Definitions of Self in Community in Morrisons Sula and Song of Solomon

Definitions of Self In Community in Sula and Song of Solomon        Ã‚  Ã‚   "In that place, where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there once was a neighborhood" (Sula 1). Toni Morrison begins the novel Sula with these powerful words, describing more than a physical place, but a spiritual place where a community once stood. She begins with the destruction of the community, ultimately beginning at the end because her novel traces the history of this community. In Song of Solomon. Morrison takes the opposite path. She traces the history of self that ultimately ends in a type of destruction when Milkman leaps off the cliff. In both novels, however, she explores the tension between self and community and the sacrifices each demand from the other. Morrison's characters are both empowered and restricted by the heavy sense of community that operates in her novels. In all of her novels the characters are pulled along by and enmeshed in the communities in which they live. In Sula and Song of Solomon the struggles of me community and me characters with in the framework of community are me driving force behind much of me novel. Both the characters and the larger communities are irrevocably changed throughout me course of the novels the as tension to define both individual and community surfaces. From the opening lines of Sula which foreshadows me ultimate deem of me community, Morrison calls attention to me sense of community in the Bottom. In "Eruptions of Funk. Susan Willis says, "The opening line from Sula might as well have been me novel's conclusion, so complete is the destructioni it describes. This is the community Morrison is writing to reclaim" (315)... ... Pessoni, Michele. â€Å"‘She was laughing at their God.’: Discovering the Goddess Within Sula.† African American Review 29 (1995): 439-451. Rigney, Barbara Hill. The Voices of Toni Morrison. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991. Rubenstein, Roberta. â€Å"Pariahs and Community.† Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993. 126-1 58. Smith, Valerie. â€Å"Song of Solomon: Continuities of Community.† Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993. 274-283. Willis, Susan. â€Å"Eruptions of Funk: Historicizing Toni Morrison.† Toni Morrison : Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K.A. Appiah. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993. 308-329.      

Stephen Crane and His Unique Choice of Subjects :: essays research papers

Stephen Crane   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Stephen Crane was born on November 1, 1871 in New Jersey. Crane became a writer at the age of twenty-one and died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight. Crane’s sister, Agnes, raised him and tutored him. She eventually became a schoolteacher. His parents were very religious and his father had an essay published in an 1869 issue of Popular Amusements. Crane â€Å"felt himself unworthy of his father because he fell short of his father’s moral principles and his nobility of spiritual outlook.†He studied poverty, war, and life and death struggle. â€Å"Crane united from the beginning an iron self-assurance with a deep shyness.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In â€Å"The Red Badge of Courage† Crane describes the characters in depth. He chose a significant event in Americas history and wrote about it. During the Civil War while a Union regiment is based along a river, a tall soldier named Jim Conklin spreads a rumor that the army will march within a day. A new recruit, Henry Fleming, feels that if he were to see battle he would run like a coward. When the regiment marches they meet up with the enemy but Henry is unable to flee because he is surrounded. The Union regiment stops the charge of the Confederate. The next day the Confederates charge again and this time Henry is able to flee from the scene. Later he meets up with a group of wounded soldiers walking down the road and he believes that a wound is like â€Å"a red badge of courage†. He meets a soldier with extremely deep wounds and then recognizes that it is Jim Conklin. While they are walking down the road Jim Conklin runs off behind the bushes and dies where the other soldiers can not see him. Henry wanders through the forest alone until he comes to a battlefield. He attempts to stop one of the soldiers to ask what is going on but he gets hit in the head with the soldier’s rifle. Another soldier takes Fleming back to his regiment’s camp. His friend Wilson cares for him because he thinks that Fleming has been shot in the head. The next day the regiment goes back to the battlefield and this time Henry stays and fights in Jim Conklin’s honor. Wilson and Henry overhear an officer making fun of their regiment’s style of fighting so they go out to prove him wrong.

