does necessarily signify trouble. Another useful measure is the quick ratio that indicates how well a firm can satisfy existing short-term obligations with assets that can be converted into cash without difficulty and is computed as follows: Quick ratio = (cash + securities + receivables) / current liabilities Cathay Pacific Ltd. has a quick ratio of (15,200 + 4,573)/ 14,520 = 1.36 SA’ s quick ratio equals (0.4 + 130.2 + 1,518.5)/ 3,401.6 = 0.48 Again, based on current ratio, Cathay is much more liquid than Singapore Airlines as it has more assets that can be readily turned into cash. Long-term liquidity of the firm is evaluated using the debt ratio that specifies the overall ability of the company to repay its debts: Debt ratio = Total liabilities/ total assets According to the general rule of thumb, this ratio should not exceed 50%. For Cathay, the debt ratio is (29,361 + 14,520) /   (54,686 + 20,351) = 58.9% For Singapore Airlines, the debt ratio amounts to (446.7 + 2,175.3 + 2,207.2)/ 16,558.4 = 29.16% These calculations make it apparent that although Singapore Airlines is less liquid than Cathay Pacific Ltd., the Singaporean company has less long-term obligations and thus is less risky for the investor. Thus, Cathay relies primarily on debt to finance its operations, while Singapore Airlines is predominantly equity-financed. 3) Changes to the organizations and their effect At Singapore Airlines, a more streamlined organizational structure was introduced at the beginning of the financial year. Under the new structure, sixe senior executives including those heading Services and Operations, Marketing, Corporate Services, Finance, Human Resources and Planning will report directly to the CEO of the company. Hopefully, this simplified structure will make possible a speedier implementation of decisions. Cathay Pacific Ltd. basically retained the same corporate structure in the fiscal year analyzed. 4) The status of the companies in the financial markets and relative to their industry sector. In the aviation industry where both companies belong, the average market cap, according to Yahoo! Finance, is $895.52 million. Both Cathay with about $5.96 billion and SIA with $7.86 significantly exceed this number. On the other hand, revenue growth in the industry has been 12.8% on the average of late as opposed to the drop in the revenue of both airlines. As for profitability, the average operating margin for the airline industry is 6.81% compared to 6.97% at SIA. Cathay with 11.9% is well ahead of the market. The average return on equity in the aviation sector is 8.3% as compared to Cathay 5.16%, Singapore Airlines 7.4%. 5) Past performance and projected future trends Cathay Pacific Ltd. Cathay Pacific Ltd. is Hong Kong’s largest air carrier accounting for a third of all passenger flights through Hong Kong. Cathay owns a minority stake in its competitor Dragonair that holds another tenth of the market. Recently Cathay entered a contract with Air China that it will buy a 9.9% stake in the Air China’s initial public offering. The partnership will allow joint marketing and sales activities, cooperation in engineering, ground handling, purchasing, security as well as better coordination of the two companies’ schedules. This arrangement will allow Cathay to optimize its cost structure. The cooperation with Air China offers a strategic advantage as it provides improved access to Beijing Capital international Airport, a major hub in inland China. China is one of the world’s fastest growing regional aviation markets and the one coveted by many carriers. Competition was until recently restricted by the limitations on the number of flights performed by foreign carriers imposed by the Chinese government. Cathay and Hong Kong have pressured Chinese authorities to allow more flights between Hong Kong and mainland China. Cathay management has been trying to get access to passenger flights between Hong Kong and Shanghai sooner than the agreed date of October 2006 when a second Hong Kong airline will be allowed to start serving Shanghai with passenger flights. Liberalization of these restrictions could boost Cathay’s revenue dramatically since this route is very lucrative because of heavy business travel. In 2003 Cathay resumed air services in mainland China after a 1-year absence from the market. Here it faces competition from its former partner Dragonair. Now it plans to make its three-time -a-week flights to Beijing daily in December, add even more Beijing flights next year and launch passenger services to Xiamen and cargo services to Shanghai. Regular air companies like Cathay and Dragonair now face tougher competition from budget carriers Air Asia from Malaysia and Virgin Blue of Australia forcing the veterans of the market to cut their costs. Earlier Cathay representatives admitted that the prices are somewhat higher in this market than in others but attributed this to the difference in exchange rates and other long-term factors. The tendency towards more open skies pursued by Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia will draw more passengers through their airports but can damage the market share and financial performance of Hong Kong airlines including Cathay. Asian governments are slowly dismantling obstacles on the way of foreign air carriers and can be expected