Business Financing and the Capital Structure Essay

Explain the process of financial planning used to estimate asset investment requirements for a corporation. Explain the concept of working capital management. Identify and briefly describe several financial instruments that are used as marketable securities to park excess cash. As a business owner, it is important to know the value of your assets as they can be used as leverage for obtaining loans and can be used to estimate your ability to repay your debts. Calculate your current assets, long-term investments, fixed assets and intangible assets and add them up to get your total business assets. Pledgeable assets support more borrowing, which allows for further investment in pledgeable assets. The trade-off between liquidation costs and underinvestment costs implies that low-liquidity firms exhibit negative investment sensitivities to liquid funds, whereas high-liquidity firms have positive sensitivities. If real assets are not divisible in liquidation, firms with high financial liquidity optimally avoid external financing and instead cut new investment. If real assets are divisible, firms use external financing, which implies a lower sensitivity. In addition, asset redeployability decreases the investment sensitivity. Financial management includes management of assets and liabilities in the long run and the short run. The management of fixed and current assets, however, differs in three important ways: Firstly, in managing fixed assets, time is very important; consequently discounting and compounding aspects of time element play an important role in capital budgeting and a minor one in the management of current assets. Secondly, the large holdings of current assets, especially cash, strengthen firm’s liquidity position but it also reduces its overall profitability. Thirdly, the level of fixed as well as current assets depends upon the expected sales, but it is only the current assets, which can be adjusted with sales fluctuation in the short run. Marketable securities replenish cash quickly and earn higher returns than cash, but come with risks; maturity, yield, and liquidity should be considered. Marketable securities are the securities that can be easily liquidated without any delay at a reasonable price. Firms will maintain levels of marketable securities to ensure that they are able to quickly replenish cash balances and to obtain higher returns than is possible by maintaining cash. There are four factors that influence the choice of  marketable securities. These include risks, maturity, yield, and liquidity. Assume that you are financial advisor to a business. Describe the advice that you would give to the client for raising business capital using both debt and equity options in today’s economy. Some business owners say ratios are an accountant’s problem. That’s not smart, says Dileep Rao, president of Minneapolis’ InterFinance Corp, a venture-finance consulting firm, and professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. â€Å"Running your business without knowing your numbers is like driving a car without being able to see your direction or speed,† says Rao. â€Å"It’s only a matter of time before you crash.†(Rao, 2011) The terms â€Å"debt† and â€Å"equity† get tossed around so casually that it’s worth reviewing their meanings. Debt financing refers to money raised through some sort of loan, usually for a single purpose over a defined period of time, and usually secured by some sort of collateral. Equity financing can be a founder’s money invested in the business or cash from angel investors, venture capital firms, or, rarely, a government-backed community development agency—all in exchange for a portion of ownership, and therefore a share in any profits. Equity typically becomes a source of long-term, general-use funds. The share of any hard assets, such as property and equipment, that you own free and clear also counts as equity. Striking the right balance between debt and equity financing means weighing the costs and benefits of each, making sure you’re not sticking your company with debt you can’t afford to repay and minimizing the cost of capital. Choosing debt forces you to manage for cash flow, while, in a perfect world, taking on equity means you’re placing a priority on growth. But in today’s credit markets, raising equity may simply mean you can’t borrow any more. Until recently, bank credit was a financing mainstay. But experiences like Flipse’s underlie a point made by the Federal Reserve Board’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices, released in November. According to loan officers, small-company borrowers were tapping sources of funding other than banks. They were being driven away for many reasons. Banks â€Å"continued to tighten standards and terms†¦on all major types of loans to businesses,† though fewer were doing so than in late 2008, when tightening was nearly universal. Interest rates on small business loans were on the rise at 40% of the banks surveyed, even as the prime rate reached historic lows. One in five banks had reduced small  companies’ revolving credit lines. One in three had tightened their loan standards, and 40% had tightened collateral requirements. Partly because of the plunging value of the real estate securing many commercial loans, pressure from bank examiners for tighter standards continued to build. Meanwhile, home equity loans, another popular source of small business cash, had evaporated. Many recession-weary business owners knew they had essentially become unbankable: Loan officers surveyed said far fewer firms were seeking to borrow. Those few who could borrow were repelled by higher rates. All of a sudden, equity financing l ooked better. Explain why a business may decide to seek capital from a foreign investor indicating the risk and rewards for such a decision. Provide support for rationale. Many investors choose to place a portion of their portfolios in foreign securities. This decision involves an analysis of various mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETF), or stock and bond offerings. However, investors often neglect an important first step in the process of international investing. When done properly, the decision to invest overseas begins with a determination of the riskiness of the investment climate in the country under consideration. Country risk refers to the economic, political and business risks that are unique to a specific country, and that might result in unexpected investment losses. This article will examine the concept of country risk and how it can be analyzed by investors. There are many excellent sources of information on the economic and political climate of foreign countries. Newspapers, such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times dedicate significant coverage to overseas events. There are also many excellent weekly magazines covering international economics and politics; the Economist is generally considered to be the standard bearer among weekly publications. For those seeking more in-depth coverage of a particular country or region, two excellent sources of objective, comprehensive country information are the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Fact Book. Either of these resources provides an investor with a broad overview of the economic, political, demographic and social climate of a country. The Economist Intelligence Unit also provides ratings for most of the world’s countries. These ratings can be used to supplement those issued by Moody’s,  S&P, and the other â€Å"traditional† ratings agencies. Finally, the internet provides access to a host of information, including international editions of many foreign newspapers and magazines. Reviewing locally produced news sources can sometimes provide a different perspective on the attractiveness of a country under consideration for investment. It is important to remember that diversification, which is a fundamental principle of domestic investing, is even more important when investing internationally. Choosing to invest an entire portfolio in a single country is not prudent. In a broadly diversified global portfolio, investments should be allocated among developed, emerging and perhaps frontier markets. Even in a more concentrated portfolio, investments should still be spread among several countries in order to maximize diversification and minimize risk. After the decision on where to invest has been made, an investor has to decide what investment vehicles he or she wishes to invest in. Investment options include sovereign debt, stocks or bonds of companies domiciled in the country(s) chosen, stocks or bonds of a U.S.-based company that derives a significant portion of its revenues from the country(s) selected, or an internationally focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) or mutual fund. The choice of investment vehicle is dependent upon each investor’s individual knowledge, experience, risk profile and return objectives. When in doubt, it may make sense to start out by taking less risk; more risk can always be added to the portfolio at a later date. In addition to thoroughly researching prospective investments, an international investor also needs to monitor his or her portfolio and adjust holdings as conditions dictate. As in the U.S., economic conditions overseas are constantly evolving, and political situations abroad can change quickly, particularly in emerging or frontier markets (Forbes, 2011). Situations that once seemed promising may no longer be so, and countries that once seemed too risky might now be viable investment candidates. Explain the historical relationships between risk and return for common stocks versus corporate bonds. Explain how diversification helps in risk reduction in a portfolio. Support response with actual data and concepts learned in this course. Portfolio diversification is the means by which investors minimize or eliminate their exposure to company-specific risk, minimize or reduce  systematic risk and moderate the short-term effects of individual asset class performance on portfolio value. In a well-conceived portfolio, this can be accomplished at a minimal cost in terms of expected return. Such a portfolio would be considered to be a well-diversified. Although the concepts relevant to portfolio diversification are customarily explained with respect to the stock markets, the same underlying principals apply to all types of investments. For example, corporate bonds have specific risk that can be diversified away in the same manner as that of stocks. Bonds issued by companies represent the largest of the bond markets, bigger than U.S. Treasury bonds, municipal bonds, or securities offered by federal agencies (Worldbank, 2013). The risk associated with corporate bonds depends on the financial stability and performance of the company issuing the bonds, because if the company goes bankrupt it may not be able to repay the value of the bond, or any return on investment. Assess the risk by checking the company’s credit rating with ratings agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. Good ratings are not guarantees, however, as a company may show an excellent credit record until the day before filing for bankruptcy. When you purchase stock in a company during a public offering, you become a shareholder in the company. Some companies pay dividends to shareholders based on the number of shares held, and this is one form of return on investment. Another is the profit realized by trading on the stock exchange, provided you sell the shares at a higher price than you paid for them. The risks of owning common stock include the possible loss of any projected profit, as well as the money paid for the shares, if the share price drops below the original price. Corporate bonds hold the lowest risk of the three types of investments, provided you choose the right company in which to invest. The main reason for this is that in the event of bankruptcy, corporate bond holders have a stronger claim to payment than holders of common or preferred stocks. Bonds carry the risk of a lower return on investment, as the performance of stocks is generally better. Common stocks carry the highest risk, because holders are last to be paid in the event of bankruptcy. Preferred stocks generally have higher yields than corporate bonds, lower risk than common stocks, and a better claim to payment in the event of bankruptcy. References Dileep Rao. 2011, â€Å"InterFinance † Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press. Forbes. 2011, † Small Business Loans: A Great Option â€Å". Retrieved on 6/19/2013 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryancaldbeck/2012/11/14/small-business-loans-a-great-option-unless-you-actually-need-money/ â€Å"Foreign direct investment, net inflows (BoP, current US$) | Data | Table† . Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 6/19/2013 from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV

How to being a successful student Essay

We all experience some sort of education during our lifetime, whether we succeed or fail depends completely on ourselves. To be a successful student there are a few guidelines you should follow. Attend all classes wherever possible, manage your time efficiently and put drive and effort behind your learning. Following these three guidelines will help to ensure a successful and fruitful educational career. The first step to being a successful student is attendance. Regardless of the teaching format, whether it is boring or simply impossible, attending class is a key to success. Even if all of your readings are complete and you feel comfortable with the information attend class and listen to the material as it is discussed in class. Make note of the teacher’s point of view and the topics that are covered in more detail, chances are you will see them again on a test or exam. Take notes on pertinent information and on subject matter that you do not quite understand and need to clarify. Attending class will ensure that you familiarize yourself with the knowledge you gain and that that knowledge will be easily recalled when most needed. The next step to being a successful student is time management. Organize your time between school, work and your social life very carefully. To be an efficient student you must balance your free time be sure to plan a loose schedule that you can keep day in and day out. Designate a certain number of hours to studying, reviewing and homework and try to keep the hours as consistent as possible. Do not study for extended periods of time; try studying for shorter intervals more often instead of studying for hours on end. You will find that your attention span stays focused and studying goes by much faster.

Keflavik Paper Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Keflavik Paper Company - Case Study Example These capital outlays may include a purchase of new machines, modernization of equipments or even introduction of a new product. The capital budgeting process involves commitment of funds by a company in order to receive cash inflows in the future (Baker, 2011). Since funds available for these purposes are limited and the investment opportunities are many, screening and thorough evaluation is the best way to establish whether a proposed project outlay meets a number of set standards for acceptance.Screening entails the process of grouping projects into categories of acceptable and those that are not acceptable. Then from the alternatives, a preference decision is made by selecting the best courses of actions. This procedure also ranks them in order of desirability (Baker, 2011). If this planning is ignored, and the company goes ahead to endorse investment projects without analyzing them, problems are bound to occur. a) Problems Related with Excessive Reliance on a Single Screening Technique.Keflavik Paper will rely on a number of screening and evaluation techniques in order to determine which project to add to their projects portfolio. There are various criteria, which they can employ to determine whether a particular project meets the requirement to invest funds to implement it. Most of these projects will include expansion and diversification investment decisions or even replacement and modernization decisions (Allen, 2010). These projects are aimed at increasing production and also improve operating efficiency and reduce cost. This is reflected in increased profits and where firm replaces obsolete assets with those that operate more economically. The capital budgeting decisions are quite important since their effects continue for many years and entails large amounts of money investments into projects. These resources invested are committed for a long period and it may become hard to mitigate the effects of poor decisions. Thus, the success or failure of the company may rely on a single or relatively few investment decisions (Allen, 2010). Erroneous forecast of requirements of the assets can have grave consequences. If Keflavik Paper Company invests too much into these projects, it may end up incurring unnecessarily high depreciation and expenses. As a result the company may end being less competitive and eventually lose market. Like any other company, Keflavik Paper has scarce capital resources and thus timing is of essence. The various investment decision rules or investment criteria are divided into two distinct categories. First, there are the discounted cash flow techniques, which include net present value, profitability index and internal rate of return. Secondly, there are non-discounted cash flow methods, which comprise criteria such as payback period (Clear, 2011). Non-discounted cash flow techniques can be used to identify the ideal project to include into the company project portfolio. However, these methods of project appraisal do not take into account the project time value of money. Over reliance on these criteria to selecting and screening of projects could cause problems to the company. Payback period criteria attempts to measure the time that a certain project will take into the future to recoup the cost invested into the project. To approve a project the company would have a maximum allowable payback period within its policies, within which investments projects are compared (Allen, 2010). Excessive reliance on pay-back-period as a screening and evaluation technique would result to development of a pool of projects that no longer benefit the company after some years of operation. This is because the criteria do not consider projects’