to continue with this policy. This could improve Cathay’s prospects in mainland China but sharpen competition in Hong Kong itself. However, the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome has attracted the public’s attention to the benefit of having a local air carrier since Cathay kept flying at the time when foreign airlines suspended their operations. Overall, since Cathay is in the business of air cargo travel, it can be reasonably assumed to profit from the world’s economic recovery projected to lead to above-average growth in the global airfreight market, according to a Lufthansa report (2004). Lufthansa experts base their assessment of tonnage increase of 5.9% in international air cargo market in 2004 on expectations of the boom in the Asian market and gradual recovery in North America. Singapore Airlines Singapore Airlines is also in the business of air transportation, engineering, airport terminal and pilot training. Its operations cover Asia, Europe, North and South America, South West Pacific and Africa. Due to this global focus, the company is also expected to benefit from the boom in the Asian market. Unlike Cathay, the diversity of the routes makes it easier for Singapore Airlines to balance its risks that can occur because of an economic downturn in one of the markets. Singapore Airlines is primarily focused in its business on the Asian business as it is the largest carrier in terms of market capitalization with $7.86 billion in market cap as compared with Cathay Pacific Ltd. with $5.96 billion. Singapore Airlines has posted strong second quarter results that beat analysts’ expectations. The reason behind strong growth is increase in travel demand. Singapore Airlines is listed on the first London Stock Exchange office in Asia, and on the first New York Stock Exchange office in Hong Kong along with 15 other Chinese companies. This development can contribute to greater transparency of their accounting procedures and lend credibility to their financial information, which in turn can help them bring down their cost of borrowing and attract more investors’ money. There are a lot of European investment funds waiting to be put into the thriving Chinese economy. Investors are attracted by the huge potential of the Chinese outbound market that has already surpassed Japan as the top location in the Asia Pacific outbound ranking. After surviving an epidemic of SARS, the market is forecast by many analysts to return to very strong growth in 2004-2005. China outbound trip volume has increased about five times in the past decade. In 2002 the annual volume was 16.6 million outbound departures as compared to 3.7 in 1993. The market is predicted to show double-digit annual increases if only the outbreak of SARS is not repeated. Singapore Airlines is fully positioned to take advantage of this trend as it is one of the leading carriers in the Asian-Pacific region, so a dramatic rise in revenue can be expected. According to the corporate news, the company is making efforts at slashing its costs. On November 23, it announced the plan to outsource jobs in uplift flight coupon processing and some aspects of interline billings, making 66 jobs in the Finance Division. This effort could help raise the company’s efficiency and improve the bottom line in the long run. The most important challenge for the airline industry is the rising fuel costs. Singapore Airlines admitted that higher fuel costs hold their halfyear net profit to $616 million. A lot for the airlines will depend on the evolution of the world oil prices. Further uncertainties surrounding the operation of the pipeline in Iraq or disruptions in Russia caused by the Yukos legal proceedings could drive up the oil price further up, negatively affecting Singapore Airlines’ net income. According to the company’s calculations, that a one-dollar-per-barrel increase in the oil price amounts to the additional $ 14 million fuel spending for Singapore Airlines. Another worry for the management of the airline is the advent of low-cost carriers that puts increasing pressure on the company’s cost structure. All Asian carriers should hope that an epidemic of SARS will not be repeated as it had a devastating effect on the revenue of Singapore Airlines and other companies. Works cited Beveridge, Dick (October 20, 2004), Cathay Pacific Buys into Air China, goldsea.com/Asiagate/410/21cathay.html Bradsher, Keith (October 22, 2004), A Struggle over Air Routes in East Asia, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/business/worldbusiness/22aviation.html?ex=1184817600&en=477bd65aaf1258d7&ei=5035&partner=MARKETWATCH Hong Kong, China Strike New Aviation Deal (Associated Press, September 8, 2004) Lufthansa Cargo forecasts swift recovery of the global airfreight market, http://www.lufthansa-cargo.de/content.jsp?path=0,1,14871,15152,15452,16898 Niem, Andrea (2004), London Stock Exchange Aims to Lure Chinese, Companies, http://www.axcessnews.com/business_110304b.shtml World Travel Trends, 2003-2004, WTMGlobal Travel Report Annual reports: Cathay 2003 Annual Report http://www.cathaypacific.com/intl/aboutus/investor/0,,31343,00.html Singapore 2003/2004 Annual Report http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/app/saa?hidHeaderAction=onHeaderMenuClick&hidTopicArea=AnnualReport ¤tSite=global         

American Violet Movie Review

The movie â€Å"American Violet set in Hearne County Texas, depicts the victimization of innocent second class citizens who are subject to racial bias and police corruption. Hearne county, a small town run by a corrupt D. A. was conducting military type drug raids on low income housing units that targeted the African American population, and this was no coincidence. Shockingly, this all took place not many years ago, just in the year 2000. The culture in the south was still apparently highly prejudice and racists, even in the criminal justice system, causing much harm to innocent people.Due to the type of people they were targeting, the working class, the trickle down effect of who was being affected by these arrests was everlasting. Dee Brown, in the movie, a single mother of four, is a prime example who was the only source of income for her children and was only a waitress at that. The victimization process in this movie is incredible, and seems almost unreal how insensitive the D . A. was to these people, using them and manipulating them the way he did without any sign of guilt.This relates directly to our victimization class in how these people are victimized. First, falsely accused and arrested on charges by a single conformant, then forced into a plea bargain or almost a certain conviction. Victimization within the criminal justice system is still a big problem today, as the majority of cases are never sent to trial and almost always settled in a plea bargain. This is corruption within the system and needs to be fixed, but still nothing is done.And in order to save time and money judges push for public defenders to push the plea bargain upon uneducated clients who cannot afford their own attorney. Thus, in order for the public defenders to make any money they must hear many cases, and in order to do this they cannot waste their time taking cases to trial. Even if their client may in fact be not guilty, they cannot run the risk of losing, and also more imp ortantly angering the judge. Therefore the reason to the never-ending vicious cycle of corruption within our criminal justice system which all comes down to power and money.Which was apparently a major reason to why these drug raids were happening in Texas. Federal money was going to the counties with the most drug convictions, and having someone in charge of the D. E. A. with racial bias to the African American community made these projects easy pickings. In a small town in Texas, going against the D. A. was simply asking for a lawsuit to brought up against yourself, and to the reason why these raids went on for years, without anyone speaking up for these poor people being served injustice.I believe we are far from an uncorrupt criminal justice system, but are working in the right the direction. The sad thing is, that behind all the corruption within the system, their will always be victims, and when dealing with corruption many times it is innocent people being victimized. Racial factors also will always be an issue no matter what era we are in, and would be naive to overlook it as the nation did so for so long in Texas, not believing that such racial discrimination could still exist in the 21st century.

Banking Union in Europe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Banking Union in Europe - Essay Example The inspiration for a banking union was the delicacy of various banks in the Eurozone, and the distinguishing proof of endless loop between credit conditions for these banks and the sovereign credit of their individual home nations. In some countries the private debts that arose due property bubble were shifted to ascendant liability as an outcome of the banking systems bailout and government reactions to moderating economies post-bubble. It is due to the weakening of credit facilities at the time of the Eurozone crisis and fear of financial instability among the member states. This led to the need for interdependence between financial stability, banking policy and economic integration that saw the need to establish a banking union. Interestingly the banking sector of individual States faces the risk of likely marginalization as other countries in the union are trying to integrate Additionally, the banking union in Europe is immediately needed to revive the stability and credibility of the banks system within the Euro area. There has been a continuous vicious cycle of the sovereign countries in Europe and the banks themselves. For example, some countries are unwilling to participate in the activities of the Banking Union, for instance, the UK. The sabotage by the UK has made some countries too to wish to exit the Union because of numerous challenges. The Europe’s financial banking sector has been going through times of polarised tensions Starting 2014, the banking union primarily comprises of two primary activities, the Single Supervisory, and Resolution Mechanism, are based on the "single rulebook" ,or basic monetary administrative structure. The â€Å"single rulebook† comprises of an arrangement of authoritative writings that every single money related foundation (counting more or less 8300 banks) in the EU must agree to. These principles,

Description of Place, or Thing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Description of Place, or Thing - Essay Example The success rate of players is low as well and therefore, few number of athletes make up to the international stage whereas, others remain unknown to the world. The role of luck is very notable in the process of predicting success in the field of sports. The success in the world sports is determined by one’s ability of being at the right place at the right time. The sports in general promote social equality, justice and humanistic values in the community because in the ground everybody is a player and equal to all fellow humans regardless of his or her sexual orientation, race and color. The leading players in the history are living the worst possible lives after the retirements and there is nobody who is even willing to take care of them. Furthermore, humans need regular exercise in order to remain fit while; the professional sportsmen are needed to make a living by joining and working in other professional fields so that they can remain immune to ill-effects of early retirem ent that is pretty much a time honored tradition and convention in the area of ice-hockey. The safety of the players should be enhanced by making new laws and rules in sports like ice-hock. The human limit to suffer physical pain and exertion must be tested in a human way. The profession of sports should not be considered as a battlefield but a place where healthy and safe competition can prevail. The notion of pain as an integral part of ice-hock should be challenged by making new laws and policies for safeguarding players from

Individual report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Individual report - Essay Example ram should find ways to make it possible for individuals using all kinds of phones to be able to access Instagram since it is restricted to individuals with Smart phones only. Pattarada (2013) defined Instagram as an online video and photo sharing service that makes it possible for users to enjoy the pleasure of taking videos and pictures and then sharing them on the various social network services such as Twitter, Flickr, Whatssap, Tumblr, and Facebook. The cloud based video and photo-sharing services for Instagram are delivered via mobile and desktop devices, and the whole process relies on technology. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom founded Instagram and on October 2010, their services were launched. This paper is going to analyze how Instagram is using information systems to support its business strategy and how the company is using technology to build a sustainable competitive advantage. This model was named after Michael Porter and it provides five forces competitive forces that determine how the organizations can use them to shape their industries and provides guidelines on how to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the business (Cohan, 2012). These forces affect the ability of an organization to provide service to their customers and to make profits. The five competitive forces include: Instagram has competition from existing companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatssap among others. These competitors make it difficult for Instagram to develop successfully since they all offer almost the same services. Instagram therefore have to devise powerful competitive strategies to be the best in the market and sustain competitive advantages through innovation (Pattarada, 2013). The growth rate for industries related to Instagram is high and different new products are introduced in the market at a high level. The existence of other applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatssap that can share photos and videos increase the probability of customers