Causes of Rework and cost overuns in construction of sea water Thesis Proposal

Causes of Rework and cost overuns in construction of sea water desalination projects in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Thesis Proposal Example Desalination is a very important term, especially for the countries where fresh water resources are scarce. It could be any process that removes a vast amount of salt and other minerals from the water. Habitually, it is known as the procedure of drawing the salts and minerals. It is best to purify your water with the process of desalinated and then use it for drinking and as well as for irrigational activities. This is the same process which is being used by many seagoing ships and sub-marines (Love et. al. 2004). In today’s world, desalination is mainly used for developing cost-effective ways of giving fresh water to such regions of the world where fresh water is in meager amount. If you are intending to do a large scale desalination process then you may also need massively powered infrastructures but it is sure to increase the expense you will pay on the overall project, so it is better to make the usage of fresh water from rivers or wells etc. According to the census performed n April 2010, Saudi Arab had a population of 27,136,977 humans out of which 18,707,576 were recognized as nationals and others were living with no nationality. Due to an overwhelming economic and urban growth of this country, more than 95% of the whole population has been settled down now. Some cities even have densities of more than thousand people per square kilometer. About 50% of the total water used in this country is generated by the process of desalination, whereas the other 40% is extracted from the mining of non-renewable groundwater, the remaining 10% is simply taken off from the surface water. This research will highlight the issues related to desali9nation processes in Saudi Arab which cause cost overruns. Problem Statement: The problem which will be studied in this research is: Causes of Rework and cost overruns in construction of sea water desalination projects in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Research Objectives: There are four main objecti ves of this research which are listed below: To study existing sea water desalination projects for cost overruns To explore the reasons of rework and cost overruns in sea water desalination projects To investigate low cost alternatives which can control the cost of sea water desalination projects in Saudi Arabia To find ways of avoiding this cost overruns if construction of sea water desalination projects in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Research Scope and limitation: This research will study 2 cases where cost overrun has been reported in construction of sea water desalination projects in Saudi Arab. Due to the constraint of time and budget, it is not possible to study the whole universe in this research. However, the case study selection will be based on the criteria that the projects which represent and can highlight the problems of all existing desalination projects should be chosen. This research is limited in the sense that not every existing sea water desalination project will be s tudied under it. Also, it is not possible for the researcher to study every aspect of the problem under discussion, so this research is limited to study of aspects of cost overrun. Methodology: For any research, qualitative or quantitative, primary or secondary, the most important part is its methodology. Methodology sets the stage for all further work to be done in any research (Gauch, 2002). Research can be done successfully and the objectives can be achieved if the research methodology laid out to conduct this research is properly planned. As research methodology is what leads any research towards its success, its importance can never be undermined in case of any research (Symon, et. al., 2000). This research is focused basically on primary data collection. A lot of tests and experiments have been conducted to get the required

Miitary information paper and position paper Essay

Miitary information paper and position paper - Essay Example Although the restructuring of various defence departments has elicited criticism, many critics believe that the process has been successful. The structure of the State Department’s Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization’s (S/CRS) and Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) are similar, i.e. in both bodies, the command comes from a single unit. For instance, S/CRS receives its command from the chair in the same manner as the command is delivered from the head of JCS. These defence institutions have a single command base which enables them to effectively execute their missions. Composition structure has stakeholders from various defence departments, which makes the process of security provision effective. The S/CRS and JSC observe the military protocols that begin from the President to respective commandants. Military protocol is critical to the success of these units because it eliminates misconception between various defence departments. The law has provisions that enable the JSC to launch a disagreement to the intended operation the same provision applies to the C/CRS in influencing the decision made by the Defence Secretary or the President (Mullen 12). In the United States history, military advice is critical to military development. For instance, the Congress evaluates military options after seeking advices from respective departments of the defence. This approach does not only make the operation of the defence forces acceptable but it promotes unitary approach in handling insurgency cases. Another feature that is common with the above bodies is that they both exhibit a number of bodies, which report to their chairperson. For instance, JSC has various units, such as Mutual and Balanced Reductions (MBFR), which report to the chair. Notably, the defence units which report to the chair of these organisations usually receive uniform information because of the chain used in executing the command. Purpose: Some believe that more combatant commands